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Originally Posted by sgtdmski  Really???? We have a middle class that is struggling to exist. Fighting off income taxes, property taxes, payroll taxes, all the while government is trying to find more ways to take more money. Offering to take care of people from the cradle to the grave, providing day care, health care, and social security. All government has accomplished is to find new ways to make the elite rich, while the working Americans have to turn more and more to government to meet their basic needs. |
Well i don't think that socialism is meant to tax the middle class. Rather it is the richest segments of society that gets taxed the heaviest.. That, among other things, means that they super rich will NOT be getting the tax breaks offered by conservative pro-business governments.
Socialism is a venture to re-distribute that wealth which is concentrated in the hands of the rich. I have no idea why you take socialism to mean anything else.
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Originally Posted by sgtdmski Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Obama, Rudy G, and the list can go on and on. We need help with healthcare in this country because people cannot obtain it themselves, well one of the reasons they can't is because of the ridiculous regulations place on companies by government. People cannot be trusted to invest money into private retirement accounts, therefore government must continue to do so poorly. |
Are you telling me that insurance companies are "trustworthy"?? The regulations put in place seem to be for the protection of the population. Insurance companies are worried about their BOTTOM LINES. That means SOMEBODY gotta lose.. unfortunately in such a system it is the sick that lose.
I think that giving the companies a free hand will cause more havoc and misery. They are after all much more intersted in how much money they make than they are about the health and wellbeing of those they insure.
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Originally Posted by sgtdmski You are damn right. I know a few people who are on the government dole. They sit on their asses at home, drinking, popping their pills, and having a good time. The government is helping them to get a home, one in which they will pay only $300 a month for, out of money that is paid to them by the government. They have a brand new car, whose payment is $350 a month, paid for by you guessed it, the government. Here I sit, working 40-plus hours in a week, I rent a place at $500 a month and my car was made in 1984. Your damn right I have resentment. I look at these folks when they are drinking and partying and never have to work. What a fracking crock. Hell members of their own family are ashamed of them and the crap they pull, so I know I am not alone. |
Well some people abuse the system. The point you seem to miss however is that in a socialist setup, such people cannot proudly walk around with their benefits. The reason for this is that the VAST MAJORITY will be honest workers that contribute to the system. This creates a certain level of civic consciousness that makes each and every taxpayer concerned about how the money is being used. There will be a civil movement to prevent freeloaders.
This is how it is in denmark. I myself engaged in a level of subterfuge at a point. I gave the government a different address from my real one whcih gave me a marginally higher stipend for when i was studying. I told a class fellow about this and she had a fit. Suffice it to say that i couldn;t carry on the way i did. When the whol,e of society has a vested iterest in the money being spent properly and not on freeloading, then it becomes REAL HARD to be a freeloader. In ANY CASE the nightmare scenario that you present, that the population will start being dominated by freeloaders is paranoid. IN PRACTICE it has been PROVEN that such is not the way things go.
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Originally Posted by sgtdmski Yep it sure does. You wind up with a few elite and everyone else is poor, without ever having a chance to become a part of the elite themselves. |
I think that you are describing your current system. Because every single american DOESN"T have access to basic rights like food, shelter, healthcare and education, it is quite clear that you SOME kids have better chances than the others. THe kid born in a rich home with a trustfund has a better chance of being LITERATE than one born in a slum. However if education was free, then this difference in life chances would not occur. Same thing with healthcare. If healthcare were free, than the slum dweller would have the same life chances as a rich kid.
It is PRECISLY this type of inequality that prevents the non-elite from tbecoming the elite. Circumstances are HEAVILY weighted against the ghetto dweller. The very thing you say socialism will cause is ALREADY THERE as a result of your current system.
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Originally Posted by sgtdmski Government is the problem. No one size fits all solution exists to the problems that people are faced with on a day to day basis, yet government continues to function as though they can one day find it. Their only solution has been to spend more money rather than find out why what they are doing is not working. |
I think you confuse a lot of things here. Nobody is talking about the government deciding what clothes you wear, and what car you drive. It doesn't even mean the government will instruct you on how you lead your life.
THE ONLY THING we are talking about is free healthcare and free education. Both of these things are not things FORCED upon a population, but rather MADE AVAILABLE to a population that needs it. SO it will mean charging more taxes. Well you already pay taxes to fund insane wars.. why not try spending those taxes on making your country TRULY EGALITARIAN.
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Originally Posted by sgtdmski Any system based on the philosophy that states from each according to their ability, to each according to their need is wrought with peril. When you take from those of ability and give to those with need you are setting yourself up for failure. When hard work does not pay, but instead need, you wind up with everyone needing and no one having ability. Socialism regardless of how its used all ends up the same, an elite that governs over the needy, the only thing social about the system is that everyone suffers equally. |
YOur statements about socialism are just plain incorrect. Sure the scandinavian countries are smaller and thus easier to manage, but what you say is just not true.
The fact is also that the NEED for education and healthcare is EQUAL FOR ALL HUMANS. there is no complex method of deducing the "need" of the people. All the NEED is EQUAL ACCESS to to healeth and education.
The fact remains that only hard work pays EVEN IN THIS SCENARIO. Having the option to be cured when you are sick does NOT give you incentive to sit at home. It cannot. YOu cannot survive on free healthcare. Likewise education REQUIRES EFFORT> If you don't pass then you squander your chance, and nobody is responsible for that.
You are makjng it sound like socialism will have beggars coming out of the woodwork like zombies and turning eveyrbody else into needy zombies. That's just not true.