Socialism reminds me of a religion.

[Dele]

Recent discussions with fanatical socialists have made me realize how closely their attitude resembles followers of a certain religion and their problems with the theory of evolution.

A typical priest of socialism targets uneducated masses, who most likely will lack the critical mind and specticism to question the truths and promises laid down upon them. Afterall it's hard to resist the tempation of turning your 8$/h McJob into a blessed 20$/h, ridding the world of poor and solving the perceived injustice as well. All you need to do is to believe and strike down a few heretics, keeping you from reaching heaven by following a false god, a Satan of sorts. Such is of course easily justified since they are the reason for the problems in the world, Socialism being good and pure.

As always, science tends to throw our sweet dreams into a trash bin and anchor us to the cold harsh reality. Scientific method has brought us proof that Capitalism is in every way a superior way of handing the economy, yet it constantly faces harsh opposition from believers who represent the "moral option" and deny science partly or completely. Even worse, it's impossible to argue with such people, because you are using logical arguments, models and principles they have abandoned altogether and more sophisticated proof requires years of studying.

Capitalism vs Socialism -threads seem to be doomed into falling to the same "YES, NO" -type of arguing that makes religious threads so tiresome.

 

[khaimera]

Where is my flame shield. I know someone has the pic.

I think that any system that is dogmatically followed based on faith looks like a religion. But whats the point of comparing the two. One is govt one is religion. So what.

 

[faceless chick]

Everything reminds you kids of religion.
Geez was Sunday school that bad to you?

Btw, never use communism and religion together- communism was completely against religion, since the only person the people should worship was the leader (surprise surprise)

 

[Altorin]

there is no one right answer. You wouldn't like a place hellbent on capitalism.. look at a place with ridiculous poverty gaps. That's what pure capitalism gets you.. the poor either die, or live in squallor, and the rich get richer and never look back.

There is a good middle ground, and honestly, it's more on the side of capitalism then socialism.. I think the states is actually getting into a good thing now with obama. YES, he does have a slight socialist bias, and YES, people should be cautious about that.

But I don't think what he's doing is ruining the country, and I think that people who write him off wholesale as a good for nothing commie are doing themselves a disservice. People SHOULD be able to afford health care. They SHOULD be able to become educated without putting themselves into poverty. Huge companies SHOULDN'T be able to use their power to piss on their customers because their customers don't have any other options.

Those are all things that should be fixed. Be cautious, be vigilant, don't let him take away your own personal rights, but don't be a tool of the conservative media.

 

[SilentStranger]

What the other guy said. A healthy mix of capitalism and socialism is probably the way to go. Unless we're talking pure theory, but every economic system promises utopia in theory. None will ever deliver

 

[faceless chick]

Everything reminds you kids of religion.
Geez was Sunday school that bad to you?

Btw, never use communism and religion together- communism was completely against religion, since the only person the people should worship was the leader (surprise surprise)

Cool stereotype bro.

Sadly, this is no joke. This is REALLY what their reason was- God was in the way of the dictator as supreme being- which is really sad and ironic.

 

[ArcWinter]

Both socialism and religion are organizations, which have the primary function to control the populace.

So yes, you're correct.

No need to get into specifics.

 

[scotth266]

Where is my flame shield. I know someone has the pic.

Spoiler: Here it is!

Google is your friend.

Anyway, people are stubborn, and refuse to listen to reason, because they don't like what they hear. Big surprise.

EDIT: Actually, it's more like the only opinion people care about is their own: and if you hold an opinion contrary to theirs, you're just wrong, plain and simple.

 

[Valate_v1legacy]

Better scenario... Remove the economy.... WAIT! BAD SOCIALIST! Anyway, I'm going to choose not to point out the flaws in your misjudgement. Instead, I'll just make a random statement:
Did you turn your oven off?

 

[thiosk]

The global warming crowd-- and the militant environmentalists in particular-- are even more cultlike.

They are so cute.

 

[khaimera]

Where is my flame shield. I know someone has the pic.

Spoiler: Here it is!

Google is your friend.

Anyway, people are stubborn, and refuse to listen to reason, because they don't like what they hear. Big surprise.

Thanks for indulging my laziness. I knew someone would have a good one. I like the STFU part.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Hey, good thread Dele. Well, the concept is intelligent, but you seem to have ignored the potential for a more advanced analysisof your sound initial concept, in favour of propping up a strawman and shooting 7.62x54mm NATO rounds into it's body - ironically, something that is commonplace amongst extremists of both parties.

I think a better term would be 'Economics has proven that Capitalism is the better system for the majority of economic activity'. More cumbersome, true, but the fact is that there are some things capitalism does not do all that well, and, quite ironically, fanatical capitalists do not like to admit this either.

Take for example, healthcare. Capitalism does not do this all that well, in terms of raw economic efficency. But hardline capitalists do not admit this, and prefer to ignore it. Oh, the free market can provide a good section of the healthcare market, I will happily argue that, and, indeed, the healthcare market should be open to everyone who wishes to provide this service and can do so (i.e. meet the required standards of safe and ethical practice, and keep themselves afloat). But there should always be competition, and a state alternative is an excellent way of ensuring that the market does not consolidate itself into olgiopoly in the case of this good.


