I guess I hang out in True Red Virginia then. And among a lot of rich people, gated community, country club, other execs at my company, etc.
You know, the backbone of this country!
:rolleyes: Of course you can, or vice-versa, and without being in any way irrational. I know most committed libertarians and socialists both assume their way is the best way for every society at all times, but it ain’t necessarily so. System/ideology X might be the best thing for a country at one time in its history and system/ideology Y might be the best thing for the country at a later time; and still later, the best thing might be to give another turn to system/ideology X – or, perhaps, system/ideology Z, something we don’t even have name for yet because the conditions for it don’t exist yet.
True, when dealing with liberals, one must be exact; they generally can’t connect the dots. For example: Look at this ridiculous *socialism *strawmen discussion you keep trying to have with me.
I use the word as a shortcut describing greater government control (through higher taxes, spending and regulation). With capitalism the opposite. That’s it.
And this is meant to impress me? Or even to convince me it isn’t a phrase that originated amongst the dribbling insane as they masterbated across their copies of Atlas Shrugged?
Oddly enough, in normal conversation (you know, outside of those rich guys in monocles and top hats at the country club lighting cigars with $100 bills), you don’t just get to redefine words to mean what you want them to. It leaves you open to people thinking you don’t know what you are talking about.
Is this metaphor drawn from the biology of some other planet where the “backbone” of a vertebrate-analogue is actually a parasitic organism?
Here’s the problem: that’s not what socialism means, and you used the word incorrectly. You used it the way a Republican candidate for office would use it (as a proxy for ‘Democrat’), but it doesn’t have very much to do with what socialism is. That’s why your meaning was not understood. Do a better job picking your words and we won’t have this problem.
I think that use is unhelpful. Most of the time we are concerned more with what government accomplishes rather than how big its tax base is, unless we are ideologues concerned only with government’s apparent size.
In fact, a small government with little regulation can have a high tax base, because it’s subsidizing much of the private sector. Kind of like the USA today. Government mostly regulates government, not private industry. But it subsidizes private citizens with most of its money. So it looks like government is really big, but it’s actually very limited in many ways (not that that’s any consolation to those interned as undesirable minorities in California’s prison system).
Vegetarians?
Oh the irony.
With our electoral system it’s impossible. A margin of a few percent the popular vote cannot be a “massive revolt”.
If the House is the teacup and the Senate is the saucer in which the heated arguments cool, then the electorate is the table over which spilled tea spreads and eventually drips of the edge.
Good Lord. :rolleyes: Fine. Don’t call it socialism then. I find it a useful term representing the end of the scale on the ‘liberal’ side. I don’t know what word we’d use for the extreme capitalism side… whatever Hong Kong used to be I guess.
You can use a different word for extreme liberalism… Universal-Clove-Cigarettes-and-Mandatory-Prius-Ownership?
Personally, I think it’s useful to think of the previous examples: Britian and France, once world powers, get more socia… liberal… and are trainwrecks (fiscally) now. Most American states in good fiscal shape are conservative, most in dire straights are liberal. It can’t all be coincidence, can it?
Again, one way on the way up, another on the way down. Now, did the liberal, share-the-wealth policies sap initiative of the masses and cause the slow-motion meltdowns? Or did the meltdown spawn the liberalism as the politicians saw an opportunity to engage in a populist/class warfare strategy, create a permanent underclass/constituency and stay in office?
That would be a discussion worth having, instead of the silly labels one, if anyone here is intellectually honest.
I’m sure you saw the state-by-state legislative results, right? Republicans scored a near record-breaking string of victories at the state level, across the country.And You don’t think most of this was fueled by anger about ObamaCare?
History shows that much. It appears to me that voters have learned their lesson this time, but who am I but a random forum poster? I guess the legions of protestors out there screaming “enough!” just weren’t loud enough, nor were their votes. (scratching head here…)
Fine. I’m sorry I implied everyone else isn’t patriotic. I’ll try to be less inflammatory. Please don’t beat me for slipping up. 
Quite the reverse. With our winner-take-all, single-member-district system for electing Congess (including the Senate, each state being in effect a single district), a margin of a few percent or less of the popular vote can be a “massive revolt.” I read once, don’t have a cite handy at the moment, that in the 1994 “Republican Revolution,” Pub candidates’ aggregate national vote total exceed that of Dem candidates by only one-half of one percent.
I’m sure the decline of the British and French as world powers has absolutely nothing to do with their full participation in the two bloodiest conflicts in history, oddly enough in the half century preceeding their decline from status as world powers, and instead everything to do with getting more “liberal” which, if you had the first idea what liberal meant, you wouldn’t use in this situation either.
Wait… are you suggesting that America’s government is small? Most people in this country would disagree.
A blog here suggest that Government expenditures as a percentage of GDP, which is not a bad proxy for government size, is 40% in this country. That puts us as the 70th largest, in the top half. And that was 2 years ago, when our government spending was a hell of a lot less.
I wouldn’t call it small, especially as it relates to recent history.
Which begs the question, were they in decline before WWII? Or has it all happened since then?
PS I’m using liberal the way I think the OP meant it. If you mean libertarian, sort of, that’s a different discussion.
:dubious: Certainly not. What ever made you think so? For one thing, Americans who do not think the healthcare package goes far enough outnumber opponents 2-1.
Of course they were. They were both shattered by the Great War.
And I simply don’t think you have sufficient grasp on political theory to be in any way comfortable of how you use any term regarding politics, be it socialism or liberalism.
Well OK then, by your math then Japan should never have risen post WWII? or Germany? Surely they were both hammered as much or more than Britian and France, yet both rose to economic prowess under capitalistic systems (until very recently I guess).