Why do people in USA fear socialism so much?

[SgtSpike]

One more little tidbit:  LIFE ISN'T FAIR.

And we shouldn't try to make it fair.  Not everyone can afford a college education.  Not fair?  Perhaps, but life isn't fair.  If a person gets dealt a bad hand in life, it's no one's fault, but society as a whole shouldn't have to bail them out - they should only have the option to do so if desired.

Neither should they have to give disproportionately to the people at the top who were given everything in life, including their education.

Did I say they should have to?

[1713942837]

1713942837

[SgtSpike]

The rich may leech off the system, but so do the poor.  I see examples of it nearly every day.  Which is why there shouldn't be any system to leech off of.  Not abolishment of government completely, but certainly downsizing it from the ridiculous bloat it has become.  No welfare or loopholes for anyone, rich or poor, to use.

The poor don't ask for Trillions They Already Have, however.
Also, here's a cool chart from Moody's, showing the estimated return rates on investment in social programs; many of those you lash out against have POSITIVE returns (if you're wondering how, it's mostly to do with enabling workers and businesses to continue working or have infrastructure):

I am fine with my return off of labor.  I wouldn't mind more money, but who would?  I got myself a degree, I work hard, and I take home a decent paycheck.  I put some into a retirement fund, and at some point when I have more of my debt paid off, will start putting more into more savings accounts.  If I get cancer and none of my family can afford to pay for it (or wants to pay for it), then I die.  My wife would have life insurance payments to help take care of the children and pay off the mortgage, because I was smart enough to pay for some, and life moves on.  If a person puts their family's financial state into danger because he didn't pay for life insurance, or assure them other means for survival should he pass, then that is his fault.

If you "didn't want to pay for cancer", there's a good chance your life insurance has a clause that would let them rule that suicide or something, I'd check that. (Suicide means they don't have to pay out)

Also, one of the big reasons why a cancer care bill might run into the hundreds of thousands is because many people never pay their hospital bills.  Remove that leech of the system, and you'd have much smaller and more manageable bills for the people who actually do pay them.

Single payer effectively fixes this, as the hospital gets payed regardless of the customer.

So, according to that graph, for every $1 put in to the system in those areas, the government collects that amount back in taxes at some eventual point in time?  Genuine question - just trying to figure out exactly what is being shown there.  Return on investment for who?

If that is the case, that my life insurance would rule non-treatment of cancer as a suicide, then it is my own fault for not doing proper due-diligence and reading all of the fine print of my life insurance policy.  If I wanted insurance that covered such instances, then I should continue looking until I find it.

Single payer would work, if it wasn't so dang inefficient.  Problem is, it still spawns leechers.  People who think they're sick, and go to the emergency room "just in case," when a simple call to their doctor would have sufficed and been more efficient for the system as a whole.  Now the single payer is stuck with a much larger emergency room bill, instead of society as a whole paying nothing for a simple doctor's call.  Not to mention the people who had to wait longer to get in to the emergency room because of people visiting on a "just because I can" basis.

If there's no consequence to using the system (if people don't have to pay for visits to the doctor/hospital), then there's no reason they shouldn't go there and receive the maximum benefit possible as often as possible.  Which is inefficient for the system, causes waste, and causes overall healthcare costs to go up.

[niko]

Socialism destroys any natural incentive that comes from human desire and puts it in the hands of elected bureaucrats that are incapable of true failure. They get paid no matter how well their mandates work and can only be fired every term or so. That's assuming they are held accountable. There's no competition to do that.

In conclusion, due to little true accountability and the inability to fail, socialist services are inherently inferior in terms of product output and the vast amount of inefficiency required to generate said product.

You have no idea what you are talking about, do you? Have you ever lived in a socialist system? Your dreamed-up logic only proves the premise of OP true.

You are right in saying that socialism sucks, though - you just fail to realize that this fact applies to people who feel the way you do, but it doesn't apply to everyone on this planet. How come anti-socialists are all into personal freedoms and stuff, but so easily resort to totalitarian practice of projecting their personal culture to everyone under the pretense of "human nature"?

There are societies in this world where people are much less competitive then where you are from. It's a fact - nothing right or wrong about it. It's just a different way of doing things and going about your life. Nothing to be afraid of, especially if you don't really know anything about it.
 

[AyeYo]

And what do you mean by "any known version of socialism"?  What does a known version of socialism look like, in your opinion?  Because to me, it looks like programs to give people money who don't work hard enough to provide for themselves.

Damn those people with debilitating diseases!  They just need to drag their lazy asses off the couch and get to work to pay for their hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical treatment.

