Socialism

[SuburbanFarmer]

The problem with socialism is that the motto "no taxation without representation" could and should also be construed to mean "no representation without taxation". The people who don't pay the costs want socialism for obvious reasons.

One shouldn't be required to pay the costs for nationhood without having a voice in its destiny, but it's also true that nobody who pays zero costs for nationhood should have a vote. Every vote from a person who never served and doesn't even pay net taxes (like many women, for example) cancels out the vote of a person who does pay the costs. When the numbers of non-payers exceed the numbers of payers, you will end up with socialism.

You just made a pretty good argument for universal enfranchisement.

[Haumana]

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.

I saw the chair one. More Great Whites than Tigers, they like to eat the seals out at the Farallon Islands. I have seen him go through some hairy climbing to get to a particular spot. Did you see his Alaska adventure? Where they had to shoot that halibut? I will check out his abalone videos. Abalone fishing is a highly regulated endeavor in California. I don't think there is an outright ban but they do ban some years if the population is deemed too low.

[Speaker to Animals]

The problem with socialism is that the motto "no taxation without representation" could and should also be construed to mean "no representation without taxation". The people who don't pay the costs want socialism for obvious reasons.

One shouldn't be required to pay the costs for nationhood without having a voice in its destiny, but it's also true that nobody who pays zero costs for nationhood should have a vote. Every vote from a person who never served and doesn't even pay net taxes (like many women, for example) cancels out the vote of a person who does pay the costs. When the numbers of non-payers exceed the numbers of payers, you will end up with socialism.

You just made a pretty good argument for universal enfranchisement.

No, quite the opposite.

No representation without taxation would remove most women and a substantial number of men from the voter rolls. It would even remove me until I get all this legal shit done and return to work.

I would love to add a term of enlistment to the requirement for national elections too, since giving four years of your life is a kind of tax, and really the only legitimate purposes of a federal or confederal government are our collective defense and foreign diplomacy. That would remove about 90% of men and virtually all women from national elections. Combined with the tax rule, a national election realistically would be determined by about 5-9% if the population, and probably less than half the population at state and local levels where only the tax rule applies but not the service rule.

It makes no sense for people who do not contribute to vote for how much shit other people have to give them. It makes even less sense for all the people out there unwilling to risk their lives in war to decide when other people should have to fight wars.

Nothing turned me against universal franchise like all those entitled female Clinton voters. Nothing. None of them would fight Hillary's global conquests, and none of them cared.

[GloryofGreece]

The problem with socialism is that the motto "no taxation without representation" could and should also be construed to mean "no representation without taxation". The people who don't pay the costs want socialism for obvious reasons.

One shouldn't be required to pay the costs for nationhood without having a voice in its destiny, but it's also true that nobody who pays zero costs for nationhood should have a vote. Every vote from a person who never served and doesn't even pay net taxes (like many women, for example) cancels out the vote of a person who does pay the costs. When the numbers of non-payers exceed the numbers of payers, you will end up with socialism.

You just made a pretty good argument for universal enfranchisement.

No, quite the opposite.

No representation without taxation would remove most women and a substantial number of men from the voter rolls. It would even remove me until I get all this legal shit done and return to work.

I would love to add a term of enlistment to the requirement for national elections too, since giving four years of your life is a kind of tax, and really the only legitimate purposes of a federal or confederal government are our collective defense and foreign diplomacy. That would remove about 90% of men and virtually all women from national elections. Combined with the tax rule, a national election realistically would be determined by about 5-9% if the population, and probably less than half the population at state and local levels where only the tax rule applies but not the service rule.

It makes no sense for people who do not contribute to vote for how much shit other people have to give them. It makes even less sense for all the people out there unwilling to risk their lives in war to decide when other people should have to fight wars.

Nothing turned me against universal franchise like all those entitled female Clinton voters. Nothing. None of them would fight Hillary's global conquests, and none of them cared.

Would you be open to other national enfranchisement qualifiers such as two year commitments of either of the below...
-Border Patrol/ other law enforcement service
-Foreign Service/ Peace Corps
-Emergency Medical Services Fire/EMT/etc.
-Nursing Home/Hospice Care
-Teaching in underdevloped American communities (rural & urban)

During this time you wouldn't be paid except room/board and basic medical coverage. You'd be an "employee" of the Federal government and deployed wherever they need /want you at similar to the military.

[Speaker to Animals]

You just made a pretty good argument for universal enfranchisement.

No, quite the opposite.

No representation without taxation would remove most women and a substantial number of men from the voter rolls. It would even remove me until I get all this legal shit done and return to work.

