Perhaps that thread explains why you yourself cannot understand the notion the army is a socialist institution. Just as are the police, the fire department, and perhaps other services.
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What are the top 10 things you want the government to do?
- Thread starter justbehappy
- Start date
Perhaps that thread explains why you yourself cannot understand the notion the army is a socialist institution. Just as are the police, the fire department, and perhaps other services.
Darkness
Psychoanalyst/Marxist
I am a democratic socialist (or social democrat) and even I do not hold some naive notion that socialists have to respect democracy. Joseph Stalin (Иосиф Сталин
and Mao Zedung were socialists of the worst kind.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Maybe you could explain how a national organization that is owned by the general public of a country is not socialist. I'd at least like to see you try.
Darkness
Psychoanalyst/Marxist
justbehappy
Active Member
I was talking about the military, specifically. You're trying to use what I said and apply it to everything. Militaries have been around for an extremely long time and are used by all different types of governments. People that want universal healthcare are basing it off of Socialistic ideas, whether they know or care that it's Socialist or not.
A democratic country that doesn't care what the people want? Are you kidding me?I try to show you my way of thinking and you tell me it's "off topic." It was a perfectly good argument for healthcare with revisions and you completely ignore it. Is any type of compromise not good enough for you??
justbehappy
Active Member
Socialism is a theory of how to make things better for a country. Military is keeping the government, country, and society from falling apart period. That is it's goal. It's goal is different from that of a Socialistic one. You are making this far to simplized by saying just because it's public ownership it's Socialist.
justbehappy
Active Member
Something essential to the country being privatised? Not at all.
You are completely confusing the terms necessary and ubiquitous. They arn't the same. Not by a long-shot.
I don't have time to look up what it's about, but whatever point your trying to make is irrelevant because it is fictional.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
I know what you were talking about. You want to differentiate because it's convenient. There have been national health services since before the term socialism came about, too. People who want a military are basing that off of socialist ideas, whether they know it or not. (See how that works?)
The point is we gave a name to a certain kind of idea, and that name was "socialism". The ideas had been around for a long time before that word came into being, but at that point we started using it to describe those certain ideas. Those ideas include a military, a national health service and any other national organization that's owned by the public.
I'd bet the majority of people in the country didn't want Prop 8 to pass, and yet it did. It's still democracy.
The only reason I brought up healthcare was in reference to the fact that there are some things you view as socialist (like national healthcare), but you don't want to view a military as socialist, presumably because it works well. I don't want to discuss your misconceptions about socialized healthcare here. I want to discuss why you refuse to label a military socialist, even though it is such by definition. If you have a comment about healthcare that is relevant to that point, then present it. If not, don't.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Now we see the problem. You just don't understand socialism. We'll start there. According to Wiki, "Socialism is an economic and political theory based on public or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources.[1][2][3]". Every political or economic theory's goal is to make things better for a country, so that definition is no good. Instead we'll go with a real one. Since a military is common ownership and cooperative management of a means of production or allocation of resource, I'd say it's socialist, by definition.
:thud: That's the entire definition of socialism. If it's a national organization owned by the public, it's socialist in nature. I'm making it that simple because it is that simple. You're trying to avoid that conclusion because you don't want to admit a military is socialist.
justbehappy
Active Member
They are things that, in theory, work better in public ownership than private ownership. It is a necessity for the government's survival that it be in public ownership - not a theory of how to make things work better. Socialism is an unesstenial idea, and military is essential.
It's representatie democracy gone wrong - where the representatives no longer care about the people.
I would agree with you that schools are socialist, and they work. I'm not afraid to agree with you, but military is just a different kind of thing.
justbehappy
Active Member
You're forgetting that military is not a type of government system. And it's goal is different than that of Socialism. Since you did agree that Socialism's goal is making the country better. Military's goal is keeping the country together.
:thud: That's the entire definition of socialism. If it's a national organization owned by the public, it's socialist in nature. I'm making it that simple because it is that simple. You're trying to avoid that conclusion because you don't want to admit a military is socialist.[/quote]
justbehappy
Active Member
No it is NOT that simple because there are things about it that go against what Socialism is about
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
I'm sorry, but that makes no sense at all. It is not a necessity that the military be publicly owned. Neither socialism nor the military is essential, and whether or not they are is irrelevant to whether or not they're socialist ideas.
So, instead of it being a bias, it's just an inability to think clearly?
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Each post of yours is murkier than the last. Every philosophy like capitalism, socialism, etc. has the goal of making the country better. That's an irrelevant piece of information. The relevant information is what I posted.
No, there aren't. Socialism just means exactly what I quoted earlier. It means that it's a publicly-owned national organization. That's all there is to it.
justbehappy
Active Member
Having the same goal is completely relevant. It's only irrelevant because you chose to automatically call it irrelevant.
Do you realize that what you're suggesting is that everything a government does is Socialist? The only countries that wouldn't be were government's that did nothing for their citizens and collected no tax money for any uses whatsoever. So why wouldn't we just call our government's mild Socialism, extreme Socialism, etc.? If something has been common in a Democratic country for an extremely long time, then it is not Socialist; it is Democratic because it was formed in a Democratic country (even it was formed in a country of another government as well). Here it would be Democratic, and there it would be whatever else. New ideas of thinking, based on ideas from SOCIALIST COUNTRES are SOCIALIST.
Do you realize that what you're suggesting is that everything a government does is Socialist? The only countries that wouldn't be were government's that did nothing for their citizens and collected no tax money for any uses whatsoever. So why wouldn't we just call our government's mild Socialism, extreme Socialism, etc.? If something has been common in a Democratic country for an extremely long time, then it is not Socialist; it is Democratic because it was formed in a Democratic country (even it was formed in a country of another government as well). Here it would be Democratic, and there it would be whatever else. New ideas of thinking, based on ideas from SOCIALIST COUNTRES are SOCIALIST.
Darkness
Psychoanalyst/Marxist
A public military is not essential. We can envision a theoretical society where the military merely finances a host of military companies that carry out its will in defence matters.
That's not what we are saying at all. The philosophy of socialism, as developed in the past three centuries, has a much broader range of preconditions. However, if we seek to create a dichotomy of socialist and capitalist (i.e. private), the military is clearly socialist. Social liberal parties across Europe can and have enacted social welfare policies that are socialist (i.e. public), but you can't have it both ways. You cannot say that a socialist policy is one that comes from a socialist party, but then also say that universal health care from a social liberal party, like the Democratic party, is socialist just because you don't like it.
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justbehappy
Active Member
Who would finance it?
Darkness
Psychoanalyst/Marxist
I am sorry. That was a typo. I meant to say, "We can envision a theoretical society where the government merely finances a host of military companies that carry out its will in defence matters.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
No, it's irrelevant because it's irrelevant.
No, I'm not suggesting that. You should pay more attention.
You still seemed to be confused by the terms "democracy" and "socialism". A democracy is the way the country is run politically. Socialism is the way the economy and government programs are run. Something can be socialist and democratic. They really aren't related.
This is where it would behoove you to understand what Doppelganger was saying in that other thread. There is no such thing as a socialist country in the world today. There are democratic countries that employ socialism. I'm really not sure how else to explain this to you. There is socialism and there is democracy. Both can coexist in the same country. A socialist idea can be implemented in a democracy and still be a socialist idea. "Democratic" doesn't describe the actual idea. It describes how it was implemented. "Socialist" describes the actual idea itself, an what it's about.
DavyCrocket2003
Well-Known Member
1. Stop acting like a fix all to every problem and someone to blame all your problems on. Realize that people need to fix their own problems and that no amount of legislation can make people behave responsibly.