"SOCIALISM!"Republicans scream the supposedly dreaded "S" word at the top of their lungs and repeat it like an industrial loop to each other and to their Democratic friends and family; fueled, of course, by the corporate media and their corporate guests who warn us how BAAAD it would be for the upward transfer of wealth in unbridled corporatist America's unspoken pyramid.
Barack Obama's election to the presidency only serves as gasoline to their weird torch song; as to them, any politician to the left of Joe Lieberman is nothing but a card-carrying Marxist loon who wants a woo-woo, state-run, success-punishing Sovietocracy. Anyone who thinks this is hyperbole should talk to a right leaning Libertarian (let alone a Republican) sometime and see if I'm exaggerating. While this next paragraph will be mere review for most on DU, let us still examine what we get for our tax dollars:
We get police departments that protect us and uphold the law in times of need (most of them do, anyway). We get fire departments that keep our forests and homes safe and act in times of emergencies. We get public schools to educate our children. We get libraries for information, research and entertainment. We get a military to defend the sacred rights of the Constitution, and against all enemies foreign and domestic (supposedly. Bewsh and Cheney are still running free, so that's still up for debate). We get paved roads to drive on and road crews to maintain them. We get public transportation to get around our cities and suburbs easier. We get the US Postal Service, which delivers our mail. We get prisons to keep dangerous criminals from running amok. We get hospitals/clinics to heal and care for the infirm. We get swimming pools for exercise and community. We get water and waste services. We get turnpikes for easier access to cities. We get parks and recreation and departments to keep them clean. We get the Environmental Protection Agency, devised by one of our most corrupt Republican presidents, no less. We get the USDA. The CIA, FBI, DEA, and a bunch of other three-to-four letter departments to make our lives easier and safer.
Seems to me that's a whole hell of a lot of stuff that our taxes go to pay for. Most of it is efficient. Some areas have problems, are inefficient and need improvement. The point is that
our tax dollars pay for these services and much, MUCH more. Tax dollars paid for this stuff during Democratic AND Republican administrations. Did anyone cry "Socialism" all this time to that laundry list? No, because that'd be fanatical in itself to do so, save for the most off-the-chart Bircher fascist. These are things we've come to expect and accept as part of the world we live in.
It's also the reason I cannot for the life of me understand why Repukes toss their cookies and assemble to riot, guns and flags at the ready, at the mere
notion of adding just
two services to that list and improving a third thing that we already GET for our tax dollars in order to make us a better nation.
The first thing is, of course,
Universal Health Care. Not universal health INSURANCE, universal health CARE. The
U.N. Charter of Human Rights, devised in 1948, specifically states in Article 25, point 1:
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. We obviously don't follow this part of the declaration; as several hundred thousands, if not millions, of lives have been destroyed and/or financially bankrupted at the cruel and profit-above-all hands of Big Pharma and Big Insurance-controlled private "Health Care". America's citizens have been charged excessively for MRIs, ER visits, ambulance services, forced to raise funds for sick relatives and thrown out of their homes because they couldn't afford the crime of getting an illness not covered under the pre-existing conditions their insurance plans have. And that's just the people who HAVE insurance, as 48-54 million people in the "richest nation on Earth" aren't even allowed this right.
What's hilarious is that
employers are joining in the anti-Universal Health Care chorus alongside the Repukes despite constantly complaining that health care/legacy costs are exorbitant and a burden on their balance sheets. What's even more hilarious is that we still abide by and believe in this loser system despite multiple studies that show all of us actually paying LESS under a Universal Health Care system while all of us would be covered just the same. You know, just like police and fire departments take care of EVERYONE, not just those who can afford it.
A second addition would be
higher education. Like health care, thousands upon thousands of our country's young people are barbell-shouldered with thousands upon thousands in student loan/credit card debt before they even enter the work world. Most industrialized nations
value an educated citizenry, as it's economically and governmentally better for their well being and long-term survival. Because of this, they subsidize their college educations via taxation. Even India, a supposed Third World country, can do this for their citizens.
Our country apparently thinks Social Darwinism and belief in Horatio Alger should separate those who are really
willing to cough up gobs of dough no matter what for that all-important sheepskin and those who were unfortunate enough to drop out of poorer wombs and because of it will be . . . left behind.
There is one service that we already get for our tax dollars yet has been proven woefully inadequate when bumped up against other industrialized countries, and that's our
social safety net. Unemployment insurance only lasts 13 to 26 weeks and provides a middling to poverty-level pittance that doesn't cover basic needs and leaves the recipient holding the bag when it runs out. Social Security is borrowed from quite often and is the subject of privatization; a mistaken and dangerous notion for a service that's supposed to be insurance, not investment. Again, this is another complete violation of Article 25 of the UN Human Rights Charter, despite argument and fear-mongering from various conservatives.
So what it boils down to is this:
If all of what we get in the third paragraph
doesn't make us "Socialist",
how and why does adding just two more services to that list and improving a third all of a sudden make us "Socialist"?
Services that, by the way, would help and be available to ALL people, not just the ridiculously privileged?
Services that would make us progressive, competitively advanced and economically more sound in the long run?
I'm all ears. Seriously. How does that work?
Please think like a Republican and explain this to me like I'm a complete IDIOT because I
don't get it.