# I'm ready for class war. Bring on the socialism! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 5, 2009, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044 "2009-04-05T09:11:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/41 "2009-04-06T03:57:48Z")
Most of the OP’s post was tounge in cheek so my answer will be in the same vein. Hey Mosier, you want all of that from me, come and try and get it!! Otherwise funny post. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/42 "2009-04-06T04:00:55Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > If it wasn’t clear that “Ayn Rand reading” referred to people who agree with her philosophy, I apologize. I’ve found that most of her critics haven’t read much of her work. Though her work is pretty tedious so I can understand why a lot of people haven’t slugged through it. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/43 "2009-04-06T04:00:59Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > It doesn’t work. Many countries (including my own) have doubled teachers’ salaries in a short period of time with little effect on education. > Pay increases should be tied to effectivenss, tenure (or wahtever it’s called in schools) should not exist as an indefinite blank check; choice-choice-coice, increase the social status of teaching, make people WANT to be teachers. A paycheck is a pretty big incentive to performance. Giving existing teachers massive pay raises obviously won’t work- because they haven’t necessarily earned them. Offering high wages to potential teachers will attract the professionals that would otherwise find (better paying) work in the private sector. I want to do my job for two reasons- I love it, and I get paid a lot to do it. If I didn’t get paid a lot to do it, I’d find some other job- at the end of the day, I want to make money. We can’t expect good teachers if we’re not willing to pay them a good salary. Make people want the teaching positions by making teaching the pinnacle of their professions. The best people know that teaching isn’t where they are best rewarded for their experience. Teaching shouldn’t be what people do if they can’t get jobs elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/44 "2009-04-06T04:12:36Z")
> [@Monster104](#): > > Throwing hundreds of billions of dollars into the bottomless pit that is our Public Education system wouldn’t solve a damn thing, only effective reforms will. And with some good reforms…public education wouldn’t need anywhere near that much money. > > Healthcare isn’t the only system broken in the U.S. I am so sick of hearing this. There is no US public education system, only a bunch of neighborhood schools with no consistent management. Even within a school district, one school may be run completely differently than another. We actually have very good public schools in this country, as well as terribly incompetent ones. What we don’t have is a unified system. ---
**Author:** ![Monster104](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Monster104](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monster104)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/45 "2009-04-06T04:18:28Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I am so sick of hearing this. There is no US public education system, only a bunch of neighborhood schools with no consistent management. Even within a school district, one school may be run completely differently than another. We actually have very good public schools in this country, as well as terribly incompetent ones. What we don’t have is a unified system. I’m too lazy to type “what passes for a public education system in the U.S.”, or “the public education systems as implemented in the various states” each time someone proposes dumping even more money into the public education moneypit. I simply thought people would know what I meant, and I’m sure almost everyone who reads it will, so no need to be so pedantic. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/46 "2009-04-06T04:50:35Z")
A lot of us modern lefties find it hard to use words like “socialism” and “class warfare” with a straight face, they demand a certain ironic affection, like old relatives who sing Woody Guthrie songs and wear onions in their belts. They carry the aroma of heavy industry and coal mines, worker solidarity, Wobblies, Pinkertons…the not so good old days. Its not to say they don’t still have a useful meaning, they do, its just they’ve gotten to be a bit quaint, ownership of the “means of production” loses a lot of its snap when you produce software. But the movement toward economic justice and civil equality has been going on for a long, long time, long before Tom Paine was a gleam in Liberty’s eye. The circumstances and the vocabulary change, the direction remains the same: forward. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/47 "2009-04-06T06:33:56Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Democracy in action, most of these things will never happen. Some of them, curiously, already have. What you want only matters in terms of how many other voters want the same thing, and for many of your proposals I don’t think there is much chance of there being enough voter support in our lifetime. For some of them, in the lifetime of this country. We may eventually see guns banned but we’ll never see a 90% reduction in defense spending. We have seen drastic military expense cuts in lots of places that took less than a decade to implement. We’re spending nearly as much of our money now as we were during the cold war, when there’s nobody even left to fight. What’s the problem with reducing defense spending from “astronomical crippling overkill” to “adequate for defense?” ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/48 "2009-04-06T06:55:18Z")
> [@Monster104](#): > > Throwing hundreds of billions of dollars into the bottomless pit that is our Public Education system wouldn’t solve a damn thing, only effective reforms will. And with some good reforms…public education wouldn’t need anywhere near that much money. > > Healthcare isn’t the only system broken in the U.S. Places that spend more money per student on education perform better than places that spend less. See table 5 on this [NEA chart.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=11008345) Rounding out the bottom half of the funding-per-student chart are places like South Carolina, Missouri, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, where students are less likely to graduate high school, less likely to attend colleges and universities, and less likely to get an advanced degree. Compare that to the top states, like Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, New York, which spend more on education per student, and where students are much more likely to be successful academically. Forbes magazine had an article attempting to debunk the idea that throwing money at schools is the wrong way to fix them. In the article, they took two school districts that were statistical anomalies at opposite ends of the funding-per-academic-success spectrum, and implied that this comparison proved money doesn’t help schools. The Forbes article then went on to chastise schools for cheating to get higher results on their survey (implying that only the highly-funded under-performing schools did it) and ended the article with some nonsense like “if schools spent as much time trying to improve education as they did trying to cheat our survey, everything would fix itself.” You didn’t happen to read that bullshit and take it to heart, did you? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/49 "2009-04-06T07:14:35Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > We have seen drastic military expense cuts in lots of places that took less than a decade to implement. We’re spending nearly as much of our money now as we were during the cold war, when there’s nobody even left to fight. What’s the problem with reducing defense spending from “astronomical crippling overkill” to “adequate for defense?” I’m not really interested in debating a socialist political platform from top to bottom. I was simply noting that based on my perception of America’s political history I don’t think you’ll ever have the votes or the influence to get certain measures implemented. A 90% reduction in defense spending being one of the big ones, others I don’t care to predict one way or another and others I think have already been implemented so I don’t see a need to debate them. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/50 "2009-04-06T07:24:22Z")
Things I don’t expect to happen in the next 100 years: > [@](#): > > If you did not earn your money, I want the government to take it from you. This includes everyone whose parents bought their university acceptance slips, anyone who inherited a bunch of money, anyone who gouged the price of a commodity, almost everyone who got rich through a lawsuit, ambulance chasing lawyers, and a million fat corporate executives. > > I want to take away your guns. > > I want your religions to lose any government protection. > > I want every government restriction on unions gone. > > I want the size of the military budget reduced to less than 10% of what it is now. I want mandatory impeachment for any president who wants to invade another country, where he states under oath exactly what his reasons are for the invasion. If investigation finds these reasons to be untrue, the president should go to jail. You better be damned sure of your intelligence reports and motivations before you send a bunch of 19 year old kids to die, and kill a bunch of civilians. > > I want all recreational drugs legalized, and regulated by the FDA. Let medical experts decide whether a substance is too dangerous to consume, instead of politicians and churches. > > I want the USA to disarm its nuclear arsenal first. All of it, without any conditions. > > I want nuclear power plants everywhere. > > I want nationally accredited private schools gone. > > I want any executive who accepts a performance bonus from a failing company that laid off workers to go to jail. Many of these are so contrary to mainstream political positions that I can’t see them being implemented for a significant period of time, I chose 100 years as a nice round number. Several would quite clearly require a constitutional amendment and we know how hard those are to pass. I expect the following to happen in my lifetime (I expect to live 22 more years): > [@](#): > > I want gays to marry. The following are impossible, and thus will never happen: > [@](#): > > I want free health care. > > I want free college tuition everywhere, where your acceptance to a particular school is based only on your academic qualifications. No service or commodity is free, period. “No up front cost to the end user” is not equivalent to free. As for the pony comment, that isn’t meaningful. Ponies are relatively cheap, if you really wanted one you could get one, but you have absolute say in whether or not you get one so saying any of these things is more likely than you getting a pony is meaningless. If you really wanted a pony you could have one, if not, then you’ll never have one and many of these things are more likely than “never.” > [@](#): > > I want any kind of government censorship abolished. This will never happen, we live in one of the most uncensored (if not the most) in the world. But the censorship that remains will likely never go away (for example prohibitions on yelling fire in a crowded theater.) If we’re willing to let people publish stolen national security documents and schematics for building nuclear weapons then I don’t really think there’s any real government censorship in this country. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/51 "2009-04-06T07:35:51Z")
I have nothing but good news for you!! I am reasonably sure the travel restrictions on Cuba will be relaxed. You will be able to visit Paradise quite soon. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/52 "2009-04-06T08:31:03Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I have nothing but good news for you!! > > I am reasonably sure the travel restrictions on Cuba will be relaxed. You will be able to visit Paradise quite soon. Yeah, because taking power from the 1% of the population that controls more than 50% of the wealth is basically inviting a dictator. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/53 "2009-04-06T11:46:52Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Places that spend more money per student on education perform better than places that spend less. See table 5 on this [NEA chart.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=11008345) There are a couple of problems with this.[ul][li]Your link doesn’t go to any charts [_]The NEA’s word for it is not necessarily the last one on the topic [_]The assertion the broken link to a biased cite is supposed to establish is wrong.[/ul] Try [this one](http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/011747.html). Note that among the top three spenders is that well-known high achiever the DC school district. Or [this](http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/03/08/27report_web3.h25.html), or [this](http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/22332/2007_NAEP_Scores_Show_Spending_Increases_Havent_Produced_Results.html).[/li] Or [this](http://www.schoolchoiceva.com/2009/02/alec-state-education-rankings-released-for-15th-straight-year-again-show-spending-does-not-correlate-with-student-results/) - > [@](#): > > State education rankings released for 15th straight year, again show spending does not correlate with student results. As for the rest of the suggestions in the OP, well, [been there, done that](http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/pol-pot.htm). Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/54 "2009-04-06T12:14:37Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Yeah, because taking power from the 1% of the population that controls more than 50% of the wealth is basically inviting a dictator. At issue, of course, is why there is any wealth at all to control. It’s a lovely thought to share all the wealth, but so far most attempts at “sharing” end up sharing poverty, and cutting off the wealth engine. The problem is not so much who is governing–the polloi v dictators–as whether or not any wealth is being created. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/55 "2009-04-06T12:26:02Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > There are a couple of problems with this.[ul][li]Your link doesn’t go to any charts [_]The NEA’s word for it is not necessarily the last one on the topic [_]The assertion the broken link to a biased cite is supposed to establish is wrong.[/ul] Try [this one](http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/011747.html). Note that among the top three spenders is that well-known high achiever the DC school district. Or [this](http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/03/08/27report_web3.h25.html), or [this](http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/22332/2007_NAEP_Scores_Show_Spending_Increases_Havent_Produced_Results.html).[/li] > Or [this](http://www.schoolchoiceva.com/2009/02/alec-state-education-rankings-released-for-15th-straight-year-again-show-spending-does-not-correlate-with-student-results/) - As near as I can tell, every one of your links says basically the same thing- funding for education has increased nationwide over the past twenty or so years, and student test performance has decreased. This does not necessarily mean that spending more money per student results in lower test results, as there are many other factors which might have affected those results in the last couple of decades. The only link which doesn’t claim this is your last link, which instead ultimately points to a .pdf file which I’ve been unable to view. I’d be very curious to see two similar school districts which are then given different levels of funding- to attempt to remove any outside influences such as initial funding, student makeup, and regional differences. Let’s put it this way- what is more likely, in your opinion, to increase test scores? 1. Decrease educational funding 2. Maintain the current level of educational funding 3. Increase educational funding If you say anything other than #3, can you suggest a mechanism for how spending more money per student _doesn’t_ actually help the student? Oh, and as for comparing the OP’s ideas to those of Pol Pot, can you point out where the OP suggested these sorts of things? > [@](#): > > All foreigners were thus expelled, embassies closed, and any foreign economic or medical assistance was refused. The use of foreign languages was banned. Newspapers and television stations were shut down, radios and bicycles confiscated, and mail and telephone usage curtailed. Money was forbidden. All businesses were shuttered, religion banned, education halted, health care eliminated, and parental authority revoked. Thus Cambodia was sealed off from the outside world. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/56 "2009-04-06T12:30:57Z")
Sure, why not? Make it so that the government can prevent people from taking jobs for less money than some arbitrary salary. You should only be able to rent your property to those most in need and for only the amount they are able to pay. Create elaborate regulations that make it nearly impossible for employers to fire employees, no matter how inompetant or unnecessary their position is. Employ a complex system of subsidies, tax breaks and bailouts so that no company or industry should have to suffer an economic downturn. Let the government decide which businesses should succeed or fail, because they can always do so more fairly and accurately than the free market. Give artificially high wages to schoolteachers, because there is no higher or more deserving purpose than being a liberal arts major employed in the education of our future mill, factory and call center workers. Heck, give everyone the same wage so that a GED makes as much as a Harvard Business School grad. Everyone should be paid to do what they want, regardless if there is a demand for it. In short, everyone should get compensated based on their need, not by how much they contribute. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/57 "2009-04-06T15:40:22Z")
Substituting absurdities for progressive programs does not make the progressives absurd, it simply makes you look unwilling to address the issues. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/58 "2009-04-06T16:54:43Z")
> [@Todderbob](#): > > Oh, and people shouldn’t be allowed to own guns, especially because the supreme court ruled that you [don’t have a right to be protected by the police.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales) That’s an interesting link. I guess, if the police are not required to provide protection (“To serve and protect”), then we don’t need police at all. Something like that rulling would be a really strong incentive to provide for my own protection - guns, mean dogs, etc. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/59 "2009-04-06T18:47:15Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Substituting absurdities for progressive programs does not make the progressives absurd, it simply makes you look unwilling to address the issues. So does mixing absurdities with progressive programs. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/60 "2009-04-06T19:11:04Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > Let’s put it this way- what is more likely, in your opinion, to increase test scores? > > 1. Decrease educational funding > 2. Maintain the current level of educational funding > 3. Increase educational funding None of the above. > [@](#): > > If you say anything other than #3, can you suggest a mechanism for how spending more money per student _doesn’t_ actually help the student? Sure - increase salaries for the current teachers and administrators. In fact, _any_ scenario in which the trouble is something other than a lack of funding will usually not improve by spending more on it. The fact is that the current approach of simply throwing money at it has not addressed the problems of education in the US. I fully realize that teachers’ unions would like to get more money for doing the same job - wouldn’t we all? But the assertion that it is impossible that more spending will not fix the problem is why government programs never go away. Large increases in spending foster large bureaucracies devoted to keeping that spending coming. Which is why the broken link was to an NEA chart purporting to show that all they need is even more money, and they will start doing better. Which they haven’t done over the last thirty years or so. But no doubt this time they will. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044.md?page=4)