Social-Democratic Aspies?

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Hi!

I wonder if there are any Aspies here who subscribe to a social-democratic worldview?

Some of my points:

* Universal healthcare.
* Implementation of equal marriage.
* Global currency.
* Nationalisation of banks, railroads, airports, power, water, sewage and pharmaceuticals.
* Progressive income tax with minimum rate of nothing for the very poor and 70% for the very rich.
* Living wage for all people.
* Global luxury tax to pay for aid to those less fortunate.
* Ending the war on drugs. Free all non-violent offenders.
* Prison reform. Focus on rehabilitation but life without parole for the worst offenders.
* Reduction of military presence throughout the world. Let's spend money for education and improvement, NOT bombs.
* End school bullying.
* Bring the Bush cabal to justice at The Hague.

What do you guys think?

(From an American perspective...)

Wow, I'll be surprised if many aspies agree with all of those views. I'll chime in for the record: I agree with universal healthcare, the implementation of equal marriage, and global currency. I do not agree with the nationalization of banks, etc. I'm not sure what a living wage is: I don't agree in something for nothing, but I do agree with services to help people help themselves. I do not believe in the luxury tax, but do agree with making drugs legal, just like alchohol. I agree with prison reform (that is something that always needs upgrading). I disagree with pulling out our military presence. In fact, I think we should conquer the Middle East and just be done with it. I don't know how you would end school bullying, but I do agree with schools being a safer place for children and more oversight by the authorities. Slipping on my support for Bush since this port-thing.

I disagree with the War. I believe we need to put out of the Middle East. CIA intervention and extremely biased support towards Israel are the root causes of anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East.

Also, don't forget the tonnes of depleted uranium poisoning the Iraqi soil. DU will contaminate for the next 4.5 BILLION years!

I thinkn we already tried that.

Well.... I am not a socialist because of the fact that after careful thought on the matter I figured that the free-market does really well in providing for itself. I am also barely democratic simply because in many instances I am in the minority and in quite a few of those instances I am correct, therefore I realize that democracy can be very wrong due to that nature of things.

Wow, I think I actually oppose most if not all of your points... funny(ok, I do support some form of method to eliminate bullying so long as it isn't something stupid). Ah well, people have different viewpoints.

Nationalism of most privet industries really doesnt make it better it just adds to the hoops you have to go thruogh for services think DMV. If there were no incentives what would happen to innovation pharmaceutical companies are in it for the money would you reather have government officals make these desisions? Bush is president now would that mean an end to anything he or his supporters object to? In a couple years its some one new with a different agenda. I dont think it would be very productive. some points I can agree with equal marriage,prison refom, decrimnalizion of some drugs ending bullying is a good thought but very difficult to do without zero tolerance laws that have a tendicy to back fire. Wether you agree or disagee with the war we made our own mess ther and now have to clean it up to leave now would futher put Iraq into to full civil war many more would die.
Like Awesomelyglorious put it Ah well, people have different viewpoints.

The free-market really is doomed to failure because it is is based heavily on perpetual economic growth. Economic growth is top heavy in that most of the excess growth goes to the top 1% or so.

My main concern is with standard of living for everyone.

The United States is the most capitalist nation on the planet with precious few safety nets. The poverty rate among Americans is appalling.

The United States should catch up with the rest of the world in providing a comprehensive welfare state much like civilised nations in Western Europe and Canada.

Sadly, the United States is likely doomed to staying in its backward state due to the fact that it has two right-wing parties. Even the "liberal" and "socialist" democrats run conservatives like Bill Clinton and John Kerry.

Another dirty secret of the United States is that it's place in the world is dependant on inflicting incalculable suffering on the Third World through usury and forced privatisation schemes. There are numerous instances of the CIA, one of the most evil organisations on Earth, overthrowing democratically elected governments and replacing them with right-wing puppets.

The violent overthrows of Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1952?, Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran in 1953, Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973, Eva Peron of Argentina in 1976, Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti in 1991 and so many others too numerous to mention is a damning indictment of American treachery in the world.

Overall, the American CIA has killed so many people that it only pales to the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot in sheer brutality.

The free-market system is a brutal system that leaves many people behind to fend for themselves and die.

People have a right to sustanance and dignity. It is a natural right all people have a right to.

Free-market laissez-faire economics puts survival and basic human dignity on the auction block.

Certainly, luxuries should indeed be left to businesses. However, the backwards human rights policies America is afflicted with is a shocking and depressing state of affairs.

I am so happy to be out of there and in a civilised nation like Canada.

Also, for the record, I don't propose the abolition of nations. i advocate a global standards system to harmonise policies, similar to a global EU. The United Nations doesn't go far enough. We need a World Federation.

If i had my druthers we'd re-implement slavery, but only for non-citizens. And we'd save a s**t load of money by simply removing the citizen ship of unreformable criminals. We could use em for science experiments, public TV shows, personal servants, sex slaves, and the like.

And don't waste your time being offended by my views, it aint ever gonna f****n' happen. So you don't have to worry that my view will have any practical influence on actual government policy.

