Are Social Security, unemployment insurance, and Medicare "socialism?"

China Joe said:
Yup, you're jealous. And that explains your love of socialism completely. Everyone who is more successful than you obviously got that way by stealing from others. And since you're virtuous, and won't steal, it is the reason why you are less successful. This has to stop, and socialism is the way to do it.

:evilnod:
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Must be weird, living amongst the sort of shits who borrow money to show off in big cars and spend all their time trying to stretch their poor battered dicks to make them the biggest in Little Shit Creek.
I'm not short of anything I want, poor old peasant. You after a handout to buy a new dick-stretcher, or just at a loose end till you can rob another traveller? Jesus wept!
 
Iolo/Penderyn said:
Must be weird, living amongst the sort of shits who borrow money to show off in big cars and spend all their time trying to stretch their poor battered dicks to make them the biggest in Little Shit Creek.
I'm not short of anything I want, poor old peasant. You after a handout to buy a new dick-stretcher, or just at a loose end till you can rob another traveller? Jesus wept!
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Who did you steal it from? Or perhaps, like most wealthy Europeans, you inherited it from your ancestors who stole it, as you know.
 
Nordberg said:
Socialism does not exist. Countries that we pin that label to just give more of their countries wealth to healthcare, education, and public programs to help the masses. In America, we funnel that money to the top 1 percent. That is the path to oligarchy, not freedom and peace.
People in socialist" countries go to work as you do. Their products are sold across the globe. Did you ever hear of Volvo, Ikea, Electrolux, or play with a Rubik's cube? If you want to defend our system over theirs, do not use labels. Just admit you are at peace with us creating a fabulously wealthy class at the expense of the workers.
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Agree in part. Socialism does not exist any more than capitalism exists. Every economic system is a hybrid. The classic definition of government fully controlling means of production is probably a bit outdated, since we are no longer a manufacturing economy. Government controls many of our services, and in that respect, those programs can be considered 'socialist'. I'm not sure when socialism became a dirty word. There are simply certain roles that government should assume to ensure equal access to services. We don't go as far as those 'socialist' European countries, in that we don't provide single payer health care and we don't provide communications infrastructure. But the OPs point is valid.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
What English deficiencies other than vocabulary make nonsense of your communication attempts?
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If you have a problem with the United States having Social Safety-Net programs, why don't you just say so, and we can discuss that, without you calling the United States a Socialist Country because we have Social Safety-Net programs such as Social Security etc.?

THAT IS THE MENTALITY OF A REPUBLITARD.
 
Concart said:
Agree in part. Socialism does not exist any more than capitalism exists. Every economic system is a hybrid. The classic definition of government fully controlling means of production is probably a bit outdated, since we are no longer a manufacturing economy. Government controls many of our services, and in that respect, those programs can be considered 'socialist'. I'm not sure when socialism became a dirty word. There are simply certain roles that government should assume to ensure equal access to services. We don't go as far as those 'socialist' European countries, in that we don't provide single payer health care and we don't provide communications infrastructure. But the OPs point is valid.
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Nope. The preamble talks about America promoting the general welfare. Our country was founded on that. It precedes the Constitution. That general welfare clause has appeared in the Supreme Court regularly.
Not supplying universal healthcare is a costly problem, We spend double and many have none at all. Many have substandard healthcare. We can and should do better, but the money and lobbying power of Hospitals orgs., PHARM, and others making big bucks off medical are powerful and so far, keep winning. Our system is breaking us. It should be fixed.
 
Nordberg said:
Nope. The preamble talks about America promoting the general welfare. Our country was founded on that. It precedes the Constitution. That general welfare clause has appeared in the Supreme Court regularly.
Not supplying universal healthcare is a costly problem, We spend double and many have none at all. Many have substandard healthcare. We can and should do better, but the money and lobbying power of Hospitals orgs., PHARM, and others making big bucks off medical are powerful and so far, keep winning. Our system is breaking us. It should be fixed.
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Personally, I think this whole thing is a semantics discussion. We all understand what social safety net programs and general welfare programs do and why we have them. It doesn't matter to me what they are called. With respect to health care, yes, our system is broken, because it is based on flawed premise that employers should be the providers of health insurance. As a starting point, we need single payer. How far you want to go on the provider side is a different discussion; personally most of those problems are solved by making the payer side single payer.
 
