Best Post Of The Day...

[Derideo_Te]

Best Post of the Day is here in the Clean Debate Zone because these posts should be rated on Substance and Content. Yes, your opinions will be different but that is where the fun comes in. We get to pit the best of the best against each other. We don't all read the same threads so this way we can share any outstanding posts that we consider worth reading with each other. This way we can all benefit from the best of the best that USMB has to offer.

When you see a post that expresses a point in a well thought out manner and adds value via the content then it deserves to be included in this thread. And for those of us who prefer good debate over name calling these Best Posts can be used as a jumping off point for interesting conversations.

Posts that are flaming and/or trolling are not allowed per the CDZ rules therefore they are eliminated.

I am going to send out an invite to many posters who I believe would be interested and then delete that post so that it cannot be copied.

The second post in this thread is going to be what I just read this morning and consider it be a nominee for the Best Post of Day. I have provided a link to the original, an @Mention to the original author of the post, a hyperlink and in bold blue I have indicated the start and end of the quoted text from the post.

Thank you for participating and have fun.
DT

 

[Derideo_Te]

@Bfgrn nominated for Best Post of the Day!

Do You View Socialism Positively Page 9 US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

[Start of QUOTE="Bfgrn, post: 9832167, member: 19018"]

Make your point.

Walk me through it.

No games.

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The paragraph I posted does a good job of explaining socialism.

"Socialism is not a political system, it's a way of distributing goods and services."

Here is an expanded view...

What is Socialism?
Central to the meaning of socialism is common ownership. This means the resources of the world being owned in common by the entire global population.

But does it really make sense for everybody to own everything in common? Of course, some goods tend to be for personal consumption, rather than to share—clothes, for example. People 'owning' certain personal possessions does not contradict the principle of a society based upon common ownership.

In practice, common ownership will mean everybody having the right to participate in decisions on how global resources will be used. It means nobody being able to take personal control of resources, beyond their own personal possessions.

Democratic control is therefore also essential to the meaning of socialism. Socialism will be a society in which everybody will have the right to participate in the social decisions that affect them. These decisions could be on a wide range of issues—one of the most important kinds of decision, for example, would be how to organise the production of goods and services.

Production under socialism would be directly and solely for use. With the natural and technical resources of the world held in common and controlled democratically, the sole object of production would be to meet human needs. This would entail an end to buying, selling and money. Instead, we would take freely what we had communally produced. The old slogan of "from each according to ability, to each according to needs" would apply.

So how would we decide what human needs are? This question takes us back to the concept of democracy, for the choices of society will reflect their needs. These needs will, of course, vary among different cultures and with individual preferences—but the democratic system could easily be designed to provide for this variety.

We cannot, of course, predict the exact form that would be taken by this future global democracy. The democratic system will itself be the outcome of future democratic decisions. We can however say that it is likely that decisions will need to be taken at a number of different levels—from local to global. This would help to streamline the democratic participation of every individual towards the issues that concern them.

In socialism, everybody would have free access to the goods and services designed to directly meet their needs and there need be no system of payment for the work that each individual contributes to producing them. All work would be on a voluntary basis. Producing for needs means that people would engage in work that has a direct usefulness. The satisfaction that this would provide, along with the increased opportunity to shape working patterns and conditions, would bring about new attitudes to work.

- See more at: What is Socialism World Socialist Movement

That's a lovely cut & paste and all, but you didn't answer my question.

In your own words, please walk me through what you posted:

In socialism, "more people have some say in how the economy works"

If you're not going to do this, or if you can't, just say so, and I won't burn any more time on this.

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What is so hard to understand? Socialism means EVERYONE has an equal say in how goods and services are distributed.

Come on.

In socialism, HOW does everyone have an equal say in how goods and services are distributed? Precisely?

And your affection for socialism is clear. Fair enough to say you would join Franco and MikeK and proclaiming you're a socialist?

Two very clear questions, easy to answer.

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In pure socialism, there is no private ownership. Pure socialism calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources.

I am not a socialist. I am a liberal and a capitalist. What I strongly believe in is democracy; everyone has a say in how their government works. I believe in free and open elections. I believe our founding fathers understood that a pure democracy was not the best model. That is why the form of democracy they chose was a representative republic. Beliefs I have that could be called 'socialist' has to do with our environment. They are beliefs that go all the way back to the Magna Carta...the rule of the commons; the air we breath, the water we drink, the soil we seed. The 'commons' are owned by all of us.



The most insightful and in depth understanding of a true free market comes from one of my favorite liberals, an environmental lawyer who is a member of my favorite liberal family.

I urge you to read the whole speech.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"I want to say this: There is no stronger advocate for free-market capitalism than myself. I believe that the free market is the most efficient and democratic way to distribute the goods of the land, and that the best thing that could happen to the environment is if we had true free-market capitalism in this country, because the free market promotes efficiency, and efficiency means the elimination of waste, and pollution of course is waste. The free market also would encourage us to properly value our natural resources, and it's the undervaluation of those resources that causes us to use them wastefully. But in a true free-market economy, you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community.

