AOC

[6ftstick]

This article from this morning illustrates how bogus you libs argument is.

Stated as fact in the first paragraph.

Communism vs. Socialism
In both communism and socialism, the people own the factors of economic production. The main difference is that under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and controlled by the state (rather than individual citizens); by contrast, under socialism, all citizens share equally in all economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government.

What factors of economic production did the common soviet socialists own during failed 5 year plan after failed 5 year plan?

What factor of economic production did the Ukrainians own when Stalin starved them by the millions?

The Czecs? The The East Germans? What did the Chicoms own while Mao was killing them in the 10's of millions.

What factors of economic production do todays Venezuelans own.

Your assertions are bogus and fly in the face of historical fact.

Groups of people getting together to form governments and agreeing to pay taxes to advance the public good is not SOCIALISM.

[a fan]

Lets see that would be like government taking over the health insurance segment. With NO non government alternatives.

You mean like Medicare?

Dude. How many times do I have to utterly destroy your argument for you to concede? You're simply wrong.

Btw, where in the definition you gave do you see the phrase, "no non-government alternatives". You don't get to add things on to definitions because it suits your mood.


For whatever reason, you don't seem to get that our country can operate just fine using 100% private entities. Private roads, bridges, schools, parks, hospitals, insurance companies...and on and on and on.

We chose not do to that. We're socialists in places, and capitalist in others. It's a mixed economy. I have no earthly idea why this is so difficult for you to admit....

DUDE pay attention.

S O C I A L I S M has only government in control of every segment of the marketplace. Medicare is only part of the healthcare insurance industry, 180 million americans still have PRIVATE health insurance.

read this again

any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods. A system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state


BY THE STATE means the exclusion of private industry.

If that's what they meant, they'd put that in the definition. They'd add "....and private industry is banned".

But.....okaaaay. Let use your addition that's not in the real definition.

What you are NOW telling me, is that you're fine if we have Federally owned and operated companies that compete with, say, Whole Foods....so long as we don't ban Whole Foods? In your mind, that's not socialism?

So Bernie could open up a Federally owned and operated shoe company that competes with Nike and New Balance....and that's NOT socialism according to 6fstick, so long as the government allows Nike and New Balance to exist. So you wouldn't call that socialism? Do I have this right?

I'd think your fellow Americans would strongly disagree with you.

More to the point----- who is it that you think is proposing that America ban all private industry?

[Typical Lax Dad]

This article from this morning illustrates how bogus you libs argument is.

Stated as fact in the first paragraph.

Communism vs. Socialism
In both communism and socialism, the people own the factors of economic production. The main difference is that under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and controlled by the state (rather than individual citizens); by contrast, under socialism, all citizens share equally in all economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government.

What factors of economic production did the common soviet socialists own during failed 5 year plan after failed 5 year plan?

What factor of economic production did the Ukrainians own when Stalin starved them by the millions?

The Czecs? The The East Germans? What did the Chicoms own while Mao was killing them in the 10's of millions.

What factors of economic production do todays Venezuelans own.

Your assertions are bogus and fly in the face of historical fact.

Groups of people getting together to form governments and agreeing to pay taxes to advance the public good is not SOCIALISM.

Is it capitalism?

[6ftstick]

Lets see that would be like government taking over the health insurance segment. With NO non government alternatives.

You mean like Medicare?

Dude. How many times do I have to utterly destroy your argument for you to concede? You're simply wrong.

Btw, where in the definition you gave do you see the phrase, "no non-government alternatives". You don't get to add things on to definitions because it suits your mood.


For whatever reason, you don't seem to get that our country can operate just fine using 100% private entities. Private roads, bridges, schools, parks, hospitals, insurance companies...and on and on and on.

We chose not do to that. We're socialists in places, and capitalist in others. It's a mixed economy. I have no earthly idea why this is so difficult for you to admit....

DUDE pay attention.

S O C I A L I S M has only government in control of every segment of the marketplace. Medicare is only part of the healthcare insurance industry, 180 million americans still have PRIVATE health insurance.

read this again

any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods. A system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state


BY THE STATE means the exclusion of private industry.

If that's what they meant, they'd put that in the definition. They'd add "....and private industry is banned".

But.....okaaaay. Let use your addition that's not in the real definition.

What you are NOW telling me, is that you're fine if we have Federally owned and operated companies that compete with, say, Whole Foods....so long as we don't ban Whole Foods? In your mind, that's not socialism?

