Is the United States Going in the Opposite Direction to the Rest of the World?

[82Marine89]

As the rest of the world is becoming more democratic and moves towards free market economies, socialism has gone mainstream in the United States.

We have known for years that the leadership of the Democrat Party favors world socialism. MoveOn.org is just the organized manifestation of that doctrinaire philosophy. If the MoveOn.org people get what they want next year, and there is a fairly high probability that they will, we may very well be making an irreversible move towards European-style socialism.

With a Democrat president and both houses of Congress, we might indeed get socialized health care, a surrender to the war against Islamo-Fascism, and the disabling of our economy for the hoax of man-made global warming. Like every other entitlement that this country has established, socialized health care, once adopted, will be perpetuated indefinitely. Social Security and Medicare alone are going to require a 30% tax rate to maintain within fifty years. Add socialized medicine, and you have Sweden in North America.

As Thomas Jefferson said over two centuries ago: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." The steps that the government might take in order to combat "man-made global warming" will seriously imperil the economic growth of our country. Add high tax rates; and the entrepreneurial spirit that has driven this country for over 200 years will be extinguished.

The reasons the MoveOn.orgs of the United States may get what they want in 2008 is due to the simultaneous alignment of the following:

Click for full text...

 

[JimH52]

and you can thank your boys bush and rove for that. Their method of governing has so infuriated the majority of the American people that a Dem take over may be in order.

As one of your candidates stated, this administration has been arrogant from the beginning. This is what the Neo-Cons wanted and now this is what the Neo-Cons will get.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

The republicans aren't exactly the bastion of economic freedom they market themselves as, either. The prescription drug plan was passed by republicans, spending (even domestic spending) has soared the last several years, Bush is now on board with global warming, there's more federal-level spending on education than ever before, etc. Overall, I can't think of anything done under Bush and the republicans which has been done to roll back the federal government's reach. There was a tax cut, but since government spending wasn't cut, the burden was merely shifted onto the hidden tax of borrowing and inflation.

Likewise, I don't think most of the democrats really want to leave Iraq. Pull back to isolated bases, and stop policing their cities, to reduce our casualties? Maybe. But a fullscale pullout? No. They've put up token resistance to the war, and token resistance to his wiretapping and so forth.

Aside from rhetoric, I don't think there's a whole lot of difference between the two parties.

 

[trobinett]

and you can thank your boys bush and rove for that. Their method of governing has so infuriated the majority of the American people that a Dem take over may be in order.

As one of your candidates stated, this administration has been arrogant from the beginning. This is what the Neo-Cons wanted and now this is what the Neo-Cons will get.

Well put, by someone who obviously doesn't have a clue as to what is going on in the world around them.

Other than that, spot on.........

 

[Detmurds]

As the rest of the world is becoming more democratic and moves towards free market economies, socialism has gone mainstream in the United States.

We have known for years that the leadership of the Democrat Party favors world socialism. MoveOn.org is just the organized manifestation of that doctrinaire philosophy. If the MoveOn.org people get what they want next year, and there is a fairly high probability that they will, we may very well be making an irreversible move towards European-style socialism.

With a Democrat president and both houses of Congress, we might indeed get socialized health care, a surrender to the war against Islamo-Fascism, and the disabling of our economy for the hoax of man-made global warming. Like every other entitlement that this country has established, socialized health care, once adopted, will be perpetuated indefinitely. Social Security and Medicare alone are going to require a 30% tax rate to maintain within fifty years. Add socialized medicine, and you have Sweden in North America.

As Thomas Jefferson said over two centuries ago: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." The steps that the government might take in order to combat "man-made global warming" will seriously imperil the economic growth of our country. Add high tax rates; and the entrepreneurial spirit that has driven this country for over 200 years will be extinguished.

The reasons the MoveOn.orgs of the United States may get what they want in 2008 is due to the simultaneous alignment of the following:

Click for full text...

I don't know about all that in regards to the rest of the world going more democratic,...France got rid of Jacques Chirac and brought in a very conservative leader! The tides are turning in France!

 

[Toro]

"Is the United States Going in the Opposite Direction to the Rest of the World?"

Er, where've ya been the past seven years?

 

[Dr Grump]

As the rest of the world is becoming more democratic and moves towards free market economies, socialism has gone mainstream in the United States.

We have known for years that the leadership of the Democrat Party favors world socialism. MoveOn.org is just the organized manifestation of that doctrinaire philosophy. If the MoveOn.org people get what they want next year, and there is a fairly high probability that they will, we may very well be making an irreversible move towards European-style socialism.

