what's the opposite of a socialist?
 

with all the debate around socialism/socialist, i got to wondering.

Here's what I have to say to the nutcase right wingers that have been running around flailing their arms crying "Socialism!"....

If you're going to be against socialism, then that's fine... but BE against it all the way.
Give up your Medicare. Give up your Social Security. Stop driving on publicly funded roads. Pull your kids out of public schools. Don't be a hypocrite.... socialism is an evil product of the Devil, right?

So be against it. Denounce everything that has socialist leanings.... not just the ones you decide to cherry pick.

Or get over yourselves, shut up, and move the fuck on with your lives.

:2 cents:

In the US political scene, I gotta go with maverick.

cap·i·tal·ist
   /ˈkæpɪtlɪst/ Show Spelled[kap-i-tl-ist] Show IPA
?noun
1.
a person who has capital, esp. extensive capital, invested in business enterprises.
2.
an advocate of capitalism.
3.
a very wealthy person.

Capitalism definition

An economic system based on a free market, open competition, profit motive and private ownership of the means of production. Capitalism encourages private investment and business, compared to a government-controlled economy. Investors in these private companies (i.e. shareholders) also own the firms and are known as capitalists.


so·cial·ist
   /ˈsoʊʃəlɪst/ Show Spelled[soh-shuh-list] Show IPA
?noun
1.
an advocate or supporter of socialism.
2.
(initial capital letter) a member of the U.S. Socialist party.

so·cial·ism
   /ˈsoʊʃəˌlɪzəm/ Show Spelled[soh-shuh-liz-uhm] Show IPA
?noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2.
procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3.
(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

Yeah, it would be capitalism

Good post. Most of those moaning about "Socialism" would be screwed without a lot of Government funded services

i figured capitalism too, in the classic sense this is proper, but i guess i wonder if it is true in the current view of socialism.

is it still as cut and dry as socialism or capitalism?

A Libertarian

And the U.S. is really neither of those. The U.S. is a Republic.

re·pub·lic
   /rɪˈpʌblɪk/ Show Spelled[ri-puhb-lik] Show IPA
?noun
1.
a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.
2.
any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth.
3.
a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.


Q: Can you have such a thing as Capitalistic Communism?
A: Yes.

Q: Can you have such a thing as a Socialist Republic?
A: Yes, the U.S. is one.

Q: Can you have pure Socialism?
A: No, pure socialism doesn't work.

Q: Are we soon to become a Communist State?
A: Of course not. Don't be retarded. Stop drinking the "tea" at the Tea Parties.

Look at Tila Tequila, Paris Hilton and the morons in Jersey Shore. That is the opposite of socialists.

That doesn't even make sense...

anti-socialist ??

lolz

It's absolutely amazing to see how abysmally uneducated 90% of the people who try to debate politics are. This is not at all a partisan post, but since the topic of Socialism is at hand, I must say as a general message:

1. Stop confusing Socialism with Communism. They are NOT the same thing.

2. Stop branding anything you don't like as <insert a party name or epithet for that party here>, and really take the time to understand those who you think are your political opponents as much as those that you think you support. You might be surprised at the results.

I love healthy debate, but come on people. :helpme

to whom are you referring?

I'm serious a Libertarian is pretty much the opposite of a Socialist ... as close as you'll find anyway...

It is nor cut and dried in the minds of some people...it is subjective...depending upon ones perspective. In my mind it is cut and dried. We are a nation that primarily practices capitalism...but also practices socialism in the sense that we have social programs. In my mind the introduction of a new social program does not mean that we are becoming socialist. If the practice of private enterprise were to be slowly but surely eliminated by the government then this would indicate that the country is turning away from capitalism to socialism and this is not currently the situation.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

This is what wikipedia says:

"Look at the political spectrum.

Communism and socialism are usually regarded as being on the left, opposite fascism and conservatism on the right."

I found a song of Karen O on youtube and before they started playing music, someone on the stage screams "Hitler party." I just want to say I like the Karen O music just because of nice sounding melodies. I do not want to get involved in politics about this.

