March 25, 2010 Socialism

I will do the often done thing here and first quote from www.dictionary.com to find out what exactly what socialism is.

Dictionary.com says: "–noun

1.

a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

2.

procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.

3.

(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles."

Now let's define a few of those terms as well for those of us not up-to-date on political science and sociology terms.

Vesting - "the granting to an eligible employee of the right to specified pension benefits, regardless of discontinued employment status, usually after a fixed period of employment. "

Collectivist - "–noun

the political principle of centralized social and economic control, esp. of all means of production. "

(If you need other terms explained, the dictionary.com link is available ^^ )

When a society becomes socialist, many things are instead done by the government than they are by the people. It is a long way away from communism, but it seems Americans can not escape their cold war prejudice.

Of course, if you tell an American that going to school for free is the same as getting free health care, and thus putting them in so-called socialism, when really they are just moving a little left from center, they would deny it. If President Obama decided to do away with America's dangerous Free-Trade agreement (which is currently endangering my home town and is trying to destroy our clean drinking water), this would be another step in the left direction, but President Obama is not a socialist and would not do this.

A civilized country is a country where people are taken care of when they get to stage in their life when they can no longer give the government money. This includes when they are sick. A civilized country is socialist enough to realize the benefits of giving their students free education. Not many Americans are willing to hand out thousands of dollars a year so that their child can go to some fancy private school, so why are Americans so willing to pay the insurance companies thousands of dollars for crap health care? The only way that private health care is better than public health care is because rich people are chosen over poor people when it comes to deciding who will get the organ transplant, but that in and of itself is wrong. Why should a rich person get a better treatment than a poor one?

Why are Americans insisting in staying a third-world developed country? (honestly, that should not even be possible!)

President Obama's Victory Speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh2yPfD5F-4