So Bernie could open up a Federally owned and operated shoe company that competes with Nike and New Balance....and that's NOT socialism according to 6fstick, so long as the government allows Nike and New Balance to exist. So you wouldn't call that socialism? Do I have this right?

I'd think your fellow Americans would strongly disagree with you.

More to the point----- who is it that you think is proposing that America ban all private industry?

Once again for Keerists sake. The modern left. Everything they say that will be free means government will provide it to the exclusion of the private sector. How are you so obtuse?

[a fan]

Once again for Keerists sake. The modern left. Everything they say that will be free means government will provide it to the exclusion of the private sector. How are you so obtuse?

Yeah, I'm the problem here, alright. Where are you coming up with this stuff? Ever been to Europe? Do they have private companies?

And yet they manage just fine to provide health care and advanced education for free. What you are telling me here is: that's impossible, and that doesn't exist.

Have you never left the lower 48, or something? Are you this out of the loop on how the world works?


Find someone----not some random idiot---who says they are going to ban Nike, Starbucks, McDonalds, Ford, and even my tiny business.

[foreverlax]

Everything they say that will be free Free means end user doesn't paymeans government will provide it to the exclusion of the private sector[Why should we care who provides the service if it suits our needs?/quote]

You conflating cost of purchase with production.

[6ftstick]

Once again for Keerists sake. The modern left. Everything they say that will be free means government will provide it to the exclusion of the private sector. How are you so obtuse?

Yeah, I'm the problem here, alright. Where are you coming up with this stuff? Ever been to Europe? Do they have private companies?

And yet they manage just fine to provide health care and advanced education for free. What you are telling me here is: that's impossible, and that doesn't exist.

Have you never left the lower 48, or something? Are you this out of the loop on how the world works?


Find someone----not some random idiot---who says they are going to ban Nike, Starbucks, McDonalds, Ford, and even my tiny business.

Some random idiot—How about all the democrats now running for President

[6ftstick]

Everything they say that will be free Free means end user doesn't paymeans government will provide it to the exclusion of the private sector[Why should we care who provides the service if it suits our needs?/quote]

You conflating cost of purchase with production.

If government provides it free why would the private sector provide it for a fee.

why should we care who provides it—and there you have it.

[HooDat]

ya'll are arguing past one another....


afan, et al are talking about an economic system. Or, more specifically, our hybrid economic system that blends capitalism with some degree of regulatory state and socialist mandate.

6ft is talking about hwat has become shorthand for a political system

but 6ft - you have it wrong my friend. What you are afraid of (and justifiably) is authoritarianism. And where the GOP misdirects everybody, and I believe you (6ft) are getting caught up, is in the fact that in modern times, almost every "successful" authoritarian take-over of a country has been done under the banner of either socialism or communism.

The problem with socialist and communist based political systems is that they require/justify a tremendous amount of centralization of decision making power. If you are a wanna-be dictator, the best way to seize power is to promote socialism/communism and start centralizing power under the auspices of "fairness". Once the decision-making power is consolidated, you can do as you please.....

My observation is that in the US we tend to be more comfortable with socialist enterprises that are locally administered. I think that is part of the idiot-savant nature of your average US citizen. Joe Sixpack tends to intuitively understand that power like that is more easily controlled when it is localized. In the US we have the best of both worlds, because when locally administered socialist enterprises go astray (think public schools in the 60's) the local citizens can go to the feds for protection (BrownvBoard of Education).

When the Federal Government has that power - who do we go to when it is abused?

[HooDat]

Some random idiot—How about all the democrats now running for President

heard a great saying today. maybe the best I have ever heard:

if you make something idiot proof, they'll just make a better idiot.....


I plan to use that one A LOT!

[a fan]

Once again for Keerists sake. The modern left. Everything they say that will be free means government will provide it to the exclusion of the private sector. How are you so obtuse?

Yeah, I'm the problem here, alright. Where are you coming up with this stuff? Ever been to Europe? Do they have private companies?

And yet they manage just fine to provide health care and advanced education for free. What you are telling me here is: that's impossible, and that doesn't exist.

Have you never left the lower 48, or something? Are you this out of the loop on how the world works?


Find someone----not some random idiot---who says they are going to ban Nike, Starbucks, McDonalds, Ford, and even my tiny business.

