I say Im a Socialist and people dig it

The OP and many of the Socialist Supporters who have posted in this thread remind me of those young fools I see wearing Tee shirts with prints of Castro's brutal thug assassin hit man Che Guevara done up in stylistic Art-Deco.


They all seem utterly clueless or uncaring to the gravity of what they are supporting.


Socialist / Collectivist governments gone wacko and desperately attempting to hang onto power long after it become blatantly clear that the ideology had failed;

have been responsible for KILLING more innocent people than all of the International Wars, civilian independent murderers, homicidal religious cults

( though you could easily argue that Liberalism / Socialism IS one ), and contagious disease outbreaks... COMBINED!



Just between Germany, Italy, Russia and China, the death toll at the feet of populist lefties is more than 100 Million People.


The OP of this Thread tries to pass all that history off as inconsequential compared to some sort of twisted Public Relations Spin Campaign.


The Victims of the Lefties are DEAD.


The Leftist Movements around the world have committed MASS MURDER not just once, but historically it has happened over and over and over again.


This subject is far more significant than some sort of popularity contest on an internet political forum.


The Left needs to be forever held accountable for the sickening history of the EVILS done by their past incarnations.


We need to never forget that Socialism / Collectivism has a record blacker than any other form of government by an order of magnitude.


It isn't a GAME, subjecting America to Socialism / Collectivism is a subject as deadly serious as Global Thermal Nuclear WAR, with historic death tolls that are comparable.

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Not socialism, because again (and I hate repeating myself so don't make me do it again): no social ownership and cooperative control of the means of production.

Who said that? If I had my way both Obama/Biden and Romney/Ryan, as well as every single currently serving politician on the state and federal level would be forced to resign and replaced with new, fresh faces.

 

Considering none of those other 69 people have (to my knowledge) supported anything other than corporatism and have yet to (again, tmk) propose actual socialist policies, I'm going to say that if they ARE calling themselves socialists, they are just like the OP: have no idea what they are saying.

 

And you know exactly why that is. Because the rich have a global market of billions to sell too and no longer are restricted to profits generated within the United States of America. While everyone else has only access to a local or national market at best. It is completely expected and common sensical to me that a person whose assets are generating income from the global market, as opposed to a local or nation one, is way ahead in generation and saving of capital. It is common sense that disparity would increase even as the pie continues to grow for all of us who can actually adapt to the changing technological world we live in now.

I only hope the fearful ideological dinosaurs die before I do.

 

You haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.

 

Another intelligent post from Libhater. I think you guessed wrong again; hope you don't try to earn your wages from gambling because your win-loss ratio must be staggering towards total loss.

 

Your denial of the History of Socialist / Collectivist Governments does not make the TRUTH of that history any different.


You ask people to TRUST you when you say you want to try Socialism again here in America.


Why on Earth would the majority of American TRUST you when you can't even admit to the horrendous errors of Collectivist Governments in the Past?

 

I'm not denying that stuff happened. It did. I'm just saying those governments were not socialists.

Are you even reading my posts, or do you just start ranting as soon as you see a new post notification? I've addressed this gods know how many times and you've done absolutely nothing to refute it.

 

Well ya know what? They claimed to be. That is all that matters. That so many evil tyrants are able to corrupt leftwing ideology to their own uses, plus the inherent surrendering of pesonal sovereignty to the State, requring unquestioning obedience to an oligarchy of socialist "deciders"(since direct democracy is too inefficent at the national level) means that the ideology is doomed.

 

That is the definition of irrational. With that logic, every ideology is doomed. Conservatism, liberalism, religion, atheism, capitalism, socialism. All have been claimed by vile, murderous human beings.

 

NO. NONE OF THEM in the modern era has been as responsible for tyranny and death as much as leftwing populism. The proletariat is an ignorant bunch of mules without the education to tell the difference between a would-be tyrant, and a benevolent leader. They are capricious, vengeful little peasants looking for revenge and leftist populism is designed to tap into a completely unfair anger and resentment as a means to political power and ultimately tyranny.

Stalin was worse than Hitler.

Mao was worse than Hitler.

Pol Pot was worse than Hitler.

Che Guevara has just as much blood on his hands as any SS concentration guard commander along with that bastard Castro.

Socialism is morally bankrupt and relies on a complete and total subservience to the collective. It requires a lowest common denominated standard of living for all, with no one rising above the other in terms of wealth or influence. It is a recipe for nothing but stagnation and saps every vitality from a society and leaves it bereft of wealth and happiness.

 

What? How would a criminal be dealt with in a State-less society? Probably very much the same way as now, or has always been done. He will be tried, and if judged guilty, will be made to pay restitution.

