Yeah cause the Republican Party seems to be churning out some fantastic policies.....
News flash.............they all suck. Every one of them.
Yeah cause the Republican Party seems to be churning out some fantastic policies.....
Yeah cause the Republican Party seems to be churning out some fantastic policies.....
News flash.............they all suck. Every one of them.
Yeah cause the Republican Party seems to be churning out some fantastic policies.....
If it's 243 years old and not broke, stop tryin' to 'fix' it
When conservatives want change at all, the want it done slowly and carefully (conserve: protect from harm or destruction)
Every system is flawed and should perpetually be open for debate on how to improve it.
In principle I agree; However, in practice those pushing change seek to damage the system for personal gain.
The same could have been said about, for instance, slaves and former slaves who worked to end slavery. Sometimes the system really is flawed, and the ones most incentivized to to change it are naturally the ones with the most to gain.
You can't discount someone's position solely because they stand to gain from what they advocate. After all, many of those who advocate strongest not changing do so because the current system is quite good to them.
What acceptable honest motive goes onto trying to subvert our constitutional rights?
How about redistribution with no constitutional authority? What about illegal use of official positions to try to control the outcome of an election, like Page and Storm or whatever the hell his name was?
Yes, I can very easily discount positions based on self-serving motives. Sometimes self-serving motives align with ethical and legal actions
It seems that far more often they do not.
Not every change is a subversion of someone's rights. We have a good system, but we don't have a perfect system. Sometimes the change is a very clear, obvious expansion of rights.
One quick example: I think that we agree that the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are an intrinsic characteristic of being human rather than simply having been granted by a government. But in our system right now, our government sometimes acts like those rights are intrinsic only to being an American citizen and therefore don't apply to all humans.
That's wrong, and changing the system to correct that would expand rights rather than contract them.
Don't misunderstand that redistribution is something that only one side does. Both the left and the right use the power of the purse to enrich themselves and try to ensure their continued success in elections.
For example, I think that the cheap lease agreements for extracting resources from public land is basically a redistribution to the stockholders of giant corporations.
I agree, and I tried to indicate as much by including and emphasizing the word "solely." Sometimes that just doesn't come through well in written words like this.
Not just altruistic to a fault, but also very homogeneous. Wide diversity in ideas and opinions is not compatible with socialism.Good point. Socialism would work beautifully if we had a society full of people who were altruistic to a fault. Happy hunting on that one!
Not just altruistic to a fault, but also very homogeneous. Wide diversity in ideas and opinions is not compatible with socialism.
Doug, very well explained. Only one nit. Sweden isn’t socialist per se. It’s mixed. It does have a mostly free market economy and private for-profit enterprises. They just have a lot of government programs and insanely high taxes. But to the point of homogeneity making socialism workable, to the ectent that Sweden is socialist, we’ll see how their liberal immigration program goes for them as their demographics become more ideologically diverse.
Right. That is why I used them "as an example" not as the example. I could have picked on Estonia or Norway or Greenland. I didn't mean "Sweden" exactly, just a small country with a generally shared language, history and culture. I didn't explain myself well enough.
Regards,
Doug
This is very true and often overlooked by supporters of socialism.
One of the reasons socialism has worked "better" in some European countries is due to their ability to empathize and sympathize with the fellow countrymen. In Sweden (just using as an example) everyone speaks Swedish. Everyone has learned the same history lessons. Everyone has parents or grandparents who took part in the same wars. Their suffering through hard times was a shared experience. The decisions that country was forced to make were a common thinking process.
This in no way is meant to disparage the uniqueness of each human being in these countries as I am certain they disagreed on many things, but the difference between their disagreements is probably smaller than ours. In the USA take two (2) separate, conservative members of the republican party. Both self identify as conservative. Both vote republican. Yet one is from Boston and the other from Evansville. Both were born and raised in these towns. I doubt that if they were in the same room they would agree on everything even though they both identify the same.
I don't think the differences of opinion would be the same in Denmark or Norway or Poland.
Another factor is also geography, for many reasons. If everyone agrees to pay for good roads in Belgium it is a much smaller task than in Indiana! Belgium has less than 12,000 square miles in area while Indiana ALONE has over 36,000 square miles. I would guess many Belgians know how most of their roads go in their own country. I doubt many Americans could say the same. Same thing with large disasters. Here, the biggest thing that hurt America in recent history was Hurricane Katrina, yet how many states were directly affected? Ten? Maybe...? Maybe one or two more or less. Had Katrina hit any country in Europe everyone in that country would have suffered some damage, and it would have made it more willing for them to "all chip in" since all would have been affected. When our neighbor right down the road in a nearby town is suffering it is honestly far easier to be willing to pay a few more dollars in taxes than it is for someone 2,000 miles away. There is a HUGE homeless problem in Los Angeles. How many of us, here on INGO, have personally seen it? I mean right there looking at it next to us or across the street? I haven't. I am aware of it and have seen pictures but not up close and personal.
It is easy to become socialist when we're all packed together in the same boat. Our geography creates a diversity that is directly counterproductive to producing a socialist society.
Regards,
Doug