Why is socialism becoming increasingly popular in the United States?

Horseshit. The promised benefits does not define what socialism is.

 

Claims of solving problems, accurate or not, does not define what socialism is.

 

True, but that's not the thread topic.

 

That's not a serious argument. That's a cheap "gotchya". And once again, if socialism is so horrible and such a failure and so unable to survive and thrive, wouldn't it be far more of a demonstration of its "weakness" and "flaws" to leave Cuba to its own ends and "watch it crash under its own weight"? If it is so weak, what is the US afraid of?

[yawn]

 

I have identified the relevant facts. You just refuse to know them because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.

Contentless tripe. You have not refuted a single fact I identified, nor will you ever be doing so.

But more to the point, they face an institutional environment that has forcibly removed their individual rights to liberty and made them into the private property of the privileged. Maybe there is little we can do about some of the calamities people face: illness, accident, crime, bad luck. But that does not include our institutions, which is very much the point.

Oh, I think I read you pretty accurately: you favor the narrow financial interests of rich, greedy, privileged parasites over the rights of honest working people.

Fewer and fewer are. Hence this thread.

GET IT???

<yawn> That's merely another fabrication on your part. There's no reason people can't oppose injustice and be responsible, productive members of society at the same time. Why do you insist they can't? And wanting to keep what you earn is not the same as demanding it from others or being unwilling to earn it yourself. Why do you insist it is the same? I just want honest working people like me (not so sure about you) to be able to keep what they earn, instead of having it legally stolen and given to rich, greedy, privileged parasites.

Unless you own privileges, that is. Then you don't have to do anything, and government will make you richer without you having to lift a productive finger.

Yep. Those who take but do not contribute.

Contentless tripe.

Oh, but you have, and being privileged is why they have you and all the other productive people to carry them. You just don't understand how, and refuse to learn.

“The best slave is the one who thinks he is free.” -- Johann von Goethe

Yes, no doubt. But the fact that others have overcome the same unjust burdens, and even greater ones, and still run the race successfully is not a reason anyone else should bear those same burdens, and it doesn't mean they aren't forced to carry them.

That is rather unlikely given that I have worked for private companies large and small, and occasionally for governments, and been self-employed for many years. More to the point, I have described exactly how the parasites manage it, and while it is difficult to get ahead without participating in their scams, I have been fairly scrupulous in avoiding them.

Under what circumstances, then, would opposing institutionalized injustice not be "wallowing in victimhood"? Could there ever be a situation where one could oppose injustice without wallowing in victimhood? Were the abolitionists, for example, wallowing in victimhood? What about the slaves? Wallowing in victimhood too?

No, that is just another disingenuous and despicable fabrication on your part. The whole purpose of being a rich, greedy, privileged parasite is that you are legally entitled to take what others have earned; they are forced to hand what they have earned over to you.

Nope. Wrong.

So you can't tell the difference between opposing injustice while being a productive, responsible citizen and just sitting back and whining. That fits. Do you also claim that the abolitionists were "looking to their fellow Americans to pay for the things they wanted instead of earning them themselves"?

How utterly predictable.

Yes, you did. You just didn't and don't -- and refuse to -- understand how. See Goethe, above.

Not everyone, obviously. Some are strong enough to run the race while carrying the parasites. But fewer and fewer are. Hence this thread.

No, claiming that the victims are victims because they have chosen not to run the race successfully while carrying the parasites is blaming the victims.

That's what the red pill shows you.

Under what circumstances would opposing injustice not encourage people to be weak and dependent victims, hhmmm? Were the abolitionists encouraging the slaves to be weak and dependent victims who blamed rich, greedy, privileged parasites for their poverty? Or was it their owners, who were rich, greedy, privileged parasites, that made them weak and dependent victims?

You have done nothing else so far in your responses to my posts.

So you also refuse to know the fact that that train wreck was caused by rich, greedy, privileged parasites in pursuit of their own unearned profit.

Somehow, I kind figured it'd be something like that....

 

Yeah, just like freedom of speech means the police club peaceful protesters. Socialism is defined properly as what socialism was intended to be. That was true well before the first attempt to organize a society according to socialism. You're twisting and spinning it.

 

Lemme guess--you don't think Cuba is a police state.

 

You've identified what might be true and refuted that it applies to everyone. Fact.

Which is unsubstantiated bullshit.

No, I just don't hate the people you refer to as "parasites" and pretend that they've victimized me as you would have me do.

And people still are doing it - Get it?