A State-less society is not lacking any form of government. The only difference is that there is no group of people who claim ownership over others. Consent of the governed is explicitly, individually voluntary.

There's nothing wrong with using violence to recover one's stolen property, which is essentially what you're describing in a broken contract. What I am opposing is the State's presumed ownership of the populace and the State's freedom from normal rules of behavior that apply to the rest of us.

The difference is that the contract is implicit and involuntary rather than explicit and voluntary.

That's one way to look at it, I suppose. I'm not sure I agree. To me, it's kind of like having a discussion on what are the legitimate functions of the Mafia.

 

Whitewashing Hitler, the MO of SiliconMagician. Real classy, as always.

 

"First of all, if you're going to keep talking like a teenager in high school, you might as well not bother responding to me, because I'll just laugh, pat you on the head condescendingly, and ignore you."
Ahh yes. And if you keep raping children I'm going to be disgusted by you. Care to give an example of me "talking like a teenager in high school"? I bet not. I'll bet you scoffed at me accusing you of being a child rapist, and yet other than the fact that one is more horrific than the other, there is no difference in the claim that you are a pederast and that I am "talking like a teenager in high school". Of course anyone with half a brain reading this realizes how stupid you look for making such a charge, not attempting to provide any examples, let alone how they constitute "talking like a teenager in high school", and that you doing so ammounted to nothing more than childishness.

"Second, threat of violence is not the same as violence"
No they are not in the strictest sense the same. But when talking about the State they serve the exact same purpose. So they are not, technically, the same. But the serve the exact same purpose and operate in nearly identical ways. The threat of violence from the State functions in precisely the same way as actual violence because the State is necessarily capable of, and more often than not willing to utilize force. And again, it is the same because threats do not necessarily lead to violence. The drunken bar brawler will not inevitably kill the guy he was fighting after a good night's sleep. The State will in fact utilize violence if you continue to not pay your taxes.

"and if we're REALLY going to argue that eventually violence will be used to arrest you should you continue to refuse to pay your fair share to keep society running for your benefit, then you should just protest law enforcement completely or just advocate that we should not react violently to murderers."
Wow. It's pretty rare to read something so stupid, even on the Internet.
a.) I think that we should REALLY argue that the State will use violence to enforce its laws, because it REALLY will. I mean, that is what a State is. The fact that you fail to understand the inseparable intertwining of the State and violence is made so much more absurd by the fact that you accuse anyone of "talking like a teenager in high school."
b.) Way to use an utterly vapid phrase like "fair share", showing your complete intellectual impotence. First off, the U.S. has a progressive income tax, so by definition no one pays their fair share. Many pay vastly more than their fair share, and most pay vastly less. This is exacerbated by the fact that Those who pay the most (way more than their fair share) recieve vastly less from the State. Your view of taxes is tantamount to a group of friends going out to dinner. One friend gets a salad, the rest get caviar coated lobster. Then the check comes and the salad guy is charged $80, the lobster eaters are charged $3.50. Your nonsensical rhetoric implies you would be okay with this, or more likely scream that the saladconsumer should pay even more. Even if you accept that they all got salads (which is asinine, for this analogy the lobster eating welfare recipients recieve vastly more than the wealthy) it is the antithesis of fair to make some pay more the same good/service. It is doubly unfair to make them pay more for less, something you obviously support.
c.) Italics do not make idiotic statements less so. Firstly, the State does not exist for my benefit, or for any one individual. It benefits a group of people (theoretically.) Secondly, you keep saying over and over and over that the State theoretically exists solely to protect individuals' lives and rights. Yet you have failed to present any evidence to this effect. The modern conception of the U.S. Government doesn't even claim to exist mostly for the purpose of protecting individuals and their rights. But there you are, chugging along, making idiotic statements contradicted by the words and actions of the people you are talking about, and giving zero evidence of your vapid claims.
d.) Nice straw-man here. And by nice, I mean incredibly stupid and transparent. I never once said that the State should not be allowed to tax via force. Me answering your earlier idiotic charge that taxes are not collected via force does not in any way imply that I think it shouldn't. Gravity is a natural force that draws two masses towards each other. But according to you me acknowledging this fact suggests that I am opposed to gravity. This suggests serious head trauma on your part.
e.) Even if I were opposing the use of violence to collect taxes (and again, I'm clearly not) your slippery slope argument is almost as stupid as your straw-man argument. I oppose the U.S. Government's use of violence to imprison Japanese Americans during WWII. Does me opposing certain things the Government does mean I think that the Government should not convict and incarcerate murderers? You clearly think so, and that is why no thinking person will take you seriously.

 

Actually "capitalist" is a dirty word! Karl Marx used it extensively as a derisive term in Das Kapital, and also in the Communist Manifesto, even though its etymology is older. But I'd say the way we define it is from Marx.
It took the great Malcolm Forbes to turn the word around and use it as a badge of honour!