But what polluters do is they make themselves rich by making everybody else poor. They raise standards of living for themselves by lowering the quality of life for everybody else, and they do that by evading the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter; I'll show you a subsidy. I'll show you a fat cat using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and to force the public to pay his production costs. That's what all pollution is. It's always a subsidy. It's always a guy trying to cheat the free market.

Corporations are externalizing machines. They're constantly figuring out ways to get somebody else to pay their costs of production. That's their nature. One of the best ways to do that, and the most common way for a polluter, is through pollution. When those coal-burning power plants put mercury into the atmosphere that comes down from the Ohio Valley to my state of New York, I buy a fishing license for $30 every year, but I can't go fishing and eat the fish anymore because they stole the fish from me. They liquidated a public asset, my asset.

The rule is the commons are owned by all of us. They're not owned by the governor or the legislator or the coal companies and the utility. Everybody has a right to use them. Nobody has a right to abuse them. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others. But they've stolen that entire resource from the people of New York State. When they put the acid rain in the air, it destroys our forest, and it destroys the lakes that we use for recreation or outfitting or tourism or wealth generation. When they put the mercury in the air, the mercury poisons our children's brains, and that imposes a cost on us. The ozone in particular has caused a million asthma attacks a year, kills 18,000 people, causes hundreds of thousands of lost work days. All of those impacts impose costs on the rest of us that in a true free-market economy should be reflected in the price of that company's product when it makes it to the marketplace.

What those companies and all polluters do is use political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and to force the public to pay their costs. All of the federal environmental laws, every one of the 28 major environmental laws, were designed to restore free-market capitalism in America by forcing actors in the marketplace to pay the true cost of bringing their product to market.

At Riverkeeper, we don't even consider ourselves environmentalists anymore. We're free marketers. We go out into the marketplace, we catch the cheaters, the polluters, and we say to them, "We're going to force you to internalize your costs the same way that you internalize your profits, because as long as somebody is cheating the free market, none of us get the advantages of the efficiency and the democracy and the prosperity that the free market otherwise promises our country. What we have to understand as a nation is that there is a huge difference between free-market capitalism, which democratizes a country, which makes us more prosperous and efficient, and the kind of corporate-crony capitalism which has been embraced by this (Bush) White House, which is as antithetical to democracy, to prosperity, and efficiency in America as it is in Nigeria.

There is nothing wrong with corporations. Corporations are a good thing. They encourage us to take risks. They maximize wealth. They create jobs. I own a corporation. They're a great thing, but they should not be running our government. The reason for that is they don't have the same aspirations for America that you and I do. A corporation does not want democracy. It does not want free markets, it wants profits, and the best way for it to get profits is to use our campaign-finance system -- which is just a system of legalized bribery -- to get their stakes, their hooks into a public official and then use that public official to dismantle the marketplace to give them a competitive advantage and then to privatize the commons, to steal the commonwealth, to liquidate public assets for cash, to plunder, to steal from the rest of us.

And that doesn't mean corporations are a bad thing. It just means they're amoral, and we have to recognize that and not let them into the political process. Let them do their thing, but they should not be participating in our political process, because a corporation cannot do something genuinely philanthropic. It's against the law in this country, because their shareholders can sue them for wasting corporate resources. They cannot legally do anything that will not increase their profit margins. That's the way the law works, and we have to recognize that and understand that they are toxic for the political process, and they have to be fenced off and kept out of the political process. This is why throughout our history our most visionary political leaders -- Republican and Democrat -- have been warning the American public against domination by corporate power.

And what we have to understand as Americans is that the domination of business by government is called communism. The domination of government by business is called fascism. And our job is to walk that narrow trail in between, which is free-market capitalism and democracy. And keep big government at bay with our right hand and corporate power at bay with our left.

In order to do that, we need an informed public and an activist public. And we need a vigorous and an independent press that is willing to speak truth to power. And we no longer have that in the United States of America. And that's something that puts all the values we care about in jeopardy, because you cannot have a clean environment if you do not have a functioning democracy. They are intertwined; they go together. There is a direct correlation around the planet between the level of tyranny and the level of environmental destruction.

The only way you can protect the environment is through a true, locally based democracy. You can protect it for a short term under a tyranny, where there is some kind of beneficent dictator but, over the long term, the only way we can protect the environment is by ensuring our democracy. That has got to be the number-one issue for all of us: to try to restore American democracy, because without that we lose all of the other things that we value."

[End of QUOTEd Text]

 

[percysunshine]

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So ... how do we vote on these? The first one looked pretty good, but I do not know what will come next.

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[Derideo_Te]

Mertex, Spoonman, Sherry, aaronleland, Wolfsister77, Luddly Neddite, RosieS, Wake, Statistikhengst, Ropey, Zander, pacer, Esmeralda, Howey, Jeremiah, Kondor3, pacer, drifter, Mac1958, Foxfyre, Pogo, Carla_Danger, jillian

 

[Derideo_Te]

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So ... how do we vote on these? The first one looked pretty good, but I do not know what will come next.

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Just do a Thanks on whichever you ones you like.