Straw man. Sitting around whining about "rich, greedy, privileged plutocrats pocketing billions" and demanding from others what you're unwilling to earn yourself will never pull anyone out of poverty, and pointing that out that fact doesn't mean that people can or can't do anything, much less insist that they can or can't do anything. I'm curious as to why you would engage in such fallacious dishonesty. I can forgive someone for having poor reading comprehension and Logic skills, but there's no excusing deliberate dishonesty.

Another straw man.

I never mentioned anything about keeping what you earn, nor did I equate it to demanding it from others or being unwilling to earn it yourself, much less insist what you fabricated. You're exhibiting a pattern of dishonesty in your posts,

As for what you supposedly want and claim to be - yes, I noticed how you referred to working people such as myself as "they" - we should be able to keep as much of our earnings as possible, which is why I'm a proponent of limited fiscally responsible government that doesn't engage in the legal plunder that Bastiat wrote about in The Law. Unfortunately, that isn't the government that we have.

Unless nothing. Wealthy people aren't poor people who are confronted with either remaining poor and dependent on government or pulling themselves out of poverty.

The people you hate.

Just like every other faux-humanitarian fraud, whether it be the Jacobins or the Nazis or the Bolsheviks who referred to the very same people and others as "parasites" before they started lopping off their heads and tossing them into ovens and liquidating the "kulaks". A real novelty if there ever was one,

Oh, but I haven't, and I understand these things quite clearly, so there's nothing to learn, especially from you. You see, I'm not a victim as you would have both of us to believe.

"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." -- Abraham Maslow

What a wonderful, unrealistic and unoriginal sentiment, and how do you propose to perfect Man and the World, hmm?

What will you get right that countless others before you, from the Jacobins to the Bolsheviks to the Nazis, got so horribly wrong time and time again?

That's not the parasitism I'm talking about.

Heh - Frederick Douglass you are not, but there you are, likening yourself to him.

Man, I wasn't expecting this humorous turn of events.

So tell us, Wannabe Frederick, what is this "institutionalized injustice" you're tilting at?

Not hardly. Whining about "rich, greedy, privileged parasites" and looking to others to hand you what you have to earn yourself to get ahead in life never pulled anyone out of poverty.

That was abolished in 1865, but nice try I guess....

Yup, right...

Again, Wannabe Frederick, if I had sat back and whined about "rich, greedy, privileged parasites" and blamed them for my poverty and looked to my fellow Americans to pay for the the things I wanted instead of earning them myself I would still be poor.

No, I didn't no matter how hard you pretend I did.

This thread is about getting different people's take on why socialism has become more popular. Your take is but one of the many.

That's not what I said.

Refusing to be a victim is not "blaming the victims".

That's the bullshit I'm smelling.

Inspiring weakness and victimhood in people doesn't inspire them to overcome obstacles, Wannabe Frederick.

I haven't, despite your overheated Marxist rhetoric.

Obviously, you really don't figure much at all there.

I happened to be living in a low to middle class inner city neighborhood that was undergoing "gentrification" at the time and had a front row seat at the train wreck, and it was caused by a multiplicity of people and things, beginning with the politicians who lowered lending standards to buy votes from subprime borrowers who wound up defaulting on the mortgages on their ridiculously overvalued homes.

 

Why? Because many people want to return to the days when Mommy and Daddy took care of their every need. Even though I have done pretty well professionally and in real life, when I hear music from my early childhood era such as Johnny Horton I'll admit that it would be reassuring to return to the easy certainty of having food put on the table and my only care being to do relatively easy homework.

 

Yes, and an important point you rarely if ever hear discussed in the media, and people seldom figure it out for themselves.

We're replacing the ability to earn a decent living with government handouts. I made $3.05/hour working as a supermarket clerk in 1964, double-time on Sunday. That's about $30/hour today. Clerks make $30/hour? No, they make much less.

The best "program" (when one is necessary) is where we transfer funds to people to spend as they see fit.

Indeed.

 

Correction to typo in opening sentence in #983 above - it should read

You've identified what might be true and I refuted that it applies to everyone. Fact.

 

Since your comrade failed to substantiate his claim and you agreed with it, perhaps you would care to explain/articulate what this alleged institutional environment that we are supposedly facing actually is, and how it has supposedly forcibly removed our individual rights to liberty and made us into the private property of "the privileged" (or the people he refers to as "parasites", take your pick)?

Applying the Doctor Invincibilis' principle of parsimony, I bet there's an obvious reason why you "rarely if ever hear discussed in the media" and "people seldom figure it out for themselves", but I think you'd be disappointed to find that out.

