Down with Socialism

[SHRED]

---

PRIVATIZE OUR SEWER SYSTEMS NOW!!!!


:bounce:

[NightWatcher]

1. Privatize the Police, Fire and Ambulance Systems

Hello 911, what's your account number?
Ooohh, sorry you are behind in your ambulance payments. Please drag your broken body out of the mangled car and wait for it to be pushed into the ditch. You will see an adjustment for broken vehicle haul-off fee.

[Deja Q]

2. Why? I don't want to live in the sewer.

It'd be full of "American Dad" reruns anyway.

Wait, that's Hell...

[tbyg52]

3. As a long-time science fiction reader,

I've always thought we might head in that direction. But I hope for a better one.

[patrice]

9. Definition of the word "fiction"? nt

[patrice]

11. Definition of the word "better"?

Even the Great and Holy Adam Smith recognized that LABOR is a fundamental form of Capital, i.e. as in Capitalism.

What is "better" about a group/society that does not recognize its economic OBLIGATIONS to all of its investors?

By definition, wouldn't a group/society that does recognize its economic obligations to ALL of its investors be superior as a form of Capitalism than one that does not?

[patrice]

13. Definition of the word "I"? nt

[patrice]

16. Just in case "I" = someone producing ALL ways & means of survival absolutely independently.

Care to give us a few tips about the management of human excreta?

[tbyg52]

20. Good grief. Get overexcited much? Assume much?

I admit my post might not have been clear unless I'd posted the contents of my brain along with it.

What I meant to say and, in my fallible human way thought I was saying, was that I've read science fiction books that deal with the effects of total privatization. They don't sing its praises. See Pohl's _Gateway_ series, for example. Or the urban environment in Heinlein's _I Will Fear No Evil_.

I assume, from your chivvying at me (I didn't reply earlier because I wasn't here) that you thought *I* was singing the praises of privatization, when I was in fact attempting to do the opposite.

Rereading my own post, I'd say it could have gone either way - my bad - but why you picked the side of the 50/50 chance that set you off I do not know. If you know me, you'd have known what I meant, I think. If you don't know me, then *I* don't know why you chose to assume the worst.

Ah well. Such is life.

[patrice]

21. Much blushing here. Sometimes I'm in a grandstanding mood. Please accept My apologies.

:blush: :blush: :blush:

[tbyg52]

22. No problem!

:hi:
:hug:

[patrice]

23. You're very nice, not to take offense!

I live in a red state and this stuff about Socialism just freaks me out.

:hug:

[tbyg52]

24. I live in a red state as well,

and I recently called my (R) representative to say that when my biased local radio station shouted that we were headed down the path to socialism, my first thought was that I'd sure rather have socialism than the corporatism we've got now.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. You 'might head in that direction'? I've had it for nearly 20 years in the UK

and it sucks. The combined water supply and sewerage charges for my fairly typical house are about 80% of my total gas and electricity charges, even after the recent energy price increases. And when there was a problem with the shared sewer pipe about 100 yards outside the boundary to my property, it turned out the small print of the contract said I jointly owned that bit of pipe with the 30 or so other houses draining into it, and we were responsible for the cost of repairs to it - about £250 each.

[mix]

4. And let's let corporations own all the water!

nt

[KG]

5. socialism is dumb coz eveybody would have to drive the same kind of car.

read it right here on DU! :eyes:

[redqueen]

8. Idiocracy is real. (nt)

[lunatica]

17. Hail to President Camacho!

And long live the gatorade Brawndo and toilet water!

[patrice]

6. Yep. Society, a.k.a. "We"/Us, owe/s you NOTHING for your participation or cooperation.

[patrice]

10. P.P.S. And please don't tell me that the Social Contract is fulfilled by something called "money" =

0s and 1s processed by privately owned processes in privately owned machines.

[patrice]

7. P.S. Ergo, there is no We/Us.

[rug]

12. Amen! What's the government doing in my shit?

[patrice]

14. Recycling it into the BULLSHIT TransNational Corp pumps into the Media. nt

[patrice]

15. P.S. ask Jon Stewart. nt

[Odin2005]

18. Equating Socialism with economic planning and Capitalism with free enterprise is 100% wrong

It is a notion created by right-wing ideologues like Friedrich "Socialism is Serfdom" Hayek. Economic planning vs. free enterprise are about how goods and services are distributed in an economy, which is tangential to the question of who controls the means of production. So you can have a free enterprise "market" Socialism based on co-ops, something which I support. It is completely incorrect to call Sweden-style Social Democracy "Socialist" because it is NOT Socialist, it is essentially capitalist with a strong element of economic planning, AKA "State Capitalism." Calling Sweden "Socialist" is regurgitating right-wing memes and I get annoyed when fellow left-wingers repeat such nonsense.