Trump's Response to COVID-19

But it doesn't have to mean reeducation camps. Cheap shot. Anybody who gave you a like for that needs to be reeducated. Or maybe just educated the first time.

 

Adding Democratic in front of a word doesn’t negate or change the definition either. Chavez was democratically elected in Venezuela too. The socialist nightmare Venezuelans live daily didn’t happen instantly.

 

I hear the point you’re trying to make here, six. It’s just that Democratic Socialism isn't some term invented by folks on an internet forum - it actually does have meaning no matter how much you dislike the fact. There are flavors and shades to forms of government and economic systems. I don't understand why you are so determined to deny this.

 

but a vote for a larger central government isn't a vote for a dictator. That would be lame though (a dictator). I don't know anything about Lenin or communist governments really. I think the problems have been with poor leadership at the helm.

Do you think it would be a positive thing to have better infrastructure? It's not that we don't need it...

 

Your first mistake is assuming we need government to have infrastructure.

This is why left wing anarchy is a paradox

 

The fact that Chavez was elected doesn't mean that his regime was democratic. Chavez was a demagogue, much like Trump. Chavez used his popularity to pack the courts with his stooges, intimidate the press, blacklist critics, and eventually eliminate presidential term limits. Whatever "ism" label you want to pin on it, this is antidemocratic behavior and can happen across the ideological spectrum. It's happening in Trump's United States as we speak. A democracy isn't just a matter of elections, but a set of institutions, values, and norms to constrain power and assure freedom of expression and the rule of law. In the United States, these are being undermined as we divert attention to the speck in our neighbors' eye and overlook the beam in our own eye. The topic of this forum is Trump's response to COVID-19, which is understandably an embarrassment to folks on the right. If you'd rather continue talking about the evils of socialism, there's a forum specifically dedicated to that.

 

Again, you show your basic conceptual confusion. "Right" and "left" have no necessary relationship to the size of government. "Left" refers to political orientations favoring greater social and economic equality. Of course it's possible for an anarchist to support that-- no paradox at all.

As for the "assumption" that we need government to have infrastructure, I suppose it's theoretically possible to find some alternative means for having it. Everybody could devote a certain percentage of their time to voluntary service building roads, bridges, water lines and sewers. Or we could "privatize" all of those responsibilities to corporations. There's a reason why those alternatives haven't gotten very far beyond the rhetorical level.

 

Oi vey. I don't like not knowing things, not being able to work things out. But pfffft, the economic fallout from this. Impossible to predict, there is no other time to compare it too ( and anyone that says they can is full of it). Some countries doubling their debt in a matter of a few months, already effectively bankrupt

We won't be able to bail out every bank this time

Whatever happens, it ain't going to be good

 

Huh?

You accuse him of conceptual confusion

Then you go on to claim there is no difference between the size of government with right or left. Right wing just about always means scaling back government involvement

Then you go on to claim alternatives like privatizing government departments have never gone past mere rhetoric?

Where have you been living the last 40 years?

You are just in your own little world

 

CORONAVIRUS DEATHS IN U.S.
77,925

 

i agree with that. it may have happened, but i sure didn't hear much about it if it did.

back when i was in school, left wing/right wing was taught as being purely about government size. further left equals bigger government, further right equals smaller government. but, i just googled it to be sure, and what i'm finding now supports tish's definition. so either a bunch of us were lied to in school (of course we were, but about this too), or the definitions changed at some point.

 

What I said was that the concepts of "right" and "left" have nothing directly to do with "big government'--"small government". It is certainly possible to have a socialist or communist community in a small town, as it is to have a predominantly capitalist one in a large nation-state (e.g., the U.S.) The terms originated in the French National Assembly in the eighteenth century. Originally, the "right" supported the monarchy, which was big government.. But it was privilege, not government size, that was the essence of the concept. The vagaries of U.S. political usage, especially the embrace of anti-government rhetoric by so-called "conservatives", is by no means standard. European right wing parties didn't follow this pattern. The Far Right in Government - Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Nine European Countries Where Extreme Right-Wing Parties Are On The Rise How Far Is Europe Swinging to the Right? If you think the right wing government in Washington is small government, you're delusional. Donald Trump's Big Government Presidency Would you call him a "left winger"?

Not only is history not your strong point, but you seem to have a problem with the English language as well.. Nowhere did I claim that "privatizing government departments have never gone past mere rhetoric". Privaitizaiton has been quite the rage in government at least since the Reagan revolution, but as I said, there's a reason why we've relied primarily on government for infrastructure.
Public Infrastructure as Stealth Privatization
Why Private Investment in Public Infrastructure Is Declining
Does Privatization Serve the Public Interest?
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/infrastructure-build-or-privatization-scam/
The Dangers Of Privatization - The Ring of Fire Network

 

Sigh. The sad state of American public education! Thanks for checking it out. I don't think the definitions changed. Your teacher was going by a misconception rooted in the "small government" rhetoric of American conservatism, which is really about "Socialism for the rich!"

 

Lolz

Keep trying to dig yourself out of a hole you created. Its fun to watch

How much time did you waste on that post

 

Capitalism AS socialism for the rich.

 

LOTZ. How much time did you waste trying to find fault with it?