I would love to add a term of enlistment to the requirement for national elections too, since giving four years of your life is a kind of tax, and really the only legitimate purposes of a federal or confederal government are our collective defense and foreign diplomacy. That would remove about 90% of men and virtually all women from national elections. Combined with the tax rule, a national election realistically would be determined by about 5-9% if the population, and probably less than half the population at state and local levels where only the tax rule applies but not the service rule.

It makes no sense for people who do not contribute to vote for how much shit other people have to give them. It makes even less sense for all the people out there unwilling to risk their lives in war to decide when other people should have to fight wars.

Nothing turned me against universal franchise like all those entitled female Clinton voters. Nothing. None of them would fight Hillary's global conquests, and none of them cared.

Would you be open to other national enfranchisement qualifiers such as two year commitments of either of the below...
-Border Patrol/ other law enforcement service
-Foreign Service/ Peace Corps
-Emergency Medical Services Fire/EMT/etc.
-Nursing Home/Hospice Care
-Teaching in underdevloped American communities (rural & urban)

During this time you wouldn't be paid except room/board and basic medical coverage. You'd be an "employee" of the Federal government and deployed wherever they need /want you at similar to the military.

No.

The electorate at the national level is, collectively, the sovereign. Consider that, before our revolution, a sovereign was a single person (the monarch). How does history remember monarchs who liked to wage many wars but we're too cowardly to actually fight their own wars?

History does not remember such men well.

Yet that is exactly what is happening right now. These people make no meaningful sacrifice for the wars their politicians face. You get politicians like Obama and Clinton, who destabilized two continents resulting in millions of fatalities and the worst mass migration in almost two thousand years, because those politicians promise non-warriors gibs and other policies the non-warriors care about, and non-warriors at the end of the day care less about endless wars than these other things.

[Fife]

[Speaker to Animals]

One indicator, though not universally true, is the misuse of the word "we".

When the deep state helped initiate the Syrian civil war, and funded/armed ISIS, how many people did you hear saying something to the effect: "We need to go there and stop these evil people"? Who is 'we', exactly? Because usually when a person uses the word 'we' they include themselves, and yet few of these people were veterans or active duty, and almost nobody joined the armed forces specifically to go fight this war.

How many times do you hear women saying things like "we need to support single mothers". Who is 'we' when women collectively don't actually pay more taxes than what they receive? I have even heard single mothers themselves use the word 'we' when talking about how 'we' should help single mothers with income and gibs.

It's not universal, since we all misuse words from time to time. But it's glaring enough that you might notice it now that it has been pointed out.

[Speaker to Animals]

Another point..

I see people on the right making a meme out of this "democratic socialism is just socialism" thing. There kind of is a distinction here. You will get a kind of socialism that is the result of universal franchise, especially the enfranchisement of women, that you would not get from an actual military coup led by a small group of armed leftists.

Democratic socialism is more of the case of women destroying society, whereas actual socialist revolutions are initiated, led, and fought by men with drastically different outcomes. Cuba is socialist but it's of a different character than what the left in our society wants to create.

[brewster]

Socialism as it is espoused by the democratic party's base is the socialization of the means of production via state power.

Citation please, not of that common definition, but of any mainstream Democrat advocating seizure of industrial production.

Single payer health insurance (mandatory and universal).
Socialized hospital systems as the alternative to the above.
Socialize the oil industry.
[url=https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article ... operatives]Socialized alternative energy industry.[/url
I don't even think you seriously wanted an answer to this question.

Little of that is the mainstream Democratic Party, you can find idiots like Waters or cranks writing crazy stuff anywhere. I could easily find equally stupid things said by individual GOP members, or "men on the street", just look at ND, would you seriously want him quoted anywhere as representative of the party? How about Rick Perry wanting to remove depts like Energy & Commerce that he didn't even know what they did. This is stuff your party waves around to get you riled up. You want to know what D's think? Note most of the radicals lost their primaries, as did Bernie 2 years previously. The Moderate D majority have no time for that nonsense. I don't know if a moderate R majority exists anymore. What you guys believe about abortion, guns and religion was in your last Party Platform. You won't find any single payer or nationalizing industries in the 2016 D platform.

Single payer is not "nationalizing means of production" it's changing payment structure of an already heavily regulated industry that is 45% single payer already. You might feel differently if you actually had to buy healthcare. Friends who were briefly both unemployed had to spend $3500/mo for family coverage. Does $42k per year for health insurance of healthy people sound rational to you? That more than a significant number of Americans make per year.

I saw no democratic leaders quoted in the renewables article at all, just fringe partisans. Utilities and medicine are terrible examples of "free market" industries anyway. If you can't shop for better service, a better price, or both, its not a free market. The govt thumb is already all over the scales, mostly in favor of the industries. Get back to me when they want to nationalize Starbucks. Note that when we "bought" GM Obama got rid of it as soon as possible.

[TheReal_ND]

just look at ND, would you seriously want him quoted anywhere as representative of the party?