I am just going to say that Hitler killed some of my Russian family members in World War II, so I do not like Hitler I would say.

was it the media that latched on to the socialism term? did the whole socialism craze begin with the healthcare initiative?

No,,,you cannot have Capitalistic Communism.

Yes..there can be a Socialist Republic...but the U.S. is not one...the U.S. is a Democratic Republic.

No...pure Socialism hasn't worked.

I think the right has been crying about socialism off & on for a long time.

Interestingly, I recently had a die hard republican in my home a month ago who did their usual thing... raised his fist, shook his head and said, "It's Socialism!" about the topic of the health care issue. He could not however, explain his position on it beyond that word. He had no foundation, principles, stance, take-on-it, opinion or otherwise that made any sense whatsoever. This person is also retired, receiving Medicare & Social Security. He saw no hypocrisy at all in collecting from the socialist pool. He only has issues with paying into it.

His argument was, "We don't need to give all these people health care, they can go to the ER."

I asked, when they have no insurance and can't pay for it, what happens?

He said, "It's free, you don't have to pay."

Free indeed. More like, they bill you until they send you to collections, destroying your credit and possibly landing you in bankruptcy, OR.... we, the masses PAY for it. And how is that any different (read: better) than simply providing everyone with health care to begin with.

Anyway.... there was much more dialog of course, but you get the jist. The person was utterly without a compelling debate of any kind, but was militant about that word: "Socialism!" because it had been drilled into his head over and over and over by the crazed right propaganda machine.

an anarchist is the opposite

It has been the media in the sense that they over hype right wing rhetoric..who cry socialism. No...the initial hype about the current cry of socialism began with the bailouts of private enterprise because with the loans to the various companies the government took a certain amount of control over the companies to help insure the loans were managed properly and to help see that the loans are repaid. Of course the introduction of health care...which as proposed is a semi socialist program (semi because it requires one to buy insurance from private enterprise)...added fuel to the right wing cries of socialism.

Right wingers...historically speaking...have pretty much always opposed the introduction of any new social program.

I like how people quote a conversation they had with someone that had no clue what they were talking about and then use that as evidence as to why their point of view is more correct ...

An anarcho-capitalist.

BestXXXPorn told you the right answer but you morons ignore it just so you can argue.

no wonder your politics is a world joke and your empire is going down the toilet.

it's quite an impressive accomplish eh. define the opponent in one *horrible* word.

like the star trek episode where they were on some planet which was fighting some civil war between the blue guys and the purple guys.

i guess i don't know enough about libertarianism then. i'll have to read up on it:thumbsup

No? Mainland China is still run by the communist party. However, their economic practices are about as capitalistic as they can be. This alone qualifies as Capitalistic Communism.

Mincing words doesn't change the second point. That socialist programs exist here is simply a fact, (that you don't need me to tell you). If you wanna be picky, how about "Democratic Republic With Socialist Programs"?

It's not really a "point of view". It's blatant hypocrisy. Simply was pointing out the personal encounter with one of the hypocrites, rather than some news story on tv.
I apologize if I've offended your delicate sensibilities.

The USSR was an example of a socialist government. He who hurries can not walk with dignity.

Factually China has never been a Communist country...just as the Soviet Union was never a Communist country. China is a Socialist country just as the Soviet Union was a Socialist country. There has never been a country that practiced Communism just as there has never been a country that has practiced Democracy.

ok, so libertarians believe in a laissez-faire government. got it.



what's weird to me is that it seems the ones screaming socialism is bad are not all libertarians.

That's what I was going to say :)

Nono, not you bro (I usually love your posts). I meant in general. :thumbsup

right on!


that's really what it seems like to me as well. i mean the socialist finger pointing thing is what strikes me as the most bizarre. amp's friend is a perfect example, someone on medicare finger pointing about socialism, my god man!

