"America will never be a Socialist country"

Quoted from Trump's SOTU address. He made comparisons to Venezuela, but it was really aimed at Democrats. Nothing like using the SOTU address to kick off a re-election campaign, huh.

I think this will be the main theme for 2020. Trump (and the Republican Party) will market themselves as the defenders of Liberty and Freedom!, and paint Democrats as evil SSSocialists. Never mind that "we're all Socialists now", and have been to a certain degree since at least The Great Depression....

Q: Will this "anti-Socialism" strategy continue to work as it has in the past, or have people decided they actually like and want public services and government oversight?

<Whose propaganda will be most effective?>

To be honest that attack line is working out less and less well. Way too many new voters are pretty helpless as adults and the idea of big brother doing everything for them is attractive. I really hate my generation sometimes.

Well, and there's also the fact that we've already been a socialist country your entire life and your parents entire lives as well, y'know?

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

... Way too many new voters are pretty helpless as adults and the idea of big brother doing everything for them is attractive.

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I resent responding to the guy wearing a dunce hat but, http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/colu...lism-20190104/.

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

Well, and there's also the fact that we've already been a socialist country your entire life and your parents entire lives as well, y'know?

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Social democracy maybe, I wouldn't say socialist. Though its worth bearing in mind that at one point US top rate of tax was nearly 100% and remained very high for decades.

I hope you don't plan on filing for SOCIAL security.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Social democracy maybe, I wouldn't say socialist. Though its worth bearing in mind that at one point US top rate of tax was nearly 100% and remained very high for decades.

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The *effective* tax rate was actually pretty low even then.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

To be honest that attack line is working out less and less well. Way too many new voters are pretty helpless as adults and the idea of big brother doing everything for them is attractive. I really hate my generation sometimes.

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Yeah, it's an "attack line" that's used for political branding, and not really based on facts or reality. Maybe it's not working as well because people are getting smarter about labels and propaganda? Maybe the 2016 election helped that way?

Some of it's generational, but even the post-WWII seniors who were heavily indoctrinated against the evils of socialism got their college degree with the GI Bill, bought their first home with VA or FHA loans, and love their SS and Medicare. Many railed against "socialized medicine" during ACA legislation, but said "hands off my Medicare". That just shows that branding can be effective -- even by exploiting misconceptions or manipulating truth.

Being's article was good. I hope you read it, because people who vote for tax-payer public services aren't necessarily helpless or looking for Big Brother to do everything for them. Maybe you should check your own propaganda meter? :hmm:

What do y'all think about the Foxconn (WI) and Amazon (NY) pulling out of their big pending business deals?

Some of the blame is being aimed at 'liberal activists with a Socialism agenda', but it sparks some fundamental questions:

*Should they have been offered such huge perks to begin with?
*Could the lost tax revenues be recouped, and who would pay?
*Is corporate welfare a form of socialism, or corrupted capitalism, or something else?

As someone who loves calling people socialists, I don't think it's actually a super-effective diss because millennials and GenZ thinks socialism is sexy without thinking about all the details.

It's always more powerful to be for something, IE free commerce, speech and religion — three things that are always intertwined.

"Nazi" is a short version of the name "National SOCIALIST WORKERS Party". Nazis are socialists. Communists and nazis are two branches of the same tree that were rivals, just like Chii and Sunni are two branches of the same tree that hate each other. Hitler was a socialist. The creator of fascism was minister of education of Mussolini, who was a leftist. Progressivism was a movement that started in British India, created by a socialist muslim intellectual.

Nazis were NOT nationalists. They murdered their own jewish German citizens. Polish nationalists fought against Hitler. Hitler loved no borders in Europe.

Today, the title "white supremacist" is selectively used by SJWs to attack jewish and pro Israel opponents. In 1936 all German jews were white. So by attacking white, they attack jews in disguise. Politically correct SJWs support antisemitic collectives and that reduced sponsoring to SJW's Women's March. Nazis are antisemitic. SJWs are modern nazis. People forget that Ukranian and Polish prisoners of nazi regime were white.

Socialism already murdered more than 100 million people. That is way more than WWI casualties.

Uh as someone who likes pointing out the socialist part of their name... they were absolutely nationalist as well.

Yeah and the DPRK is democratic.

Who, indeed, can forget the famous passage in The Manifesto of the Communist Party where Marx says to ban all trade unions, arrest their leaders and confiscate their assets. Can't get any more socialist than that.

ar81 is an overpriced unreliable car :confused:

It's also a WW2 era German dive bomber, which means him the Nazi.

Checkmate liberals! I mean, conservatives! I mean... I don't know.

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Originally Posted by ar81

"Nazi" is a short version of the name "National SOCIALIST WORKERS Party". Nazis are socialists. Communists and nazis are two branches of the same tree that were rivals, just like Chii and Sunni are two branches of the same tree that hate each other. Hitler was a socialist. The creator of fascism was minister of education of Mussolini, who was a leftist. Progressivism was a movement that started in British India, created by a socialist muslim intellectual.

