Explaining Socialism to Republicans


Dkalban's avatar
Great Article:

I was talking recently with a new friend who I’m just getting to know. She tends to be somewhat conservative, while I lean more toward the progressive side.

When our conversation drifted to politics, somehow the dreaded word “socialism” came up. My friend seemed totally shocked when I said “All socialism isn’t bad”. She became very serious and replied “So you want to take money away from the rich and give to the poor?” I smiled and said “No, not at all. Why do you think socialism means taking money from the rich and giving to the poor?

“Well it is, isn’t it?” was her reply.

I explained to her that I rather liked something called Democratic Socialism, just as Senator Bernie Sanders, talk show host Thom Hartman, and many other people do. Democratic Socialism consists of a democratic form of government with a mix of socialism and capitalism. I proceeded to explain to her the actual meaning terms “democracy” and “socialism”.

Democracy is a form of government in which all citizens take part. It is government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Socialism is where we all put our resources together and work for the common good of us all and not just for our own benefit. In this sense, we are sharing the wealth within society.

Of course when people hear that term, “Share the wealth” they start screaming, “OMG you want to rob from the rich and give it all to the poor!” But that is NOT what Democratic Socialism means.

To a Democratic Socialist, sharing the wealth means pooling tax money together to design social programs that benefit ALL citizens of that country, city, state, etc.

The fire and police departments are both excellent examples of Democratic Socialism in America. Rather than leaving each individual responsible for protecting their own home from fire, everyone pools their money together, through taxes, to maintain a fire and police department. It’s operated under a non-profit status, and yes, your tax dollars pay for putting out other people’s fires. It would almost seem absurd to think of some corporation profiting from putting out fires. But it’s more efficient and far less expensive to have government run fire departments funded by tax dollars.

Similarly, public education is another social program in the USA. It benefits all of us to have a taxpayer supported, publicly run education system. Unfortunately, in America, the public education system ends with high school. Most of Europe now provides low cost or free college education for their citizens. This is because their citizens understand that an educated society is a safer, more productive and more prosperous society. Living in such a society, everyone benefits from public education.

When an American graduates from college, they usually hold burdensome debt in the form of student loans that may take 10 to even 30 years to pay off. Instead of being able to start a business or invest in their career, the college graduate has to send off monthly payments for years on end.

On the other hand, a new college graduate from a European country begins without the burdensome debt that an American is forced to take on. The young man or woman is freer to start up businesses, take an economic risk on a new venture, or invest more money in the economy, instead of spending their money paying off student loans to for-profit financial institutions. Of course this does not benefit wealthy corporations, but it does greatly benefit everyone in that society.

EXAMPLE American style capitalistic program for college: If you pay (average) $20,000 annually for four years of college, that will total $80,000 + interest for student loans. The interest you would owe could easily total or exceed the $80,000 you originally borrowed, which means your degree could cost in excess of $100,000.

EXAMPLE European style social program for college: Your college classes are paid for through government taxes. When you graduate from that college and begin your career, you also start paying an extra tax for fellow citizens to attend college.

Question - You might be thinking how is that fair? If you’re no longer attending college, why would you want to help everyone else pay for their college degree?

Answer - Every working citizen pays a tax that is equivalent to say, $20 monthly. If you work for 40 years and then retire, you will have paid $9,600 into the Social college program. So you could say that your degree ends up costing only $9,600. When everyone pools their money together and the program is non-profit, the price goes down tremendously. This allows you to keep more of your hard earned cash!

Health care is another example: If your employer does not provide health insurance, you must purchase a policy independently. The cost will be thousands of dollars annually, in addition to deductible and co-pays.

In Holland, an individual will pay around $35 monthly, period. Everyone pays into the system and this helps reduce the price for everyone, so they get to keep more of their hard earned cash.

In the United States we are told and frequently reminded that anything run by the government is bad and that everything should be operated by for-profit companies. Of course, with for-profit entities the cost to the consumer is much higher because they have corporate executives who expect compensation packages of tens of millions of dollars and shareholders who expect to be paid dividends, and so on.

This (and more) pushes up the price of everything, with much more money going to the already rich and powerful, which in turn, leaves the middle class with less spending money and creates greater class separation.

This economic framework makes it much more difficult for average Joes to ”lift themselves up by their bootstraps” and raise themselves to a higher economic standing.

So next time you hear the word “socialism” and “spreading the wealth” in the same breath, understand that this is a serious misconception.

Social programs require tax money and your taxes may be higher. But as you can see everyone benefits because other costs go down and, in the long run, you get to keep more of your hard earned cash!

Democratic Socialism does NOT mean taking from the rich and giving to the poor. It works to benefit everyone so the rich can no longer take advantage of the poor and middle class.

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Feel free to discuss. I hope it was enlightening
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nightchildmoonchild's avatar
Oh wait, nevermind. That was just an article, not you directly mentioning the public school system. Whoops!
nightchildmoonchild's avatar
I'm not knocking what you're trying to convey, but I just wanted to say that perhaps using the American public education as an example wasn't necessarily a correct choice. True, public education is prvoided from elementary through high school levels in the United States, but the quality of the curriculums and materials tends to range from average to sub par.

I'm not against the public school system; in fact, I hope it will continue on. Ending the public school system after such reform was put into bettering it during the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries would simply be a waste. All I'm saying is that the learning materials seriously need re-evaluation, which is odd, considering that quite a sizeable chunk of tax money in the United States goes to education. I would have thought that that amount of money would have solved the problem, but that just might be me being naïve.

