Question for all the Environmentally Conscious folks

[Aitrus]

Forgive us foolish conservative Americans, but we just can't understand why socialism is a good idea.

We know.

This has puzzled me. The conservative Americans, esp the far right wingers, are largely Christians, but against socialism. Would not Jesus have been a socialist? Should not Xtians want to take care of others especially the poor and unfortunate?

They do want to help, but they don't agree with being forced to without their agreement. They feel as if they should be free to help whomever they choose, and judge for themselves whether or not the person is worthy of their assistance, and the kind of assistance they give. Government involvement takes away those choices and imposes a severely imperfect system to determine who gets the assistance and how each person contributes (in the form of taxes). Socialism forces everybody to help those in need, whether they want to or not, and the taxes collected for that purpose are often not used for the stated purpose or are sucked up by corrupt politicians.

Many conservative Americans feel that aid to the poor and unfortunate should be in the form of personal donations and time spent doing community service, Church food drives, shelters operated by volunteers, random acts of kindness, volunteering, etc.

[Aelfarh]

Forgive us foolish conservative Americans, but we just can't understand why socialism is a good idea. We further don't understand why you think it's a good argument to get the US do do anything. And to force it on the US on a global scale? We don't understand the logic behind that either.

Basically because the resources of the planet are of all humans, not only the US, and the emission generated by the US affect all the planet also.

But if we're looking at single nation states then yeah, the US is number 1 in GDP and number 13 on the HDI, a difference of 12. Something to be proud of? Not at all.

So let's see, the UK has the world's 6th largest economy and it's number 21 on the HDI. A difference of 15. Oops!

I never said that the UK is a better example if you review my posts

Please remember it was not I who brought in the HDI as evidence for my argument. I'm sorry that it didn't work out as you had planned.

It has actually, to demonstrate that big capitalism and big GDP is not equal to a better standard of living, which was my point.

I'm not sure what you mean by Darwinist capitalism.

More or less this:

http://www.icr.org/article/darwins-infl ... capitalis/

Selfishness was not invented by the US. Unfortunately there's plenty of it to go around. I don't think it's fair to characterize Americans as inherently greedy people any more than it's fair to characterize Europeans as inherently racist.

And please let's be realistic. The US did not invent imperialism. Just ask any of the former European colonies in Africa, Asia or the Caribbean whose land and labor were being exploited for centuries before the Americans even really got into the game.

No of course it didn't, but it has used to his favour specially in the XX century, and related to the forum topic (if we are still discussing it) there's a need to impose legal measures to control that.

[Jake]

More or less this:

http://www.icr.org/article/darwins-infl ... capitalis/

A fundamentalist Christian "creationist" website which blames the theory of evolution for Nazism and Stalinism? (and homosexuality, abortion and paganism http://www.icr.org/article/creation-eva ... ays-world/)

Wow! Really?

I never said that the UK is a better example if you review my posts

The UK isn't part of Europe?

It has actually, to demonstrate that big capitalism and big GDP is not equal to a better standard of living, which was my point.

I thought your point was that the situation in the US is unique and a product of the uniquely American mindset. Meanwhile the statistics you brought show the situation in the UK (and many other countries) looking a lot like the supposedly "so unique" US.

[Aelfarh]

A fundamentalist Christian "creationist" website which blames the theory of evolution for Nazism and Stalinism? (and homosexuality, abortion and paganism http://www.icr.org/article/creation-eva ... ays-world/)

Wow! Really?

HAHAHA....touché....it was the first out of google, but you can see it also here

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

It's almost two in the morning, I'm a little lazy to put in my own words what darwinist capitalism is, but basically refer to aitrus post where he is saying that not taking care of the rest of the people is how "nature" works, and the survival of the "ones who work hard" only.

The UK isn't part of Europe?

Sometimes I wonder the same question... but you know that Europe is still not a federation, like the USA, Mexico or Brazil, and each country has their own social laws and programs, which differ a lot from country to country

I thought your point was that the situation in the US is unique and a product of the uniquely American mindset. Meanwhile the statistics you brought show the situation in the UK (and many other countries) looking a lot like the supposedly "so unique" US.

