Trump defenders have a full time job
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What I asked for was that you point to where Marx ever mentioned the government controlling all power.
The creation of federal public lands occurred even under the Articles of Confederation and continued on under the Constitution. If anything, there has been a long process of ceding public land to private hands. For history of acquisition of public lands see Table 1-1. In fact, since 1990, a net 31 million acres of public land has been lost. [see page 15]
In other words, federal public lands were created before Marx even lived and was instituted by the Founding Fathers of the USA. Were the founding fathers actually communists?
Where in the Manifesto is this? In Marx's view, the rich themselves would be abolished. This appears to be utter nonsense. I do support progressive taxation, why wouldn't I? It isn't at all a communist position. This is actually just an absurd position to hold. You can't say that Marx wanted to abolish private property and tax the rich more than the poor. It's absolutely a contradiction. This should indicate to you that this source is not well-thought out nor is it reliable.
I don't have a personally strong position on estate taxes. But ideally we live in a country where everybody should have equality of opportunity. If rich scions just live off the fruits gathered by their ancestors, that isn't actually in keeping with that ideal. So by saying you oppose heavy estate taxes, you are essentially saying you don't believe in equality of opportunity and actually support a system of rich and poor. Because as we know, the rich get richer without doing anything at all, they don't have to work at. The poor get poorer or stagnate even if they do work hard. That appears to be the system you support. I don't have that much sympathy for griping about estate taxes, nor do I want to go out and advocate for them. But philosophically, they are entirely in keeping with often proclaimed American ideals. And again, this would be irrelevant in a Marxist system, so this isn't a tenet of Marx.
As is stated here, this isn't a particularly Marxist position. Since Marx believed in public control of all property this also seems to be irrelevant. But I'm not sure there's a place on Earth where the property of rebels isn't seized. As far as emigrants go, does that happen here? I don't think so. I am opposed to the drug war, by the way, and I believe there's a lot of corruption behind the Blue (we support the Blue, right?) seizing property. This has zero to do with Marxism. I have never heard Trump say he wants to end this policy. Has he?
The Government doesn't directly manage credit. Banks, credit unions, etc, are still by and large private entities.
So far this list is 0/5 on what it sets out to prove. And nothing really from the Communist Manifesto at all. I don't believe you've read it. I think you've read about it. That's why instead of pointing me to direct quotes from it, you link to wingnut websites about it. Nothing you say, nothing in this list, suggests you've actually read it.
There are private roads and bridges (which are not free to use). Licensing is a far cry from "centralization in the hands of the state." It's not like Russia where a station can be shut down because of what it says. It isn't like North Korea where broadcasting is actually done by the state. The most direct connection we have is PBS and NPR and actually, I like a lot of that programming, but I don't watch for the news mostly. And it's usually conservatives who try to influence programming by threatening funding.
What businesses does the government run?
The Second Amendment has nothing to do with "escaping" this one. No one has even attempted it or expressed any desire for it. Mostly people want jobs and during the New Deal, welcomed public works jobs run by the government. Nobody opposed that with their gun collections. I will point out though that for the first century of US existence we literally practiced slavery. With the abolition of slavery, we gone pretty dramatically in the opposite direction on this one.
All you have to do is look at red versus blue counties to see that cultural differences have not been erased. 100% false. I do agree that big corporations dominate agriculture and that it's a bad thing. But, note, "big corporations" are capitalist entities. They are a natural consequence of capitalism, especially unregulated capitalism, pretty much the opposite of Marxism.
100% support this. Not at all a Marxist idea and, even it were, not necessarily a bad one.
Are you for child factory labor? Really? I 100% support this. If this is part of the Marxist agenda, score one for Marx. I'm down with this. I am frankly surprised that you favor child factory labor and oppose free public education. (Don't say you don't, you were the one who told me to read this as a warning of the dangers of communism).
Not done at all. I mean, ok, there are apprenticeships run by unions to help young workers get into the occupation. There are vocational school programs (but mostly were substantially cut back in the push to make all kids go to 4 year colleges), but are those bad things? Are they Marxists? They seem to benefit both industry and young workers who want a job out of high school. Are you against that?
I don't see where you're coming from. This entire thing, which I spend quite a bit of time and energy responding to is junk. The items that are actually true, I agree with (abolition of child factory labor, universal free public education). If it isn't junk, please show me how it isn't.