No wait... they should have planned better and not gotten sick in the first place!


 

Fair point, but it still shouldn't be forced.  If you have a much lower tax rate from not having entitlement programs, then you enable people to have more free money to donate to charities that would help some people.  Ideally, if a person did have a debilitating disease, then family members and/or charities would decide whether it is worth spending money on keeping them alive.  Sounds harsh, but keep reading...

This gets into another question though, which is, what is the value of a random person's life?  $5?  $500?  $500,000?  $5M?  At what point do you say, enough is enough, and give up on throwing money at trying to save a person's life?  And I'm talking about any general public fund's money, not an individual's money which they can spend at will on whatever they like.  You can't say that a life is priceless, else we'd all be so poor spending money on keeping people alive that we'd live in shacks and eat grub for every meal.

See above, history has proven time and again that charties do not cut it, which is why social services were started in the first place.

It's not about spending money to keep people alive, it's about giving everyone as equal a shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as we can.  No one should suffer due solely to being dealt a bad hand.  That's why this BS that everyone that uses social services is some lazy ghetto queen bum is so off-the-wall wrong.  The purpose of social services is to prop up people that need propping up so that they can hopefully get back on their feet someday and become contributing members of society.  They can't do that if we just let them die.


Father, mother, and two kids are living their merry lives.  Father gets cancer and has to stop working.  Leaving works means getting dropped from his healthcare policy.  Father now has to find it own healthcare... but no one will take him because he's got cancer and cancer is expensive.  Father is now stuck paying for literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatments out of his own pocket.  Mother goes to work.  What about the kids?  The kids have to drop out of highschool at 16 and get jobs to help put food on the table.  Their future is shot.  They were 4.0 students, bound for good colleges, now they're working at McDonald's.  Father dies.  Mother is now old and burned out.  Kids are in their late 20's with no highschool education and they're forced to keep working to support their mother who had no retirement savings because it all went to her husband's medical bills, rent, and clothes for the kids.  Mother dies.  Kids are now in their 50's with no retirement savings, no education, and no hope for what's left of their future.

So we've throw an entire generation down the toilet because society didn't want to pick up the tab for father's cancer treatment.  The same father that worked a 9-5, paid his taxes and was a contributing member of society.  It's called giving back, and it's not voluntary because it's OWED.

This is what I'm not getting, it's basic social contract. Rich person benefits greatly from standing social infrastructure - shouldn't he be required to give some of what was given to him back to ensure continued existence of the system?

Working class person gives and gives to society by providing labor, and gets cancer. Shouldn't the society that benefited from his labor take care of him, either as repayment or so he can actually re-enter the workforce again?


In America, the answer to these questions is no. The rich should be allowed to disproportionately leech off the system due to their position and advantage and life, and the working class man should be cast aside as a disposable tool the minute he becomes a liability.



Here's a truth-bomb for everyone posting here: You may not fully believe it yet, maybe you have not gotten a full dose of the real world yet, but if you spend your free time theorycrafting on forums, it is very very likely you weren't born off into good enough conditions to not be in the second class, and in a capitalistic society you WILL NOT benefit from all the fruits your labor, in fact, you will probably receive much less of a fraction of your labor back as you would under even a mild nordic-style socialism system and safety net. Also, once you become useless to society, either through age or disability, your employer, your banks, and even your insurance will throw you to the side like trash and let you die, no matter how much you've given them. People and markets are not rational, and unless given regulation and a tax code that requires people to pay into a structured society, people will do everything they can to fuck you as hard as they can, just to make their bottom line grow a little.

All of this x1000.

[FreeMoney]

Grunching: so they can pretend they don't have it.

[Bind]

Not to be unfeeling, but natural selection ocurrs for many reasons, mostly so no ecosystem will become overpopulated is my thinking. Yea, its a shitty deal. So is people stealing your rights, freedom, liberty, and wealth, all for the supposed greater good of humanity. Hell, let them steal it from big business if they simply must have it [which I still disagree with] and leave us little guys the hell alone. NOT [from] those least able to afford it like the average hard working citizen, which is what our system is becoming. But therein lies the rub my friends. It isnt for the greater good for humanity. Its for our enslavement. Very little of the stated goals of these worldwide movements and agendas are actually true and accurate. They are used [thesis - antithesis - synthesis] to advance an alternate agenda and ulterior motives. Which is why no "Wars On _INSERT_SOCIALLY_RESPONSIBLE_SUBJECT_MATTER HERE_" has ever worked (crime, drugs, housing, homeless, poverty, etc).