I want to add my two bits to the discussion of socialism. The Author of this thread quoted that our Social Safety programs are SOCIALISM!

I mean, I get it that Social Security and other Safety-Net programs are often called Socialism, However, those people would be incorrect. These programs are “social programs,” and “safety nets.” The system we are evolving here is Democratic Socialism, where the means of production remains securely in the hands of private capital. Private capital is the chief employer in the U.S., not the government. The U.S. government is simply the point of transfer and distribution of taxes paid to provide the programs and federal infrastructure necessary in a large and complex society and economy as we are. Private capital cannot be relied upon to provide needed safety nets or security, in most cases. Albeit labor unions can promote these things.

Socialism is sometimes confused with communism, but they are very different systems. Communism, ideally, holds the means of production in “common” by people, or worker owned and shared. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” as defined my Karl Marx. Such a system has never been achieved on a large scale. Socialism is government owned means of production, and government is the chief employer, such as North Korea.

Ours is a balance between public and private. Maintaining that balance is the challenge we face, as many on the right want to tip the balance in favor of the private at the expense of the public, and the left wants to maintain a balance that benefits all.
 
Geeko Sportivo said:
If you have a problem with the United States having Social Safety-Net programs, why don't you just say so, and we can discuss that, without you calling the United States a Socialist Country because we have Social Safety-Net programs such as Social Security etc.?

THAT IS THE MENTALITY OF A REPUBLITARD.
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As a Social Democrat, I obviously favor expansion of the social safety net.
The social safety net is socialism by definition.
The private sector is capitalism by definition.
And if you're a complete fucktard illiterate troglodyte,
as you most certainly are, lizard face,
you can't speak intelligible English and thus believe that the two are mutually exclusive.
 
Socialism has just become a label that wealthy affix to any programs that help the masses. We have the worst social programs of the industrial countries. That is because the wealthy and corporations control the media. They own it all. https://beta.cjr.org/resources/?c=comcast This shows corporations own the newspapers, magazines, Tv stations, magazines, radio and Movie studios. That is and national and local levels. It is a delusion to think we have anything resembling a free press.
 
Nordberg said:
Socialism is a label the rightys use to fire up people who do not understand what it is. They use that label on programs that help the people instead of leaking money to the rich and powerful. "I don't know what it is, but I don't like it." Americans are just that easy to play.
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This is what frustrates me the most about Republican voters. Republican politicians are clearly manipulating them and they don't even see it.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
As a Social Democrat, I obviously favor expansion of the social safety net.
The social safety net is socialism by definition.
The private sector is capitalism by definition.
And if you're a complete fucktard illiterate troglodyte,
as you most certainly are, lizard face,
you can't speak intelligible English and thus believe that the two are mutually exclusive.
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Hang in there Bernie Bot, and thanks for voting with the Democrats in 2020.

Biden has said he wants to keep all of Bernie's progressive policy ideas in the 1.9 trillion dollar Stimulus Bill and he certainly hasn't backed down.

And Chuck Schumer has not back tracked anything either. And every Democrat House and Senate member are not backing down.

But, Bernie is the Senior Senator Spokesman for these progressive policies, and he still has a lot of convincing Republicans to go yet to get any kind of Non-Partisan YAY's on the Republican side!

But the good news- THE DEMOCRATS DO NOT NEED ANY YAY's from the Republicans- even though it would be nice to have some!

We'll see what happens.
 
floridafan said:
You can also add in the Veterans Administration
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The VA is different. Veterans are eligible for coverage as previous employees of the military who attained this benefit as a part of contracted service. This is no different than an employer giving benefits to employees who complete a contracted period of service.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
That's EXACTLY what all three of those things are.

If you support them, you are to some extent a socialist, and also in the significant American majority.

If you don't support them, you are a right wing extremist.

And if you do support them but refuse to acknowledge that they're socialism, then, without any room for argument, you're a fucking idiot.
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Yes they are socialism. So what? If I had invested every dollar stolen from me for SS and that other shit I'd be retired by now but as it is I intended to get as much of money back as possible. Fuck that
 
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