Candidate's Predictions Come True

[COBRADOC]

Norman M. Thomas (November 20, 1884 - December 19, 1968) was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.

In a 1944 speech, the Socialist Party candidate for President for the United States, Norman Thomas, stated:

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism', they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."

He later said: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Thomas#cite_ref-0

[AZ-Mike]

If you look at the left, IT embraces every plank of the communist manifesto. But if you look at the democrat party and liberals in general, they are splintered into groups that embrace only one or two aspects of it or one or two liberal ideas. So the party itself has some sort of deniability if hit with "You are in support of X" question.

That said, we are moving in the direction of socialism because that is a part of being successful. The more success you have the more pressure is put on you to pay the way for the unproductive.

Back when this country started all the "entitlement" programs, they were designed to help a narrow group of people. As the country prospered those groups were broadened.

There are two big, country destroying problems with cradle to grave entitlements. The first is that it creates subsequent generations that are not productive and need the entitlements. The second is that it causes massive amounts of drain on those who are productive. Ultimately the ranks for productive shrink while the ranks of unproductive grows...well you can figure out what happens then.

I don't see this predication as being much more than a recount of history as this seems to be the way society progresses. The best part is that once we are socialist the fall of the society will come much faster as truly socialist nations tend to last a very short time historically as they are impossible to fund.

[freesw]

Back when this country started all the "entitlement" programs, they were designed to help a narrow group of people. As the country prospered those groups were broadened.

There are two big, country destroying problems with cradle to grave entitlements. The first is that it creates subsequent generations that are not productive and need the entitlements. The second is that it causes massive amounts of drain on those who are productive. Ultimately the ranks for productive shrink while the ranks of unproductive grows...well you can figure out what happens then.


I'd basically agree with that. Keep in mind that it was military spending that bankrupted the former Soviet Union, and military spending that is ballooning our deficit today. We need a strong military and should not have squandered so much resources unnecessarily on the second front of Iraq. Iraq was contained, not a threat. We had our hands full in Afghanistan, and still to this day Al Qaeda is alive and well just across the border. Now it looks like we've got a very real problem with Russia, not an optional problem, as Iraq was. (Actually, had W. Bush done as his father had, and taken the time, which we had, to build a coalition, we would not be shouldering almost the entire burden, plus we would have far more international credibility to deal with problems such as this Georgian one today. Today, candidate McCain says "In the 21st century civilized nations don't attack other nations" and it has a bit of a hollow ring to it. Sure, Saddam was a vicious tyrant, and Georgia a democracy, but we'd be on far better footing had there been a real second coalition more like the first.)

It's not just entitlements that are bankrupting us today. It's unnecessary military spending too, and in terms of our balance of trade, it's oil and a lot of unneeded stuff from China. People rent out storage space for all the things they buy or are given over the years and never use. We Americans not only tend to be overweight, we've got too much stuff. But we're trapped by an economy that constantly begs for more consumption. "Buy" it screams, "or we'll go into recession." So we dutifully drive to the mall and do our bit to fill our closets and the closets of those on our Christmas list. And the whole unstable edifice shudders with the unsustainability of it all.

[gossman]

Shove all those that don't meet the requirements of "relative utility" out on the streets, or better yet the middle of the desert so we can't be bothered with them. Perhaps even propose a "final solution" to get rid of the parasites because "it creates subsequent generations that are not productive". If you don't produce, be kind and die, we only want healthy ones. Hey, I got an idea, lets restart a eugenics program, that should work!

[AZ-Mike]

Shove all those that don't meet the requirements of "relative utility" out on the streets, or better yet the middle of the desert so we can't be bothered with them. Perhaps even propose a "final solution" to get rid of the parasites because "it creates subsequent generations that are not productive". If you don't produce, be kind and die, we only want healthy ones. Hey, I got an idea, lets restart a eugenics program, that should work!

If this was directed at me, you clearly misunderstood what I wrote.

There is a huge difference between people who cannot work and those who will not work; my comments were directed at those who will not work.

These programs were never meant to support able bodied people who want to stay home and breed. So after contributing to SSI my entire life I stand very little chance of ever seeing a dime of it for that exact reason.

Entitlement programs collapse countries and it's really simple to extrapolate why.

Let's say you can make $2000 a month in welfare, food stamps, WIC section 8, which isn't all that difficult to do. You sure as hell are not going to go out and get job that pays that same amount or less. You sitting home on your ass isn't instilling any work ethic into your offspring; so guess what they grow up to do?

If someone else is working and making $2000 or $2100 and sees you making the same amount to do nothing, what do you think that poor slob is going to do?

As the ranks of the unproductive (READ: will not work as opposed to cannot work) increase and ranks of the productive decrease the tax on the productive goes up eventually forcing them to become part of the unproductive ranks until the system collapses.

This is historic, it happened in some of the early colonies of the US. It was called "collectivism" and not socialism which is essentially the same thing.

EDIT:

Here is a story about it. I don't know that I agree that it was private property alone that saved Jamestown but the story illustrates what happened there when people did everything collectively versus doing things for themselves.

For those that don't want to read: When collectivism (socialism) was in effect people did nothing and died. When it was removed they prospered.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8236

Here is another:

http://www.aproundtable.org/tps2.cfm?ID=1089&issuecode=history

[freesw]

Collectivism doesn't usually work because there is not usually sufficient social cohesion for it to. Comparing Jamestown with Plymouth is instructive, in that Plymouth was founded on the basis of forming a Christian community that would live by New Testament principles, whereas Jamestown was founded by adventurers and fortune-seekers. Similarly, Israeli kibutzes tend to be collectivist, and have a high rate of success. When it's all for one and one for all, collectivism may be a more efficient and productive system. It was the practice of the early Church. When it's every man for himself and devil take the hindmost, it obviously will not work and some other system will naturally become the way things are done, or no system whatsoever. This is why Africa, which was colonized and ruthlessly exploited by Europe for well over a century, and had slaves extracted for far longer, is now being left to the devil. Because our global economy is all about every man for himself. We do not follow God's charge to be our brother's keeper. Not to dictate to him how he should live, but to give him a hand up when he's so far down he can't get up by himself.