Thread: Whats so wrong with socialism

I was struck when reading about the Philadelphia convention that hammered out the Constitution how adament the framers were in keeping all religious influences out of it. In fact, one could call their attitude almost hostile. Constitutional scholars attribute this suspicion to the many contemporary cases of government religious oppression in the home country and in Europe.

Weren't the ones who wrote the constitution free masons?...and one has to put things in context, this is the Enlightment period and established religions had a very bad press at this time (Voltaire, Rousseau,..)

Originally Posted by gunnut

1. For a while, Indians were better armed than US army. They adopted the lever action repeating rifles while US army stuck with their Civil War vintage muskets and single shot rifles.

2. I don't think Hotchkiss MGs were around during the Indian wars. US army had a few Gatling guns though.

Well, the advantage of Indian weapons were rates of fire versus accuracy and range. Indians had Spencer and Winchester rifles which were lever action repeating rifles and the US Army had Springfield .45's. The superior range of single shoot Springfield 45 allowed the US Army to engage Indians at greater range and neutralize the advantage of Spencer's and Winchester's rifles.As far as Hotchkiss MG's goes they were used at the Wounded Knee.

Originally Posted by Oscar

To sum it up you were far more peaceful than the Europeans because there were, relatively speaking, far less people to kill....:P

I wasn't measuring who was more peaceful in their expansion; that's your stick; I was talking about who encountered more obstacles in their expansion and who, in overcoming them, caused more or less damage.

You bought Florida from the Spaniards too...but when you encountered a weaker power in the course of your expansion you did just like any other country, you peace loving hippies turned predatory...

Never say anything on the net that would get you a fat lip in person.

I can't see anybody rushing into print with a list of two or more million names. Shall we just agree that the figure is simply foolish? (Overstating a case doesn't constitute proof, but it does invite ridicule).

It is amazing how quickly this takes the turn in the wrong direction.
I mean, if most Americans think that it is ok and just to pay 50 million dollars for a aspirin, work 57 jobs while dying from chronic condition, go to school that costs trillion a year, that is fine with me. Personally I think that it is nuts but that is just me. But please don't mix Christianity with it. It has absolutely no connection what so ever. What you have at stage in the US is the survival of the fittest, a pure Charles Darvin way not Jesus Christ. I mean what happens if a family gets a child that is disabled in some way and can't work like a person without disability. How that fits in the laziness picture? What that family should do?
Throw their child of the cliff or leave it in the woods for the wolves to finish him or her off? Or work billion jobs to pay trillions to the HMO's so that they can have a child and HMO's CEO's have 150 Ferrari's and houses larger than a football field. Health is a right not a privilege and education should be free so that everyone can express their full potential not just the rich people. Cause if you have only the rich to be able to have health insurance, good education and housing than US is not a democracy at all it is plutocracy and the system is not liberal capitalism but advanced feudalism.

Here's one more problem with socialism that I haven't seen discussed in this thread.

Anyone noticed all the developed nations with socialism (western Europe and Japan) all have birth rates below 2? That's below the replacement ratio of the population. It means the population is aging. It also means more and more tax burden will be borne by a smaller and smaller portion of the population.

With cradle to grave universal health care and retirement entitlement, who needs kids?

Personally I think that the birth ratio has to do with the quality of life. The better it is the less children are born. Maybe it is a natural reflex to preserve balance or something. So...yea...a good social program contributes to lower births.
Here in Serbia we had -2.8 birth ratio which means that for each year our population gets shrunken by 40.000. And we don't even have a good social program nor good economy. Actually both have been deteriorating rapidly in the past 2 decades so if this trend continues we will cease to exist in like three or four generations from now.Just like dinosaurs.

Originally Posted by Oscar

Weren't the ones who wrote the constitution free masons?...and one has to put things in context, this is the Enlightment period and established religions had a very bad press at this time (Voltaire, Rousseau,..)

True, many were. Do you know anything about free masonry?

