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maz91379 wrote:

Derelict78 wrote:hey I did not judge im just saying that socialism AS A FORM OF government does not work very well, tends to become totalitarian.

Im just saying it still counts as a form of government when it's part of a hybrid system which there are lots of functioning examples currently and people tend to look at any form of communist or socialist ideals as the devil when they could probably benefit from them. I mean people as a whole don't make good decisions on their own or influence government that much anyway.

Yeah I was not referring to hybrids of any kind. I dont think of communists as "devils" just people with different views than me.

maz91379 wrote:I mean i don't really care in the larger picture but i just find some sort of wrong in people not having access to basic services like good healthcare. Medicine kicks ass in the us when you have bank and good insurance otherwise it all seems super fucked.

Like sure i have to wait 3 months to go to the dermatologist out here but my copay is the equivalent of 1-2 hrs of minimumish wage work when i go to the normal doctor and not much more for specialists, meds are cheaper and it just seems that the minimum level of healthcare offered to people is a metric fuckton better.

are you in Canada?
anyway My biggest problem is where is the $ going to come from? I have not ever used welfare or anything like it. but I sure do pay for it with taxes. It just bugs the fuck out of me that things like schools and roads, the things that I am happy to pay taxes for SUCK and are falling apart but we have plenty of $ to tell people how to live ie the War on drugs,WAR. And welfare checks Im sure are never late.

maz91379 wrote:hail satan, the arbiter of good bagels everywhere.

I think you guys got the message of
"the answer to 1884 is 666"
666=the Great beast= To Mega Therion=aliester Crowley
Al is running for president. Yeah he is English and dead but lots of people feel he is the best choice for President.

Derelict78 wrote:hey I did not judge im just saying that socialism AS A FORM OF government does not work very well, tends to become totalitarian.

I believe most of these cases were totalitarian from the start and simply sold as socialism.

Unless Norway is much scarier than I realized.

McSpunckle wrote:Unless Norway is much scarier than I realized.

Sure looks scary.

Derelict78 wrote:

maz91379 wrote:I mean i don't really care in the larger picture but i just find some sort of wrong in people not having access to basic services like good healthcare. Medicine kicks ass in the us when you have bank and good insurance otherwise it all seems super fucked.

Like sure i have to wait 3 months to go to the dermatologist out here but my copay is the equivalent of 1-2 hrs of minimumish wage work when i go to the normal doctor and not much more for specialists, meds are cheaper and it just seems that the minimum level of healthcare offered to people is a metric fuckton better.

are you in Canada?
anyway My biggest problem is where is the $ going to come from? I have not ever used welfare or anything like it. but I sure do pay for it with taxes. It just bugs the fuck out of me that things like schools and roads, the things that I am happy to pay taxes for SUCK and are falling apart but we have plenty of $ to tell people how to live ie the War on drugs,WAR. And welfare checks Im sure are never late.

Your last statement leads me to believe you are the sort of person who thinks that McDonalds magically has 10x better customer service than the post office. Let's just say one of these has never disappointed me, and I'm still waiting for my fruit and yogurt parfait

No, there is some validity to your argument. For someone to assert rights to medical care, etc. those resources must come from somewhere(read: someone) else. Libertarian ideology would argue that it's only the duty of gov't to protect individuals property rights. However, this poses the unanswerable questions of: How are they enforcing these rights? Where are they getting resources to fund protection of property rights if taxes are an infringement on these rights? How is "justice" determined?

No ideology is perfect and most of them are incompatible with themselves. Is government nothing more than a necessary evil? Yeah, probably. Self interest is typically the most dependable force, so creating an (ideally) impartial arbiter of justice is probably better than just letter things go and hoping "the invisible hand" will lead us to the promised land and give us a full release.

Seedy wrote:

McSpunckle wrote:Unless Norway is much scarier than I realized.

Sure looks scary.

When did KISS get 6 members?

My problem with the way America runs things is not with a market-based economy. It's that we safeguard the interests of the most profitable companies at the expense of everyone else.

