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Round 2: TheMythLives vs americandingbat : "Hello Comrade"
page: 113
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The topic for this debate is "The United States Is Ready For A Move To Socialist Government"
TheMythLives will be arguing the pro position and will open the debate.
americandingbat will argue the con position.
Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.
There is a 10,000 character limit. Excess characters will be deleted prior to judging.
Editing is strictly forbidden. For reasons of time, mod edits should not be expected except in critical situations.
Opening and closing statements must not contain any images and must have no more than 3 references.
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Judging will be done by a panel of anonymous judges. After each debate is completed it will be locked and the judges will begin making their decision. One of the debate forum moderators will then make a final post announcing the winner.
TheMythLives will be arguing the pro position and will open the debate.
americandingbat will argue the con position.
Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.
There is a 10,000 character limit. Excess characters will be deleted prior to judging.
Editing is strictly forbidden. For reasons of time, mod edits should not be expected except in critical situations.
Opening and closing statements must not contain any images and must have no more than 3 references.
Excluding both the opening and closing statements, only two images and no more than 5 references can be included for each post. Each individual post may contain up to 10 sentences of external source material, totaled from all external sources.
Links to multiple pages within a single domain count as 1 reference but there is a maximum of 3 individual links per reference, then further links from that domain count as a new reference. Excess quotes and excess links will be removed before judging.
Videos are not permitted. This includes all youtube links and other multi-media video sources.
The Socratic Debate Rule is in effect. Each debater may ask up to 5 questions in each post, except for in closing statements- no questions are permitted in closing statements. These questions should be clearly labeled as "Question 1, Question 2, etc.
When asked a question, a debater must give a straight forward answer in his next post. Explanations and qualifications to an answer are acceptable, but must be preceded by a direct answer.
This Is The Time Limit Policy
Each debate must post within 24 hours of the timestamp on the last post. If your opponent is late, you may post immediately without waiting for an announcement of turn forfeiture. If you are late, you may post late, unless your opponent has already posted.
Each debater is entitled to one extension of 24 hours. The request should be posted in this thread and is automatically granted- the 24 hour extension begins at the expiration of the previous deadline, not at the time of the extension request.
In the unlikely event that tardiness results in simultaneous posting by both debaters, the late post will be deleted unless it appears in its proper order in the thread.
Judging will be done by a panel of anonymous judges. After each debate is completed it will be locked and the judges will begin making their decision. One of the debate forum moderators will then make a final post announcing the winner.
Alright, much thanks to Semper for setting this debate up and much luck to Americandingbat.
Alright lets keep this short and simple. Socialism simply means:
I will prove in this debate that we are already on the verge of a transformation to a Socialist government. That sociaism could solve a lot of issues, and other important facts. I will use history examples of transformations, the economic aid that it brings, and other facts that show that Socialism might just be knocking on the door.
And that closes my opening statement.
Alright lets keep this short and simple. Socialism simply means:
Definition
any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
I will prove in this debate that we are already on the verge of a transformation to a Socialist government. That sociaism could solve a lot of issues, and other important facts. I will use history examples of transformations, the economic aid that it brings, and other facts that show that Socialism might just be knocking on the door.
And that closes my opening statement.
Thanks to semperfortis for setting up this debate and choosing the topic, which promises to be most interesting; thanks to the judges and readers of
these debates; and thanks and good luck to my esteemed opponent TheMythLives.
"The United States Is Ready For A Move To Socialist Government"
My opponent has kindly provided a very broad definition of the word “Socialist”; in my opening I will examine how this definition should be applied in the context of the rest of the topic sentence for this debate.
The first thing we need to look at is that my opponent’s definition includes a range of both economic and political theories. But our topic is focused on “Socialist Government.” A move to a “socialist government” must involve political as well as economic restructuring; that is, simply nationalizing major industry under the same government we currently have would not constitute a “move to socialist government.”
Here is one definition of socialism that might fit our more specific needs:
The Socialist Labor Party
And from the same source, to give an idea of how the political system in a socialist government might work:
Now let’s consider the “United States.” Note that the verb used with this is singular, so we are not talking about the states (plural) as individual entities, but rather the singular Federal entity comprised of all fifty States plus overseas territories.
Finally let’s look at “ready for a move to.” I’d like to highlight two things about this phrase. The first is that the idea of a “move to” a new form of government suggests an abrupt and distinct change. It is not a “move towards” but a “move to.”
Second, that we are “ready” for this move. Again, not “on our way toward” this move. The word used is "ready": all necessary preparations have been made and all that remains is to make the big leap to a socialist government.
Socialism was originally defined by Karl Marx as a stage on the progression from capitalism to communism. In his terms, all capitalist societies are on a path toward socialism; the class struggle and the alienation of the worker from the means of production make this inevitable. Marx believed that socialist government and economy would be effected through revolution; that the proletariat would rise up and overthrow the capitalist elite. Later theorists have argued that a violent revolution is not necessary, and still other theorists have investigated the question of why, if socialism is an inevitable stage of historic development, there has never been a socialist state.
In the course of this debate we may have to draw on this theoretical material to determine whether the United States could be the first nation to be “ready for a move to socialist government”. For now, however, I will turn the debate back over to my opponent.
"The United States Is Ready For A Move To Socialist Government"
My opponent has kindly provided a very broad definition of the word “Socialist”; in my opening I will examine how this definition should be applied in the context of the rest of the topic sentence for this debate.
The first thing we need to look at is that my opponent’s definition includes a range of both economic and political theories. But our topic is focused on “Socialist Government.” A move to a “socialist government” must involve political as well as economic restructuring; that is, simply nationalizing major industry under the same government we currently have would not constitute a “move to socialist government.”
Here is one definition of socialism that might fit our more specific needs:
Socialism does not mean government or state ownership. It does not mean a closed party-run system without democratic rights. Those things are the very opposite of socialism.
"Socialism," as the American Socialist Daniel De Leon defined it, "is that social system under which the necessaries of production are owned, controlled and administered by the people, for the people, and under which, accordingly, the cause of political and economic despotism having been abolished, class rule is at end. That is socialism, nothing short of that."
The Socialist Labor Party
And from the same source, to give an idea of how the political system in a socialist government might work:
Besides electing all necessary shop officers, the workers will also elect representatives to a local and national council of their industry or service—and to a central congress representing all the industries and services. This all-industrial congress will plan and coordinate production in all areas of the economy.
Now let’s consider the “United States.” Note that the verb used with this is singular, so we are not talking about the states (plural) as individual entities, but rather the singular Federal entity comprised of all fifty States plus overseas territories.
Finally let’s look at “ready for a move to.” I’d like to highlight two things about this phrase. The first is that the idea of a “move to” a new form of government suggests an abrupt and distinct change. It is not a “move towards” but a “move to.”
Second, that we are “ready” for this move. Again, not “on our way toward” this move. The word used is "ready": all necessary preparations have been made and all that remains is to make the big leap to a socialist government.
Socialism was originally defined by Karl Marx as a stage on the progression from capitalism to communism. In his terms, all capitalist societies are on a path toward socialism; the class struggle and the alienation of the worker from the means of production make this inevitable. Marx believed that socialist government and economy would be effected through revolution; that the proletariat would rise up and overthrow the capitalist elite. Later theorists have argued that a violent revolution is not necessary, and still other theorists have investigated the question of why, if socialism is an inevitable stage of historic development, there has never been a socialist state.
In the course of this debate we may have to draw on this theoretical material to determine whether the United States could be the first nation to be “ready for a move to socialist government”. For now, however, I will turn the debate back over to my opponent.
Alright lets get this going:
So I think it is important to view who is on the left, after all those who are on the left are viewed as Socialist.
For instance, to name a brief few:
Nancy Palosi- Speaker of the House
Barack Obama- President- Obama wants to bailout the auot industry, stop free trade, get the government more involved (if not completely in control of) healthcare, and to top it all off redistribute wealth.
Rahm Emanuel- White House Chief of Staff
But its not just Obama that has brought these new ideas on, past presidents have created and added fuel to a socialist state. Lets take a look at a few ways on how this has been accomplished:
Socialist Ideas:
-Medicare
-Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
-National School Lunch Program
-Retirment Systems
-Public Housing
-Social Security
-Food Stamp Program
-United States Department of Agriculture
-Import Tariffs
-And many more, but these were just off the top of my head, and might I add that these programs have helped many Americans, but in helping we are slowly moving away from a republic to a Socialist State.
