What people in the US often see in the public as socialism doesn't even fall much under socialism here. We no clue ... see it as ... normal >_>. Helping those which are in need of help? The radical idea of sharing!
Already dismissed this for the hollow rhetoric that it is, and still he persists. Just ask yourself serious questions. Such as: What's so virtuous about giving without receiving? What's so bad about
exchange instead of
sharing? What's so much more remarkable about altruism that individualism lacks? If all you can do is call up hollow statements, then you're not thinking at all. You don't know a thing about what you're talking about.
Ok, I'm not sure if I got you correctly there, SnapSlav. It is exceptional to not be in favour of nationalised and socialised health care in the US? It always looked to me that half or maybe even more than half of the US population is very much against any form of socialised health care.
Indeed. You did NOT get me correctly... something of a pattern, really. I did NOT say that either "it" or "I" were "exceptional", I said that I was an exception to the vast majority of Americans. Speaking purely with regard to those who chant "democracy!" and "capitalism!" without any regard to what those things ACTUALLY means, or worse, simply grew up with these terms shoved in front of their faces and simply ended up repeating them without any true consideration for what these things means... In that sense, I am a total exception to the rule. Meaning, not the same as the normal, but NOT meaning "best of the best, better than the rest".
Most Americans just repeat things without actually having taken much time to mull the ideas over on their own. Understandably, these are tough concepts. It requires work and effort and it tests your mettle as an individual to put your ideologies to the grinder. But that doesn't forgive that it's lazy to avoid these things. I spent much of my life doing all that philosophical pondering and putting what I believed up to be tested. For some years I considered myself a communist (in the actual sense, not the Red sense) and I was thoroughly anti-capitalist for that time. Then at one time I was an anarchist (in some senses I still am, though much less radical), though I can't quite recall how long that lasted. But after I found my "calling", and spending more years of study and education and pouring resources into these studies, I came away with my conclusion that capitalism is the right way. This took YEARS of study on my part, it wasn't imparted upon me by the masses or popular opinion. And I had to turn away from it to come to any reasonably conclusions that it might actually have good ideas. Most Americans..... just don't do that.
So yes, I am an exception to that rule. No, you got me wrong, most Americans are NOT "exceptional".
It's pretty laughable that you ignore all of the capitalist countries with nationalized healthcare systems: the UK, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Taiwan, France, Canada...all are capitalist nations well integrated into the global economic system (which is a capitalist system the last time I checked, perhaps you are posting from an alternate universe where the Soviet Union won the cold war?). And all of them have some form of nationalized healthcare.
Somehow more laughable than your ignorance of the difference between Communist countries and Communism and Socialism as ideas and ideologies? No, unlike your spil, not laughable at all. There's a distinction one must make between a system that calls itself something yet bears aspects of its title's opposite, and a system which actually represents fully what it calls itself. You fail (on multiple levels) at recognizing that distinction.
Based on this prosaic observation, it should be fairly obvious that nationalized Healthcare =/= "taking away personal ownership and transfer it all to the state." Nationalized healthcare doesn't even mean an end to private insurance! Most countries have a universal system of healthcare right alongside private health insurance options.
National standard means even private firms must abide by the legal precedent. This is one of Obamacare's biggest pitfalls, because contrary to the President's promises that "you can keep your plan that you have right now", the law forced many plans to change because of the nationalized standards. The EXISTENCE of "private" insurance companies does not, contrary to your mistaken beliefs, negate the nationalized model. Rather, the latter complicates and slowly erodes at the former, which you happily disregard to suit your interests.
But like all Randroids, your idea of "socialism" is a confused jumble of completely unrelated things. And your idea of capitalism is a utopian system which has never existed in human history, instead of the actually existing system the rest of the world calls "capitalism". In that regard, you and your ilk are exactly like the Marxists who insist that actually existing Marxist-Leninist regimes in the 20th century weren't really communist. And like all dogmatists, anyone who doesn't subscribe to your doma is "ignorant".
For once, you're CLOSE. But you can't step off your podium long enough before you can compulsively refer to groups you disagree with by using derogatory slurs. Notice, despite my misgivings and disagreements with socialists and communists... I have yet to refer to them with some form of slur? Right, I have the integrity and respect to treat human beings who I BELIEVE have come to their own conclusions on their own through thought and consideration by not deriding them and childishly transforming their titles into an insult for my own personal shits and giggles.
But, back to you ALMOST being right. Yes, TRUE Capitalism has NOT yet existed in any culture as fully as I would like it to, any more than TRUE democracy. Or are you going to argue that republics are truly democratic? I can EASILY see how statist and dictatorial systems are not TRULY socialist or communist systems, and those points I can respect. However, you find that to be a laughable concept worth your caustic, haughty derision? Fine then. Have your little soap box if it makes you happy. I'll be waiting for you on the floor with the rest, willing to have an adult conversation, when you're ready.
And what is this about choice? Under the current system, you can pick and choose whatever you can afford. That part is literally no different than the system you're proposing, where all healthcare would be privatized.
