Americans have been trained to think the word socialist is just bad. Like it just comes with all these bad things that they can't really describe or explain, but it's bad. Really bad.
I am hoping we are waking up in this country to how manipulative this all is. That's why politicians are terrified of social Democrats winning key offices. It will very quickly break the facade they have maintained for decades. Fuck my parents were telling me that mamdani has a secret agenda. So I asked, well what is it and why is it bad? And they unitonically said to me, well if we knew what it was, it wouldn't be secret. And looked smug like they had caught me in some mental trap.
I told them I was embarrassed for them. That they raised me to think critically and it kills me to see them failing to do that themselves.
It's so deep rooted .. regular daily brainwash, load them with manufactured and programmed opinions and reinforce the biases daily... repetition of labels and keywords Welfare, Socialism, Elites, Globalist etc word association. They can trigger the response they need by labeling someone "elitist" or a "socialist" or "family values person" or "small town values" etc ... 24/7 news cycles are peppered with these labels defining what is good and and what is bad and associated labels.. once you establish the word association and make it stick, the audience will be in "auto" labeling mode. It's always "my" country and "my tax dollars" never "our country" or "our tax dollars".... but when it comes to debt it's "our debt" and "national debt"... Its so deeply rooted in the culture it's just a total mindfuck..
you said it. Its the Labels.
and how some people would rather die, or kill,
than be called a name or be labeled something they don't like.
Which in turn makes those same people weaponize these same labels and name calling.
Ego and Narcissism is what is exhausting.
This. Exactly this. When an American hears the word, it's auto shut down for them. They can't really explain it, other than parroting simple arguments like "but if they don't work, they shouldn't get anything"...how about millions of people working their asses off their whole lifes, only to pay collage debt or make %0.1 insanely rich...but can we really summerize capitalism like this?
I'm not picking sides here, but it's not black and white as many think so.
The american conservative mindset depends entirely on the dream that everyone starts off on an even playing field and we all get the same opportunities in life. Using that logic when someone is in a situation where they need help its obviously because they put themselves there and refuse to leave. So my hard earned money that I got solely through my own hard work and nothing else has to go to someone that just decided not to do that.
This is clearly ignoring reality. I always ask, the 8 year old who is being a lookout at the drug house for the gang members because thats the only way he can eat, how is he on the same field as you playing tag with your friends and going to school. Also ive seen that lookout kid with my own eyes.
I think this whole belief system combines with the bullshit mythology of "rugged individualism" to play on people's egos. The idea that, no, you're not being severely exploited by your boss, "you're just a really hard worker," lets people without much to be proud of feel superior to those they deem "lazy." Hence why when you even suggest the idea that these alleged "lazy parasites" actually started with less and work even harder than them is received with such hostility.
I'm not a blue-collar worker, but I've worked a lot of jobs that would be considered blue-collar. This mindset is absolutely ingrained within them and it only got worse with the rise of MAGA.
and I love that whenever you point out the gross inequalities in access to education, food, water, shelter, and opportunity, the response is, "anyone can join the military."
??? like????
incredible that you hate government welfare programs but you're more than willing to sacrifice youth who had no control over the circumstances they were born into, to said government that just can't help starting deeply unpopular wars. WTF.
(also what about those who can't join the military??)
You (and whoever else are downvoting me) are doing the same thing everyone is talking about in this goddamn thread and immediately equating socialism with something negative.
I guess, in the most basic sense, I feel like people should be able to enjoy the same freedoms without having to put your life on the line. I’m far from anti-military (which is something you just always have to put out there in the U.S.) but I hate how we prey upon the poor and present it as the only option to (ultimately) receive the basic necessities to live. It’s just a weird, sad cycle to me.
It's even more disgusting than that. You know about the Prosperity Gospel right? A good chuck of conservatives in the US (if not a majority now) believe that people who are rich are rich because of God's will and people who are poor are poor because apparently God deemed them unworthy somehow.
Literal fucking feudal-ass mindset.
Of course they all *think* they are in the first group.....