Lets look closely at what history says. Infact many socialist states have existed, while we may label them as full blooded communist, that infact is ignorance on our part, as there is a definate difference and even labeled in the states consitution as "socialism" while here in the US we call them commies.
Current Socialist States:
And many more countries: SOURCE
As I have shown this will not be the first nation to turn Socialist, but maybe the first nation that the entire world knows and labels as Socialist without the gray areas.
Obama has recently done some very strange things that have socialist ideas:
-By promoting stem cell research, which will inevitably increase abortion rates. By trying to pass FOCA, which would take all restrictions off of Abortion and even allow back "alley" abortions and partial birth abortion and any other restriction.
-By passing the new bailout bill which will now affect healthcare greatly. As Miss Betsy McCaughey will explain:
Electronically filed, finger prints, basically what Daschle described whoever is in charge of National Coordinator of Health will decide what the doctors can and cannot do to you. In order to save money and other "necessary" aid. Would you want a non-doctor to give directions of what should be done to save/help you? Socialist control.
For the full article which makes a very interesting read: SOURCE- GREAT READ
-Gun Confiscation
-Import Tariffs
-Higher Transportation Prices
-Increased Government Jobs
- And many others.
The United States is about to take the final leap from Capitalist to Socialist, it is inevitable. The US has led itself down this road and soon it will be socialist and what happens after that is up to whoever is in charge at the time.
Amazingly this is happening right now, the bailout plan and other soon to be bailout plans can and will insure this step. There is so much going on in those bailout proposals, that many people do not even bother to read it. The political movement, well, after all politics is politics. After all it DID happen during the civil war and if necessary could happen again.
No Socratic Questions
Mod Edit: To Remove In Excess Of Ten External Sentences Used.
[edit on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:33:30 -0500 by MemoryShock]
SOURCE
In contemporary politics the term left is applied to social liberalism, social democracy, socialism, communism, and most forms of anarchism.
So I think it is important to view who is on the left, after all those who are on the left are viewed as Socialist.
For instance, to name a brief few:
Nancy Palosi- Speaker of the House
Barack Obama- President- Obama wants to bailout the auot industry, stop free trade, get the government more involved (if not completely in control of) healthcare, and to top it all off redistribute wealth.
Rahm Emanuel- White House Chief of Staff
But its not just Obama that has brought these new ideas on, past presidents have created and added fuel to a socialist state. Lets take a look at a few ways on how this has been accomplished:
Socialist Ideas:
-Medicare
-Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
-National School Lunch Program
-Retirment Systems
-Public Housing
-Social Security
-Food Stamp Program
-United States Department of Agriculture
-Import Tariffs
-And many more, but these were just off the top of my head, and might I add that these programs have helped many Americans, but in helping we are slowly moving away from a republic to a Socialist State.
if socialism is an inevitable stage of historic development, there has never been a socialist state.
Lets look closely at what history says. Infact many socialist states have existed, while we may label them as full blooded communist, that infact is ignorance on our part, as there is a definate difference and even labeled in the states consitution as "socialism" while here in the US we call them commies.
Current Socialist States:
Vietnam - Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Cộng hòa Xã hội Chủ nghĩa Việt Nam) (officially in unified Vietnam since July 2, 1976, but in the north since 1954)
North Korea - Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk) (since 1948) [3] (see Constitution of North Korea)
Laos - Lao People's Democratic Republic (Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao) (since December 2, 1975)
North Korea - Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk) (since 1948) [3] (see Constitution of North Korea)
Vietnam - Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Cộng hòa Xã hội Chủ nghĩa Việt Nam) (officially in unified Vietnam since July 2, 1976, but in the north since 1954)
FORMER:
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (April 27, 1978 - April 28, 1992)
Socialist People's Republic of Albania
People's Republic of Angola
People's Republic of Benin
People's Republic of Bulgaria
People's Republic of the Congo
Republic of Czechoslovakia
German Democratic Republic
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Hungarian Soviet Republic
And many more countries: SOURCE
As I have shown this will not be the first nation to turn Socialist, but maybe the first nation that the entire world knows and labels as Socialist without the gray areas.
Obama has recently done some very strange things that have socialist ideas:
-By promoting stem cell research, which will inevitably increase abortion rates. By trying to pass FOCA, which would take all restrictions off of Abortion and even allow back "alley" abortions and partial birth abortion and any other restriction.
-By passing the new bailout bill which will now affect healthcare greatly. As Miss Betsy McCaughey will explain:
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
Electronically filed, finger prints, basically what Daschle described whoever is in charge of National Coordinator of Health will decide what the doctors can and cannot do to you. In order to save money and other "necessary" aid. Would you want a non-doctor to give directions of what should be done to save/help you? Socialist control.
For the full article which makes a very interesting read: SOURCE- GREAT READ
-Gun Confiscation
-Import Tariffs
-Higher Transportation Prices
-Increased Government Jobs
- And many others.
The United States is about to take the final leap from Capitalist to Socialist, it is inevitable. The US has led itself down this road and soon it will be socialist and what happens after that is up to whoever is in charge at the time.
must involve political as well as economic restructuring;
Amazingly this is happening right now, the bailout plan and other soon to be bailout plans can and will insure this step. There is so much going on in those bailout proposals, that many people do not even bother to read it. The political movement, well, after all politics is politics. After all it DID happen during the civil war and if necessary could happen again.
No Socratic Questions
Mod Edit: To Remove In Excess Of Ten External Sentences Used.
[edit on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:33:30 -0500 by MemoryShock]
”In contemporary politics the term left is applied to social liberalism, social democracy, socialism, communism, and most forms of anarchism.”
So I think it is important to view who is on the left, after all those who are on the left are viewed as Socialist.
TheMythLives
My opponent opens his argument with an obvious fallacy. By his own source, the term “left” applies to a wide range of political philosophies, socialism being only one among many. To say “those who are on the left are viewed as Socialist” may be true, if you add the qualifier “by those who are unaware of the other ‘leftist’ philosophies.”
His examples of United States politicians on the left (Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Raum Emanuel) are certainly not socialists, and have only been called socialists in right-wing political rhetoric and as a smear tactic.
And his examples of “socialist” ideas range from bizarre (embryonic stem cell research) to anti-socialist (many of the current “social welfare” programs which serve to weaken any emerging sense of unity among the disenfranchised classes and perpetuate the lie that the control of resources by the few is inevitable).
In short, my opponent seems to be under the impression that “socialism” is anything that Rush Limbaugh disagrees with. He is welcome to proceed on this assumption throughout the debate; I intend to use a rather more robust definition of socialism and put my faith in the judges and readers as ATS members, that they recognize propaganda when they see it and will not be confused by the neoconservative tendency to label anything they see as a threat to their power as “socialist”.
Next my opponent provides a list of “socialist” countries, both current and past. The only criteria for inclusion? That somewhere in the name or constitution is a claim to be socialist. Surely we all see the absurdity of this logic? Let’s look at just one of his examples: the German Democratic Republic (also known in the U.S. as “East Germany” before the reunification of Germany).
By the logic of the Wikipedia page he uses as a source (which has been nominated for deletion, marked as biased and in need of sourcing, and features an acrimonious argument on its discussion page about whether the entire page is meaningless), the GDR must qualify not only as a socialist country (based I suppose on language in its constitution) but also as a democratic republic (based on its name).
Now, if there is no difference between a socialist government and a democratic republic, this entire debate is moot, since by that token the United States has been ready for a socialist government since at least 1789.
I sincerely hope that didn’t make any sense to the readers or judges – it doesn’t make any sense to me either. Perhaps we should see if it makes sense to my opponent, by asking some Socratic Questions:
Question 1: Do you think that the United States as constituted by the U.S. Constitution qualified as a “democratic republic”?
Question 2: Do you think that the German Democratic Republic qualified as a “democratic republic”?
Question 3: Do you think that the claims a country makes in its self-naming or its political rhetoric are the best indications of the actual political structure of that country?
Lets look closely at what history says. Infact many socialist states have existed, while we may label them as full blooded communist, that infact is ignorance on our part, as there is a definate difference and even labeled in the states consitution as "socialism" while here in the US we call them commies.
