AOC is socialist. Is that bad?

By being subjected to wages that failed to equal the progressive increases in living costs over time, resulting in a gradual lowering of ability to keep pace with costs in life.

 

There is no compassion in perpetuating a master/slave scenario. NONE. It's the equivalent of bad parenting .. where it's easier to just let the whining kid have chocolate ice cream for breakfast, than do the hard yards of teaching better eating habits.

The very worst thing you can ever do to a certain kind of able bodied adult human, is make life easy for them. It's actually cruel. And not just cruel to them, it's also cruel to those who must fund this easy life. People who don't focus all their energies on avoidance of personal responsibility.

 

It doesn't matter whether it's 30mil, or 30k, they SHOULD NOT BE THERE.

 

Only if you do nothing about it. Ever heard the expression (derived from the observation of the natural world): 'adapt or perish'?

 

Under the Constitution, no. But GW Bush involved us in two very expensive wars, but failed to ask Congress for the funds to cover many of those new costs, leading the nation into deeper & deeper deficits. Obama INHERITED those deficits along with a broken economy when he entered office in January 2009. Republican like to blame Obama for the economic crisis from 2008, but he didn't cause it, and after 2010, the Republican House refused to work with him to fix it. Since the Reagan administration of the 1980s, the American economy has demonstrated again and again the fallacy of the Republican "trickle down" theory of economics. Yet, they are still solidly welded to it, and act as if it's the best thing since the discovery of chocolate. Every time a Republican gains the White House, our economy suffers, as it is now with the trade wars, and the expanding deficit. You don't have to be a professional economist to see that tax cuts for the wealthy never result in anything trickling down to the middle & lower classes except more misery.

 

Good point. Thanks.

 

Spending on federal cash transfer programs to low income families accounts for less than 5% of the national budget. Do you really think that has as big an impact on America's economy as your post alleges?

 

Free trade (which was a large contributor to the economic themes you refer to in your post, was a Republican idea, and something Republicans pushed relentlessly from Reagan onward until Trump. So don't blame the Democrats for something Republicans started & encouraged for decades. That's not only factually wrong, it's dishonest.

 

The problem with your "master/slave" point is you've reversed it from its reality. Under American capitalism, it's the wealthiest few who have abused the time & labor of the workers who make their businesses successful. They've created a new "master/slave" relationship here in America, where workers do the labor & struggle with the hardships of life, while the ultra-rich take in $-billions for personal & family high-end lifestyles & leisure. Corporate CEOs are among the worst offenders. Again, I'm not opposed to financial success or great wealth for someone. I'm against a few having it all, and the majority simply struggling to survive. I know & accept that there will always be a disparity between the richest and those that are poor, but the gap needs to shrink. It's too vast now. It so vast, it's immoral. That's why it must change.

 

If what you say were true, then there would be no hope for a diverse society to ever adopt social programs successfully. But the fact that we have already done so with Social Security, the military, a public school system, and mass transit in our largest cities, is a demonstration that WE CAN. Those opposing ANY good idea can always come up with lame reasons success will be impossible. It would benefit our nation and all Americans if time wasted on such deprecating actions could be focused on helping some of these good ideas become successful.

 

The conservative conclusion that everyone who isn't economically successful is either "stupid" or "lazy", or both, is insanely narrow, presumptive, negative, and completely wrong. But who can teach a closed mind anything?

 

People who live in squalor, eat survival foods, wear clothing given them or given to thrift stores for them, and have no health care for themselves or their loved ones, are either unemployed or underemployed, and make insufficient income to afford a lifestyle that is at least comfortable, are impoverished. And, there are millions of them out there. Most of us don't see them, and are unaware of them, because we live in areas they don't frequent. But that doesn't mean they don't exist. Many of them aren't the most exciting people to hang around. Many are uneducated, and harbor world views molded by frequent exposures to abuse by others around them. Most conservatives & many liberals regard them as "expendable." But beneath that hard outer shell, many harbor potentials that we could hardly imagine, provided the opportunity to develop themselves ever surfaced. America as it is, will never offer that opportunity. A Democratic Socialist-Capitalist America might. We have nothing to lose trying it so see, but more to lose if we don't.

 

we should have the fully functional "SimCity" demo, first.

 

I have 'reversed' it from the 21stC Leftist lie, yes.

A master/slave relationship is NOT predicated on money, and that's where you (and other 21stC leftists have it wrong). It's predicated on power. As in, who has the power to take it easy, while others do the work. Aristocrats of old were not always wealthy, yet they were in an inherited position which saw them provided with all they needed for survival. Many a Fief Lord lived in a ruinous old building, wearing moth eaten furs and sleeping in flea infested beds .. but yet still in a position to demand that 'peasants' do all the work.

The problem is your limited thinking on this. Try to approach it from a bigger picture and wider timeline point of view. This is about the medieval inequity of the aristocrat/serf model. When one group doesn't work, yet demands that those who do work support them, they are engaging in this terrible inequity. Something we should have progressed past centuries ago.

But I agree that it must change. At some point, we need to kick the 'aristocrats' to the kerb. They need to be taught that their wilful dependence is utterly immoral.

 

A command economy where a Congress commands fiscal policy and a Central Bank which commands monetary policy, must be socialism since it cannot be Capitalism.

 

I'm not sure what planet you live on. The only long term poverty I see is self-inflicted. And believe me when I say I DO see plenty of it, because I don't avoid the people and places it exists in. I live on the edge of one of the largest 'poor' areas in my entire country, and work almost exclusively with the lowest common denominator. Every single case of long-term poverty I've encountered in my 50+ years of living and working amongst the First World poor, was self-inflicted. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

Those who've had the misfortune to experience events beyond their control were merely set back for a while. But we're not talking about them, are we. We're talking about people who never make the slightest effort to improve their lot. They keep smoking, drinking, buying smart phones, gambling, buying fast food, running air-conditioners around the clock, buying cars, insisting on renting properties they can't afford, in places they can't afford, etc etc etc. Show me a poor family who stops doing all the above, and I'll show you a family who very easily leaves poverty behind. Even a family on welfare can make it, if they live right.

 

it requires social morals for free, to achieve a Commune of Heaven on Earth. Only the Religious tend to practice it.

 

iow, your definition does not fit that for 'socialism.'

 

Command economics is socialism not capitalism.

 

There is no such thing as "Command economics."

 

there is no such thing as true capitalism.

 

And?

 

I have no doubt there are many thousands--perhaps millions--of Americans who fit comfortably into your description. I've known a few of them myself. But some of those who habitually live the lifestyle you describe have simply been beaten down for so long, they've run out of energy & given up hope. For those so afflicted, it's a double tragedy; first, living such a pallid, painful lifestyle, and second, living it with the conviction that there's simply no possible escape. While I agree with many of the points in your post, I'm uncomfortable with the judgmental smugness you seem to have toward the impoverished. I get that same vibe from conservatives regarding many social issues. It's discomforting.

 

Congress does command fiscal policy.

 

You have learned 40 times that liberal policies shipped our jobs to China: taxes regulations unions deficits trade deals
all of which Trump is trying to correct. Plus, liberals invited in 30 million and now plan another 30 million illegals to take our jobs. Shall we go for 41??

Free trade is mandatory, but liberals policies shooting our country in the foot is plain stupid. Shall we go for 40??