Another Tar Sands "Black eye"!

why not just a reactionary theocracy? Anouther country made that choice, now emails must be coded as the government reads them all. It seemed much better than the psuedo capitalistic nation it was before. The much that capitalist nations have made is far better in giving human dignity and opertunity than other systems.

Ok so tell me how this works, say the "workers" in the texas toyota truck plant take it over. What happens to the pension funds of the other employees and investors? Do these workers then take over the parts suppliers too, since they can't work without parts. Toyota would just open a different plant, they moved this work from their union plant in california, so do the workers need to coordinate to taking over the whole company? What about the workers in the oil sands projects? It seems they just get to keep all the cash right? Any nod to the environment takes money out of each workers pocket. Since they already stole the means of production what are the chances they will stick around if they are asked to clean up the mess? How does your utopia work?

 

Boy you sugarcoat something enough and it starts to taste good, even crap I suppose.

For y'all that want to live in a socialist society so bad, why not move? Please don't pervert this country from its founding principles. Seems like the progressives got a wake up call yesterday eh?

p.s. watch out for the door that it doesn't hit your behind on the way out. :cheer2:

 

I find it interesting that so many right-wingers are so supportive of the military yet bash any so-called socialism when the military is probably the best example of socialism in the USA!

 

Most of the well run socialist countries won't allow Americans to emigrate, otherwise we would overwhelm their resources.

Tom

 

Boy, that's an old line! I was hearing that one as far back as high school in the 1960's. Conservatives love to tell anyone who disagrees with them that they should leave the country. Well, I've got news for you: You don't own this country, and I've never been one to run away. I'm sticking around, and I'm going to continue to speak my mind. And if you don't like it, you can lump it.

 

The numbers would be meaningful if the desirable countries allowed immigration. A small percentage of Americans would make a large number of immigrants for a small nation.

Even a big country like Australia doesn't allow just any old American to immigrate. They worry about us retiring there in large numbers and overwhelming their medical and other social systems.

Tom

 

That's been tried. It's never worked. Oligarchy has been tried, fascism has been tried, monarchy has been tried, dictatorship has been tried. Capitalism is doing a pi$$-poor job of it. The only thing that's not been tried is for the people who do the work to run the factories where they work.

Oh, you mean like the way the executives at GM and other companies raided pension funds, paid the money to themselves as obscene salaries, and then declared bankruptcy, leaving the workers with nothing?

No, the workers in the parts plants take over their own plants. Then they sell parts to the workers in the assembly plants. Etc. Just like now. Except the crooks who pay themselves in nine figures even when they run their companies into bankruptcy are out on their asses. And the profits go to the workers instead of to stockholders who sit on their asses all day doing nothing but collecting dividends for doing no work.

 

I expected all the other responses but I have to ask on this one... how so?

 

Well, the military's healthcare is, along with Cuba's, the most socialized healthcare system in the western hemisphere.

 

Which socialist country do you want to go to? Last time I checked my Australian friends didn't consider themselves socialists, and I have even worked in some of the limited capitalist ventures experiments that mainland china is instituting.

The odds are if there is a socialist country that you want to go to, and if they don't have strong racist policies against the race you are, if you have enough cash you can get in. Let me know the country, and I can post the resources.

It is interesting that so many people were going to be appalled in 2004 that they were going to move to canada. We never saw that spike of people moving across the border. Then again Canada is a capitalist nation, and the topic of this environmental discussion.

 

Australia was an example of a relatively large non-socialist country where immigration is controlled. As for socialist countries, Norway would be my first choice. They lead the world in almost every quality of life category.

Tom

 

We have medicare and medicaid as socialized healthcare. I'm so far to the right, I'm on the left, I'm libertarian. So my problem with the military is not its socialized medicine, it is that it is too big and is in too many places. Small government, small defensive military, with equipment we buy because the troops need it, not because it creates jobs in a district a party wants to win. My problem with obama care is it removes choice. I'd be happy with a government healthcare system, I'd prefer that rates were means tested. What passed is a mandate to force some people to buy insurance, instead of a plan for the government to fix some of the mess. The democrats created a really bad plan, and the republicans watched. How about some adults in Washington actually doing a health care plan?

But why are you talking about government healthcare instead of state sponsored pollution in canada?

 

Ah, Norway is a fine country with a mixed economy. I wasn't thinking of it as socialist because although the government owns some of the means of productions mainly the state oil company, there is a great deal of the free market at work. The US is also a mixed economy, as others have mentioned with progressive taxes and a safety net not going as far on the socialized spectrum as the Norwegians. But fair enough, let's call Norway socialist for these purposes. I don't have much objection to the government as it does provide for many of the free market goods, and seems not as corrupt as many in Europe. I also can't help you move there because, as the immigration policy is only for Norwegians and those marrying them. In most countries I would call this a racist policy, but in this case it is not. Norway takes refuges and seekers and has many non-Scandinavian's both as citizens and immigrants in Oslo. Ok if you are ready to marry a norweigian we can get you in, norway isn't as ammenable to bribes as most socialist countries.

 

Successful economies are usually mixed. Going to an extreme in either direction usually causes some sort of sub-optimal condition to occur.

Tom

 

Norway is a great place to live and yes they do pay for what they have. problem is, we dont have the same value system here. on a show i recently watch on Norway a poll conducted there revealed that over 70% of Norwegians would pay higher taxes if it benefited their country WITHOUT direct personal benefit to themselves.

we are too selfish to want to pay a penny towards the greater good. Norway has tax rates that take nearly half their income but enjoy the best educational system in the world. we simply dont value an education enough to pay for it. we are also bigger, so the Norwegian model partially works due to scale. a larger population would not work for them either.

also, if we implemented such a thing, it would be at least a generation before we see results. how many people do you know would want to "donate" a ¼ of their income in additional taxes to benefit someone who has yet to be born?

In WA State we screwed ourselves royally in the last election. i am simply appalled that lobbyists were able to dup Wa voters into selecting the worst possible options simply because they had the money to promote a huge misinformation campaign on TV.

we are now forced to balance our budget which means cutting 4.5 billion in debt. now the only place we can cut the budget (70% is untouchable) is the area of crime, higher education and social programs. social programs have already been cut several times in the past few years. higher education has never really had a lot to cut (we thankfully have very well heeled alumni that do provide tons of support here)

when i voted, i felt i was voting for the good of the state without regard to my personal impact. i have NEVER voted based on any perceived personal impact to me financially.

well i "won" 7, lost over twice as much. now in any election, i never expect to do better than say 65-70%. there are always issues that can easily go either way and is highly dependent upon ones personal situation. but in the initiatives category i "won" one, lost 8. in the one that i picked successfully, it won by like 88%.

 

Because you can't see much beyond your nose, you wouldn't notice that America is one of the most giving nations in the world. This seems to be a common theme with liberals and I can't figure it out.

 

Giving when it comes to personal donations for disaster relief, but not where it relates to public policy. We have a lot of good people in this country, and their relatively high standard of living allows them to help others. On the other hand, we have another smaller group of people that are happy to scam the system to make money at the expense of society.

Tom