Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Everyday Socialism

IMO it is highly problematical to even begin to discuss the topic.

As the case with many other discussions of this type, most often people are talking about entirely different things. Terms of discussion are ill defined, and the imputed meaning even shifts during the discussion,

in all of this there is the hidden assumption that concepts have some sort of solid fixed reality.... that there is some sort of defined fixed reality to socialism in the same way there would be if we were talking about the golden gate bridge.

The discussions also take on a sort of binary assumption.... that either you are a socialist or you are not. when in reality every nation in the world has fixed upon some sort of customized hybrid that incorporates various elements of free markets and socialism.

At a base level, living in a family unit incorporates some elements of socialism, Living in a village, city, state, or nation inherently incorporate more socialistic components. And should one care to consider it, many aspects of the early christian church were socialistic in nature

Taken to it's extreme, socialism implies some sort of kibbutz/cooperative arrangement where there is minimal private ownership of much of anything. Most people feel repelled by this structure, but for some people it has worked ok.

Bottom line, the gathering together if "we the people" has some unavoidable socialistic characteristics, Even dear departed Iss finally signed on to the idea that there needs to be some sort of social safety net, Saint Ronald Reagan never mounted a serious challenge to Social Security. George Bush added drug coverage to medicare. And for all the shouting, some version of Obamacare will almost certainly endure.

Labels like Fascist, Socialist, racist, genocide, etc, are more useful to produce an abhorrent reaction than to discuss any substantive debate.