Libertarians are committed to the belief that individuals, and not states or groups of any other kind, are both ontologically and normatively primary; that individuals have rights against certain kinds of forcible interference on the part of others; that liberty, understood as non-interference, is the only thing that can be legitimately demanded of others as a matter of legal or political right; that robust property rights and the economic liberty that follows from their consistent recognition are of central importance in respecting individual liberty; that social order is not at odds with but develops out of individual liberty; that the only proper use of coercion is defensive or to rectify an error; that governments are bound by essentially the same moral principles as individuals; and that most existing and historical governments have acted improperly insofar as they have utilized coercion for plunder, aggression, redistribution, and other purposes beyond the protection of individual liberty.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...olan-chart.svg


I, for the record, am a Libertarian....


:2 cents:.

so is it fair to say that a libertarian is anti-government?

Precisely. Things like Medicare, Social Security, and unemployment benefits all reflect socialistic values, yet they are supported by many staunch conservatives. If only people would stop the name calling and start reading more, they'd see that the US, through its very unique political upbringings, has some very entrenched socialistic programs in place, along with other policies that reflect capitalist values as well. The political world is not a black and white arena of good and evil, people!

I'm not a history professor of world governments, but the information available to the rest of the planet suggests you are incorrect.

Main article: List of current communist states

The following countries are one-party states in which the ruling party declares allegiance to Marxism-Leninism and in which the institutions of the party and of the state have become intertwined; hence they fall under the definition of Communist states. They are listed here together with the year of their founding and their respective ruling parties.

Countries where institutions of the communist party and state are intertwined:

Current:

* People's Republic of China People's Republic of China (since 1949); Communist Party of China
* Cuba Republic of Cuba (Cuban Revolution in 1959, socialist state declared in 1961); Communist Party of Cuba
* North Korea Democratic People's Republic of Korea (since 1948); Workers' Party of Korea
* Laos Lao People's Democratic Republic (since 1975); Lao People's Revolutionary Party
* Vietnam Socialist Republic of Vietnam (since 1976); Communist Party of Vietnam (ruled the Democratic Republic of Vietnam since 1954)

There is a "Former" list as well, although it is much more lengthy, and includes the old U.S.S.R.
I'm not going to argue technical foreign government theory with you, I'm merely presenting history as we know it. (Straight from the almighty Wikipedia.)

Yes, and no. The extreme end of libertarianism would be anarchy, but I don't get that extreme. It is definitely safe to say that libertarians believe that the government should be VERY strictly limited.

One of the tenets, for example, would be that all criminal laws should be based on the rule that: No one can harm, or steal, another person, or their property. Nothing more than that.

Civil law would rely on the tenet that: You must keep your promises.

If you think carefully about laws, and civil suits, it's easy to see which apply and which do not.

Under those rules, there are tons of laws that would be thrown out, the easiest examples being drug or prostitution laws, which involve telling someone what they can or can't do with their own bodies, or property.



.

Yes, a true libertarian is anti-government, anti-statism, because of the violence that's inherent to government.

Minarchists are people who believe in the necessity and possibility of limited government and are very closely related to libertarians and in many cases considered a libertarian subgroup.

A libertarian is a person - any person - who consistently advocates individual freedom and consistently opposes the initiation of the use of coercion by anyone upon the person or property of anyone else for any reason. (Coercion is here defined as any action taken by a human being against the will or without the permission of another human being with respect to his or her body or property. This includes murder, rape, kidnaping, assault, trespassing, burglary, robbery, arson and fraud.) Some libertarians (such as the late Robert LeFevre) not only oppose all forms of initiatory coercion, but also the use of retaliatory coercion (revenge or criminal justice). The vast majority of libertarians, however, maintain that physical force used in self-defense or defense of one's family or property is fully justifiable.
But, all libertarians, by definition, at least oppose the initiatory use of coercion. They support the rational principle of the individual human rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. This means that each individual has the right to keep what he earns for himself and his family, and this includes the right to use, trade, sell, give away, or dispose of his property as he sees fit. A person who violates the rights of others by initiating coercion, violence, or fraud against them forfeits his right to be left alone by government and may be arrested, charged, tried, and imprisoned, deported or executed if convicted (depending on the nature of his or her crimes). The basic, proper function of lawful government is therefore limited to protecting these rights of the peaceful individual from criminals and foreign aggression, and in not violating these rights itself, for if government is allowed to go beyond this legitimate function and itself initiates force in violation of the rights of peaceful citizens, it necessarily contradicts the only rational justification for its own existence by acting criminally itself.

