Recently, our favorite anonymous liberal commenter said the following on one of my blogs (I know who anonymous is, by the way, but since he/she wishes to remain anonymous, I will respect that):
"Most of the people who claim that Obama is leading us to the path to “socialism” can’t even tell you what it is or why it would be bad (I've tested this to great results)."
So, in an effort to educate the people, I'm going to explain why what Obama and Democrats are doing is leading us down the path to Socialism and why that is bad. In fairness, the Republicans haven't helped that much with stopping the Socialist path. But I'm going to focus on Obama since that was the crux of the commenter's beef. This blog will get very long...fair warning.
First off, we need to define Socialism. Merriam-Webster defines Socialism as follows:
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
I'm going to use that definition as my working definition. Now, let's take #1:
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
Since Obama was inaugurated the size and scope of government has grown. One of Obama's first action was to bailout General Motors and Chrysler, which were deemed "too big to fail." When Obama and Congress did the bailout, these 2 auto companies essentially became owned by the government.
With the economic bailout, Obama and crew took the opportunity to limit Executive Pay and bonuses for any companies that took bailouts...basically controlling wages for those companies.
Finally, with the recent health care legislation, Obama (a.k.a the Federal Government) took control of the health care industry. Sure, there isn't currently a government plan, but think about what we know. First, you have to buy health insurance or pay a fine, but the fine is less than some insurance costs. So, people will just pay the fine until they get sick. Then once they are sick, they will go buy insurance, which the insurance companies now have to provide, regardless of pre-existing conditions. This will inevitably cause insurance companies to go out of business, meaning that the federal government will "have to" provide a single payer plan.
Now onto #2:
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
This one is harder to talk about because we really haven't gotten their yet, at least for 2a. I think 2b is similar enough to #1 that I won't expand on that further.
So, for 2a, the best example of this I can think of is the offshore wind farm planned for Cape Cod. This has been under debate since 2001, and was opposed by the late Ted Kennedy. On April 30th of this year, the Obama administration just announced that they would go ahead with it, regardless of the challenges. Basically, the people living there have no rights, and the Administration is convinced that it will withstand legal challenges.
Like I say, 2a is the hardest case to make because this will take more time. But, with each "crisis" the Obama administration undertakes, the Federal Government gets more power. With the economic bailout, they could now control executive pay. With the auto bailout, they now control 2 auto companies. Next came the Wall Street reform where the Federal Government has more regulation powers. The Obama administration has also setup the Federal Government to back all student loans and mortgages. With each additional power grab that happens, it becomes harder to not imagine a day when the federal government no longer respects private property rights.
Let's go to #3:
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
Ok, this one is fairly easy. During the campaign, how was Obama going to pay for everything he wanted to do? By taxing everyone who makes over $250,000 a year. Basically, doing his best Robin Hood by "taking for those who have and giving to those who have not." Recently, he has made comments about, at some point, having enough money. These statements provide insight into this man's way of thinking. Furthermore, he is planning to let the Bush tax cuts expire, which will raise taxes on the producers in society.
You know, on the surface, this sounds good. Why can't the rich pay more taxes so that the poor can have more? There are 2 reasons for this:
1) There is only so much you can take from the rich before they get fed up and figure out how to hide money through tax loopholes.
2) If you follow the Socialist mentality to it's logical conclusion, you eliminate incentives for people to improve themselves. For example, if you could tax the rich enough and give enough to the poor to roughly equalize incomes, where's the incentive to reach your limits? Why would someone become a Doctor if they are going to make as much money as a short order cook?
Now, why is Socialism bad? Well, besides the reasons given above...because it doesn't work! Look at Europe...they have only managed to make it work as long as they have because they haven't had to pay for a military. They could count on the US to police the world, so they were able to promote a socialist society. But, even without the costs of a military, these countries are now collapsing...see Greece, Portugal and Spain. Socialism costs more than any government can afford. Our debt situation is already unsustainable...the US simply can't afford to become more Socialist than we already are.
So, that's my really long blog to explain why I believe Obama is leading us down a socialist path. In a court of law, some might say much of my evidence is circumstantial (see 2a for example), but I believe there is ample evidence to show that Obama and the Democrats are driving the United States to a Socialist model of government. I don't think this is good for our country, and a lot of people agree with me. This is why Obama's approval rating is down to 48 percent. I think it's probably lower than that, but so many people are afraid to answer negative against Obama for fear of seeming racist. That just my theory...I have no proof of that.
