How to respond to 'we already have socialism and you participate in it'? (vanity)

[HGSW0904]

The common argument from the left in defense of O's policy and socialism in general is that our system is already chock full of socialism. Commonly, lefties reference the police and fire departments, public education, social security, and even insurance plans as evidence that those who espouse free-market ideology are hypocrites.

What say you all?

[BitWielder1]

The argument is of course that roads are a shared resource and how else would you pay for them.
After all, everyone benefits. Even those who don't drive benefits from goods and services delivered by road.
Tolls and Fuel taxes work, as long as the gov't does not loot it for other things.
Government could easily contract private companies to do the actual construction and maintenance work, wherever they don't do so already.
(Someone in the business enlighten us please?)

...federal gov't should be responsible for national defense and nothing else.

Agree. But even that could be contracted to a professional force.

[William Tell]

ShadowAce said: "My position, though very unrealistic at this point, is that federal gov't should be responsible for national defense and nothing else. "

I seem to recall that the specifications for the interstate highways enabled them to withstand the weight of a column of tanks, as would be needed to reposition a sizeable armored force anywhere within the U.S.

[ShadowAce]

Agreed to all of that. In fact, a lot of it is contracted out. The point, though, is that it is still federally funded.

[ShadowAce]

That is an excellent point. I had forgotten that the highway system was originally intended for defense transportation.

[Vaduz]

Socialism only lasts as long as other peoples money lasts.

[BitWielder1]

Government K-12 school needs to be **abolished**!

I sort of agree with your sentiment but I don't think it is realistic.
40% of people still like public schools.

If the next (R) administration gets rid of public schools, the next (D) will just put it back, probably with even more crazy mandates like they did with the Health Control bill.
I don't want to see another debacle like HC, neither by R or D.

I think recognizing peoples right to choose their kids school coupled with healthy competition will make for a much smoother transition and improve public schools to boot.
Oh, and get rid of federal control and let the states take care of it.

[HGSW0904]

WOW. It’s going to take a while to get through all these...(I had carpet installed today and haven’t been back to my computer)...great ammunition, and thoughts to ponder, and ideas for retort and research.

I was unaware of the origins of the highway system either, and I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who feels like pretty much everything should be privatized.

[HGSW0904]

‘Twasn’t my premise, it’s what the liberals tend to say.

[Red6]

We have a mixed economy, but the argument proposed by those saying this nonsense is defeatist. It is the same argument they use when they state we should legalize drugs because you can’t win the battle against them. It’s an idiotic argument. We pay taxes anyway, why not pay 90% income tax? Your nails grow out anyway, why clip them? I’ll get sweaty and greasy anyway, why shower? You can construct an endless list of absurd arguments using the same thinking like this, and what you need to do is figure out what the interest are of those that say this, then construct an the same silly argument but attack what they want and like, hoping they see the absurdity. It’s not an argument at all! We’re all going to die anyway, so what difference does it make if I shoot you in the head now? Seriously, the reasoning follows the same logic and there is no limit to the stupidity this argument can bring.

Basically if you want to argue the point rationally after you explain that this argument isn’t legitimate, expain it from these perspectives:

1. Centralization leads to power in decision making, information, control of force and the means of production to be controlled by a small few. It’s a threat to a free society. By its very nature, communism, socialism, Ba’athis, Maoism.......all forms of centralized governance end up robbing people of freedom. THE ONLY economic model that truly allows for a free society where a democratic process works, where information and people can move freely, where people have real rights and the power of self determination is one in which you have a free market, capitalism. The more you centralize, the less free a society becomes- period.

As societies centralize, they see religion as a threat, since it competes with the power base of the central government. Centralized regimes may they be NAZI or communist, Maoist, or Ba’atist (Saddam), they all tend to be highly secular. It tends to be a thinking and society where the rights of parents, the rights of couples, and the religious freedoms end up being trodden upon. From China’s one child policy and forced abortions, to the illegality of homeschooling in Germany today, their flat out refusal to accept Scientology as a religion.......... Religious people should inherently should fear the central thinker.

2. The only exceptions to where socialism hasn’t brought economic malaise are those where you have external influences propping them up. Socialist schemes are not economically viable, they are in 90% of the cases nt self supporting. If in Dallas we were to cut off the tax revenue to the DART (Our public transit), it would go broke. From Social Security, to Medicare, social schemes are not modeled economically around something that is sustainable (A contemporary buzz word which liberals and socialists fail to use where it actually applies). When you take socialism on a national level, you get what you had in the former East block, thee Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia under Tito......... It doesn’t work. It only works on a micro level because essentially you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul, and so long as you have productive viable businesses out there you can plunder, you’re able to float this dead drift wood.

**** The problem with socialism is that the basic forces of economics and human nature are omnipresent, but those advocating this thinking simply choose to ignore them.

Even in the US, near all social schemes are failures. When sold as a success to the public by one of their advocates, they seldom focus o the economics and attempt to sell thee feel good results. In the overwhelming majority of cases, these social schemes get money injections from somewhere, and often these are hidden or back door games. Margret Thatcher said it best in a TV interview for Thames TV This Week on Feb. 5, 1976, Prime Minister Thatcher said, “...and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.”