Centerfield

So true, I'm a reformed Republican. As a retired military person I bit into the lie that the republicans were pro military, when in fact, they were pro-defense contrators. I've since become a "fisically-conservative independent, but I'll be glad to see the neocons gone in a few weeks.

Frankly, I'm tired of the "their both a bunch of crooks" meme. Yeah, there are things I'd like changed and I have problems with some Democratic Party/Policy issues and with some Republican Party/Policy issues.

But its beginning to feel like the bitching and moaning I hear at work in the break room, in the hallway, etc.

Reps, and even Dems, who are complaining now, almost none of them were active in support of a primary challenger to an incumbent.

There was none to porker Jerry Lewis ($-CA-41)(R).

With gerrymandered "safe" districts, the focus should be on the primaries. No focus, not serious.

Frankly, I'm tired of the "their both a bunch of crooks" meme. Yeah, there are things I'd like changed and I have problems with some Democratic Party/Policy issues and with some Republican Party/Policy issues.

But its beginning to feel like the bitching and moaning I hear at work in the break room, in the hallway, etc.

Sorry for the duplicate. You can see how frustrated I am!

GOP runs up smallish deficits?

Hasn't that canard been buried and killed more times than Yul Brynner in West World?

> Frankly, I'm tired of the "their both a bunch of crooks" meme.

This is rather different. My goals are to point out that

(1) We're all Social Democrats, and thus that

(2) GOP grumbling about Democratic (and European) soc*alism is silly and hypocritical, since it's a deeply soc*alistic party itself.

I'd say this limited soci*lism is GOOD, because we don't know how to engineer society to realistically do better without governmentally provided military, police, courts, social safety net, transport, etc..

I agree with Jon's last comment. Despite the distaste that people seem to have for government, many people in this society need government. As for the idea that the "extreme left" wants to nationalize an industry or three, you must be talking about the really extreme left because I have yet to hear of any proposals for that, unless you are talking about some form of national health care. But not all the people that have proposed that are on the "extreme left" (by whom, I assume you mean the Chomskys and Michael Moores?)

Any government past a bare minimum of non-welfare functions is "soci@listic" to some degree. The amazing thing to me has always been how few people notice that we've been somewhat soci@listic at the federal level ever since the New Deal. At least. Much of what you list as "soci@list" is not soci@list at all, it's just not little-to-no-government libertarian. Roads, trade, foreign policy, law enforcement, mails, etc.--all of these are legitimate and traditional governmental functions regardless of whether it's a monarchy or a Maoist collective. Unless you wanna claim that everything that isn't anarchy is "soci@listic," I'm not buying that entirely. Welfare functions OTOH are indeed "soci@listic" to some degree by definition--but are also traditional functions of government, regardless of type.

Part of the reasoning for creating a federal republic in the first place was to leave those state-welfare decisions to the states. The rise in power and scope of the federal government has eliminated some of that. But there are vast differences between Euro-soci@lism and America, particularly when it comes to government control of business. Compare creating a start-up business in the US to doing so in France or Sweden, and you'll get it in no time.

(As the old saying goes, under soci@lism Man exploits Man. Under capitalism it's exactly the opposite...)

[Maybe we can tweak that filter a bit...]

Well, I guess Tully's on to something. I would say that neither party is soci@list, unless you consider government spending by default soci@list. If that's true, then we're all soci@lists.

Hey, BTW, what's up with the quirky word-edits?

I don't really buy the concept that the differences between the GOP and the Dems are marginal. Maybe they are compared to the differences between the U.S. and North Korea but in practical terms, I percieve there will be real differences for me depending upon which party is ascendent in local, state and federal politics. Individual candidates may vary...but in general I percieve the Dem's as being FAR closer to true soci@lists then the GOP and I can percieve a LOT more government interference/restrictions on the activities that I care about should they win. That's why in general (individual candidates may vary) I'll vote for them over the Dem's.... even if they are far from perfect.

So put me in the "Dems = pinko euro-soci@lsts" column.... cause in general I think that statement is truer then not.

Jon's point that we already have some degree of soci@lism in American government is well-taken. What the parties argue over is to what degree that should be decreased, maintained, or expanded. Very few argue to eliminate it.

[It's the spam filter, Rafique. It doesn't like certain arrangements of letters, such as "cia1is."

Well, I guess it is indeed possible for a filter to do its job too well.

Also, I really think that the Dems= soci@alists canard is exactly that, unless we equate government spending itself with soci@lism, or we're talking about the far-Left.

The problem is that, so long as we remain a super power with global interests, we are going to have an overly large federal government. While on a moral and philosophical level I could fully support a libertarian platform, that will never come about so long as we want to be top dog in the world.

And, frankly, once the genie is out of the bottle, there's no getting her back in.

"The problem with soci@lism is soci@lism. The problem with capitalism is capitalists." (or something like that.) This will be one of those emphasis and relativity discussions that can go on forever, where people who actually agree with each other, thinking that they don't, will argue endlessly. At least that's my prediction.

Who wants to buy some Ci@lis???

No, thanks. Don't need it. (Ask again in a decade or so, sez the Old Guy...LOL)

[Digression--if posters would actively police their threads and we close them after a week, there will be no spam problem, and we can go back to typing soci@lism and speci@list and an@lysis and such without work-arounds...]

Socialism, at least in its classic Marxist formulation, is control of the means of production by the government. Unless you consider providing food stamps to be a means of production, I don't think you can consider what the US government does to be socialist. Obviously, people here are taking a much broader definition of socialism, which is really welfare statism than it is socialism. China is a socialist state (albeit not as much as it once was) because it still has state-run industries. The US does not. I realize it's a semantic issue, but calling the US government socialistic is, I think, incorrect. I think socialism here is being used as a pejorative to indicate any kind of government involvement in the economic and social development of society. I certainly agree with Cengel that, if one is concerned about too much government intervention, they should vote Republican. But to call Democrats "socialist" is just not an accurate characterization.

That's the economic definition of socialism, but it's only partial. Control of means of production can be direct or indirect, and much of Europe is indeed somewhat socialist. There's so many diverse views of socialism that the label approaches meaningless at times. Pretty much anything that isn't stateless capitalism is "socialist" to one degree or another. Also by definition, ALL governments not trying to abolish themselves are "statist."

Kinda like arguing theology.