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Short answer: American Dream
Long answer: American Dream of being the oppressor someday. They don't want the laws come in the way when someday they would get to show them up.
Man, I hate to break it to you, but none of those things are socialism.
Paid sick leave, workers' rights, unemployment benefits, affordable education, family leave, and labor protections all exist within capitalist economies across the developed world. Those are features of social democracy and welfare states, not socialism.
Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are owned collectively, publicly, or by workers rather than private individuals and corporations.
In fact, when people point to countries they admire for these policies, such as the Nordic nations, they're pointing to highly capitalist countries with strong private property rights, stock markets, and large private sectors. They are not socialist economies.
Bernie Sanders and AOC are generally advocating social-democratic policies, not the abolition of capitalism. Whether you agree with them or not, that's an important distinction.
The meme's entire argument depends on treating "government programs I like" and "socialism" as the same thing. They aren't.
I tried explaining this difference to Americans on the old place several times and it ...did not go well.
I've been in that boat.. hopeless task. The red scare essentially brainwashed generations, it seems.
What kind of society are you even trying to strive for?
One where they get theirs and everyone else can get fucked. It’s called having a lack of empathy.
Yep, they just want to be legally recognized as superior, even if it’s just in a wasteland destroyed by their own radical policies crafted to hurt everyone, but especially the people they hate the most.
It it wasn’t for those damn brown folk, they’d be millionaires already.
It is that immigrant's fault who took that lucrative toilet scrubbing job away!
Sociopathy
They're convinced that in a society with social services available to everyone that nobody will have any incentive to work and therefore haven't "earned" or don't deserve the benefits. They think that their "hard work" will end with their earned income being "stolen" and given to "freeloaders."
And like with any capitalist argument against socialism, they can't comprehend that that's actually what happens in the current system.
Also, mix in that social programs that helped them are different.
Think of the famous Craig T Nelson quote: "I've been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No."
Things that they personally benefited from when they needed them aren't socialist, they're not government that's too big. They're programs that are OK, but only as long as the people on those program genuinely need them like they personally did. What they don't realize is that most people on those programs do genuinely need them, and the rare people that are freeloading are hard to catch. It's almost always cheaper just to open the program to anybody who claims to need it than to try to investigate people who you suspect might be using the aid fraudulently.
So, someone like Craig T. Nelson are probably against housing laws because he personally hasn't been homeless or close to homeless. He's probably against worker's rights, even though he's almost certainly in the SAG union, and has benefited from their health insurance. He's reluctantly for the idea of food stamps because he used them himself. On the other hand, he's probably sure that most food stamp users are frauds and don't actually need them like he did.
Yeah.. always do what you accuse others of doing. boomer's shit mindset
Socialism refers to collective ownership of the means of production. Social democracy refers to a capitalist market economy supplemented by welfare programs, labor protections, and public services. The two terms are not interchangeable despite frequent misuse on the internet. You are describing and advocating for social democracy not socialism.
Do social services, or services freely accessible to the public, not also exist under socialism?
As a matter of fact, yes, these particular programs exist literally under any form of government including dictatorships and totalitarianisms.
The basic function of any government be it Utopia or pure Evil is to govern the people.
Having spoken with a few of those people it essientially boils down to the fact that they believe that there aren't enough resourses for everyone and if we try to make things more equal then the whole system will come crashing down. So some people are just going to have to suffer so that everyone else can have an acceptable quality of life. Essentially they just fully bought in to capitalisms manufactured scarcity and based their worldview on it.
Or they are racist/sexist/transphobic and actively desire to harm people around them.
The “that man wants to steal your cookie” cartoon made flesh.
I think that even beyond this, they have a really skewed perspective on how big the problem is. A lot of outrage politics and outrage “news” revolves around playing up a problem as a YUGE PROBLEM, so people get worked up over something that’s a rounding error or something with significant benefits outweighing cost
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People are just going to have to suffer because USAID spent so much money in other countries, and it’s mostly corruption and doesn’t benefit anyone I know. We can’t afford it.
A trillion dollar increase in debt by tax cut that only affects the wealthy? Of course we need to do that. I pay taxes, and it doesn’t increase how much the government spends /s
What the fuck!? Are you saying transgenders using the wrong bathroom or participating in sports isn't a YUGE PROBLEM that affects everyone.