Some random idiot—How about all the democrats now running for President

Aaaaaand, 6ft realizes he's just throwing a temper tantrum, and can't give a quote where anyone in the Dem party says they want to ban Nike, as well as every small business like mine.

You're just screaming "get off my lawn". You're barking at something that doesn't exist. Why don't you give me your REAL definition of socialism: if the Republicans do it, it's totally cool. If the Dems do it? OhMiGod!! Socialists!!

Meanwhile, your Republican party is giving out trillion more in handouts than Obama did.....and you don't care.

Boy, do Trump and the Republicans have your number, or what?

[a fan]

My observation is that in the US we tend to be more comfortable with socialist enterprises that are locally administered. I think that is part of the idiot-savant nature of your average US citizen. Joe Sixpack tends to intuitively understand that power like that is more easily controlled when it is localized. In the US we have the best of both worlds, because when locally administered socialist enterprises go astray (think public schools in the 60's) the local citizens can go to the feds for protection (BrownvBoard of Education).

When the Federal Government has that power - who do we go to when it is abused?

The ballot box. Same as we do for the local government.

[6ftstick]

Some random idiot—How about all the democrats now running for President

heard a great saying today. maybe the best I have ever heard:

if you make something idiot proof, they'll just make a better idiot.....


I plan to use that one A LOT!

Are you calling afan an idiot

[runrussellrun]

You mean like schools, the use of roads, trash pick up.... you cut a check to the police when you make a call? or the fire department? When my apartment was broken into, I could not believe what the police charged me to come out and tell me it must have been an old girlfriend..... he was an a**hole.

Trash pick up? The poor towns of eastern Massachusettes have no such thing. The humanity of it all. Poor Lincoln, Weston........they have to fend for themselves and hire "private" curb side pick up.

[runrussellrun]

Once again for Keerists sake. The modern left. Everything they say that will be free means government will provide it to the exclusion of the private sector. How are you so obtuse?

Yeah, I'm the problem here, alright. Where are you coming up with this stuff? Ever been to Europe? Do they have private companies?

And yet they manage just fine to provide health care and advanced education for free. What you are telling me here is: that's impossible, and that doesn't exist.

Have you never left the lower 48, or something? Are you this out of the loop on how the world works?


Find someone----not some random idiot---who says they are going to ban Nike, Starbucks, McDonalds, Ford, and even my tiny business.

Some random idiot—How about all the democrats now running for President

ALL ???

Tulsi Gabbard doesn't utter FREE anything. Prove me wrong.

[MDlaxfan76]

So that means by definition, that we are already a Socio-Capitalistic Democracy.

Been saying that for years. No one will listen. Least of all guys like 6ftstick who thinks that he, and he alone, gets to decide what the word Socialism means.

Nah, guys like 6ft aren’t deciding anything ‘alone’.
Not when someone else, like Fox News, can tell him what to think.

Sorry, 6ft, couldn’t resist.

Sorry MD this is Websters definition of Socialism not Fox news or afans

socialism noun
so·​cial·​ism | \ ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm \
Definition of socialism
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

Lets see that would be like government taking over the health insurance segment. With NO non government alternatives.

Ohh, but that's indeed quite the point. We're already a democratic socialist system.

Government owns, administers, controls, regulates all sorts of aspects of our otherwise capitalist economy and within a democratic framework of government.

We meet definition 1, not the rest.

Healthcare is already heavily regulated, and major portions of insurance are already 'administered' by government.

If healthcare does get insured through a Medicare for all, with no private alternative allowed by law, then indeed that insurance would be 'controlled' not simply regulated (as it is now). It's a further extension of what we already do.

Now, that doesn't mean that all healthcare, all hospitals, all doctors offices, etc are 'owned' by government, but how they get paid would indeed be controlled in a more centralized way.

But sure, this could get further extended to no privately owned hospitals, doctors offices, etc.

But the point is that the US has already adopted socialism as an important part of the economic/government construct.

The questions that we wrestle with are not socialism or no socialism, but rather when and how much governmental involvement is beneficial and when and how much can be harmful.

It needn't be a rejection of capitalism, rather socialism is a modification on capitalism. At least under definition 1.

Go to no private ownership of anything, whole other matter.

BS. You and afan insist on duming down the definition to fit your agenda. Socialism is where the new democrats are taking us. everything they promise as free means government controlled to the exclusion of private industry.

Well, I don't really like you saying "BS" to something I've said, thoughtfully. But ok, you disagree.
And I don't we're "duming" down anything by explaining that we're a mixed economy, as are most all modern economies (hard to think of one no mixed!).

