SOCIALISM: It's Only Fault.

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

There's only one real fault with socialism: SOONER OR LATER YOU RUN OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY TO SPEND.

 

[York]

Which shows you have no understanding of what socialism is.

"Its" only fault, by the way. Sorry to be pedantic, but it's something authors should get right in my humble opinion.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

"Socialism is the world's oldest form of tyranny; it's the proposition that you toil and sweat and earn your daily bread, and I get to eat it." Abraham Lincoln.

 

[York]

Yes, that's one person's view. To another person's view it's all about society giving everyone an equal (and good) standard of living rather than the huge imbalance there is in a capitalist society.

I'm not expecting you to buy into this for one second by the way. Political arguments are usually between parties entrenched in an ideology that they can't see beyond. By the same token you could talk about your brand of right wing politics until you were blue in the face and I wouldn't change my standpoint, as I believe in different things in life [to you].

One fascinating thing about the last year or so is that capitalism has conclusively been shown not to work in the same way communism doesn't.

That quotation from Lincoln shows he had no idea about what socialism is either. It would great if right-wingers were able to take a less emotional view of socialism rather than a bizarre inflammatory view that automatically dismisses everything socialism stands for. The same can be said about extreme left wingers as well.

Sorry if I'm not playing the game right by not just getting into a pointless slanging match. You may just want to get into a round of WUMery of course.

 

[xssve]

He's just parroting the latest right wing meme like a good Jackdaw.

That's so last week JB.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Naaah. I went thru my larval Socialist, Negro Loving Stage in the 70s. I was so socialist and liberal my socialist friends got tired of it. So I know all the hymns and sermons, and my Negro friends convinced me prison is a resume enhancer in the hood.

 

[York]

Naaah. I went thru my larval Socialist, Negro Loving Stage in the 70s. I was so socialist and liberal my socialist friends got tired of it. So I know all the hymns and sermons, and my Negro friends convinced me prison is a resume enhancer in the hood.

Ah, I can see new you're just a windup merchant. No point in engaging in a sensible discussion.

 

[trysail]

I freely admit it— ninety-five percent of the folk who post on the subject of economics around here scare the bejesus out of me. That's no different from the general population which also scares the bejesus out of me. The ignorance on display is astounding; it is mind-boggling; it is beyond comprehension.

I find it nearly impossible to believe that people actually believe money grows on trees. They actually believe in something for nothing. They actually believe there is a free lunch. They actually believe in perpetual motion machines. They actually believe in Santa Claus and in the Tooth Fairy. It is truly frightening. Over the course of my life, I've watched as the uneducated and ignorant destroyed companies. They killed Pan Am, they killed Eastern Airlines, they killed Texas International, they killed Bethlehem Steel, they killed General Motors, they killed Chrysler, they created and killed doomed-to-fail Fannie Mae, they created and killed doomed-to-fail Freddie Mac. In virtually every case, they were warned and warned and warned and warned again of the consequences of their actions; because of their obtuse, willful, ignorance it didn't make a goddamn bit of difference.

Now they're well on the way to killing an entire country ( thus accomplishing a task requiring truly special talent— shooting themselves in the foot while commiting economic seppuku ).







While the purported authorship of Alexander Tytler has been disproven, the accuracy of the statement inaccurately attributed to him is unfolding:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

Whether the eventual bankruptcy of the United States will lead to dictatorship, I do not pretend to know. Given its current trajectory, we're going to find out. The "something for nothing," finger-pointing, envy-peddling, overspending, name-calling, entrenched politicos are taking the U.S. down a path that will have unpleasant consequences.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Ah, I can see new you're just a windup merchant. No point in engaging in a sensible discussion.

I believed all the happy horseshit 40 years ago.

I have a garden outside; the veggies dont grow unless I make it happen. I water and fertilize and weed and murder grasshoppers. And there aint no socialists over here helping me, but they'll appear at harvest time, reminding me what I owe them for being hungry.