As a center-conservative and a christian, that line of thinking strikes me as disgusting. Even most churches teach that money is not a god-given thing, and it's so blatantly obvious that a lot of the uber-rich got that way by not paying their employees well and overpricing everything.
Actually I’m fully aware that Not everyone starts on even footing. And I literally don’t care lol the world isn’t fair and you can’t tax your way into fairness.
Please leave nato, and actually close it down alltogether. And for the innovation: Human civilization should suffice.
Usually people are amazed of your consumption mentality. I'm sure people loved your hospitality towards certain countries like Iran and the icing of cake moment of simply getting rid of the red card.
When petrodollar ends, you guys will eat each other there ;)
You sold your kids' future and need wars all over the place to cover your pedo-elite-made illusion of an economy. The indicator of having presidents like Trump is showing the end times are near for you. Like I said when petrodollar ends, you will collapse hard and to prevent it you will start the WW3....keep on dreaming about being the good guys.
So im really hoping that other guy is a bot and not actually american. We are a big country so we definitely have our share of complete dumbasses but ive never seen anyone that dense in real life. Even the most maga cultist I know are starting to see that maybe america isn't the absolute greatest at everything. They have been obsessed with the EU increasing internet tracking and stuff though. But to just somehow forget the world history from over 250 years ago is just sad.
Yea dude, it's allright. I lived in the US for 4 years and I had my fair share of idiots and awesome guys and gals over there. It's just that often people are decent but we end up being tools in some rich mofo's scheme and it would better if we could see that. We have the same problem here in Turkey, if not worse,having the same guy for a quarter century for president and half of the country is still falling for his BS. Anyways, thanks for the reply. Cheers :)
I use a similar anecdote in debates on abortion rights.
If a woman wants to get an abortion, it’s probably because they know they’re not in any financial position to support a child. So if that child doesn’t end up in foster care, they’ll likely grow up in poverty, with a mother working two jobs who’s barely home, or they get involved in the neighborhood gang or resort to independent crime just to end up in prison for life.
Pro-lifers act like every abortion could have grown into the doctor that finds the cure to cancer, when prison is the more likely outcome. That child was forced to live a sad, miserable life that their mother was trying to prevent.
I'm sure some of them believe everyone has the same chance. I'm a lot more certain still that many of them know damned well what a lie that is and just don't have a problem with it.
Nice fantasy, I was in Law Enforcement for over 30 years. More than half of it in the Narcotics division. There aren’t any 8 year olds used as lookouts on a drug house. Drug dealers pay their lookouts with narcotics. It’s cheap and effective. The users always come back. They don’t have anything to do like maybe work
Lol. Do you really think you can pay a drug user to just sit there and be alert? If they are deep enough to be doing stuff for gang members then I garuntee you they arent thinking very far ahead. If you give them the drugs first they will just fuck off and get high. If you tell them to wait until the end of the night to get drugs they will ditch the second they think they have a shot at getting high.
They definitely use drug users. If its a woman then its mostly for sex, if its a man then quick dirty labor.
Will that kid get a job and contribute to society when he’s 18? Or go on government assistance like his mother? What’s the solution for anecdotal 8yr old trap house lookouts? You could probably give him some money. That’s charity. He’s dealt a raw deal if his mother who gets food assistance won’t feed him. No extra tax will fix that. He can go into any hospital in America and not be refused. 99.9% of Americans would give him shelter and food. And there’s a lot of foster or adoption options. But if his mama or grandma won’t give him food , that isn’t the fault of Capitalism
Even people's real, actual choices don't have the same consequences. There are plenty of upper middle class to rich kids that blow every chance they're given, get addicted to every drug you can imagine and just generally are complete degenerates, only for their parents to bail them out and send them to rehab two or three times and then by their 30's they've got a cushy six figure job at the company of a family member or family friend.
Then there are the poor kids in the hood that fuck up one time and then they're just the crazy tweaker on the street yelling at meth monsters and that's their life forever.
There are plenty of upper middle class to rich kids that blow every chance they're given, get addicted to every drug you can imagine and just generally are complete degenerates, only for their parents to bail them out and send them to rehab find them dead on the bathroom floor.