With a Democrat president and both houses of Congress, we might indeed get socialized health care, a surrender to the war against Islamo-Fascism, and the disabling of our economy for the hoax of man-made global warming. Like every other entitlement that this country has established, socialized health care, once adopted, will be perpetuated indefinitely. Social Security and Medicare alone are going to require a 30% tax rate to maintain within fifty years. Add socialized medicine, and you have Sweden in North America.

As Thomas Jefferson said over two centuries ago: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." The steps that the government might take in order to combat "man-made global warming" will seriously imperil the economic growth of our country. Add high tax rates; and the entrepreneurial spirit that has driven this country for over 200 years will be extinguished.

The reasons the MoveOn.orgs of the United States may get what they want in 2008 is due to the simultaneous alignment of the following:

Click for full text...

You say these things like they are bad things!

 

[doniston]

As the rest of the world is becoming more democratic and moves towards free market economies, socialism has gone mainstream in the United States.

We have known for years that the leadership of the Democrat Party favors world socialism. MoveOn.org is just the organized manifestation of that doctrinaire philosophy. If the MoveOn.org people get what they want next year, and there is a fairly high probability that they will, we may very well be making an irreversible move towards European-style socialism.

With a Democrat president and both houses of Congress, we might indeed get socialized health care, a surrender to the war against Islamo-Fascism, and the disabling of our economy for the hoax of man-made global warming. Like every other entitlement that this country has established, socialized health care, once adopted, will be perpetuated indefinitely. Social Security and Medicare alone are going to require a 30% tax rate to maintain within fifty years. Add socialized medicine, and you have Sweden in North America.

As Thomas Jefferson said over two centuries ago: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." The steps that the government might take in order to combat "man-made global warming" will seriously imperil the economic growth of our country. Add high tax rates; and the entrepreneurial spirit that has driven this country for over 200 years will be extinguished.

The reasons the MoveOn.orgs of the United States may get what they want in 2008 is due to the simultaneous alignment of the following:

Click for full text...

A single word in answer to your title question."YEP"

 

[Annie]

As the rest of the world is becoming more democratic and moves towards free market economies, socialism has gone mainstream in the United States.

We have known for years that the leadership of the Democrat Party favors world socialism. MoveOn.org is just the organized manifestation of that doctrinaire philosophy. If the MoveOn.org people get what they want next year, and there is a fairly high probability that they will, we may very well be making an irreversible move towards European-style socialism.

With a Democrat president and both houses of Congress, we might indeed get socialized health care, a surrender to the war against Islamo-Fascism, and the disabling of our economy for the hoax of man-made global warming. Like every other entitlement that this country has established, socialized health care, once adopted, will be perpetuated indefinitely. Social Security and Medicare alone are going to require a 30% tax rate to maintain within fifty years. Add socialized medicine, and you have Sweden in North America.

As Thomas Jefferson said over two centuries ago: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." The steps that the government might take in order to combat "man-made global warming" will seriously imperil the economic growth of our country. Add high tax rates; and the entrepreneurial spirit that has driven this country for over 200 years will be extinguished.

The reasons the MoveOn.orgs of the United States may get what they want in 2008 is due to the simultaneous alignment of the following:

Click for full text...

Are we moving towards socialism is the question? About 50% think we should. About 50% think we shouldn't.

Now going against the rest of the world? With a few allies, we were with Iraq. Today? I'm unsure, while we haven't gained allies there, we do seem to have garnered more support for the principles behind the original actions. Where? In elections in other democracies. In actions like Sarkozy breaking off diplomacy with Syria until they remove themselves from the Lebanese electoral process.

It's called leading.

 

[actsnoblemartin]

common, a little thinking in your answer please

My god atleast explain why

A single word in answer to your title question."YEP"

 

[midcan5]

Huh, gotta drop but I think elements of socialism are essential for a working democracy, too much freed leads to nowhere.

The Free Market: A False Idol After All?
By PETER S. GOODMAN Published: December 30, 2007

" FOR more than a quarter-century, the dominant idea guiding economic policy in the United States and much of the globe has been that the market is unfailingly wise. So wise that the proper role for government is to steer clear and not mess with the gusher of wealth that will flow, trickling down to the every level of society, if only the market is left to do its magic.

That notion has carried the day as industries have been unshackled from regulation, and as taxes have been rolled back, along with the oversight powers of government. Faith in markets has held sway as insurance companies have fended off calls for more government-financed health care, and as banks have engineered webs of finance that have turned houses from mere abodes into assets traded like dot-com stocks.

But lately, a striking unease with market forces has entered the conversation. The world confronts problems of staggering complexity and consequence, from a shortage of credit following the mortgage meltdown, to the threat of global warming. Regulation — nasty talk in some quarters, synonymous with pointy-headed bureaucrats choking the market — is suddenly being demanded from unexpected places."



