The General US Politics Thread

In theory, socialism is about the elimination of classes; eradicating the concept of the rich and the poor and instead transitioning into government-regulated sharing of wealth.

And no, it doesn't work. For reference, see Soviet Russia. There are a lot of problems with the "Everyone gives according to his ability and takes according to his need," philosophy, not least of which is that people like to own things, people are competitive, people resent those who contribute less than they do but receive an equal portion for it, and a socialist structure, like many governing structures, is really easy for the people in control of it to take advantage of.

When Republicans accuse Obama of being socialist, however, it's because Obama is trying to help the poor at the expense of the wealthy, which you may recognize as a good thing. Socialism doesn't work, but having 99% of the wealth owned by 1% of the population isn't any better.

edited 1st Oct '14 3:24:00 PM by TobiasDrake

Soviet Russia was communist in the same way North Korea is democratic. The point was never to help the people, but to enrich the leaders - hence the cult of personality around Stalin, Lenin, and Trotsky. That's not a good example of true socialism.

I'm not quite sure Obama is doing much to help the poor, though. Income inequality expanded under his administration.

edited 1st Oct '14 3:27:44 PM by SarenArterius

Socialism works perfectly fine, look at the Nordic states. What you're thinking of is Communism as implemented by the USSR (which many would argue wasn't proper Communism anyway).

Now there's a legit argument that large scale Communism can't work practically as so far all attempts to implement large scale have failed to actually bring about Communism, which is a pretty legit argument. Burt Communism and Socialism should not be confused, Socialism has worked wonder in Europe.

Here's a pretty good quote on the matter actually, and yes I'm aware of the source, but it's still a good quote.

"They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?"

Also true Communism is meant to end with the state itself becoming defunct as people work together as part of a society and there is no need of a government hierarchy, the problem is that every time someone tries to bring in Communism about on a large scale they get to the bit where the government is meant to make itself irrelevant and the people who form the government go "actually I rather like having total power, screw making ourselves inventive"

edited 1st Oct '14 3:29:45 PM by SilasW

Yeah, our capitalism isn't mich better. See the Koch Brothers and Walton heirs.

The Nordic states don't really practice socialism any more than the USSR did. Not one of them has achieved social ownership of the means of production and as far as I can tell none of them are taking any steps to achieve that. The term is social democracy.

Small scale Communism works by the way, it just runs into serious issues at a larger scale, the idea of everyone just taking what they need and putting in what they can has been seen to work amongst multiple tribal and native groups around the world.

Edit: True they haven't achieved it fully (though I'd say that full social ownership would be Communism as opposed to Socialism), but they've achieved social control and assistance to (almost) all in their society based upon people putting in what they make (well part of it) and taking out what they need.

The US isn't fully Capitalist, but we still call it a Capitalist state, even though full Capitalism would mean no social safety net at all, and free reign amongst industries to do as they please with no regard for regulation, pollution or monopolization.

edited 1st Oct '14 3:36:49 PM by SilasW

Public ownership... So, what would've happened if the banks were nationalized?

Tribalism and Communism are very different though. Tribes are basically extended families working together to survive. Calling that communism is akin to calling group projects in high school representative democracies when they choose their leader. technically accurate but very different at that scale.

edited 1st Oct '14 3:38:43 PM by joesolo

Kinda, I'm not sure if that would actually venture more into State Capitalism like the Arabian Peninsula states practise. It would depend upon how they were run, for profit (which would then be fed back into the state), or for the public good with no consideration for profit.

Yes the scale is different, but the basic principle remains the same on many levels, now just because it works on a small scale doesn't mean it will on a large scale (see Anarchism), but it's worth mentioning.

edited 1st Oct '14 3:41:43 PM by SilasW

Technically speaking, that's not critical thinking, but rather common sense. Common sense is a matter of acknowledging basic truths that require little to no explanation. An example might be staying away from moving traffic while you're a pedestrian or chewing your food before you swallow it. I'm probably not explaining it too well, but I'll have to dig up my logic textbook because it has a great foreword from the author that makes this distinction very clear.