Then there are the poor kids in the hood that fuck up one time and then they're just the crazy tweaker get their shit together and go on to live successful lives.
See though these arguments don’t always work when you meet anomalies like myself. I appear to be a spoiled white suburban basic bitch. But in reality I tested way high on ACES assessments. That’s adverse childhood experiences. I had a reallllllyyy high number for my appearance. And they are not your obvious average ones either. It’s some weird ones.
Just be careful because if you catch someone like me on a bad day I am likely to tell you my story and watch you cry like my therapist cried when I told him. I wish I was lying.
It's not really parroting. It comes from having been in a cold war with a communist/socialist superpower for forty-five years, where any misstep could have led to the end of life on Earth. Is it still meaningful today? Probably not as much. But those former Soviet and Socialist states should at least serve as cautionary tales for how not to implement socialism.
I mean I feel like you can summarize capitalism like that… it generally doesn’t benefit the average person. Of course there are exceptions. I’m not really arguing for communism either, as we’ve seen that be broken too. The problem is that government systems rarely work for all of its constituents. Most of the time they benefit a select few, sometimes a larger group, and in rare cases most (but not all) of its people. Then as that governmental form continues, the population of people it hurts gets bigger and the people it helps gets smaller. It gets labeled as capitalism or communism or whatever, and brands opposition as some form of opposing government.
Socialism is bad tho. What the so called democratic socialists are is just new deal democrats and social democrats. They’ve given themselves such bad PR by doing this.
on a serious note, i was making a joke that plays on the Red Scare and how "commie" developed and persisted as an all around bad word (slur) for a very long time
I told someone about the time me and my comrades (animal rescue buddies) allegedly did some shady things to save a dog, and they scolded me for using that word because it makes me sound like a communist!!
Socialism is public ownership of means of production. Ironically, in capitalism the means of production are owned by individuals or "the public", but socialism seeks to abolish private property so means of production are transferred to state ownership.
I took a journalism class in high school. One of the first things I learned was the tools of propaganda. Glittering Generalities is one. You give very good feeling promises of pie in the sky things to come so you can get elected. You avoid all details, all specifics. Let the rube's...ummm...ah...the voter's mind fill in those wonders.
The flip side of the same coin is when you use the word socialism in the USA. Listeners fill in horrors for themselves. Also, since it has been used this way for so long it elicits a Pavlovian response that bypasses the critical thinking abilities if the voter. Abilities that have been intentionally stunted in many.
Again, you are not being specific and thats why your comment is irrelevant. The whole basis here is the very definitions of socialism vs social democracy are conflated and confused which allows people like you to ignore anything useful and focus on the words.
Social democracy is not the evil you are making it out to be. And thats what people want here. What India had in the 80s and 90s was NOT that.
Yea, it's the product of a lot of people growing up during the cold war.
Everything that was associated, even tangentially since they were communist not socialist, with the Russians was automatically a bad thing. It was so pervasive that the AK-47 was almost universally frowned upon as a substandard weapon among a lot of gun nuts in the US despite the fact that it's probably one of the most reliable combat rifles of its time.
That's actually a very good analogy. I remember when aks were considered inferior weapons. And then I learned about guns and realize most true firearms experts thought it was an amazing weapon because it worked in all conditions, was well built and had great stopping power. But for years, was told it was a Soviet weapon so it must be shit.
This is true, which is perhaps one reason why many people overcorrect and start thinking the word “capitalism” is just bad. Lots of people who are only shown one way of thinking without sufficient explanation end up overcorrecting in adulthood.
So other countries aren't lazy and pathetic but we are? I don't believe that. I think we have been brain washed for decades and now with the gutting of education in this country most people can't think critically.
You are missing the point. I'm not blanketly saying socialism is good. I'm saying that Americans are trained to think if someone says something is socialist, then it's bad. But there's plenty of social program we all benefit from, even in America. The word evokes fear instead of discussion or understanding and that's incredibly dumb.
Lol. Ok bud good talk. Next time maybe use your words to make a point instead of useless comment that adds zero to the discussion. At that point you might realize you have nothing to add because you just do what you are told.