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/weekinreview/30goodman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

[Taomon]

As the rest of the world is becoming more democratic and moves towards free market economies, socialism has gone mainstream in the United States.

We have known for years that the leadership of the Democrat Party favors world socialism. MoveOn.org is just the organized manifestation of that doctrinaire philosophy. If the MoveOn.org people get what they want next year, and there is a fairly high probability that they will, we may very well be making an irreversible move towards European-style socialism.

With a Democrat president and both houses of Congress, we might indeed get socialized health care, a surrender to the war against Islamo-Fascism, and the disabling of our economy for the hoax of man-made global warming. Like every other entitlement that this country has established, socialized health care, once adopted, will be perpetuated indefinitely. Social Security and Medicare alone are going to require a 30% tax rate to maintain within fifty years. Add socialized medicine, and you have Sweden in North America.

As Thomas Jefferson said over two centuries ago: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." The steps that the government might take in order to combat "man-made global warming" will seriously imperil the economic growth of our country. Add high tax rates; and the entrepreneurial spirit that has driven this country for over 200 years will be extinguished.

The reasons the MoveOn.orgs of the United States may get what they want in 2008 is due to the simultaneous alignment of the following:

Click for full text...

Uh buddy, America is becoming fascist, not socialist.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Uh buddy, America is becoming fascist, not socialist.

Hitler was a socialist.

Modern Leftism

...let us look at what the Left and Right in politics consist of at present. Consider this description by Edward Feser of someone who would have been an ideal Presidential candidate for the modern-day U.S. Democratic party:

He had been something of a bohemian in his youth, and always regarded young people and their idealism as the key to progress and the overcoming of outmoded prejudices. And he was widely admired by the young people of his country, many of whom belonged to organizations devoted to practicing and propagating his teachings. He had a lifelong passion for music, art, and architecture, and was even something of a painter. He rejected what he regarded as petty bourgeois moral hang-ups, and he and his girlfriend "lived together" for years. He counted a number of homosexuals as friends and collaborators, and took the view that a man's personal morals were none of his business; some scholars of his life believe that he himself may have been homosexual or bisexual. He was ahead of his time where a number of contemporary progressive causes are concerned: he disliked smoking, regarding it as a serious danger to public health, and took steps to combat it; he was a vegetarian and animal lover; he enacted tough gun control laws; and he advocated euthanasia for the incurably ill.

He championed the rights of workers, regarded capitalist society as brutal and unjust, and sought a third way between communism and the free market. In this regard, he and his associates greatly admired the strong steps taken by President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to take large-scale economic decision-making out of private hands and put it into those of government planning agencies. His aim was to institute a brand of socialism that avoided the inefficiencies that plagued the Soviet variety, and many former communists found his program highly congenial. He deplored the selfish individualism he took to be endemic to modern Western society, and wanted to replace it with an ethic of self-sacrifice: "As Christ proclaimed 'love one another'," he said, "so our call -- 'people's community,' 'public need before private greed,' 'communally-minded social consciousness' -- rings out.! This call will echo throughout the world!"

The reference to Christ notwithstanding, he was not personally a Christian, regarding the Catholicism he was baptized into as an irrational superstition. In fact he admired Islam more than Christianity, and he and his policies were highly respected by many of the Muslims of his day. He and his associates had a special distaste for the Catholic Church and, given a choice, preferred modern liberalized Protestantism, taking the view that the best form of Christianity would be one that forsook the traditional other-worldly focus on personal salvation and accommodated itself to the requirements of a program for social justice to be implemented by the state. They also considered the possibility that Christianity might eventually have to be abandoned altogether in favor of a return to paganism, a worldview many of them saw as more humane and truer to the heritage of their people. For he and his associates believed strongly that a people's ethnic and racial heritage was what mattered most. Some endorsed a kind of cultural relativism according to which what is true or false and right or wrong in some sense depends on one's ethnic worldview, and especially on what best promotes the well-being of one's ethnic group

There is surely no doubt that the man Feser described is in fact a mainstream Leftist by current standards. But who is the man concerned? It is a historically accurate description of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was not only a socialist in his own day but he would even be a mainstream socialist in most ways today. Feser does not mention Hitler's antisemitism above, of course, but that too seems once again to have become mainstream among the Western-world Left in the early years of the 21st century.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1143131/posts

 

[Taomon]

Hitler was a socialist.

Oh that proves everything. How is Bush working out for you personally?

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Oh that proves everything. How is Bush working out for you personally?