Real libertarians take individual rights seriously - seriously enough to consistently uphold them against the initiation of the use of force by anyone (including government) for any reason. This means that government must be bound by the policy of "laissez faire" - which means that government has no business coercively interfering with the lives of peaceful (non-coercive) citizens in their private affairs and voluntary (market) relationships.

Libertarians may or may not approve of some of the things that some people may do in private or in voluntary relations, but whatever their own code of personal moral conduct is, they do not seek to ban any private or voluntary activities by the use of force, including the force of government action. To do so would be to violate the very principle of individual rights of person and property, and thereby undercut any rational argument in favor of freedom or defense of the free-market system. Those exception makers and outright coercive busy-bodies in our midst (referred to as "interventionists" or "statists" by libertarians) who do want to abandon government by principle and instead put Whim in charge of the use of legal coercion are the people who help set the stage for arbitrary and capricious governmental tyranny - leading in the direction of totalitarian dictatorship.

Libertarians are for individual freedom - and this includes the freedom of people to do some things that we and other people may disapprove of. A person should be free (from coercive interference) to do what he pleases with his own life and property, as long as he does not violate (through coercive interference) the same right of other peaceful persons to do what they want with their lives and properties. (The second clause is logically implied in the first.) Libertarians do not oppose non-coercive persuasion, educational efforts, private advertising campaigns, organized boycotts, or even social ostracism as means of trying to effect changes in the private behavior of others. (Many people have stopped smoking tobacco in recent years partly as a result of education and persuasion by friends and family members.) What libertarians do oppose is the attempt by anyone (individuals or government officials) to impose their own views of "fairness" or personal morality on others through the initiation of the use of coercion, by either personal violence or political legislation and governmental action. This principled position sets libertarians apart from conservatives as well as other non-libertarians.

Libertarians are not to be confused with the so-called "civil libertarians" which typify the membership and leadership of the American Civil Liberties Union. It is true that the ACLU has come to the defense of freedom of speech for certain minorities (e.g., nazis, communists, and anarchists) and this is commendable - but the podium has often been at taxpayers' expense, which is a "no-no" from the real libertarian perspective. Many "civil libertarians" believe that some people have a "right" to violate the rights of others; they claim there is a "right to a job" or a "right" to welfare payments or a "right" to "free education" or a "right" to free child care - all at the expense of the people (usually the taxpayers) who are forced to pay for these so-called "rights." Real libertarians are for true freedom, not "freedom" at the forced expense of others. The only obligation that true rights impose on persons is of a negative kind: not to interfere with the rights of other people - i.e., to refrain from the initiation of the use of coercion. This is the core principle of libertarianism and is sometimes called the 'Non-Aggression Axiom'.

Welfare-state "liberals" and "civil libertarians" speak of "rights" of people as members of specially privileged groups, such as "women's rights" or "gay rights" or "rights of the handicapped" or even so-called "animal rights"! Real libertarians know that there are only individual rights, not group rights. There is no such thing as "gay rights" or "black rights" or "white rights" or left-handed Martian rights. Government must not be used to dish out special privileges to any group for any reason, since government cannot give anyone anything unless it takes it away from others by force, thereby violating their rights. There can be no such thing as a "right" to violate the rights of others.

