A History of Socialism in America

a reply to: MystikMushroom

The idea would be sound in theory and practice if you could keep said politicians uncorrupted. As is, they are pretty much all corrupt, and that is the heart of the problem.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: burdman30ott6

The idea is a sound one, played out in practice over 200 years? Not so much.

If the elected officials don't know better than the individuals, then why are we bothering with elections at all? Why not just leave the country and go find somewhere else to live where we have the ultimate authority over ourselves?

I hear about this place in South America...

If your house is infested with vermin, you don't move... you begin extermination protocols.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: burdman30ott6

I agree with you on the globalization thing and your conclusions.

The problem I see...there are billions of customers out there, the USA has what, 380 million people? Corporations and companies that make things can just set up shop outside of the USA and sell their goods/wares to everyone else in the world.

Uh, no. The USA still has the largest GDP in the world, along with being well known for our consume at all costs mentality. No company is going to abandon the USA... at least not until we've bled ourselves dry by becoming a country with most people sitting on their ass doing nothing except waiting for their government to print more money out of thin air to buy their food, keep a roof over their head, keep them entertained, etc. THAT is how you ensure corporations abandon ship.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: burdman30ott6

The idea is a sound one, played out in practice over 200 years? Not so much.

If the elected officials don't know better than the individuals, then why are we bothering with elections at all? Why not just leave the country and go find somewhere else to live where we have the ultimate authority over ourselves?

I hear about this place in South America...

If your house is infested with vermin, you don't move... you begin extermination protocols.

Unless it's a lost cause and the extermination would require a complete leveling of the entire house down to the foundation. At that point, it would be easier just to build a new home with better materials that discourage infestation in the first place, using lessons learned from the previous home.

Each time you rebuild your home, you build it with new knowledge of what potential pitfalls may befall you. This is what humanity has been doing for tens of thousands of years -- building and then rebuilding after lessons.

The Puritans and the Mormons (among many, many others) didn't begin extermination protocols, they were a minority and couldn't. You, and people who believe as you do are not the overwhelming majority (despite the fact you might want think it should be that way). People aren't always going to agree with you, and aren't always going to believe as you do. *shrug* They're not going to feel, see, or believe what I do either.

If you're not the majority and can't begin to clean house, the next best thing is to collect all the like-minded individuals and create a new house. I think they tried that in South America in "Gault's Gultch"...From what I hear that mini-anarchist utopia didn't really pan out as well as hoped -- but the idea still stands as something to ponder.

How ironic. America started going downhill with the New Deal.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Naturally, as we both know, no Republicans voted for the bill, but that doesn't mean Republicans weren't responsible in any way for the end product we got.

So the Democrats take a House bill, gut the original language, throw in Obamacare, lard it down with earmarks to make it palatable to so-called Blue Dog Dems, lose the 60th vote to a (R), 'deem' the bill to pass in the Senate and send back to the House to be voted on after midnight on Christmas Eve without a single (R) vote... and it's the GOP's fault.

Wow man. Just wow.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Yes. I can't think of how we've lost any or which laws have stolen freedoms from us.

Every law passed is at the very least papercut to freedoms. They add up over time.

originally posted by: Teikiatsu
How ironic. America started going downhill with the New Deal.

If the New Deal hadn't happened, the USA wouldn't have been in the position it was to take advantage of WWII.

While the rest of the world was bombed to hell and in tatters after WWII, America was unscathed and had a booming manufacturing industry ready to go. When our troops came home, many found jobs in those factories building products that were used to repair the rest of the world.

If the USA wouldn't have been strengthened by the New Deal, we would have fared much more poorly during WWII. If we were weak and didn't enter on the Allies side, the Germans may have won. Who knows what America would look like today if Hitler was allowed to sweep through Europe and eventually occupy the UK?

No, the New Deal was in the process of pulling us out of the Great Depression, and because of that -- the USA was in a unique position to take advantage of the war.

WWII firmly cemented the USA as the leading world super power, only rivaled by Russia. If the New Deal hadn't happened, we wouldn't be discussing this right now.

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Naturally, as we both know, no Republicans voted for the bill, but that doesn't mean Republicans weren't responsible in any way for the end product we got.

