Thursday, October 4, 2018

Socialism: Evil and Horrible? Yes

Our Constitution formed a federal government, a social institution. George Washington had a publicly funded military. Yes, France had a major influence but the Continental Army was funded by the people. Fighting against a king and his imperial military. Socialism as we know it was born. But we are a blended country, always have been. An economy fueled by capitalism, a means of dealing with scarcity. And a government owned by the people, that dealt with society. Yes, corruption has seeped into our socialized institutions and there is waste. It is a way to distribute wealth because raw, unchecked capitalism would crush you. The answer is not to unleash capitalism, we know where the wealth goes. It's not a secret. Until taxes and bills are written without the aid of lobbyists, socialism will fail to be what it could be. Our socialized programs are broken. Fixing the problem is simple. Get money out of politics so we can have fair taxation, great representation and intelligent, efficient spending. No one would complain about taxes and government if the infrastructure was perfect and people were happy. Education worked. Income and social equality existed. There will still be rich, innovative people, in fact there would be more. True competition including public options and thriving companies. Where the people are in charge of how our taxes were spent and capitalism was well regulated.

But guess what. It's not going to happen. We're arguing about socialism like it's evil because it is. Not because of the idea, but the application. Because the true power needs cheap labor. They need an ignorant population. Our founding fathers did not want you to vote, unless you were a male landowner. Because you weren't informed enough, and at the time, they were probably right. But we live in the information age, yet still just arguing about the same garbage. Is man-made climate change real? Probably. Do you really care about coal and the 150,000 or so people that much to risk it anyways? Does green energy offend you for some reason? No, you like the low cost yet we do little to lower the costs of alternatives. So we argue. As if the most advanced civilization on Earth isn't capable of helping out the 150,000 coal workers and lose the business. It's possible, but why save it? Because landowners have coal for sale. Compensate them for the land through subsidies (socialism) and move on, simple. It's bad for us. Burning fossil fuels isn't healthy. You wouldn't inhale an exhaust pipe, you wouldn't want to breathe burning coal. If we can make it clean for the same price, creating new industries, innovation and wealth, is that a bad thing? At the expense of some, who will be helped by society through the transition. This is a revolutionary economy.

But then the question becomes where do we stop? But an effective government could move much faster. Just think about the government as your business, because it is. You own it, you have a say in it. But we agreed that the majority rules, yet it doesn't. That our elected officials work for us, but many don't. The problem is not socialism, the problem is the government. It's not new. It's not partisan. We all want the same thing. A chance at happiness, and too many are denied that basic right. Your right to pursue happiness, can you say that's true? For everyone? Ultimately, everyone would be happy, but America is depressed and angry. I'm depressed and angry. Fuck this. It's not about Trump. It's about our unwillingness to do more about it. Because in the end, if “didn't vote” ran for election in 2016, he/she would have won. In fact, it would have been a majority and electoral landslide. 471 electoral votes for “didn't vote” and 100 million plus votes.

I know the answer, but I know I can't do anything about it. We all feel like this because we can't. We can do better. Corporations aren't people. The wealthy will always sway our government, but the majority has to fight back. We can't. Because we're arguing about socialism. Socialism is literally the solution to all of our problems. But not our current socialism, but one actually owned by the people because that's kind of a big part of it. Socialism isn't the opposite of capitalism, but it technically could replace it. Not many want publicly owned everything; pure socialism, profits split, everyone owns an equal share. Much fewer want state owned everything. Most people like business owners and capitalism. Capitalism breeds innovation and as a society, we want healthy businesses but healthier people. We need socialism because we're a society. It's our protection from oppression. It starts with municipalities, you local government is important. Your state government is more so. But the Federal government is the most important. It's intended to protect people from people. Become informed and vote. Ignorance isn't always a derogatory term, but our people are ignorant. Kept that way by the few people who need cheap labor. That's all you are to corporations. Cheap labor, we can expect that from companies. It's oka. But currently, you're also cheap labor for our government. That's unacceptable because you are the government. You are divided as a Republican or a Democrat for a reason, and it's because… You're just cheap labor because we outlawed slavery. Capitalism is the vehicle of our economy but we are the driver. Good luck.

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