TheMythLives
Here in the U.S., I don’t think I’ve ever called anyone a “commie” except in jest. And while it is indeed ignorance to label any of the states listed in Wikipedia as self-proclaimed “socialist” states “communist”; it is equally ignorant to label most of them socialist.
There are a (very) few nations that can or at some point in history could have laid genuine claim to being “socialist”; in none of them would that claim go without dispute. Most of the states listed are variations on totalitarianism or despotism, in which ownership and control of the means of production lie not with the people but with one person (or a small cabal of people) who claim to administer them for the equal benefit of all.
The terms “socialism” and “socialist” are among the most misused in political discourse. The biggest challenge for me in this debate is not to prove that the United States is not ready for a transition to socialist government – we will be able to see that clearly once we have understood what a socialist government is (and is not). In my next two posts I hope to address socialist theory and shed some light on how certain social programs commonly described as “socialist” are actually anti-socialist insofar as they reinforce the class divisions of capitalism and obscure the true interest of the working classes.
I would like to end this post by quoting again the description of socialism given in my opening statement:
"Socialism," as the American Socialist Daniel De Leon defined it, "is that social system under which the necessaries of production are owned, controlled and administered by the people, for the people, and under which, accordingly, the cause of political and economic despotism having been abolished, class rule is at end. That is socialism, nothing short of that."
The Socialist Labor Party
And also providing this information from the Wikipedia page on “Socialism” detailing the main commonality among the various branches of socialism:
Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital, creates an unequal society, and does not provide equal opportunities for everyone in society. Therefore socialists advocate the creation of a society in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly based on the amount of work expended in production, although there is considerable disagreement among socialists over how, and to what extent this could be achieved. (emphasis added)
Socialism
I would ask readers and judges to keep these criteria in mind as you read this debate, and to question whether policies called “socialist” by their opponents (or by my opponent) are actually socialist by the standards of socialism, or whether “socialist” has become a handy catch-all term for “un-American”.
Do you think that the United States as constituted by the U.S. Constitution qualified as a “democratic republic”?
Seeing all the add-ons to the Constitution, far from the original, it can clearly and sincerely be said that No, the United States Constitution has not been democratic republic for a long time, more like Democratic Socialism.
Do you think that the German Democratic Republic qualified as a “democratic republic”?
So no.. briefly elaborated upon: If the leading party is socialist, has socialist ideas, socialist ideologies, then certainly it its socialist.
The ruling political party in East Germany was the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party of Germany, SED).
Do you think that the claims a country makes in its self-naming or its political rhetoric are the best indications of the actual political structure of that country?
Yes, at the conception, but afterwards could lead to changes in the political system. Look at the US, once was an actual republic, now its not.
__________________________________________________________
Now lets show you how the modern day bailout is leading to the upcoming Socialist America.
Whats the big thing in Socialism? Nationalizing Companies, but not just any company- The Largest Corporations Possible. Much like what Hugo Chavez and Indira Ghandi, both of which are socialist and both nationalized the largest Corporations in there countries. Lets look back at 2008 when the first stimulus package was announced, what did it do? Nationalized possibly the largest mortage lenders in the entire world, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
I believe Russian Premier Khrushchev said it best, "We can't expect the American people to jump from capitalism to Communism but we can assist their leaders by giving them small amounts of Socialism until they awaken one day to find out they have Communism and Communism will take over America without firing a shot."
Even Karl Marx said, "A new revolution is possible only in consequences of a new crisis." We have a crisis. As a matter of fact, unless the world stock markets stabilize, the entire world could be looking at a financial tsunami. Many nations, including America, could be ripe for being taken over by unsavory political efforts "without firing a shot."
Barack Obama, ""It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too. I just think that when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
Obama also has stated that many times, that he believes that everyone has the right to health care (universal health care- free health care). The Socialist Party of the US also believes this. The socialist party USA stated that secret ballots are not necessary for Unions, Obama has alos stated the same thing. The Socialist Party has also stated that they want a decline or stop in Weapons Arms, Obama has also stated the same.
I believe mother always said that if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, chances are it is a duck. Obama is a socialist, the country is socialist, as I have stated above with socialist Ideas. There are many! Many!
Here's More:
-The Homestead Act of 1863+the land grant colleges that followed
-Public education
-The Transcontinental Rail Road
-The Interstate Highway System
-The Dams of the West
-The TVA
-The GI Bill
-Federalism in general
Why are people afraid of Socialism, we have it right here, we live in it! We are the beginning of a new state.
Most of the states listed are variations on totalitarianism or despotism, in which ownership and control of the means of production lie not with the people but with one person (or a small cabal of people) who claim to administer them for the equal benefit of all.
Totalitarianism needs a Socialist type of government to survive. The economic system, based on government ownership, of the means of production, positively requires a totalitarian dictatorship. Despotic systems are very odd and I am not even going to touch that economic-governmnet system. So baiscally, we have covered that they were possibly either- Totaliterian Socialist or Despotic Socialist. There have been MANY Socialist nations.
Here are some Current Socialist Nations from a better source:
Cuba: Cuba is one of the most Socialist nations, as it has a mostly state-run economy, universal healthcare, government-paid education at all levels, and a number of of social programs.
North Korea: The same is true of North Korea, which has an almost entirely state-run economy, as well as the same social programs mentioned for Cuba.
Venezuela: Economy has more private ownership, but the government social programs are quite extensive and the foreign policy is very left-wing.
China: A substantial part of the economy is still state-run, although there are not as many social programs as there once were and universal healthcare has been eliminated.
Vietnam: A significant part of the economy is state-run.
Syria: Although not commonly referred to as Socialist in the West, Syria has a mostly state-run economy and universal healthcare, along with a left-wing foreign policy.
Belarus: Much of the Belarussian economy is state-run and some govt. social programs are available.
Sweden: Mostly private industry, but many well-funded govt. social programs are offered.
Associated Content
Again I have shown that there are many places that have either been or are currently Socialist.
Socialist Definition:
Socialism is an economic system characterized by public ownership and centralized planning of all major industries (manufacturing, services, and energy), banks and insurance companies, agribusiness, transportation, the media, and medical facilities......
Source
__________________________________________________________
Socratic Questions-
1) In your opinion is Socialism evil?
2) Due you view the current US as a Capitalist Democracy? And why.
3) In your opinion is Obama's Bailout plan Socialist?
4) Do you believe that the current US constitution is reflecting of a Republic state? and why.
Edited to remove 9 sentences of External Material to fall within the guidelines of the limit of 10
[edit on 3/12/2009 by semperfortis]
Socratic Questions-
1) In your opinion is Socialism evil?
2) Due you view the current US as a Capitalist Democracy? And why.
3) In your opinion is Obama's Bailout plan Socialist?
4) Do you believe that the current US constitution is reflecting of a Republic state? and why.
TheMythLives
1) No.
2) I view the United States economy as capitalist, and the United States political system as a democracy in the dictionary sense, but not in the sense in which Madison used it in the Federalist Papers in opposition to the term “republic”.
Speaking in general, I view the United States to be capitalist (have a capitalist economy) based on several factors, including the existence of stock and futures markets, the existence of a large working class forced to sell its own labor to support its existence, the concentration of ownership and control of both productive resources and the fruits of production in the hands of a small propertied group, the belief in the profit motive as the driving force of productive activity, and the use of a currency as an abstract means to determine equivalence among varying products. These are not all of the capitalist traits of the United States, but those that occur to me off the top of my head.
I view the United States to be a democracy in the sense given in the following definition:
Merriam-Webster
because our political leaders are elected in periodic votes (albeit in the case of the Presidency, mediated votes), and the vote is granted to most citizens who are of age (with the exception of convicted felons). However, while the supreme power in the United States is vested in the people, it is not shared equally among the people, due to cultural, social, and economic factors.
It is not a democracy in Madison’s sense of direct government by majority rule.
3) No.
4) Yes. I think the current U.S. Constitution, including its Amendments, are descriptive of a Republic in both Madison’s sense and in the dictionary definition, because it outlines a government according with this definition:
Merriam-Webster
My opponent has offered a new definition of socialism to us from a short essay called “Socialism 101” provided on the website of a leftist publishing company. Let’s look at the entire first paragraph of this essay:
Socialism 101
With this in mind, I’ll ask some Socratic Questions of my opponent:
Question 1) Whom do you think the recent bank bailouts benefited more, bank executives or working class Americans?
