Socialism.. does anyone have a clue.

birdwithteeth11 wrote: I'm not saying that people can move all the way to the top. But education is certainly a great equalizer in this country (like we have anything else that works that way). And why do you think so many minorities remain in poverty? Gee, terrible education opportunities probably don't have anything to do with it, do they? My point being, education = power and advantage.

I wish it really was so. It definitely wasn't in my case... I have two degrees, speak five languages, and have a few publications to my name as well. In spite of that, my gross income last year was under $ 30,000 (in Italy, not here), and I had been working for 21 years. From what I have heard, there are a lot of educated people here in the US too who don't make a lot of money, in spite of working hard. Don't get me wrong, I am all in favour of education, but I have often thought that, if it ever was possible to be reborn, I'd just learn a trade and forget about other things.

Negoba wrote: Disillusionment about work being even in the top 5 of the elements that go into your eventual economical success in this world.

Boy that says alot.  I respect the faith in values that many of our young Libertarians have, but I think what you are hinting at is that the real world is going to challenge those Ayn Rand books in a big way. 

Free will is oversold as a fact. 

Raff wrote: birdwithteeth11 wrote: I'm not saying that people can move all the way to the top. But education is certainly a great equalizer in this country (like we have anything else that works that way). And why do you think so many minorities remain in poverty? Gee, terrible education opportunities probably don't have anything to do with it, do they? My point being, education = power and advantage. I wish it really was so. It definitely wasn't in my case... I have two degrees, speak five languages, and have a few publications to my name as well. In spite of that, my gross income last year was under $ 30,000 (in Italy, not here), and I had been working for 21 years. From what I have heard, there are a lot of educated people here in the US too who don't make a lot of money, in spite of working hard. Don't get me wrong, I am all in favour of education, but I have often thought that, if it ever was possible to be reborn, I'd just learn a trade and forget about other things.

And by the way,please don't get me wrong,but have you ever lived in a third world country to say something like this?Even though it is of course true that not everybody who is educated make a lot of money,there's not a huge amount of basically educated people in the US who are currently starving to death.You can even choose wether you want or not to go to college.

Completely off subject....I'm listening to Aphrodite's Child "666" for the first time.

Negoba wrote: Completely off subject....I'm listening to Aphrodite's Child "666" for the first time.   It's a little disturbing, especially track 21.   Back to socialism.....

back off topic...

what a disappointing album that was...


back to  ....whatever subject we are on... think Socialism is dead as a topic... we just go where the subject takes us

Re: 666 - It's got its moments...but I wouldn't have made it through it if my attention wasn't on this thread.

Edited by Negoba - March 26 2009 at 16:54

I can understand people thinking that hard work isn't that important in being successful. But I think it couldn't be farther from the truth. Let me illustrate an example.

At 22 years old, my grandpa had just gotten out of 4 years of serving in the Air Force. He had no college education and a wife and baby girl to support (that baby being my mom). He had very little money or possessions to speak of. He started with taking a job in a factory where he was paid minimum wage, but he got sick of that really quickly and realized that he was intelligent enough to be the guy running the factory, not working with the machines. So he quit his job and eventually got hired by Kroger (for those who don't know, they're a pretty large supermarket chain that exists mostly in the Midwest and eastern parts of the U.S.) in their corporate offices in Cincinnati. They were reluctant to hire him at first because he didn't have a college education. He did however have the G.I. Bill, so he made the deal that he would work for Kroger starting as a manager in their meat plant while working on his college degree. He spent 8 years balancing work, a college education, and his family. Shortly after he got his degree, he was promoted to run the entire meat plant. He had over 100 people working under him. He eventually moved on to other various management positions throughout the company and managed to earn enough to retire at the age of 46 or 47, somewhere around there (he could have had a chance to become VP of the marketing branch if he had kept going another 5 years or so). And he didn't get any of this by sitting on his ass all the time. My grandparents to this day still live quite modestly.

That's why I laugh when people tell me hard work doesn't get you anywhere.

Gustavo Froes wrote: Raff wrote: birdwithteeth11 wrote: I'm not saying that people can move all the way to the top. But education is certainly a great equalizer in this country (like we have anything else that works that way). And why do you think so many minorities remain in poverty? Gee, terrible education opportunities probably don't have anything to do with it, do they? My point being, education = power and advantage. I wish it really was so. It definitely wasn't in my case... I have two degrees, speak five languages, and have a few publications to my name as well. In spite of that, my gross income last year was under $ 30,000 (in Italy, not here), and I had been working for 21 years. From what I have heard, there are a lot of educated people here in the US too who don't make a lot of money, in spite of working hard. Don't get me wrong, I am all in favour of education, but I have often thought that, if it ever was possible to be reborn, I'd just learn a trade and forget about other things. And by the way,please don't get me wrong,but have you ever lived in a third world country to say something like this?Even though it is of course true that not everybody who is educated make a lot of money,there's not a huge amount of basically educated people in the US who are currently starving to death.You can even choose wether you want or not to go to college.

Thank you.

I'm not saying you having an education gets you a fortune. I'm saying that in this country, a college education will often allow you to have a comfortable living. Granted it depends on what your degree is in though.

Ok, it's a musical site... and I believe that L'Internationale is a good anthem:

If Jesus was preaching (unrecognised)  in the U.S. today , he'd be called a socialist, maybe even a communist.
In the U.S, the terms liberal, socialist, humanist, secular, are all terms indicating a certain path to hell if the country were even to hear the words spoken as if they had an actual meaning that differs from the distorted and politically loaded definitions.
Here in Canada, and in many Europeen nations (other than France, even), we call it looking after &  taking care of each other, looking after the little guy/gal, working to provide equal access to social/health/educational and other services, basically equal opportunity for each to contribute their best to the well being of their country & co-citizens.
You, like all for one, one for all. 'Cause in a war, the governments never limit their army draft to the rich, the well educated, pampered elites, and others who enjoy such luxuries as health insurance, income above mere subsistence levels, decent education, proper housing and other miracles shared by a minority in some capitalist countries.
Somehow, taxes are an impediment to prosperity. Or so sez Denmark, Sweden, and a few others.
Taxes are not the problem. The problem is when special interests commandeer resources, citizens stand by passively and vote for the same party no matter what, and everyone declares that they're O.K., Jack, keep your hands off of my stack !

HMOs are better than single payor government bureaucacries ? Is that because it's O.K.  when a profit is being made by said bureaucracy ?