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My Tea-Party friend called out Democrats today on FB. For some reason he thought I'd ignore his post if it was on my own timeline. Yeah, right.

I am willing to bet that not one democrat that I know will admit they are actually a socialist.

They will not admit that what they stand for and believe in is NOT socialism.

Additionally I am willing to be that none of them will offer up a logical and meaningful reason to join their side without attacking what I believe in.

My reply (posted to his timeline as well):

I am a Democrat. I am socialist. I believe taxing those who can afford it to feed and provide medicine for those who cannot is a moral thing to do. That is socialism and it is not a bad thing. Socialism is not communism and the two should not be compared.

Logical reason to join my side? Capitalism and the free market are based on greed and greed alone. They favor the employers rather than the employees, and industry rather than the environment. Having a small government with fewer environmental, financial, and medical regulations will allow big business to grow at the expense of the common American's welfare. It has happened before during the major labor strikes in the 1890's where workers were literally shot by company gunmen simply for demanding better wages and working conditions. Big business is not our friend and should not be trusted to do the right thing on it's own.

Democrats favor equality among all skin colors, religions, and sexual orientations. We favor reigning in big business so that even the low-run American worker is paid a fair wage. We favor reigning in industry so they don't dump poison in our backyards. We favor the little guy over the big guy...since it is quite often that the big guy takes advantage over the little guys if allowed to do so.

I have admitted I am socialist. I have explained what I believe in and why, and admitted that it is socialism. I have offered a logical reason to be a Democrat without insulting Republicans or Conservatives.

That's three bets you've lost. Pay up.

Game. Set. Match.

Yep, you showed him.

Gandalf wrote:Yep, you showed him.

Actually probably not. It needed to be said though. I'm tired of all this liberal-bashing. OOOOOooooo....you're a socialist!!! Ok...so?

The term "socialist" has such a wide range of meanings that it´s pretty much guaranteed to create misunderstandings. Since conservatives tend to be against socialism they will probably also tend to only use the definition they percieve as the worst.

Borgholio wrote:

Gandalf wrote:Yep, you showed him.

Actually probably not. It needed to be said though. I'm tired of all this liberal-bashing. OOOOOooooo....you're a socialist!!! Ok...so?

And you are friends with this person, why, exactly?

FSTargetDrone wrote:

Borgholio wrote:

Gandalf wrote:Yep, you showed him.

Actually probably not. It needed to be said though. I'm tired of all this liberal-bashing. OOOOOooooo....you're a socialist!!! Ok...so?

And you are friends with this person, why, exactly?

'Friend' is often used in a very loose sense when it comes to Facebook

FSTargetDrone wrote:

Borgholio wrote:

Gandalf wrote:Yep, you showed him.

Actually probably not. It needed to be said though. I'm tired of all this liberal-bashing. OOOOOooooo....you're a socialist!!! Ok...so?

And you are friends with this person, why, exactly?

When my dad left, he became like a father to me. He was a good male role model. He would take me fishing, we would go to movies, visit museums, play D&D with some of our mutual friends. He was the best man at my wedding. He was always a Republican but usually pretty quiet about it. Whenever we discussed politics it was actually rather insightful.

Unfortunately, he has fallen on hard times. He is going through a divorce with his wife of 20+ years, he lost three jobs in a row, lost his boat, is going through bankruptcy, and now has a medical condition that prevents him from finding a new job. He started blaming all the usual things that the GOP likes to blame and eventually registered as a Tea Party member and became extremely vocal about anything that wasn't good and Red.

So he's not just a Facebook friend, I've known him since he first met his wife and he's been like my dad ever since. That makes it much harder to just turn my back on him.

Sounds like he could sure use a social safety net.

Channel72 wrote:Sounds like he could sure use a social safety net.

That's the irony of it. He is taking unemployment, he is on disability, and he is receiving government assistance to refinance his mortgage. He hates socialism and yet he is taking direct advantage of it.