I dont trust the govenment as much as you do and do not want them intigrated in my life as they would be in a comprehensive welfare state they already meddle too much as it is.

I guess I would consider myself to be neo-liberal as I support a limited welfare state, but not socialism. I think there is a clear difference between a system that redistributes wealth generated in a freely organised market and one that distributes the wealth it controls. Open economies allow resources to be directed most efficiently, and this creates wealth. For example, government subsidies (aka corporate welfare) I feel is much more damaging than the equivalent amount spent on income transfers (welfare, social security, etc.) because the latter at least places the money in the hands of private individuals and not in the government's. George Bush's corrupt and incompetent administration, is if anything, reason to restrict the scope of government.

The original poster puts forth some interesting ideas that have less to do with socialism and more to do with individual freedom, which I do fully support like the end of prohibition and equal marriage rights.

The Iraq war, while clearly a mistake, should be handled more carefully though. Leaving now may appeal to pacifist ideals, but I fear Iraq is a full-blown civil war waiting to happen. If stability is not maintained, sectarian violence will worsen and the end result will be more suffering for the people of Iraq.

I believe Iraq should not be abandoned.

I believe the United States should surrender command to a peacekeeping force led by the UN and under the command of the Security Council.

I also believe reparations for damages and human rights abuses need to be given to the Iraqi people and the architects of the war put on trial at the Hague for war crimes.

The US is committing genocide against the Iraqi people via use of Depleted Uranium munitions that will poison the Earth for the next 3,600,000,000 years!! !

More here... http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html

The free market is the most efficient system that we have to deal with the economy. The socialist system would leave us to stagnate under government bureacracy and a lack of necessity to push forward and even with lowered efficiency of the common worker.

People have no rights, the idea that people do have natural rights was created by some philosophers in the "Enlightenment", it is not true in reality. The idea of the capitalist society is that people work, which helps our economy and in return they get something in return for the value of the services provided. Humanity should be on the "auction block" simply in order to get people to work and to try to better themselves. You shouldn't get something for nothing. The average person has a good amount of rights. Services provided can vary very widely in price based upon how easy it is to get those services.

The United States can hardly be considered backwards considering that we are the strongest nation in the world with the largest economy, one of the highest GDP per capitas, the best collegic educaion system and so on and so forth. Backwards is what we call 3rd world countries, the United States is not backwards because it kicks booty.

Capitalism is a very effective system. It gets people to work by incentizing them to do so. It is effective.

Who would be in this peacekeeping force it seems the largest number of all their peacekeepers seem to be from the USA. How would that change much except the security council would argue over everything while people died. Who would you have replace them? The Chinese with their wonderfull human rights record, or some other nations who would pull out at the first sign of touble?

parts commented

The pharmaceutical companies are perhaps the best example of the failure of the market system. There has in fact been very little innovation, it's an illusion. If the product can't be sold to a narrow group of relatively rich people who can pay, it isn't developed. Many of the world's most prevalent diseases have had no work done on them for decades; malaria, for one, where there hasn't been a new drug for sixty years. And the ethics of the industry are appalling. The history of antidepressants, for example, is one of companies deliberately falsifying research and lying about problems, like the very real suicide risk for some Prozac users (I feel strongly about this because it nearly happened to me). And there's the ongoing scandal of adult drugs routinely used on children, on whom they haven't been tested because, the companies lamely claim, it would be too expensive to do so. A recent UK House of Lords committee report < here > condemned them for this.

They're in it for the money, not the welfare of people. And no, I wouldn't rather have government officials making these decisions. I'd rather have The People deciding. With the kind of technology we are using at this minute - the internet - I think it is practical and possible. And the sooner the better, because the market system is killing us, the human race, quite literally. Squandered global resources, like oil? Who cares, so long as there's a market that a quick buck, or a quick billion bucks, can be made in. Global warming? Forget it, just scaremongering: make more, buy more, throw it away after a year, make more, buy more, throw it away... but global warming isn't just scaremongering, as every responsible scientist on the planet will tell you, and it's probably too late to do anything but slightly alleviate its impact. The latest worst case prediction makes Earth 6 degrees warmer by the end of the century. Doesn't sound a lot, but it's 4 degrees warmer than when dinosaurs roamed the jungles, 2 degrees warmer than the planet's ever been while it's had life on it. There'll be precious little life here by then. Within a decade or two, I promise, you'll be wondering how we ever let the market system lead us down this disastrous, very dead-end road.

I'm not against the market system on ideological grounds. I simply believe that it has passed its period of usefulness and is no longer an engine of progress but an out-of-control engine of disaster. It's time for humanity to devise a new model. Social democracy is a step in the right direction.
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__homage to hans asperger__

I did a quick google seach and found on the first page at least 2 new drugs being delvoped for malaria. Still should only the most prevent diseases be worked on? If it was up to internet vote The minor ones with few people would still get a back seat becuse there are only so many resources to go around. Plus what about people without internet access would their vote not count? Maybe more nonprofits in parnership with drug companies would help.