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Moonhead -> RE: Conservatives, what is it about socialism? (6/27/2010 9:24:24 AM)
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ORIGINAL: kdsub
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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
Socialism begins with the premise that all human beings are equal...co-operative....and duty bound to care for another. It follows you have a situation where charity is not voluntary...it is government enforced (i.e. redistribution of wealth) because that is the whole point of Socialism. Now the dictionary reference you quoted is the tool to achieve the goal....it is not the goal.
I understand your point as well but the " tool to achieve the goal" you refer to is the definition and the problem with socialism. It is a system of government that has failed miserably every time it has been adopted. It is not in humans to sacrifice their individual wants and needs for others.
As a matter of fact, there are plenty of cases of socialism, or even anarcho syndicalism, working perfectly well on a smaller scale than the national. The Kibbutzes in Israel are a particularly good example of this, as are the plethora of collectives and communes of various flavours that sprang up all over Russia during the revolution, and were done away with when the Mensheviks began to consolidate and freeze out rival factions afterwards.
It's actually very human to sacrifice individual wants and needs for other. The obvious corrolary between Confuscian philosophy and communism, has been suggested as one reason for it having had a longer life in China than it did in Eastern Europe, and the Chinese have been taken with the notion that a person is a member of society first and an individual second since at least the Ming Dynasty.
I'd also question that Cuba is a miserable failure: I wouldn't want to live there myself, but it's doing very well for a country that's been placed under an embargo by the 'States for over half a century, and most of the population are a lot better off than they were when it was being run by the mob.
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It is a fallacy to believe relatively small numbers of individuals in a government with maximum power will enforce this statement “all human beings are equal...co-operative....and duty bound to care for another”
This problem is why a lot of socialists of various stripes like to use the term "Statism" to distinguish an autocracy run by a small cabal of control freaks who use socialism as an excuse, from an actual socialist state.
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Universal healthcare has not always been part of a socialistic government where it has often been part of other forms of governments. I think it is wrong to label universal healthcare or welfare exclusively socialistic and certainly wrong to say that the concept of common welfare is only a socialistic ideal. After all it is specifically stated in our Republic Constitution.
Absolutely. As the Flcouple have pointed out though, this pretty simple fact is easily ignored by idiots who want to make bizarre arguments about healthcare reforms (or financial regulation, or anything else they don't like the sound of) being the thin end of the wedge that will inevitably lead to the collectivisation of the whole of your country if it's allowed to continue. A stance like that is impossible to argue with, as it bears no resemblance to reality in the first place. It's a bit depressing that people that stupid are allowed to vote in the first place, really.
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