I'm no longer a socialist - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#15119836
I made a few posts on this forum intermittently saying that I thought that socialism is a good thing and that we should strive for it.

Well, today I'm actually a much happier and healthier person than I was before.

You see, it was only when I was really angry and vengeful towards society that I sympathized with socialist ideas. I felt completely screwed over and felt that I deserved to get something back to compensate for all of my suffering.

In that type of troubled state, it's not easy to think rationally.

But the truth is that socialism actually would have only ended up hurting me even more. As hard as that is to imagine, given all of my pain and suffering, that is actually the harsh truth.

When you think things can't get any worse you are willing to take risks for example like trying drugs to alleviate the pain. Like drugs, socialism could relieve your pain but only for a short while. It would be a big mistake and it would create a reality far worse than anything you could imagine!
#15119865
Agent Steel wrote:I made a few posts on this forum intermittently saying that I thought that socialism is a good thing and that we should strive for it.

Well, today I'm actually a much happier and healthier person than I was before.

You see, it was only when I was really angry and vengeful towards society that I sympathized with socialist ideas. I felt completely screwed over and felt that I deserved to get something back to compensate for all of my suffering.

In that type of troubled state, it's not easy to think rationally.

But the truth is that socialism actually would have only ended up hurting me even more. As hard as that is to imagine, given all of my pain and suffering, that is actually the harsh truth.

When you think things can't get any worse you are willing to take risks for example like trying drugs to alleviate the pain. Like drugs, socialism could relieve your pain but only for a short while. It would be a big mistake and it would create a reality far worse than anything you could imagine!


So what are you? Do you support Trump still?
#15119869
Agent Steel wrote:But the truth is that socialism actually would have only ended up hurting me even more. As hard as that is to imagine, given all of my pain and suffering, that is actually the harsh truth.


Funny. The happiest nations in the world usually embrace social programs like healthcare.

https://www.contiki.com/six-two/worlds-happiest-countries/

Whilst in America, daily riots are in order.

It isn't coincidence Scandinavia top these types of polls. Social Democratic policies are perhaps the fairest you can have. Where what you pay depends on what you earn.
#15119871
I doubt very much that you were ever a "Socialist", @Agent Steel. You've always struck me as a right-winger in all your postings.
#15119880
Life is not a matter of binary choices. It's in the shades of grey inbetween, where life happens. To reduce your intellectual horizon to a choice between socialism and capitalism is downright silly. The social market economy can combine the advantages of both while avoiding their respective pitfalls. It's the only system that has been shown to work well. It can be adapted to different conditions in different countries.
By Rich
#15119882
Socialism and Communism can certainly work for some people. It can certainly help some people to achieve their hopes and dreams. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, without Communism they would never have achieved the levels of wealth, power and status that they achieved under Communism. Now you can complain as much as you want that these systems were brutally unfair to many people, but our western democratic systems with their mixed economies are also unfair.

It is good to critique Socialism and Communism, but we must also be aware of Conservative moralism, which is intellectually unsound. The true case for the free speech and democracy system, as opposed to the Communist, Muslim or right-wing fascist systems is a pragmatic one. That on balance it is better for the large majority. that the large majority will lose out under other systems.

Free speech can not exist without democracy and democracy can not last without a mixed economy. Democracy can survive a short period of high levels of socialism like, Britain suffered in the second world war, but in the long term high levels of socialism are toxic to both democracy and free speech. We used to have an ardent Communist on the forum called Decky, he hated the fact that ordinary workers could just move freely about the country. He wanted a system like the Soviet Union where a worker had to get permission from a Communist bureaucrat just to visit another city. Under lockdown fascism we've got to have a taste of what its like to live in a Communist paradise.
#15119947
Agent Steel wrote:
When you think things can't get any worse you are willing to take risks for example like trying drugs to alleviate the pain. Like drugs, socialism could relieve your pain but only for a short while. It would be a big mistake and it would create a reality far worse than anything you could imagine!



Socialism is 'like drugs' -- ? Really? Socialism 'relieves pain' -- ?

Does socialism come in *pill* form now?

Don't you think you're *mixing scales* with an inapt metaphor?


Atlantis wrote:
Life is not a matter of binary choices. It's in the shades of grey inbetween, where life happens. To reduce your intellectual horizon to a choice between socialism and capitalism is downright silly. The social market economy can combine the advantages of both while avoiding their respective pitfalls. It's the only system that has been shown to work well. It can be adapted to different conditions in different countries.