 

[Teloz]

... They actually believe in Santa Claus and in the Tooth Fairy...



I agree with everything you said, but don't tell feckin' lies about Santa and the Tooth Fairy, I am Santa and the Tooth Fairy is one of my bestest friends! (She shags like a rattlesnake!)

 

[York]

I believed all the happy horseshit 40 years ago.

I have a garden outside; the veggies dont grow unless I make it happen. I water and fertilize and weed and murder grasshoppers. And there aint no socialists over here helping me, but they'll appear at harvest time, reminding me what I owe them for being hungry.

When you can come up with a coherent argument that makes sense and isn't just some schoolboy level attempt to be clever I'll engage in a discussion. Until then, you carry on making yourself look like a prize goon.

 

[lance gt]

I believed all the happy horseshit 40 years ago.

I have a garden outside; the veggies dont grow unless I make it happen. I water and fertilize and weed and murder grasshoppers. And there aint no socialists over here helping me, but they'll appear at harvest time, reminding me what I owe them for being hungry.

So, JBJ, would these be the same socialists that made your rake and hoe, made the fertilizer you spread, collected the soil for your garden, made the hose and nozzle you water with? Just wondered.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

When you can come up with a coherent argument that makes sense and isn't just some schoolboy level attempt to be clever I'll engage in a discussion. Until then, you carry on making yourself look like a prize goon.

There is no coherent argument for socialism because its a feel-good form of theft.

Capitalism, on the otherhand, offers you something in trade for something else. And, yes, I understand that many entrepreneurs are thieves disguised as capitalists.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

So, JBJ, would these be the same socialists that made your rake and hoe, made the fertilizer you spread, collected the soil for your garden, made the hose and nozzle you water with? Just wondered.

Lancie poo youre gonna love this reply. I use rainwater, use compost, collect my own seeds, and bought my garden tools with cash. Whatever socialists enteracted with me did it as capitalists. They didnt trade me a shovel for my gratitude or give me a rake becauz I needed one.

 

[lance gt]

Lancie poo youre gonna love this reply. I use rainwater, use compost, collect my own seeds, and bought my garden tools with cash. Whatever socialists enteracted with me did it as capitalists. They didnt trade me a shovel for my gratitude or give me a rake becauz I needed one.

Damn JBJ, you are one funny guy. You just don't get the whole concept of it. I feel sorry you have such a twisted concept of things. I guess that's why your a lonely old man with nothing better to do than spout off your hatred for being this way. If you have been disillusioned, take the time to see what the real world is like and see the chaos and disorder that capitalism has created and why working together for a common good for all men is the way to go. If you coulf find it within yourself to do for others, instead of just yourself, you'd find the rewards come to you tenfold in return.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

... If you coulf find it within yourself to do for others, instead of just yourself, you'd find the rewards come to you tenfold in return.

The only way this works is in a closed society, one which there are now outsiders that will interfere. It's a pyramid scheme...one of the oldest and only those at the top really benefit.

Communism didn't work, will not work as sooner or later the workers outgrow the ability of the state to provide for. (eg. USSR - which started out as a socialist republic)

Socialism doesn't work as sooner or later those that pay the way for everyone else leave or quit and once producers stop producing everyone else is doomed. Again only those in the elite political class benefit from socialism.

Democracy is almost as bad as socialism as those who have the vote will always, I repeat, always vote for their own self interests.

Republics are the longest lasting form of government on the planet today. Representative republics are currently the only form of government that most of you know and live in today. (France, England, Canada, USA) to name a few. Most are or have been heading to a socialistic form of governing for quit some time now and unless they pull back from the brink the world will be thrown into chaos.