As for college social programs, the United States actually did come close to having that at one point in history. The sixth president of the United States, John Quincey Adams, had wanted to create a national university in the United States, but the plan, sadly, never came to fruition.
delusionalHamster's avatar
Your view of the education in Europe is a bit rose-tinted, like a lot of American liberals tend to have...

For example, I live in a country in Europe. And we do have "free education", as in you don't have to pay tuition, but most schools still require you to buy your own study material, and such things. People still take student loans, they may not always be as big as the ones in the US, but there are still some people who end up in financial trouble after failing to find work after school and being unable to pay off their loans.
Debit's avatar
Just a thought: How about explain 'socialism' in the following manner?

Greetings, Mr. Repub! It appeals that you would like for me to explain what 'socialism' is. I am not going to overwhelm you with convoluted politico-economic words. Well, sir ...... your ass-cheeks belong to the government (nominally as representing public interests) and they will be distributed under government control. If you cause disruptive behavior, the government will savagely spank your ass-cheeks until they become as blushed as a pair of ripe tomatoes. :)
Debit's avatar
Hehe! Think of it this way. Over the years, Mr. Repub has been behaving, for all practical purposes, just like a spammer or a troll. So, might as well take his rants at their face value and respond to him accordingly.
Stealmeat's avatar
Thanks for this. I was trying to find a way to explain this to people when I tell them I believe in socialism :P
Debit's avatar
Explaining socialism to Republicans amounts to beating a dead horse. I would even go further and say that this amounts to beating three dead horses -- anything that goes against WIMIM & WIYIN capitalism is labeled as 'socialism', they still are having 'red scare' hangover, plus they do not even practice free-market capitalism.

WIMIM = What is mine is mine.
WIYIN = What is yours is negotiable.
Jeysie's avatar
Except when it comes to blame/mistakes. Then it's:

You are responsible for your actions.
You are also responsible for my actions.
Any attempt to hold me responsible for my actions is just you blaming others for your own failures even if it actually is the fault of others, namely, me.

(If I had a dime for every time I've been blamed for someone else's mistakes, then told some form of that third sentence when I point out I didn't make the mistakes, I'd be rich enough to get away from the damn motherfuckers doing it. And it happens to other liberals and poor people often enough.)
Debit's avatar
My train of thought: Since Mr. Repub has become excessively demanding out of proportion, do not bother with rationality, let alone humility.

If he insists on -- You are responsible for your actions.
You are also responsible for my actions.
Any attempt to hold me responsible for my actions is just you blaming others for your own failures even if it actually is the fault of others, namely, me
-- very well. So be it! ( :) )

STANDARD PUNITIVE ... *ahem* ... SCIENTIFIC PROCEDURE

1. Grab Mr. Repub's ass-cheeks.

2. Spread Mr. Repub's ass-cheeks. SPREAD them ARART until his anus (from here on, this will be referred as 'the rear exhaust') can be seen with your naked eyes.

3. Install an elongated object containing fuel-oxidizer mixture, such as diesel oil soaked into pellets of ammonium nitrate, into the rear exhaust. You may use fuel-oxidizer mixtures other than the one mentioned earlier, as long as the mixture in question performs redox reaction upon ignition.

4. Proceed to ignite the fuel-oxidizer mixture you have just installed.

5. Calculate the followings: The thrust-to-weight ratio of Mr. Repub, the trajectory of Mr. Repub, the aerodynamic drag due to Mr. Repub's shape and weight distribution, Mr. Repub's moment of inertia, and so on.

6. Additional area of research: Install Mr. Repub into the bomb bay of a strategic bomber. Upon approaching the target zone, release Mr. Repub. Measure Mr. Repub's CEP (circular error probable).
puddelbal's avatar
Shidaku's avatar
At first I thought this was a "how-to" sort of topic and my initial reaction was: "Wouldn't hitting someone that much cause brain damage?"
Dkalban's avatar
This is somewhat less violent :)
Shidaku's avatar
So...less fun. :-(
Dkalban's avatar
We should rise above violence

But feel free to print the article out and bash them with it :D
Shidaku's avatar
Yes, we should rise above violence. Violence is better when it's at waist-level or lower :-p
Dkalban's avatar
Ah

Well if you feel like you need to drive the point home....
blakk's avatar
all this shit is good on paper, but never work in real life
for example, you talking about US vs EU study programs, where EU government pays for you. BUT here`s the trick, when YOU PAY for your study, you know, that this is an INVESTMENT to your future, but in Europe more than half of students are studying just for the process of study, with no direct plans to use these knowledges in real life. So more than half of them, are sitting on government`s neck for 10-20 years for nothing in return....

and another point, European Socialism worked in 70-80ies because it was mainly for the citizens of the country, like Swedish socialism was working on Sweden`s "then" population, but as the level of immigration grew, and mostly fueled by non-swedish or non-western population, the system failed, now more and more hard working swedes are paying more and more taxes for the immigrants from Pakistan or Turkey...
blakk's avatar
I really liked one comment of "tea movment" member SHARE MY WORKING ATTITUDE, NOT MY WEALTH.... :)
as for the topic, Socialism IS NOT WORKING...period... just look at the Soviet Union history.
and it`s getting worse if you mix socialims with capitalism like Obama
Dkalban's avatar
You mean like the US Highway system

Or Public Libraries

Or Emergency Services