My point was that compared with the US (not America, that is a continent, BTW), and taking into account that is the biggest economy, and all that jazz, many other countries (perhaps excluding Japan, since I'm not really familiar with japanese social programs) have a better living standards, living in a nations where there's a more "socialist" (or social democracy if you want) is in place, and they are countries where there's a big middle class and not the great extremes that we see in the US.

[Jake]

They do want to help, but they don't agree with being forced to without their agreement. They feel as if they should be free to help whomever they choose, and judge for themselves whether or not the person is worthy of their assistance, and the kind of assistance they give. Government involvement takes away those choices and imposes a severely imperfect system to determine who gets the assistance and how each person contributes (in the form of taxes). Socialism forces everybody to help those in need, whether they want to or not, and the taxes collected for that purpose are often not used for the stated purpose or are sucked up by corrupt politicians.

Many conservative Americans feel that aid to the poor and unfortunate should be in the form of personal donations and time spent doing community service, Church food drives, shelters operated by volunteers, random acts of kindness, volunteering, etc.

Do these conservatives also support the creation of private police and firefighting forces? So that rather than being forced to help everyone in need, they can decide for themselves who's worthy of having their home saved from a fire and whose gets to burn down (maybe with them in it); which rapists and murderers they want to arrest and which they want to let go free; which persons and communities are deserving of police protection and which are not?

If so, why don't we hear so much about it? And if not, how do these people justify being such vigorous opponents of socialism in the delivery of some human services while supporting it for others? Isn't this a huge inconsistency?

And what about the military?

[Jake]

HAHAHA....touché....it was the first out of google, but you can see it also here

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

I know what Social Darwinism is, (I think I mentioned it earlier). I just wasn't sure what you meant by "Darwinist Capitalism."

My point was that compared with the US (not America, that is a continent, BTW),

Two of them, I think. But common usage does not reflect this.

and taking into account that is the biggest economy, and all that jazz, many other countries (perhaps excluding Japan, since I'm not really familiar with japanese social programs) have a better living standards, living in a nations where there's a more "socialist" (or social democracy if you want) is in place, and they are countries where there's a big middle class and not the great extremes that we see in the US.

Of course!

[Aylyn]

They feel as if they should be free to help whomever they choose, and judge for themselves whether or not the person is worthy of their assistance, and the kind of assistance they give.

That is quite a dangerous quote. It has been a long time since I was a Christian, but as far as I can remember my bible studies, Jesus accepted all humans and did not judge who was worthy and who was not. In fact, he was quite unpopular with the establishment because he spent more time with the poor, the sick, the whores, the taxmen and other undesirables than the nice people in power. So for a Christian (if you take that to mean a true believer) to decide whether as person is worthy is already showing that they are not real Christians, but frauds. (Matthew 25/40: And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’) It shows to me a mindset that is a far cry from the purported Christianity and has more to do with greed and salving your conscience.

Many conservative Americans feel that aid to the poor and unfortunate should be in the form of personal donations and time spent doing community service, Church food drives, shelters operated by volunteers, random acts of kindness, volunteering, etc.

Which is nice and laudable and should be around, but might not be enough. Random acts of kindness do not pay the rent for an old woman, or the medicine for a sick child, and definitely not on a regular basis. It is here where the state steps in. If you call that socialism, then bring it on.

[Coreylee]

I agree the issue here isn't protecting the Earth. We are horrible conceded to think if that we could ever truly hurt this planet of ours. What we could do quite easily is wipe out a tiny ape-like species known as Homo Sapiens. I don'y know about you that's not really something I particularly would want. When this species of gun-hauling monkeys do get wiped out many other species would go down the drain with us. If we used all the fossil fuels at once it would only take the Earth a million years to filter all of them completely out. Well, to her it's not all that long, but the me that seems like quite a while indeed. Look at Venus which is how we discovered the greenhouse effect. The average daytime temp on Venus is around 600 degrees or so, that's because Venus has a high amount of CO2 in it's atmosphere. It goes without saying that 600 degrees is a little bit warmer than most of us living creatures can handle. Managing and Raping the land are two completely different things. One can use the land without destroying it. The Planet is just rife with energy we can use in our lives, that cause little or no damage to the planet. Shame there's no money in that. At least not as much is there is in oil. Denying things like global warming is similiar to denying things like evolution, the geaographic age of earth, and gravity. There's so much scientific evidence that it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.