Our common bond is freedom.

In order to be free we must allow others to be free.

You can not stomp on someones rights in favor of another in the name of humanity [or anything] and still be free.

Taking care of my fellow human is my perogative (that means choice btw), not my obligation to assist in my own enslavement.

[NghtRppr]

I don't understand, maybe I'm just too young with whole cold-war mentality born just around collapse. Sure communism didn't work out very well.

But, I do prefer some socialism to pure capitalism. So I don't realy get this whole fear of it in USA, it can't be all bad or is it? Can someone explain it to me?

All human interactions shouldn't violate the rights of people involved.

[FirstAscent]

All human interactions shouldn't violate the rights of people involved.

People are humans, right? Humans are one among many animals, right? Among members of the animal kingdom are bees, ants, wolves, horses, chimpanzees, dolphins, black widow spiders and gopher snakes.

As far as I can tell, all live in a socialistic group, except for the black widow spiders and gopher snakes.

[NghtRppr]

All human interactions shouldn't violate the rights of people involved.

People are humans, right? Humans are one among many animals, right? Among members of the animal kingdom are bees, ants, wolves, horses, chimpanzees, dolphins, black widow spiders and gopher snakes.

As far as I can tell, all live in a socialistic group, except for the black widow spiders and gopher snakes.

Since you keep responding to me even though I have you on ignore, I'll unignore you for now until you start to get insulting again.

It sounds like you're engaging in the naturalistic fallacy. Just because something is natural doesn't mean it's good. Cancer is natural. Death is natural. In Aristotle's politics, he condemns money exchanging as unnatural and therefore bad; war and pillage as natural and therefore good. There is no connection between "is" and "ought". It's an unbridgeable gulf. The closest anyone's gotten are presupposition arguments such as Hoppe's argument from argument.

[FirstAscent]

All human interactions shouldn't violate the rights of people involved.

People are humans, right? Humans are one among many animals, right? Among members of the animal kingdom are bees, ants, wolves, horses, chimpanzees, dolphins, black widow spiders and gopher snakes.

As far as I can tell, all live in a socialistic group, except for the black widow spiders and gopher snakes.

Since you keep responding to me even though I have you on ignore, I'll unignore you for now until you start to get insulting again.

It sounds like you're engaging in the naturalistic fallacy. Just because something is natural doesn't mean it's good. Cancer is natural. Death is natural. In Aristotle's politics, he condemns money exchanging as unnatural and therefore bad; war and pillage as natural and therefore good. There is no connection between "is" and "ought". It's an unbridgeable gulf. The closest anyone's gotten are presupposition arguments such as Hoppe's argument from argument.

I'm sorry, but it really doesn't sound like I'm engaging in naturalistic fallacy. How could you get that wrong? What I'm engaging in is the presentation of the way evolution has evolved solutions to species' survival. It has nothing to do with good or bad. It's simply what has allowed various species to be successful. By and large, there are numerous examples of socialistic societies amongst species in the animal kingdom. Humans are obviously one example, going back to our diaspora from Africa. There is plenty of evidence in our past that the weaker were offered protection within groups.

[NghtRppr]

I'm sorry, but it really doesn't sound like I'm engaging in naturalistic fallacy. How could you get that wrong? What I'm engaging in is the presentation of the way evolution has evolved solutions to species' survival. It has nothing to do with good or bad. It's simply what has allowed various species to be successful. By and large, there are numerous examples of socialistic societies amongst species in the animal kingdom. Humans are obviously one example, going back to our diaspora from Africa. There is plenty of evidence in our past that the weaker were offered protection within groups.

Free markets are a form of cooperation.

[FirstAscent]

I'm sorry, but it really doesn't sound like I'm engaging in naturalistic fallacy. How could you get that wrong? What I'm engaging in is the presentation of the way evolution has evolved solutions to species' survival. It has nothing to do with good or bad. It's simply what has allowed various species to be successful. By and large, there are numerous examples of socialistic societies amongst species in the animal kingdom. Humans are obviously one example, going back to our diaspora from Africa. There is plenty of evidence in our past that the weaker were offered protection within groups.

Free markets are a form of cooperation.

Actually, free markets as you envision them, are 100 percent a form of selfishness mechanized to its limit.

[NghtRppr]

Actually, free markets as you envision them, are 100 percent a form of selfishness mechanized to its limit.

Let's say that I trade my watch for your shoes. If we both agree to the trade then there must be something I like about your shoes more than my watch and it must be the case that you like something about my watch more than your shoes. After the trade, we both end up with something we like more. We're both better off. How is that not cooperation?