I'm not going to be as hard on people who don't understand exactly why Obama is a Socialist as our liberal commenter. I think there's a certain amount of common sense in play here. People know that the things that are going on aren't right, but maybe don't have the educated background to say exactly why. Hopefully a few of those people will read this blog and be able to more fully backup the gut feeling they have.
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10 comments:
Obama hasn't done much new w/rt 2a, but the country has certainly gone down that road for a long time. Use (abuse) of eminent domain has been rampant enough between government and the little guy, that it's funny when the states and the feds duke things out themselves. Here's a fine example from the recent past.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0430/Utah-uses-eminent-domain-to-seize-land-of-Uncle-Sam
Nuke pointed out to me that he thought there were holes in my argument and not enough concrete evidence. Remember, I was trying to answer a question about Obama's socialism, so I wrote this from that perspective. And, given the lack of a real record for this President, it's difficult to find a ton of concrete evidence. I did the best I could with what we know, and I fully admitted that a lot of this is circumstantial. If I were to blog about how the Federal Government is becoming Socialist, that would be much longer and would have many more concrete examples.
I didn’t know I was everybody’s favorite liberal commentator! That is sweet! At least I’m something…right? :-)
I can’t refute Webster’s can I! However, we have lived with some degree of “Socialism” for a long time. Because when push comes to shove, Capitalism does not work either. All you have to do is take a short trip to the Gulf Cost to see what deregulation and Capitalism gets you (profit over anything else). That is only one example and granted the most recent… but the list goes on and on. So, we have lived in a hybrid of Capitalism and “Socialism” for some time in this country. What some people fail to see is that Socialism, like the temperature, comes in degrees. Does the government become more “Socialist” for baling out GM, sure. Does it mean that our government is moving toward a total Socialist structure? The answer is an unequivocal NO!
Let’s do the math. With the bailout of GM the US government “nationalized” part of is business assets. The total of the business assets owned by the Federal Government after the bailout was $82.3 billion. Not to shabby, right? Yet, let’s look at the portion of the business assets of the United States NOT owned by the Federal Government, which is $39.2 trillion. You are looking at the Federal Government holding 0.21% of business assets in the Untied States. 99.79% of business is still in private hands. That does not sound like socialism to me. Just because the Federal Government was forced to bail out the auto industry to stem an entire meltdown of the economy, does not make it a socialist government… or even have it heading toward a socialist government for that matter. It just makes good economic sense. I do believe that GM has paid back the loan already (depending on who you listen to), five years ahead of schedule. I don’t think a socialist government would let the loan be repaid- they would have just kept “ownership”.
What we have here is the slippery slope mentality (which is an informal logical fallacy). If “A” happens than “B” will happen, followed by “C” then “D” and then Socialism. Just because “A” happened, does not mean that “B” “C” or “D” will happen. We ignore the possibility that there is a middle ground, we assume the worst will happen and take the argument to its unfounded conclusion.
If you listen to Rush, Beck, Olbermann or whoever, they make a living pushing things down the slippery slope because that is what sells! Nobody will tune in to hear Rush tell them that the auto industry has been bailed out, but the Federal Government only owns 0.21% of business… so no reason to panic. You could fall asleep to that. You need the worst case scenario to get people to listen which then leads to $$ via ad time. In the case of this argument, we are saying that because the Federal Government bailed out a few industries that they are leading us down the path to socialism. We are taking a small amount of information and exploiting it to fit the idea that the Federal Government wants to control ALL business. We use a small percentage of European countries (specifically Greece- which isn’t even Socialist- it’s a Parliamentary Republic which has a Socialist Party in it) that are currently having an economic crises to tie into the idea that more government control is wrong. Do you think that during our economic crisis that these governments looked at us and said, “Look, Capitalism doesn’t work!”? We forget that a majority of Europe nations are stable, for the most part. You brought up three out of 27 countries in the EU. All of these countries, while more socialist than us, are not even considered socialist countries.
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On a side note, I do have to point out that the military budget in Greece is one of the highest at 4.3% of GDP (the US is 4.7% of GDP) and it ranks 3rd in the world at arms purchasing.