Wow, great rebuttal. Read on for more proof...from this policy manifesto and then compare it against the gist of your leftist leaders today:

And this policy manifesto:

9. All citizens of the State shall be equal as regards rights and duties.

10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. The activities of the individual may not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the frame of the community and be for the general good.

Therefore we demand:

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in life and property, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as a crime against the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits whether in assets or material.

13. We demand the nationalization of businesses which have been organized into cartels.

14. We demand that all the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared out.

15. We demand extensive development of provision for old age.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle-class, the immediate communalization of department stores which will be rented cheaply to small businessmen, and that preference shall be given to small businessmen for provision of supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

17. We demand a land reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to confiscate from the owners without compensation any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.

So who put that manifesto forward and who was responsible for the summary quotes given before that? Was it the US Democrats, the British Labour Party, the Canadian Liberals, some European Social Democratic party? No. The manifesto is an extract from the (February 25th., 1920) 25 point plan of the National Socialist German Workers Party and was written by the leader of that party: Adolf Hitler. And the preceding summary quotes were also from him (See towards the end of Mein Kampf and O'Sullivan, 1983. p. 138).

The rest of Hitler's manifesto was aimed mainly at the Jews but in Hitler's day it was very common for Leftists to be antisemitic. And the increasingly pervasive anti-Israel sentiment among the modern-day Left -- including at times the Canadian government -- shows that modern-day Leftists are not even very different from Hitler in that regard. Modern-day anti-Israel protesters still seem to think that dead Jews are a good thing.

As far as Bush is concerned I'm glad he's leaving office as he has shown himself to be much too liberal. Today's leading Republican candidates don't show much difference...unfortunately it seems the majority of the political candidates have moved to the left.

 

[midcan5]

Hitler was a socialist.

Huh, curious how often you hear this said by righties who refuse to face the fact fascism is a right wing phenomenon. You need to read some history and have a better understanding of political philosophies as Hitler was miles from being a socialist. If we go only on what he called himself, he was also democratic, and a Christian. So where exactly does that lead us?

http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html

Read those and tell me that is socialism.

 

[Doug]

Of course the United States will move a little ways towards socialism when the Democrats win the Presidency and increase their majorities in both branches of Congress. It moved a little in that direction under FDR, and did not substantially reverse course thereafter.

But so what? I can move a little ways towards the sun by climbing some stairs, but I am in no danger of burning up.

The United States may get some form of socialized medicine, as all other advanced countries have. But this is a long way from socialism.

Conservatives should come to terms with the welfare state. Some form of it is here to stay, and that's no bad thing either.

The real assault from the Left is on our culture. If the mass of the American people come to see our country as just another cynical empire, as the Left portrays it, and if they become diverted by the baubles of radical individualism which the free market makes all too available, then we will be lost.

 

[82Marine89]

Of course the United States will move a little ways towards socialism when the Democrats win the Presidency and increase their majorities in both branches of Congress. It moved a little in that direction under FDR, and did not substantially reverse course thereafter.

But so what? I can move a little ways towards the sun by climbing some stairs, but I am in no danger of burning up.

The United States may get some form of socialized medicine, as all other advanced countries have. But this is a long way from socialism.

Conservatives should come to terms with the welfare state. Some form of it is here to stay, and that's no bad thing either.

The real assault from the Left is on our culture. If the mass of the American people come to see our country as just another cynical empire, as the Left portrays it, and if they become diverted by the baubles of radical individualism which the free market makes all too available, then we will be lost.

Come to terms with the welfare state? How much of your paycheck are you willing to give up so another person doesn't have to try as hard as you did? How about a hand up and teach these folks to be self reliant instead of giving them a hand out and making them reliant on government?

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Huh, curious how often you hear this said by righties who refuse to face the fact fascism is a right wing phenomenon. You need to read some history and have a better understanding of political philosophies as Hitler was miles from being a socialist. If we go only on what he called himself, he was also democratic, and a Christian. So where exactly does that lead us?

http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html

Read those and tell me that is socialism.

Yes, there are some differences between fascism and socialism...but there are plenty of similarities as well - they are basically the same at their core. This might help explain:

Socialism and Fascism

In my recent article on Tony Kushner, I suggested that his socialist views were somehow akin to fascism. Predictably enough, the knee-jerk reaction to this statement was the reassertion of an old historical fallacy: the notion that socialism and fascism are somehow opposed to each other, that they have been historical rivals, that there is nothing but difference between the two -- and that I must have been ignorant of this historical fact. I did not, however, make this comparison glibly. Taken in full historical context, with full consideration of philosophic principle, socialism and fascism are essentially the same.