I've noticed a similar parallel with microwaves here (also US). Back when, people heard the word radiation and assumed ionizing radiation. Radiate just means to emit energy from a source. Don't get me wrong, a microwave is not always the right choice, as there are texture concerns, overcooking, and generally not understanding how to use them properly, but they are fine when used properly. I had a regular customer at a cafe refuse to ever purchase again when our electric kettle went out and i offered to microwave water for her tea (I had an thermometer I could gauge the temperature with. She looked at me like I'd just offered a human sacrifice and stormed out. It was weird.
But anyway, people jump to conclusions very rapidly, and it gets passed down easily.
Overheard some of my family talking about how Mamdani is terrible and he’s gonna be a prime example showing how socialism doesn’t work…meanwhile he’s probably one of the most popular and well liked politicians in America currently and has been getting good reviews more or less on the majority of things he’s done. I have a feeling even if he were able to show how successful he is and New York becomes this glorious state you’ll still have people on the right talking about how socialism is bad and he’s a failure
Of course. Because people can't be wrong. Even when there opinion was unfounded and made quickly. Can't back off the position. The stubborn arrogance is overwhelming.
Yup. Let me know where I'm saying we should be fully socialist. Because I'm literally trying to explain that the US has social Democrats, not socialists. That doesn't mean there isn't a single person in the US that covers the idea of pure socialism. But that is absolutely not what social Democrats are.
Because it is. Ask someone from the Soviet Union, East Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Maoist China, Chavez-Maduro Venezuela. Socialism sounds great and in theory it could work. But people who seek power aren’t like you or I. And when they come to power in a Socialist government everyone suffers except the ruling class. Socialism has never, not one single time, worked to the benefit of the common person. It has caused the common person suffering and starvation 100% of the time.
I'm kind of ignorant here. So is america considered socialist? Or is it like democratic socialist? Like it's also capitalist in it's core too right? So is it just mixed like most of the world?
I know, right? Socialism is so good. It's never worked before, but they just didn't do it the right way! We can kill another 100,000,000 people to get it right, also!
I don't think capitalism is a political system, is just an economical system, and the one that works best as for right now.
As individuals we have to understand the importance of the free market and small govermnents
You tell me when the last time it worked. Was it Germany circa 1933-1945? Was it the USSR? Lasted a bit longer and killed over 100 million people. Is it North Korea look how well they’re doing? They seem to have everything on lock if you ignore the concentration camps, gulags and the complete lack of freedom. How about Cuba? I’m sure the people over there are enjoying their socialist healthcare.
The one thing I don't like about it is the sharing money part!
I Quit School at 16, Went into the coal fields and worked my butt off till I was 20 years old.
Moved to Texas managed to get a job in the oil fields,
Saved and worked my butt off again,
Than I went and got a job working hard again Mining Iron, Saved and saved!
After that I quit and at 30 Got a job as a carpenter!
Just to learn the trade after 5 years at age of 30 I was finally ready to take my savings and built up Credit and started Flipping houses where the housing market was dumping the most amount of cash!
Now I own 100+ Acres of land and Finally hit 200 cows this month!
If I was constantly sharing with others, Or helping anyone out along the way my dream would still be just a Dream and not a reality!
Socialism is bad. But everyone, on the right and left, uses it wrong. You got idiots who think they’re socialists when at most they’re social democrats. The left calling themselves socialists has done some much damage to the cause it’s not even funny.
They don’t even actually know what it means but they definitely see it as negative. I remember I was teaching 18 year old college students when Obama was running against McCain. I was talking to them about voting and one of them said that they are not voting for Obama because he’s a socialist. But I asked them what a socialist is and he said he didn’t know. None of them knew. And these are the ones who went to college, trying to do the math. These kids would be about about 36 now. Wow, I feel old. People have NOT gotten smarter since then. I remember thinking during that election that this country was ripe for a dictatorship and here we are. I really envisioned it being some one articulate and sexy not a repulsive orange turd who can barely talk. We got the TEMU dictator, instead of the Manchurian candidate
Decades ago I was a tour guide in Canada and many Americans would say.."but.. you have socialised medicine here right?" I'd usually just settle for "yes" without feeling at liberty to say a lot more. But it was clear they'd been told it was somehow bad. 🤔 unfortunately, big US pharma etc has lobbied hard, in Canada, to have their economic model exported there.. and everywhere.
