Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There are those who are uninformed or misinformed who would romanticize socialism. They have no idea what the reality is and how much they'd hate it if they had to live it.
There is no choice in Socialism. If there were, none of those in Socialist countries would go hungry.
You're confusing socialism with authoritarianism/totalitarianism. There are many functional and hugely successful democracies with a socialist bend. We are a mild example of one. So many isms. I know it's easy to get confused. Specially when half the media rails on continually about us becoming Venezuela.
did anyone mention Bernie is a millionaire and will never stand in the breadlines he wants us to stand in??
He loves socialism so much because it's a system that he believes will allow him to rise to the top, with all of its perks, with the ability to fund those perks thanks to a powerful government. A government that will be controlled by an elite few, and forcibly confiscate the property of its citizens under the guise of "the greater good". He's confident he'll be one of the elite, and in his mind deservedly so, since he considers himself smarter than everyone else.
For the sake of simplicity, I will go with what you say and not differentiate the two. We will just call it socialism to make you happy.
You have been conned into believing that socialism and capitalism are mutually exclusive. This couldn't be farther from the truth. In fact, no society that purely one sided has succeeded the way we as a nation has succeeded. Would it surprise you to learn that our country in its current state is partially capitalistic and partially socialistic?
Do you have private health insurance? That's a socialistic idea. The collective pool part of their resources together to benefit everyone involved. Do you drive on public roads? Again, public roads are a socialist idea. Hospitals are socialist as well. If tomorrow we rid of our country every socialist aspect of our society, trust me our country would break down instantly.
Again, I must stress that I love the free market. My family has done very well in the free market system of this country. My husband and I have a solid business plan that is purely capitalistic. But we also recognize that without all the socialist aspects of our society, we wouldn't be here today.
I think we all can agree that countries who have tried to be purely socialist (like communist regimes and Venezuela) have failed miserably. What conservatives always fail to acknowledge is that countries who have tried to be purely capitalist have also failed with most of their population being perpetual poverty. All you have to do is go live in Somalia where social safety nets are non-existent. There are only the haves and the havenots there.
The most prosperous countries are the ones that have utilized aspects from both systems.
I have not been conned into anything. I know that we need some form of safety net and I not opposed to it. What I am opposed to is the proposed cradle to grave support that the Democrats propose to buy votes. I am opposed to more wealth distribution to people who don't want to work. There were more people on food stamps at the end of the Obama presidency than ever, even during the recession? If the economy was as good as you people think it was under Obama, then why? Because Democrats need a permanent underclass to support to buy votes.
But has nothing to do with any political figure in the US.
China's problems stemmed NOT from communism but from hubris.
China's closed their doors to global trade. They thought they were the center of the world and that the rest of us could go to hell..
A few hundred years later they were hundreds of years behind and at the mercy of the West at a time the West was ruthless...
The lessen to be learned has nothing to do with communism and everything to do with isolationism as a policy.
If you lived in China you know this, you know I am right.
And if course the US has no communists or socialists of note, so the fools here saying otherwise are either brainwashed, lying or working for Putin.
OMG!! It's obvious none of you lefties are reading the story in the link or you would KNOW that I am not writing the article. So until you freakin read the thing, don't reply to me.
No one is seriously saying "but we are americans we will do it right".
As I pointed out earlier, America is already partially socialist whether anyone is willing to admit it or not. Social security, public roads, insurance (private or public), hospitals, and even your local HOA are all socialist ideas to some degree.
No one is seriously suggesting we get rid of capitalism and make this country 100% socialist. That's just a strawman drawn up by right wing talking heads.
The problem with countries like Venezuela, China under Mao, etc. is that they were thinking in black and white and tried to do too much at one time. And these regimes tended to be hostile toward intellectuals. There is no better example than the Cambodian genocide where they killed off all the perceived intellectuals of their country. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc. were all killed off.
I would go as far as argue that the people who were in charge of these failed states never really wanted to create some kind of socialist paradise. They just wanted to be godheads. Hence, human lives were worthless to them.
Added by edit.
And to be clear, I am not a Sanders supporter.
It never starts out that way. Things always start out with the socialists painting a rosy picture of free healthcare for everyone and other social safety nets but it won't just end there. Socialism would never gain a foothold in any society if it didn't originally sell to the poor and underclass a fairer system for them. The problem is that once they get a little taste of the free stuff, it only will expand from there.
Sanders, AOC and other professed socialists' rhetoric are always based on class warfare: the wealthy are greedy and we need to take (tax) them and redistribute their wealth to the poor. This sounds exactly like those communist regimes talked about here. You seem to get caught up in the fact that those regimes used dictatorship force and that makes the Sanders version different. What you fail to understand is that regardless of how the means to get to a socialist state be it violent or peaceful, the idea is the same.
After a while under socialism, there is little motivation to produce in a society that will take from you all you've worked for and give to those who are unwilling to work. What's the point of overachieving?
This will lead to an overall decline in the country's economic output. Economic production slows down and the country's wealth declines, meaning we will get poorer. And while we might not have gone through the violence upheaval like Russia and China did, we will end up with the same results, i.e. everyone is poor.
You're confusing socialism with authoritarianism/totalitarianism. There are many functional and hugely successful democracies with a socialist bend. We are a mild example of one. So many isms. I know it's easy to get confused. Specially when half the media rails on continually about us becoming Venezuela.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