 

[Pure]

pathetic, james,

jbj "Socialism is the world's oldest form of tyranny; it's the proposition that you toil and sweat and earn your daily bread, and I get to eat it." Abraham Lincoln.

you start a topic with a bogus quote. (source, refs?). why not just attribute "blessed are those who hate socialism" to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount?

i doubt Abe ever pronounced on 'socialism,' though we do know he was aware of Owen's utopian colony at New Harmony. he apparently knew Owen's son. see below.

oh, here's a quote: "those who can't tell what's bogus are tiny minds." --George Washington.


http://www.nexusgrid.net/Robert-Owen.htm

At the age of fifty-three, he [Owen] met Richard Flower, an agent for The Harmonie Society proposed sale of its' New Harmony site of 30,000 acres. For the price of $95,000 Robert Owen bought the entire town of New Harmony [Indiana] for a communal utopian experiment to carry out his societal reforms on a grand scale. On February 25, 1825, in the Hall of Representatives in the Capital, Robert Owen presented his plans for a new social system at New Harmony to audiences that included Presidents James Monroe and John Quincy Adams.

By 1826, Owen befriended William Maclure, a distinguished scientist and founder of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, to join him in New Harmony. By 1826 as many as a thousand people, including notable scientists and educators, resided in New Harmony. Pestalozzian educators Madame Marie D. Fretageot and William S. Phiquepal, naturalists Thomas Say and Charles Lasueur had all made their way to New Harmony by the famous "Boatload of Knowledge" on January 24, 1826. Later, Joseph Neef, Gerard Troost, Josiah Warren, and Frances Wright joined the community at New Harmony. Also, all five of Robert Owen's children came to live in New Harmony (Robert Dale Owen, William Owen, David Dale Owen, Richard Owen, and Jane Dale Owen). Thus, the "Owenites" made New Harmony the intellectual center of the West.

Abraham Lincoln, fifteen years old, lived forty miles away from New Harmony. According to Carl Sandburg, Lincoln once told Dennis Hanks that he marveled at the thousands of books and the men there who knew everything. Interestingly enough, almost forty years later, Lincoln did come to know Owen's son, Robert Dale, who implored the President to issue an emancipation order. "It stirred me like a trumpet call," Lincoln later recalled

==
As far as other reality based material goes, here is some.

http://albensonjr.com/mrlincolnthesocialist.shtml

{al benson is a conservative and southerner, who is a historian; he believes obama to be a socialist. http://albensonjr.com/redefiningamericans.shtml }

[start quote] You often find tidbits of interesting history in places you would seldom look for them. For instance, I have never really cared for Carl Sandburg's six volume story of the life of Lincoln. I felt that much of it was just shameless promotion of the "great emancipator." Yet there had to be some truth in it.

Often that truth has been sanitized so that we don't quite grasp all its importance, but it is there. I will cite one small example. In chapter 22 of the first volume, on pages 84-85, Sandburg mentioned one Robert Owen, a "rich English businessman" who bought land in New Harmony, Indiana. He mentioned that Owen gave a speech before Congress telling how "...he and his companions were going to find a new way for people to live their lives together, without fighting, cheating, or exploiting one another...they would share and share alike, each for all and all for each."

Owen did, indeed, have a "new" way for the people in America to live together--it was and is, called socialism! Then Sandburg informed us that Mr. Lincoln knew about this colony of Owen's and, according to Sandburg "The scheme lighted up Abe Lincoln's heart."

It is interesting that Mr. Sandburg didn't bother to tell his readers that Mr. Owen was a socialist and that his colony in Indiana was a socialist experiment, one that ultimately failed because of its socialism. Surely Sandburg must have been aware of that, given his own background (which will be dealt with in a later article). Why didn't he bother to inform his readers?

And if Lincoln, even in those early years of his life, was aware of Owen's undertaking, he must have had some idea of what Owen was all about. Lincoln, even as a young man, was ambitious. He was no country bumpkin.

[...]

