After responding to a comment by tenguy, I think his comment and my response should be in a new thread.

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If a dictator took over the US, it would probably mean that [Distant Lover's] socialist views would be satisfied.

- tenguy

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Business Insider, Mar. 28, 2018

The healthcare system supported by Bernie Sanders and many liberal-leaning Democrats has begun gaining steam with more Americans, according to a new poll.

The poll, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health policy think tank, found that:

59% of respondents supported a Medicare-for-all healthcare system in which all Americans would get coverage through a government program like Medicare or Medicaid.

Moving to a public-option model, under which people could sign up for the Medicare-like program would be even more popular.

About 75% of the public would favor a program framed as a public option for anyone who wants it.

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CNBC, Aug 2016

Sixty-two percent of Americans said that they support making public college tuition free for anyone who wants to attend, according to a survey by Bankrate, which polled 1,000 people in late July. The overall margin of sampling error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

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The New York Post, October 11, 2017

WASHINGTON – As President Donald Trump promotes a tax plan that critics say would raise the federal deficit by slashing corporate rates and eliminating some taxes paid by the rich, some three-quarters of Americans believe the wealthiest should pay more, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows...

Taxpayers in the highest 1 percent of incomes, making more than $730,000 annually, for example, would receive about half of the total benefit from Trump’s proposed overhaul, with their after-tax income expected to increase an average of 8.5 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington-based nonprofit.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from Sept. 29 to Oct. 5 found that 53 percent of adults “strongly agree” that the wealthiest Americans should pay higher tax rates.

An additional 23 percent “somewhat agree” the wealthiest should pay higher tax rates, according to the poll of 1,504 people, which had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of plus or minus 6 percentage points.

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National Review, March 18, 2017

The American Culture and Faith Institute recently conducted a survey of adults 18 and older...four out of every ten adults say they prefer socialism to capitalism.

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The Sacramento Bee, November 04, 2017

Ask a millennial if they would rather live under a socialist or capitalist country, and they’re likely to give an answer much different than their parents or grandparents would.

That’s according to a new YouGov study commissioned by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, an anti-communist organization, which found that 44 percent of millennials would prefer to live in a socialist country, with another 7 percent saying the same about communism.

Meanwhile, just 42 percent of millennials said they would choose to live under capitalism.

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NPR, August 24, 2017

Fully 12 percent of people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries voted for President Trump in the general election. That is according to the data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study — a massive election survey of around 50,000 people.

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If socialism comes to the United States it will come democratically, because that is the direction public opinion is moving in.

If a dictatorship comes to the United States it will be the result of a coup by the plutocracy and its hired minions that will be staged in order to thwart public opinion.

Few Americans want the government to own all productive wealth. I do not. Nevertheless, growing majorities - including many working class whites - want the U.S. to move in a socialist direction. That would include universal health care and free college for those who qualify, paid for by higher taxes on the rich.

 

Shooter thinks it all comes down to a simple choice;

Do you believe that as Americans we should be reliant on a large, all intrusive Government to provide for all of our needs, cradle to grave?

OR

Do you believe that as Americans we should be self reliant and have a small, unobtrusive Government that only provides for the National Security and general welfare?

See, Shooter knows from long experience that Government could, theoretically, provide for all of our needs for our entire lives, right down to toothpaste and deodorant. Realistically, Government, by it's very nature, can only be relied upon to fuck it up. Should one group become overly powerful within Government, that group's "enemies" would suffer in many ways.
Relying on Government is guaranteed to mean more expensive, less responsive, harder to utilize, less fair.

Now, expecting Americans to provide for themselves has it's own issues; Some people will be incapable of providing for themselves and no matter what level of Government service we have, these folks will need to be taken care of.
These folks are not to be confused with those that will not or prefer not to provide for themselves; pretty much everyone agrees that those fucks can get off their ass or starve.
The trick is to get it right every time in deciding if someone cannot or willnot provide for themselves.

But for the majority of Americans, it is far more satisfying, and more productive, to be self reliant. To provide for ones own housing, food, transportation, health care, education, retirement, and clothing.

Bottom line is, the choice really comes down to "gimmee shit" or "Try to take my shit".

 

Here's another thought. Out in the Left coast several plots are afoot to provide some level of guaranteed income to every citizen. You know, so they will be free to pursue more "artistic, more intellectual" interests.
Really.
Every citizen is given enough guaranteed income by the government to insure basic housing, food, and transportation needs.
How do they pay for it? Why, by taxing the rich fat greedy fuckers.

Anyone care to comment on how that will work out?

 

Speaking of health care!
Do you really want the government "mangling" your healthcare.
Look at the VA healthcare, that is what you'll get when the government sticks their hands in it.
Don't tell me it works in Europe. Those countries have nowhere our population.