And I repeat: where in the Communist Manifesto does Marx say the government should control everything?
The public owns it. I think the building that burned down was a house converted to apartments. I don't think it was "government housing," but I could be wrong. It could be that it was government housing in that the occupants were eligible for rental assistance (voucher), but that housing is actually privately owned and managed. But I have spent a great deal of time in large public housing developments and they are not ideal. Some aren't too bad but too many of them are substandard. It's an underfunded program and obviously, considering the homeless situation, we need better solutions. The private market is not meeting the need of the public.
If the entire book covers "the state" owning everything, then you should be able to find a quote from the book saying that.
My reading of Marx is that the public owns it, not the state. The government doesn't own federal lands, we the people own federal lands. What happens on federal lands is determined by policies created by elected officials. That's how public property is managed in a democratic republic. When I say "we" own it, that doesn't me that I get to go out on public land and do with it whatever I personally want to do with it. We all collectively own it and we manage it through our elected representatives. That's the only fair way to do it.
EDIT: Just read about the house in Philly. It was operated by the city housing authority and had passed inspections, including functioning fire alarms with good batteries. It's a horrible tragedy either way. Just note that weaponizing this example, out of many many examples of building tragedies is cherry picking though. For example, the building that collapsed in Florida was not public housing.
Then why do you link to a list that says it's one of the indicators that socialism is taking over?
And if we can agree that child factory labor should be abolished, what about other things on that list? Can we then say, progressive taxation is probably a good idea and not necessarily just a step toward Marxism? Can't we say that some things on that list are good things and so we implement them and some things aren't (like for example confiscation of all private property), so we don't adopt them?
And if that's true then isn't the claim that are getting closer to a communist takeover false? Isn't it true that some things on that list, we all just pretty much universally agree are good things? Abolishing child labor, progressive taxation, public education. The other things on that list aren't happening, as I demonstrated.
I agree with this. Absolutely. But then why do you support Trump who extended corporate welfare to agricultural corporations? Don't all the political elites, including Trump, support corporate welfare?
But they aren't communist. They are capitalist. They are founded on capitalistic principles. They are not owned by the public. The public does not make decisions regarding what to do with the fruits of their endeavors. The public does not decide what their workers get paid. The public has no say whatsoever into what those corporations do with their profits, mostly siphoned off labor, except to the extent that the government imposes regulations on those corporations. But yet it's your side that opposes those regulations that are the only way the public has a say in what those corporations do. That's not at all like communism. It is exactly the opposite of communism. The private sector controls all decisions while the public sector subsidizes it. That's not communism in any way shape or form.
So on that list of 10 items that show how far we've come toward Marxism, which ones do you actually agree with and which ones do you oppose? It's a bit confusing now.
They'd still make more money. Most of the high tax brackets are imposed after a threshold, for example, after your first $10 million, you can be taxed at higher rate. I don't see any problem with that at all. Why shouldn't people who are benefitting the most from our system pay more back into our system? It's not just their hard work that allows their enrichment, it's the rule of law and all of society that maintains a system that allows that accumulation of wealth.
But that's beside the point. Sure you don't agree with a progressive tax rate, but is it a sign that we're getting closer to a Stalinist state? That's what you said. I don't think so. Just like abolishing child factory labor and public schools, it's just a good idea.
I'm not arguing for communism. I am arguing against your assertion that we are closer to being a Stalinist state. Or that liberal policies are necessarily steps toward that.
Ok, sure, I agree with that. So there's one thing, Trump raised that as an issue. Do you know if that policy stopped? Well, I just looked into this and it turns out that the Post Office gets a huge profit from this deal with Amazon, so that actually helps us taxpayers it seems. The Post Office reports like $1.6 billion in profits from Amazon alone. Yes, there were uncaptured profits because of the lower deal and it still feels wrong to me. But we as the public don't "lose" anything by this deal, as it turns out.
But there's that. Trump did mention this Amazon deal. Amazon's building it's own delivery service now so it won't be a problem soon. The USPS just won't get that business anymore.
