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Forums - General Discussion - Do You Think Obama is a Socialist... Do You Care?

damkira said:
The problem with you conservatives is that you can't expect to convert people to your way of thinking by spouting a bunch of buzzwords. Socialism might be the ultimate evil to you, but you must remember that this is no longer the 1950s. The USSR collapsed almost 20 years ago.. people no longer live in fear of socialism.

Get with the times.

I suspect all those people who live in fear in socialist nations would disagree with you that no longer fear socialism ... I forgot, mass murder of citizens only matters when it is in a history book about World War II.



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HappySqurriel said:
damkira said:
The problem with you conservatives is that you can't expect to convert people to your way of thinking by spouting a bunch of buzzwords. Socialism might be the ultimate evil to you, but you must remember that this is no longer the 1950s. The USSR collapsed almost 20 years ago.. people no longer live in fear of socialism.

Get with the times.

I suspect all those people who live in fear in socialist nations would disagree with you that no longer fear socialism ... I forgot, mass murder of citizens only matters when it is in a history book about World War II.

Exaggerate much?  Socialism is different than communism, I hate to break it to you.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

akuma587 said:
HappySqurriel said:
damkira said:
The problem with you conservatives is that you can't expect to convert people to your way of thinking by spouting a bunch of buzzwords. Socialism might be the ultimate evil to you, but you must remember that this is no longer the 1950s. The USSR collapsed almost 20 years ago.. people no longer live in fear of socialism.

Get with the times.

I suspect all those people who live in fear in socialist nations would disagree with you that no longer fear socialism ... I forgot, mass murder of citizens only matters when it is in a history book about World War II.

Exaggerate much?  Socialism is different than communism, I hate to break it to you.

I guess you're not familiar with South American socialist dictatorships



HappySqurriel said:
akuma587 said:
HappySqurriel said:
damkira said:
The problem with you conservatives is that you can't expect to convert people to your way of thinking by spouting a bunch of buzzwords. Socialism might be the ultimate evil to you, but you must remember that this is no longer the 1950s. The USSR collapsed almost 20 years ago.. people no longer live in fear of socialism.

Get with the times.

I suspect all those people who live in fear in socialist nations would disagree with you that no longer fear socialism ... I forgot, mass murder of citizens only matters when it is in a history book about World War II.

Exaggerate much?  Socialism is different than communism, I hate to break it to you.

I guess you're not familiar with South American socialist dictatorships

Key word - Dictatorships.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

superchunk said:

It worked prior to the 70's, so the financial crashes before that didn't happen? Keep in mind the worst of them all, The GD, was fixed through regulation of the free market and many of the very same policies Bush started to do and Obama is currently doing.

The reason medicare has issues is due to costs. Fix the free market that has allowed tape to costs $100 in hospitals and medicare would be just fine.

Healthcare can't be like other markets. Its vital for survival and necessary for all. Not just those with plenty. Therefore a single system to pool everyone's contributions while reducing raw material cost would be successful, for everyone.

Yes, we are the most giving nation in the world. But, that has nothing to do with our discussion. I said those against universal healthcare and generally any social program are simply selfish. Not America as a whole or generic term.

Whether or not someone is selfish is a subjective assessment at best - being selfish is after all different from demanding a say in how the fruits of your labors are used.  Someone might be more than willing to share, for example, provided they are choosing to share and not being forced into it by a government mandate.

What is objective is that people have the right to be selfish as, legally speaking, we are gaurunteed the rights to life, liberty, and property.  But no rights to healthcare are mentioned.

But even if the constitution had stipulated health-care specifically as a right afforded to all people the argument for a government control and payment of this right is quite weak anyways.

Unless you also wish to argue that the government must provide a gun to anyone wishing to exercise their 2nd amendment rights or a weekly newspaper column for their 1st amendment rights.  You might have a right to access something but it does not mean you have the right to insist the government provide it for you.

This is notion of a right to be given healthcare is confiscatory - you want things confiscated from others (violating their rights) to supply rights to another. This of course does not have any basis within the constitution as you have a right to keep and bear arms but you do not have the right to confiscate guns from the gun shop to that end.  Nobody has a right to confiscate the goods and services produced by another person because each person has a right to their property which both goods and services qualify as.  I can no more demand drugs for the hypothetical right to healthcare than I could demand a gun or ammo from gun shop for the right to keep and bear arms.

What I do not understand is why liberals push for the government to legislate what is so clearly an ethical and moral issue. I mean the entire argument being made is that it is amoral and or unethical to ignore a person who needs care.  Obviously nobody wants a man to die who could have gotten care - even if its a financial issue.  What I fail to understand is why suddenly its acceptable for the government to legislate that moral and ethical position when things like abortion are tantamount to treason in the eyes of those promoting this cause.  How can you advocate moral relativism while arguing that healthcare is an absolute moral right? 