By all means, "enlighten" us....

Indeed, and the anti-growth agenda being promoted by the "progressives" in the current administration and elsewhere, such as the Ivory Towers of Davos, will ensure that more and more of us here and abroad won't be able to make a decent living and will wind up propertyless serfs dependent on our feudal overlords in government.

Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better
https://medium.com/world-economic-f...y-and-life-has-never-been-better-ee2eed62f710

The fury of Europe’s farmers
The continent-wide revolt against the green agenda has shaken the EU elites to their core.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/04/01/the-fury-of-europes-farmers/

Obviously, the more dependent people are on government the easier it is to control them.

Any thoughts?

Could you be more specific?

"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." -- Abraham Maslow

Better yet, the only free man is the man who ensures his own freedom himself.

 

What is it you'd like explained?



This?



This?



This?

 

Precisely what I asked you to explain - what this alleged institutional environment that we are supposedly facing actually is, and how it has supposedly forcibly removed our individual rights to liberty and made us into the private property of "the privileged". The second part I'm particularly curious about since it hyperbolically implies that the 14th Amendment magically disappeared and chattel slavery exists in this country once again. It's nothing short of astonishing that something of this magnitude and gravity has managed to escape the attention of the media and the vast majority of Americans, including myself. Granted, our government and the members of both political parties are engaged in a unrelenting assault on our individual rights, and I've been very critical of this, but I'm curious to know exactly what liberty I have lost here.

As for the graphs, they're pretty self-explanatory, and one stands out in particular - the cost of new homes, which is probably much worst today than it was in February 2021 when inflation was much lower - because it is relevant to one of the articles I brought to your attention: WEF golden girl Ida Auken's utopian vision of a propertyless future "Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy and life has never been better". It's one thing for the price of materials and interest rates to be exorbitantly high, but it's quite another when the political leadership in our country, the UN and influential NGOs such as the World Economic Forum don't want Americans, young or old, buying property in the suburbs or the country and engaging in economic activity such as farming (which was mentioned in the other article) and are enacting policies to achieve those goals.

Perhaps my understanding of institutions is somewhat flawed, but it seems to me that the policies and mandates our government is instituting qualify as the establishment of an actual institutional environment that forcibly removes our individual rights to liberty and property and aims to turn us into modern day serfs ("Welcome to 2030") who are dependent on the elites instituting those policies. What I find curious is that young people and the people who are inclined to complain about income inequality and the wealth gap are not only silent about this, they are voting for it. Any thoughts on that?

 

What do you think a slave deed, land deed, patent, or copyright legally does? Slave deeds are no longer in force, so we ourselves are not the property of the privileged, but our rights to liberty are. The only difference between owning land and owning slaves is that when you own a slave, you own all of one person's rights to liberty, while when you own land, you own one of all people's rights to liberty. Another way to think about it: slavery removes people's rights to liberty one person at a time, privilege removes them one right at a time.

No, that's just another fabrication on your part. I said our rights to liberty are the private property of the privileged, not our physical bodies.

No. You are very much in favor of the forcible removal of other people's individual rights to liberty, as long as you get to own them.

Haven't you figured it out yet? When the WEF says, "You will own nothing," what they mean is, "We will own everything."

 

In the minds of most people supporting it, socialism promises lots of free stuff.
But the reality (as we've in fact seen) is that it just ends up resulting in putting bans on lots of things, and telling businesses what sorts of decisions they have to make (usually resulting in increased prices).

So there is a disconnect between why people vote for socialism (what they expect it will do) versus what it actually tends to do.

Some of those on the Left are so in denial, however, that when we point to examples of places that have moved in a much more socialistic direction, they claim "Well, that's not real socialism!"

 

So, you sold your rights to liberty to the privileged. That wasn't very bright.

Actually, it's my response to your fabrication.

No, I don't, but feel free to believe that along with this other nonsense you believe.

It's hardly a new concept, and it applies to anyone and everyone who convinces or forces others to surrender their property and property rights.

 

The graphs explain if you know what they mean.

Your far right religious nutball SCOTUS types made the 14th go away by ignoring women's rights.

I've never seen you defend women's rights. Apart from some religious types, women understand.

I'd have to know your situation to pass judgment.

I see you don't understand what happened with real estate.

Home prices index
Jan. 1987 - 63.74
Jan. 2024 - 310.46
Up 310.46/63.74 * 100 = 487%

Consumer Price Index
Jan. 1987 - 100.00
Jan. 2024 - 278.0
Up 278%

Asset inflation has transferred a lot of wealth to "haves."

