The so called safety nets you speak of seem to have trapped at least a quarter of the population in poverty rellying of state sanctioned theft to provide their needs eroding their drive and skills over time. It was in the 1920's when the companies were actually forced to compete for and retain their employee's raising the standards of living greately until the great depression. Even looking at the minimum wage you can see that it was devestating to low skilled workers and was driven strongly by the white union movement to stop black workers from offering to work for less.

And this so called exploitation of workers in foreign nations is the largest driving force of economic growth. Just look to South Korea a nation that was stuck in the third world after the Korean war but was very accepting of sweatshops where the workers were able to gain valuable skills and the nation quickly attained first world standars of living.

And when have people not had the right to work? Skilled hardworking people who are capable of working in the right industry would have no problem finding a job or creating their own business if the goverment were to remove the regalatory burdens that they put in place inefficiently. The last sentance you had was complete nonsense and I don't know hos to respond to it.

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -- Thomas Jefferson -- The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill, (1809)

Woodrow Wilson handed the currency of the country to the bankers when fed was started in the 1900's. Its been going downhill since.  Poverty was always the idea on the table for the majority. That safety net was supposed to be in place to protect us from a harsher reality had FDR not been president. Socialist safety nets would not have been needed had our situation not be so subversive and dire.

Firstly quoting presidents claiming that the control of money should remain with the government rather than in the hands of private interest is an absolute farce. Governments always wants more power no matter what they preach and a comment claiming the ills that would befall society with private currencies being far greater than the harm caused by the American military. If anything the government currency of today has been going through phases of inflation and deflation for over a century which has eroded the wealth of the American people. It is simply fear mongering for the sake of seizing power.

And I am strongly opposed to the federal reserve as it is a huge violation of the free market. The idea that a monopoly on money is a good thing for the free market is absurd and has been devestating for the United States since the federal reserve came into being. I say get rid of it and we can as private citizens adopt currencies of our chosing either crypto currencies like bit coin or gold backed currencies and any other options that may exist.

The Federal Reserve is a government agency who's heads are appointed by the president and congress.

The myth that it's a private bank is made by people who mistake Federal Reserve "stock" as to be the same as regular stock.

When in reality Federal Reserve "stock" is just the fee for entering the federal reserve system and allowing you to get emergency loans from the Federal Reserve for cheap.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm

Sure. Just sell it under a different name.

Not if they called themselves the "socialist party", because that word would trigger a knee-jerk reaction amongst many Americans.

But the Democrats are basically the Labour Party, so there's that.

Actually, like with any concept, things change. At one point socialism and socialists had a principled, structured system that demanded the common ownership of the means of production in order to reach the goal of their concept of social justice; however, with the flaws in their system revealed they turned to other means to reach this same concept of social justice, the more unstructured concept of the welfare state. In that way, yes the welfare state is socialist, because it demands that society's economic production must be manipulated through the political process so that egalitarian results (the socialist concept of social justice) arise. It might not be the old system, but the goals remain the same whereas the means are different. 

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~grjan/hayekwelfarestate.html

During this period socialism had a fairly precise meaning and a definite program.  The common aim of all socialist movements was the nationalization of the "means of production, distribution, and exchange," so that all economic activity might be directed according to a comprehensive plan toward some ideal of social justice.  The various socialist schools differed mainly in the political methods by which they intended to bring about the reorganization of society.  Marxism and Fabianism differed in that the former was revolutionary and the latter gradualist; but their conceptions of the new society they hoped to create were basically the same. Socialism meant the common ownership of the means of production and their "employment for use, not for profit."

The great change that has occurred during the last decade is that socialism in this strict sense of a particular method of achieving social justice has collapsed.  It his not merely lost its intellectual appeal; it has also been abandoned by the masses so unmistakably that socialist parties everywhere arc searching for a  new program that will insure the active support of their followers. They have not abandoned their ultimate aim, their ideal of social justice.  But the methods by which they had hoped to achieve  this and for which the name "socialism" had been coined have been discredited.  No doubt the name will be transferred to whatever new program the existing socialist parties will adopt.  But socialism in the old definite sense is now dead in the Western world.

The  reasons for this change are manifold. So far as the socialist school which at one time was most influential is concerned, the example of the "greatest social experiment" of our time was decisive: Marxism was killed in the Western world by the example of Russia.  But for a long time comparatively few intellectuals comprehended that what had happened in Russia was the necessary outcome of the systematic application of the traditional socialist program.  Today, however, it is an effective argument, even within socialist circles, to ask: "If you want one hundred per cent socialism, what's wrong with the Soviet Union?"' But the experience of that country has in general discredited only the Marxist brand of socialism.  The widespread disillusionment with the basic methods of socialism is due to more direct experiences.

But, though the characteristic methods of collectivist socialism have few defenders left in the West  its ultimate aims have lost little of their attraction.  While the socialists no longer have a clear-cut plan as to how their goals are to be achieved, they still wish to manipulate the economy so that the distribution of incomes will be made to conform to their conception of social justice.  The most important outcome of the socialist epoch, however, has been the destruction of the traditional limitations upon the powers of the state.  So long as socialism aimed at a complete reorganization of society on new principles, it treated the principles of the existing system as mere encumbrances to be swept away.  But now that it no longer has any distinctive principles of its own, it can only present its new ambitions without any clear picture of the means.  As a result, we approach the new tasks set by the ambition of modern man as unprincipled, in the original meaning of this word, as never before.

Unlike socialism, the conception of the welfare state  has no precise meaning.  The phrase is sometimes used to describe any state that "concerns" itself in any manner with problems other than those of the maintenance of law and order.  But, though a few theorists have demanded that the activities of government should be limited to the maintenance of law and order, such a stand cannot be justified by the principle of liberty.  Only the coercive measures of government need be strictly limited.  We have already seen (in chap. xv) that there is undeniably a wide field for non-coercive activities of government and that there is a clear need for financing them by taxation.

Yeah, plus i mean... the US government actually does own quite a bit of stuff if you are taking the whole "State owned" only bent.

I mean the Federal Government has something like 30 owned government companies,  

Not mentioning GSO's, State owned companies and, compnies the government owns  majority stake in etc.

hm if europe is socialist, socialism won... detroit looks like the set of mad max, even the poorest parts of europe are way more safe. u can have holidays in greece without fear. try the same in detroit...

Whaddya think the New Deal was?