So the Democrats take a House bill, gut the original language, throw in Obamacare, lard it down with earmarks to make it palatable to so-called Blue Dog Dems, lose the 60th vote to a (R), 'deem' the bill to pass in the Senate and send back to the House to be voted on after midnight on Christmas Eve without a single (R) vote... and it's the GOP's fault.

Wow man. Just wow.

Actually, Obamacare started as a single-payer plan. Obama was willing to compromise on the bill and worked with the Republicans to draft what would become Obamacare.

When everything came to a vote, the Republicans threw Obama under the bus and rejected the very plan they had agreed upon.

Obama compromised by using a plan created by republicans, for god's sake.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom

originally posted by: Edumakated
The problem I have with socialism is that is assumes central planners know better than the individual.

Isn't that why we bother electing people in the first place? We vote for people who know more about how to run governments and how to get things done than ourselves?

False premise. In America we aren't supposed to elect people who know how to get things done better than the People. We are supposed to elect people to be good stewards of our tax dollars, work towards increasing opportunity and prosperity for everyone, and protect our common basic interests.

In other words politicians are supposed to be the servants to the people, not the supervisor.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Absolute BS. The New Deal had to be stopped and regulations taken off the necks of businesses in America so they could gear up the war effort. The War Effort and rebuilding the rest of the civilized world is what made America prosper, not socialism. The reason they call it the 'Great Depression' in America and not the rest of the world is because the New Deal kept us in the basement for a freakin' decade while everyone else dusted themselves off and moved on.

a reply to: introvert

If I remember right, the same Republicans that worked with him were afraid of how they'd fare in upcoming elections if they voted FOR Obamacare. As the day grew closer to the vote, more and more Republicans began to denounce it and pledge to not vote for it.

Basically, you didn't want to be the "only one" who voted for it. You would most certainly never get re-elected if you voted for the ACA/Obamacare as a Republican.

I think for a while the Republicans that DID work with the Obama administration believed that some kind of compromise was possible, but when they saw their fellow party members dropping support left and right, they didn't want to stand alone. It would have been career suicide.

Obama kept going though, as the Democrats knew they could get it through anyway. *shrug* Not going to go down the "is it right/wrong" or "good/bad" -- just jogging my memory on how it all unfolded.

So yeah, Obama was kind of thrown under the bus...BUT he allowed himself to be...he should have forseen that he wasn't going to get any Republican votes. For that, I do not have any sympathy.

originally posted by: introvert

Actually, Obamacare started as a single-payer plan. Obama was willing to compromise on the bill and worked with the Republicans to draft what would become Obamacare.

When everything came to a vote, the Republicans threw Obama under the bus and rejected the very plan they had agreed upon.

Obama compromised by using a plan created by republicans, for god's sake.

Oh, Obama was 'willing' to compromise on a bill when the Democrats had a supermajority in the House and Senate? You believe that?

Single payer was toxic to the Dems, plain and simple. The GOP couldn't stop a dang thing for over a year. If the Democrats wanted so-called 'single payer', we'd have so-called 'single payer'. Stop lying to yourselves.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Gosh darn those GOP for thinking people shouldn't be forced to spend their money on a good or service, on penalty of government force. The nerve.

originally posted by: introvert

Actually, Obamacare started as a single-payer plan. Obama was willing to compromise on the bill and worked with the Republicans to draft what would become Obamacare.

When everything came to a vote, the Republicans threw Obama under the bus and rejected the very plan they had agreed upon.

Obama compromised by using a plan created by republicans, for god's sake.

you say "actually" like that wild theory could "actually" be true

snicker snicker

but there's proof somewhere I suppose

a reply to: MystikMushroom

I agree.

Obama and the democrats could have stopped it at any time, but by the time they realized the Republicans were bailing, they would have had to vote against it to stop it.

Would have been the right thing, but they had to secure a win for the democrats regardless. So they passed it.

Socialism, as in collection from all to give to a few, began with the Tariff.

Southern New England was the first section of America to become overcrowded. At the end of the Revolution, it had too many families, not enough farmland, and too few jobs.

Why didn't they go west? Probably a law against it, or the crony gov/banker (socialist) cartel had laid claim to all of the land, and the poor folks could NOT afford the free land confiscated by the socialistic gov. Free land confiscated for the greater good for the greater number and such.