Mostly because he doesn't consider that socialism, because it's beneficial, because it's the government doing something for him and not just interfering in his life as most people of that stripe believe socialism leads to.

With his health issues, you'd think he would support Universal Healthcare as well, but for some reason that is considered practically communist compared to things like public education or unemployment.

This is another example of why retreating from labels is a mistake. The conservative invective machine can poison any term in a short time if no one defends it. Just look at how 'progressive' has become a dirty word in the last few years since the political left starting using it as a substitute rather than standing up and proudly calling ourselves liberals. Your friend has been conditioned to believe that liberal and socialist are equivalent to terrorist and Nazi and that no one would ever willingly associate themselves with such filthy labels. If liberals and democrats are going to take back mindshare that's been lost over the last 2 generations, they're going to have to start beginning sentences with "You're damn right I'm a..."

FSTargetDrone wrote:

Borgholio wrote:

Gandalf wrote:Yep, you showed him.

Actually probably not. It needed to be said though. I'm tired of all this liberal-bashing. OOOOOooooo....you're a socialist!!! Ok...so?

And you are friends with this person, why, exactly?

Because friends are allowed to disagree with each other?

Borgholio wrote:

Channel72 wrote:Sounds like he could sure use a social safety net.

That's the irony of it. He is taking unemployment, he is on disability, and he is receiving government assistance to refinance his mortgage. He hates socialism and yet he is taking direct advantage of it.

This guy is a typical example of the "What's the matter with Kansas" phenomenon, i.e. social conservatives who vote against their own interests.

If this guy's life is going to hell so badly and he needs the social support, why rock the boat on him? Let him go off about the idiocy he feels like. You're more likely to get him to change his mind on "liberals" by being his friend through thick and thin.

I'm still his friend. We'll be playing a short session of D&D tomorrow in fact. We pretty much agreed to disagree and left it at that.

Borgholio wrote:

Channel72 wrote:Sounds like he could sure use a social safety net.

That's the irony of it. He is taking unemployment, he is on disability, and he is receiving government assistance to refinance his mortgage. He hates socialism and yet he is taking direct advantage of it.

I don´t see any irony. Just because you´re forced to use something under certain premises doesn´t mean you have to like them.

For example you can hate the fact that public transportation is not very good in the place you live and therefore be forced to use a car. Nobody would call you a hypocrite for using your car.
The same is true for government assistance. He´s forced to use it under the current "system". Under the system he fovours he might not need it. Or at least he believes that he won´t need it under his fovoured system.

Or to put it another way: A communist living in a capitalist society will be forced submit to at least certain rules of this capitalist society in order to survive and have a decent life. There wouldn´t be any kind of irony in him doing so.

Yes, but the communist isn't a beneficiary of those rules so much as he is constrained by them.

Here, we see a man who'd be incapacitated by his medical condition and is unable to pursue new work... but criticizes the government for giving money to people who don't work, a policy of which he is a direct beneficiary.

Simon_Jester wrote:Yes, but the communist isn't a beneficiary of those rules so much as he is constrained by them.

Here, we see a man who'd be incapacitated by his medical condition and is unable to pursue new work... but criticizes the government for giving money to people who don't work, a policy of which he is a direct beneficiary.

Indeed. If he believes under his preferred system he wouldn't need government hand outs, then he must at least explain how his preferred system would sort out his medical condition.

Simon_Jester wrote:Yes, but the communist isn't a beneficiary of those rules so much as he is constrained by them.

Here, we see a man who'd be incapacitated by his medical condition and is unable to pursue new work... but criticizes the government for giving money to people who don't work, a policy of which he is a direct beneficiary.

The communist can be a beneficiary. Lets say he´s a smart communist and lives in a capitalist society. He uses his smarts to get a decent job and earn good money. Money that gives him a better living standard than he might have under a communist regime.
However, he still prefers a communist regime because he thinks other values are more important than his personal finances.

