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Mr Reynholm
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07 Apr 2021, 10:35 am

funeralxempire wrote:
Mr Reynholm wrote:
roronoa79 wrote:
Mr Reynholm wrote:
Socialism has never worked and will never work. No matter what modifier you place in front of it or how you dress it up to look nice, it will never work.

I've come to the conclusion that what is appealing about socialism is the fun of imposing it on people who don't want it. Kinda like Rap Music.

Socialist policies have been working fine in western Europe for over a hundred years. This argument is dependent on forgetting that Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, etc. do not exist.

What's appealing about socialism is seeing everyone's basic needs met rather than letting the wealthy decide who deserves to live and die. What does rap have to do with any of this??????

Rap music is irritating. Kinda like socialism.


That's just like your opinion man, speaking of things that are annoying when people insist on forcing them on others.

Social Democrats are entitled to work towards expanding the social safety net via democratic means. Anti-socialists aren't entitled to destroy democracy because they worry that social democrats might gain power and expand the social safety net.

See the explanation above.
Opinions are what we are all presenting here. You, me, everyone else.
Democracy is the first thing lost under socialism. A socialist state must maintain control by way of authoritarianism.
Nobody wants the needy to do without but there are more efficient and safer ways than insisting that government do it. There is nothing charitable about wanting the government fix the problem. Each of us in society must be involved to ease the burden of the poor.



Last edited by Mr Reynholm on 07 Apr 2021, 10:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

funeralxempire
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07 Apr 2021, 10:44 am

At least you're open about your anti-democratic views. It's a shame more far-right types can't be so honest.


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Mr Reynholm
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07 Apr 2021, 10:52 am

funeralxempire wrote:
At least you're open about your anti-democratic views. It's a shame more far-right types can't be so honest.

What you are advocating is authoritarianism not democracy.



funeralxempire
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07 Apr 2021, 10:54 am

Mr Reynholm wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
At least you're open about your anti-democratic views. It's a shame more far-right types can't be so honest.

What you are advocating is authoritarianism not democracy.


Tell us more about how a social safety net is authoritarian. I'm sure you have a very insightful and persuasive case.


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Mr Reynholm
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07 Apr 2021, 11:37 am

funeralxempire wrote:
Mr Reynholm wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
At least you're open about your anti-democratic views. It's a shame more far-right types can't be so honest.

What you are advocating is authoritarianism not democracy.


Tell us more about how a social safety net is authoritarian. I'm sure you have a very insightful and persuasive case.


In theory socialism is a great idea that compassionate people can understand. But, in practice it never works because it requires the government to be the instrument of that compassion. Government (any) is only interested in it's own power and will use the wealth and power granted to them by compassionate, well meaning people to enslave those very people. For the "common good" of course.



roronoa79
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07 Apr 2021, 3:25 pm

Mr Reynholm wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Mr Reynholm wrote:
Socialism has never worked and will never work. No matter what modifier you place in front of it or how you dress it up to look nice, it will never work.


How is providing a social safety net to keep people from being left behind while the rest of the country prospers, or regulations on business that protects workers and customers, in any way socialism?

Ask the people of Venezuela.

Take a drink every time Venezuela is invoked to try and shoot down any suggestion of expanded social safety nets and workers' rights. Venezuela's myriad problems are not all traceable to socialism. You do not need to be a capitalist to know that overspecializing your national economy into oil is a bad idea.
So many capitalists act like the only countries with socialist policies are Venezuela, the USSR, the PRC, Cuba, etc. And not over a dozen other countries in the western world that enjoy economic prosperity and higher living standards than the US.
As I said:
Quote:
Socialist policies have been working fine in western Europe for over a hundred years. This argument is dependent on forgetting that Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, etc. do not exist.