Question 2) Do you think that Obama’s Stimulus Package reflects the collective decision of the productive class of the United States of America as to how our wealth can be used for the benefit of all?
Question 3) Do you think most of the political and economic power in the United States of America is held in the hands of an elite class?
Question 4) If the answer to #3 was “yes”, do you foresee this fact changing in the near future? If the answer to #3 was “no”, how do you think power is distributed in the United States?
My opponent has pointed out that Karl Marx argued that there must be a crisis preceding the transition to socialism, and has posited that the current economic turmoil is just that crisis.
But in Marx’s argument, the crisis must arise not within the class of property owners, but between those who control the means of production and those who work for them. The result will be an uprising of the working class against the existing power structures.
Every reform that my opponent claims is “socialist” has been made by and within the power structure, not for the greater good of working Americans but for the greater good of the power elite.
By a crisis, Marx meant a crisis that would bring class struggle between the upper classes and the workers to a head, and lead to the workers overthrowing the government and seizing economic and political power on their own behalf. Does this sound like what President Obama has supported? Or like all the programs already in place which my opponent would have us believe are socialist in nature?
Think of it this way: in number the poor and working classes vastly outnumber the wealthy elite of the United States. In order to maintain their position, the elite maneuvers to prevent any possible alliance between the working class and the destitute (what Marx called the lumpenproletariat). Welfare programs as currently constituted in the United States are an incredibly effective way of achieving just that. They make the destitute directly dependent on the elite for their handouts, which simultaneously reinforces the existence of a class of non-working poor, and causes resentment among the struggling working poor, who are led to see not the elite but the destitute as their enemy in a struggle for material accumulation.
A truly Socialist policy would put power in the hands of the working class, and would encourage bonds to form between the unpropertied classes, until these bonds become strong enough and class consciousness becomes great enough to cause the crisis which would result in the overthrow of the capitalists.
Instead, we have a working class that believes itself to share the goals and values of the elite in opposition to a non-working destitute class, and a destitute class dependent on the elite for their continued survival through government handouts! This is not Socialism – it is a means to temporarily assuage protests among the poorer classes, and to trick them into seeing each other, rather than the captains of banking and industry, as enemies.
[edit on 3/13/2009 by semperfortis]
1) In your opinion is Socialism evil?
2) Due you view the current US as a Capitalist Democracy? And why.
3) In your opinion is Obama's Bailout plan Socialist?
4) Do you believe that the current US constitution is reflecting of a Republic state? and why.
TheMythLives
1) No.
2) I view the United States economy as capitalist, and the United States political system as a democracy in the dictionary sense, but not in the sense in which Madison used it in the Federalist Papers in opposition to the term “republic”.
Speaking in general, I view the United States to be capitalist (have a capitalist economy) based on several factors, including the existence of stock and futures markets, the existence of a large working class forced to sell its own labor to support its existence, the concentration of ownership and control of both productive resources and the fruits of production in the hands of a small propertied group, the belief in the profit motive as the driving force of productive activity, and the use of a currency as an abstract means to determine equivalence among varying products. These are not all of the capitalist traits of the United States, but those that occur to me off the top of my head.
I view the United States to be a democracy in the sense given in the following definition:
1b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
Merriam-Webster
because our political leaders are elected in periodic votes (albeit in the case of the Presidency, mediated votes), and the vote is granted to most citizens who are of age (with the exception of convicted felons). However, while the supreme power in the United States is vested in the people, it is not shared equally among the people, due to cultural, social, and economic factors.
It is not a democracy in Madison’s sense of direct government by majority rule.
3) No.
4) Yes. I think the current U.S. Constitution, including its Amendments, are descriptive of a Republic in both Madison’s sense and in the dictionary definition, because it outlines a government according with this definition:
1b: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
Merriam-Webster
My opponent has offered a new definition of socialism to us from a short essay called “Socialism 101” provided on the website of a leftist publishing company. Let’s look at the entire first paragraph of this essay:
Socialism is an economic system characterized by public ownership and centralized planning of all major industries (manufacturing, services, and energy), banks and insurance companies, agribusiness, transportation, the media, and medical facilities. Under capitalism, these giant enterprises dominate the economy but are privately owned and operated for the purpose of generating wealth for their owners by extracting it from working people who are paid only a small fraction of what their labor produces. Socialism turns this around so that the class that produces the wealth can collectively decide how it will be used for the benefit of all.
Socialism 101
With this in mind, I’ll ask some Socratic Questions of my opponent:
Question 1) Whom do you think the recent bank bailouts benefited more, bank executives or working class Americans?
Question 2) Do you think that Obama’s Stimulus Package reflects the collective decision of the productive class of the United States of America as to how our wealth can be used for the benefit of all?
Question 3) Do you think most of the political and economic power in the United States of America is held in the hands of an elite class?
Question 4) If the answer to #3 was “yes”, do you foresee this fact changing in the near future? If the answer to #3 was “no”, how do you think power is distributed in the United States?
My opponent has pointed out that Karl Marx argued that there must be a crisis preceding the transition to socialism, and has posited that the current economic turmoil is just that crisis.
But in Marx’s argument, the crisis must arise not within the class of property owners, but between those who control the means of production and those who work for them. The result will be an uprising of the working class against the existing power structures.
Every reform that my opponent claims is “socialist” has been made by and within the power structure, not for the greater good of working Americans but for the greater good of the power elite.
By a crisis, Marx meant a crisis that would bring class struggle between the upper classes and the workers to a head, and lead to the workers overthrowing the government and seizing economic and political power on their own behalf. Does this sound like what President Obama has supported? Or like all the programs already in place which my opponent would have us believe are socialist in nature?
Think of it this way: in number the poor and working classes vastly outnumber the wealthy elite of the United States. In order to maintain their position, the elite maneuvers to prevent any possible alliance between the working class and the destitute (what Marx called the lumpenproletariat). Welfare programs as currently constituted in the United States are an incredibly effective way of achieving just that. They make the destitute directly dependent on the elite for their handouts, which simultaneously reinforces the existence of a class of non-working poor, and causes resentment among the struggling working poor, who are led to see not the elite but the destitute as their enemy in a struggle for material accumulation.
A truly Socialist policy would put power in the hands of the working class, and would encourage bonds to form between the unpropertied classes, until these bonds become strong enough and class consciousness becomes great enough to cause the crisis which would result in the overthrow of the capitalists.
Instead, we have a working class that believes itself to share the goals and values of the elite in opposition to a non-working destitute class, and a destitute class dependent on the elite for their continued survival through government handouts! This is not Socialism – it is a means to temporarily assuage protests among the poorer classes, and to trick them into seeing each other, rather than the captains of banking and industry, as enemies.
[edit on 3/13/2009 by semperfortis]
Question 1) Whom do you think the recent bank bailouts benefited more, bank executives or working class Americans?
Thats easy, the bank executives, while it may seem that the citizens are, I assure you that in 3 years or less we will be paying huge amounts of Taxes and PAYING more back than ever.
Question 2) Do you think that Obama’s Stimulus Package reflects the collective decision of the productive class of the United States of America as to how our wealth can be used for the benefit of all?
No, I am assuming that you are talking about spreading the wealth? If we tax the rich people the poor will suffer more. Case in point: The rich are rich because they own the largest companies and if we tax them and there companies more, they will pull back production and products and make prices rise to gain what they had before the large tax increase. Thus making the poor spend more than they have and creating yet another issue, simple economics.
Question 3) Do you think most of the political and economic power in the United States of America is held in the hands of an elite class?
Yes.
Question 4) If the answer to #3 was “yes”, do you foresee this fact changing in the near future? If the answer to #3 was “no”, how do you think power is distributed in the United States?
Not really, case in point: The business plot of 1929-1934, located in my sig. The corporations were planning to overthrow FDR and lead an army of 500,000 soldiers on the white house (Mawell House, Goodyear Tire, GM and other LARGE corporations, including (-very-possibly, Prescott Bush)), Butler told a committee and the committee found that there was definatley a plot, but then the leaders (the Business Plot Leaders) talked to FDR and the leaders of the committee and all were released with not even a slap on the hand and guess what the papers and media did not even touch the story? Why because they were controlled by them too. The elite who had power back then have power now. (Makes a very interesting read that I think you and everyone should read).
