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Originally Posted by MMM
I guess you say something enough times it then becomes a fact.
President Obama is not a socialist, has never been a socialist, and will likely never be a socialist. The Socialist Party of America does not recognize him as one, and it's thanks the presidential campaign speeches by Republicans like McCain, Palin and Huckabee that started this last year, and even though the campaign is over, the right-wing finds it easy to tear down anything Pres. Obama says and does with the blanket statement that "Obama is a socialist." This has now leaked down into the vernacular of your average American who like to spout the same phrase when chances are few of them know what it even means.
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He might not be a self avowed socialist, but the socialist ideals and policies are growing everyday. This didn't start with Obama but it is continuing with Obama.... in the time of Crisis the government will ALWAYS take the opportunity to grow/expand its power in a time of crisis.
While we have to solve problems, we also have to conserve money. We are not doing this.
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Originally Posted by MMM
To be socialist is to be anti-capitalist and anti private industry. Look at how much money has been poured into private industry. Obama is clearly a free-market democrat...much the opposite of socialist ideals.
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But not ALL socialistic ideals. Yes socialist do not go the way of the free market. Selective bail-outs by the government of private industry is not free-market. Selective bail-outs of financial institutions here and there but not for here and there making an uneven playing field.
Comparing textbook socialism to capitalism is unfair. The system of capitalism we are operating under is removed from the way it was originally drawn up. The housing market is a great example of this and so is the size of government. Socialists institute a huge government, tons of welfare programs, wealth distribution, unions, safety nets, and publicly funded infrastructure projects along with very high taxes to pay for it. Why else is government spending responsible for almost 40 something percent of our GDP versus in 1955 at 25 percent. It is only going to go up. See what government run health care will do to it.
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Originally Posted by MMM
Look at health care. "Socialized health care", like in Japan and Canada and other industrialized nations eliminates the need for private insurance companies. This isn't even on the table in terms of what the debate is about.
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Comparing the US to smaller nations like Japan who have nationalized health care is not a fair comparison. Japan simply for its size. Japan and Canada has plenty of its own problems with health care because of being a nationalized health care nation. Our systems are just incompatible. In American instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water, the obvious solution is to try to fix those areas of the health care system that are problematic. Why would we in-trust the US government who has
problem running the simplest of programs to a program as big as nationalized health care? Why not fix the key issues? Why is releasing insurance companies from state borders not being debated? Why is tort reform a non-issue?
People think politicians can and should run the government like a business. That is just a big fail boat.
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Originally Posted by MMM
So please steer me to the policies of this administration that really are socialist. Anyone.
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I think you have plenty listed in this post. You are right though, there are many people that will scream socialism not knowing what it is. The sad thing is that it didn't start with this administration. The Obama administration is just upping it at the while the free market is correcting itself and the country is in a slump from current AND past administrations. The reason Obama has this perception of being a socialists is because of the attempts to grow government, welfare programs, unions, safety nets, publicly funded infrastructure projects. Surrounding himself with radicals, known communists, and just incompetent administration, is not helping this perception.
The biggest is the health care debate. There are so many ways current AND past administrations could of began the reform, but the greed of the current and past have brought us to this state. Now we got lies from both sides. Couldn't we take this a step at a time versus whopping nationalized health care? If there is such a emergency, why would we have to wait 3-4 years for this reform to take affect? Why not implement that medicare reform/savings now? Why not begin tort reform? Why work with insurance companies? Current government can't wait to demonize private industry and capitalism to grow government. There are the greedy that must be regulated, but growing/expanding government is not the answer.
I'm seeing nothing new in this current administration... just more of the past amplified. Though I am happy to see that you and posters on this board do not approve of socialism, which is important, I just see the move toward it piece by piece over time and no administration is turning away from it, they are moving towards it and not calling is socialism.
We have to get over this too big to fail in all aspects of America, including out personal lives.
Sinestra has a good post above this one. But I don't think government is turning a blind eye at all now... they are using this opportunity.