*Or*, since capitalism shows itself to have boom-and-bust cycles, and needs to be *bailed out* with trillions of dollars of public funds, why not scrap it and bring in workers-of-the-world socialism instead?


Rich wrote:
Under lockdown fascism we've got to have a taste of what its like to live in a Communist paradise.



Your 'lockdown fascism' is actually very similar to a workers *general strike*, because the capitalist economy is effectively *immobilized* in favor of non-death and general health while the pandemic is still around.

But, yeah, no one should be supporting the *Stalinist* (bureaucratic-elitist) approach, as you're alluding to.
#15119960
skinster wrote:Lol at the OP. :D


Indeed. The OP lacks substance. How is something worse if he hasn't experience it? Besides Socialism is merely an economic model. People try and interpreted a political narrative to it because of the propaganda of the Cold War. But you find the best formula adapts what works from Socialism and Capitalism into one system. If the Yanks ever have free healthcare, they would question why the fuck they ever supported privatisation and profits for the insurance company that I am sure of.
#15119966
I wonder if OP is going to say anything about the socialism for the rich, such as bank and corporation bailouts. :excited:

As for Americans re: healthcare, the loud complainers have been brainwashed to believe it's not a human right, despite apparently over 60% want medicare.

Also, healthcare isn't free. We pay for it via NI/taxes. And that's ok.
#15119972
B0ycey wrote:
Indeed. The OP lacks substance. How is something worse if he hasn't experience it? Besides Socialism is merely an economic model. People try and interpreted a political narrative to it because of the propaganda of the Cold War. But you find the best formula adapts what works from Socialism and Capitalism into one system. If the Yanks ever have free healthcare, they would question why the fuck they ever supported privatisation and profits for the insurance company that I am sure of.



Can't we just directly *give our money away* to the healthcare corporations?

That way they can't medically hurt us.
#15119976
ckaihatsu wrote:Can't we just directly *give our money away* to the healthcare corporations?

That way they can't medically hurt us.


Personally I would rather nationalise the Pharmaceutical companies and then they will never have the opportunity to "medically hurt" anyone.

But the monopoly of healthcare will always bring costs down when profits isn't the underlining factor. And that can only be achieved when it is the government who holds the monopoly. America has shown that costs go through the roof when it is cooperations.
#15119980
B0ycey wrote:
Personally I would rather nationalise the Pharmaceutical companies and then they will never have the opportunity to "medically hurt" anyone.

But the monopoly of healthcare will always bring costs down when profits isn't the underlining factor. And that can only be achieved when it is the government who holds the monopoly. America has shown that costs go through the roof when it is cooperations.



Yup, hence my sarcastic remark.
#15120466
B0ycey wrote:
Indeed. The OP lacks substance. How is something worse if he hasn't experience it? Besides Socialism is merely an economic model. People try and interpreted a political narrative to it because of the propaganda of the Cold War. But you find the best formula adapts what works from Socialism and Capitalism into one system. If the Yanks ever have free healthcare, they would question why the fuck they ever supported privatisation and profits for the insurance company that I am sure of.


People only want socialism because they are suffering and they need help. I am not suffering nor do I need any help. Thus I do not need socialism.

Godstud wrote:I doubt very much that you were ever a "Socialist", @Agent Steel. You've always struck me as a right-winger in all your postings.


How so?
#15120472
@Agent Steel, what has happen recently in your life? People don't post stuff like this out of nothing. What has happened that has made you happier?
#15120494
B0ycey wrote:
Indeed. The OP lacks substance. How is something worse if he hasn't experience it? Besides Socialism is merely an economic model. People try and interpreted a political narrative to it because of the propaganda of the Cold War. But you find the best formula adapts what works from Socialism and Capitalism into one system. If the Yanks ever have free healthcare, they would question why the fuck they ever supported privatisation and profits for the insurance company that I am sure of.



Agent Steel wrote:
People only want socialism because they are suffering and they need help. I am not suffering nor do I need any help. Thus I do not need socialism.



Another *behaviorist* masquerading as a *political* person -- as though politics has to do solely with *personal experience*, and not with one's objective relationship to the means of mass industrial production.

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