Collectivism is an interesting word because, in fact, our government is based upon collectivism. While the expressed purpose of government was established as being the protection of our individual inalienable Rights in the Declaration of Independence for a government to achieve this requires collectivism. The government has to infringe upon the individual's Freedom to Exercise an Inalienable Right for the protection of that Right throughout society. While I don't agree with the reasoning of some progressive liberals there is some merit to their actions. For example the discrimination against a person (e.g. racial or gender) that denies them equality of opportunity (not equality of outcome) is a fundamental violation of the person's inalienable Rights. Because our government cannot pragmatically prevent this violation of a person's inalienable Rights it does have an obligation to mitigate the negarive effects of the act of discrimination. Discrimination, racial and gender based, that results in higher unemployment and lower wages is without a doubt the singular greatest cause of poverty in the United States today and "welfare" that mitigates the effects of poverty is ligitimate because it is mitigating a violation of individual inalienable Rights which is a purpose of our government. Some complain about environmental regulations but we must realize that no person or entity has a Right to Pollute our land, water or air. If they are allowed to for economic reasons it's a privilege being granted and not a Right. Limiting that privilege doesn't violate anyone's Rights while allowing pollution fundamentally violates everyone's Rights as we all have a Right to clean air, water and land. The problem is that the progressive liberals go too far in much that the advocate but then the social conservatives do as well. Each goes too far and violate our inalienable Rights for nefarious political purposes and both deserve condemnation when they do.
First of all i don't believe that you answered to that post , the person who posted it has zero knowledge in political theory. On topic , no your government is not collectivist , the collective means that every or almost every difference is respected while your government are labelling even the slightest of dissent terrorism, also please tell me in which collectivist manual gathering rainwater is a crime ?
A basic understanding of what collectivism is before discussing it intelligently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism In expressing the political ideology upon which America was founded in the Declaration of Independence it established the purpose of government as a "collectivist" entity for the protections of the inalienable Rights of the Individual. It proposed egalitarianism where "all men are created equal" and the role of government, as a "collective" entity, was necessary to ensure the protections of our Rights because individuals would always violate the Rights of others if left unrestrained. Government itself is virtually always "collective" in nature (I can think of no exceptions) as it focuses on what is best for "all the People" often infringing upon an individual's Freedom to Exercise an Inalienable Right for the good of the "collective" (i.e. society in general). As with virtually all governments ours is one that has elements of both individualism and collectivism. We also see both horizontal and vertical collectivism in the actions of our government being supported by both Democrats and Republicans. The problem for both is that they are willing to sacrifice individualism for collectivism for nefarious political purposes. It would be my opinion that social-conservative Republicans are worse in this regard when compared to progressive-liberal Democrats but both are guilty to a greater of lesser degree. The one place where we find a fundamental difference it that progressive-liberals are far more likely to embrace egalitarianism where "all men are created equal" while social-conservatives are more likely to embrace inequality between individuals. For example explicit racial prejudice which denies equality is over twice as prevalent amoung Republicans (79%) than it is amount Democrats (32%) according to a study done last year. Vertical collectivism is also quite evident with social-conservatives related to same-sex marriage where they are attempting to impose their "religious morality" upon all Americans which denies individualism. A "free society" really can't exist under either absolute individualism or absolute collectivism because society, by its very nature, reflects a collective comprised of individuals. Once again though this has absolutely nothing to do with socialism which is an economic system that is not Constitutional in the United States. The US government has no authority to own the means of production and distribution of the goods in America. And once again the collection of taxes and expendatures to mitigate the invidious violations of the Inalienable Rights of the Individual in denying them equality of opportunity which results in poverty is NOT socialism. While not all poverty is based upon a violations of the Rights of the Individual due to racial and gender discrimination these violations of the Rights of the Individual are the foremost cause of poverty for working-age Americans today. Every statistical analysis supports this as a fact. The unemployment rate for African-Americans is about 2 1/2 times that of White-Americans and women only average 78% of the wages of men for the identical jobs in America. African-Americans and Women represent vast majority of working-age Americans in poverty today. The correlation is undeniable.
There are limited intrusions into free enterprise by the US government in the United States but what can be noted is that the US Constitution does not enumerate any power to our government in most of these cases. We can cite that the US Postal Service is authorized but many things are not. For example there is no enumerated authority in the Constitution for the US government to provide "energy" to the people. In fact, if we address Article I Section 8 the US government has no authority to own any land except for what is needed to provide for "Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful (i.e. adminstrative) Buildings ." Technically under the Constitution federal ownership of Hoover Dam, other projects like the TVA, and even BLM lands and the National Parks are not authorized by the US Constitution as they are not "Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings." But we shouldn't go into the violations of the enumerated authority of the federal government here as this thread is really addressing socialism which we know isn't authorized by the US Constitution and which really doesn't exist in the United States.
I think this is just an assumption and i am not talking about what your founding fathers had in mind and put on paper but rather the application of it . Obviously there is nothing cohesive there and the government is just protecting the rights of the dominant group , i guess this is the practical problem with governments. The government can not be collective , probably Americans have no experience of that but MPs can resign or kicked out of their party , point is that if the government does not work as a collective ( with the definition used in wiki) how they can represent the interests and guarantee the rights of the individuals ? For example take HSBC , it is a fact that they profited from drug trade as it is also a fact that people are dieing of overdose every day , yet there is no criminal investigation over bank's practices and nobody goes in jail although there legislation is there to lock them up, why this is happening? because the government is not a collective and only looks after the interests of the dominant group. I am not getting into the anti-social behaviour of the government since we all know the facts. First a big chunk of individualism is out because as you said " individuals would always violate the Rights of others if left unrestrained" now the government is left to regulate what is a right and what it is not , on paper things are pretty clear but in practice you have American citizens drone-killed because of suspicion and without a trial . The pattern as i see it is to cut the "collective" into smaller and smaller interest groups and let them compete for the right to control the administration , no individualism is sacrificed it just has the concept "expanded" at the expense of the collective. Doesn't this explain how your parliament only has 9% support despite which party dominates it? If you allow me under a European spectrum your "progressive-liberals" meet the definition of fascism in issues that matter like removal of personal rights and deregulation of financial sector with a "i don't care" stance in those issues that don't matter like abortions and gay marriage . Given that i have never be in North America i will use my experience from the media and people from there i talk with . The problem is that those defending the freedom of the individual are both barricading behind two parties with similar policies acting more like a hive and much less than a collective , also it is known that people will go as far as violating their class interests to support the "lesser evil". In all this crazy mix i think that the questions arise is how different are people to need their personality respected and how cohesive is the collective when unimportant issues long extinct in other places of the world (like creationism) can cause it's dissolution ? i will not attempt an answer but i think my previous post that you dismissed is indicative . I think we agree on that , people can have as much freedom as they can handle. I think the whole accusation on socialism as expressed by Maoists , Leninists and Stalinists is that it moves so slow that it gets demotivating . Personally i think that USA was made for socialism and you can start things out but bringing your administrative authority up side down , let communities decide which way they go and make each and every individual responsible for decision making. . Pretty ironic for a state that at least on paper and media claims it is not racist to keep racial statistics . *I hope my post makes sense , apologies for bad wording English is not my first language and my vocabulary is extremely limited .
I agree to disagree that Hoover Dam is not a needful building. In my opinion, we need more needful buildings, such that can lower the tax burden of real persons.