Nothing could be further from the truth than what you suggest in that bold section. A nationalized system means that mandatory government standard is cast upon ALL insurance providers. This means that plans which were able to offer less at lower prices for more targeted care suddenly have raised costs to take on plans they would have
chosen not to implement if the system were fully privatized. A consumer has a limited list to
choose from because the government mandates limit the list. They also CANNOT
choose to simply buy nothing, if they want, because the law makes a compulsory purchase mandatory. So they're given limited options, higher prices, and no part of the system has done anything to change quality for the better. Where does personal
choice make a huge impact in this system?
Contrast this with the private model, where separate firms can
choose their plans based on market principles. They can
choose to lower their prices to increase demand, they need to factor in population density when considering their value, they can
choose to offer better services in order to drive up demand, they can
choose to offer the cheapest services at the cost of being lower quality to be an alluring
choice for customers with fewer financial options open to them. They have to compete with separate firms (because there is no standard public model) so they can't just set their own prices to whatever they want without serious consequence, and they have to worry about being outdone in performance and quality as well. So under the private system, where CHOICE and personal interest are the primary motivating factors, the system encourages cheaper prices and higher quality services.
The results aren't instant improvement and instant lowering of prices in a private system, but neither are the results of grinding to a halt or quality never moving forward or economic collapse instant in a fully nationalized system, either. But each moves in a separate direction, and the former clearly has better consequences than the latter. THAT'S what's so important about "choice". The current system is NOT a private system. Simply because private companies exist does not change that. They still have to abide by a compulsory government mandated model, and that makes even their private practices nationalized, at least to a degree. That is a shift toward the opposite of choice, where all you have is door number 1, or door number 1. It's not immediate, but it's moving in that direction. After all, one of the major PUBLICLY ACKNOWLEDGED shortcomings of Obamacare was how many insurance firms went under because of the changes to the system that the law enforced. That's an immediate fewer choices, and many customers who already paid for plans of their
choice lost them once the law was signed in.
But I'm glad we can at least agree that the government mandating people to buy health insurance as a solution to inadequate healthcare makes about as much sense as the government mandating that everyone buy a house as a solution to the problem of homelessness. A number of conservatives said that they didn't think it was the government's place to mandate people buy the products of private industry, and on that I have to agree with them. But to claim that state support for private industry amounts to "socialism" is absurd on its face.
What perhaps you don't understand is that my perspective is plainly such: I don't NEED your agreement or your approval. You input is not necessary. If you can stand as an intellectual equal and hold up your ideals to clash them with someone else's, that's the wise use of agency and integrity to arrive at (possibly new and different) better ideas. But bickering and complaining and lobbing insults making sweeping generalizations lowers your standing. Your input is all that amounts to: insults and complaints. Whether you agree with me or not becomes irrelevant.
Good for you that you can agree with some of the things less-unreasonable people have stated. But getting immediately caught up on the definitions and stopping any forward movement or progression simply because you refuse to acknowledge that is a massive shortcoming. The day that taxes don't have to be paid 100% for every and all policies across the board, regardless of whether you benefit from them or utilize them or not at all, is the day that further levels of nationalization cannot be compared to levels of socialization. But as it stands, all U.S. citizens pay for a social healthcare through taxes, whether they wish to benefit from it or not. The people pay for their neighbors, in effect, and by force, not by choice.
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v v v
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...
Seriously I could care less about how you arrived at the exact same position as Rush Limbaugh and the Tea Party. Every right wing nutjob I've ever met also thinks of themselves as an independent thinker who has worked out the secrets of the universe all on their own.
I need make no comments. I only need preserve this shining gem of ignorance for what it is. Anyone with an ounce of scrutiny will be able to tear this to shreds on their own. I don't need to help them along.
^ ^ ^
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It is very much UNexceptional to hold the views SnapSlav does in the US, but painting yourself as part of a tiny minority that understands TRUTH and everyone else as ignorant sheeple really bolsters one's self esteem.
The definition of ironic, self-oblivious hypocrisy. Criticizing someone for sounding just like "right-wing nutjobs", then proceeding to use the term "sheeple" to describe them all.
Also see the correction I made above about misunderstanding my comments. So, that's a combination of misunderstanding plus hypocrisy. Congratulations on your healthy baby bullshit.
Just [gonna] say Kilgore, see my above post (#108) RE: marxism-leninism. It meets none of the criteria for communism, unless your definition of communism ignores all of Marx, all of the core principles he and many left-libertarian theorists followed, and think socialism is a right wing, authoritarian system and that communism can ever have a class system, Stalin and his chums weren't communists.
(also it should be noted that free market capitalism is vastly different to neoliberalism and it should be noted that many of the problems inherent to capitalism are exacerbated by neoliberal policy (and new problems are made, too), and when people like SnapSlav discuss capitalism it's not as likely they're discussing neoliberalism as opposed to free market cap, and he actually discussed that a little bit IIRC. this tends to muddy the waters in the same way as those discussing communism often refer to it as authoritarian, and thus all point get stretched out and often require many caveats)
Bingo. Right here. -^
Paying lip service to an idea is NOT the same thing as truly embracing nor supporting that idea. What many people call "capitalism" is NOT true capitalism. Meanwhile, when all I do is use the word as literally as possible, how can you be so sure that I'm any different than the rest? Easy, you don't make assumptions, you discuss and ask questions.
ALSO, it need go without saying, but I will say it anyway, "Fuck this keyboard!"
. Helping those which are in need of help? The radical idea of sharing!