Make no mistake, America is not capitalist, it is corporatist. Our economy is dominated by the interests of the few, especially in the financial sector. Why else did we bail out the banks instead of broadening our safety net?

I'm no socialist, though. I don't agree with price controls, state ownership of production capital or government oversight in everything. I just think we need a safety for the really poorly off in our country, and enough regulation to keep stupid things from happening.

I am approaching the point where I think all banks should be nationalized, however.

GardenoftheDead wrote:My problem with the way America runs things is not with a market-based economy. It's that we safeguard the interests of the most profitable companies at the expense of everyone else.

Make no mistake, America is not capitalist, it is corporatist. Our economy is dominated by the interests of the few, especially in the financial sector. Why else did we bail out the banks instead of broadening our safety net?

I'm no socialist, though. I don't agree with price controls, state ownership of production capital or government oversight in everything. I just think we need a safety for the really poorly off in our country, and enough regulation to keep stupid things from happening.

I am approaching the point where I think all banks should be nationalized, however.

Well in what arena do these corporations have the greatest influence? [/rhetorical question]

The electoral process could use some tweaking. General elections themselves are fair, it's just that you, as a candidate, can't get anywhere near there without a number of large fliff-tossing backers. I think, as a whole, our government is designed to be slow and highly compromising to avoid extreme shifts towards a tyranny by any group. Unfortunately the weight of special interests have skewed this design in a way that is unfair(I use that term begrudgingly for lack of any better). Congressional representatives are elected every two years so that they are more susceptible to the electoral process(and special interests by proxy) making them less actionable than they should be. Senators are elected every six years which is supposed to make them more stalwart and even-keeled as a body. Congress should be constantly worried about losing actual votes, but not campaign funding because then certain people amass more voting power than others.

of course I believe there's no reason in pointing out a problem without offering a solution so...

I think we should make laws that redistribute the wealth from the rich to the middle class so the middle class can be rich and the rich will be middle class.

.... wait...

Interesting article about Super PACs and, to a lesser degree, Citizens United from Slate (and, yeah, I might be showing my hand a little bit by posting a Slate article, whatever.)

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2011/10/citizens_united_how_justice_kennedy_has_paved_the_way_for_the_re.single.html

Man, four pages of logical thinking and reasonable, even congenial discussion? Kudos gang.

CaptainWampum wrote:Man, four pages of logical thinking and reasonable, even congenial discussion? Kudos gang.

What they fail to realize is they got trolled into writing my research paper But no,really I'm actually very impressed with the overall tone of this thread. Differences of opinions were expressed respectfully.
So, a fairly logical conclusion would be that neither socialism nor capitalism are fool-proof,that the worst manifestations of each system of economy were due to the human variable. Democratic socialism(using Western Europe as the primary model here) is actually fairly similar to free market capitalism,but with more regulations over financial institutions(banks). I personally hold that a move towards this system would only be beneficial to the US. With declining currency values vs the Euro, rising unemployment rates, and domestic jobs being outsourced, we're quickly running out of time and options.
I love you sometimes, ILF

Haven't been paying much attention to this thread, but has anyone talked about how culture can cause different forms of government/economy to fail or flourish, or to be interpreted in unexpected ways? What works well in one place may not work at all in another place, or may result in terrible or awesome consequences depending on how the people view themselves and the country. You could keep going further with that also: the neighbouring countries, friendly vs enemy systems, first leaders in system, etc.

Well, only going by friends in Europe and not actual resources, there seems to be a greater sense of obligation to society as a whole over the Atlantic. In America, there's more of a pride in one's individualism, the rest of the world be damned.

GardenoftheDead wrote:Well, only going by friends in Europe and not actual resources, there seems to be a greater sense of obligation to society as a whole over the Atlantic. In America, there's more of a pride in one's individualism, the rest of the world be damned.

From the opposite viewpoint I confirm.

But social and governmental systems also affect the culture of a country a big deal.