Thursday, February 07, 2008

Viva La Revolucion!



When discussing Democratic politics over dinner tonight, my Mom was a little flustered. When I told her we were socialists, it sent her over the edge.

25 comments:

Jonathan said...

My new desktop, awesome.

La lucha continua!

Jonathan said...

By the way, talk about a stalemate: We're at Leo's and Lauren tells her parents that she'll stop talking to them if they vote for Mike Huckabee, and they tell her they'll stop talking to her if she vote's for Hillary Clinton. I'm just wanting to eat my tuna salad plate, and that's when Lauren says, "and we're Socialists!"

Later, thinking about it while we flipped between "Project Runway" and a dog show, I realized that our the correct philosophy should be "Socialism for the underserved, Capitalism for the well off," i.e. the state should provide health care, housing, and education for any person that cannot afford them, and let the rich operate however they feel like after we have taxed away enough to pay for the needs of the many.

How you reconcile and implement that in a place like Michigan, where everyone but the very top strata is losing ground, I have no idea.

Lauren said...

OOOOohhh.....good comment honey. This should be a post in it's self. Viva La Revolucion!

Anonymous said...

Because Socialism has worked so well in so many places...

Lauren said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lauren said...

GareBear, you are always so negative. I'd rather be an idealist and keep trying than to be a grumpy old man. :)

Anonymous said...

Why is my love of capitalism and FREEDOM of markets viewed as a negative? Look at the starving people of Cuba or the flight of all the top level of doctors from Britain to America as my example.

Lauren said...

No, I was just saying you were being negative about the possibility of socialism ever working. Jon mentioned this about universal heath care. That it has been successful in some countries and not in others.

Anonymous said...

I am negative regarding socialism for several main reasons. First, I can't think of a successful example of it. I don't have an abstract mind so I just look at existing examples. Secondly, I believe one of the reasons our country is so successful is the ability to work harder and make more money. Its a major incentive that contributes to greater productivity and economic expansion. Third, it's the opposite of freedom, a value which I know you hold dearly. I get this great feeling of repression out of socialist countries such as Cuba, the former Soviet Union, Venezuela and China, which, by the way, is moving towards Capitalism. I agree, Australia's state run health care works decently, maybe better than ours in terms of taking care of the poor, but at best its a mixture of socialism and capitalism. And by no means would they refer to themselves as a socialist economy or nation.

Lauren said...

Greed! Greed! GareBear, you just want your fancy watch and your Kyrstal! It's all about the greedy upper middle class!

Deep breath GareBear, I'm kind of joking. I'm not a true socialist. Don't you know, half of what I say, I say to push your buttons? I do like many socialist beliefs, but not them all. You have very good points Gare, you've become such the politico as of late! Good job young man, good job.
Viva La Revolucion!

Anonymous said...

Thats why I love you.

Jonathan said...

Wait, greater productivity and economic expansion like this?

http://tinyurl.com/yq7rdy

I don't think anyone is advocating central planning of our economy, and I would be the last person to suggest we model our government after an authoritarian regime.

We should be open to cherry-picking the better facets of every system's model, because ours is clearly broken in some major ways. An election year gives us a good opportunity to figure out how we would like to live, we should keep talking about this.

Anonymous said...

That is awesome! A political discussion with my mom can result in so much frustration (e.g., "But he's for the Uuuuuunnnnions!") Thankfully, she has come around to the Obama bandwagon, but if Bloomberg throws his hat in, she will probably move to New York to work on his campaign! I think she also voted for Perot, but she has no memory of it and who can blame her for that bit of revisionism?

Jeremy said...

I think people are mistaking Socialism and Communism.

France is a socialist country, so is Sweden, and to a lesser extent, even our neighbor to the north is socialist.

China, Cuba and former Russia were all Communist states.

Big difference.

Anonymous said...

The only difference between Communism and Socialism is a topic which has not been brought up yet, religion. I think we were mainly focusing on the economic and political impacts of Socialism. For our discussions sake, Communism and Socialism can be used interchangeably.

Additionally, France Sweden and Canada are defiantly not Socialist countries. They are all Democracies on the political side and Capitalistic on the economic side. They Government's have some economic influence on production and allocation of resources, but they do not own the means of production, a tenant of Socialism. (Thanks Wikipedia)

Jeremy said...

Ok, so let's go to wikipedia for the definitions of both:

Communism is a socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of a classless, stateless society based on common ownership of the means of production.

Socialism refers to a broad array of ideologies and political movements with the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community.

Now that we all have the correct definitions for both, let's resume discussion.

I don't see what role religion plays between socialism and communism.

Anonymous said...

"According to some accounts, the use of the words "socialism" or "communism" was related to the perceived attitude toward religion in a given culture. In Europe, "communism" was considered to be the more atheistic of the two. In England, however, that sounded too close to communion with Catholic overtones; hence atheists preferred to call themselves socialists."

Anonymous said...

Anyways, I think we are getting away from the original point. Lauren's original contention was that she was a Socialist, or had dreams of a perfect Socialist society. I made the point that I didn't know of any well functioning Socialist countries. Further more, I didn't think a lot of the things she dreamed about would be considered part of the Socialist movement.

Jeremy said...

I bet you're a Republican.

Anonymous said...

When did this turn into Craigslist?

Jeremy said...

Craigslist is the second best website ever created.

Anonymous said...

Cool pic. Reminds me of my own childhood when my mum and dad once put a bonnet on my puny head for a tableau with other children and hum to the tune of the Internationale to let me sleep. (But that was very long ago already, hehe) Viva La Revolucion!

From the Southern Philippines,
Karlo Mikhail

Jeremy said...

This post used to be a lot longer.

Jonathan said...

You're right, that's interesting. Lauren?

Anonymous said...

People here are confusing communism/socialism with authoritarianism.

Just because "working" examples have been mostly authoritarian, USSR, China, Cuba etc. Then again, socialism is praticed in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and many other countries.

Ha, complaining about authoritarianism is a bit of a joke for you Americans these days anyway.