None of this even gets into the issues mentioned previously of whether or not national healthcare is any good to begin with (the evidence is pretty overwhelming that it is downright awful - to put it nicely).

More than any of that though I would ask how anyone can advocate (snip) - got interrupted and lost my train of thought hitting submit by accident - I'll just leave it as is.



To Each Man, Responsibility
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Viper1 said:
1. I'm neither a Republican nor a Conservative.

2. I care not whether the USSR collapsed or it's no longer the 1950's. The definitions retain their meaning.


Public perception may change all it likes but it doesn't change facts.

That makes no sense.  Definitions of social constructs like capitalism, democracy, and socialism change their meaning over time because those words have no meaning without reference to reality, in other words the way those things are actually practiced.  That's like saying that an airplane today is the same as an airplane from 50 years ago because the definition hasn't changed.  It makes absolutely no sense.

Words change their meaning over time in every language known to man.  That is just how languages work.  Reality is constantly changing.  Words are just signifiers for aspects of reality.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

akuma587 said:
HappySqurriel said:
akuma587 said:
HappySqurriel said:
damkira said:
The problem with you conservatives is that you can't expect to convert people to your way of thinking by spouting a bunch of buzzwords. Socialism might be the ultimate evil to you, but you must remember that this is no longer the 1950s. The USSR collapsed almost 20 years ago.. people no longer live in fear of socialism.

Get with the times.

I suspect all those people who live in fear in socialist nations would disagree with you that no longer fear socialism ... I forgot, mass murder of citizens only matters when it is in a history book about World War II.

Exaggerate much?  Socialism is different than communism, I hate to break it to you.

I guess you're not familiar with South American socialist dictatorships

Key word - Dictatorships.

Yes, dictatorships which evolved from democracies when people abandoned their rights for the promise of "spreading the wealth" ...

What people don't seem to understand is most of these people are worse off because in the process of "Spreading the Wealth" the government scared away people who had wealth, and destroyed a large portion of the existing wealth, and therefore people tended to have less wealth than before it was spread.



HappySqurriel said:
akuma587 said:
HappySqurriel said:
damkira said:
The problem with you conservatives is that you can't expect to convert people to your way of thinking by spouting a bunch of buzzwords. Socialism might be the ultimate evil to you, but you must remember that this is no longer the 1950s. The USSR collapsed almost 20 years ago.. people no longer live in fear of socialism.

Get with the times.

I suspect all those people who live in fear in socialist nations would disagree with you that no longer fear socialism ... I forgot, mass murder of citizens only matters when it is in a history book about World War II.

Exaggerate much?  Socialism is different than communism, I hate to break it to you.

I guess you're not familiar with South American socialist dictatorships

Hate to break it to you, but the US is not a dictatorship and Obama was democratically elected.



damkira said:
HappySqurriel said:
akuma587 said:
HappySqurriel said:
damkira said:
The problem with you conservatives is that you can't expect to convert people to your way of thinking by spouting a bunch of buzzwords. Socialism might be the ultimate evil to you, but you must remember that this is no longer the 1950s. The USSR collapsed almost 20 years ago.. people no longer live in fear of socialism.

Get with the times.

I suspect all those people who live in fear in socialist nations would disagree with you that no longer fear socialism ... I forgot, mass murder of citizens only matters when it is in a history book about World War II.

Exaggerate much?  Socialism is different than communism, I hate to break it to you.

I guess you're not familiar with South American socialist dictatorships

Hate to break it to you, but the US is not a dictatorship and Obama was democratically elected.

"You missed the point" doesn't even begin to do justice to how far off base this post is.  Nobody is saying Obama is a dictator or was not elected - its an issue of political evolution and the point about dictators specifically is a tangent to a tangent of the point.  To bring it back and directly apply it to Obama is completely miss-applying what has been stated.



To Each Man, Responsibility
damkira said:
HappySqurriel said:
akuma587 said:
HappySqurriel said:
damkira said:
The problem with you conservatives is that you can't expect to convert people to your way of thinking by spouting a bunch of buzzwords. Socialism might be the ultimate evil to you, but you must remember that this is no longer the 1950s. The USSR collapsed almost 20 years ago.. people no longer live in fear of socialism.

Get with the times.

I suspect all those people who live in fear in socialist nations would disagree with you that no longer fear socialism ... I forgot, mass murder of citizens only matters when it is in a history book about World War II.

Exaggerate much?  Socialism is different than communism, I hate to break it to you.

I guess you're not familiar with South American socialist dictatorships

Hate to break it to you, but the US is not a dictatorship and Obama was democratically elected.

So were most of the dictators in South America