[mnehring]

Well, first of all, I’m glad they now admit O’s policies are socialism, they are moving forward.

Next, socialism is the centralized control over private industry and property. It has many levels. Most of the departments you posted aren’t private industry but public infrastructure. (of course, for a lib you’ll have to define those).

[goodwithagun]

Many fire and police departments are facing lay-offs right now. It seems cities have not been fiscally responsible and safety forces get the boot first. I wouldn’t call that effective governing. Also, have the person you’re arguing with assess the current condition of the roads he/she drives on. They are in great shape, right? So that gubmint program doesn’t work so well either. All of these examples are based on tax payers throwing money into the pot and then that money is redistributed to make our society better/safer.

[wita]

What say you all?

You first!

Just kidding.

It didn’t start with us bucko. Your President Roosevelt had a lot to do with it, and now we are slaves to it. We didn’t vote for it and our forefathers warned against it, and now we are facing a national bankruptcy because of it.

[ClearCase_guy]

Here's an analogy: There's a serial killer in the neighborhood. Everyone knows who he is. He's killed 7 women so far. Should we do something? Should we speak out?

Oh, but why bother? Those 7 women are already dead. They're in the graveyard and that situation isn't likely to change. So, why would anyone bother to complain about the killer? Anyone who does so is a hypocrite.

Is there any logic to this at all????

[GeronL]

Notice these things are at the local and state level.

Look at the headlines and see how stupid have become and tell me we shouldn’t end public education.

We can privatize libraries and fire departments too.

[BitWielder1]

...police and fire departments... Could be privatized but it's possibly an acceptable use of taxpayer money.
...public education... Not working very well, is it? Needs private competition.
...social security... Bankrupt. Nuff said.
...insurance plans... Bloated and Looted. Private is better.
...those who espouse free-market ideology are hypocrites. Who is the hypocrite? Free market works, socialism fails and more socialism does not make it any better.

[HerrBlucher]

"all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

[hosepipe]

Social Security is Now and always has been PURE Socialism..
Not LIKE socialism but PURE socialism..

How do you tell a socialist NOW?..
Answer: Anyone that is NOT for sunsetting Social Security..

Its hard to find a republican that will return a government check... UNcashed...

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

That's an et tuque argumment, on their part. I, for one, would wholeheartedly favor completely dismantling public education and government subsidies or involvement in education. But so long as the government is going to take thousands of dollars from me every year, I'll send my kids to not-quite-awful public schools in the suburbs, especially since the grotesque distortion of the markets caused by public involvement prices alternatives beyond the means of most people. I went to a Catholic school in Queens, where tuition was $24/year, with a maximum of $48/yr/family. Although we had 48 kids per classroom and few fripperies, just a once a week music teacher, our performance on standardized tests was better than public schools. The shortfall in money was made up by Parish fund raising and other forms of volunteerism. The productivity was probably at least twice (or more) of the public schools, not matter how you measure it. On top of which we were not exposed the assinine government propaganda that kids are exposed to these days in public schools, although the nuns were very patriotic, like most Americans in those days. BTW, we were a lower middle class neighborhood, with a standard of living no better most blacks enjoy today.

While my personal experience in public education convinces me superiority and practicality of private education, I think a similar case can be made for smaller police forces. If people were more self-reliant for personal defense, I believe that crime rates would plummet. When seconds count, the police will be there in minutes. The current model is for crime victims to submit to violence and wait for wheels of justice to grind slowly, if ever, to extract risibly light retribution at scandalously high cost. To the criminal justice system, criminals are their clients, their raison d'etre. Taxpayers and crime victims are just the necessary host organism for the whole colony of parasites.

What evidence is there that volunteer fire departments are less effective than profession? I could go on and on. There are certain irreducable responsiblities of government, - defend the borders, for instance - , run fair and impartial courts, as a last recourse to enforce criminal laws, to hang thieves and murders. The more government strays from these limited responsiblities into other areas of our lives, the more poorly it performs its legitmate purposes.

[myself6]

Give me the opportunity to opt out of the socialists programs without sending men with guns to make me pay for them anyway, and I will opt out.

[griswold3]

We’ve always had a ‘mixed economy’ where ‘social programs’ have been a major part. The problem is how to keep check on the ever growing demand for entitlements. When ‘government’, a non productive sector of society drains valuable resources or as we call it, ‘misallocates capital’ from the productive sector, the section that creates value, there is always a downturn.
‘Welfare Reform’ is an example of a ‘check’ on entitlements that kept resources in the private sector.
Of course, if you’re a ‘progressives’ you don’t believe in property rights so all this means nothing since no one ‘owns’ anything.