But in Marx’s argument, the crisis must arise not within the class of property owners, but between those who control the means of production and those who work for them. The result will be an uprising of the working class against the existing power structures.
Interesting the car companies, healthcare, agriculture and other production controllers seem to have this going on right now. I assure you that with all the unemployment now and it is only going to get worse that an uprising of the working class is not that far fetched.
Every reform that my opponent claims is “socialist” has been made by and within the power structure, not for the greater good of working Americans but for the greater good of the power elite.
Yes, working toward further and complete control. Socialism is just another step.
Instead, we have a working class that believes itself to share the goals and values of the elite in opposition to a non-working destitute class, and a destitute class dependent on the elite for their continued survival through government handouts! This is not Socialism – it is a means to temporarily assuage protests among the poorer classes, and to trick them into seeing each other, rather than the captains of banking and industry, as enemies.
Huh? Ok I do not think this is plagerisim if I wrote it so here it is again:
The Communist Manifesto. My thread Communist Manifesto
This is what Marx thought was the transition from Capitalist to Socialist to Communism, but it can also apply to Facism.
Here it is:
1) Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. (Executive Orders and the infamous Eminent Domain- Maria_Stardust and TheMythLives Debate).
2) A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. (Income, Sales tax, theres just so many in all the states its so confusing)
3) Abolition of all right of inheritance. (Inheritance statutes)
4) Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. (government seizures, tax aliens, Public "law" Executive orders gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of "terrorists" and those who speak out or write against the government; or the IRS confiscation of property without due process.)
5) Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. (The Federal Reserve, The World bank, the European Central bank, and others).
6) Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. (The Federal Comminications Commission, The Department of Transportation, Interstate Commerse Commission, The Federal Aviation, as well as Presidential Executive Orders.)
7) Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. (Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Land Management, and the IRS control of business through corporate regulations.)
8) Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. (Fedral Public Works Program and the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor, as well as executive orders.)
9)Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country. (The Planning Reorganization act of 1949, Super Corporate Farms (as well as genetically modified food)
10) Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production. (Its not a bdad idea, but they do have a tendency to indoctrinate kids).
And while we are at it, heres the Bankers Manifesto:
"We (the bankers) must proceed with caution and guard every move made, for
the lower order of people are already showing signs of restless commotion.
Prudence will therefore show a policy of apparently yielding to the
popular will until our plans are so far consummated that we can declare
our designs without fear of any organized resistance.
The Farmers Alliance and Knights of Labor organizations in the United
States should be carefully watched by our trusted men, and we must take
immediate steps to control these organizations in our interest or disrupt
them."
This does not sound democratic in the least bit. SOURCE
Is it me or does there seem to be a huge amount of similarities between the America today and the progressive transition from capitalist to socialist and the infamous Facist or communist, which will inevitably bring the NWO.
Also, Obama has added more fire the centralizarion of the states, in accrodance with North America.
1. First create a financial situation where they devalue the dollar to the point of it being worthless: Done
2. Remove trade barriers and sovereignty between Canada, The US, and Mexico: In Progress
3. Consolidate the control of trade between member states: In Progress
4. Force the financial collapse of individual States: In Progress
From: HERE
California is giving no income tax and has cut done all healthcare (medicad) and guess what other states are doing this now.
Something smells like Socialism and boy is it strong. Americandingbat would like to disprove that socialism is not as prominent here, but unfortunatley it is greatly here and what is scary is that the great bit of socialism that we have is actually helping people. (Scary in the sense that people think that socialism is all bad, when in reality its not all bad).
Socratic Questions:
1) How much Socialist ideas are in our political world? On a scale of 0 to 100% (100% obviously being the greatest).
2) Do you feel that we are in a transitional phase toward a different style government?
3) Do you think most of the political and economic power in the United States of America is held in the hands of an elite class? (I think this is highly important)
4) If the answer to #3 was “yes”, do you foresee this fact changing in the near future? If the answer to #3 was “no”, how do you think power is distributed in the United States?
Its a necessary reverse questioning..lol..
Answers to my opponent’s Socratic Questions
In my personal political world, born and raised in Northeastern cities with parents in the very furthest left fringes of the Democratic Party, maybe 50%. Class struggle and the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists is a fundamental basis of my understanding of politics. I suspect that your political world is very different.
I think that human governments, like human cultures, are in a constant state of change. But I don’t think we will see a fundamental change in the structure of government in my lifetime.
Very much so, and increasingly so as time goes on. This is the definition of a capitalist class, and of capitalist economies.
See my answer to number 2. Unfortunately, no, I don’t think this will change in my lifetime, which is in my opinion a fair measure of “the near future”.
TheMythLives has presented ten guidelines from the Communist Manifesto which he seems to feel represent the heart of the socialist program. In fact, taken in context, these represent only certain painful steps that Marx and Engels felt would have to be taken before the benefits of socialism would be felt throughout society. What’s more important is that Marx and Engels changed their minds about these ten guidelines, writing in the Preface to the 1872 German edition of the Communist Manifesto:
Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Preface to the 1872 German Edition
I don’t think we need put much stock in a list of suggestions that Marx and Engels felt needed to be singled out in a later edition as being a passage that they no longer felt applied, that they would write very differently.
TheMythLives also provides a “Bankers Manifesto” apparently written in 1892 in which it becomes clear that the bankers understand their interests to be in direct opposition to those of workers’ unions, whether the workers be agricultural or industrial. What I find most chilling in this Manifesto is the phrase “we must take immediate steps to control these organizations in our interest or disrupt them.”
Chilling because of how effective those steps have been in the 117 years since.
Far more than the relatively small and homogenous bourgeois elite, the lower and working classes are turned in against themselves, controlled and disrupted by a series of policies that have emphasized their differences rather than supporting their alliance.
The rural worker resents the urban worker. The urban worker resents the inner-city welfare recipient. The welfare recipient resents the suburban factory employee. It continues around and around in a circle, with the bourgeois-controlled government offering occasional handouts to one or another interest group – never enough to truly help them break out of the shackles of poverty but just enough to ferment resentment among the other unpropertied classes.
In addition, we have the spectre of the “hordes” of illegal aliens arriving on our shores to compete over scarce government handouts – a target of hysteria that not only draws attention from the true oppressors, but legitimates a form of racism that can then lie dormant underneath the other tensions. People of different cultures can be suspected not because of their skin color or their language, but because they are “stealing” from taxpayers.
In 1847 Marx and Engels believed the Socialist Revolution to be imminent. In 1872 American bankers perceived workers’ unions to be enough of a threat that they developed their own plan to forestall any such revolution. In 2009 there has never in the history of the world been a large-scale proletariat uprising to overthrow a capitalist bourgeois class as Marx had envisioned it.
What “socialism” has been introduced to the world has been either on the Leninist-Stalinist model of an attempted transition directly from feudalism to socialism/communism (and we saw how well that worked), or by injecting ideas that while superficially similar to socialist proposals have no relationship to socialism’s revolutionary vision (in the Scandinavian countries most prominently).
The results have been totalitarianism on the one hand (and despite what my opponent would have us believe, the relationship between totalitarian philosophy and socialist philosophy is antagonistic, not similar) and a sort of softened capitalism on the other, where the proletariat swallows its sugar pills and does not disrupt the banker’s world.
For some reason my opponent keeps harping on the concentration and centralization of the means of production, of capital, and of power in the hands of the few, as though this was a socialist tendency. Nothing could be further from the truth – it is indeed one of the traits Marx and Engels found characteristic of capitalism.
Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Section 1: Bourgeois and Proletarian
Perhaps the critical fact that my opponent is missing is that the centralizing processes underway, or that have occurred in the United States since the Communist Manifesto was written in 1847, have overwhelmingly tended not so much to put control or ownership of the means of production in the hands of the government, as to put ownership or control of the government in the hands of the capitalist elite.
1) How much Socialist ideas are in our political world? On a scale of 0 to 100% (100% obviously being the greatest).
In my personal political world, born and raised in Northeastern cities with parents in the very furthest left fringes of the Democratic Party, maybe 50%. Class struggle and the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists is a fundamental basis of my understanding of politics. I suspect that your political world is very different.
2) Do you feel that we are in a transitional phase toward a different style government?
I think that human governments, like human cultures, are in a constant state of change. But I don’t think we will see a fundamental change in the structure of government in my lifetime.
