Socialism is

[Dr. Shane]

Those most fervently against government helping the poor, thinking it better for charity/religion to do so, seem not at all bothered to vigorously advocate that government should enforce their pet religious views on abortion and homosexuality

I would have to see some hard examples to address that specifically. Banning abortion is not a pet religious view anymore than banning murder and child abuse are. I don't know of any bans on homosexuality that currently exist although I do know there are bans against prostitution to protect public health. However comparing bans on murder and bans on prostitution with government welfare programs are comparing apples and oranges. Those are separate debates.

What is being suggested is that if "Christians" oppose government-mandated welfare programs they should also oppose government laws that ban murder and prostitution. I think that type of assumption is based on very weak logic.

[Bravus]

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What does the Bible say about what we should do for the poor and the widows and those less fortunate?

What does the Bible say about those that won't work?

This is exactly the problem - those on the right always want to only talk about malingerers, never about the disabled or those who *can't* work. There are ways of dealing with those who won't work - Australia has a well regarded 'work for the dole' scheme, for example. But the help is for those who need it, not those who don't. Those who oppose helping those who don't need it are disingenuously opposing helping those who do.

[nuff sed]

Do you know how to starve a typical welfare recipient? You hide his food stamps under his work shoes!

[CyberGuy]

The constitution says the federal government is to provide for a national defense, post office, hiways etc. I doubt the framers of the constituion intended on the federal government to spend vast amounts of tax payers money on charitble causes no matter how noble they may be. What use are those causes is if we lose our freedom and freedom to practice religion as we see fit. We owe those freedoms to the vast military buget you seem to so abhore.

[Stan]

Socialism and charity are not identical twins...

Providing free k-12 education is socialism.

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

What does the Bible say about those that won't work?

This is exactly the problem - those on the right always want to only talk about malingerers, never about the disabled...

The disabled are not the bone of contention. I know few people who object to caring for the disabled. Bringing them up in a discussion about welfare really seems to only serve as a way of sidetracking the conversation. In the United States, the disabled receive money from Social Security. It is handled by an entirely different administration than general welfare.

A problem with socialism on a grand scale is that it serves as a disincentive to work hard. If all farm lands are owned by the government and all farmers get paid the same amount of money for working the land. Who is going to work in the fields from dawn to dusk? Why would anyone work more acres than they have to? Most are going to want to do the littlest amount of work they can to get by.

When farmers get paid based on the quantity of their harvest we find them working long hours and as much acreage as they possible can. Their hard work, motivated by personal greed, ends up being a blessing for all of society.

Socialism on a small scale, helping the downtrodden and disabled, only impacts a small portion of society. Even it often results in the poverty cycle which traps individuals in poverty for multi-generations. However for some people, like myself, this form of socialism allows them to break free of the poverty cycle. However just because socialism on a small scale has its successes doesn't mean it would be good on a large scale.

[Bravus]

But the discussion wasn't about welfare, it was about socialism.

And no-one was taking about communism. There is a large continuum, where Australia is more socialist than America but still democratic and capitalist, some of the Scandinavian countries are much more socialist than Australia, but *still* democratic and socialist, and so on.

No-one is advocating communism for America. The discussion is about whether a tiny shift would better serve all Americans.

[Dr. Shane]

I think the discussion is about Christianity and socialism. America only plays into the discussion because there are Americans participating in the discussion.

In Mexico there is no program to take care of the disabled. There is public education but not in all areas. Some areas have no public education and others have only elementary schools. The public schools also require parents to buy uniforms. Parents that cannot afford uniforms cannot send their children to school. So countries like Mexico are more capitalistic than America.

The only difference between communism and socialism is freedom. Communism is one-party rule. Socialist countries allow multiple parties. So wide-scale socialism can be part of a free society.

[Stan]

IMHO

You can tell how great a nation is by how they treat their

Weak

Wounded

Weary

and their Veterans

Just my opinion, (fully supported by my Goldfish Bonny)

[Gail]

Quote:

A problem with socialism on a grand scale is that it serves as a disincentive to work hard. If all farm lands are owned by the government and all farmers get paid the same amount of money for working the land. Who is going to work in the fields from dawn to dusk? Why would anyone work more acres than they have to? Most are going to want to do the littlest amount of work they can to get by.

An interesting side note to this (and I may be putting my foot in my mouth since I know very little about our government history) is that I think that our health system was set up by Tommy Douglas, who was an MP from the Prairies. The farmers were the ones he represented and supported.

From Wikipedia:

Quote:

Thomas Clement "Tommy" Douglas, PC, CC, SOM (October 20, 1904 – February 24, 1986) was a Scottish-born Baptist minister who became a prominent Canadian social democratic politician. As leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) from 1942 and the seventh Premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961, he led the first socialist government in North America and introduced universal public healthcare to Canada. When the CCF united with the Canadian Labour Congress to form the New Democratic Party, he was elected as its first federal leader and served in that post from 1961 to 1971. He is warmly remembered for his folksy wit and oratory with which he expressed his determined idealism, exemplified by his fable of Mouseland.

[Gail]

You know, I have spoken to a few Americans about the difference in our health care and besides the argument for or against socialism, the thing that strikes me the most is,

that Americans seem so much more combative on the issue than we do. I've been told, "There's something wrong with me paying for someone else's health care" to, "That's socialism! It reflects greed!" (in a raised voice).

It's almost like they are willing to go to war with you on it.

I'm not sure that the CULTURAL differences that makes my American friends would make it even possible for them to appreciate why our system works, and why it works in Aus or Europe.