The student loan deal… the Federal Government is looking to save between $47 to $87 billion dollars collecting the loans themselves rather then subsidizing banks to do it. I guess I call that fiscally responsible. You aren’t really looking at more Government control since they subsidized the banks to give the loans already… they, the Federal Government, are just cutting out the middle man.
As for reaching your dreams/limits… sometimes you do things and don’t look at the financial reward. I sure as hek didn’t go into teaching for the money. I did it because I love what I teach and I want to pass that to the next generation. Honestly, I would work for free if I had to… I don’t care about how much I make. Yet, I went to school longer then some people I know who make A LOT more than me. I have 7 years of College and almost 2 years worth of Grad. Level course work (almost a Masters Degree)… now according to some research I should me making about $62,300 (average for masters)… I make about half that. Fair? Who is to say? I teach because I love it.
I’ve gone on way too long here. I just want to add that we all need to take a deep breath and chill a bit. Yes, I get excited if the Vikings win a game, but I sure as hek know that they are not going to win the Super Bowl. Just because they win a game does not mean they will win the next one or the one after that, leading to the ultimate (and for some reason unattainable) Super Bowl victory. There are bigger thing to worry about than the dreaded Socialism curtain falling in this land, as it is far from the case. As soon as we look like China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos or Vietnam (the only true Socialist states in the world) then you can press the alert button. Of course China currently has one of the most stable economies on the world and has had the fastest growing economic sector in the world at an annual GDP growth rate of 10% over the last 30 years… so maybe we could take some of that.
That is just my take on things, I could be wrong.
Hope all is well in Iowa!
MCD
I wrote WAY too much... why can't I shut up!!! :-)
MCD
First, I hate to tell you this, but that's the answer I expected from you. I was addressing Obama's socialist tendencies. Personally, I feel he is moving us toward a socialist government at warp speed, while previous administrations (both Republican and Democrat) did it incrementally. Instead of tackling Obama you go into great length about how everybody does this.
Second, Europe is not stable. The Euro is tanking, and several countries have recently elected more conservative leadership (see France and Germany). And let's look at our most socialist states...New York, California and New Jersey are all in trouble. What we are seeing with Governor Christie in New Jersey is a taste of things to come for the US.
Third, I've seen estimates that approximatly 1/6 of the working public is employed in the public sector. I also know that health care makes up about 1/6 of the economy in this country. So, when the health care takeover is complete, the gov't will own over 1/6 of the economy, and way more than 1/6 of the jobs.
Fourth, you are 1 person. I know several people who wouldn't be engineers if they weren't paid like they are. Teaching is the rare profession where you don't go into it to make money...so that's a bad example.
You can dig up numbers all you want, but the bottom line is Obama is a socialist, as are most of the democrats. Because he has about a 20 minute career I've had to look at trends, and his trend is moving faster and more boldly towards a European-like socialist state than any other.
Argh! This is what infuriates me about liberals. They totally get me off the point. The point isn't whether socialism is bad or good or whether Obama is a socialist. The point should be whether or not Obama is a good President for our country. I would argue he isn't, based on 10% unemployement, record deficits, and what appears to be a complete lack of any vision to fix these problems. I've been sidetracked by a liberal for several days on this topic...no more.
Don't stop now. You two keep me entertained. I don't have to watch or listen to talk shows this way.
Nuke… you ask and shall receive.
This is just doom and gloom prophecy… nothing more and nothing less.
Everybody picks and chooses their ammunition for their causes, example- New York, California and New Jersey. Yes, those states are in trouble- but so is every other State. Minnesota had to almost call a special session to balance their budget and its had a Republican Governor for the last, what, eight years. Texas, one of our more conservative states has had budget issues. Every body is- not just the “socialist” states. South Dakota is not looking too rosy… I’m not sure you get more Conservative than us. So you can’t just pick the “socialist” states and say that big government caused the problem single handedly. In fact one could make the augment that had more government been involved in the private sector, via oversights; they would have caught what the banks were doing with the subprime mortgages and put a stop to it, in essence stopping the economic fallout. Do I believe that, no… but that could be an argument- and a compelling one at that.
The Euro is tanking… just as the dollar did last year, mostly due to Greece and the instability of that market- not for Europe as a whole. Sure Germany and France and now England elected more conservative leadership… your point? It’s not the first time they did this, nor will it be the last. We elected more conservation leadership a few years ago and look where that got us. It goes in cycles; they will elect more liberal leadership in a few years… its how governments work.
