Okay, so it's not technically "socialism", but what is it?

Forced charity.

 

It's called social democracy. It's a transitional state between capitalism and socialism where a society is progressively transformed over time.

Here is the wiki definition for what it's worth.

Go ahead and call a social democrat a socialist. Socialism is the end result of social democracy, so it is technically correct to call them socialists.

 

jhffmn,
Thanks very much for that response. It's actually helpful!
-Slashy

 

That's the difference. A social democrat has socialism as a goal. Democrats (or whatever word we want to use to include the people we're talking about) do not. It might seem to some that they do, but having lived in countries way more left than the US, I can say that most of those wouldn't know socialism if it sat on their noses.

 

they are not socialist they are the balance between socialism and capitalism there is no transition.

balance is important in any nation and socal democracy is not the extreme of either, the US presently is the example of extreme capitalism and the USSR and nazi germany were the extreme of socialism

however the proper balance can be seen today in germany because they learned from their mistakes and found a way to balance socialism and capitalism, they are neo liberals

 

You call it living in reality, the righties are just wordsmiths

 

The direction is the same if the path is a bit longer. Socialism is far enough away that they might not think of that as a goal, but if left unchecked democrats would take us there eventually. A socialist is a socialist to me.

 

It's fascism. The right wants it too. Big Government and Big Spending, whether it's for social programs or the military, the left and right want the same thing... a bigger government.

 

I agree with you on the goal of both parties, but "fascism" isn't an accurate word for it either.

 

Fascism is exactly the right term. The state controls the means of production through regulation.

 

Yes but fascism isn't purely economic and one part is tho eradicate class. And the western societies are on track to becoming class based society.

What get's me most is that capitalism doesn't exclude a Welfare state, the wish for Welfare programs and regulation in some areas, does not exclude the possibly of privately owned production. The western world never employed pure capitalism there were always certain regulations on markets and state owned or controlled sectors. Our societies differ solely on how much regulations and taxation there is.

Capitalism as a theory needs some State regulation to function as a western democracy, where one goal is to create decent living conditions for the vast majority of people. Capitalism leads to accumulation of wealth, and because wealth equals power, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. So there is need to counteract these trends. If you achieve it through voluntary charity or state forced welfare is not important. There just has to be a mechanism that ensures a stable and strong middle class.

 

You mean the left doesn't do the same thing? So when they left says requiring a photo ID to vote is "racist" isn't putting a label on things they don't personally agree with?

Interesting how a liberal mind works really?

 

If Obama has already shown that he loves socialist policies, and just claimed he is a nationalist, does that mean he is a national socialist?

 

He's probably more accepting of Jews than most Christian "right wingers" are, if you're going with the Hitler/Nazi comments.

Obama is a fascist and I'm totally against him, but I don't like unnecessary (*)(*)(*)(*)-throwing which is why I make responses like this.

 

It was a joke, and really had nothing to do with the way he has treated Israel or tald trash behind their backs.

 

I don't know many details about governments or their particular actions and I wouldn't care if it didn't affect me, but in any case I doubt it was that man in particular that is pulling strings controlling the puppets. He is the actor/puppet I suspect.

 

Yes and there is a new bill they can throw you in jail and accuse you of terrorism and they do not have to show proof

 

What don't they believe in? May be class warfare that Obama preaches every week. Maybe wealth redistribution Obama preaches every week

 

I think that drRighteous explained accurately what is socialism.

And in this topic you can take a view in the wikipedia. Is really good his explanation about socialism,....

 

Yes the liberals are known for that

 

It is a form of socialism leading to full blown socialism.

 

I think that comment was not going in that way...

 

Just stating facts

 

It's a lot longer.

Take Sweden for instance. Our political climate is far left of the American. There are some funny stories about Swedish right-wing politicians who Americans think are communists, and if you read the party program of our right wing party (the New Workers Party), you'd see that they are way left of your Democrats.

However, we are still far away from socialism, and nobody with any political credibility would even think of considering some of the things you accuse the Democrats of. Planned economy have the same political credibility in Sweden as it does in the US.

If what you're saying is true, that the left is a slippery slope past Sweden's current situation, then the situation we have in Sweden could not exist. You state that leaving democrats unchecked will lead to socialism, but not even leaving the Swedes unchecked does that.