Socialism in America

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OK, let's at least pretend to care about facts, shall we?

The Progressive wing of the Democratic Party (the farthest-left group we have in mainstream politics here) is not socialist. They support a capitalistic market economy with a social safety net and liberal social policies (ie pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, legalize pot, etc).

Obama campaigned as an ally of the Progressive Wing, but in office has appointed centrist New Way Democrats to staff his administration, and legislatively has consistently sided with the conservative Blue Dog Democrats.

The polling shows that on almost every major issue (health care reform, the public option, financial reform, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Guantanamo Bay, tax policy) the overwhelming majority of Americans favored policies farther left than what Obama and the Democrats in Congress have implemented over the past two years.

The Republicans did well in terms of winning seats in Congress, but not because anyone prefers their ideology to the Democrats. In fact, the Republicans in Congress have a lower approval rating than the Democrats, even among mid-term voters. The Democrats lost because the electorate was frustrated with how little progress they were making, and because the incumbent party always gets decimated during economic hard times.

Believing that the mid-term elections were a repudation of far-left policies by the Obama administration is outright delusional. It requires at least three utterly false premises.

You're reading a ton of stuff into my posts that isn't there.

I haven't said anything about what I personally think in this thread. I've presented a way for socialism to be implemented in the U.S. I haven't said that I approve of it or agree with it.

Yes, that method requires 51% of the population not to do productive work. However, "lazy bums" is your reading of it, not mine. The socialists would probably view them as "the faithful". That's how the government employees were viewed by Allende, along with supporters of other socialist governments in the Americas.

Now, if you don't like that plan, that's fine - feel free to say so. If you think it won't work, feel free to criticize it.

I agree. In fact, lot of them have seen true socialism in action before they immigrated, and they are often stronger supporters of traditional American economic values than many Americans.

There are a lot of mistaken assertions there. Let us know when you get to the part about paying attention to actual facts.

Name one. I dare you.

You mean pro-choice to the point it is okay to kill a baby at any time before it comes home from the hospital.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoTjb9rzyEo

I found the video I think (my audio is malfunctioning atm)



Seriously, don't make claims like that to someone that actually pays a lot of attention to politics. He was considered the most liberal member of the United States Senate before he became President.



Explains how they got beaten so badly that the last time something like that happened was in the 1930s.



Seriously, they don't get beaten like that, this was worse for the Democrats than 1994, it was a blood bath a complete rejection of the Democrat Agenda. People are sick of the Chicago style bribes and thuggery. Maybe you don't have a problem with actual bribes in legislation (such as what was in Obamacare), but most of America does.



Yeah I'm sure the American people want you to spend even more money than what was already spent. We're looking at our dollar losing a lot of its value and our economy potentially collapsing due to Obamascam. The having to fill out tax forms for purchasing office supplies for instance (yeah that was in the bill).

Try looking up Obamacare and 1099 tax forms.

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/31/d ... obamacare/

Do you know how to read? "He campaigned as a Progressive" with Progressives being the farthest-left major group in US politics. Once in office, he promptly appointed New Way Democrats (loads of Clinton Administration veterans, as well as Hillary), and on legislative issues he has always focused on the Blue Dog Democrats, who are known for being the conservative wing of the Democratic party.


Do you know how to read? I offered at least a partial explanation for the Democrat's electoral loss later in my post. My claims in the above quote are based on polling data that you can look up anytime you want. But of course, conservatives have no interest in empirical data.


Well, we're in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Of course the incumbent party lost a lot of seats. If it was a rejection of the Democratic agenda, why is it that supermajorities of the American electorate supported stronger healthcare reform than the Democrats passed? Why is it that, when asked about the issues, virtually no one supports the Republican's stated objectives?

This last election was not about ideology.


Maybe you don't have a problem with a Congressman passing out bribe checks on the floor of the House of Representatives. I know my Republican congressman, the new Speaker of the House, doesn't, because that's exactly what he did.


You wanna quote an actual inflation rate?




Oh, trying to prevent tax fraud. Yeah, that's a real travesty.

Oh yeah having to fill out a tax form every time you make a purchase of over $600 (whether it be good or service) as well as having to get some identification number from the person you bought from is really helping on fraud.

It may go a long way to setting up a Value Added Tax, but it won't help the economy. If you don't know a VAT will cause prices to skyrocket on everything. Hope you enjoy living on food stamps cause that may be the only way you can even afford food (even if you happen to still have a job cause most small businesses will go out of business due to all the added costs of the onslaught of 1099s.

Also about inflation, are you seriously saying that printing $600 billion dollars out of thin air and throwing it into the markets is going to cause the dollar to increase in value?

Those are business-to-business transactions. If you go out and spend $600+ on something at the store tomorrow, there is no extra form for you to fill out. The issue is that businesses might make a large number of small purchases and sales ($600 is small for a business) and just not report it, thus avoiding the taxes that they were supposed to be paying all along. By requiring that businesses actually report their taxable income honestly, the government is able to bring in a decent amount of new revenue without having to add new taxes. That is hardly the crushing bureaucratic monstrosity you want to make it out to be.