 

It really doesn't have to be either/or. Entities that provide for the common good that are funded by tax dollars ARE socialism. Public schools, fire and police departments, roads and highways, public hospitals and clinics, the military, etc. Those things all coexist with for-profit, capitalist businesses. It's all a matter of balance.

 

What is your alternative to VA healthcare? Do you think veterans should not have government subsidized health care?

What about veterans who require ongoing medical treatment for wounds they suffered in war?

 

I have posted this many times. It never gets out of date.

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News: Medical Life Sciences, August 12, 2009

As members of Congress return to their states and districts to debate the merits of the Democrats' proposals for health care reform, critics of the proposals may repeat the phrase used by some Republicans, newspaper editorials and bloggers that 'the American health care system is the envy of the world."

If so, they should read the results of a recent Harris/Decima poll in Canada that found a 10-to-1 majority of Canadians believed their system was "superior" to the U.S. system. They might also note that a 70% majority of Canadians thought their system was "performing well"; and that a majority favored an expansion of public sector health care (i.e., "government-run" health care in the current debate) over private sector health care.

These are some of the results of a recent Harris/Decima telephone survey conducted between June 4 and 8, 2009 by Harris/Decima among 1,000 Canadian adults...

In June 2008, a Financial Times/Harris Poll found that 59% of British adults and 70% of French adults believed their countries' health care systems were "the envy of the world."

This can be compared to a Harris Poll in the United States, conducted with the Harvard School of Public Health in March 2008 that found that only 45% of Americans believed that they had "the best health care system in the world."...

Another Harris Poll report, published July 2, 2008, compared the popularity of the health care systems in 10 countries. The United States system was the most unpopular. It reported that 33% of Americans felt there was "so much wrong with the health care system, we need to completely rebuild it." In the other nine countries between 9% (in the Netherlands) and 20% (in Italy) felt this way. Only 12% of Americans thought that "the system works pretty well."

 

Ontario is piloting guaranteed income in 2 or 3 different cities. I think the idea is freaking genius, and everywhere it has been piloted before it works.

Shooter is almost right.

In piloted scenarios, knowing that the basics are taken care of - food, shelter, health care - most individuals went out and added to their income, free to take jobs that fit their families’ needs, like single moms could take a part-time job and still be home for the kids. Seniors could take jobs they like to do and are good at, knowing they could still keep the lights on. And the adults in peak physical condition went and took education allowing them to do the work they were driven to do, often maxing out of the program (exceeding income guidelines) once they had received the education and experience necessary to move on in the careers they wanted to have, rather than the ones they ended up in, just trying to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Very few people opted to do nothing, but even those were able to have safe housing and food.

I, for one, have absolutely no problem diverting my tax dollars toward such a program. None whatsoever.

Then again, I’m Canadian and was raised in a culture that knows that we’re better together, and that “I got mine you go get your own, asshole” just feeds fear and paranoia and isolationism.

 

Those who cannot rely on such a government have to rely on the caprices of capitalism. Those who do not have strong unions, work for the government, or both, can be fired without warning or cause.

Middle aged people who lose their jobs often find that their skills are not transferable, that employers think they are too old even if they have the right skills, and that employers are not interested in hiring them for jobs they have never performed, even if they have gone back to school at their own expense to learn new skills.

Increasingly employers force employees to sign agreements not to work for competitors of their present employers. This reduces their ability to look for better jobs. No one will hire them but competitors of their present employers. That is where their experience is.

Increasingly economic growth goes to profits rather than pay raises. Because most Americans know this, socialism is becoming more popular.

 

The United States has been a dictatorship and it is written in the Constitution.

 

Steve_vme:
Go to your teachers and demand your money back.

 

Socialism Gets a Second LifeWhy do the young love Bernie Sanders? Because their experience of capitalism is different, by Peggy Noonan
The Wall Street Journal: February 5, 2016

Nashua, N.H.

I was watching Bernie Sanders speak last week at a town hall in Bedford when an early intuition became a conviction: Take Mr. Sanders seriously. He is not just another antic presence in Crazy Year 2016. His rise signifies a major shift within the Democratic Party.

The big room was full, 700 to 800 people, good for 5 p.m. on a Friday. The audience wasn’t raucous or full of cheers as at his big rallies, but thinking and nodding. They were young and middle-aged, with not many white-haired heads. There was a working-class feel to them, though Bedford is relatively affluent.

“Let me disabuse you,” Mr. Sanders says to those who think he cannot win. He quotes New Hampshire polls, where he’s way ahead. He can defeat Donald Trump, he says.

Then the meat. He described America as a place of broad suffering—“student debt,” “two-job families” with strained marriages and insufficient child care, “the old on fixed incomes.”...

Mr. Sanders says people don’t go to the doctor when they’re sick because of the deductibles. “Same with mental-health care!” a woman calls out. “Mental-health care must be considered part of health care,” he responds, to applause. He is for “a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system.”

