Why do cons think Obama is a socialist?
Obama took over GM, took over banks, took over healthcare, took over insurance company oversight, took over student loans, highest tax increase in history, How is the goverment taking over things and taking away alot more money from citizens considered socialist?
Comments
You know, why not focus on what he's NOT... because it's CLEAR that he is NOT a CAPITALIST, republicist (for lack of a different term... "one who believes in the Republic system of government"), and constitutionalist.
1. REPEAL the 16th Amendment!!
2. Those who voted for Obamamama… YOU OWE US!
Republican since before she was born… and PROUD of it.
You're confusing taking over from saving. Obama tried to save GM. He saved investment banks from going under although it was Bush who created the TARP. He made student loans more accessible. He reformed health care so that people won't end up on the street when they get sick. How is this socialism?
To answer your question more directly, cons don't know what socialism is if they think saving a country from default is socialism. When capitalism fails, as it did in the Bush administration, the government has to step in and be the lender and employer of last resort. That is not socialism.
None of your statements are true except the one about student loans. GM is still private. The banks are all still private except the Fed, and that has not changed. The government has backed student loans for decades, so taking the banks out of the middle, where they got all the profit with none of the risk, only made sense. The health care overhaul did not involve government run insurance (except medicaid, which is not new), or government run health providers.
If you lie about what someone does, and then attach a label to them based on the lies, you don't fool me, you only show yourself to be a fool.
rather? you do not imagine spending one thousand billion money to grant all of us public health care is socialist? What about bailing out the vehicle organizations? higher taxes for the prosperous to help giveaway classes? you're both stupid or unaware of no longer see this.
obama bailed out gm, saved the financial system (after bush started the process), fought the insurance companies who were bleeding the country dry, took over student load so the feds can make some money off it...
yup, he's such damaging the country alrighty!
Democrats WANT the Government to take over Everything.
They think they will get Bigger Welfare Checks.
Wasn't it George Bush that initially bailed GM, AIG, and most of Wall Street. Funny how people forget that fact.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism
"advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. "
id say that's controlling the means of production and vesting ownership of production and distribution.
Just as Chicken Little started a "sky is falling" hysteria based on a falling acorn, so too are various critics pushing a "Socialist Obama" hysteria based on government bailouts of American industry. Not only do they conveniently forget that the 2008 bailout was initiated by the Bush administration, but they also seem to have forgotten some basics from Econ 101. They could easily avoid such non sequitur nonsense by following the evidence instead of jumping to conclusions.
According to dictionary.com, socialism is "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. In Marxist theory, it is the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles."
Please note that it is a stage FOLLOWING capitalism. Marxist socialism and capitalism are mutually exclusive. Capitalism has many forms in a mixed economy, with public (collective) ownership of various enterprises based upon economic conditions. Limited public ownership does not comprise Marxist socialism, which requires complete public ownership.
Every advocate of greater government economic control might be called a "socialist," but none are true socialists unless they advocate the complete elimination of private enterprise, which means the replacement of capitalism with collectivism. True (laissez-faire) capitalism means zero government control of private enterprise, which is economic anarchy. Neither of these extremes works in the long run. Every successful economy is a mixed economy, existing somewhere on a spectrum between both extremes. Every successful economy is part capitalist and part socialist. They all contain a mix of private and public ownership, and they all have some government control of private enterprise. The only relevant question is "WHERE on this spectrum can we achieve the greatest success?"
Both laissez faire capitalism and true communism are artificial constructs, as impossible to sustain as cold fusion. Every successful society requires private enterprise regulated by public policy, regardless of Ayn Rand's fantasies. Extremists on either fringe are equally delusional. In some ways regulation is a necessary evil like body fat: too much or too little are both lethal. The normal tendency is to add layers with age. The challenge is to find the level that will produce the optimum outcome, all things considered.
Unless someone advocates the complete replacement of capitalism with collectivism, they do not truly advocate socialism or communism. To accuse them of either, when they have not explicitly advocated as much themselves, suggests either unfamiliarity with mixed economies or intellectual dishonesty. Even George W. Bush and John McCain were accused of advocating socialism based upon their support of 2008 bailout legislation.
The bottom line is simple. If you consider any variation of a mixed economy, including ANY public ownership or regulation of industry to be "socialism," then the United States and ALL other economies are "socialist." The debate is over, because by that definition we have been "socialist" since the 18th century. If you only consider complete collectivism to be "socialism," according to Marxist theory, then no successful economy is actually "socialist." The closest to a Marxist socialist economy is the economic basket case, North Korea. If you consider socialism to occur at some other point on the spectrum between unregulated capitalism and Marxist socialism, then any such point would be arbitrary.
To accuse a mixed economy advocate of being a socialist, or communist suggests that you believe that ANY degree of government regulation qualifies as "socialism," or you believe that any regulation beyond an indefinite "trigger point" qualifies as "socialism,", and that YOU get to set the trigger point. The "trigger point" explanation reminds me of the egocentric explorer who says that anyone who explores farther into dangerous territory is a fool, but anyone who doesn’t explore as far as he does is a coward. His arrogance presumes that his own boundaries are common standards.
Marxist "socialism," in contrast to European "democratic socialism," requires collective ownership of the means of production in lieu of capitalism. That is the death of private enterprise. We may or may not be on a path to collectivism, just as a dating couple may or may not be on a path to pregnancy. Traveling on a path in any direction does not imply any specific goal. For example, traveling on Interstate 10 does not imply that either coast is the goal.
"Direction" is one thing. "Goal" is another. All mixed economies exist at some point in the spectrum between the fatal terminuses of unregulated capitalism and true socialism. In history, socialism/communis
Because they have never been to Europe, where there are real socialists.