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| I'm Appalled | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 14 2009, 03:13 AM (2,367 Views) | |
| jon-nyc | Feb 14 2009, 07:41 AM Post #51 |
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Cheers
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That's a gal, isn't it? |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Larry | Feb 14 2009, 07:41 AM Post #52 |
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
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It would appear that *you* are. |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| JBryan | Feb 14 2009, 07:42 AM Post #53 |
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I am the grey one
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A temporary take over of the means of production in times of great emergency cannot be honestly be called socialism. |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| TomK | Feb 14 2009, 07:47 AM Post #54 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Sorry Quidam |
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| jon-nyc | Feb 14 2009, 07:56 AM Post #55 |
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Cheers
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Careful what you wish for. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| JBryan | Feb 14 2009, 08:05 AM Post #56 |
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I am the grey one
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If we face another threat to our security like WWII I would wish for precisely what we did then. Direct all our industrial output to winning at the expense of domestic consumption and return to the status quo ante once the threat had been eliminated. Calling that "socialism" is quite a stretch. |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| jon-nyc | Feb 14 2009, 08:18 AM Post #57 |
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Cheers
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Its not a stretch at all, I think you're engaging in Larry's logic. (note Larry considers the government's capitalization of the banking sector to be socialism. Yet its temporary, and was done in response to an emergency. Calling one act socialistic and the other not seems hard to defend by any other principle other than 'if I agree with it, it can't be socialism') |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| JBryan | Feb 14 2009, 08:48 AM Post #58 |
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I am the grey one
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I don't think the capitalization of the banking sector is socialism either. If it was a permanent take over by the government with control ceded to government that is a different matter entirely. |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| Renauda | Feb 14 2009, 09:09 AM Post #59 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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As someone mentioned it depends what your definition of socialism is. If on one hand you are referring to ideology bound authoritarian, one party dictatorship socialism, it has not worked and in the long term actually failed. The historical authoritarain socialism failed partly because the USSR model was deeply flawed from its inception. But then most dictatorships and economic autarkies sooner or later fail regardless of their social and economic policies. If there is any chance of succeeding it is China and then only because it has completely revised the Soviet economic model out iof sheer necessity. We'll have to wait and see how the new generation of Latin American socialisms fare- if left alone and unembargoed by the US, they may just succeed One the other hand there are the democratic systems of Sweden, Finland and Norway that haven't managed too badly. Nor has Isreal for that matter- except that it is under permanent siege in one form or another. Some in the US believe Canada is socialist. While there are elements of socialism at all levels of government here, it is not socialist- at least not to the extent of say, Finland or any number of European states. But like those European states, it does work despite the bad economic chest cold it has caught like everyone else in school this year. |
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| Mikhailoh | Feb 14 2009, 09:13 AM Post #60 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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Citation please? I cannot seem to find anything about a GOP filibuster threat on this bill. On seating Franken, yeah, but not on this. I do find articles back to January saying they did NOT plan to filibuster the bill. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| Mark | Feb 14 2009, 09:26 AM Post #61 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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The fact that the government involves itself in any capacity of the economy is a tenant of socialism. Income Taxes are socialistic. We have been socialist for nearly 100 years. And it sucks a$$. |
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___.___ (_]===* o 0 When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells | |
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| TomK | Feb 14 2009, 10:39 AM Post #62 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I think you have to be clear with your terms here. the SU and China WERE Socialistic, not Communistic--communism refers to a stateless classless society--neither country ever called themselves anything else but Socialist. And in those countries the "people" controlled the means of production. There was "theoretically" at least only one class--the proletarian. There were no Bourgeoisie who owned the means of production. (Again, all in theory.) Places like Sweden are quite different--they are Social Democracies. Individuals still own the means of production, but they are heavily taxed to pay for the general welfare. In Social Democracies there's a general distribution of wealth. Now China, because it on occasion allows private ownership on production is an actual mixed economy--slowly moving Capitalistic. I think the model that Canada (and maybe the US) are following is the more European system of Social Democracy--the problem with the US is that it doesn't have a parliamentary system of government with numerous political parties that's a bit more representative of the various factions involved in making a Social Democracy work smoothly. |
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| George K | Feb 14 2009, 11:35 AM Post #63 |
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Finally
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We Are All Fascists Now Michael Ledeen Newsweek magazine, which has given us many of the most damaging deceptions about America in recent years (remember the “Koran-Down-the-Toilet” hoax?), now weighs in with a pretentious and embarrassingly ignorant cover story, “We Are All Socialists Now.” To be sure, the basic theme–that the huge “stimulus” and the big big big TARP is leading once-capitalist America down the dangerous road to socialism–is not limited to the skinny weekly. You hear it all over the place, from Right to Left, from talk radio to the evening news (or so I am told; personally, I haven’t watched an evening news broadcast since 1987). There’s a element of truth to the basic theme (although not to the headline): the state is getting more and more deeply involved in business, even taking controlling interests in some private companies. And the state is even trying to “make policy” for private companies they do not control, but merely “help” with “infusions of capital,” as in the recent call for salary caps for certain CEOs. So state power is growing at the expense of corporations. But that’s not socialism. Socialism rests on a firm theoretical bedrock: the abolition