3) Do you think most of the political and economic power in the United States of America is held in the hands of an elite class? (I think this is highly important)
Very much so, and increasingly so as time goes on. This is the definition of a capitalist class, and of capitalist economies.
4) If the answer to #3 was “yes”, do you foresee this fact changing in the near future?
See my answer to number 2. Unfortunately, no, I don’t think this will change in my lifetime, which is in my opinion a fair measure of “the near future”.
TheMythLives has presented ten guidelines from the Communist Manifesto which he seems to feel represent the heart of the socialist program. In fact, taken in context, these represent only certain painful steps that Marx and Engels felt would have to be taken before the benefits of socialism would be felt throughout society. What’s more important is that Marx and Engels changed their minds about these ten guidelines, writing in the Preface to the 1872 German edition of the Communist Manifesto:
The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today.
Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Preface to the 1872 German Edition
I don’t think we need put much stock in a list of suggestions that Marx and Engels felt needed to be singled out in a later edition as being a passage that they no longer felt applied, that they would write very differently.
TheMythLives also provides a “Bankers Manifesto” apparently written in 1892 in which it becomes clear that the bankers understand their interests to be in direct opposition to those of workers’ unions, whether the workers be agricultural or industrial. What I find most chilling in this Manifesto is the phrase “we must take immediate steps to control these organizations in our interest or disrupt them.”
Chilling because of how effective those steps have been in the 117 years since.
Far more than the relatively small and homogenous bourgeois elite, the lower and working classes are turned in against themselves, controlled and disrupted by a series of policies that have emphasized their differences rather than supporting their alliance.
The rural worker resents the urban worker. The urban worker resents the inner-city welfare recipient. The welfare recipient resents the suburban factory employee. It continues around and around in a circle, with the bourgeois-controlled government offering occasional handouts to one or another interest group – never enough to truly help them break out of the shackles of poverty but just enough to ferment resentment among the other unpropertied classes.
In addition, we have the spectre of the “hordes” of illegal aliens arriving on our shores to compete over scarce government handouts – a target of hysteria that not only draws attention from the true oppressors, but legitimates a form of racism that can then lie dormant underneath the other tensions. People of different cultures can be suspected not because of their skin color or their language, but because they are “stealing” from taxpayers.
In 1847 Marx and Engels believed the Socialist Revolution to be imminent. In 1872 American bankers perceived workers’ unions to be enough of a threat that they developed their own plan to forestall any such revolution. In 2009 there has never in the history of the world been a large-scale proletariat uprising to overthrow a capitalist bourgeois class as Marx had envisioned it.
What “socialism” has been introduced to the world has been either on the Leninist-Stalinist model of an attempted transition directly from feudalism to socialism/communism (and we saw how well that worked), or by injecting ideas that while superficially similar to socialist proposals have no relationship to socialism’s revolutionary vision (in the Scandinavian countries most prominently).
The results have been totalitarianism on the one hand (and despite what my opponent would have us believe, the relationship between totalitarian philosophy and socialist philosophy is antagonistic, not similar) and a sort of softened capitalism on the other, where the proletariat swallows its sugar pills and does not disrupt the banker’s world.
For some reason my opponent keeps harping on the concentration and centralization of the means of production, of capital, and of power in the hands of the few, as though this was a socialist tendency. Nothing could be further from the truth – it is indeed one of the traits Marx and Engels found characteristic of capitalism.
The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. … Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.
The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralized the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralization. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, one frontier, and one customs tariff.
Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Section 1: Bourgeois and Proletarian
Perhaps the critical fact that my opponent is missing is that the centralizing processes underway, or that have occurred in the United States since the Communist Manifesto was written in 1847, have overwhelmingly tended not so much to put control or ownership of the means of production in the hands of the government, as to put ownership or control of the government in the hands of the capitalist elite.
What’s more important is that Marx and Engels changed their minds about these ten guidelines
Whoa! You almost got this past me. They never changed there minds, instead they wanted to modernize what they had written. But look at todays world, it seems that the 10 steps are doing quite well.
With this little sentence being the key:
That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today.
Never said that they didn't want it in the Manifesto, but simply stated that it would have to be revised greatly before hand.
I don’t think we need put much stock in a list of suggestions that Marx and Engels felt needed to be singled out in a later edition as being a passage that they no longer felt applied, that they would write very differently.
No, No, No, we indeed have to. Look at the world today, the US especially is folllowing these ten guidelines and to say that since they are not included in a later version- so therefore, no longer hold any ground- is strictly perposterus. They hold much ground as the day they were written and they are being acted upon today in the US.
In 2009 there has never in the history of the world been a large-scale proletariat uprising to overthrow a capitalist bourgeois class as Marx had envisioned it.
The Business Plot of 1933- wanted to turn America Facist- and yes it failed, but it would have succeeded if Butler had followed through with the original plans.
_____________________________________________________________
Alright in closing, I would like to thank Americandingbat and the infamous or is it famous, Semperfortis for arranging this debate. It has been fun AmericanDingBat.
Now off to the closing:
There are many types of Socialism that the US can and will become: Wiki provides a small list and I like the list so here it is:
SOURCE
2. Marxism and Communism
3. Libertarian socialism and Social anarchism
4. Democratic socialism and social democracy
5. Religious socialism
6. Regional or ethnic socialism
7. Eco-socialism
Which one will America choose? Its hard to tell, but does it really matter? No, it does not because the ned result is and will be the same, to become Facist or Communist and in doing so bring the NWO. Socialism is here and all we need to do is take the final step and BAM we will be Socialist America. Its certainly possible, the new laws that we have, the executive orders, the future new laws that we will recieve.
Again I would like to point out the Socialist ideas that the United States has adopted over the years, has led to a Socialist Birth and uprising of ideas. The leaders that we have are Socialist, they are socialist right now. ANd to say that they are not, because they are not labeled as such is False. If our leader quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, chances are its a duck and chances are Barack Obama is a Socialist, with the ideas that he has and continues to publicly talk about. ANd what better to turn socialist than with an economic issue and a socialist leader? It would appear everything to turn socialist is ready right now!
Is the country ready to turn socialist? Yes.
Do we have socialist leader? Yes.
Do we have socialist laws? Yes.
Do we have socialist Acts? Yes.
Do we have socialist way of life? In the Progress.
Do we have a socialist economy? Almost there.
Has the country ever been threatened domestically to turn Facist? Yes.
Has the country ever been in danger of turning Communist? Yes.
Will country ever be in danger again? Yes.
Will it succeed? Yes, this time it will.
Why? Because our leader represents "HOPE" and what better way to break the news than by a leader representing hope and leadership. People will not flutter, the masses will accept it and we will be thrown in a socialist way of life followed by the elites plans to take over.
So simply put, good bye republic, good bye democracy (unless we have a Socialist Democracy), good bye freedom! Welcome to the:
The United Socialist States of America
also known as the:
USSA
___________________________________________________________
Thank You for reading Judges and Audience, we appreciate it. And I hope it was a good read. Again Thank you AmericanDingBat and Thank you, SemperFortis!
And thats all for me folks, there isn't anymore.
My opponent is putting a lot of weight into the claim that our current President is a socialist, whether or not he would call himself one. An
interesting claim. Since part of my argument has been that nations that call themselves Socialist are not actually socialist if they do not meet the
criteria of socialism, I have to at least look at the possibility that we have elected a Democratic president who is in fact a Socialist.
To look into this claim, I went to the the self-proclaimed “Headquarters of the Conservative Underground,” HumanEvents.com. In part of their pre-election series “The Case Against Barack Obama: The Reality Behind the Rhetoric” they investigated this very question. I am being specific about the source here because I think it is important to note that this is a conservative website, hardly given to defending Barack Obama against legitimate insinuations. What did they conclude?
How did they come to this conclusion?
They asked the Socialist Party Campaign Clearinghouse Coordinator about Obama. He said:
They asked the National Secretary of the World Socialist Party about Obama. He said:
And they asked the National Secretary of the Socialist Party USA (the very party my opponent compared Obama’s views to in an earlier post) whether Barack Obama is a socialist. He replied:
While vetting then-candidate Obama with Socialists, HumanEvents.com also ran his tax plan by the conservatives at the Heritage Foundation, who responded with a number of biting criticisms, but also with a report that the tax plan was not socialist. This verdict was echoed in the words of the National Secretary of the Socialist Party USA, who went on to compare Obama’s tax plan unfavorably (as less progressive than) the tax plan put forward during Richard Nixon’s presidency.
