Socialism

[Haumana]

Goddamn I didn't realize it was that hot. Fuck that indeed. There is a youtube channel I really enjoy called Fisherman's Life, and that dude lives somewhere in Cali. He mainly does saltwater fishing but the beaches he goes to are the shit. A lot more rocky than Florida ones.

I like that channel too. Catch, cook and eat with avocado. He is near San Francisco and usually fishes from there down to Pacifica.

[heydaralon]

The problem is that even when the single mothers use their EBT cards, they still have to spend gas money to get to the store. And no, welfare doesn't cut it, not when children are involved. We need to start a gas card program where single mothers get $500 per month in gas so they can drive their kids to school and so on. Just send them 10 $50 racetrac giftcards, because in that case you can use the giftcard to buy beer, cigarettes or red bull, or even gas at the Racetrac. Just a thought.

[heydaralon]

Goddamn I didn't realize it was that hot. Fuck that indeed. There is a youtube channel I really enjoy called Fisherman's Life, and that dude lives somewhere in Cali. He mainly does saltwater fishing but the beaches he goes to are the shit. A lot more rocky than Florida ones.

I like that channel too. Catch, cook and eat with avocado. He is near San Francisco and usually fishes from there down to Pacifica.

He's got some balls. One time he was fishing a few hundred meters out in an inflatable chair with his legs hanging in the water, and he was cutting up fish with the blood dripping into the ocean. I know that California beaches have lots of great whites and tiger sharks, and this dude was basically ringing the dinner bell for them. Have you seen the one where he had to basically rock climb to get to this beautiful fishing spot? It was basically on a cliff. His abalone videos are also cool (looks tasty), though he said that there is a fishing ban on them now.

[brewster]

You only supported my point. When we protected the American worker, the middle class grew substantially. All those men in the mid-twentieth century working middle class jobs were tax payers. Women got married and generally stayed that way, not becoming wards of a socialist state as about half of the female millennial mothers have becone.

What protected the American worker was unions & SS, both socialistic, in addition to pre-Friedman (shareholder profit above all) corporations behaving like part of the community. So how is socialism bad then?

[Speaker to Animals]

You only supported my point. When we protected the American worker, the middle class grew substantially. All those men in the mid-twentieth century working middle class jobs were tax payers. Women got married and generally stayed that way, not becoming wards of a socialist state as about half of the female millennial mothers have becone.

What protected the American worker was unions & SS, both socialistic, in addition to pre-Friedman (shareholder profit above all) corporations behaving like part of the community. So how is socialism bad then?

SS not so much. It protected people when they grew old, but by then they probably paid far more taxes than they ever got back in social security checks.

You are throwing programs at me as some kind of counter argument that either support my case or are irrelevant.

When men had good jobs, they paid into the system through taxes. Women were married young and raised kids at home. When women remain married beyond the terrible early thirties, they tend to stay that way. Married women with a supporting husband and kids to raise generally do not vote for degeneracy (socialism and the current democratic party).

Men with access to relatively virtuous and monogamous wives to make families with tend to not support this bullshit either. Most of these young men are doing this because they are weak and a majority of young women are whoring themselves out and living off stolen resources from men. It's just a pathetic mating strategy.

I would not conflate this with your liberal politics. We might or might not agree on something of that stuff, but there is nothing degenerate about social security and unions. That is not socializing the means of production and wealth redistribution either.

[heydaralon]

On topic, in the Times today:

The White House Council of Economic Advisers on Tuesday published a 72-page report criticizing what it described as the socialist ideas of leading Democratic Party politicians, and seeking to link President Trump’s political rivals with figures reviled by most Americans.
SNIP
What is socialism, anyway?
It’s a strange question to ask at the end of a 72-page report, but it’s one that the authors leave up for debate. Most important, they don’t define as “socialist” anything that the United States government currently does.

The federal government has long embraced important elements of a socialist agenda, such as providing retirement benefits and health care for poor children and older people. The report finesses this inconvenient truth by defining socialism as any effort to increase the government’s involvement in the economy. Thus the current Medicare program, which provides socialized medicine for older Americans, is defined as ideologically acceptable, while proposals to expand Medicaid are termed “socialized medicine.”