I guess I’ve seen between 8%-10% of the working public are employed in the private sector. But you assume complete government takeover of health care- your worst care scenario. Will it happen, maybe- but you have no idea what will happen or what it will look like- you assume it will be bad. Sure you can roll out statistic from other industrialized countries with nationalized healthcare that are bad. But for every bad stat. or story there is a good one. Bottom line is that something had to be done about health care in this country and something finally got done. Which according to your recent post about Gov. Christie is good leadership, “First, he was open and honest about the mess the state is in, and second, he went about the job of trying to fix the mess.”
This one just makes me sad… to the people you know that wouldn’t be engineers if it were not for the pay. If you don’t like your job get one you like regardless of pay. To stay at a job just for the pay is silly. What a miserable life. Wouldn’t being stuck at a job you don’t like just for the paycheck be stifling dreams and limits also? So Capitalism is already doing what you say Socialism would do? Just a thought. O’ the great golden handcuffs.
Is Obama a good president? Dang, his presidency isn’t even half over and you are throwing him under the bus! Time and history will tell. People hated Lincoln in his day, yet he is usually ranked number one or at least in the top three presidents of all time in surveys. The president that last led us down the dreaded path to Socialism, FDR, is also usually in the top 5. C-SPAN has a cool listing (http://www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/Overall-Ranking.aspx). So, with Obama, history will tell.
Ok, lunch time. This is my last comment on this. Anonymous can add anything else he wants, but I’m done with this thread after this, because it’s not going anywhere. I started this blog so I could get my ideas out there and eliminate stress. It’s a man diary. This post isn’t helping with that stress level. I would love it if Anonymous would tell us why Obama isn’t a Socialist, or if Anonymous believes he is Socialist, why is that ok?
And yes, maybe I am a little bit of gloom and doom. But how is that any worse than what Anonymous is doing by saying that everything isn’t a problem and we just need to give Obama more time before we pass judgment? Look, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. That’s why our best times in this country have been during the Reagan era and the Clinton era. What was common in those times?…Split government. Now, I would attribute the Reagan era success to Reagan and the Clinton era success to the Republicans. Anonymous would say the opposite. The key is, there was balance and people were forced to debate ideas and come to a consensus on what was best. There is no debate now, because one party controls everything. The only recourse for us in the minority is to point out the direst circumstances in the hope that we can slow things down. Will the direst circumstances always happen, of course not? But, what if they do? Isn’t it my responsibility as a citizen to point this out? I can’t just go along willingly if I don’t think a thing is right, even though the left would like me and people like me to do just that.
Anonymous is correct, this country has struck a good balance between Socialism and Capitalism for a long time. Obama is moving that balance too far to Socialism. I’ve tried to cite why I believe that is bad, and apparently I haven’t done a good enough job to satisfy Anonymous. Nuke told me I’m losing this argument. I could dig and find more sources to cite, but then Anonymous will dig around and find more sources to refute me. That doesn’t help anyone and ends up frustrating me, and based on the tone of his recent comments, it looks like it frustrates Anonymous too.
This exchange actually does a great job of illustrating what is wrong in our country today. The left and right are warring like it’s a sporting event…each seeing who can score the most points by trumping the other side’s points. That’s what Anonymous did in the previous comments. He/she just focused on torpedoing my points, basically attempting to invalidate my opinion. I have been guilty of this in numerous blogs, and will attempt to stop it. I think I did that with my latest blog. We need to get to a point where we can exchange ideas and debate ideas on their merits, instead of just simply looking for ways to destroy the other person’s argument. I put my opinion out there, and I believe I am always right, but experience (and marriage) has taught me that I’m not always right. So, I challenge Anonymous to convince me that everything Obama is doing is good and I should give him a chance. Well, not everything. Just tell me why the health care bill is good and how it solved the root problem of health care costing too much? Tell me why it won’t lead to a national takeover of health care? I’ll listen (or read), I may not agree, but at least I’ll listen. I work with a liberal, and when we listen to each other rather than spend our time formulating arguments, we usually agree on a middle ground by the time we are done. If he and I can do this, than I bet Anonymous and I can do this too.
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