Conservatives are Socialists

[M14 Shooter]

Well first of all, it's not MY definition. It's what Wikipedia says,

You said:

That's YOUR definition, which differs from..."Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy."

Socialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But you failed to post the remainder of the definition:

"Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these.

As you can see, this added criteria covers my definition.

Even with a million words, you cannot show this to be true.

Thus:
Your premise is unsound because it hinges on an invalid, botique defintion designed to fit said premise.

The end.

 

[SwimExpert]

Could Boss have possibly lost his mind? What the hell, man? How can he possibly explain this argument? It appears to completely fly in the face of conventional wisdom and is a contradiction of terms. How can Conservatives be Socialists? Well, this is what we shall examine in this OP.

First, let's clarify a few things. Socialism as we know it, is an ideology. It is the notion that top-down government control of things is more beneficial to the people than private sector control. Conservatism is not an ideology, it is a way of thinking, a philosophy rather than ideology. It is the belief in pragmatic time-tested solutions which have proven to provide results. Therefore, a Conservative can indeed believe in pragmatic socialistic remedies for particular problems, if the socialistic remedies are effective and work.

We often hear liberals chortle about roads, police, fire departments, snow plows... all being "socialist" yet widely supported and embraced by all in society, including Conservatives. This is true, and I will add a few more things as well; our military, Supreme Court, Congress, and the Constitution itself. All of these things are "socialist" in that, they deal with the collective as opposed to the individual or private sector.

So what is the Conservative beef with Socialism? Well, it's the ideology itself. It is the false belief that any and all things are better under a socialistic system. Some things are better but some things are not. Many things, particularly regarding our freedom and economy, are better handled through private enterprise, free markets, respectful of individual liberty. Conservatives believe this because history has proven them to be true. Some socialist measures work precisely because free market capitalism enables them to work.

Let's take the fire departments for example. Governments don't just assume the role of providing protection against fires. Communities get together and raise revenue through mutual taxation to fund a fire department. There has to be private sector capitalism happening first, to enable a tax base by which a portion can be used to fund a fire department. If there is no private sector capitalism happening, where does the money come from to pay the firemen or buy equipment?

The same thing can be said of roads, police, schools and snow plows. Without the capitalist engaging in free market trade, there is no tax revenue to fund these things. So a purely socialistic society cannot work because governments have no means of income production. We know this is true because of history, it was attempted under Chairman Mao Zedong in China. He believed that society could share the burden of production for a centralized government who would ensure everyone was cared for adequately without the need for capitalism. The experiment resulted in dismal failure and the deaths of over 50 million people.

What happens is "human nature." Without capitalism, the people who are supposed to be providing the means of production become demotivated. There is no reward for working harder. It becomes the motivational goal to simply do what is required and remain alive. Because there is no capitalistic push or drive, this eventually results in shortfalls and the people discover there is not enough to go around. Meanwhile, those who are in charge of distribution have full access to resources and they tend to look out for number one. Over time, the system devolves into two classes: The Ruling Class Elite and the Peasant Class.

As people, we have needs and wants. A "need" is something that is required, a "want" is something that is desired. They are two different birds. A free market capitalist free enterprise system, which the Conservatives believe in, can provide the financial underpinning for those things which general society needs. This is where "general welfare" comes in. Those things which we can all agree are needed by all, that benefit all of us in society, and we can use tax revenues to collectively pay for and handle without much burden to the individual. Yes, that is socialistic, but there is nothing wrong with it.

The problem is when socialistic ideology spills over from our "needs" to our "wants" and attempts to provide cradle-to-grave entitlement. It's the pollyannish thinking that we can somehow give everyone everything their hearts desire and the wealthy can somehow pay for it all. Since the wealthy obviously have a finite amount of wealth, this road has a dead end at some point. Besides, the wealthy are mostly motivated by capitalism, and when you begin providing everyone with everything their hearts desire, you effectively kill capitalist motivation. Why work hard and earn wealth when everything is being given to you? If your needs have been met and you have no wants, then there is little to motivate you.

