Bingo.

If we don't adapt to a system that limits the uber rich and raises the poorest out of poverty - we might go extinct.

I concur.

We need Democratic (modern) not autocratic (Russian) or demagogic (Chinese) socialism...but democratic socialism.

If we pay taxes...and the taxes are used to buy things, aren't we, the taxpayers the owners?

It's social-ism.

You and I "own" the state and national parks. But we pay in to a system that in turn disperses our wealth to maintain things.

Socialism. plain and simple.

200 years ago there wasn't enough "society" to have socialism. So it's a new concept.

But look at those who've gotten the wealthiest.

How did they get there? ...capitalism. Capitalism can work within a socialist society.

Will us going to free health care, free college, and free social services, at a cost of higher taxes - make us better or worse?

The big question that those who fear socialism have to ask is - will it stop capitalism?

Of course it won't.

It will take the edge off exploitation.

It will slow down global warming and bankruptcies from education and health care debt.

. It will raise the poor out of their holes.

It's even the "moral" and dare I say it...Christian thing to do.

Socialism will work for America.

@Robecology .
"Socialism will work for America." it's working right now for some americans: the 1%.
the Fed Reserve has kept asset prices artificially high with very low int rates, which is really just socialism for the rich. the trillion $$ deficits help the rich way more than the working-class/poor. millions of seniors will never enjoy the retirements they had hoped for b/c they just can't get a decent return on their savings. many are forced to gamble with risky investments & when the next SM collapse occurs they will experience big losses which they won't be able to recover from.

@callmedubious That's precisely what the video I posted said.

If we pay taxes...and the taxes are used to buy things, aren't we, the taxpayers the owners?

That makes us socialists.

You and I "own" the state and national parks. But we pay in to a system that in turn disperses our wealth to maintain things.

Socialism. plain and simple.

200 years ago there wasn't enough "society" to have socialism. So it's a new concept.

But look at those who've gotten the wealthiest.

How did they get there...capitalism.

....and we know that some of the wealthiest in the world got their by exploitation - buying land dirt cheap and building skyscrapers. Building weapons. Building machines that mine and use fossil fuels...and destroy our environment.

Will allowing all of us to go to free health care, free college, and free social services, at a cost of higher taxes - make us better or worse?

The big question that those who fear socialism have to ask is - will it stop capitalism?

Of course it won't.

It will take the edge off exploitation. It will slow down global warming and bankruptcies from education and health care debt.

. It will raise the poor out of their holes.

It's even the "moral" and dare I say it...Christian thing to do.

Socialism will work for America. It didn't work for Venezuela. It didn't work for Russia. It's working to a limited degree, right now, in America.

It's the future.

@Robecology Please locate the ON/OFF switch on your logic board and place it in the ON position.

So you believe paying taxes gives you ownership of the things purchased with that money.

But can you: opt out of paying taxes if you don't want the things being purchased?
Make decisions about what will be purchased?
Walk on to any military base, naval warship, or other government installation?

You and I do not own these things, they are owned by the US government.

Just because you are jealous that someone people have became wealthier than you because they actually know how to make money work for them, instead of working for money.

What actually happens, or has happened in every instance of socialist societies so far is that the government seizes the means of production, which is a fancy way of saying steals, then they become the benefactor of your labor, not you.

For example, the reason college tuition is so high right now is because all loans have to be backed federally, meaning the government makes money on your student loans. If student loans were made public, then everyone would end up paying more for them than when the funds were made available through private for profit organizations. That's how socialism works in practice!

[newamerica.org]

I don't have a problem with capitalism. I don't want capitalism to stop. Capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than any other system, stimulated innovation, founded greater peace, and provided great wealth for those who accept it.

Let me put this into perspective how ridiculous your bid for socialism is.

lets say there are two doors:

go through door A and you have to work your entire life but with a 20% chance you become wealthy. You get to chose where you live, work and what you eat, although the availability of those things is based on their scarcity.

go through door B and you have to work your entire life in a job assigned to you, never make a single personal decision because where you live, work, and what you eat is made available. There is a 20% chance you will move to a higher position and get the same services, however you will now make the choices for others.

I can only think of 3 reasons why someone would want to go through door B.

• They are jealous that anyone who works harder and smarter than them should get more resources.
• They hate making choices for themselves and thinking in general.
• They want everyone to suffer with them, that is to say they have a slave mentality.

It's easy to define; but it's obviously been abused.

In terms of our civilization...it's a relatively new thing.....

But it is simple; it's what it's called...social - ism.

Using society to control and regulate things as a collective thing, rather than an individual or business decision.

We've seen how greed and profiteering has made businesses do things that make many in society benefit but few who profit from the business....we've seen the need to regulate and control this greed.

That's socialism.

We've also seen how government leaders have taken advantage of the programs of socialism.

But again...we're learning.

I honestly think we're close to getting it right.

We know we have to clean up our environment using socialist rules. Letting private companies clean things up hasn't worked - and has lead us to almost runaway global warming.

Socialism can end this.

We know we have to improve our health care. Letting private companies give us health care has driven health care costs through the roof...and have literally stopped our average life span growth.

We need socialist health care system to let us continue to improve our health.

In the 1950's we used our 100% socialist education system both elementary, secondary, and even many colleges to become #1 in world learning.