No doubt there are some well-intentioned ACLU members who do promote true civil liberties and uphold human rights; however, the ACLU has not come to the defense of the rights of school children whose freedom is being violated daily by compulsory attendance laws and the tyranny of Federally-ordered forced busing. Nor do I know of any case in which the ACLU has defended the constitutional rights of businessmen who are being harassed by OSHA agents and other bureaucrats, or hounded by such arbitrary and subjective laws as the antitrust acts. Indeed, many "civil libertarians" seem callously insensitive to the victims of crime and legal plunder - while they defend known criminals from justice.

Libertarians are not anarchists. While it is true that some individuals favor a political system of competing vigilante committees, and refer to this position as "anarcho-capitalism" (a view formerly held by libertarian economist Murray Rothbard), this is a confusing misnomer based on an apparent failure to clearly distinguish between the nature of market institutions (which do not involve the use of coercion at all, either initiatory or retaliatory) and the nature of coercive entities (criminal or legal). Actually, libertarianism rests on the concepts of individualism, self-ownership, private property, & voluntary (market) exchange. Classical anarchism not only opposed the political state, but also some voluntary organizations of which it disapproved. Most importantly, true anarchists opposed private property - without which no voluntary relationships are possible. Today's libertarians are in the classical liberal tradition of Algernon Sidney, John Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Edmund Burke, Herbert Spencer, and Frederic Bastiat - not the anarchist tradition of Proudhon, Kropotkin, and Bakunin.

Libertarians do not advocate freedom or the free-market economy merely because "it works" (which it does better than any other system); they support it as the only non-coercive and just system - the system in which people are free to deal with one another on a voluntary basis as traders (exchangers of goods and services) instead of as masters and slaves - or as privileged class and exploited host. Others advocate government by whim. Libertarians adhere to certain principles, and without the guidance of principles and standards, all that is left is pragmatic expediency and the tyranny of government by whim. One might say that libertarians are "idealists" in the popular sense of that word; after all, libertarians stand for certain ideals - goals to strive for (e.g., less government intervention, more individual freedom and moral responsibility, free markets, etc.). Because libertarianism is based on man's nature and the nature of reality, it is the most practicable social system. Libertarians are practical idealists.


.

Libertarianism is indeed about the non-aggression principle: People are free to use their body and property in any way they see fit as long as they don't cause damage to another person's body or property. So you are not allowed to initiate force (let's say break in to someone's house) but you are allowed to use force to defend yourself or your property (let's say shoot a burglar).

The difference between an anarcho-capitalist and a minarchist is that a minarchist for some strange reason reason does allow 1 company (the government in a certain area) to violate the non-aggression principle by giving it a monopoly on violence in a certain area.

All of these countries practice Socialism...but the Western Governments and their news media mislabeled them to be Communist Governments and the countries...in some cases...label themselves to be Communists thus they have commonly been called Communist countries. There has never been a been a country that actually practiced Communism just as there has never been a country that actually practiced Democracy.

Yay for Libertarian thread save and good definition in my absence :)

I am also a Libertarian... To me it is the penultimate system of government as I value individual freedom and property above all else. Far from anarchism; a government is required to make sure everyone's freedoms and property are protected and to protect the nation as a whole from foreign threats. Obviously I'm over simplifying here but... you get the point :P

Anyway....

This seems to be the root cause of most of the paranoia (that I've witnessed) displayed by extreme right "Socialism!" finger pointers. They seem to think that providing affordable health care to everyone is somehow going to cause Stalin to rise up from the grave and put us all in forced labor camps, and it's simply ludicrous. And then the conversation usually devolves into blaming illegal immigrants for everything and goes to hell from there.

Forcing people to buy security services from a certain company (the government) instead of letting them decide for themselves if they want to buy protection and from which company they want to buy protection and at what price they want to buy those services (free market) is a violation of the fundamental libertarian non-aggression principle.

Yet in other definitions :

Dumbshit :

1. A practitioner of shit that is dumb
2. Shit that is normal shit since shit has no intellect
3. a personal manifestation of actually becoming shit because of being dumb


So now that we have cleared all the definitions up by using the definition itself to define
the fucking shit, everything is fine now.

:1orglaugh