[behzinlea]

Resistance to tyranny must start where you are, not where you’d like to be.

[Lurker]

Tell them that being forced to participate in a system at the point of a government gun doesn't mean you approve of that system. In fact it makes you a slave.

So ask your liberal friends when they started approving of slavery.

Then stand back so you don't get any pieces of their heads on you.

[tacticalogic]

I say:

We already have capitalism, and you participate in it. It designed and built the firetrucks, and police stations and hospitals, and created the wealth that paid for them.

[Tijeras_Slim]

From each according to their ability, to each according to their need works for ass-whuppin’ too, and I see your need and my ability are happily in agreement.

[piytar]

Try, “Yes, we do, and that’s why we’re in the mess we’re in. More of the same ala Obama will just make it worse!”

[Jormungandr]

Yeah, we have it already.
That’s why we know it sucks.

And that’s why we positively know we don’t want more of it.

[Kid Shelleen]

I always use the analogy of a game.
If I am playing a game, I always abide by the rules and try to win fairly. That should not preclude me from trying to change the rules to make the game more competitive, improve the quality of the game, and incentivising players to work harder.
You can apply this to any situation. One of my lib friends is a teacher. I always ask him how hard his students would study if he gave them all the same grades.

[Red6]

Construct some analogies that follow the same logic and show the destruction and slippery slope, hope that they understand.

It's essentially a defeatist idea they are arguing. Give up! Ask them, of all the examples of “socialism” that we already have, give an example of those systems and processes except dealing with intelligence, law enforcement, emergency services like the fire department, and defense where the government excels? Attempt to explain that regardless of when or where, governments do well at providing certain services, i.e. national defense, but suck at when they attempt to meander into the realm of where private business does well, i.e. production of goods and services (non essential emergency/national security related). When the government does try to meander into this realm you get results like the: Veterans Administration, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security......... all broke, corrupt, riddled with abuse, inefficient, full of political agenda's, backwards and all services which should be provided by a private sector. Ask him why he thinks the Soviet Union fell apart, why most European nations have stagnant economies going nowhere slow, why in China the smallest investments in the private sector are bringing the largest growth and returns? Ask him what happened when India began to deregulate and privatize their economy, what happened to Hong Kong when the Chinese did creep in and begin to regulate and takle over everything, despite promising not to????????????

Ask him which of these government made cars he prefers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0koda_Auto (1945 - 1989, when they were part of the planned economy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada (While part of the planned economy)

Ask him to look at these car makers while they were part of the government run economy and what happened post 1989 when the wall came down and they were sold off and privatized.

Ask him if his dream motorcycle was an MZ when they were under the communist rule?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrieverband_Fahrzeugbau

While difficult arguing with an idiot, attempt to bring home the point that governments do well in certain capacities that are limited to: law enforcement, intelligence, defense, and certain critical and quickly responsive services like fire departments. They don't even do well in education, and there is a reason why home schooling, charter and private schools kick the crap out of most public schools! Governments are political institutions (politics creeps into every decision) thay don't worry about efficiency, they are not customer oriented, they tend to be process/systems focused, they end up being highly regulated and impersonal, they are not innovative and they tend to get abused by people that leach off them. There are uses where effectiveness is more important than efficiency, such as in the realm of national security, and in those functions a government excels.

Conservatives are not anti-government. Aside from the issues caused by limitations on freedoms, the threat of a disproportionate amassing of power and to our republic as an economy socializes; from a sheer economic standpoint they just want to use the right tool for the right job, and governments don't do well managing health care, running insurance companies, building cars and motorcycles, in the media, or even in the construction business. Ask if he likes these fantastic apartment complexes?:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plattenbau

But you can caveat that with the argument that it was egalitarian and everyone had a “right” to housing etc.....

[NKStarr]

Here is how Ayn Rand responded to a similar challenge:

>>Since there is no such thing as the right of some men to vote away the rights of others, and no such thing as the right of the government to seize the property of some men for the unearned benefit of others—the advocates and supporters of the welfare state are morally guilty of robbing their opponents, and the fact that the robbery is legalized makes it morally worse, not better. The victims do not have to add self-inflicted martyrdom to the injury done to them by others; they do not have to let the looters profit doubly, by letting them distribute the money exclusively to the parasites who clamored for it. Whenever the welfare-state laws offer them some small restitution, the victims should take it . . . .

The same moral principles and considerations apply to the issue of accepting social security, unemployment insurance or other payments of that kind. It is obvious, in such cases, that a man receives his own money which was taken from him by force, directly and specifically, without his consent, against his own choice. Those who advocated such laws are morally guilty, since they assumed the “right” to force employers and unwilling co-workers. But the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own money—and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money, unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration.<<