What you are not taking into account though is that historically spearing, the right in the USA is the one that pathologically ignores that others models were being proposed than actual socialism, and it did not matter then or now:
That is not clear to me. If I post a quote from you and then go on to use that to make some points you not only don’t agree with by never used, that’s all good with you, right? :dubious: I’m thinking the word ‘strawman’ would be the nicest thing you’d say about that. 
Basically, I don’t have an issue with people criticizing my posts for what they say. We all don’t agree on…well, most anything. But don’t use my posts to attack points I don’t and haven’t made. Seems reasonable to me, though YMMV…probably based on who’s gore is getting oxed.
I’m probably not taking that into account because I’m not part of the right and, frankly, don’t give a flying fuck what idiotic mistakes they have made wrt the definition in the past. The fact that both sides seemingly don’t have a clue what the actual definition is certainly is telling, and funny (to me anyway), but seems to miss the point. Basically, IMHO and all, if Dems want to talk about using the Nordic model, they should say that. If they want to talk about advocating this or that social program, then they should say that. They shouldn’t associate themselves with socialism (which is different than being a social democrat btw) in any way, shape or form…especially if they don’t even understand that that means wrt political or economic socialism. I’m unsure why anyone would WANT to associate themselves with that ridiculous and failed system at this point. Instead, point to the Nordic model, which is a VERY successful system…a capitalist system that also addresses those countries needs for social PROGRAMS that their citizens want.
Why this always has to be so hard is a mystery to me…
You do claim that you are not a conservative, and yet it seems that you do like to think the conservative ox deserves more deferential treatment. It is clear that conservatives in government are the ones that not only are lying to the American public, but they also do lie about even the definitions they use when discussion an issue like health care when they also do straw man and disparage people that do want America to do better.
The real mystery is why one needs to fall for false equivalencies when history shows that the narrative from the conservatives is to fall by default for the socialism accusation, when I have seen many Democrats point at Europe or Canada many times during the endless discussions about the ACA and other health care issues.
Your first paragraph in the post I originally quoted is directly relevant to what I said in my post, which followed organically therefrom. As already noted, I did not directly attribute any views to you, nor did I specifically “attack” anything you said. If your automatic assumption is that discourse must be both Manichaean and adversarial in tone (and your subsequent replies suggest that it is), that is not in any way a failing on my part.
I made my post in good faith. If you prefer to continue to respond in high dudgeon and snide insinuation rather than addressing what I actually said, that’s entirely down to you. If you would like to discuss what socialism is or isn’t, however, we can do that too.
No oxen have been gored in the making of this post.
No, on this board there are few conservatives to argue with. The majority of folks who respond (and attack) me are progressives or liberals, so that’s who I generally argue with.
If you like, however, I’ll say that conservatives who claim the Nordic model or the Western European nations in general (lumping Canada and whoever else they claim in there as well) are socialist are simply wrong, and have been since the early 70’s. I think that some of them know they are wrong (just like I suspect that some of the folks who argue with me on this from the other side actually realize they are wrong too), or are deliberately being misleading (same) but do so anyway because of popular mis-perception of the term. They get more of a response because people don’t really understand the differences. And ‘socialism’ is this big boogie man in the US…rightfully, if we are talking about ACTUAL socialism. But the Nordic model is dismissed by conservatives by fiat using the label ‘socialism’ to do so…putting all of that baggage on it. And that’s wrong. Stupidly wrong. There are arguments against the Nordic model when you try and scale it up to something the size and political and ethnic diversity of the US (I still, btw, think we could use lots of it here), but they dont’ make those…they try and ‘win’ the argument by simply labeling it all ‘socialism’. I’d be happy to debate this with conservatives, but there might be one post on this thread or in past threads that makes this ridiculous contention, and what fun would that be for me?
Well, you do seem to be happy now… 
But then again, more than one conservative has posted here… so, why is it that I do not see much “fun” directed at them, or the ones in power for that matter?
What was the point in associating my post with wrongful conservative thinking on socialism? If you wanted to say those things you didn’t need to quote me.
I’m happy to debate what socialism is or isn’t, though I’ve pretty much done that in myriad threads in the past. If you want to look up (or have me do so) why the Nordic model ISN’T socialism, or what the countries in that model think about Americans (conservative OR liberal/progressive) who think they are ‘socialist’ it’s easy enough to do. As a spoiler, they think it’s pretty funny as well as being wrong, and think we still look at them from the lens of how they were in the 70’s wrt them being socialist. They have moved on from that long ago and they think they have a better system today…a vibrant capitalist system that is fully democratic and uses social programs.
America is different, better in most ways, worse in others.
For example the US government spends more money on healthcare per capita than Canada and yet only covers half the population. Advocates of UHC would have us believe that the US government has not really been trying this whole time, and as soon as they take over the other half of the the healthcare market they will suddenly be as good as the Canadians at cost control.
Obamacare had 10 programs designed to decrease the cost of healthcare. They all failed. The Democrat controlled house just voted to repeal the Cadillac tax which is one of the few attempts to rein in healthcare costs still standing.
It seems that the best hope for America to control healthcare spending via the government would be to switch to a parliamentary system and have started 60 years ago.
Those aren’t socialism either. Or, to put this another way, which aspects of US healthcare (or European healthcare), specially, are ‘socialist’? I’m going to go with none of them, since ACTUAL socialist healthcare isn’t at all what people think. Here is a hint though…check out China’s healthcare system, or the system the Soviet Union had to see what it is.
