Alex,

be nice to the Boomers. They had this 'communism' stuff drilled into their heads as small children.

-jmz

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 11:35 AM, Alex Dean <alex@crackpot.org> wrote:

On Nov 5, 2008, at 11:15 AM, mike havens wrote:

A couple of days ago, here in florida, a woman was thankful because she sees a time on the near horizon when, 'I won't have to worry about putting food on my table or putting gas in my car.' She wants socialism! She, and like minded people, didn't pay attention durring the USSRs regin, nor do the understand cuba or other communist places. You think communism is not socialism? Please, explain to me the difference.

What kind of explanation do you want? Academically, I believe communism is joint ownership of everything by all, while socialism is ownership of everything by the state. (Instead of 'everything' I should say 'the means of production', but that phrase doesn't mean much unless you read Marx, which I haven't done since college.)

We just had an election with record turnout, and Obama won quite convincingly. McCain himself called Obama an honorable man, and offered him all the support he can. Whatever looming disaster you may see, you are in the minority.

Let's argue issues, not vague buzzwords like 'socialist'. We can go back and forth about campaign promises, but I'll take it all seriously when it's actually in Congress. The devil's always in the details, and arguing the surface points ('socialism!', 'free markets!', whatever) is basically 'my dad can beat up your dad' kind of stuff.

We should be one country, and not just when your guy wins or my guy wins. If that's the approach you're committed to, and you won't so much as listen to a different idea because of who it comes from, then I guess we won't have much to discuss. But that's not how this country is supposed to work. The sky is not falling, however dire our situation might be.

alex

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