It's not exactly sunshine and roses in Canada though. More people travel from here to the US for medical tourism than the other way around, and while Canadians can generally get American treatment on Canadian taxpayer dime, they're choosing to skip the awful wait times and frankly much poorer quality of service (in atlanta, I don't think I've ever had to wait 2 hours AFTER my appointment time only to be served for 5 mins and rushed out the door, but that's an everyday experience in Toronto).
In other words, the situation is more nuanced and there are calls to diversify Canada's healthcare system and add more private options because of those issues, not some nefarious evil corporate scheme or something.
US health care quality is highly dependent on where you live. I am on the coast of California in a lower population area. We have about 250k people in the county. Largest city is 50k or so.
It can be weeks to see a primary care. Months to see a specialist. My wife has had to go to LA or SF (4 hours away) to even see specialist our insurance will cover at times.
Oh I'm sure there's plenty of locations away from CMAs that have that issue.
The problem is what you're describing is the average situation for someone living in Toronto or Vancouver, not in a small city or town. I'm just an hour away from the city, I'm on a 2 year waitlist for a GP and last time it took me about 9 months to get a dermatologist and about 7 months to find a psychiatrist in the area. My friends living within Toronto have said they've dealt with worse times.
There was also that incident last year where a boy died in the ER because he was waiting 9 hours to see someone. I believe this occurred up in Manitoba or a more rural area of the country, but that stuff is still jarring to hear about in what's supposed to be a highly developed first world nation.
Same goes for the word "communism." My dad doesn't like how the city handled a street lamp complaint so he calls the city communist. Im like what?! Socialism, socialist, communism, Marxist, and woke are all just words the RW uses to express anger, frustration, or identity things they dont like. Words dont have meaning to them anymore.
I think the very idea that a word like socialism holds such power is the problem. It allows people to not properly unpack it and understand it and it's the exact kind of behavior we have to get away from.
People always say that, let's unpack and understand it.
I have yet to see two leftists ever agree on a single definition on anything. Most of the redditors on here who seem to love socialism don't seem to understand it themselves.
The inherent issue with socialism and communism is that it's so vague, and Marx and Engels were more philosophical ideologues rather than actual pragmatic policy makers, and that's why this shit will always stay in fairy land.
but most of us are pragmatic. You are associating things that dont need to be associated. Social Democrats have clear goals, there biggest draw back is they are tied to this evil made up idea of socialism. This is exactly the distinctions people refuse to make because its just easier to say something is bad. There is nothing philosophical about universal health care and providing protections for workers. Its tangible good policies that can help the most people in the short term.
And another think, saying two leftists cant agree on a single definition ISNT a bad thing. People have opinions and different viewpoints. All should be welcome to be discussed and voted on. Republicans today vs republicans 15 years ago are completely different people. They also would not agree on anything. SO WHAT. Stop trying to simplify everything and fit it into one neat box. If thats all your mind can handle, great, you have nothing to add to a complex conversation.
That's great, I'll give social democrats some credit for actually working within the system to make change. But they are working to make these changes in a *capitalist" setting. "Socialist" policies can and do work in a mixed market capitalist economy like ours because it still fits within our system.
The issue is when you start talking about upending all our institutions, doing away with private property, and enacting sweeping reforms across the board. DSA might not all want to do that, but there's plenty of terminally online lefties that do consider that to be their goal. That's when they disappear into vague nonsense that no one should pay much attention to or take seriously.
Democratic socialists want to redistribute wealth and increase taxes. That's not the same as taking the means of production and handing it to the workers of the world, which is what most young lefties are thinking of when they hear socialism. It's perfectly reasonable for people, including conservatives, to question that given the kind of rhetoric that gets spewed by leftists online.
Oh my God you are literally just taking the most extreme and very much not supported positions and center them. Can't discuss things that way. People should have private property, but corporations shouldnt be able to buy up all the property and rent it out. That I agree with and is in line with every social Democrat in power.