 

[Derideo_Te]

@rightwinger nominated for Best Post of the Day

Guide To The Liberal Mind Page 11 US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

[Start of QUOTE="rightwinger, post: 9812998, member: 20321"]

I know this, it's why I shudder when republicans say that they will bring big business values to government. Capitalism is amoral by your definition, do you want an amoral government concerned only with cash flow? I don't, I want a government that is concerned with the well being of it's citizens. Remember them? Those things that republicans and democrats alike are fond of calling "consumers".

I want an amoral government only concerned with cash flow and the limited power it is granted under the constitution. Let the people define their own morals and address their own social concerns, it's not the government's place. Whenever government becomes involved in "do-good-ism" it fails. We have countless examples of that.

You say you're concerned with the "well being" of citizens, but repeatedly we've seen one liberal initiative after another fail to produce results. We've spent upwards of $20 trillion on social entitlement programs and we have as many people living in poverty as before we started. We're now spending $13,000 per child for education that lags behind the rest of the industrialized world. We've totally priced ourselves out of the manufacturing sector with unionized labor. On and on, one liberal initiative to "help people" after another has failed to help anyone but the politicians who continue to dangle a carrot for idiots like yourself, and push us closer and closer to totalitarian socialism and away from constitutional freedom.

We have spent many more trillions on the military and yet, we still have wars

I'd rather spend money on our people

Tell me, when was the last conflagration on US soil?
Ok, now that you've gotten that one, now you know why a strong military is essential to keep it that way...By keeping our armed forces equipped, we in effect spending money on the people.

We have not been invaded by a foreign power in 200 years

Hard to justify a military that is more powerful than the next ten nations combined.
By keeping our armed forces so equipped we are denying money to help our people

[End of QUOTEd Text]

 

[percysunshine]

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So ... how do we vote on these? The first one looked pretty good, but I do not know what will come next.

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Just do a Thanks on whichever you ones you like.

Ok. I guess I will hang back for a while and see what the field looks like before I start thanking posts.

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[deltex1]

On which "common" is health care located? Or education.

 

[deltex1]

Mertex, Spoonman, Sherry, aaronleland, Wolfsister77, Luddly Neddite, RosieS, Wake, Statistikhengst, Ropey, Zander, pacer, Esmeralda, Howey, Jeremiah, Kondor3, pacer, drifter, Mac1958, Foxfyre, Pogo, Carla_Danger, Esmeralda, jillian

Only liberals?

 

[eagle1462010]

Depends on the eyes of the holder. The OP is currently slanting left.......Would the Op care to balance the scales to prove impartiality.

 

[percysunshine]

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I noticed Esmerelda was listed twice. Maybe she gets two votes...chuckle

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[Derideo_Te]

Mertex, Spoonman, Sherry, aaronleland, Wolfsister77, Luddly Neddite, RosieS, Wake, Statistikhengst, Ropey, Zander, pacer, Esmeralda, Howey, Jeremiah, Kondor3, pacer, drifter, Mac1958, Foxfyre, Pogo, Carla_Danger, Esmeralda, jillian

Only liberals?

No, only those who want to be included in my @Mention thread. If you want to be added to the list of @mentions just click on the @sign in my siggie and choose which list you want to be on.

Oh, and Spoonman, Mac1958, Sherry, Foxfyre, Jeremiah, Wake, Zander and Kondor would not be happy that you called them liberals.

 

[percysunshine]

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Things are looking up. So far, I have the most thanks on this thread, and I wasn't even nominated.

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[Mertex]

Only liberals?

You must not know those who lean right. I see several right-leaning names. I deleted them because I didn't want them to get tagged again, and now I can't see them to point them out.....but there are several.

 

[Mertex]

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I noticed Esmerelda was listed twice. Maybe she gets two votes...chuckle

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They are not getting votes....they are getting flagged........duh!

 

[Mac1958]

So quoting someone else qualifies as Post of the Day?

Wow, low standards.

Meh.

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[Derideo_Te]

So quoting someone else qualifies as Post of the Day?

Wow, low standards.

Meh.

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The standard is Content and Substance. As long as the source is credited the Content and Substance stand on their merits.

I didn't expect that everyone would agree on what constitutes the Best Post of the Day which is why I invited others to provide their own examples. If I learn something that I never knew before that is a good thing in my opinion.

 

[SmarterThanTheAverageBear]

I propose this Award be named The Bear. I mean I'm going to be winning it most days anyway

 

[LoneLaugher]

I nominate this post.

after America There Is No Place To Go US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

It turned what was promising to be YET ANOTHER weirdo thread about how the USA is turning into NAZI Germany....into a super-duper joke thread. With one brilliant stroke.

 

[Derideo_Te]

I propose this Award be named The Bear. I mean I'm going to be winning it most days anyway

If you want your own award thread no one is stopping you from starting one. From what I have gathered you could probably manage to make every post in it all by yourself too. That alone will probably be some kind of accomplishment. You could call it "Don't Feed the Bears" and and have a sign about "Beware of the Bears". I don't know if you could bear your own company entirely alone in that thread but at least it would give you an opportunity to bare your feelings and let us all know about the burdens you have to bear because you are smarter than average.