- Aug 22, 2001
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Thanks :beer: After looking around a little, the case for the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" theory, is rather compelling. My reading list just grew a bit.
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
Do BHO blinders come with a sideeffect of ASSuming? It sure seems like it.
Please show me where I claimed someone was playing apologist "in this thread"?
Funny how all the BHO people quickly came in said BHO is our savior, said I didn't know anything and left. Where are they now?
uh...if you weren't asking about the Chavez apologists here, in this thread, why are you posting here, in this thread?
I don't know, maybe they're quietly waiting for you to address the half dozen points they made in the thread that you continue to conveniently ignore?
*raises hand*
Although I don't know about the savior part. I support the man and his ideas, but more so I am a guy that said you didn't not know anything about socialism and I am still here. You still don't know what socialism is beyond quoting the wiki which obviously isn't doing you any good considering you are trying to compare the US and the direction it would be taking with Obama as pres to that of Venezuela. That outright ludicrous.
Fixed.
Neither McCain or Obama are suggesting anything even remotely close to that. Obama's plan here is merely a shift in tax policy and it is not nearly as gargantuan of a shift that people like yourself are making it out to be. By doing so you are pretty much labeling every American president in our history which raised taxes on the rich as a big time socialist player paving the path of America to communism. Your fear is driving you insane and your logic is way out in left field on this one.
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
Even if "here" meant P&N, I have not seen any evidence of your claim. Please answer the original question. Who and how?
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
There have been threads where Chavez has been brought up and there are always apologists running around in there. I'll try to dig some of the threads up.
Jaskalas
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2004
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Read the constitution sometime. You'd call those men driven insane by fear too?
I'd like to find a line mentioning the authority to redistribute wealth. You won't because that wasn?t popularized until Karl Marx wrote it down in the communist manifesto. Just because you favor such policy doesn?t mean you have to hide it behind a politically correct name. Call it what it is you coward.
Where in the constitution does it state that the government is forbidden to tax the rich more than the poor or working middle class?
Unemployment is HIGHER in some European countries for several reasons, but mainly because they recently let in some Eastern bloc countries, plus they let in a lot of refugees, and other aliens. If you really want an answer to this question, rather than throwing it out there rhetorically as though it is symptomatic of the evils of what you think is socialism, then you would look for it and post it here. I'm not going to dig up all the web sites that explain Europe's economy to you. I think you'll find the answer much more nuanced than you've implied.
-Robert
Awesome and constructive reply. I should give you a box of cookies for such awesome insight.
The CA program is revenue neutral, which will be the first health care program that is revenue neutral in this country. It remains to be seen whether it works.
Just because 2 states are having issues with theirs, it doesn't mean its impossible.
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
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This is nonsense because: (1) the concept of wealth redistribution is not inherently socialist, (2) it precedes Marx by many centuries, and (3) the individual states could and did involve themselves in wealth redistribution from even before the Constitution was written and have ever since.
In fact, actual socialism has a fascinating history in America, dating back to the Bible Belt Revival of the 1820s which ironically also gave rise to modern American Christian fundamentalism. During that time capitalism and liberal enlightenment ideas was seen as Masonic, urban, and un-Christian. One reason why the collapse of the freemasonry practiced by the Founding Fathers at this time coincides with the religious revival and a rapid rise of socialism throughout the country.
Prior to the 14th amendment, there was nothing to prevent individual states, cities, and towns from violating the Constitution and establishing whatever kind of local govt they wanted, and Christian socialism was a popular form of govt along the frontier. New Harmony, Indiana is an early example of American Communitarianism. While Christian Socialism was practiced by the early Mormons, both in Nauvoo, IL and in their State of Deseret in the Utah territory. The entire pyramidal organizational structure of the Mormon church still reflects their original socialist system, where the job of the bishop was to collect the year's crops in the ward storehouse to redistribute as needed.
And that's just in the US. Christian socialism's history in Europe, especially among Anabaptists in Switzerland and Germany, goes back at least until just after Martin Luther. With various monastaries and villages practicing it even further back than that.
So in other words, your argument that Marx popularized socialism is total bullshit. What Marx primarily did was take the religion out of socialism, and replace it with revolutionary thought.
For the OP, I will re-iterate my long and well-known stance here that socialism does not work. Or at the very least is not even remotely an ideal economic system. However, this notion that capitalism exists only in some anarchist state is just ridiculous. Even the staunchest modern proponents of capitalist ideals, like Ayn Rand, von Mises, or Friedman would not have agreed with that.
The Constitution does not say many things that Congress currently does...hence the reason for the 27 amendments.
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
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And in this case, the 16th amendment, which expressly gives the federal govt this power.
Love it or hate it, the argument that it's not in the Constitution is false.
And for the millionth time, socialism is defined by public ownership, not any system of taxation.
Strictly speaking, there are no taxes in a purely socialist economy, because there is no private ownership to be taxed. Strictly speaking, mind you.
BTW, socialism fails for 2 reasons. First, because it naively assumes everyone wants such a system, when obviously we don't, and so it requires the use of excessive force to implement. That's how it fails as a social system. But really, it just fails as an economic system entirely due to the calculation problem. Without some kind of markets, it's impossible to know how much something is worth and what kind of demand there is for it. No incentive and inefficient. Just look to China's recent economic growth for proof of this. All they really did was add markets to their economy. Boom.
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