Why has everyone in the world denounced

[Codeblue]

socialism in any form? Countries can have a good mix of socialism and capitalism it seems to me. Canada and Great Britain are the two examples that come to mind.

Why has everyone given up hope and decided that everybody will give in to greed and bribes? Doesn't anybody think there are people with integrity and the balls to stand up for their principles and beliefs? I know I'm young, but I'm not naive. Not everyone has their price.

We cannot base our judgements on past failures who failed to utilize socialism and instead perverted to meet their own tyrannical interests. i.e. Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh and the like. I don't know what I'm really trying to say other than socialism is till a good thing and I dont understand why it has gotten such a bad rap. Larry King calling Dennis Kucinich a socialist was a bad thing? Why? If he called me a socialist, I wouldn't be angry in the slightest. At least I wouldn't be a rich capitalist who seeks nothing but more and more wealth and cares nothing for the people who may suffer from this selfish and endless search for more money.

I'm tired of the complacency that has come over this country in recent years. Yes I may only be 18 but that doesn't mean I can't be appalled at how our government is run. Though nobody should really be surprised since the Constitution itself has always been wholly undemocratice since its inception and was written with the interests of the elitists in mind. I'm tired of hearing things like "Oh well, if Bush and CO. get reelected we can always try again in 2008" Sorry but no. With another four years of Bush and his cronies, we won't even HAVE a chance in 2008. If Bush gets re-elected I'm not going to sit around and wait. Even if Kerry or Edwards becomes the next Prez, I may not sit around. Conservatives control both houses of Congress and the majority of governors are also conservatives. As long as that remains the case, electing a new President means next to zilch. Conservatives will strike down any progressive bill that comes through congress and will constantly be working against the man and making him look like a fool. Something has been wrong with this country from the beginning, and its time that it changes.

[prodigal_green]

1. Political Compass

I got this link from an earlier post (I'm sorry, I don't remember which one, otherwise I'd link to it). It is called the political compass. It measures left/right and authoritarian/libertarian values. Take the quiz and find out where you are. I mention this because the examples people use of socialism's failures are really less about socialist economics than they are authoritarian regimes.

http://www.politicalcompass.org

[Codeblue]

3. Hey thanks.

I'd taken it before but decided to take it again to see if I actually got the same result. Yeah, I did. I'm about as left as Nelson Mandela and as libertarian as the Dalai Llama (the wisest and most caring person ever in existence).

[solinvictus]

5. I took it as well

Out of curiosity, I took it and found that I have some strong authoritarian tendencies. Now, to put them to practical use.....

[DenverDem]

2. Democratic socialism works great.

If people weren't so bloody stupid and short sightedly greedy that they are led around by eliteist ideologues who promise "more of your money" but actually crush your economy, consolidate the capital in the hands of fewer and fewer people, and use the tax that is collected as further redistribution of the wealth to the power elite while providing fewer civil services that should be tax supported. Corporate globalist capitalism is a perverse bait and switch scam that American suckers buy like marks at a carney. It's a ponzi con of Brobdingnagian proportions perpetrated on the myth that anyone who "works hard" can "get ahead" in capitalism. In reality only those "with capital" get ahead, especially in the globalist "free" trade version foisted on the world now.

[Codeblue]

4. Hit the nail on the head. Right on Right on...glad people agree

[Kazak]

6. Ah, the social systems that could work if only...

if only people were better.

[DenverDem]

9. Capitalism might work

if people weren't so greedy and corrupt and big business were properly regulated. Unregulated capitalism is an economic jungle where only the most vicious survive. Not a pretty social system.

You are right, however, it takes a certain level of personal ethical responsibility for any system to work.

[MrPrax]

7. An odd observation about Canada...

At the Academy Awards, virtually every winner thanked everyone from the pool boy, their lawyers, their wives, their agents to the whole country of New Zealand...

Claude Jutra thanked the Canadian government!!!

Only in Canada

:bounce: :bounce:

[cprise]

8. It only seems that way to people in the US

The President of Brazil is a socialist. Tony Blair still belongs to the Christian Socialist Movement.

They hold a lot of power in western Europe and elsewhere.

Its extremists who should get a bad rap.


Competing ideals keep the system fair and honest:

Collectivism - Individualism

Personal Responsibility - Social Responsibility

Private Enterprise - Public Enterprise

What we are approaching now in the US is a system similar to the Soviet Union, only inside-out and upside-down and backwards. The state doesn't own industry; industry has instead bought the state. Power becomes concentrated to the point where it prevents democratic rule.

With that said, most US liberals do not understand they inherited socialist economic policy the moment the New Deal was enacted in order to stop the spread of Communism (real Communism) here in the 1930s. They won't admit where the inspiration comes from, and I think this explains more than anything how weak the American Left is on economics; American liberals do not have the courage of their convictions or a good sense of the ideological spectrum in this regard.