You know what annoys me?

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People moaning about how bad our two party system is in the US and then they won't vote or try to do anything to change it, and when there's a possibility of someone being a socialist everyone freaks out. lol Well you don't like our capitalist government so what exactly do you suggest be done? Do something about it instead of whining and just pretending to be open to new ideas.

i didnt read your thread, i was looking at 7 of 9.
what did you say?

lol I'm not reiterating it unless you give me a reason to. It's right up there for you to read. You didn't say you didn't understand me.

Thanks for the avatar compliment. Maybe I should change it if it's that much of a distraction.

People that would rather complain about a problem than act to solve it are particularly aggravating. At least they're not as harmfull as people who act to solve a problem than wasn't a real problem until they acted on it.

The avatar is very distracting. Jeri Ryan is a beautiful woman.

I think this abhorrence of socialism in the US seems to be linked to the previous terror about communism. There are many socialist countries in Europe that are probably safer places to live than the US. I think Americans should try to learn more about modern socialism. The UK has a national health service and Ireland has a similar if not as good system. We also have good social welfare benefits and yet both Ireland's economy and the UK economy are doing well considering the problems in global finance largely caused by the American economy. I'm not really familiar with other countries but in Ireland we have several political parties including Labour and an actual but small Socialist party. The situation is similar in the UK.

Yes I know this. What I'm saying is that it's ridiculous for people to still be scared of communism regardless. It wasn't the idea of communism that was bad. It was the leaders who perverted it.

Karl Marx ignored the most basic of underlying human natures - namely, greed. Communism will not work as long as humans are greedy, whether it is the simple greed of owning personal property, the more robust greed of owning more or better property than anyone else, or the ultimate greed of wanting to own everything everone else has.

He also expected that all activities be performed in a social context; that is, nothing would be done without a team (even if the task required only one person to perform it), nothing could be decided without a committee (even when the situation requires that a decision be made immediately), and even individual artistic expression required that special committees be appointed to assure that what was expressed was "appropriate" to the communist regime.

Marx believed that the control that one class exercises over the means of production includes not only the production of food or manufactured goods; it includes the production of ideas as well - thus, the state holds authority over deciding "Right-think" and "Wrong-Think", which producced the concept of "Thought Crimes" and filled the gulags with "Wrong-Thinking" philosophers, scientists, journalists, artists, and ordinary citizens. He also believed that the things people produce are actually more productive than the people who produce them - thus reducing the worker to an utterly disposable and abusable entity.

He promised a "Worker's Paradise", yet delivered the most oppressive and corruptible form of government since Calligula's Roman Empire.

Finally, communism survives today only because places like Cuba and China receive dividends from capitalistic practices. Their governments may still be somewhat intact, but their countries are decaying, and their people are leaving (if they can afford to escape).

But people refer to Marxists negatively for the most part. People don't talk about the leaders that used it the wrong way. They will call you a closet Marxist. Implying that Marxism was evil or something. It wasn't.

I don't get what your sermon on communism was for.....

And you actually don't know that it couldn't work. It was never used in the way that it was intended. China and Cuba don't use communism in the way it was intended. Do you not understand that?

But regardless of that my point is that if you (not you personally but people in general) don't like our system get up off your butt and do something about it. People don't for the most part. They freak out when someone suggests a new idea. I only used socialism and communism as an example. I wasn't meaning to turn this into a discussion about either.

EDIT: I'm sick of people being negative just for the sake of being negative.

Lot of people are hypocrites.

I've had enough of the two-party system too, but I am actually an Independent and will not be voting Republican Or Democrat this November.

Unfortunately the 2-party system or electoral college system cannot be fixed by voting. I could tell you how it could be fixed, but then they'd hunt me down and lock me away in Gitmo til I die.

The US system is pretty much screwed. Unfortunately, I don't have the solution.
And even if I did, not like I can do anything about it.

America should try to be more like Australia.
Not that that would really accomplish anything, but it might be funny to watch...

Well what do they do in Australia?

I'm voting damnit! I have a right to vote and they can't take that away from me. By cheating or whatever they are trying to discourage people from voting.

We could all do something to change it. The problem is we have the mindset that we can't (I'm kinda guilty of this myself). I think a lot of people just feel very hopeless right now.

You can always vote for Green or Libertarian (whatever that is), and be a vote-splitter.

I think the main problem with US politics, from my Canadian pov, is that there is no left. Most countries have a left and a right, but the US has no left, basically. There is this cult of the free market, and how the US is a free country, and people are free to take their own initiative (not even really true when homesteading was still allowed), and that you don't need to take care of other people because people will take care of themselves and if they don't, there's something wrong with them. There's this very strange cult of independence, combined with Social Darwinism, that has no real basis in reality. But when a way of thinking becomes imbedded in a country's mythos like that, you pretty much need to invent a new mythology, and that will only happen when the old one clearly stops working.

A friend of mine used to say "freedom and responsibility are like two wings of a bird - you need both to fly" and that is more or less how right and left wing politics work together. But that's how a "girl" talks and I don't think there's room for that sort of discourse in the US right now. I could be wrong, though.

Well I honestly think Obama is going to bring a lot of hope to this country and he is on the liberal side and not ashamed of it. What do you mean we have no left? I'm a leftist.

We have a left it's just that we're not in control right now.