[Gail]

PS- My answer to the theory that socialism is based on greed, I replied, "Capitalism- now THAT is based on greed!"

Just the difference between the way Americans and Canadians think.

We really aren't the same :)

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

I just wonder about all the Canadians who come down to the States for medical procedures because they can't get the work done in a timely manner in Canada.. In 2007 there were only 222 MRI machines and 419 CT scanners in the whole country (that's 12 CT scanners and 6 MRI machines per million population). That's pathetic for the patients who desparately need those exams.

Canadian Medical Info

[Gail]

In our province we have investigated a 2-tiered system, where those who are able to pay for fast service could. I know that there was one private clinic opened up in Vancouver that they were debating for a while.

Don't know where that could end up...

Yes, there are waits. But I don't know if there is a difference between the rich and the poor waiting. As far as I know everyone is treated the same. The more urgent ones get bumped up.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

I guess that's where patients and the medical world clash - what is urgent and what can wait. To someone with excruciating hip pain, a hip replacement might make all the difference in the world, but they can't have the operation until the tests are done, and then the wait for the surgery. Urgency is relative.

A two-tiered system would be an interesting scheme. So would the private clinic....I didn't think that would be allowed there..

[Gail]

It was controversial, and I don't know what happened to it. I didn't follow up.

[Gail]

What is interesting about my conversations with my US friends about this, is that they see socialism as the government taking from them money to support the system.

We look at it differently. We see it as everyone contributes so that all can have access to healthcare. We are all pitching in a little so that everyone can be treated.

We give willingly to support the poor. In this case it is administered by the government.

[John317]

The Cold War was fought over whether America would have a capitalist/democratic system or a communist/socialist system. We won that war, but now it seems we are about to lose it because the issues are not as clear as they once were. It reminds me of how a person takes down his guard when he gets used to being close to his enemy. Sleep next to a snake for a while and you begin to think the snake doesn't bite.

Americans want free enterprise, private property, and capitalism where individuals are free to make their own choices and don't have the government telling them what to do. We don't want the government to own the means of production. We want them owned and operated by private American citizens.

Most Americans would rather be dirt poor than having the government making their decisions for them. At least that is how it has been up until now. It may be changing as our population changes due to immigration.

We don't tell the government that if it gives us money, security, and services, it can take away our money and our rights to be free.

American indians didn't like that exchange either. The whites basically told them that we would provide them with meat, blankets, and a place to live, so they would no longer have to hunt buffalo or raid their neighbors. When they said no, we forced them at the point of a gun. They wanted to be free rather than accept hand-outs. Socialist governments do somewhat the same thing: they are willing to give you what they think you need, but in exchange they demand the right tell you how to live, what to teach your children, etc.

[Stan]

Socialism has been said to rob the rich to give to the poor

Capitalism has been said to rob the poor to give to the rich

[fccool]

Most Americans would rather be dirt poor than having the government making their decisions for them. At least that is how it has been up until now. It may be changing as our population changes due to immigration.

We don't tell the government that if it gives us money, security, and services, it can take away our money and our rights to be free.

Too late. Right now the US government gobbles up nearly 55% of national income. If you count debt... much much more. The decisions were already made on your behalf, while people were enjoying the pleasures of "buy now pay later" economic order. The day of reckoning is upon us :)

[Gail]

As was noted here before, socialism and communism are not the same. Somehow I feel that you are combining the two.

There are a lot of parents that don't agree also with what is being taught in the public school system. You STILL have to put up with things you don't like in your education system. Whether your systems are instituted through a majority vote or an authoritative power such as government, there will always be something that rubs someone the wrong way.

But personally I feel that on this earth there will ALWAYS be glitches to whatever system man thinks up. The downfall is the sinful nature of man. It provides the chinks to an otherwise bright ideology. It will always be so until Jesus comes.

[fccool]

Gail, but you don't have to. You can always homeschool.

[Gail]

Here in BC, I can freely homeschool! But I'm not sure that it is so easily done in other areas.

My point is, even in the place where freedoms are proclaimed, one still has to deal with 1) the majority vote or 2) whatever the government you voted in gives you.

Inwardly I doubt that any system is foolproof, for the reason I gave above. But it doesn't mean that people can't be content in say, a socialist system.

Even communism can sound good on paper. But look what happened in the practise of it. My point is that it's the selfish, sinful nature of man's heart that thwarts any earthly ideology.

[John317]

It's true that free public education is part of the socialist agenda. But that does not mean that public education itself is necessarily socialist. Socialists don't simply want to educate the community; they want to educate it so that people think in ways that socialists agree with. For one thing, socialists want people to be educated to accept evolutionary theory as fact. They also want to rule out any belief that homosexuality is wrong. They would eventually pass laws that prohibit certain religious freedoms, such as the preaching or teaching against the homosexual lifestyle.

Providing free public education from first to 12th grade is part of the objective of all modern states, including those which have capitalistic economies. The concept and the practice go back in U.S. history to the 1780s, before the beginning of modern socialist theory.

The only similarity between socialism and the public school system is that the community takes upon itself the right and responsibility to fulfill the basic educational needs of all of its citizens. Under a capitalist system, the public schools are organized differently and are controlled locally more than they would be under a socialist system. The public schools are primarily run by the individual states and counties. Under socialism, we could expect the city and county governments would lose control to a centralized government.

[Dr. Shane]

Certain parts of society can be socialist while other part remain capitalist. As already mentioned, public school is socialist education. Our military and police is also a socialist form of defense. We may choose to have our health-care become socialist. That doesn't mean there will no longer be private health-care in the US. We still have private schools and private security forces.