Conservatives are Socialist, in that they do believe in certain measures to ensure societal needs are met, but they believe this is better accomplished through free market capitalism, generating economic prosperity and growth, producing capitalist revenue which can be used collectively to handle those needs. It is through the freedom of capitalism that we believe it is possible to have limited socialist systems to cover these needs. Not only do conservatives believe it is better, we believe it is ultimately the only thing that works.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI0RoJz7Tno]Billy Madison - Best insult ever! I award you no points - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Vox]

Conservatives are Socialist, in that they do believe in certain measures to ensure societal needs are met, but they believe this is better accomplished through free market capitalism, generating economic prosperity and growth, producing capitalist revenue which can be used collectively to handle those needs. It is through the freedom of capitalism that we believe it is possible to have limited socialist systems to cover these needs. Not only do conservatives believe it is better, we believe it is ultimately the only thing that works.

Wrong.

If the societal needs are met by means of the free market and democratic institutions - it is NOT socialism - it is social-democratism.

It is a humongous difference.

Please, do not mislabel totally different economic systems.

 

[Vox]

and just to add - roads, police, army et cetera - are and NEVER HAVE BEEN SOCIALIST - they are COMMUNAL and humankind have had communal property and institutions since we have lived in caves.

I can understand that ignorant brainwashed leftards will propagate this nonsense( because they are generally extremely stupid) but, please, please, please, do not support their idiocy in naming communal institutions and organizations as "socialist".

 

[Boss]

Conservatives are Socialist, in that they do believe in certain measures to ensure societal needs are met, but they believe this is better accomplished through free market capitalism, generating economic prosperity and growth, producing capitalist revenue which can be used collectively to handle those needs. It is through the freedom of capitalism that we believe it is possible to have limited socialist systems to cover these needs. Not only do conservatives believe it is better, we believe it is ultimately the only thing that works.

Wrong.

If the societal needs are met by means of the free market and democratic institutions - it is NOT socialism - it is social-democratism.

It is a humongous difference.

Please, do not mislabel totally different economic systems.

But I wasn't talking about the overall economic system. Social-democratism is a form of socialism. Again, see the definition posted earlier from Wikipedia.

Societal need of a U.S. Armed Forces is not met by free market and democratic institutions. It is met by our government collecting taxes from the people and paying for a military to benefit the collective. Whether the government is democratically elected or not, the military represents a socialist system. Social Security is a socialist system and it has been essentially transformed into a Marxist system, which is why it is now failing. Socialist systems can and do work, and have pragmatic benefits. Marxist systems fail. Liberals support Marxism.

 

[Boss]

and just to add - roads, police, army et cetera - are and NEVER HAVE BEEN SOCIALIST - they are COMMUNAL and humankind have had communal property and institutions since we have lived in caves.

I can understand that ignorant brainwashed leftards will propagate this nonsense( because they are generally extremely stupid) but, please, please, please, do not support their idiocy in naming communal institutions and organizations as "socialist".

Communal is another word for socialist. I agree, we've been doing that since the cave days.

Ignorant brainwashed libtards are bashing conservative brains in because they've hijacked the dialogue and we don't understand how to take it back. This starts by setting the record straight on the difference between socialist ideas and concepts and Socialism: The Ideology. Where certain things are best handled through a socialized system, like the military for example, other things are not. A Marxist Socialist believes that all things are best handled through socialized systems and top-down authoritarian control. It has become their ideology and this is the problem.

 

[Londoner]

The Reagan Revolution started with an agenda of asked for limited government, lower taxes and deregulation...

And we did exactly that. We lowered taxes from their postwar highs. We deregulated nearly every industry, and, through lobbying and election funding, we allowed business to virtually staff government and draft their own legislation. Please recall Chaney's famous energy commission that convened on the eve of the Iraq War, or the number of senators who become drug lobbyists. This was Reagan's dream: business and the state have merged.