Do you really think that any of the se politicians, AOC, Bernie, Warren...any of them...actually advocate for total ownership of ALL means of production, the elimination of private property and enterprise?

I don't.
I see them advocating for somewhat more "socialism" where they think it makes sense to do so. But not to the exclusion of all private property and private enterprise, nor even in that specific sector.

Take for instance the police. No one seems to have a problem with the police force being government 'owned' and provided "free". Yet, we also have private security firms, private armored car operators, private 'police' forces on college campuses, etc.

How about fire depts? In some jurisdictions, 100% provided free by government, employed by gov't. In others, it may be a wholly volunteer operation. I'm not aware of many private enterprise fire departments, but I don't think they're exactly outlawed. But would it make the same sense as a 'socialist' service? Are we complaining that government has no place in providing this collective assurance of fire response? Nope.

So many examples, it's exhausting.

The question is simply what capabilities and services it makes sense to provide collectively through government and which are better delivered through wholly private enterprise. No is arguing for no private enterprise. At least not any of these lefty Dems we seem to think are so radical.

[MDlaxfan76]

My observation is that in the US we tend to be more comfortable with socialist enterprises that are locally administered. I think that is part of the idiot-savant nature of your average US citizen. Joe Sixpack tends to intuitively understand that power like that is more easily controlled when it is localized. In the US we have the best of both worlds, because when locally administered socialist enterprises go astray (think public schools in the 60's) the local citizens can go to the feds for protection (BrownvBoard of Education).

When the Federal Government has that power - who do we go to when it is abused?

The ballot box. Same as we do for the local government.

boy, that's too logical.

[Typical Lax Dad]

You mean like schools, the use of roads, trash pick up.... you cut a check to the police when you make a call? or the fire department? When my apartment was broken into, I could not believe what the police charged me to come out and tell me it must have been an old girlfriend..... he was an a**hole.

Trash pick up? The poor towns of eastern Massachusettes have no such thing. The humanity of it all. Poor Lincoln, Weston........they have to fend for themselves and hire "private" curb side pick up.

Same boat.... I am cheap. Transfer station every few weeks......

[MDlaxfan76]

ya'll are arguing past one another....


afan, et al are talking about an economic system. Or, more specifically, our hybrid economic system that blends capitalism with some degree of regulatory state and socialist mandate.

6ft is talking about hwat has become shorthand for a political system

but 6ft - you have it wrong my friend. What you are afraid of (and justifiably) is authoritarianism. And where the GOP misdirects everybody, and I believe you (6ft) are getting caught up, is in the fact that in modern times, almost every "successful" authoritarian take-over of a country has been done under the banner of either socialism or communism.

The problem with socialist and communist based political systems is that they require/justify a tremendous amount of centralization of decision making power. If you are a wanna-be dictator, the best way to seize power is to promote socialism/communism and start centralizing power under the auspices of "fairness". Once the decision-making power is consolidated, you can do as you please.....

My observation is that in the US we tend to be more comfortable with socialist enterprises that are locally administered. I think that is part of the idiot-savant nature of your average US citizen. Joe Sixpack tends to intuitively understand that power like that is more easily controlled when it is localized. In the US we have the best of both worlds, because when locally administered socialist enterprises go astray (think public schools in the 60's) the local citizens can go to the feds for protection (BrownvBoard of Education).

When the Federal Government has that power - who do we go to when it is abused?

I quite agree that authoritarianism should be the real concern, not the label or come-on used by the politicians to achieve authoritarian control.

But quick question: what do you mean by "modern age" and "successful"?
Are you including fascism?

Are you including right wing dictatorships in South America, Asia, Africa, ME?

Populism may be more of what you're searching for as a concept on how the rising dictators often come to power, (left or right populists) but sometimes it's via military coup.

I don't care how authoritarianism happens to come to power, I think it needs to be resisted at every turn.
But that doesn't mean that a mixed economy can't or shouldn't have government regulation or taxpayer paid 'free' services, or direct government long term investments.

We need to be careful about individual liberties and protection of minorities from the tyranny of majorities, but otherwise the tinkering with how best to run a modern economy is all fair and good. We live in an evolving world, with all sorts of change. We need to adapt and compete in order to succeed, not sit on past laurels.

[Trinity]

Russian strategy—divide Americans by race
Trump’s strategy-divide Americans by race