I agree. Certain religious organzations had very bad "press" at the time. But most of the framers were active members of a church. They just didn't want their government to favor one religion over the other, such GB did with the Church of England or as was the case with Catholic France.

Originally Posted by Oscar

Weren't the ones who wrote the constitution free masons?...and one has to put things in context, this is the Enlightment period and established religions had a very bad press at this time (Voltaire, Rousseau,..)

I think you'd be better served looking at the evolutions of Puritanism than at the free masons when examining the writing of the Constitution.
PURITANISM, ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

Originally Posted by Versus

Personally I think that the birth ratio has to do with the quality of life. The better it is the less children are born. Maybe it is a natural reflex to preserve balance or something. So...yea...a good social program contributes to lower births.
Here in Serbia we had -2.8 birth ratio which means that for each year our population gets shrunken by 40.000. And we don't even have a good social program nor good economy. Actually both have been deteriorating rapidly in the past 2 decades so if this trend continues we will cease to exist in like three or four generations from now.Just like dinosaurs.

You've got the causality backwards. More advanced economies see declining birth rates. You no longer need to have 15 children so that 5-10 grow old enough to work the fields with you from dawn until dusk. Once your economy advances and you no longer have to work in the field but work in an office, you don't need kids to work, and you also tend to see better health care and so you don't need to have more kids to hedge against child mortality.

Originally Posted by gunnut

Here's one more problem with socialism that I haven't seen discussed in this thread.

Anyone noticed all the developed nations with socialism (western Europe and Japan) all have birth rates below 2? That's below the replacement ratio of the population. It means the population is aging. It also means more and more tax burden will be borne by a smaller and smaller portion of the population.

With cradle to grave universal health care and retirement entitlement, who needs kids?

Let's not forget that the birth rate of the "non hispanic white" Americans as they are called in the US is basically the same as in Western Europe. And actually that's quite the opposite, in Europe you absolutely need kids to pay your health care and your pension.

Originally Posted by Shek

You've got the causality backwards. More advanced economies see declining birth rates. You no longer need to have 15 children so that 5-10 grow old enough to work the fields with you from dawn until dusk. Once your economy advances and you no longer have to work in the field but work in an office, you don't need kids to work, and you also tend to see better health care and so you don't need to have more kids to hedge against child mortality.

Agreed 100%. But you have to take under consideration that you have two parameters in that equation. You have the subjects man and woman and you have the environment in which they live. Environment is just a part of the puzzle.

Originally Posted by Versus

Agreed 100%. But you have to take under consideration that you have two parameters in that equation. You have the subjects man and woman as subjects and you have the environment in which they live. Environment is just a part of the puzzle.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say.

Originally Posted by Versus

It is amazing how quickly this takes the turn in the wrong direction.
I mean, if most Americans think that it is ok and just to pay 50 million dollars for a aspirin, work 57 jobs while dying from chronic condition, go to school that costs trillion a year, that is fine with me. Personally I think that it is nuts but that is just me. But please don't mix Christianity with it. It has absolutely no connection what so ever. What you have at stage in the US is the survival of the fittest, a pure Charles Darvin way not Jesus Christ. I mean what happens if a family gets a child that is disabled in some way and can't work like a person without disability. How that fits in the laziness picture? What that family should do?
Throw their child of the cliff or leave it in the woods for the wolves to finish him or her off? Or work billion jobs to pay trillions to the HMO's so that they can have a child and HMO's CEO's have 150 Ferrari's and houses larger than a football field. Health is a right not a privilege and education should be free so that everyone can express their full potential not just the rich people. Cause if you have only the rich to be able to have health insurance, good education and housing than US is not a democracy at all it is plutocracy and the system is not liberal capitalism but advanced feudalism.

Good grief. Do you have any idea at all what life in the US is like? Because it sure doesn't sound like it.

And we can debate whether health care is a right all day long, but I think we can all agree that 'health' is certainly not a right.