of private property. I haven’t heard anyone this side of Barney Frank calling for any such thing. What is happening now–and Newsweek is honest enough to say so down in the body of the article–is an expansion of the state’s role, an increase in public/private joint ventures and partnerships, and much more state regulation of business. Yes, it’s very “European,” and some of the Europeans even call it “social democracy,” but it isn’t. It’s fascism. Nobody calls it by its proper name, for two basic reasons: first, because “fascism” has long since lost its actual, historical, content; it’s been a pure epithet for many decades. Lots of the people writing about current events like what Obama et. al. are doing, and wouldn’t want to stigmatize it with that “f” epithet. Second, not one person in a thousand knows what fascist political economy was. Yet during the great economic crisis of the 1930s, fascism was widely regarded as a possible solution, indeed as the only acceptable solution to a spasm that had shaken the entire First World, and beyond. It was hailed as a “third way” between two failed systems (communism and capitalism), retaining the best of each. Private property was preserved, as the role of the state was expanded. This was necessary because the Great Depression was defined as a crisis “of the system,” not just a glitch “in the system.” And so Mussolini created the “Corporate State,” in which, in theory at least, the big national enterprises were entrusted to state ownership (or substantial state ownership) and of course state management. Some of the big “Corporations” lasted a very long time; indeed some have only very recently been privatized, and the state still holds important chunks–so-called “golden shares”–in some of them. Back in the early thirties, before “fascism” became a pure epithet, leading politicians and economists recognized that it might work, and many believed it was urgently required. When Roosevelt was elected in 1932, in fact, Mussolini personally reviewed his book, Looking Forward, and the Duce’s bottom line was, “this guy is one of us.” As an economic fix, the Corporate State was not a great success, either in America or in Italy. Roosevelt’s New Deal didn’t cure America’s economic ills any more than Mussolini’s Third Way did. In both countries, however, its most durable consequence was the expansion of the ability of the state to give orders to more and more citizens, in more and more corners of their lives. In the first half of the twentieth century, that was hardly unique to the “fascist” states; tyranny was the order of the day in the “socialist” or “communist” countries as well (not for nothing were so many learned books written about “totalitarianism,” which embraced both “systems”). Paul Johnson writes of a “new species” of “despotic utopias,” and Richard Pipes went so far as to call both Soviet Bolshevism and Italian fascism “heresies of socialism.” So I suppose to that extent, Newsweek has a certain point, although probably not what the authors of the cover story had in mind. For those of us more concerned with the future of freedom than with the pedantic subtleties, the key point is the political one: the great “rescue” to which our governors are subjecting us will challenge our commitment to freedom in many dramatic ways. It’s going to be a hell of a fight. I hope. |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| QuirtEvans | Feb 14 2009, 11:44 AM Post #64 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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To follow Jon's analogy, they didn't ask your permission ... they took your car, over your objection, to take their wife to the hospital. Since you objected, obviously you didn't want to loan it. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| TomK | Feb 14 2009, 11:45 AM Post #65 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Yea, I refered to what Obama was doing as National Socialism up above. But thought the economics are the same--the politics are different. Scary though. |
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| QuirtEvans | Feb 14 2009, 11:45 AM Post #66 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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If they weren't threatening a filibuster, you wouldn't need 60 votes. 60 votes is needed for cloture, to break a filibuster. 51 is needed to pass a bill. They had 59 votes. Why did they need the 60th, if no filibuster were at issue? |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Renauda | Feb 14 2009, 11:48 AM Post #67 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I would say we're pretty much on the same page on this topic. |
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| ivorythumper | Feb 14 2009, 02:02 PM Post #68 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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You wanna show us where the means of product were *owned* by the government? I didn't think so. The government became the customer and paid (very well) for the good produced. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| jon-nyc | Feb 14 2009, 02:52 PM Post #69 |
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Cheers
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Ownership is not a binary concept. Decisions about the allocation of capital and labor were in the hands of the WPB. If you owned a factory during WW-II, your desires were completely subordinated to theirs. You guys are silly fun, by the way. Progressive tax rates are socialism, but the WPB wasn't? Do you have trouble taking yourselves seriously at times? I sure do. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| ivorythumper | Feb 14 2009, 02:58 PM Post #70 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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I wonder how you take yourself seriously, Jon. "Ownership is not a binary concept"???? Where do you get this crap from? Either you own that Bosie, or someone else does. Either you own those shares of stocks or someone else does. Either you own that condo -- even if it is collateralized against a mortgage -- or someone else does. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| jon-nyc | Feb 14 2009, 03:00 PM Post #71 |
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Cheers
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That's pretty silly, IT. Do you really believe property rights cannot be infringed upon by the state? |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| ivorythumper | Feb 14 2009, 03:03 PM Post #72 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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The very language of "infringement" you are using means that the property does belong to the individual, and the government is "breaking" that ownership. Try again and show us how "Ownership is not a binary concept". |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| jon-nyc | Feb 14 2009, 03:09 PM Post #73 |
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Cheers
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Because the infringement can increase to the point where the ownership is meaningless, and full authority with respet to the disposition of the assets belongs to someone else. That is essentially what happened in the US during the war. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Klaus | Feb 14 2009, 03:20 PM Post #74 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Property is theft!
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| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| jon-nyc | Feb 14 2009, 03:21 PM Post #75 |
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Cheers
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Then what is taxation,
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| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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