I remember when FOX News first highlighted the talking points of the Green New Deal. They listed the agenda plainly:
• Medicare for all
• Housing as a human right
• A federal jobs guarantee
• Gun control / Assault Weapons ban
• Criminal justice reform / End private prisons
• Immigration justice / Abolish ICE
• Solidarity with Puerto Rico
• Mobilizing against climate change
• Clean campaign finance
• Higher education for all
• Women’s rights (this was before the SCOTUS Dobbs ruling)
• Support LGBT+
• Support seniors
• Curb Wall Street gambling / Restore Glass–Steagall
Hannity was playing it for terror, and I was struggling to understand how his audience was so conditioned as to finding the agenda terrible. I still don't get it.
One of the biggest problems I have is if you make ANY headway, they go home, flick on fox news, and are immediately re-programmed. You can convince them that there's no ethical way to make hundreds of billions of dollars, and the next time you see them, they're asking you why you have a problem with a guy renting an entire city for his wedding.
Even the things they acknowledge might be good, the argument is always "BuT wHo'S gOiNg To PaY fOr It!??1"
Um, Bezos. Musk. Gates. Buffett. Not us. It's right there in the plan.
You, You are going to pay for it, but it's alright, because you're already paying for it. Problem is that you're currently paying an inflated price for a sub-par product, because too many people want a piece of the cake. However, if those people stopped sticking their dirty fingers in your cake, and the government started to manage the cake properly, while telling the cake touchers to go fuck themselves or face prison, everyone would get a much better product.
To make my point more clear. If the capitalists would face any sort of punishment for trying to fleece the government, and if the government stopped encouraging it, people could get plenty of socialist policies for the money they're CURRENTLY paying in taxes. The american system is so incredibly flawed, that you're paying a lot more, than you're getting, because the free market is more important than human lives and human decency.
Imagine the workers of a business owning the company they work for. Imagine being able to fire/hire your CEO and bosses.
This is how worker-owned cooperatives already work today. We could just expand that idea to all businesses.
I wish my union hall would talk about this. We have almost a billion in investments, 5500 active members, 1500 retired. Around 50 employers in the group, feels like we're getting jerked around by the biggest 3 of the companies. Sure would be interesting to open a truly worker/union owned coop to level out the playing field and demonstrate how much value we throw away into the company coffers.
i want to work at a worker coop sooo fucking bad. most of the problems at every job ive ever had were caused by the greed crazy upper management.
Same, comrade. My last job was at a startup, so it's my own fault, kind of. I knew what venture capitalists do. 🙈
You could also look into what size stock investment the union can afford. Can you get better leverage as an owner?
They're striving for the kind where they can be rich, stay rich, and feel superior to everyone else.
Even if they will never and could never become rich, just in case.
and keep getting more rich. It'll never end and they'll return on each other.
Like people joking about hating their wives and wanting to get away from them all the time. Why bother getting married to them then? Lol.
Tho, after a friend got divorced I asked if he could remember why he got married to her in the first place and he unironically said "she gave the best blowjobs I've ever had in my life". So I'm probably just overthinking other peoples' motivations.
It's not even socialist, it's just left of Reagan (I guess?)
Yeah, but the people I hate get those benefits too! Can't have that!
/s, in case it wasn't obvious.
Conservatives are great at this. I know of several women who got government assistance like food stamps and Medicaid when raising their children. Now they are like, "people are taking advantage of the system!"
eye roll
Like you did? It has a very only my abortion was acceptable vibe.
more time with family? damn, I'm out.
Family that you like. If you're married and have children you should like them lol
Maybe the fam would like you more if you weren't grouchy all the time from taking it up the ass at work all day.
Was that... to me? Lol
Where even a minor illness can bankrupt you, even if you have the giant scam that is generally referred to as "health insurance".
A cruel one because cruelty is the point
Why are some afraid? I think it's best summed up as this rather candid example of a voter: "He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."
I've posted elsewhere in detail, but to bottom-line it, some people don't want fair in an inclusive way. Moreover, these are people dead-set on building a society with deep stratification, disparity, and might even be okay with straight-up apartheid. All because they think it'll benefit them more than the next guy.
They aren't striving for any society, they are exclusively concerned with them and theirs, and usually confident that they can satisfy those concerns without cooperation
“The one where nobody else gets any of my money but somehow I get to enjoy civilization. Bonus points if those included civilization are all straight and white.”