Now, take for example, car production. It has been proven, time and again, that this lies best within the hands of the free market. Put simply, the free market is far, far better at producing cars. The goods produced are cheaper, faster, more reliable, more efficent and, all in all better. And you don't have to wait three years to get one (Unlike, say, a Trabant.) And yet there are many socialists who would argue, to the bitter end, in the face of the overwhelming evidence that the free market is the most productively and allocatively efficent means of car production and distribution, that car production should be nationalised, and cars distributed on basis of need, not ability to purchase.


In short? Fanatics are stupid. Don't listen to them.

 

[CastIronWin]

curious as to the point of the thread.
are you saying that we should do away with all this trivial left wing extremism as we should fanatical religious types or are you simply making an observation and going 'awwwe, look at those crazy kids '?

 

[Jim Grim]

The global warming crowd-- and the militant environmentalists in particular-- are even more cultlike.

They are so cute.

"The global warming crowd"? Shouldn't that be everyone? Surely by now, no-one doubts it's existance.

OT: Where is this 'scientific proof' you speak of that shows that capitalism handles the economy better or whatever?

 

[Major_Tom]

Everything reminds you kids of religion.
Geez was Sunday school that bad to you?

Btw, never use communism and religion together- communism was completely against religion, since the only person the people should worship was the leader (surprise surprise)

Cool stereotype bro.

Sadly, this is no joke. This is REALLY what their reason was- God was in the way of the dictator as supreme being- which is really sad and ironic.

OP never mentioned communism.

 

[quiet_samurai]

Recent discussions with fanatical socialists have made me realize how closely their attitude resembles followers of a certain religion and their problems with the theory of evolution.

A typical priest of socialism targets uneducated masses, who most likely will lack the critical mind and specticism to question the truths and promises laid down upon them. Afterall it's hard to resist the tempation of turning your 8$/h McJob into a blessed 20$/h, ridding the world of poor and solving the perceived injustice as well. All you need to do is to believe and strike down a few heretics, keeping you from reaching heaven by following a false god, a Satan of sorts. Such is of course easily justified since they are the reason for the problems in the world, Socialism being good and pure.

As always, science tends to throw our sweet dreams into a trash bin and anchor us to the cold harsh reality. Scientific method has brought us proof that Capitalism is in every way a superior way of handing the economy, yet it constantly faces harsh opposition from believers who represent the "moral option" and deny science partly or completely. Even worse, it's impossible to argue with such people, because you are using logical arguments, models and principles they have abandoned altogether and more sophisticated proof requires years of studying.

Capitalism vs Socialism -threads seem to be doomed into falling to the same "YES, NO" -type of arguing that makes religious threads so tiresome.

There is no perfect system, a society that takes capitalism to the extreme can also be full of corruption and make the chance to monopolize easier. Science has not proved it to be the best ever, it's just the best we have come up with so far. I think having a mix of both capitalism and socialism would be the best. Capitalism when it comes to your job and you own personal betterment, and socialism for things that would be classified as our basic rights.

And as far as comparing it to a religion goes, that is true for anything people really believe in. Walk into an organic food store and tell people that the food there is no different then what's down at the local grocery store and watch them defend it frivolously to the point of being angry. Those people believe what they are buying is better for them and for the environment without any real proof and do so solely on the fact that somebody told them that is the case.

 

[Silver]

Oh, come on. Yeah, sure, there are fanatics everywhere with no ability to see reason, or logic.

But if the best you can do when trying to defend your preferred economic system is to try and make your opponents out to be religious fanatics, then something is really wrong. I'd advice you to stop making the rest of the people on your side of the discussion to look bad. You solve nothing by just trying to discredit your opponents by comparing them to the pet hate of this forum, you just make yourself look like a bigot.

There is nothing in your argument to even disprove, since it's all just made up.

 

[ZZ-Tops89]

The global warming crowd-- and the militant environmentalists in particular-- are even more cultlike.

They are so cute.

"The global warming crowd"? Shouldn't that be everyone? Surely by now, no-one doubts it's existance.

OT: Where is this 'scientific proof' you speak of that shows that capitalism handles the economy better or whatever?

I don't care about the validity of the global warming argument (though to be fair I'm a tiny bit skeptical about the magnitude of the problem and the role of human cause, though I'll grant the problem exists), I think it's unpersuasive. 1st generation environmentalism was really about individual action "reduce, reuse, recycle. Don't just throw things out along the side of the highway".

Modern environmentalism seems much more like an indict of capitalism from an environmental perspective than environmentalism in itself. This isn't inherently a bad thing; even though I generally like markets, I'll grant that there's no shortage of externalities, especially in regards to the environment. But I think some organizations like Greenpeace are using "false advertising" by claiming they're environmentalists first.

Interestingly, I think a lot of modern environmentalists do things individually that are incredibly wasteful and justify it by transferring blame to the corporations. My older sister drove to work even after I pointed out a bus route (which I only pointed out during a heated argument about the issue).

As for that last bit, there's no "proof" capitalism works, though a lot of people like Milton Friedman, do a VERY good job defending it. You should read some of his stuff. I actually keep a copy of Free to Choose next to Mao's Little Red Book (in Chinese! I can read some of it, even a few whole sentences!) on my bookshelf. More people should do stuff like that, we'd all be smarter for it.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Well, if we(humans) wern't so damn greedy and cared about our fellow man more than our flat screens, a communism with no corruption would work amazingly.