Why Are Americans and Conservatives So Afraid of Socialism?

[badger2]

No, it's based on more than two points. When surplus labor confronts necessary labor, socialism becomes impossible.

 

[bripat9643]

I’ll state it directly about #1: the burden of freeloaders is a false narrative. Reminds me of all the people standing in line behind the woman paying for filet mignon with food stamps then gets into her BMW. Conservatives flock to that narrative over the fact that fraud in SNAP is less than 1% and almost half (44%) of the recipients are kids.

2 Trust is in a sad state. I think we are too paranoid and too conspiratorial.

3/4/5 can all be said about democracies too

So how is a person who doesn't pay taxes and receives government benefits not a freeloader?

 

[surada]

Yep.....you created jobs, and you earned money......then the government spent the money...... the government couldn't make the money, but they sure can spend it.........

Socialism is when the government controls business and makes the decisions.....and they destroy the countries they control....you idiot.

Pinhead, did you expect the government to make money?

LOLOL.. The government in Switzerland doesn't own the means of production... neither in Scandinavia.

 

[bripat9643]

You idiot.. They pay for their success with taxes and capitalism. Were you born yesterday?

We are not primitives.. Look at the success of organized cultures.

How does this "paying" work? Why is the government entitled to anything from them simply because they work hard and are successful?

 

[Independent thinker]

What an interesting blog article on American ideas about civil responsibility and the knee jerk reaction of Americans generally, and Conservatives specifically, to fear community welfare and immediately associate it with socialism or communism. It led to her asking “What are you so afraid of?”, and she received 5 specific groups of fears:

1. I’m scared of having to pay for other people’s laziness
2. I’m scared because I don’t trust my government or other people generally
3. I’m scared because socialism leads to authoritarianism
4. I’m scared because socialists and communists kill a lot of people
5. I’m not scared, socialism always fails

She has some good responses to these fears that I can’t do just to for a short attention span. Read the link if you want. I think these fears keep America from being a great and caring nation.

Why Are Americans and Conservatives So Afraid of Socialism?
I went a little bit viral on TikTok recently for voicing the unthinkable: I said that I like paying taxes. As you might imagine, the Americans and Conservatives in my comment section were shocked and appalled. The words communist and socialist were thrown around like insults, images of gulags and famine were invoked to prove some kind of vague and poorly-articulated point about freedom.

In contrast, the (predominantly western/northern) Europeans seemed to find my explanation pretty fair and even stopped to correct me on some of the finer points of Scottish, Scandinavian and German socialist democracy.

What shocked me, however, was not that so many Americans and Conservatives seemed to misunderstand fundamental aspects of civil life — like taxation — but that so many seemed so vehemently opposed to any suggestion that we should all contribute to the collective welfare of our countrymen.

Curiosity piqued, yesterday I made the mistake of asking Americans and Conservatives: “What is it about communism/socialism that scares you?” Here’s what they said.

Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried. When you have a government that controls everything and then you elect just one leader or a small handful of leaders to be in charge of a government that controls everything, the next thing you know, you don't have "democratic" socialism anymore because they legally change the way things work so that democracy is basically abolished and you wind up having elections like Russia does.

If the left would just consider the fact of how terrified they were at their claim that Trump wanted to be a dictator and would somehow subvert democracy and he would be self appointed forever president then maybe it would dawn on them why Americans are so afraid of "democratic socialism". Why would they worry about that with Trump as president? Answer: Because it is a very real possibility that when government controls everything and only one or a few people control the government that controls everything, there is indeed a lot to worry about.

Another case in point, the pandemic and mandates. The government takes your rights away and even fires you from your job if you don't step in line and follow the the government mandates. The argument is that, well, the government is taking your rights away for the greater public good but, not to worry, when the government decides that the threat is over, your rights will be returned. Unless of course something else comes up that is for the greater public good, such as gun control and any other number of things that they could claim as for the greater public good. Yes, Americans should be very afraid of giving government too much control over our lives because, before you realize what happened, "democratic socialism" can very quickly turn into just "socialism".

 

[Richard-H]

What an interesting blog article on American ideas about civil responsibility and the knee jerk reaction of Americans generally, and Conservatives specifically, to fear community welfare and immediately associate it with socialism or communism. It led to her asking “What are you so afraid of?”, and she received 5 specific groups of fears:

1. I’m scared of having to pay for other people’s laziness
2. I’m scared because I don’t trust my government or other people generally
3. I’m scared because socialism leads to authoritarianism
4. I’m scared because socialists and communists kill a lot of people
5. I’m not scared, socialism always fails

She has some good responses to these fears that I can’t do just to for a short attention span. Read the link if you want. I think these fears keep America from being a great and caring nation.

Why Are Americans and Conservatives So Afraid of Socialism?
I went a little bit viral on TikTok recently for voicing the unthinkable: I said that I like paying taxes. As you might imagine, the Americans and Conservatives in my comment section were shocked and appalled. The words communist and socialist were thrown around like insults, images of gulags and famine were invoked to prove some kind of vague and poorly-articulated point about freedom.

In contrast, the (predominantly western/northern) Europeans seemed to find my explanation pretty fair and even stopped to correct me on some of the finer points of Scottish, Scandinavian and German socialist democracy.