Yet these countries bear no resemblance to the capitalist conception of a socialist state full of gulags and repression.
The suggestion is either:
1. These countries are not actually socialist. Which undermines their arguments that it would be socialist to have things they have like universal healthcare. If they're not socialist for having those policies, why would it make the US socialist to have those policies?
Or
2. These countries are miserable places to live compared to the US--which is not reflected in any study on national happiness I've seen.
Or
3. These countries do not exist. Silly socialists! Sweden is just a myth! Only Venezuela is real! Focus on Venezuela!


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funeralxempire
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07 Apr 2021, 3:49 pm

Mr Reynholm wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
Mr Reynholm wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
At least you're open about your anti-democratic views. It's a shame more far-right types can't be so honest.

What you are advocating is authoritarianism not democracy.


Tell us more about how a social safety net is authoritarian. I'm sure you have a very insightful and persuasive case.


In theory socialism is a great idea that compassionate people can understand. But, in practice it never works because it requires the government to be the instrument of that compassion. Government (any) is only interested in it's own power and will use the wealth and power granted to them by compassionate, well meaning people to enslave those very people. For the "common good" of course.


That's a lovely cliché but repeating it won't make it true.


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07 Apr 2021, 5:09 pm

Rock radio’s war against disco

Quote:
Then there was Detroit station WWWW, two of whose deejays launched the "Disco Ducks Klan" (! !!).
"They were laying plans, which were later aborted, to wear white sheets onstage at a disco that was switching to rock," Echols writes. "At their next job, at AOR station WRIF, they performed on-the-air ‘electrocutions’ of disco lovers whose names and phone numbers had been sent to the station by members of the ‘intelligence’ arm of DREAM (Detroit Rockers Engaged in the Abolition of Disco)."


Wikipedia - Disco Demolition night
Quote:
In Seattle, hundreds of rock fans attacked a mobile dance floor, while in Portland, Oregon, a disc jockey destroyed a stack of disco records with a chainsaw as thousands cheered


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07 Apr 2021, 5:40 pm

Mr Reynholm wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Mr Reynholm wrote:
Socialism has never worked and will never work. No matter what modifier you place in front of it or how you dress it up to look nice, it will never work.


How is providing a social safety net to keep people from being left behind while the rest of the country prospers, or regulations on business that protects workers and customers, in any way socialism?

Ask the people of Venezuela.
In theory socialism is a great idea that compassionate people can understand. But, in practice it never works because it requires the government to be the instrument of that compassion. Government (any) is only interested in it's own power and will use the wealth and power granted to them by compassionate, well meaning people to enslave those very people. For the "common good" of course.


How have civil rights laws, medicare and medicaid, or social security enslaved anyone?
The right keeps on bringing up the failure of socialism in Venezuela without considering the lack of democratic institutions or history there. It's our two hundred plus year experiment in free government that keeps that from happening in America.


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Mr Reynholm
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08 Apr 2021, 7:30 am

I visited Venezuela in 1991. It was a wealthy and prosperous nation. Now after Socialism its a third world he11 hole. Look at all of the Eastern European countries that have gone down similar paths.
Its like a person who starts using crack or heroine. You don't have to be a psychic to know that this person is going to be a addict soon and destroy his own life. Such it is with countries that experiment with socialism.
I must say that you guys are men of Great Faith. You trust your government implicitly.



funeralxempire
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08 Apr 2021, 10:58 am

Mr Reynholm wrote:
I visited Venezuela in 1991. It was a wealthy and prosperous nation. Now after Socialism its a third world he11 hole. Look at all of the Eastern European countries that have gone down similar paths.
Its like a person who starts using crack or heroine. You don't have to be a psychic to know that this person is going to be a addict soon and destroy his own life. Such it is with countries that experiment with socialism.
I must say that you guys are men of Great Faith. You trust your government implicitly.


Kleptocratic dictatorships aren't representative of socialism.

You point to Eastern Europe but I'm sure WWII and the lack of Marshall Plan assistance played no role in why Eastern Europe recovered more slowly.