Let’s be clear, though: The report is decidedly not about “communism.” The authors detail why, in a footnote on Page 4:

For classical socialists, “communism” is a purely theoretical concept that has never yet been put into practice, which is why the second “S” in U.S.S.R. stands for “Socialist.” Communism is, in their view, a social arrangement where there is neither a state nor private property; the abolition of property is not sufficient for communism. As Lenin explained, “The goal of socialism is communism.” The supposed purpose of the “Great Leap Forward” was for China to transition from socialism to communism before the U.S.S.R. did (Dikӧtter 2010). The classical definition therefore stands in contrast to vernacular usage of communism to refer to historical instances of socialism where the degree of control was the highest, such as the U.S.S.R., Cuba, North Korea, or Maoist China. This report therefore avoids the term “communism.”

Ah, the old "stare decisis" defense of the status quo, but draw the line! Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough, add a certain amount of Socialism to the list.

There is a youtube channel I really enjoy called Fisherman's Life, and that dude lives somewhere in Cali. He mainly does saltwater fishing but the beaches he goes to are the shit. A lot more rocky than Florida ones.

Check out the channel of EliasVfishing. Till he moved to NC this year he fished my home waters around NYC. He went from bailing striped bass to bailing bull reds.

I'm not 100% on this, but I'm fairly certain that Brewster hasn't seen Lady Bird. I will admit, I wasn't cultured enough to understand much of the social commentary that the movie provided so I didn't attempt it. I did two things right though:

1) I went onto Rotten Tomatoes and I read the glowing reviews. These reviews indicated to me that if I had seen the movie and been capable of appreciating the cultural significance, I would have enjoyed it. I know this, because I only follow the top critics.

2) I admitted that I lied earlier when I said I saw the film. I was intimidated, so it makes sense to lie about something like that, because that is what most people would do. By coming clean on not having seen the film, I absolved myself of any kind of negative energy.

Contrast that to Brewster. Yes, they mentioned Sacramento in their post, where the movie is set. I thought that meant they saw it. Here's the trouble: Its possible that Brewster may have simply read the synopsis on imdb or wikipedia for the film, without having actually seen in theaters. In essence, Brewster might be lying to the entire board about seeing Lady Bird. How could we verify this fact? I understand that you have a family and a busy schedule, but there is no reason to bring up some high brow art film and say you saw it if you didn't. That is completely unethical, and I don't like talking to liars. If you did see the film, then my hat goes off to you. If you didn't, then that's really not cool in my book Brewster.


Also, thanks for yt channel recommendation. I will check it out

[brewster]

SS not so much. It protected people when they grew old, but by then they probably paid far more taxes than they ever got back in social security checks.

I'm not going engage your interesting social theories, but SS benefited people immediately after it was enacted. Which was the point of the "pay as you go" system. It was an insurance plan, never a savings plan. Rates went up as the ratio of worker to recipient went down.




I think it should means tested, contribution uncapped, or both. It's the fiction that it's not "socialism" that makes it hard to fix.
Look at this graph, only 2/3 goes to retired workers, the rest to people who didn't "earn it". Why should the wealthy have their contributions capped when this is clearly a "socialistic benefit", not savings?

[Speaker to Animals]

SS not so much. It protected people when they grew old, but by then they probably paid far more taxes than they ever got back in social security checks.

I'm not going engage your interesting social theories, but SS benefited people immediately after it was enacted. Which was the point of the "pay as you go" system. It was an insurance plan, never a savings plan. Rates went up as the ratio of worker to recipient went down.




I think it should means tested, contribution uncapped, or both. It's the fiction that it's not "socialism" that makes it hard to fix.
Look at this graph, only 2/3 goes to retired workers, the rest to people who didn't "earn it". Why should the wealthy have their contributions capped when this is clearly a "socialistic benefit", not savings?

You are not actually responding to anything I posted in this thread. If you want to debate social security, I suggest creating a social security thread and I am sure somebody who actually opposes social security, such as Fife, will debate it with you.

[Speaker to Animals]

This is why we got socialism.

[Fife]

If you want to debate social security, I suggest creating a social security thread and I am sure somebody who actually opposes social security, such as Fife, will debate it with you.

I thought we already threads somewhere about Ponzi schemes and strong-arm theft.

Anyway, I'm game as always.