No political flame wars

[lxskllr]

Doesnt torrents work on sharing ?

And like communism, you have a small percentage of the population feeding the leechers ;^)

[Crow]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Socialism

Democratic socialism is contrasted with political movements that resort to authoritarian (Stalinist Communism) means to achieve a transition to socialism, instead advocating for the immediate creation of decentralized economic democracy from the grassroots level, undertaken by and for the working class itself.

Democratic socialism is difficult to define, and groups of scholars have radically different definitions for the term. Some definitions simply refer to all forms of socialism that follow an electoral, reformist or evolutionary path to socialism, rather than a revolutionary one.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders

Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont is a self-described democratic socialist, and is the only open socialist to ever be elected to the United States Senate.

[AtreyuKun]

How the hell does torrents count as communism in action? If anything, they'd be usable as a prime example of capitalistic greed, where one person steals from another simply because they desired something, rather than having earned it.

Sounds like the tea baggers who want to stamp out net neutrality because the government will step in and tell the poor defenseless billionaire corporations they can't put the average internet user in the slow lane.

[RobsanX]

Christ visited America after a 14 year old kid got some golden tablets.

What's even scarier is that Glenn Beck converted to Mormonism. It's one thing to be indoctrinated since birth, but how does a grown man say to himself "Yeah, that whole Joseph Smith story really makes a lot of sense! DERP!"

[gax1985]

And like communism, you have a small percentage of the population feeding the leechers ;^)

Not always

[shikitohno]

Sounds like the tea baggers who want to stamp out net neutrality because the government will step in and tell the poor defenseless billionaire corporations they can't put the average internet user in the slow lane.

I'm hardly a teabagger. I use torrents all the time myself, and I'm all for them. Perhaps it was poorly articulated since I had to run after the first post, but torrents are by and large something that to me reeks of capitalism. The vast majority of things out there being torrented are products that would only exist in a capitalist society. You wouldn't see things like commercial video games, proprietary software, privately funded movies and music being made in a purely communist state. The majority of films and music produced in such states were commissioned propaganda pieces that were widely distributed or performed for free so that everyone could see them. Perhaps in pure communism (as in the form that sounds so nice on paper, but never seems to work out in practice) torrents might have a place as a means of distribution, but in historical or current communist states, there is practically nothing available in torrents that the governments would consider desirable to distribute. While I like the ideal, in practice communism has gone hand in hand with repressive governments that despise the exact sort of decentralized distribution torrents make possible, so to me it's an inherently capitalist notion. And one that my ISP/hard drives are probably going to hate me for using, also, with the 149GB one I've got downloading at the moment.

And the notion of one person stealing from another because they desired something rather than having earned it is a pretty weak argument against socialism. Everyone contributes in equal proportion towards the government and various services it offers, and everyone can receive equally from it.. But seriously AtreyuKun, comparing me too a tea bagger? Come on, I'm one of the boards few left leaning sorts.

[hippiebrian]

Me, I'm a hippie liberal socialist on things like health care, retirement, schooling, and other necessities that should be proided (and could be if our tax money were spent wisely!). I'm ultra conservative when it comes to choices made by adults, i.e. hate drug laws, tobacco controls, prostitution laws, gambling laws and the such. I am also all for private gun ownership, although I question someone who has weapons for legal reasons, as I do, and has issues with registration. Just sayin'...

[sgreger1]

Me, I'm a hippie liberal socialist on things like health care, retirement, schooling, and other necessities that should be proided (and could be if our tax money were spent wisely!). I'm ultra conservative when it comes to choices made by adults, i.e. hate drug laws, tobacco controls, prostitution laws, gambling laws and the such. I am also all for private gun ownership, although I question someone who has weapons for legal reasons, as I do, and has issues with registration. Just sayin'...

I'm with you brother, but there ain't no party to represent people like you/us in this country It's a sad state of affairs really, we spend all this time and energy debating the obvious. It amazes me that even in a democratic republic such as our own, we can't manage to think in simple terms like that, like that when the economy collapses maybe that is a good time to stop expanding our decade long wars or starting news ones and instead maybe spend some of that cash back at home. I was just amazed by the stimulis/bailout/TARP/ etc etc in that the whole idea behind it was to inject money into the economy to get people spending again, yet we gave all of the money to the people at the top then wondered why they held onto their money instead of spreading it around. And furthermore we chose to blow billions overseas in a warzone instead of saying "**** you bitches, we're out" and taking all that cash back to the streets of America. Now THAT would have been a stimulus. Our biggest money sucks are medicare, social security, and defense, and I think any rational person would see that of the 3 of them defense is the one that aught to be the first to go.

I think we need to majorly re-think our social programs in that they are wildly inefficient and mismanaged (too top heavy and filled with burearocracy), but even with that in mind I cannot fathom the concept of spending even a single dollar overseas whilst the most needing Americans (elderly, poor, and the middle class) are in need of the money back here at home. We watch the fabricated debates between our leaders in which they all pretend, in a well choreographed fashion, that they are urgently at work trying to fix our nations problems when in reality they are completely neglecting the simple fixes that benefit the most people. They are always floating around plans A,B & C (all of which screw the middle class), whilst completely ignoring the existance of plan D which involves just doing things the right way. By the right way I am referencing the fact that we are burning piles of money in the deserts of the middle east and Libya, whilst contemplating cutting off healthcare and food assistance to our elderly and poor, when we should instead be using that money to build infrastructure and spur small businesses back towards growth. We are giving money to banks and friends of politicians instead of using that money to pay off mortgages. And as always, the same group of looters is to blame.


We need a party for those of us who believe that social issues are important, whilst retaining our beliefs in personal liberty and the spirit of capitalism that made this country what it is. We need to be about making money, but we must also be about providing for the greater good of our people. We need a healthy blend of left and right, but instead we are forced to chose from two extremes.



Shatter the two party system in 2012, vote for someone who is not part of the major 2 parties. Make obsolete the notion of "it's throwing your vote away, it's splitting the vote!" and replace it with a call amongst men to stand up and vote for someone other than the king. Our two party system represents that of a monarchy over the people wherein we are allowed to chose our leaders but can only chose from a small select group of elite nobles who are really from the same house at the end of the day. We can vote between royal family 1 or royal family 2, but at the end of the day they are all royal families that care about only thing: furthering their goals and the goals of those in their little circle.

Even the tiny ants can swallow a lion whole if they would just work together for a moment, but instead they spend decade after decade being squashed by the lion's mighty paws. Similarly, in our existing system, we vote for the lions every time and wonder why they keep stepping on us.

Vote 3rd party.

[Crow]

A politician is better off running independent.

[sgreger1]