What, exactly, is objectionable about "socialism"?

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

That's a whole different deal. I don't care about the source. (Note: this is the first time I've ever uttered those words.)

My point is that even if they could get all the anecdotal evidence in the world, or even if they could get a legitimate source like the actual stats on how many people die waiting in line (whatever that means) in Canada, they always conveniently omit the millions of Americans who have no place in line at all. Or the hundreds of thousands who die every year because of lack of proper treatment.

You hear or see this argument all the time, "but people will die while they're waiting!" Americans like to forget that people are dying here already.

The entire health care debate is one of lies and deception.

From those who advocate universal care, we have bloviated numbers of persons denied health care, or access, dying because of lack of insurance. Investigate the "sources" for these numbers, dig deeper and you can determine there are lies.

Then the opponents engage in the same sorts of chicanery. Nobody is being honest in this debate, and the ones who will be screwed are the consumers of it.

When Obama relies extensively upon Kaiser Permanente for his numbers, you know what angle he's heading at and what biases the documentation will provide. Why is this? Because managed care presumes they will be the major beneficiaries of universal care so they carry the water of proponents. It's one big circle jerk.

[minn_stat]

Originally Posted by Archaea

The entire health care debate is one of lies and deception.

From those who advocate universal care, we have bloviated numbers of persons denied health care, or access, dying because of lack of insurance. Investigate the "sources" for these numbers, dig deeper and you can determine there are lies.

Then the opponents engage in the same sorts of chicanery. Nobody is being honest in this debate, and the ones who will be screwed are the consumers of it.

When Obama relies extensively upon Kaiser Permanente for his numbers, you know what angle he's heading at and what biases the documentation will provide. Why is this? Because managed care presumes they will be the major beneficiaries of universal care so they carry the water of proponents. It's one big circle jerk.

The numbers being bloviated is par for the course for those who want government to give them money and/or power. I remember when we had the homeless crisis. Three million homeless, we were told, with accompanying stories of people sleeping beneath underpasses.

But even a cursory exercise with mathematics and logic shows that they were taking huge liberties with numbers and definitions at best, and outright fabricating (lying) at worst.

Three million homeless is over 1% of Americans. If 1% of the people of Salt Lake Valley were homeless, that means there should have been nearly 10,000 homeless people in the valley. And over 3,000 in Utah Valley. Well over 100,000 in the greater Los Angeles area. I'm sure all of you noticed these throngs of homeless back in those days...

When supporters were clamoring for passage of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), they claimed over 40 million Americans had disabilities. That was 1 in 7 Americans, and to paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke, that can't be true unless they count the inability to balance a checkbook as a disability.

[minn_stat]

Originally Posted by Ma'ake

For the sake of argument, let's say Obama is a "socialist". (We're really talking about the "Social Democrat" part of the political spectrum, but that's a debate for another day.)

So, what?

How is this a full repudiation of capitalism / the market system? How is the modest raising of taxes in exchange for a broader safety net such a bad thing? Does anyone really believe this is the first step toward complete socialism/communism?

Exactly how is freedom eroded in this hypothetical? Doesn't broader (practical) access to healthcare result in greater "freedom" for many (hell, for all, when we're talking about the end of sharp cost-shifting)? Aren't the (growing) gaps in coverage we have now a form of "unfreedom"?

I get the hard-right, purist libertarian view that taxes for roads, for instance, is a form of unfreedom. I'm talking about the more generic conservative view.

It seems to me that trading in the really high rollercoaster for a more tempered material existence would be attractive to just about everyone. How many genuinely need that extra 500 sq ft in a home of 4000? Isn't this part of how we got to the current situation?

(And can we avoid talk about "Satan's plan" and ad hominem smears of "Marxist!")

Doesn't this really all boil down to an aversion for (even the potential) for higher taxes? "I got mine, let everyone else figure out how to deal with their own problems" (I would argue that low taxes + higher deficits amounts to selfishness for the today, deferring problems to later generations, but that's a debate for another day.)

I guess I'm really struggling with how greater government involvement in economic matters is such a horrific development that leads to inevitable calamity.

(For the record, I favor a much more centrist approach and believe that Obama will push in that direction in the interests of forging greater national consensus.)

LOL - I'm counting a whole lot of questions in this post... but go get 'em!

I'm amazed at how much posting so many of you do. I read the board probably 20 to 40 minutes a day, but find the time to do much posting only once or twice a month. I read this post several days ago and wanted to reply, but have been unable to until now.

This thread got focused on whether or not socialism suppresses the drive to excel. I think the bigger problem is that it gives economic power to those who already have political power, and this consolidation of power should be concerning to Americans in general. It provides tremendous temptation for corruption and abuse of power.

[minn_stat]

Along this line, I find it interesting that generally speaking, those of a more liberal bent are more likely to be aware of and worried about all sorts of corporate and government malfeasance, very untrusting of organizations with power, and yet their solutions generally tend towards rectifying this by giving more power to government. As if people in government are somehow more moral and immune to abuse of power.

Conversely, conservatives tend to be against bigger government, but also tend to be more likely to trust those who have power. Kind of an interesting dichotomy in my mind.