If this was a LJ, the “BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, Ahem” gif would be used about now
Published by R. Mildred August 24th, 2006This thread is quite frankly, the stupidest non-Anty-poo derived thing I’ve read in a while.
Where to start, oh dear, oh dear…
I reckon that a key aspect of a utopian society will be when right-wingers understand that the bad thing about Nazi Germany was the mass murder of 10 million jews, minorities, socialist, communists, gypsies, blacks, homosexuals and white german women who used contraceptives, because they could all be used as a cheap source of labor for the Nazis’ business friends.
Not the work schemes that the weimar republic started and Hitler merely finished.
Everyone clear on that? the socialist work schemes of Nazi germany = not bad, mass murder of minorities and socialists/communists, imperialist warmongering and totalitarianism = bad.
Same with Stalinist Russia, totalitarianism, mass murder, and imperialist warmongering = bad, socialised medicine = not bad.
Unfortunately, right-wingers understand the equation as “anything about Nazi Germany that sounds like something leftists like = bad,” e.g., the “Darwin = Hitler” argument.
Ilkka:
Be a “liberal” if you want, be a “leftist” if you want, but once you say that you are a “socialist”, you really are no better than a nazi, a pedophile or a serial rapist
News Flash: REDUCTION TO HITLER IS A LOGICAL FALLACY. That is all.
Hell, the Nazi comparison isn’t the worst one there. Apparently Emma Goldman and Eugene Debs were “no better than” serial rapists. Serial rapists. All in the service of the traditional reduction of the entire range of left wing philosophies to Stalinism.
Ilkka is either being intentionally disingenous or is utterly unaware of the anti-authoritarian roots and branches of socialism. To be unaware of that belies a massive ignorance of political history.
Even simpler: Godwin’s Law.
Bah.
I would posit that the equation is more of this type:
Some socialised medicine=good
Some socialised medicine=bad
Some socialisms lead to the experiences of Germany, Italy, Spain, Soviet Russia and China.
Some socialisms lead to places like modern Spain after the diversion into facism.
Shouldn’t our task be to acknowledge that some socialism has indeed led the wrong way, and to make a better ones?
My way of seeing it, is something I learned many years ago working with special ed students.
Least restrictive treatment mode.
I find Socialism that is restrictive, tends to become more restrictive, leading to poorer outcomes. How to get the positive outcomes at the top of the scale that we have in this country (regardless of what people say, we have a great research history in this country, few can beat it), while incorporating the positive outcomes for the majority of people in countries with successful social medicine?
It was Vonegut, certainly a left leaning writer himself, who wrote a story about holding down the best to not shame the least only leads to silliness.
How can we continue to advance as we have done, without leaving those behind seems to be the challenge we face now?
Refusing to acknowledge the severe problems of some versions of socialism seems a poor way to advance. And only serves to give those on the right more amunition.
holding down the best to not shame the least only leads to silliness.
Quotes please.
But anyway, who’s talking about “not shaming”? I’m pretty sure most of us are more interested in”not starving” and “not abandoning to disease.”
Auguste, I think it was a story from the Monkey House. And someone else has my copy.
I think what I was referring to is that not all socialised medicine is equal. And, even though this is an oft used conservative talking point, there is not a lot of research done in socialised systems. Personal incentive does matter. That’s not an excuse for companies for like Merck or Pfizer, but it is, or was generally true (a freind of mine is a Neurosurgeon from Holland, he has never given up his citizenship), and he felt that he would have been prevented from practicing to his fullest capacity at home. To the best of my knowledge money was never his main motivator, but the freedom to not bow to government folks who knew very little about medicine.
I would prefer Frances system to ours (from what I personally know and read about it), but I have experienced Canada’s and Englands first hand, and I definitely prefer here to them.
I am un-insured myself, but comparing my experiences at Cook County Hospital (now Stroger Hospital) where I paid nothing, to my nightmarish experience in Montreal, I am glad I do not live in Montreal.
And really, no matter how many voices say otherwise, we have the examples of Russia and China to say that what starts under the “auspices” of socialism, sometimes ends in terrible facist nightmares. As we can also say about democracies.
None of the medical journals I’ve read give Socialised medicine an across the board good grade. Some good grades, some bad. England has its stories of people with infected teeth and not being able to get them taken care of. But so do we.
I (and I bet you too) have read nightmares produced by both socialist and non-socialist systems.
The answer is to blend the best and the best, whithout taking a side that is based on anything other than the evidence. Neither right nor left seem very good at this in America.
Oh, but Auguste, not dying of terrible illnesses is what rich people have to lord over the little folk! How could you take away their chance to shame the poor dirty people to death? I mean, the rich are already morally bankrupt, what else do they have?
“Harrison Bergeron,” I assume.
And yeah, Auguste is right. No one’s suggesting that we hang lead weights around anyone’s neck.
And yes, that was “Harrison Bergeron” the jackass was taking way out of context.
Not sure why you bother arguing with those guys: They’ve clearly memorized every word of The Protocols Of The Elders Of Lenin, shut down their brains, and blither in circular arguments when presented with any one of the hundreds of thousands of examples of benign socialist initiatives in the world. (Social Security, anyone? The Interstate Highway System? Public Libraries?)
But hell, as long as you’re having fun and don’t track them all over the nice new rug at my blog, more power to you.
Because, like, socialism is a system where everyone is paid the same amount for doing work that they’re assigned by a faceless bureaucrat, and everyone has to stand in lines for food and kiss pictures of Stalin.
Fucking socialists, with their Canadian health care system. Those crazy fucking old people, buying medicine from Canada because that’s the only way they can afford it.
Which reminds me of my favorite Lieberman statement: pretty slightly paraphrased, he said “We should legalize buying drugs from Canada because the only reason their drugs are cheap is because the cost is being offloaded on Americans. And we make all the drugs, so that’s not fair, and Canada should suffer.” This was during the 2004 Democratic primary, by the way. And he was backing the Democratic party line, for what it’s worth.