There´s no irony here. It´s just some guy making the best of the circumstances he lives in while prefering to live in other circumstances which are not possible to have at the moment.


Maybe the guy is some type of economical anarchist and his reasonings are: If I didn´t have to pay taxes in the past it would be sufficiently likely that I´d have enough money now to be able to economically cope with my disabilities. Therefore, I´d prefer living in a society without taxes. However, under the current system I have to take government aid because I had to pay taxes in the past and therefore didn´t have the chance to accumulate enough financial resources.


I see no irony in striving for or idealising a certain goal while using the mechanisms of the current circumstances even if if these mechanisms are not supported by the goal.

<edit>Or another example: I assume that a lot of Americans on this forum are for higher taxes in order to pay for more social programs. But you will probably only find very few who will pay more taxes than they have to.</edit>

salm wrote:The communist can be a beneficiary. Lets say he´s a smart communist and lives in a capitalist society. He uses his smarts to get a decent job and earn good money. Money that gives him a better living standard than he might have under a communist regime.
However, he still prefers a communist regime because he thinks other values are more important than his personal finances.

Unless he's receiving money by taking personal advantage of ownership of capital, I don't think there's even a "not a conflict" here. Communist societies reward specialists better too, as a rule.

Maybe the guy is some type of economical anarchist and his reasonings are: If I didn´t have to pay taxes in the past it would be sufficiently likely that I´d have enough money now to be able to economically cope with my disabilities. Therefore, I´d prefer living in a society without taxes. However, under the current system I have to take government aid because I had to pay taxes in the past and therefore didn´t have the chance to accumulate enough financial resources.

In that case, the irony is that he really thinks that removing the government and its taxes would have no consequences or costs to him aside from "I'd have all the money I paid in taxes." While living in a society that is quite full of people who would merrily inflict those consequences on him, given the chance.

It's like walking through a swamp, doused in bug repellent, and cursing the repellent for inconvenience... while ignoring the existence of the mosquitos the chemical is repelling.

Simon_Jester wrote:Unless he's receiving money by taking personal advantage of ownership of capital, I don't think there's even a "not a conflict" here. Communist societies reward specialists better too, as a rule.

And there´s nothing that should keep him from taking advantae of ownership of capital.
Besides that he simply keeps the money he earns instead of redistributing it to poorer people even though his communist ideals should tell him to do so.

In that case, the irony is that he really thinks that removing the government and its taxes would have no consequences or costs to him aside from "I'd have all the money I paid in taxes." While living in a society that is quite full of people who would merrily inflict those consequences on him, given the chance.
It's like walking through a swamp, doused in bug repellent, and cursing the repellent for inconvenience... while ignoring the existence of the mosquitos the chemical is repelling.

Sure, it´s a silly mindset to have (just like the communist) but that´s not my point. I´ll try to put it another way:
He lives in a society that gives him a certain framework. In this framework there are certain tools which work. He can dislike the framework (and the tools) but is still forced to use the tools because they are the only ones that work within this framework.
In his favored framework he would have to use different tools.
And I see no irony in using these tools even if he doesn´t like them.

It´s like a programmer who dislikes Java and favours C++, but his boss tells him to use Java. It would be silly for the programmer to use C++ Syntax in a Java environment because the programm simply wouldn´t compile. The programmer can hate Java all he wants but is still forced to use Java Syntax and it would be silly to use C++ Syntax.
He can of course tell the boss why C++ is better and lobby to switch to C++. But until the "system" is switched he will have to stick to Java Syntax.

You can hate paying cash but until the ticket machine accepts credit cards you´ll have to pay cash. You can lobby to change the "system" to accept credit cards but untill then you´re compelled to pay cash.

You can hate that the architect designed the building to be made of wood and you don´t like hammers and nails. But unless you can change the "system" and make the architect switch to a building made of steel your welding torch is useless and you´ll have to use the hammer and nails.