[FirstAscent]

Actually, free markets as you envision them, are 100 percent a form of selfishness mechanized to its limit.

Let's say that I trade my watch for your shoes. If we both agree to the trade then there must be something I like about your shoes more than my watch and it must be the case that you like something about my watch more than your shoes. After the trade, we both end up with something we like more. We're both better off. How is that not cooperation?

It is cooperation. You and I can do that in today's society. Why do we need to allow businesses to do whatever they want to the environment if all you want is to be able to trade a watch for shoes?

[NghtRppr]

It is cooperation. You and I can do that in today's society. Why do we need to allow businesses to do whatever they want to the environment if all you want is to be able to trade a watch for shoes?

If a business pollutes my land, I'll sue them for damages until they stop or go broke and are unable to continue.

[FirstAscent]

It is cooperation. You and I can do that in today's society. Why do we need to allow businesses to do whatever they want to the environment if all you want is to be able to trade a watch for shoes?

If a business pollutes my land, I'll sue them for damages until they stop or go broke and are unable to continue.

Yes, you've said that many many times in this forum. Are you aware that it is unlikely that you possess enough expertise to identify the true extent of the damage said business is doing? More to the point, perhaps you'll look the other way because suing them will only drive the price up on what they're producing. Welcome to the world as it exists today. Your proposed solutions will not improve the situation. And if they did, it will be fragmented and non uniform in application, geographically.

What is needed is leadership to ordain collective ownership (i.e. public lands), with guaranteed future protection. Following that, businesses will find themselves collectively handicapped in the quantity of resources available to them (artificially imposed constraints), and thus the process of finding alternative solutions to resource exploitation will be accelerated by competition to derive real solutions that are efficient and non exploitative, as opposed to being mostly exploitative.

The key is to artificially guide business to seek out efficiency as it relates to the entire system which sustains us, as opposed to efficiency at maximizing money through exploitation.  

[Ekaros]

It is cooperation. You and I can do that in today's society. Why do we need to allow businesses to do whatever they want to the environment if all you want is to be able to trade a watch for shoes?

If a business pollutes my land, I'll sue them for damages until they stop or go broke and are unable to continue.

But it's free market, they are free to do that damage, your option is to go war with them or just threathen them, but if they are more powerful than you what can you do?

Central authority would steal from you doesn't it? Steals your money so they can solve someones elseses problems, that's not free?

[NghtRppr]

Are you aware that it is unlikely that you possess enough expertise to identify the true extent of the damage said business is doing? More to the point, perhaps you'll look the other way because suing them will only drive the price up on what they're producing.

I don't know much about cars but I know enough to find a decent mechanic. Being able to find a good expert doesn't require being an expert yourself. If I look the other way then that's my choice. It's my property. Are you saying that you should be able to tell me how I should value my property?

But it's free market, they are free to do that damage...

That's not a free market. A free market is based on property rights.

...but if they are more powerful than you what can you do?

Let a private security firm handle it for me. Do you think that police can only exist when run by the government? Somehow the bad people see a book of laws and it's like a Bible to a vampire?

[FirstAscent]

I don't know much about cars but I know enough to find a decent mechanic. Being able to find a good expert doesn't require being an expert yourself. If I look the other way then that's my choice. It's my property. Are you saying that you should be able to tell me how I should value my property?

You see those three paragraphs I just wrote? I want you to think about those at least once a day for the next month. And while you're doing that, make an effort at learning about the complexities of the engine that sustains us. Or, as you like to say, if you're good enough to find a mechanic, then, as it relates to our discussion, you better become good enough at finding some experts on the engines which support humanity.

It's more than just insisting that your political ideology can fit the problem, because your political ideology does not fit the problem.

[NghtRppr]

I don't know much about cars but I know enough to find a decent mechanic. Being able to find a good expert doesn't require being an expert yourself. If I look the other way then that's my choice. It's my property. Are you saying that you should be able to tell me how I should value my property?

You see those three paragraphs I just wrote? I want you to think about those at least once a day for the next month. And while you're doing that, make an effort at learning about the complexities of the engine that sustains us. Or, as you like to say, if you're good enough to find a mechanic, then, as it relates to our discussion, you better become good enough at finding some experts on the engines which support humanity.

It's more than just insisting that your political ideology can fit the problem, because your political ideology does not fit the problem.

Assertions, assertions but no arguments. There's no meat, nothing for me to respond to. I notice that you didn't respond to any of my points either. *shrugs*