Now, I don't "dig" it, but I do get excited when I hear people are socialist, mainly because a lively discussion on socialist theory, and inevitably Marx and Engels ensues. Then I am often shocked that those who support socialist ideas don't really know more about than they learned in Grade 9 Social Studies or some student-aid led survey class at uni.
No, they may not be Communists, so they need not have read the Manifesto and all three volumes of Das Kapital - but it sure helps.

But if it gets you the girls because they see you as a modern day Trotsky radical, more power to you!

In fairness, of course, most people who claim to be "capitalist" have not read Adam Smith (the easy one) much less any other free-market theorists.

Of course, I criticise cons for not reading Marx either. Fact: his theories have had such a tremendous impact on the last 150 years it should be mandatory reading in highschool! As should the Federalist Papers, Locke, Hume, Smith, etc etc.
Knowledge is power!

 

"Yes, it doesn't do that now, I acknowledged that. What I said is that taxes are supposed to be for that purpose.

Reading: it's good."
You did in fact acknowledge that. But while true, that is an utterly meaningless statement. You're arguing what you want me to have said, and not what I've actually said. My point was not that the FICA tax proves that the Government is operating contrarily to its current facade of solely protecting individuals and their rights. The point was that FICA is an example of the Government openly acting in a way that not only doesn't protect individuals/rights, but restricts them. In other words, that facade doesn't even exist. The Government is not saying they are protecting rights and then behind closed doors doing the opposite, it is just coming out and saying that it is doing the opposite. Your harping on the fact that the Government is "supposed" to be there solely to protect individuals is just like someone buying a pair of shoes, being told explicitly by the salesman that the shoes are meant for his feet, and then telling people that they are meant for his hands when he is asked why they are on his hands. No one, least of all the individuals who comprise the U.S. Government, indicate via word or action that the Government exists to protect individuals/rights. So, to paraphrase, Government is as Government does. If the intent, rhetoric and result of the Government is to do mostly things that do not protect rights/individuals, then only a lunatic would say that it is "supposed" to solely protect rights/individuals. But you know how you could have known that this is what I was saying....

Reading: it's good.

So you are entirely wrong about your non-stop repetition of your idea that the Government is "supposed" to protect rights and individuals (again, something you haven't even tried to back-up.) But even if it Government was "supposed" to do nothing but protect rights/individuals, that is utterly irrelevant. If I see someone at the batting cages trying to bat with a golf club, it makes no difference whether the club was designed to be used as a bat or not. It clearly won't work. In the same way, whether the Government is "supposed" to do nothing other than protect rights/individuals is irrelevant. Your entire point was to attempt to show that is unreasonable to oppose high taxes because the Government is "supposed" to look after my rights. That's idiotic. My entire point was that I oppose taxes because they go to fund a Government that predominantly steps on my rights. So what they are supposed to do has no relevance in this situation.

"Wow, really? So if you lose your job, unemployment doesn't give you income to keep a roof over your family's head, clothes on your backs? Food stamps don't give you money to buy food so you don't die off from malnutrition or starvation? Medicare/Medicaid doesn't make it cheaper for you to buy the life-saving medicines you need?"
So if you score more runs in baseball, you win the game. What the hell was your point? Baseball has exactly as much to do with talk about rights as any of the things you mentioned.
"unemployment doesn't give you income to keep a roof over your family's head, clothes on your backs" -Yes it does. And...? Neither of these things is a right. What is actually a right is the right to property, which is voided when money is stolen and collectivized.
"Food stamps don't give you money to buy food" -Again yes, and again, not a right.
"Medicare/Medicaid doesn't make it cheaper for you to buy the life-saving medicines you need" -So do coupons, sales and rebates. So I guess Pharmacuetical companies exist solely to protect my rights and person, right? Or you're just proving yourself wrong.

"And I'm not wrong, because I already pointed out that the government doesn't use taxes the way they are supposed to."
You are wrong because a.) Government openly exists mostly to not protect rights/lives, and b.) it is utterly irrelevant what they are "supposed" to do, in light of what they actually do. And again, no evidence from you that the Government is supposed to do nothing but protect rights/lives.

 

Wouldn't that be nice? Heck, at this point I'd take being able to read as required in school...

 

Nothing will motivate the American common person to read those classics of capitalism and economics like the upcoming socialist triggered, Greece Pattern, Collapse of the American Economy.

Producers will be "COOL" again after a few years of basics rationing, empty store shelves, and the Government perpetrated Purge executions of a few million inconvenient were middle class Americans.