This is mainly because our system is broken. Basically, our system sort of straddles the line between private healthcare and public healthcare, using the very worst aspects of both. That’s because our system evolved in our political system, where changes might and were made by one political faction, only to be changed or altered or, in many cases starved by the next one…only to be revised again by the next one, and changed or altered again by the next one. It’s an organic system that sort of grew along with our political system through different eras. At this point, it doesn’t even vaguely resemble either what it originally was or what any of the folks who have altered it in the past meant for it to be. It’s also a system that people in the US are used to and have been for all their lives…hell, all their parents lives and in some cases their parents lives too.
There are some very strange and fucked up reasons why the costs are what they are…and those are mainly down to old rules, regulations, how our ridiculous insurance works and basically arbitrary and conflicting pricing that is more to ‘fix’ how insurance companies billed in the past. It’s a broken system. And it has zero to do with socialism.
You are conflating several things here. True, Europe as a whole and the Nordic countries specifically don’t pay as much for their military as we do. And certainly that gives them bigger budgets to do social programs, knowing the US has their back. However, the US could implement similar programs, especially wrt healthcare. Our healthcare costs a lot more than anyone else in the world, and a lot of that comes down to how dysfunctional it is because of all of that historic baggage. We could streamline the system and have a much better, more comprehensive system that costs no more (and probably less) than we currently pay, but we can’t all agree on how to do that. And, of course, you have vested interests who don’t want any sort of large scale change. In any change, there will be winners and losers, and the losers kind of know who they are and don’t want to lose.
I don’t think 85+% of our citizens ARE happy with the current system…it’s just that it’s the only system they know, and they fear what they don’t know or just basic change. But our system is broken and change IS coming, one way or another. As to R&D costs, I don’t think that would necessarily change if we went to a single payer system of some kind. I think American healthcare would STILL be the most expensive on the planet…but, damn, wouldn’t it be good to get everything we are paying for??
Regardless, none of this has anything to do with socialism.
This is just a long way of saying that America isn’t capable of doing something that many other countries are doing right now. Too bad you don’t have more confidence in your country. Maybe we could actually accomplish some great things if conservatives actually believed in America.
Honest question: do the people in charge of the current healthcare system resemble this remark in any way? Because as far as I see it, this is what you already have except it’s not centralized.
BECAUSE WHAT YOU SAID REMINDED ME OF THE THING I THEN SAID.
As I said.
Scylla,
The murders you reference result from centralized power in the political system, not economic policy. Our Capitalist system killed lots of it’s citizens to appropriate the property of the native population and to put down the southern insurrection. And it liberally killed others during it’s imperialist expansion into the Central America, the Philippines and the middle east. The socialist economy in Russia completed the emancipation of the serfs, raised literacy from 16% to 95%, industrialized the country, defeated the Nazis and put the first satellite and man in space.
The emerging problem for the US is Centralization. First the growing concentration of power away from the legislative and judicial branches toward the executive. And second the growing centralization of large industries.
So AFAIK, nearly every other modern industrialized nation implements a form of universal health care. While there are variations from country to country, and non of them are perfect, it’s my impression that they are functional on a level comparable and often exceeding the health care system in the US.
So what I’m asking is, why do conservatives feel that a health care system funded at the national level will “turn us all into slaves” any more than any other nationally funded infrastructure like, I don’t know, the interstate highway system, Medicare, Medicade, Social Security, NASA, Amtrak or the United States Armed Forces?
Nationalized infrastructure and social safety nets are not “socialism”. Or at worst, it is a form of benign “socialism” practiced by nations like Canada and much of Europe. Again, hardly “perfect” but not Venezuela or Soviet Russia.
Scaremongery socialism and communism is really a form of centralized totalitarian government where a single party controls the “means of production” by nationalizing major industry sectors. They typically fail economically because control over these assets are generally based on political favor, not merit and they are usually run in a way to enrich those who control them, not based on free-market forces.
We’re actually pretty capable of doing good things, even good big things. But we have tens of millions of voters who are convinced that our government is destined to be inept and they keep voting for politicians who are committed to fulfilling that prophecy.
Yes. “Government is the problem! Government can’t work! Vote for us so we can prove it to you by making sure it doesn’t work”. And people keep falling for that over and over.
See, this is the sort of thing that really drives home the miscomprehension of what is or isn’t socialism, what is or isn’t capitalism. On the one hand, you are glossing over the totalitarian aspects of socialism systems (I note you didn’t mention China in any of this), while putting the full death toll in the Americans squarely on the US and on capitalism…despite the fact that capitalism isn’t even a political system. Then you gloss over all of the really nasty aspects of socialist economics (while either intentionally misleading about the ‘emancipation of the serfs’ in Russia or you really don’t know that millions of them starved to death or were shot…true, they died emancipated, but not sure how great that was for them) by hitting only the highest of the high points.
Socialist economic systems don’t work. They have never worked. Pointing out the fact that the Soviets had a space program and managed to industrialize (over the bodies and health of their citizens) does not demonstrate that it ever worked…it actually makes the case that, despite socialism they MADE it work. Out of the barrel of a gun. And it glosses over the fact that it’s dead and gone now. It also glosses over the fact that, today, most countries have abandoned it completely, and even those who still have it to one extent or another use a hybrid…and it’s the socialist parts that are holding them back (I’m thinking of China here). Capitalism, for all it’s flaws is still the best economic system in history. It works. But to soften it, we need social PROGRAMS. This doesn’t make the system socialist, however…it is still a capitalist system with air bags and safety belts, to the extent the individual society implementing it desires those things. The very few countries who are still whole hog on socialism are the most dysfunctional on the planet currently…Venezuela and North Korea being the best examples of systems that are almost completely 100% economic and political socialism.
Do you think it would help if I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers, and chanted “I think we can”?