Since that time...as private and religious-controlled schools have grown, our ranking in world education has dropped precipitously. With free college (paid for by the socialist process of taxing the wealthy) we would re-claim our ranking in education.

I hope we get over the fog and stigma of socialism. I hope my explanations have helped you.

@Robecology So I don't disagree with you politically but what you describe here is just government regulation. More government = socialism, less government = capitalism? That is how the propaganda networks have portrayed it for decades. First they declared the enemy (USSR) to be the definition of socialism and when everybody was scared of even using the word they declared every political opinion they don't like to be socialism. But originally socialism meant that the workers own the means of production. There are many ways you can achieve that but if with socialism you just mean public health care, education etc. then the term has lost a great deal of its meaning. Then every country in the world has socialsim to an extent. But in the end it only matters if a policy benefits society and not how you call it.

@Dietl If we pay taxes...and the taxes are used to buy things, aren't we, the taxpayers the owners?

It's social-ism.

You and I "own" the state and national parks. But we pay in to a system that in turn disperses our wealth to maintain things.

Socialism. plain and simple.

200 years ago there wasn't enough "society" to have socialism. So it's a new concept.

But look at those who've gotten the wealthiest.

How did they get there...capitalism.

Will us going to free health care, free college, and free social services, at a cost of higher taxes - make us better or worse?

The big question that those who fear socialism have to ask is - will it stop capitalism?

Of course it won't. It will take the edge off exploitation. It will slow down global warming and bankruptcies from education and health care debt.

. It will raise the poor out of their holes.

It's even the "moral" and dare I say it...Christian thing to do.

Socialism will work for America.

@Robecology
So here is an easy example: computer/mobile phone/ etc.. The technologies needed for them were developed by the state. Then companies were (and still are) heavily subsidized by the state. But who owns the profit from those industries that only developed with your tax dollars? Private individuals. You payed for it and get nothing out of it. Now what can we conclude from that? Just because it is funded by taxes doesn't automatically mean that the public owns it.

Again, I don't have any problem with those policies and not even with the usage of the word 'socialism' changing but we need to recognize that change. And we need to recognize that by that definition America already is socialist. There already is (underfunded) public education, roads, etc.
But the original usage of socialism was about workers. You just look at if a worker has a say in the thing he produced. You can say America is socialist once it has free public education, free health care and free social services but that does not change what socialists call worker exploitation. A Walmart worker has no say in how much he gets compensated for her work, what the company produces, if a shop gets closed, how the working conditions are and on and on. Those decisions are made by a few individuals. Socialism (under the original definition) would mean that there would be a vote that would have an affect on those decisions. Either you have a state that directly owns that company which enforces the outcome of the vote (like in state socialist systems like the USSR) or you have worker co-ops (like the Mondragon corporation in Spain).
In my view the decision to call a state socialist or capitalist depends on how much of the economy is owned by private individuals and how much by the citizens (either via various co-op or by state control). If 99% of the economy is privately owned and there is a strong wellfare state to help people survive their exploitation I wouldn't call that socialism. I would call that capitalism with benefits. But that's just semantics in the end.

Socialism is not something to resist. It is something to eradicate!

@zesty Oh how completly wrong you are. Without socialism there is no society, no healthcare, railways, defence, education, roads, laws, rules, production, transport, sanitation and language.
You should read and compare Machiovelli (Livvi), Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke for starters, then try to expand your currently rather closed mind.
Now the question is, to what extent should society employ socialism? Lenin deployed war communism, but that failed and Bakarin had to reverse much of it, which produced a very sucessful socialist state where a mix of government quotas and capitalsit drive generated growth and recovery in the Soviet Union until Lenin died and Stalin took over.

@zesty Yes, let's eradicate the Fire Dept., the Police Dept., Medicare, Social Security amd all the other socialist programs this country has embraced for decades. Conservatives act as if socialism is unheard of in the U.S. when, in fact, it's worked beautifully for decades. What the Dems are proposing is to siply expand what we already have to include healthcare.

But the Rs seem to think its much better being raped by the insurance industry because that's what they claim Muricans want. Yeah, maybe, if you're an idiot.

@Sofabeast Don't mix social services and socialism! These concepts are different!

Bhakarin- I'm using the old rules of conversion from Russian- had negligible power under Lenin.

Successful socialist state? To call the SU successful in the early 1920-s is a very bad joke!
During this time millions starved to death, the socialist thugs executed millions of intelligent people. My grand uncle, he was a czarist prosecutor in a large city, was also executed for anti Soviet activities.

Actually you are right. This was a SUCCESFUL socialist state!

@Sofabeast, @Sgt_Spanky One must be an idiot not to distinguish between social and socialist.

@zesty Did I speak too fast for you to follow? I cited numerous examples of American socialism and you completely ignored it to post yet another uninformed comment. This is what Rs do -- selective ignorance. Like Pavlovian dogs, they react without thinking when they hear the word, socialism. They're all trained by conservative media to react to the word like it's a cockrooach crawling across the dinner table.

Once again, if you have no issue with the Fire Dept then why do you have an issue with socialized healthcare? It's exactly the same thing. What don;t you get about that?

@Sgt_Spanky Kindly be polite! Don't be rude!

There is zero correlation between social services and socialism. Absolutely different concepts.

@zesty Once again, you've ignored the question put to you. I can only assume at this point it's because you have no good response. I'm done trying to engage you in a discussion. Have a nice day.