We listened to Reagan. He said that if we get behind the suppliers, and if profits go up, than we would see corresponding job growth on Main Street (the "Trickle Down" theory). And guess what? Profits went up. Corporations exploited the tax loopholes, subsidies, bailouts and deregulation. We now have more millionaires and billionaires than ever, and our largest corporations have bigger budgets than many small countries. So what happened to the promised job growth on Main Street? The jobs slowly trickled to ultra cheap labor markets in freedom hating nations. Our capitalists got in bed with tyrants. Walmart gets the bulk of its goods made in China or some dictatorial variant like Taiwan. Indeed, read the labels on your clothing. Reagan gave the wealthy suppliers everything they wanted, and, they paid the nation back by selling the American Worker down river. As a result of all the lost jobs, the middle class consumer spent the last 30 years going deeper and deeper into debt. Don't take my word for it. Research what happened to household debt starting in the 80s.

Reagan's supply side movement did something very creepy as it shifted production to places with lower operating conditions (so that Nike and Apple could benefit from sweatshop labor costs). As it slowly began disenfranchising an entire class of Americans (who were handed credit cards to make up for the money that never trickled down), the Reagan Revolution created a vast network of think tanks and pop media assets (talk radio, FOX, blogosphere). This network was created to convince average Americans that the Conservative party cared about their interests whereas the Democrats were crooks, robbing from the productive in order to give welfare to parasites. Meanwhile, behind the curtain, the Reagan Revolution created a lobbying empire which turned Government into a subsidy and bailout machine for business. They socialized the costs and risks, but privatized the profits . . . and distracted the un-educated with tales of welfare queens . . . as they looted the treasury. More importantly, they cultivated a rabid, nativist voting block that would kill for them. These people have no idea how badly they've been fooled. They don't know who really owns government.

 

[Boss]

Londoner, all you are doing is spewing post-Reagan occutard propaganda. Reagan was never able to fully implement what he wanted to do, he had to work with a Democrat congress. What he did manage to push through, brought us out of the Carter malaise, where we had double-digit inflation and 21% prime interest rates, to the longest period of peacetime economic prosperity in American history. The effects lasted through the Bush presidency into Clinton's, and finally subsided after much of his policies were undone.

Cheney convened an energy task force to discuss the upcoming energy policy proposals of his administration. It's no different than any presidential administration has ever done, including the current one. We saw massive job growth under Reagan, the unemployment dropped to nearly 4%, which is essentially FULL employment. The middle class thrived, bought new homes, and yes... got credit cards and ran up debt. Reagan didn't advocate people do this, in fact he was instrumental in establishing 401k plans and long term investment strategies. Financial planners became popular under Reagan. Before that, you hardly ever heard of someone having a financial planner unless they were super wealthy.

Think tanks existed long before Reagan, and entities like Fox News and talk radio were the product of free market capitalism. Ronald Reagan had nothing to do with that. The privatizing of profits and socializing the cost and risks happened at the hands of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, not Ronald Reagan. The Reagan-era Republicans warned them of the potential disaster when they did it, and George W. Bush went right along with it anyway. The treasury had already been looted before Reagan came along, we need to go back to FDR to discover when that started happening.

Now we have a young generation who weren't even alive during Reagan, who are somehow enamored by Europeans and think you are cool, therefore, what you have to say must be relevant. What you are espousing are failed 19th century Marxist talking points that have never worked. Go turn the UK into the next great Marxist experiment and show us how wonderful it is, and leave America to hell alone.

 

[Vox]

and just to add - roads, police, army et cetera - are and NEVER HAVE BEEN SOCIALIST - they are COMMUNAL and humankind have had communal property and institutions since we have lived in caves.

I can understand that ignorant brainwashed leftards will propagate this nonsense( because they are generally extremely stupid) but, please, please, please, do not support their idiocy in naming communal institutions and organizations as "socialist".

