How to respond to 'we already have socialism and you participate in it'? (vanity)

[HGSW0904]

The common argument from the left in defense of O's policy and socialism in general is that our system is already chock full of socialism. Commonly, lefties reference the police and fire departments, public education, social security, and even insurance plans as evidence that those who espouse free-market ideology are hypocrites.

What say you all?

[Tijeras_Slim]

From each according to their ability, to each according to their need works for ass-whuppin’ too, and I see your need and my ability are happily in agreement.

[piytar]

Try, “Yes, we do, and that’s why we’re in the mess we’re in. More of the same ala Obama will just make it worse!”

[Jormungandr]

Yeah, we have it already.
That’s why we know it sucks.

And that’s why we positively know we don’t want more of it.

[Kid Shelleen]

I always use the analogy of a game.
If I am playing a game, I always abide by the rules and try to win fairly. That should not preclude me from trying to change the rules to make the game more competitive, improve the quality of the game, and incentivising players to work harder.
You can apply this to any situation. One of my lib friends is a teacher. I always ask him how hard his students would study if he gave them all the same grades.

[Red6]

Construct some analogies that follow the same logic and show the destruction and slippery slope, hope that they understand.

It's essentially a defeatist idea they are arguing. Give up! Ask them, of all the examples of “socialism” that we already have, give an example of those systems and processes except dealing with intelligence, law enforcement, emergency services like the fire department, and defense where the government excels? Attempt to explain that regardless of when or where, governments do well at providing certain services, i.e. national defense, but suck at when they attempt to meander into the realm of where private business does well, i.e. production of goods and services (non essential emergency/national security related). When the government does try to meander into this realm you get results like the: Veterans Administration, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security......... all broke, corrupt, riddled with abuse, inefficient, full of political agenda's, backwards and all services which should be provided by a private sector. Ask him why he thinks the Soviet Union fell apart, why most European nations have stagnant economies going nowhere slow, why in China the smallest investments in the private sector are bringing the largest growth and returns? Ask him what happened when India began to deregulate and privatize their economy, what happened to Hong Kong when the Chinese did creep in and begin to regulate and takle over everything, despite promising not to????????????

Ask him which of these government made cars he prefers:

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0koda_Auto (1945 - 1989, when they were part of the planned economy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada (While part of the planned economy)

Ask him to look at these car makers while they were part of the government run economy and what happened post 1989 when the wall came down and they were sold off and privatized.

Ask him if his dream motorcycle was an MZ when they were under the communist rule?:

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

While difficult arguing with an idiot, attempt to bring home the point that governments do well in certain capacities that are limited to: law enforcement, intelligence, defense, and certain critical and quickly responsive services like fire departments. They don't even do well in education, and there is a reason why home schooling, charter and private schools kick the crap out of most public schools! Governments are political institutions (politics creeps into every decision) thay don't worry about efficiency, they are not customer oriented, they tend to be process/systems focused, they end up being highly regulated and impersonal, they are not innovative and they tend to get abused by people that leach off them. There are uses where effectiveness is more important than efficiency, such as in the realm of national security, and in those functions a government excels.

Conservatives are not anti-government. Aside from the issues caused by limitations on freedoms, the threat of a disproportionate amassing of power and to our republic as an economy socializes; from a sheer economic standpoint they just want to use the right tool for the right job, and governments don't do well managing health care, running insurance companies, building cars and motorcycles, in the media, or even in the construction business. Ask if he likes these fantastic apartment complexes?:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plattenbau

But you can caveat that with the argument that it was egalitarian and everyone had a “right” to housing etc.....

[NKStarr]

Here is how Ayn Rand responded to a similar challenge:

>>Since there is no such thing as the right of some men to vote away the rights of others, and no such thing as the right of the government to seize the property of some men for the unearned benefit of others—the advocates and supporters of the welfare state are morally guilty of robbing their opponents, and the fact that the robbery is legalized makes it morally worse, not better. The victims do not have to add self-inflicted martyrdom to the injury done to them by others; they do not have to let the looters profit doubly, by letting them distribute the money exclusively to the parasites who clamored for it. Whenever the welfare-state laws offer them some small restitution, the victims should take it . . . .

The same moral principles and considerations apply to the issue of accepting social security, unemployment insurance or other payments of that kind. It is obvious, in such cases, that a man receives his own money which was taken from him by force, directly and specifically, without his consent, against his own choice. Those who advocated such laws are morally guilty, since they assumed the “right” to force employers and unwilling co-workers. But the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own money—and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money, unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration.<<

[econjack]

Most people fail to make a distinction between public and private goods. Essentially, the function of gov’t is to police property rights and provide public goods. Public goods are those goods that the private sector cannot provide, mainly because they're unprofitable in many cases. National defense is a hard thing to sell door-to-door. A legal system is another example.

I have no problem with a limited gov’t providing public goods. However, too often now the gov’t tries to compete with the private sector (Amtrak, Post Office, SBA, Student Loans, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, TVA, etc.) and I think that's wrong.

Some things are duplicated, like public and private schools. As long as people are free to choose, fine. However, I am still paying for public education even though I have no kids in school. I should get property tax vouchers for what I pay in property taxes and be able to sell those on the open market to people who have kids. Those people would than have to pay for their kids’ education.