This is putting a home out of the reach of many younger Americans. Policies that led to asset value increases much greater than economic growth are deliberate and understood by those in power.

What are you talking about? You're touching on important issues, but in no way describing reality.

It's transferring wealth from young to old, low-income to high-income.

Against what? Trump is a false prophet.

 

Nice cop out, but I didn't ask for graphs. I asked you to explain what this institutional environment that we are supposedly facing actually is, and how it has supposedly forcibly removed our individual rights to liberty and made us into the private property of "the privileged"?

As someone who is privy to this knowledge that you claim so few of us are aware of, you should have no problem explaining it.

They're not my far right religious nutball types, but the rest of what you said is essentially true for women.

I don't think I've ever seen you defend women's reproductive rights, either - what does that prove? Not much.

Since I joined this forum 15 1/2 years ago I've been open about my support for a woman's right to choose whether or not to obtain an abortion (within legal limits), and unlike Faux Choice hypocrites I was open about my opposition to Biden's unconstitutional vaccine mandate, which violated the same right to bodily autonomy.

Anyway, here's the Opening Post from a thread where I openly expressed by support for the legality of abortion, on what grounds it is legal and how Alito & Co. ignored Anglo-American rights doctrines and legal precedents when they cherry-picked their way to the Dobbs ruling:

I don't recall you participating in this discussion/debate, either. What does that prove?

You don't need to know my situation. Allegedly, this is an institutional environment that ALL of us face.

I understand it quite well, and I understand the implications of young Americans not being able to purchase homes - something Nightmare and I discussed earlier in this thread. Property ownership is the key to a strong middle class, and a strong middle class has been the key to democracy since the days of Solon and Cleisthenes.

Obviously, there's a lot more to it than that, as any home builder, electrician, plumber, et al, can tell you.

Oh, and farmers aren't revolting in Europe over the "green" agenda that "progressives" are ramming down everyone's throats?

Ask yourself why one of the world's most influential NGOs, the World Economic Forum...


Joe Biden yukking it up with his pal Klaus Schwab, the founder and head of the WEF

...would highlight Ida Aiken's "Welcome to 2030" vision of a green, propertyless future.

What do you mean "Against what?".

Trump has nothing to do with the "progressive" anti-growth agenda that is going to make Ida Aiken's vision of the future a reality for young Americans.

 

And here I thought you were Mr. Business. The graphs highlight the mechanisms government uses for depriving people of their basic rights.

I have no problem.

You asked about 14th Amendment rights. I mentioned the treatment of women. Roe v. Wade was decided wrongly because it didn't throw out abortion laws altogether.

There should be no law banning sbortion.

What mandate? No one was forced to get vaccinated.

Not necessarily. I've benefitted greatly from the system being rigged in favor of the return to capital. Any losses I experienced in my meagre teacher pay by rigging the deck against unions was more than compensated by the money I made investing. If I don't know your situation in general terms, I can't say how you've fared in the game.

Unaffordable housing is stripping people of their wealth.

The government chose to increase home prices relative to inflation by how it managed the money supply. It wasn't a recent development.

Home prices index
Jan. 1987 - 63.74
Jan. 2024 - 310.46
Up 310.46/63.74 * 100 = 487%

Consumer Price Index
Jan. 1987 - 100.00
Jan. 2024 - 278.0
Up 278%

Another example ... the government is increasing interest rates to hold down demand instead of putting a surtax on investment income.

This is only somewhat related to how the government is screwing the average guy. Farmers are upset about "green" policies because many of the ideas don't work. Farmers, far more than most, have a good sense about unworkable programs. They know we have to do something about climate change, but they also understand technology, science ans business.

Reminder... Trump is a false prophet. Old Joe isn't much better.

 

Minor correction: thousands lost their jobs in the military, the medical field, and other endeavors because they refused the vaccinations.

 

Yes. I can see the rationale for both.

 

Oh wow.
1 person doesn't make it a concept but for that 1 person

 

By their choice.
Follow company policy or not is a choice.

 

FAIL. The co-founders are openly Marxist, and Patrisse Cullors flatly stated that this is BLM's ideological frame.

What I found interesting about Cullors' description of herself and Alicia Garza as "trained Marxists" is that she included "trained organizers", as well. Aside from the original community organizer Saul Alinsky of Rules for Radicals fame, do you know any other famous "trained organizers"?