Ain't the Socialist Manufactured_Crisis->Revolution->Redistrubution_to_the_Party_Elite->Scarcity_and_Rationing->Collapse_into_Chaos_and_Cletocracy Cycle just Grand!?

 

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The nice thing about you is that you prove my points. Now, allow me to demonstrate why you should take the above criticisms and apply them to yourself:

Let's see if you actually believe this.

Not technically, no. You've made a good point. As long as you leave it at that, we should be -

...so it walks and talks like a duck. But it isn't a duck?

You get an F. But because I'm nice, I'll give you a B in effort.

Oh, you're not done?

So it's not the same, but it is the exact same?

And you said no thinking person should take me seriously.

Preacher, meet choir. I've already acknowledged that the state uses "violence" (as defined by you, police arresting you for breaking the law).

Except I acknowledged you were correct, if we define "violence" your way.

I'm intellectually vapid for using a valid English phrase, but you're just so smart for being incapable of convincingly arguing your point without resorting to insults that might as well be "poopy head."

Your analogy is pathetic and you seem to be incapable of separating "should do" (IOW, it does NOT but it SHOULD) from "does." I'm talking about what it should/is supposed to do (which I've already clarified twice before), not what it currently does.

As it currently operates, no. But again, I'm talking about how it should and is supposed to operate. Let's see if you understand what this means when you respond.

Meaningless distinction. A group of individuals is still individuals.

Seriously? What the hell else does it exist for? The Constitution, which defines how the U.S. government is supposed to operate, specifically addresses the government's responsibilities, all of which have to do with protecting the lives and rights of its citizens.

Irony alert! You accuse me of making idiotic statements and giving zero evidence to back up vapid claims, and sandwiched right between those two thoughts you made a vapid claim with no evidence.

Then what the hell are you even arguing?

Considering I've never made such a statement, I think the head trauma is yours.

Again, complaining about me making statements I never made, then going on to make the exact same type of statement.

 

Did socialism originate with Marx and Engels?

 

There's that irony again.

Another absurd analogy. I think you may be confused as to how those work.

And you're still arguing a point I didn't make, which is how the government currently behaves.

Why do you feel the need to repeat something you know I'm not arguing? It's essentially irrelevant.

Considering I'm speaking on an entirely theoretical/philosophical basis (which you already acknowledged I was), no, the government's current actions have no bearing on what it is supposed to do. Here's how a real analogy works.

I am a security officer. My job (I'll use today's duties as an example, since they vary) is to monitor a whole block of high rises from 8 AM to 1 PM (four buildings total), take a three hour break, then go monitor a different high rise down the street from 4 PM to 10 PM. For the 8-1 shift I am sitting in the (normally) only occupied building on Saturdays, making a foot patrol of the other three every hour.

If I sit in the bathroom on my phone all day instead, I'm not doing my job, correct? I have no intention on doing my actual job, but I'll still say I am to basically make free money. By your logic, sitting in the bathroom on my phone is now my job and it would be absurd to suggest otherwise.

I agree. So what does that say about you, considering it was 100% invented by you and not at all what I said?

Their purpose has all the relevance. You can't fix the problem if you don't know how.

Oh, please, PLEASE spare me another silly analogy that has nothing to do with this conversation.

Do you even read the posts I quote before responding, or do you just read my responses?

 

Is poor grammar and atrocious punctuation your trademark, or do you think it actually makes people want to trust your opinion on anything intellectual in nature?

 

NO, of course not... but the concept of modern socialism owes more to Marx and Engels than Fourier or the French collectivists. It's bad enough that many so-called "socialists because its the hip thing to say" types have not read Marx, much less any other political philosophical thought. They watched Motorcycle Diaries, read the Wikipedia entry on Che Guevara, bought the T-shirt, and bingo, they are "socialists"
Hey, I know it gets the girls at University (if only the intellectual types who still listen to the Smiths)

 

Oh, so he's one of those morons who thinks sewing a Maple leaf on his rucksack and pretending to be from Canada actually works, eh? Sorry, but it fools no one. The fact that he salivates every time he sees a topless woman at a public beach and eagerly tells everyone within earshot they don't "card" him at pubs even though he's 20 doesn't give him away?
Silly kids... no one in Europe is fooled for a second. They can smell yankees before you get off the plane at Schiphol.

And they are befuddled at why American twenty year olds with right-of-centre (in European terms) attitudes about everything insist on calling themselves "socialist"

 

Thanks for the clarification. We actually agree. I find it endlessly irritating when people run around claiming to be socialists but have no actual idea what socialism is, like the idiotic OWS children. Then they give actual socialists a bad name.

But then, that's what happens when you have two-sided politics, with one side claiming a label for political expediency and the other side labeling everything they don't like as that label - also for political expediency.