Besides, no one has done a better job of rehabilitating the term socialism in the west than right-wing media. Fox News and the rest of the guanosphere have made the term synonymous with moderate social programs and social democracy.
Thanks boomers.


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Mr Reynholm
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08 Apr 2021, 11:05 am

So how do you rationalize the fact that there is no freedom in socialist countries, but there is rampant poverty and suffering? The right wing, racist patriarchy again?



funeralxempire
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08 Apr 2021, 11:28 am

Mr Reynholm wrote:
So how do you rationalize the fact that there is no freedom in socialist countries, but there is rampant poverty and suffering? The right wing, racist patriarchy again?


I blame authoritarianism for the failing of authoritarian socialism. They're the same failings as other authoritarian regimes including right wing authoritarian regimes.

Are you still pretending a social safety net will lead to totalitarianism?


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08 Apr 2021, 5:11 pm

Mr Reynholm wrote:
I visited Venezuela in 1991. It was a wealthy and prosperous nation. Now after Socialism its a third world he11 hole. Look at all of the Eastern European countries that have gone down similar paths.
Its like a person who starts using crack or heroine. You don't have to be a psychic to know that this person is going to be a addict soon and destroy his own life. Such it is with countries that experiment with socialism.
I must say that you guys are men of Great Faith. You trust your government implicitly.


And yet social security, medicare, medicaid, Obamacare, civil rights laws, and all the rest of what the right thinks of as awful has yet to do any of that to America. And guess what - - it never will.


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08 Apr 2021, 5:37 pm

Yet the south, Great Plains, and states like Utah and Idaho can't have nice things because of their trying to enforce the Evangelical/Catholic/Mormon equivalent of Sharia law.

Our own governor, Greg Abbott, let 100+ people freeze to death by not winterizing the state's power grids. But what does he think is the biggest problem afflicting Texans? People taking photos of their dicks.

Arkansas just banned transgender health care. Mississippi banned trans women from playing womens' sports.

There are many red states where fornication and sodomy are still illegal. If anything, fornication should be *mandatory*.


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09 Apr 2021, 11:27 am

roronoa79 wrote:
Mr Reynholm wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Mr Reynholm wrote:
Socialism has never worked and will never work. No matter what modifier you place in front of it or how you dress it up to look nice, it will never work.


How is providing a social safety net to keep people from being left behind while the rest of the country prospers, or regulations on business that protects workers and customers, in any way socialism?

Ask the people of Venezuela.

Take a drink every time Venezuela is invoked to try and shoot down any suggestion of expanded social safety nets and workers' rights. Venezuela's myriad problems are not all traceable to socialism. You do not need to be a capitalist to know that overspecializing your national economy into oil is a bad idea.
So many capitalists act like the only countries with socialist policies are Venezuela, the USSR, the PRC, Cuba, etc. And not over a dozen other countries in the western world that enjoy economic prosperity and higher living standards than the US.
As I said:
Quote:
Socialist policies have been working fine in western Europe for over a hundred years. This argument is dependent on forgetting that Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, etc. do not exist.

Yet these countries bear no resemblance to the capitalist conception of a socialist state full of gulags and repression.
The suggestion is either:
1. These countries are not actually socialist. Which undermines their arguments that it would be socialist to have things they have like universal healthcare. If they're not socialist for having those policies, why would it make the US socialist to have those policies?
Or
2. These countries are miserable places to live compared to the US--which is not reflected in any study on national happiness I've seen.
Or
3. These countries do not exist. Silly socialists! Sweden is just a myth! Only Venezuela is real! Focus on Venezuela!

Norway? REALLY??? So we just look the other way on drug overdoses, suicide, and abysmally poor diet? You’re going to point to a country that struggles with anxiety, depression, diabetes, and dementia as a socialist SUCCESS story??? Wow...

Ok, maybe you’re right. Keep them sick, keep them sad, keep them worried, and keep them doped up. Sounds like a banner day in a socialist house. Keep them worked up so you can keep control over them. Mishun akomplisht.