The federal government set out deliberately to encourage there the commercial trades, especially ship-building and shipping, to save the region from sinking into poverty. The raw material for Northern factories, and the cargoes of Northern merchantmen, would come from the South.

The July 4, 1789, tariff was the first substantive legislation passed by the new American government. But in addition to the new duties, it reduced by 10 percent or more the tariff paid for goods arriving in American craft. It also required domestic construction for American ship registry. Navigation acts in the same decade stipulated that foreign-built and foreign-owned vessels were taxed 50 cents per ton when entering U.S. ports, while U.S.-built and -owned ones paid only six cents per ton. Furthermore, the U.S. ones paid annually, while foreign ones paid upon every entry.

This effectively blocked off U.S. coastal trade to all but vessels built and owned in the United States. The navigation act of 1817 made it official, providing "that no goods, wares, or merchandise shall be imported under penalty of forfeiture thereof, from one port in the United States to another port in the United States, in a vessel belonging wholly or in part to a subject of any foreign power."

The point of all this was to protect and grow the shipping industry of New England, and it worked. By 1795, the combination of foreign complication and American protection put 92 percent of all imports and 86 percent of all exports in American-flag vessels. American shipowners' annual earnings shot up between 1790 and 1807, from $5.9 million to $42.1 million.
www.etymonline.com...

The intensions of socialism are reasonable, but intervention into the economy always has bad side effects that require further intervention. In this case it required the War Between the States after all of the evolutions of the Tariff made the South into a cash cow for the North.

originally posted by: introvert
Obama compromised by using a plan created by republicans, for god's sake.

Almost missed this canard.

The Heritage Proposal suggested a 'carrot' to entice people to voluntarily sign up for health insurance with attractive tax credits and/or vouchers. No force needed.

Obamacare is a stick that uses government force to mandate people buy insurance or else pay penalties (now taxes, as per SCOTUS). The stick get 'subsidy bubblewrap' to beat on low wage earners, while the rest of us get the stick in a different manner to pay those subsidies.

But yeah, I see how you would think they are identical ideas.

a reply to: introvert

And, in a way I think the GOP *wanted* Obamacare to pass. Think about it in terms of long-term strategy:

1. Allow a handful of your more moderate Republicans to "work" with Obama. Have them fight back and forth on specifics of the ACA.

2. Argue back and forth and keep sending it back to the Dems and Obama. Have them keep re-working/re-wording it...

3. All this re-writing and concession-making in hopes of "collaboration" across the isles has the intended effect: A completely unsustainable healthcare system that will collapse under its own weight without 100% support from everyone.

4. Obama and the Dems now realize the Republicans have screwed the bill over and made it a complete failure from the get go, but the whole thing is in motion already. They can't back out. They need a win. Maybe they can tweak it after it passes?

5. One by one, the few Republicans that DID work with the Obama administration back out, turning their backs on the legislation. They don't want THEIR fingerprints ANYWHERE near it. Something like this occurs:



6. Obamacare passes, the Dems have a "win". The GOP is laughing because it's going to be a completely AWESOME platform item come election season. It's going to suck, and they know it. They're going to point that out, and use it in their campagins. They're banking on the fact America is going to hate it too -- and use it to retake the White House as well.

Let the Dems pass crap legislation by helping to make it crap. Then, you use that crap legislation as a prime example of why YOU should be in charge.

It's actually a deviously brilliant long-con.

a reply to: Teikiatsu

The "stick" being the individual mandate, correct?

Republican Individual Mandate

The plan was introduced in a 1989 book, “A National Health System for America” by Stuart Butler and Edmund Haislmaier.

Stuart Butler’s lecture describes what the Heritage’s mandate would look like:

We would include a mandate in our proposal–not a mandate on employers, but a mandate on heads of households–to obtain at least a basic package of health insurance for themselves and their families. That would have to include, by federal law, a catastrophic provision in the form of a stop loss for a family’s total health outlays. It would have to include all members of the family, and it might also include certain very specific services, such as preventive care, well baby visits, and other items.

Stuart Butler was a director at the Heritage Foundation.