I think I should be free to choose between Social Security and funding my own retirement. As it stands, I'll only breakeven if I live to be about 113...probably not going to happen. My Mom contributed for 45 years and died 4 months after retirement. And who got those funds? The gov't. That's wrong, too!

The gov’t need to get out of “business” and tend to those things implied by the Constitution.

[VRWCmember]

Commonly, lefties reference the police and fire departments, public education, social security, and even insurance plans as evidence that those who espouse free-market ideology are hypocrites.

Such an argument is so inane and ignorant that it is almost a losing proposition to even attempt a discussion, but you should start with:
1. Introductory economics would distinguish between private or consumer goods and "public goods", i.e. services such as police and fire protection, road construction, etc. that are available to everyone, and whose use by one person does not diminish the availabilty of those public goods for use by others. To suggest that acceptance of the existence of public goods while rejecting the socializing of the rest of the economic system represents hyposcrisy is indicative of a level of ignorance that may be impossible to overcome.
2. Free market economics recognizes that public goods are typically managed by governments, and in an ideal system should be managed by the most local form of government possible. This is why police and fire protection services, and public education are most effectively managed by local governments rather than state or national governments, and road contruction and other infrastructure projects are typically managed at county or state levels.
3. Social security is an excellent example of how the government can forcibly interject itself into the personal savings and investment decisions of an individual and make him much worse off than if he had been left to make his own decisions. While some people would simply not provide for their futures (so they in the long run are better off as slaves to the state), anybody who took put half of the money confiscated for Social Security out of each paycheck into a conservative market indexed annuity fund over his career would have an investment portfolio at retirement roughly six to ten times what social security will be worth. Furthermore, the investment portfolio would belong to the individual to do with as he liked and available to his heirs rather than property of the government.
4. As for insurance, it is an excellent example of a market-based solution enabling consumers to pool risks. Most of the problems with insurance are the result of government interference in the insurance market.

[browniexyz]

But certain matters, such as defense at a federal level and fire safety at a local level, are traditional government arenas. The Founding Fathers, having viewed the bloated British government and sick of its heavy taxation, wisely enumerated only specific powers for the Federal government, limiting the federal government’s role in individuals’ lives. British and European history is full of examples of government overreach and overtaxation; the tragedy is that while our country was established to be different from those experiences, it is now beginning to imitate those mistakes.

[Brugmansian]

I tell them just because I was born in a carnival, am forced to support the bearded lady, the sword swallower, the pinheads, the cotton candy booth, the amusement rides and all the carny games doesn’t mean I’m a hypocrite for eating a corn dog now and then.

[Canedawg]

“No matter how far you have gone on a wrong road, turn back.”

[ShadowAce]

Private is better.

That's not an argument, that's an opinion.

While I agree with it, it's not a strong argument.

[ShadowAce]

The one argument I've been having with a socialist is federally funded highways.

He claims I'm a hypocrite for espousing very limited gov't while still using interstate highways and other federally funded roads.

My position, though very unrealistic at this point, is that federal gov't should be responsible for national defense and nothing else.

[wintertime]

...public education... Not working very well, is it? Needs private competition.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Government K-12 school needs to be **abolished**!

Simply by attending a government K-12 school a child learns that the government has the power to take money from his neighbor to pay for a service his parents want tuition-free.

In other words, regardless of what is taught in the government school, the child become comfortable with having the government take his neighbor's money that he then uses.

Well?...If the government can take money from a neighbor for schooling why not a thousand other wants and needs?

It was INEVITABLE that our grandparents, parents, and great grandparents voted in Franklin D. Roosevelt! After just one to three generations of making children comfortable with socialism we had the following:

** The IRS
** Direct election of senators
** Unions
** Feminism
** The federal reserve
** The complete distortion of the constitutional phrase “general welfare”
** the failed League of Nations followed by the U.N.
** Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal
** Johnson's Great Society
** The abolishment of the gold standard
** The Department of Education

While introducing private competition is certainly a worthy first step, the goal must be the complete shut down of all the government K-12 schools.

[ShadowAce]

Thank you for that quote. It is very helpful in putting into words my own thoughts on the matter.

[wintertime]

I think a similar case can be made for smaller police forces. If people were more self-reliant for personal defense, I believe that crime rates would plummet
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In our rural county nearly every household is armed. We self policed. As a result our police force **literally** resembles Mayberry’s Andy, Barney, and Opie.

[BitWielder1]

That's not an argument, that's an opinion.

True. Point to how gov't-run insurance grows, becomes bureaucratic and inefficient and more often than not the cash fund gets diverted for other purposes.
By contrast, a private insurance is bound by laws that don't change every day and they have to be efficient to make a profit.
Gov't can make laws and hold the industry to them.
The gov should not run the show directly, they never do a good job regulating themselves.
See my tag line.

[Josh Painter]

I disagree with your premise. We do not have socialism per se. What we have is something even more sinister — corporatism.

http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=22594

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/04/obama_and_the_reawakening_of_c.html

[SoothingDave]

Anyone who thinks a police department means you are socialist is an idiot and you shouldn’t waste your time with them.

[sportutegrl]

For social security and medicare, say, “Give me back the money you forceably took from me for these programs with interest, and i will stop getting SS and medicare insurance.