Critical thinking deals more with recognizing valid statements and ideas and testing them against frameworks of logic. Things like confirmation bias, the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, appeal to popularism, the golden mean fallacy, catch 22, post hoc fallacy and many other fallacies are examples of irrational thinking that can best be stamped out through rigorous scholarship. Sure, people can teach themselves to make rational deductions through empirical observations, but in today's political climate and with the rise of "junk data" being circulated through all sectors of information technology, we need to educate ourselves on how to observe, how to make predictions and how to learn.

It seems silly to talk about "how to learn". Why can't I just pick up a book and read if I want to learn? Because my brain has a limited ability to discern truths from falsehoods, and if I have been taught to passively absorb information without critically evaluating the validity of that information, I take in that junk. If I do this long enough, I seriously hamper my ability to be in touch with reality.

I don't have to explain any of this to you guys. You've seen it all around the internet. I see it on Facebook all the time. I recently saw a colleague having to explain to a relative that an article she posted from a conservative website was actually making up anecdotes about welfare fraud and Obamacare. It cited no sources, and the person interviewed for the article did not exist. She refused to believe any of this because that article fell in line with her beliefs so readily and so firmly. Questioning it on a logical, rhetorical and scientific level was something she just refused to do because it made her too uncomfortable. I used to get into heated debates with my hippie friends about GMO technology and homeopathy, and it's basically the same thing.

Gabrael has heard me preach about this before. Our brain is not a perfect recording device. It's more like a sponge that holds in some liquidated data while some of that data is lost during the recording process. We have a very complex political, social, economic and cultural web that is custom-made to take advantage of our limitations in cognition, memory and perceptibility.

edited 1st Oct '14 3:45:11 PM by Aprilla

Or not touching a hot stove, yet we have to teach our children all of these things as they mature, lest they kill or seriously injure themselves. What we think of as common sense is actually hard-earned life lessons that we are drilled on at a very young age. If you never learn it, then it's not "common sense" to you.

Socialism, as a concept, is much simpler and broader than it's typically applied. Socialism is any system where ownership and/or wealth are considered shared property of a society, rather than the exclusive property of individuals (and, by extension, companies). Redistributive taxation is a socialist concept. Public healthcare is a socialist concept. Retirement and disability insurance is a socialist concept. Welfare is a socialist concept. Public utilities are a socialist concept.

If, at any point, you take something from an individual (or business) and give it to other people as a governmental function, you're engaging in socialism.

Communism, as envisioned by Marx, is anarcho-socialism in a pure form. There is no government, and all wealth is distributed equally. Communism, as practiced in the Soviet Union, was totalitarian socialism, and the redistribution part was mainly upward.

By rejecting "socialism", right-wingers in the United States are in essence saying that all redistribution and nationalization need to stop, completely and totally. No taxes, no welfare, no Social Security, no public utilities, no public transportation, no public healthcare, nothing.

edited 1st Oct '14 3:58:55 PM by Fighteer

Gun range owner declares her range "Muslim-free zone"

Head wall...

Impending lawsuit in 3.. 2... 1..

By that logic, I could start my own shooting range and then refuse to serve anyone who looked Christian on the logic that, since I have no way of discerning which Christians are or aren't the type to go and murder an abortion doctor, I should err on the side of caution for the safety of my patrons.^note And I live in the Madison area, so the strategy would probably fail less hard than in most places.

I have no words, but I do have a video.

Indeed. That's the hideous thing of it, that we assume that only one subset of her patrons can be dangerous.

Her Facebook page is flooded with messages of support.

Cos 'Murica.

I can't help but wonder what would happen if 9/11 had been committed by some radical Christian group in Africa or something.

Well at least she's not a racist.

If they were white she'd never assume they were Muslim.

I was kidding but if you want to get serious she's clearly going against a religion, not a race. Discrimination is discrimination, and bad, but racism =/= religious hatred.

She is discriminating against a religion, but she also, almost certainly, has an image in her head of what a "Muslim" looks like, and would not think to question a Caucasian individual in American dress about their religion unless they offered the information.

Which makes you wonder if she would have caught, say, the Tsarnaev Bros, who were swarthy, but fairly white.

She's a bigot if not racist. That's hardly any better.

edited 1st Oct '14 4:18:52 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

Do you guys even go outside otc? This exactly the kind of humor all over actual pages and you all took it at face value.

I got the joke, i just ignored it.