So it seems clear: Barack Obama is no Socialist.
I want to repeat that last quote about President Obama, because it summarizes my basic stance in this debate: “A socialist program would not be a program that props up capitalism when it fails, but one that transforms the economy.”
Virtually every so-called “socialist” reform in the United States has done just that: served to prop up the capitalist economy. Whenever the suffering of the poverty-stricken classes has threatened to become unbearable, has threatened the security of the power and economic elite, we have had so-called “socialist” programs introduced. The “safety net” of the “welfare state” that has resulted demonstrates clearly that these programs serve not to empower the recipients but to buttress the fortresses of the rich.
In vast areas of our urban centers, welfare has become a way of life for women and children; underemployment, unemployment, illegal employment, and incarceration are a way of life for the men.
Our agricultural areas have become an incomprehensible combination of agribusiness on a huge (and hugely profitable) scale, mixed with strange combinations of extreme poverty and government subsidies that operate with little rhyme or reason.
For every recipient of federal funding, there is a counterpart who resents that funding. So such programs serve not only to ensure the dependence on the government of the recipient, but also to ensure the perception of competition and enmity between elements of the unpropertied classes.
This is not socialism; this is manipulation as practiced by masters. And those masters are the capitalists, the power elite, the very people my opponent and I agree are in control of our government, and have been in control of our government for a very long time.
I look at the current economic situation in the United States and I wish I could feel that true change might emerge out of this time of crisis.
But what our history has shown time and again is that those in control of our wealth and power are skilled in tossing just the right amount to the crowd to prevent an uprising. I do not see any reason to believe this will change.
I suppose it is possible that the elite will shorten the strings a little bit and we will step that much closer to direct and undisguised government by the bankers and industrialists who control the wealth. But the American people is too divided and too distracted to form a cohesive movement toward real change, toward taking over the ownership and management of the means of production in this country, and thereby wresting control of the government from the approved puppets of the elite.
My opponent has talked a lot about nationalization and centralization of industry under socialism. But socialism is not the only form of government that involves centralization of control. As I showed in my last post, Marx recognized the centralization of political control to be a fundamental mark of capitalism. The hallmark of centralized control under socialism would be that it resulted in management of resources in accord with the will and interest of the working class.
What we have seen over the last year or so has been the increasing centralization, particularly of the financial sector of our economy, not in the hands of the people, but in the hands of the bankers – the very epitome of the capitalist class.
Sadly, I foresee business as usual ahead, with hard times for those of us who do not pull down million-dollar bonuses.
Many thanks to my opponent TheMythLives for an interesting and entertaining debate; to semperfortis for setting it up; and to the readers and judges. Enjoy!
To look into this claim, I went to the the self-proclaimed “Headquarters of the Conservative Underground,” HumanEvents.com. In part of their pre-election series “The Case Against Barack Obama: The Reality Behind the Rhetoric” they investigated this very question. I am being specific about the source here because I think it is important to note that this is a conservative website, hardly given to defending Barack Obama against legitimate insinuations. What did they conclude?
Socialism is just a red herring…we don’t have to go nearly that far to criticize the senator’s many flawed proposals, which are anemic, impractical, naïve, and pure, unadulterated politics. But not socialist.
How did they come to this conclusion?
They asked the Socialist Party Campaign Clearinghouse Coordinator about Obama. He said:
The idea that Barack Obama is socialist, or quasi-socialist, or semi-socialist, or socialist-light, or anything of the sort, is far-right nonsense. Barack Obama, like John McCain, is very much a ‘politician as usual,’fully committed to the continuation of the capitalist system and the expansion of its empire.
They asked the National Secretary of the World Socialist Party about Obama. He said:
Obama is as much a socialist as the Pope is an atheist.
And they asked the National Secretary of the Socialist Party USA (the very party my opponent compared Obama’s views to in an earlier post) whether Barack Obama is a socialist. He replied:
Barack Obama's programs are not socialist. The vast majority of his proposals are anti-worker (or he might say ‘pro-business’). His health care proposals are more to save the for-profit insurance industry and do not have the goal of ending for-profit insurance. … Many of his other economic proposals are pro-corporate.
A socialist program (even a reformist one) would not be a program that props up capitalism when it fails, but one that transforms the economy.
While vetting then-candidate Obama with Socialists, HumanEvents.com also ran his tax plan by the conservatives at the Heritage Foundation, who responded with a number of biting criticisms, but also with a report that the tax plan was not socialist. This verdict was echoed in the words of the National Secretary of the Socialist Party USA, who went on to compare Obama’s tax plan unfavorably (as less progressive than) the tax plan put forward during Richard Nixon’s presidency.
So it seems clear: Barack Obama is no Socialist.
I want to repeat that last quote about President Obama, because it summarizes my basic stance in this debate: “A socialist program would not be a program that props up capitalism when it fails, but one that transforms the economy.”
Virtually every so-called “socialist” reform in the United States has done just that: served to prop up the capitalist economy. Whenever the suffering of the poverty-stricken classes has threatened to become unbearable, has threatened the security of the power and economic elite, we have had so-called “socialist” programs introduced. The “safety net” of the “welfare state” that has resulted demonstrates clearly that these programs serve not to empower the recipients but to buttress the fortresses of the rich.
In vast areas of our urban centers, welfare has become a way of life for women and children; underemployment, unemployment, illegal employment, and incarceration are a way of life for the men.
Our agricultural areas have become an incomprehensible combination of agribusiness on a huge (and hugely profitable) scale, mixed with strange combinations of extreme poverty and government subsidies that operate with little rhyme or reason.
For every recipient of federal funding, there is a counterpart who resents that funding. So such programs serve not only to ensure the dependence on the government of the recipient, but also to ensure the perception of competition and enmity between elements of the unpropertied classes.
This is not socialism; this is manipulation as practiced by masters. And those masters are the capitalists, the power elite, the very people my opponent and I agree are in control of our government, and have been in control of our government for a very long time.
I look at the current economic situation in the United States and I wish I could feel that true change might emerge out of this time of crisis.
But what our history has shown time and again is that those in control of our wealth and power are skilled in tossing just the right amount to the crowd to prevent an uprising. I do not see any reason to believe this will change.
I suppose it is possible that the elite will shorten the strings a little bit and we will step that much closer to direct and undisguised government by the bankers and industrialists who control the wealth. But the American people is too divided and too distracted to form a cohesive movement toward real change, toward taking over the ownership and management of the means of production in this country, and thereby wresting control of the government from the approved puppets of the elite.
My opponent has talked a lot about nationalization and centralization of industry under socialism. But socialism is not the only form of government that involves centralization of control. As I showed in my last post, Marx recognized the centralization of political control to be a fundamental mark of capitalism. The hallmark of centralized control under socialism would be that it resulted in management of resources in accord with the will and interest of the working class.
What we have seen over the last year or so has been the increasing centralization, particularly of the financial sector of our economy, not in the hands of the people, but in the hands of the bankers – the very epitome of the capitalist class.
Sadly, I foresee business as usual ahead, with hard times for those of us who do not pull down million-dollar bonuses.
Many thanks to my opponent TheMythLives for an interesting and entertaining debate; to semperfortis for setting it up; and to the readers and judges. Enjoy!
americandingbat has won through unanimous decision and will advance to the Third Round.
TheMythLives(TML)/americandingbat(adb)
I really enjoyed this debate. Both fighters gave a opening I liked. Brief, to the point. I would have liked to seen maybe a bit more of TML's stance in his opening so adb took the first round.
TML starts his actual case strong with a list of Socialist policies that have been enacted. He lists the current Democratic movers and shakers but fails to really define them as socialists. As adb pointed out, the left is a lot more than Socialism. Adb also picked apart the list of countries quite easily.
This trend continues for most of the debate. Adb refuted most of TML's claims efficently. She uses the heads of several Socialist parties descriptions to show that the Socialists themselves don't consider any policies of the day something they would support.
TML seemed to get to caught up on the history aspect of it. Although relevant, I didn't feel he made the connection clear enough. He needed to be a bit more succinct in the way he presented it.
Overall, I scored it 4-1 to the winner, americandingbat.