Are conservatives genuinely stupid, or do they deliberately misrepresent the facts?


One extra piece of paperwork to ensure that businesses actually pay the taxes they owe on small-to-medium transactions is going to collapse our economy? Are you serious?

As for myself, I don't have to worry about food. I am well-educated and have marketable skills; I will always have a roof over my head and a hot meal on my plate. You might want to be more concerned about what happens to you after the Republicans dismantle the social safety net and then crater the economy again.


The government is always printing money, partially to replace money that is going out of circulation, partially to allow the overall money supply to grow at a relatively fixed rate, and partially as a tool of monetary policy. Do you have any data to suggest that current monetary policies are driving higher-than-average inflation rates?

And do you really think we want the dollar to increase in value right now? We have a massive trade deficit. A stronger dollar is not going to help that. There is a reason China has been keeping the Yuan artificially low for so long- it helps their exports.

Orwell have you ever heard of the phrase: "Time is money."

Also 1099's are so complex at times you need full time lawyers to make sure everything is okay, most small business owners have neither the time to fill out hundreds of these forms for every little expense from the electrician to resupplying office materials nor do they have the free capital to hire lawyers and accountants to solely deal with 1099's.

Seriously, I have part-time employment at a family owned business, I'm actually concerned about losing my job due to Obamacare, cause it may be too expensive for them to keep part time workers on the payroll with all the added expenses.

You have a lot of experienced doctors planning to no longer except medicare patients at all due to Obamacare, or simply stop practicing medicine at all. These are specialists that are planning to quit. You have doctors quitting the American Medical Association saying that the AMA sold out to special interests (i.e. Democrats and Obama).

Face the facts man, if Obamacare was such a great policy they wouldn't have been slaughtered in the 2010 election.

Also you are standing there taking at face value the Obama White House's talking points when they just got caught plagerizing people's work to justify a drilling ban that said individuals they plagerized opposed.

Btw, I knew about the plagerism situation for monthes because I watch Fox News and pay attention to Conservative blogs. It took several monthes for politico to actually report the story that Fox News and others had already reported...

You are grossly exaggerating the impact that one piece of paperwork will have.

And quit making ridiculous unfounded assumptions about my opinions. Have you ever seen me singing the praises of the healthcare reform bill?

Sure, your bogus excuse about why the Democrats lost the House.

In fact, polls showed that not only did people generally vote for the Republican in their own district - which is what results in a Republican controlled House - but they also preferred the Republicans overall, consistently preferring a Republican controlled house to a Democrat controlled house by about 10 points in various polls. For example this article mentions a poll showing a 50-43 preference:

http://politics.usnews.com/news/article ... polls.html

That indicates that the Republicans won the House exactly because people preferred their ideology, contrary to your claim, which was notably unsupported by evidence.


It's not just having to fill out a form every time one makes a purchase over $600. We also have to keep track of cumulative purchases. For example if we buy $30 worth of office supplies each week, we now have to keep track of where every purchase comes from, because it might sum up to $600 by the end of the year. To get the sum right, we have to keep track of any purchase no matter how small, including that $0.19 photocopy job I got a couple weeks ago. That makes the recordkeeping a nightmare compared to what it was before. Where before, expenses could be tracked by broad categories - office expenses, raw materials, etc. - now they have to be tracked by specific vendor.

That also strongly discriminates against small businesses in business to business sales because it creates a huge incentive to use a limited number of large suppliers.

Add to that the fact that 1099s aren't allowed to be computer printed - you have to get paper forms from the IRS and fill them out using an impact printer or by hand - and it really amounts to a mechanism for putting small businesses out of business. I would bet that was in fact the intent among a significant number of sponsors of the bill.

It's a mixed bag between the two. An unhealthy codependent relationship between parasite and big dumb animal.

First, I'm not the one misrepresenting the facts, you are.

It isn't 1 additional form to fill out total, it is 1 additional form for every purchase over $600 dollars.

That means if you buy a computer that is over $600, you have to fill out a 1099. If you buy another set of items from someone else that totals over $600, then that is another 1099. Factor that into any business that sells expensive items and look at all the paperwork that they have to fill out. I think it would also affect individuals. So it can add up to hundreds of these 1099's that have to be filled out, not one like you so blatently misrepresented. Oh and if you do another purchase of over $600, with someone you purchased something from a week ago, you have to fill out yet another 1099.

You have the gall to accuse me of being stupid, when you blatently have absolutely no idea of what you're talking about. Though granted you know about as much about the health care law that pretty every member of congress knew: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT THE TALKING POINTS HANDED OUT BY PELOSI, REID, and OBAMA. The Republicans weren't going to act like a bunch of lemmings and vote for something they had no idea what was in it.