How to pay for it all? “Impose a tax on Wall Street speculation,” he says, briefly. He does not elaborate and is not pressed to...

As for the young, let’s say you’re 20 or 30, meaning you’ll be voting for a long time. What in your formative years would have taught you about the excellence of free markets, low taxes, “a friendly business climate”?...

If you are 20 or 30 you probably see capitalism in terms of two dramatic themes. The first was the crash of ’08, in which heedless, irresponsible operators in business and government kited the system and scrammed. The second is income inequality. Why are some people richer than the richest kings and so many poor as serfs? Is that what capitalism gives you? Then maybe we should rethink this!...

Do you know what’s old if you’re 25? The free-market capitalist system that drove us into a ditch.
http://www.peggynoonan.com/socialism-gets-a-second-life/

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Peggy Noonan was President Reagan's main speech writer. She writes a column for The Wall Street Journal. She understands the popularity of socialism far better than those who keep repeating tired old cliches left over from the Cold War. Educated people stopped paying attention to that stuff when they realized that that kind of thinking led us into the War in Vietnam, and kept us there for ten years, when the War had outlived any rational justification.

 

The U.S will forever be challenged, domestically.

The ebbs and flows of Capitalism vs Socialism.

The U.S. is the most advanced, the strongest and the youngest country in the world.

It once fought the strongest Country in the world for it's independence...and won that battle.

Today, Capitalism/Free market values are still being challenged, and will continue forever.

The staunch advocates of Socialism are offering protections by the federal fucking government, just as they have offered 'protections' for the ''minorities'' in this country.

And the minorities in this country are anything and everything that is not a white heterosexual male...

On a National level, popularity is not part of the equation.

Such and impotent argument.

 

Mankind has not sufficiently evolved for true socialism. True socialism demands 100% honesty from every human. Think about it...are YOU 100% honest? Do you know of anyone that is?

 

Country Start Date of Universal Healthcare
Norway 1912
New Zealand 1938
Japan 1938
Germany 1941
Belgium 1945
United Kingdom 1948
Kuwait 1950
Sweden 1955
Bahrain 1957
Brunei 1958
Canada 1966
Netherlands 1966
Austria 1967
United Arab Emirates 1971
Finland 1972
Slovenia 1972
Denmark 1973
Luxembourg 1973
France 1974
Australia 1975
Ireland 1977
Italy 1978
Portugal 1979
Cyprus 1980
Greece 1983
Spain 1986
South Korea 1988
Iceland 1990
Hong Kong 1993
Singapore 1993
Switzerland 1994
Israel 1995
Taiwan 1995
USA No time soon.

 

I have been giving this comment the thought it deserves ever since I read it yesterday.

Over the years I may have told a few inconsequential lies. (I may have even lied to deidre79 about my age. ) Nevertheless, I cannot remember doing so.

I cannot remember ever telling a lie of any consequence. If I am in trouble I tell the truth immediately. Any lies I tell are likely to make my problems worse when they are discovered to be lies.

 

Mr Smith's comment about honesty brings to mind several questions about the true agenda of socialist candidates are.


This is the problem with all of the promises the socialist candidates are making. They promise all this stuff healthcare, jobs, Etc but they are not honest about what providing these same promises will entitle other than taxing the ritch.

For example the promises of guaranteed government jobs and healthcare for everyone. For that promise to work the government has to be in complete control over the said jobs and healthcare. Now I'm not going to rehatch the argument against government run healthcare other than to point out that that once the government takes over something they tend not to allow competition and that means that we are then stuck with whatever the government provides good or bad.

Now the government providing everyone a job is on the same slippery slope. Especially if you consider how the governments in socialist countries love to nationalize businesses and other Industries. This includes favorite targets of the left big oil and other corporations and in every case we see the monopolizing of the industries they take over. So once again we would be stuck with whatever they give us good or bad whether we like it or not.

Now given the history of socialist governments nationalizing businesses and comments like Obama's famous "You Didn't build that." how they really intend to provide everyone with a government job.

 

Because Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, the Kim Crime Family, Saddam Hussein, and other unsavory dictators have used the word "socialism" to describe what they were in favor of, I prefer to refer to what I am in favor of as "social democracy."

When Americans tell polling agencies that they prefer socialism to capitalism, and when Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez say that they are "democratic socialists," all they really saying is that they would like for the U.S. economy to resemble the economies of most affluent democracies more than it does.

Universal health care exists in these countries. As far as the majority of people in those countries are concerned it works better than what we have in the United States.

During the New Deal here in the United States the government hired people directly with programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps. CCC was popular with Democrats and Republicans.

I am more of a Burkean than a Marxist. As such, I distrust untried social and economic experiments. What democratic socialists want for the United States has been tried. It works in improving the lives of most people in the countries where it exists, unlike the failed experiment of Supply Side Economics, which Republican politicians keep trying, because it does benefit the only minority they really care about.