Nazis were NOT nationalists. They murdered their own jewish German citizens. Polish nationalists fought against Hitler. Hitler loved no borders in Europe.

Today, the title "white supremacist" is selectively used by SJWs to attack jewish and pro Israel opponents. In 1936 all German jews were white. So by attacking white, they attack jews in disguise. Politically correct SJWs support antisemitic collectives and that reduced sponsoring to SJW's Women's March. Nazis are antisemitic. SJWs are modern nazis. People forget that Ukranian and Polish prisoners of nazi regime were white.

Socialism already murdered more than 100 million people. That is way more than WWI casualties.

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This is just... I mean, seriously, what crazy corner of the internet have you been reading this stuff?

In other news....if CPAC is any clue, the GOP is on board with Trump's branding of SSSocialism. They'll use it in the broadest way to criticize anything the Democrats propose, but won't drill down on definitions that would expose their own hypocrisy. They'll use it as an applause line where socialism means taking away your hamburgers!, and the crowd roars. :picard:

Since the GOP is probably going to brand "The Green New Deal" as more evil SSSocialism, it might be a good time to remind everyone that the original New Deal was a cooperative investment between private and government capital:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...w-deal/584209/

It was "cooperative" the same way paying your taxes is cooperative. There were huge constitutional challenges that were basically wiped-away because judges can read the political tea leaves of a country in crisis.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

It was "cooperative" the same way paying your taxes is cooperative. There were huge constitutional challenges that were basically wiped-away because judges can read the political tea leaves of a country in crisis.

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Which should disturb anyone. A good judge should never care about the impact of his ruling, just that his ruling met the standards he had sworn to abide by.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

It was "cooperative" the same way paying your taxes is cooperative. There were huge constitutional challenges that were basically wiped-away because judges can read the political tea leaves of a country in crisis.

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Taxation with representation is perfectly constitutional. Yeah, that means "the government" can force us to do some things we may not WANT to do...because there's a compelling reason for the Greater Good. (That was the defense for anti-monopoly laws that broke up utilities like Bell Telephone, btw.)

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

Which should disturb anyone. A good judge should never care about the impact of his ruling, just that his ruling met the standards he had sworn to abide by.

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Oh, please. You're all about activist judges....so long as they meet your political litmus test of 'making liberals cry'. When the ACA/PPA (Obamacare) was deemed constitutional under the commerce clause, your head practically exploded. :donkey:

<It's no wonder you like the Trump administration appointing 'conservative' judges as a political strategy.>

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

Which should disturb anyone. A good judge should never care about the impact of his ruling, just that his ruling met the standards he had sworn to abide by.

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Those standards happen to include caring about the impact of the ruling. Judicial standards remind them that they are not automatons, that they are dealing with humans and their responses need to be informed by their own human qualities rather than from playing make-believe that they're robots.

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

Those standards happen to include caring about the impact of the ruling. Judicial standards remind them that they are not automatons, that they are dealing with humans and their responses need to be informed by their own human qualities rather than from playing make-believe that they're robots.

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That seems like an invitation to make up shit to justify how you want to rule as a judge. Sure the constitution says that but I really don't like x so fuck it time to rule however the hell I want. Our constitutional rights shouldn't be that flimsy.

@ Troll, our constitution is a nuanced and contextual document. Nothing is absolute, but that doesn't mean our rights are "flimsy". :donkey:

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

That seems like an invitation to make up shit to justify how you want to rule as a judge. Sure the constitution says that but I really don't like x so fuck it time to rule however the hell I want. Our constitutional rights shouldn't be that flimsy.

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It's not a binary, Lewk. Not being a robot and taking context and impact into concern and having them inform the decision doesn't keep the law from being applied or vice versa.

Question for Lewk: Are you simply relying on Scalia's interpretation of the constitution because he was a "conservative"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Originalism

How far back in history can a "conservative" go to defend state rights, and call them individual liberties, protected by the constitution?

The fear propaganda campaign has officially begun: "Socialism is theft"!

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...izing-america/

The vicious National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) ad, which will debut on Fox and Friends later Tuesday morning and air nationally throughout August, shows a group of armed and masked burglars entering a suburban home in the middle of the night.

This isn’t the old Democratic party. It’s a new, radical, socialist party. Their self-serving plan could cost us billions, money that won’t be spent to educate our kids, care for our veterans, or fix our crumbling roads and bridges. They’re assaulting not just our money, but our way of life.

:rolleyes:

Bump! Apparently, "America vs Socialism" is still a real political thing, even during a global health pandemic. Instead of leading the way with science and data, and good public health policy, we are laggards, deniers, and reactionaries. USA #1 :cheerleader: