The Political Discussion Thread

[KEK]

"
Because we have a thing called rights and Socialism does not recognize those rights. Example, we have a right to protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. Socialism there is no such thing. Socialism says if you are making more than somebody else it must be taken away and given to somebody else in order to even things out.

And that's okay with you?

Of course, you guys can use all the lingo you want to obfuscate things, but the truth is Socialism is a bad system.

Capitalism is not perfect, and the power of the corporations is something we can do without, but Socialism, well, at least with capitalism there are some checks and balances and people you can go to to act on a grievance. in Socialism, there is no such thing.

You seem to have a very strange (and incorrect) understanding of what socialism is, what you're describing sounds more like a Stalinist dictatorship. Although even if you want to take it to an extreme, yes, I would much rather the rich have some of their wealth taken away to help the poor than just leave them to die, which is what a capitalist system does.

[mad_gater]

You seem to have a very strange (and incorrect) understanding of what socialism is, what you're describing sounds more like a Stalinist dictatorship. Although even if you want to take it to an extreme, yes, I would much rather the rich have some of their wealth taken away to help the poor than just leave them to die, which is what a capitalist system does.

except for one small fact......you'll eventually run out of the wealth you so despise yet still need in order to make this system work....which will only serve to create more poor people than you would help under this system....I'd much rather have a system where people are encouraged to lift themselves up to wealth instead of reducing wealth to their level

[Goose]

Why do you assume we "despise" wealth just because we believe in some of the principles of democratic socialism? Has KEK ever said he despises wealth? No! We just want people who are wealthy to contribute more to the welfare state than someone who doesn't have as much money, because wealthy people have, by definition, more money! No one is talking about stripping people of all their wealth or despising wealth, we're just talking about wealthier people contributing more than poorer people.

[KEK]

And there's no shame in removing monsters from society. If you have a monster that wants to hurt you or your family, that person should be removed, period.

You don't need to kill someone to remove them from society.

[KEK]

except for one small fact......you'll eventually run out of the wealth you so despise yet still need in order to make this system work....which will only serve to create more poor people than you would help under this system....I'd much rather have a system where people are encouraged to lift themselves up to wealth instead of reducing wealth to their level

The much more socialist countries of Northern Europe typically have lower unemployment and a higher standard of living than the US, which much less severe poverty. Riddle me that.

[Goose]

The much more socialist countries of Northern Europe typically have lower unemployment and a higher standard of living than the US, which much less severe poverty. Riddle me that.

Yay for Northern Europe!! (Nordic pride!!)

[mad_gater]

The much more socialist countries of Northern Europe typically have lower unemployment and a higher standard of living than the US, which much less severe poverty. Riddle me that.

very likely because you're running up your national debt like crazy to subsidize everything to keep them from going under...just like we are....so this is only going to work until the countries you're borrowing money from call the loan and you got nothin' to show for it but a bunch of meaningless paper

[mad_gater]

look...it's a common sense fact that you can't spend your way out of a recession....it's a common sense fact that when you run into hard times the first thing to do is tighten the money belt

[EvilSpaceAlien]

very likely because you're running up your national debt like crazy to subsidize everything to keep them from going under...just like we are....so this is only going to work until the countries you're borrowing money from call the loan and you got nothin' to show for it but a bunch of meaningless paper

Incorrect, I live in Sweden and our national debt is actually rather low compared to yours, and most of that is just left over from WWII. We've actually been doing pretty good paying off our national debt recently. On the other hand the US has raised it's debt ceiling several times over the past decades, and Democratic presidents aren't to blame. Reagan holds the record, having raised the debt ceiling 18 times during his time in office, and he continued on with a blooming deficit through both of his terms, with the growth of it not even slowing down when the economy was doing well. It then continued to grow under Bush, until it gradually started to decrease under Clinton which led to the record surplus of the late 90s, which was later completely annihilated by Bush once he entered office, and continued to build onto the deficit, raising the debt ceiling 7 times during his 8 years in office. And now somehow people act like what Obama is trying to do is something different? Oh and hey by the way, do you which thing is currently the biggest contributor to the deficit you guys have over there? The Bush era tax cuts. If those went away you would lose around a third of the deficit.

The tried and true practice during a recession is to first cut spending in order to stem unnecessary loss of money, and then hike taxes in order create a larger influx of money into the national finances. And for gods sake, don't engage in a large bail-out without any serious security backing you up, so that one day you may get most of the money back. I mean come on, demand an amount of stocks that equals the money you're givin' 'em, insight over where the money goes, earmark it for certain things, just don't give it to 'em without any kind of conditions.

[Goose]

very likely because you're running up your national debt like crazy to subsidize everything to keep them from going under...just like we are....so this is only going to work until the countries you're borrowing money from call the loan and you got nothin' to show for it but a bunch of meaningless paper

The US debt as of June this year is about 100% of GDP. Sweden's debt is 35% of GDP, Norway 60%, Denmark 11%, and Finland 45%. So we're doing a heck of a lot better than the US! The only exception is Iceland, which as you may know experienced a financial crisis because of the unregulated behaviour of the banks, and not the crazy spending of the government. But even Iceland is doing better than is expected considering their current difficulties,

Ao no, we're not running up crazy national debts of subsidise everything.

[SoulReaver]

And for gods sake, don't engage in a large bail-out without any serious security backing you up

tis one of the most blatant contradictions of "free-market" advocacy: social welfare & any form of state interventionism is bad, except when it comes to corporate welfare :-D

[KEK]

very likely because you're running up your national debt like crazy to subsidize everything to keep them from going under...just like we are....so this is only going to work until the countries you're borrowing money from call the loan and you got nothin' to show for it but a bunch of meaningless paper

No, they just tax the wealthy more than you do instead, plus maintain laws that favour the employee over the employer.

[Goose]

And before you say that high taxation rates will drive away companies, at least Sweden has a very competitive rate of corporate taxation.

[Ben 'Teal'c would WIN!!' Noble]

Am I right in saying that this US debt deal it's just spending cuts and no tax increases at all?

If so what exactly have republicans compromised on?

[Galileo_Galilee]

Don't blame me for that corporate welfare crap. I never would've supported that in the first place. There is no such thing as too big to fail, and all it really is is nothing more than a scam.