Darn.
Today, 08:08 AM
CFM
Verified Loser
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Cypress (02-22-2019), PoliTalker (02-22-2019), ThatOwlWoman (02-22-2019)
Welfare states don't work well. $22 trillion or more spent on welfare type programs over the past 50+ years in the U.S. and the percentage of people in poverty, something those programs were supposed to eradicate, still exists at the same level it did before wasting that money.
By definition, a welfare state program is socialism. Welfare state programs redistribute wealth and redistribution is the essence of socialism.
Places like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc. aren't socialist countries. They have socialist healthcare but the standard of living you reference isn't created by socialism but by capitalism. Socialism can't do that. That's the problem with socialists. They use things like socialist healthcare to claim socialism is good yet ignore that the good comes form capitalism.
Claiming something done cooperatively and voluntarily isn't socialism is true. If a group of people get together and decide to do something and those participating contribute to the cause on a voluntary basis and those that didn't contribute don't participate, that's not socialism. Socialism would involve force or a mandate.
Are socialism, in the sense of redistribution of wealth through a government mandate, and charity the same thing?
Last edited by CFM; 02-22-2019 at 07:56 AM.
The mental gymnastics and sheer dishonesty of your garden variety wingnut on the topic of socialism is astounding.
There are some teabaggers on this board that have spent a message board career complaining about the "socialist" nations of western Europe. But, when you point out that Sweden is an example of successful socialism by the standard they are presenting, they will turn on a dime, walk it back, and holler that Sweden is "not socialist!".
Depending on what month, week, or hour it is, wingnuts have floundered and back-flipped between calling Sweden socialist and not socialist.
What is really comes down to is that teabaggers have invested decades trying to conflate socialism with the totalitarian Leninist state established by the Bolsheviks in the USSR.
While they want the freedom to holler that Barack Obama and Sweden are socialist, they will immediately walk it back if you point out that the "socialist" Swedish welfare state is a system virtually the entire world admires.
PoliTalker (02-25-2019)
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