Maybe central planning of the economy? Like in the USSR, when the General Secretary of the Communist Party would order companies to…oh wait…
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No, socialism is a collection of policies rendering the average citizen dependent on the government for practically every necessity and some luxury.
Our military is voluntary, hence not a social policy. Public schools are a social policy, but if you have the money you can choose otherwise, so people are not totally dependent on the government to provide.
Infrastructure is a social policy that I think the government needs to provide as one of it’s functions. It’s provides the fabric for individuals to succeed.
These are all moves to the left though. They are being drug left by the demographics and lack of a spine. This isn’t a radicalized far-right Republican party. It’s bowing to the left.
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Well, we’re not going to agree, so I will just agree to disagree.
Are you saying these are voluntary in the sense that even though we’re forced to all support and fund it, were just not required to use it?
You could just not use your universal health care
This is not a complicated question and you are not stupid, there are only 2 available answers. Who is mainly to blame for the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel? Are the Palestinians more to blame or Israel?
I can answer that succinctly. The Palestinians are more to blame because they will not accept 2 very simple propositions that are required for there to be any peace. They have to recognize Israel’s right to exist and renounce violence against Israel and Jews in general. If they do that and a peace deal cannot be reached, then I will look at Israel as the instigator.
The plan was always a 2 state solution and the Palestinians rejected it outright to their own detriment and are as vehemently against it today as they were 70 odd years ago. Never mind that their bargaining power and position to argue would have been much greater as a sovereign nation.
I reckon they breed as much stupidity as they do hate in the occupied territories, hoping that something magical will destroy Israel one day they just have to wait.
And they are right to an extent, about 1 billion years from now the Earth will be uninhabitable and there will be no countries.
We are not required to be in the military unlike even many western countries do.
And because of that it doesn’t qualify as socialism or a social entity? A program funded (by force) by society, staffed (sometimes by force) by society isn’t a social program because it’s not ALWAYS required by force?
Well, you can renounce your citizenship and be a non-citizen resident, but you have no protection from the state.
I don’t know what you are aiming for. I think every reasonable person knows a country to be stable needs a functioning government and part of the government is a military. I don’t mind paying taxes for military protection. I am happy to do it. It’s what keeps nations sovereign and stable. Without it, doubtless we would be part of another nation, perhaps the UK and still in the same boat regarding taxes and military spending.
I am sure the UK would love to have a revenue monster like the US under their control. The combined economies would be by a long distance larger than any other economy in the world. Maybe we should buy the UK, invade Demark and take Greenland. That would be amusing.
This would not stop the forced taxation. Even renouncing citizenship won’t stop them from forcing you to fund it.
And if it did, would this not be the response to say UHC isn’t socialism, because you can just renounce citizenship? How is that even a response rofl
Agreed. I think the same reasonable person would call it a social program, as it’s forcefully funded by society through the govt.
Imo the thought of govt sponsored genocide isn’t THAT amusing.
Public schools are socialism in action. The military isn’t because it’s voluntary but teaching is voluntary as well. Follow the money and it all comes from the same place.
The military isn’t because the GOP has done an EXCELLENT job of misbranding socialism, and somehow keeping all of their extreme social expenditures separated in people’s heads.
I may not appreciate it, but goddamn is the GOP a work of art.
Dude, you’re just regurgitating your talking points. Can you understand how complex the issue is?
Read up on some history. The Palestinians rejected it in 1948 when they believed they had the upper hand.
The current situation is explained below. Incidentally, the IDF fought three conventional wars to reach and subsequently defend the first natural obstacle line available to them - the river Jordan. There’s no fucking way that they’re abandoning the right bank and withdrawing to positions on the 1967 border, in some places a dozen miles from the sea. Hence there’s no chance of Israel actually accepting a Palestinian state.
The current position of the Palestinian Authority is that all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip should form the basis of a future “State of Palestine”.[138] For additional discussion, see Palestinian territories. Israeli governments have maintained that the area involved is subject to future negotiations, and within territorial dispute.[139][140] However, the position of the Islamic[141] Hamas faction of the PA, as stated in its founding Covenant, is that Palestine (meaning all of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) is rightfully an Islamic state.[142]
The main discussion since 1993 has focused on turning most or all of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into an independent Palestinian state. This was the basis for the Oslo accords,[143] and it is, as a matter of official policy, favoured by the U.S.[144] The status of Israel within the 1949 Armistice lines has not been the subject of international negotiations. Some members of the PLO recognize Israel’s right to exist within these boundaries; others hold that Israel must eventually be destroyed.[142] Consequently, some Israelis hold that Palestinian statehood is impossible with the current PLO as a basis, and needs to be delayed.
Israel declares that its security demands that a “Palestinian entity” would not have all attributes of a state, at least initially, so that in case things go wrong, Israel would not have to face a dangerous and nearby enemy. Israel may be therefore said to agree (as of now) not to a complete and independent Palestinian state, but rather to a self-administering entity, with partial but not full sovereignty over its borders and its citizens.
The central Palestinian position is that they have already compromised greatly by accepting a state covering only the areas of the West Bank and Gaza. These areas are significantly less territory than allocated to the Arab state in UN Resolution 181. They feel that it is unacceptable for an agreement to impose additional restrictions (such as level of militarization, see below) which, they declare, makes a viable state impossible. In particular, they are angered by significant increases in the population of Israeli settlements and communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the interim period of the Oslo accords. Palestinians claim that they have already waited long enough, and that Israel’s interests do not justify depriving their state of those rights that they consider important. The Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a territorially disjointed state.
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The first step when seeking peace is placing blame.
What would force you to be dependent on the government? Are we magically socialist if we go single payer? I mean a lot of the developed world has. Are these all socialist countries now?
Are we socialist because you depend on the government for health care when old, roads, fire protection, police protection?
My examples were about the right supporting things they would not have supported in recent history which was being shown as a negative on the left.
This is why I brought it up. It seems like certain things we do aren’t considered socialism but essentially act in the same way as much of the policies some Dems are advocating.
It seems to me like it’s inconsistent.
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They’re too big to fail.
Honestly, as someone who knows how the S-word looks in real life, I can confidently say that Trump has demonstrated a more socialist mindset and had way more openly socialist policies.
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Agree, @H_factor…
If Conservatives are jiggin’ and dancing in the Streets over Trump (like at a Trump rally)…then it is not compatible with believing in the things that they professed to believe in the past. (And I’m not talking about the distant past…just take the 8 years that Obama was President).
President Obama was a man who made mis-steps in some of the things he said and did…(save your list of Obama “mistakes”, all you Zeb-ites, unless you are prepared to list Trump’s)…and you would have thought that he was killing puppies on the White House lawn if you listened to Conservatives. Yet Trump can deliberately do and say things…then double down on them, so there is no mistake… things that would have gotten President Obama pulled out of the White House in the middle of the night and hung…
There is no question in my mind that people can be such hypocrites…and not even notice it in themselves…