Opening statements
This round goes to americandingbat (ADB). Her expanded definition of socialism seemed much more thorough and better defined the scope of the debate than did TheMythLive's (TML). ADB also makes a brilliant observation by making the distinction between moving toward and being ready for (the actual topic of debate).
ADB +1
First Round
TML now gets into the meat and potatoes of his argument and it is an excellent post indeed. He lists examples of existing government programs that already have a socialist bent to them as well as some politicians who do not hide the fact they have socialist plans in mind. This was an excellent strategy in the fact it provides evidence we are ready to make a shift towards socialism because we already have socialist programs.
TML +1
I would have awarded him 2 points but ADB comes in and dismantles some important parts of his arguments.
She points out that just because some left leaning politicians might be labeled socialists by the right leaning politicians does not mean they actually are socialists. She also confirms my confusion by questioning embryonic stem cell research being a socialist action.
ADB +1
She also did an incredible job questioning the veracity of the examples of socialist countries.
Another point for ADB. ADB +1
Second Round
Excellent Socratic answers by TML. It looks like he nailed every one of them with incredible responses.
TML +1
TML then proceeds to submit evidence of more shifts towards socialism. The only thing I would have liked to have seen him focus on more is what ADB pointed out before: We may be shifting towards socialism in some aspects but are we actually ready for it? Is it beneficial? Is this trend good for America? While indeed showing evidence we are heading in that direction, it would have been nice if TML also had elaborated on how the shifts represent the fact it is not only occurring but that we are also ready for it instead of leaving the reader and judges to connect the dots.
ADB did an exceptional job of answering Socratic questions 2 and 4 in particular. It was very smart of her to differentiate between political, economic, and government socialism and to review the classification the US would fall under.
ADB +1
We now get into the focused matter of the debate: Being ready for the shift. Karl Marx is brought into the equation and showing how a crisis often precedes a shift to socialism. Since many believe we are in crisis mode, this could very well be evidence of 'being ready' for socialism.
Both debaters had a good exchange on this concept so both debaters are awarded 1 point each.
ADB +1
TML +1
Third Round
Both debaters did well in answering the socratic questions posed by the opponent but it felt like neither of them took full advantage of the openings given to them to expand on their answers in how it supported their position.
However, they both redeem themselves in the meat of their posts when they focus on the aspects of elitist rulership and defend their stances based on the transition to power of the state. Both debaters did well in this round but ADB came out slightly ahead with her rebuttal. Therefore TML will be awarded 1 point while ADB will be awarded 1.5 points.
ADB +1.5
TML +1
Closing Statements
TML begins his closing statement by offering a great comeback of defending his previous points as still being applicable. (+1 TML) He then uses a tactic ADB used previously by explaining the different forms of socialism and how the US appears to not only be moving in that direction but that in many cases, socialism is already here in a very big way. (+1 TML) TML then makes another slam dunk point by explaining the multiple socialist aspect already existing in American society. (+1TML)
Total closing points for TML: 3
ADB fires back by breaking down TML's examples, specifically Obama being labeled a socialist. She provides great resources defending her position again that Obama is not technically a socialist. (+1 ADB) She proceeds to make some fantastic points of her own by pointing out Marx's own labeling of capitalism concerning political control and I loved her point about the bankers. (+1 ADB).
Total closing points for ADB: 2
General Assessment
Wonderful fight by both debaters. They both did an excellent job and this debate was a pleasure to read and judge. I look forward to seeing more of their work in this forum. But, there can only be one winner.
Point tallies:
ADB: 8.5
TML: 7
I deem ADB the winner.
Judgement- Americandingbat wins.
Opening;
TheMythLives-Begins with broad definition.
Americandingbat-also begins by defining the topic. AD tries to very tightly define the topic so as to narrow down the debate. No real advantage gained by either in opening.
Round One;
TheMythLives- Begins to show the socialist aspects of our system, in keeping with his/her opening definition. There is a quote in the first round,
if socialism is an inevitable stage of historic development, there has never been a socialist state.
which has no attribution. I reread both opening posts several times, and never did figure out what or whom was being quoted here, or how it was relevant. As a technical detail, it is important to tell the reader who is being quoted and why.
Another thing that added more confusion to the argument than clarity was his/her point on stem cell research. The claim was made that this was socialist somehow, (TML claims this will lead to more abortions,) but there was no argument made to show how either stem cell research or abortion was socialist, nor how the one, (stem cell research) was anticipated to have any causal effect on abortion. The point added absolutely nothing to the argument.
TML then drops an unquoted source, titled "great read" and follows it with a list of things, but he/she does nothing at all to do anything with the list of consequences of socialism. The overall tone of the first round suggests that while TML is arguing that socialism IS what we are moving towards, TML also feels negatively about this. As a debate point, however, linking to a source with the expectation that the source will make your argument for you is a bad tactic. As a judge, I am not judging your sources ability to make an argument. I am judging yours. In this case, nothing whatsoever was done to utilize this source in this debate. It might as well have not been there at all.
Americandingbat- begins by rebutting, rather neatly, TML's non-argument. Although AD does this well enough, the rest of the post is not used to further her argument, but to again restate the definition she intends to use. A better use of the space and round would have been to begin the debate in earnest, rather than simply promising to begin it in the next round. It could have been a won round, but instead it leaves us still even. No real ground has been gained by either debater at this point.
Round Two;
TheMythLives- begins again with sloppy quoting. It is clear to this judge that he/she is quoting his/her opponent, but in terms of form, this should be made clear by a statement by TML. The external source is not attributed at all, which is just really poor form. As an answer to the second Socratic question, I have no idea if TML intended us to accept the "no" at the outset, or the "then certainly it its socialist. " he/she adds at the end.
The rest of TML's post is just not argument. He/she promises to show how the bailout is socialism, but does little to do so, aside from mentioning that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been nationalized. Nothing is done to show HOW the bailout money was nationalization, or even what nationalization means. This was followed by several lengthy quotes and another list. None of which were really in support of promise to show how the bailout was socialist.
Then another claim is made by TML;
Totalitarianism needs a Socialist type of government to survive. The economic system, based on government ownership, of the means of production, positively requires a totalitarian dictatorship.
which is followed by more listing and absolutely no supporting argument.
Americandingbat- Handily counters TML's post. It was well done from the answering of the Socratic questions through the ending where she both rebutted TML's statements that indicate America is socialist with a very brief though highly effective argument that illustrates why what we have is NOT socialist. Round goes to AD.
Round Three;
TheMythLives- Essentially, TML has handed the debate to his opponent with the answers to the Socratic questions. He/she seems utterly unaware of this fact. Mostly because TML is not really very aware of what socialism is outside of the propagandized use of the term. (Which is simply "call what you don't like 'socialism.'")
Using other ATS threads as sources is also very sketchy, as TML does with the "Bankers Manifesto." If there were an original source, that should have been cited, rather than the thread linked to. As much as we all love ATS, a random post or thread on ATS is not a "proof" of anything. With no link to confirm that Lindbergh indeed said that, it is just the word of another ATS member.
Again, TML seems to be confusing fascism with socialism. He/she seems blissfully unaware that they are not equivalent terms.
Americandingbat- again, handily counters TML argument. She deftly points out the misconceptions that TML is holding regarding totalitarianism and socialism, and underlines that by proving the one (totalitarianism) he/she is actually disproving the other (socialism.) Round goes to AD.
Closing;
TheMythLives- begins by insisting that the list of ten guidelines outlined by Marx and Engels are what we are seeing in America today. Despite the fact that the bulk of his/her argument is not that resources are being transferred from private owners to the people as a collective, but rather that these things are being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. His/her misunderstanding of socialism has proven fatal to his/her case.
Americandingbat- closes very well. And wins the round, and the debate.
Summary;
TheMythLives- let his/her own personal beliefs and positions spoil their argument. First, by assuming too much to be self evident, and not actually providing us with his/her argument, and secondly, (and most fatally,) by holding a mistaken view of what socialism is. I say this not because I believe socialism is "good," but because quite simply, what TML was describing was not socialism. As his/her opponent pointed out, in many places, what TML was describing was the opposite of socialism.
Americandingbat- displayed a very good understanding of both capitalism and socialism, and used this understanding effectively in debate. She addressed her opponents points and countered them when needed, she also allowed her opponent to argue her position for her when appropriate. Very well done.
The debate goes to Americandingbat.
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