To know what socialism and fascism are, let us begin by examining some historical examples of each. Fascist states have included Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Tojo's Japan, Franco's Spain, Pinochet's Chile, and possibly Peron's Argentina. If we were to focus on each of these concretes, we would observe numerous differences. For instance, Hitler's Fascism was racist. Mussolini's was not. Mussolini's fascism involved belligerent nationalism. Franco's did not. What unites each of these concretes into a group of similars can be seen in a common definition of fascism: "A governmental system with strong centralized power, permitting no opposition or criticism, controlling all affairs of the nation (industrial, commercial, etc.)" (American College Dictionary, New York: Random House, 1957).

Socialist states have included the USSR(1), Communist China, socialist Sweden, socialist England, Cuba, North Korea, and a handful of lesser regimes in Eastern Europe, East Africa, and Southeast Asia. Once again, there is a prima facie difficulty in determining what factor these various states held in common. After all, some socialist regimes (like Sweden's and England's) were elected democratically. Others, like the USSR's and the PRC's, were the result of popular violent revolutions. Still others were the product of either military coup (Cuba, Ethiopia, Vietnam) or foreign invasion (the Eastern Bloc). The trait common to all of these is provided, once again by the definition of socialism: "a theory or system of social organization which advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means or production, capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole" (American College Dictionary).

Now that we have these two concepts (socialism and fascism) squarely on the table, we can spell out their differences and similarities. It is obvious that there are numerous differences between socialism and fascism, the most obvious of which concerns their view of private property. Socialism abolishes the institution entirely; fascism does not. For instance, in the Soviet Union, citizens had to wait years for their names to come up on a list to receive a car from the government. At the same time, everyone is familiar with the existence of wealthy property owners like Oskar Schindler who lived under the Nazi regime. This difference in ideology did in fact manifest itself in actual historical practice. The communists and Social Democrats were, in fact, the main opponents of the rise of Nazi power in Weimar Germany; Nazi Germany and Socialist Russia were at each other's throats in World War II.

True enough: We can put socialism and fascism on a table and stare at them all we like, and all we may see will be differences. What is required to go beyond this is to widen our context of knowledge. For instance, let's say we draw two geometrical figures on the chalkboard: a scalene and an isosceles. If we focus merely on these two concretes, without widening our context, we will see nothing but difference. The two triangles have different angles, different side lengths, different locations, different sizes. Now imagine that we introduce a foil: We draw a square on the board. The difference between the first two triangles is still there, but is made insignificant by the even greater difference between the triangles, on the one hand, and the square on the other. This process of differentiation allows us to see the triangles as similar. If we are able to isolate an essential characteristic of the group (a difference bewteen the triangles and squares which explains all or most of the other differences between them), we can then integrate this group of similars into a single mental unit, uniting it by a common definition, i.e., forming a concept.(2)

We can treat social systems in the same way in which we treat geometical figures. As we observed before, there are probably innumerable differences between socialism and fascism. But what happens if we introduce a foil here, as well? Let's imagine that we introduce a third type of social system. Rather than having society control all property, and rather than having dictatorship in one form or another, we introduce a system in which individuals are free to follow the dictates of their own mind. Rather than having a system in which the choice is between the abridgment of political freedom or the abridgment of economic freedom, we introduce one in which no one's freedom is to be abridged. In short, we introduce capitalism : the social system in which all property is privately owned, and the government's function is restricted to the protection of individual rights.

Once we remember the possibility of the existence of such a system, the differences between socialism and fascism become trivial, superficial and, above all, non-essential. Differentiation of socialism and fascism from capitalism permits the recognition of their similarity. They do differ from each other, but only in the way in which the scalene and the isosceles differ from each other: in degree, but not in kind. Socialism and fascism are each forms of statism, forms of government in which the government is given complete or extensive control over the lives of its citizens.

This theoretical consideration has massive consequences in the practical realm: The differences we noted before turn out not to be as important as we once might have thought.

It is true that fascist systems permitted property ownership, while socialist ones did not. However, fascist "property rights" were only nominal: A businessman (such as Oskar Schindler) would retain legal title to his goods, but he would not retain any control over them. Because he was not politically free, the government could order him to use his property as it desired (such as by using it to produce war implements) -- even if it was _his_ property that was being used. Just as there can be no split between mind and body, there can be no split between political freedom and economic freedom. Man cannot exist without a mind and a body, and he cannot be free if someone else controls either.

http://www.lawrence.edu/sorg/objectivism/socfasc.html

 

[Adam's Apple]

The tides are turning in France!

And not only in France. Do a search for The American Thinker and read Bruce Walker's recent article "The Conservative Tide in Major Democracies." (can't get the url to work. Sorry)