What shocked me, however, was not that so many Americans and Conservatives seemed to misunderstand fundamental aspects of civil life — like taxation — but that so many seemed so vehemently opposed to any suggestion that we should all contribute to the collective welfare of our countrymen.

Curiosity piqued, yesterday I made the mistake of asking Americans and Conservatives: “What is it about communism/socialism that scares you?” Here’s what they said.

Americans are deeply ingrained with being anti-socialist - against all reason. They are taught to associate liberalism with socialism, and socialism with communist dictatorships.

American working class people fought 2 long wars against communism in Korea and Vietnam.

America had the military capability to win both these wars quickly, but instead American leadership carefully engineered a stalemate so that these wars would go on as long as possible.

The entire purpose of these wars to insure a corps of fanatically anti-liberal, anti-socialist working class Americans.

Meanwhile, over the past 50 years, European conservatives & Mussolini style Fascists have taken over the American Republican Party and are effectively reversing the American Revolution.

 

[bripat9643]

Pinhead, did you expect the government to make money?

LOLOL.. The government in Switzerland doesn't own the means of production... neither in Scandinavia.

They are capitalist countries, moron.

 

[surada]

So how is a person who doesn't pay taxes and receives government benefits not a freeloader?

Democratic socialism has a healthier, more highly skilled work force.. That's why the GDP of Switzerland leaves us in the dust.

 

[Pellinore]

No...moron....the police, fire and other government services are not industries....they do not generate money, they cost money....money created by people who start businesses and create jobs.

No...Capitalism is says, you may freely exchange goods and services.....then people like you come along and say, and then we want the money you create so we can spend it the way we want, not the way you want.

You're talking about private profit-making industries, but an "industry" is anything that creates a product, not only those that generate income. Those products can be tangible items such as cars, clothes, or lemonade, but they can also be services, such as car insurance, health care, or fire protection. All of these things are generated by industry, whether or not they make any money.

We agree on what capitalism "says." And this isn't about whether I am or am not a socialist; I am trying to telling you what the concept is, because several of you here seem to be confusing it with autocratic Communism.

 

[Rogue AI]

You idiot.. They pay for their success with taxes and capitalism. Were you born yesterday?

We are not primitives.. Look at the success of organized cultures.

That silly tripe does not address the issue. Do you think it's coincidence that all the Eurotrash nations you fawn over are virtually all heterogeneous? Talk about a fucking idiot.

 

[BrokeLoser]

What's wrong with their demographics? They are people.. Oh, you think we can't be smart in the US because we have Blacks, Hispanics and Asians.

How pathetic.. How biased and ignorant.

Look around the globe at predominantly dark nations and tell us what you see?
Don’t be scared….be honest…tell us.
You always tell us that white nations are what you want to emulate…WHY IS THAT?

HappyJoy


Harry Dresden is it racist for me to expose such facts?

 

[surada]

Americans are deeply ingrained with being anti-socialist - against all reason. They are taught to associate liberalism with socialism, and socialism with communist dictatorships.

American working class people fought 2 long wars against communism in Korea and Vietnam.

America had the military capability to win both these wars quickly, but instead American leadership carefully engineered a stalemate so that these wars would go on as long as possible.

The entire purpose of these wars to insure a corps of fanatically anti-liberal, anti-socialist working class Americans.

Meanwhile, over the past 50 years, European conservatives & Mussolini style Fascists have taken over the American Republican Party and are effectively reversing the American Revolution.

Exactly..The WORKING CLASS fought the wars .. and the so called "Capitalists" do not give a rat's ass if the US middle class is shrinking.

 

[bripat9643]

That's right, nincompoop.. My taxes pay for roads and cops, firemen and public schools, libraries and emergency services... just like in Scandinavia.

so? All of these products and services can be provided privately.

 

[bripat9643]

Exactly..The WORKING CLASS fought the wars .. and the so called "Capitalists" do not give a rat's ass if the US middle class is shrinking.

You can't make such generalizations about a class of people.

 

[surada]

That silly tripe does not address the issue. Do you think it's coincidence that all the Eurotrash nations you fawn over are virtually all heterogeneous? Talk about a fucking idiot.

Actually they aren't but you can't afford to travel so how the hell would you know.

 

[bripat9643]

Democratic socialism has a healthier, more highly skilled work force.. That's why the GDP of Switzerland leaves us in the dust.

They leave us in the dust because they don' t have hoards of uneducated peasants flooding across their border.

 

[bripat9643]

Democratic socialism has a healthier, more highly skilled work force.. That's why the GDP of Switzerland leaves us in the dust.

Even if your conclusion were true, which it isn't, how does disprove what I asked in the post to which you replied?

 

[surada]

You can't make such generalizations about a class of people.

The US middle class is shrinking.. A smart boy with an HS education who worked hard could afford a wife and family before manufacturing left the US... and he paid is taxes.

If the middle class shrinks enough, you get Hugo Chavez.. The way forward is to invest in the American people. Even Saudi Arabia knows that.

 

[Pellinore]

The Welfare state destroyed Rome, you idiot.

I don't want to divert this any more to ancient Rome, but no, it didn't. It really, really didn't.

 

[surada]

They leave us in the dust because they don' t have hoards of uneducated peasants flooding across their border.

Oh stop.. Trump has always employed illegals for thee past 40 years.