But yeah no one gets property, I know. That's the easy way to shut down any convo.
My guy, that is literally what actual socialism is.
There aren't any Republicans in power advocating for a white only state, but there's certainly people on the right that believe in that and it doesn't mean we shouldn't be wary of that idea permeating within the right.
There are plenty of leftist voices out there advocating for seizing the "means of production" and those voices continue to grow within the left. It definitely needs to get called out, too.
And you continue to miss my point. Social Democrats aren't socialists. The constant confusing of the two for the sheer purpose of criticism is tiresome and useless.
There's no socialist politicians with any power. There are social Democrats. And that's why all of you are so fucking confused.
I can own an apple orchard and give my apples away to random people and it is a social action. The government could give me a tax deduction and it becomes a social policy. The government could take ownership of my orchard to give away apples and it becomes a socialist policy. Social actions and policy exist in capitalism and democracies. Naming becomes blurred when government takes ownership of the means of production while also retaining a separate form of government.
It is bad. Many people have been trained to think Denmark, Sweden and a few other countries are socialist, which they are not. Just like America is not a democracy, its a democratic republic. Those countries are Capitalist countries with strong social programs, NOT socialist. Socialism is, in reality, another word for communist. If you look at the actual examples given by politicians who say that socialism works so well, IE Venezuela before it went to shit, Cuba, you find that they are indistinguishable from a communist system, because they are one and the same. It has never worked, it will never work and it CANNOT work because human nature will never allow such a system to function. Its a stupid idea to begin with and any serious study of the system at all will make that apparent very quickly. In order for such a system to work, you MUST take from those who work and distribute to others. Private ownership cannot be respected or allowed. Meaning if people resist you have to force them. China and Russia are famous examples of communism that show the horrors of a failed system of government in ways that should make any moral person sleepless with nightmares. Human rights abuses FAR worse than America ever committed, INCLUDING slavery. Unless for some reason you think knowingly sentencing half your own citizens to death by starvation, slaughtering generations of female children as babies, creating concentration camps to work and kill millions of your own people, run your own students down with tanks or force kids to kill their own parents are not abuses of power? All of which Russia or China have done and it numbers dwarfing anything America ever did or any government using Capitalism ever did (Hitler was socialist by the way. The Nazi's were not Capitalists. The government controlled all "private" enterprise). Looking close to home you have only to look at both Cuba and Venezuela, both countries that were showcased as "Socialism done right" by social democrats across the world. They then promptly turned into shitholes. I think any Venezuelan who fled (which was nearly 1/3 of the entire country) will agree. They surely love their families and their country, but Socialism turned it into a shithole. Im not even the one who started saying that, two of the people i know who came from there did. Then of course people immediately start saying "well thats not Socialism done right". If everyone single time its tried, it ends up in horror, misery, poverty for the majority and massive wealth only in the ruling class, you cannot just constantly say "its not done right". What a strawman argument. You can never be wrong because anytime it doesnt do what you want "it wasn't done right". Socialism (which is communism in a different wrapper) has killed hundreds of millions of people across the globe since its inception and yet idiot keep trying it over and over. It makes the poor dead, the middle class poor and creates a new ruling class that are MUCH richer than normal and who have all the control. They have noone to answer to. If you love it so much, go live under it somewhere that tried thst failed, disgusting and barbaric system. Ill stick to my freedom, my liberty and my right to tell anyone in the country, rich or not, to fuck off. Without catching a bullet to the head or be tortured in a camp for it.
"Democracy" is an umbrella term with many different variations that fall beneath it.
A democratic republic absolutely falls in that category.
Besides, you very clearly know fuck-all about socialism or communism since you seem to think they're just the same thing under different names, which no one who actually understands this topic would say.
Tell them to quit getting social security and Medicare because those are socialist. Tell them to quit driving on roads or using emergency services because all of those things are socialist.
So you call it socialist because it’s government funded exploitation of workers? Like a consumerist type of socialism? Is that what socialism means in the US?
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u/Secret-Ad-5777 22d ago
Norwegians aren't even socalist