Well, you got me reading the Communist Manifesto again (it's been at least 20 years). But I'm not sure why. It's interesting, but also a little outdated for modern times. For one thing, the modern western democracies thwarted the contradictions that he said would lead to massive worker movements by adopting the prescriptions that weren't necessarily inconsistent with capitalism--those we've been discussing--universal free public education, progressive taxation, end of child labor, etc. Adopting those things weren't pushing western democracies toward communism, they were responses to movements for reforming capitalism (and also, capitalists saw a more educated workforce as a positive).
EDIT: And look, we agree on one thing: corporate elites, corporate monopolies all of that is bad. So how do we deal with that? If we just look at that one thing we agree on and put aside things like gender dysphoria and Islam, how do we, the people, deal with corporate elites?
What kind of legislation? I mean, yeah, I agree that most politicians are bought off, but there are some who pledge not to take that money. So even if the politicians are bought off, if we had a set of policies to push, we could pledge to not vote for politicians who we know are bought off. I mean to see the problem all you have to do is look at a list like this: 2020 Top Oil & Gas Contributions Recipients
That's an interesting site, you can peruse any sector. It helps make sense of things elected politicians do that don't seem to make sense. When you follow the money, it makes sense.
I just don't buy from Amazon. And that can help, but it isn't really a solution. I know that Bernie Sanders worked with Amazon workers to get higher wages, but the working conditions are still horrible.
I don't think it's about being for or against rich people. I think it's more about a system that makes it very easy for the rich to get richer even without doing anything at all while the poor, and I'll say, the working poor, pretty much stay stagnate. That's not a natural thing, that's a system that has been created. It's manmade. It lets the rich siphon off the wealth of the country and pretend they worked for it. Elon Musk made like $100 billion last year. He could literally be taxed 100% of that and still be a multibillionaire. And it's pretty well known that he's not that great of a businessman.
There are tax plans that could address this. For example, Elizabeth Warren has proposed a 3% tax on wealth above $50 million. I mean, that's 3% of an ultramillionaire's wealth and doesn't even touch their first $50 million. I don't see anything wrong with that. To an Elon Musk, that's a pittance. That could raise like $6 billion from Musk alone.
As for a flat tax, you do realize that for like 80% of tax payers that would result in an increase in taxes? It would cut taxes for the wealthiest and put a huge burden on the bottom 4/5. I don't think that's a great idea. Do you want to raise taxes on the middle class?
Do you have data on this claim? This may be true, but is that because of the social consequences they feel when they undergo sex change? Would they experience the same depression if they were accepted and supported? What is the suicide rate of children with sexual dysphoria that isn't addressed through sex change? I don't know these things, do you? I'm not asking for things you've heard on the internet. I'd like actual data on this. Views of experts, and the like.
I found this case study very interesting: Gender Dysphoria and Suicidal Ideation
It seems like it is typical in that sexual dysphoria is strongly associated with body image dissatisfaction. Also, much of the depression could be a result of not being socially accepted ("I'm too short, too ugly"). This person was uncertain about making the sex change and upon expressing that uncertainty, the hormone treatment was discontinued right away. But the patient still preferred to be referred to as male (even reacting angrily to being referred to as female). Also, I noticed reference to an established medical procedure from the The Endocrine Society and World Professional Association for Transgender that is recommended.
I think this issue is more complex than you make it out to be.
I support encouraging positive body acceptance, but I think the issue of dysphoria goes a lot deeper than that.
As far as what people do to themselves as adults, as long as it is within established medical ethics, I would say that's their business, not mine. In other words, treatments shouldn't be applied that are inimical to healthy outcomes. If surgery to make someone look like a cat can be done without undue overall negative health effects and the person wants that, then who am I to say they can't do that? It's up to them.
Is that why they commit suicide though? I'm not sure. A correlation isn't a causation.
Children with sexual dysphoria have higher rates of suicide attempts as it is, by the way. Here's another study: Self-Harm and Suicidality in Children Referred for Gender Dysphoria
I'm learning a lot about this issue. Mostly, I feel like this isn't my call. I really have no business weighing in on this. It should be left to parents and the child and professionals.
It seems like there is a pretty careful process that starts with suppressing natal assignment hormones just to delay the process long enough for the individual to be older to make more permanent decisions. I think medically, things don't start until puberty.
This part is key, I think:
That's not how it works. One of my best friends growing up was a "tomboy," but she was always female, always identified as female. It isn't this simple.