Communal is another word for socialist. I agree, we've been doing that since the cave days.

Ignorant brainwashed libtards are bashing conservative brains in because they've hijacked the dialogue and we don't understand how to take it back. This starts by setting the record straight on the difference between socialist ideas and concepts and Socialism: The Ideology. Where certain things are best handled through a socialized system, like the military for example, other things are not. A Marxist Socialist believes that all things are best handled through socialized systems and top-down authoritarian control. It has become their ideology and this is the problem.

No, it is NOT.

Learn the BASICS, so you do not look so ignorant. Socialist is ALWAYS Marxist.
There is no other way around. Socialism has absolutely nothing to do with comunal property or communal functions of some services.

 

[AmericanFirst]

only ignorant, brainwashed ugly americans you guessed it pub dupes immediately go to communism as the meaning of socialism. The rest of the world recognizes that today socialism means well -regulated capitalism with a good safety net. Works a helluva lot better than a banana republic, what the greedy idiot rich new bs gop seems to want...

''we're all socialists now''- finland's pm when o-care passed.

idiot!!!!!

 

[Erand7899]

All this is nothing more than quibbling over the meaning of a word.

Which this board dearly loves to do since it gives clueless morons the sense that they have valid opinions about things of whch they know practically nothing.


According to most of the self proclaiming conservatives (sometimes Libertarians) socialism is any government behavior they personally disapprove of.

How convenient for them, eh?

Words do have meaning, and that is what we use them for. When different people have various concepts of what a word means, then it is proper to quibble over the definition. The word "socialism" has so many meanings, to so many people, that numerous books have been written in efforts to put real meaning to the word.

Merriam-Webster Definition of Socialism:


so·cial·ism
noun \ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm\

: a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies

Full 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

The prime definition removes public infrastructure and necessary governmental functions from the word socialism. Roads, street lights, police, fire fighters, and the military have no meaningful connection to control and/or administration of the means of production or the means of distribution. Nor do they impact on private property rights.

 

[Erand7899]

Sorry dude but since you don't even know what socialism is this thread is moot.

Well, no... actually, I think that I do know and it is you and others who don't know. What I have been trying to explain to the hardheaded, is the difference between socialistic concepts and the ideology of Socialism. You want to try and claim that socialistic concepts are something else, but they're not.

I believe that what you are doing is equating everything that is economically social as socialistic, and equating socialistic with the economic system of socialism.

A group of farmers joining forces and resources to build an irrigation ditch that benefits each participating farmer, is not socialism. It is corporation in its most basic form.

 

[Boss]

Sorry dude but since you don't even know what socialism is this thread is moot.

Well, no... actually, I think that I do know and it is you and others who don't know. What I have been trying to explain to the hardheaded, is the difference between socialistic concepts and the ideology of Socialism. You want to try and claim that socialistic concepts are something else, but they're not.

I believe that what you are doing is equating everything that is economically social as socialistic, and equating socialistic with the economic system of socialism.

A group of farmers joining forces and resources to build an irrigation ditch that benefits each participating farmer, is not socialism. It is corporation in its most basic form.

...collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

You just posted the definition then refuted it. Any system that is communal in nature, is a socialist system. It's not Marxist Socialism, but it is a socialist system. Now we can choose to call it something else because we don't like the word "socialism" but a rose by any other name is still a rose.

 

[Contumacious]

Sorry dude but since you don't even know what socialism is this thread is moot.

Well, no... actually, I think that I do know and it is you and others who don't know. What I have been trying to explain to the hardheaded, is the difference between socialistic concepts and the ideology of Socialism. You want to try and claim that socialistic concepts are something else, but they're not.

I believe that what you are doing is equating everything that is economically social as socialistic, and equating socialistic with the economic system of socialism.

A group of farmers joining forces and resources to build an irrigation ditch that benefits each participating farmer, is not socialism. It is corporation in its most basic form.

True.

However if the government MANDATES then it is fascism/socialism.

.