We are able to glean even further confirmation of Lincoln's socialist leanings from establishment "historian" James M. McPherson. In his book Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution McPherson has noted, on pages 24-25: "Lincoln championed the leaders of the European revolutions of 1848; in turn, a man who knew something about those revolutions--Karl Marx--praised Lincoln in 1865 as 'the single-minded son of the working class' who had led his 'country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world." Stop and ponder just what Marx was referring to, and the language he used--"reconstruction of a social world."

In actuality, neither Marx nor Lincoln had much use for blacks, but they did make good cannor fodder, and they contained grist for the socialist propaganda mill, and so both Marx and Lincoln exalted their "esteem" for them in their public pronouncements. Privately it was altogether something else. Marx even signed a letter to Lincoln, with others, congratulating him on his re-election in 1864, and Lincoln reportedly responded warmly. [end benson quote]

 

[Epmd607]

There is no coherent argument for socialism because its a feel-good form of theft.

Capitalism, on the otherhand, offers you something in trade for something else. And, yes, I understand that many entrepreneurs are thieves disguised as capitalists.

I agree that there's no coherent argument for socialism, but I've yet to see one for capitalism. Every post-industrial country is tremendously capitalistic(sic?) and also has an incredible amount of welfare/statist programs. There's never been a free-market, there's never been a democratic state economic system. China pulls against privatisation of natural resources and the US pulls against nationalization of common resources. The only real problem in both systems are the statist tendencies. There's never been a communist or capitalist country that's allowed democratic control over distribution of resources.

 

[York]

Socialism doesn't work as sooner or later those that pay the way for everyone else leave or quit and once producers stop producing everyone else is doomed.

Again, showing a misunderstanding of socialism. In the current capitalist society exactly the same thing would happen.

Republics are the longest lasting form of government on the planet today.

Surely republics are a completely different thing? France is a republic and has had left and right wing governments.

Democracy is almost as bad as socialism as those who have the vote will always, I repeat, always vote for their own self interests.

Again, doesn't make sense as places like Germany and France are democracies that have had socialist governments.

Maybe I'm missing your point.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

PUREE

Let me direct your attention to the 7th Lincoln-Douglas Debate of 1858. From now on do your own homework.

Capitalism is the only economic system that works and is self correcting. I make bagels, you make cream cheese, and we swap. Under socialism I make bagels, Zeb makes cream cheese, and Puree eats.

 

[Pure]

flailing, james.

jbj "Socialism is the world's oldest form of tyranny; it's the proposition that you toil and sweat and earn your daily bread, and I get to eat it." Abraham Lincoln.

pure: you start a topic with a bogus quote. (source, refs?). why not just attribute "blessed are those who hate socialism" to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount?

jbj: PUREE

Let me direct your attention to the 7th Lincoln-Douglas Debate of 1858. From now on do your own homework.

==
nice try, james, but still pathetic. your scholarship here is not even puree, it's mishmash.

the 7th Lincoln Douglas debate may be found at

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1055 [part 1]
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1056 [part 2]

the words "socialism" "tyranny" and "toil and sweat" do not occur there. if you disagree, post the excerpt. if you can't find the quote, be honest and delete it from your post #3, or simply attach an appropriate comment: "it's bogus and i didn't know it. sorry."

 

[DesertPirate]

The reason socialism has always failed is simple: There is no incentive to succeed. If you do, most is taken away and given to those that don't even try, so why bother.

Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Exactly. Socialism's principle canon is, YOU DONT DESERVE WHAT YOU HAVE AND YOURE GREEDY IF YOU DONT GIVE IT TO ME.

 

[York]

The reason socialism has always failed is simple: There is no incentive to succeed. If you do, most is taken away and given to those that don't even try, so why bother.

Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried.

Yeah, Germany's had a terrible time with its socialist governments.

 

[DesertPirate]

Yeah, Germany's had a terrible time with its socialist governments.

Starting with 1933, I'd have to say you are right.
Of course all of Europe is having a worse time than we are right now. Wonder why?