Socialism v. Liberalism v. Conservative Capitalist

I've just had the delight of re-encountering this thread, from many years ago, when looking into further issues around this same question. My thanks to all who have contributed their fascinating answers. It is particularly noteworthy how different are the European and American perspectives on these terms. If I may, I'll share with you my own further conclusions on simple but distinctive definitions. Conservatives believe in inequality of opportunity and inequality of outcome. Liberals believe in equality of opportunity and inequality of outcome. Socialists believe in inequality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

Glenn Oliver, Ashbourne, UK

If truly it can be summed up, as Glenn above presents, in measures of equality in opportunity and the resulting outcomes of each then we must be clear to define what allows for equal opportunity and what inhibits potential outcomes of equal effort. If you went to school for 17 years completing a program with a 3.6 that suites your personal interests and utilizes your strengths and so did everyone else who now works 40 hours a week, should you be paid according to your level of authority or your level of necessity? Who gets to determine such things? Conservatives say government should not regulate industry which means the decision falls to those in authority and this obviously brings about inequality. Liberals take liberty in governing such things as a Democracy states they are representatives of the people who the majority of which are underpaid drastically compared to the CEO of the business that employs them. This brings us to measures of opportunity which are first and foremost concerned with our basic human needs for survival and then navigating the economic possibilities: food, water, shelter, medicine aka healthcare must readily be available for an equal survival rate and before such system is in place liberals will fight for this level of socialism because the current conservative state of affairs has people and their children dying without any opportunity to escape their fate because they do not make enough money to meet their needs no matter how much effort they're willing to contribute. This is where liberal programs such as food stamps come in because the thought is if they aren't starving then they will continue to go to work so that the fat CEO can continue to make millions. If we have no workers, we have no rich authority. If we have no tax payers, we have no government salaries. Here is where the line is drawn between political parties and the terms liberalism v. socialism because the conservatives claim that liberals only seek to sustain the democracy which gives them authority and not to offer equal opportunity to the people who elect them as representatives. Conservatives want everyone to pay equal taxes despite the fact that some can't afford food and shelter while some can buy several apartment buildings and throw banquet parties to show off how much money they make. If you own a building instead of have to pay rent it's easy to say that someone on food stamps should get a job and quit being lazy because you're able to make money doing nothing and meanwhile everyone working 40 hours a week agrees with you despite being in debt for their home, education, car, and complains of too high insurance premiums. They believe they are conservative and that liberals are trying to take away their fundamental needs in the form of taxes for programs to help minorities but this is a lie! A true government of the people, for the people, and by the people is going to take liberties towards socialism in order to provide equal opportunity for every citizen. Communism opposed to liberalism would go a further step and forcibly instill a system of equal pay and has a bad reputation because of the required use of force and suppression of opinion to see such a thing put in place and not because of it's intended social outcome. We know now that this kind of force can be terrible and lead to a fascist oligarchy. This is not liberalism within the confines of democracy but it is a potential outcome of conservative capitalism in governing. 

Glenn is incorrect on "Socialists believe in inequality of opportunity" because that is in fact Capitalism currently the system in place. Opportunity, before government has any say, is provided for according to the amount of money people have earned or have the potential to make which is steadily increasing in inequality especially while social programs of the Obama administration to assist in leveling the field for healthcare availability for everybody including children of those people who can't sustain their most minimum needs much less provide for opportunities for their children, and tuition debt for those who managed to survive to see adulthood and wish to join the workforce. Conservatives believe in "inequality of opportunity" only they call it "equal" because they seek to relinquish taxes that are higher on the wealthy. Equal taxing does not lead to equal opportunity when "job providers" pay minimum wages to make maximum profits and pay the least amount of taxes. This system is verging on true Communism where people die for resisting slavery and their representatives are suppressed by the powers that be who use terms like "patriotism" claiming it's their natural born right to be the ruling class who should be worshipped for granting minimum wage when they have the authority to pay even less if they so choose. This is called "fair" by Trump and Conservatives. Also called "freedom". People are dying without healthcare before they can attain to the limited opportunity of acquiring a lifetime of debt to be paid. Tell someone with cancer to "get a job". Addicts are told the same thing for the fact that they turned to drugs to help overcome their hardships as they're intelligent enough to know there is no use in trying to raise a family because to do so would mean lying to their children on a daily basis... I digress, sick people don't recover in a sick society with a conservative democracy. Liberal measures must be made to assure the social welfare of society before there can be any figment of "equal opportunity" and the American way as it once was billed to be. 

Patriots seek to regain their freedom by emancipation of conservative mind controlled terms used to provoke mental and life long financial slavery calling it entropy or survival of the fittest. They are unfit to rule when fitness is no longer required to be financially stable in the form of labor. Let us not be deceived in the name of Justice! Amen. 

"Justice on fire" @ Cascadia 2017 by Taylor McAvoy Photography and me (pictured) performing the titled piece 🔥

beautiful life from above

LATELY I'VE BEEN IMMENSELY INSPIRED...

Do unto others: Who claims tax exemption when it comes to the golden rule?

If you call yourself a Christian there is only one rule given to you by Christ and that is:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 

So when now was this changed to I work a job and am miserable so I don't want to pay taxes and help feed people who have no job? Why is it assumed that they're lazy? Have you ever been starving and unable to focus on anything else and felt the overwhelming futility of even if you find a job today, you will somehow have to prove yourself competent enough to keep it while having no money for transportation and food for 3 weeks before you will see your first paycheck? Imagine feeling this for a moment and what you would do if stuck in this bleak situation. You would want help! 

You deserve a chance because you know it's not for lack of trying nor being willing to work if given a chance! You know you could turn it around and return to being a productive member of society who works and pays their own way if only another person would present you with the hope and support of caring enough that you might live through those 3 weeks! Now if you were to look to the world, your friends, your family, your church, your community, the government asking for them to carry you so that you might eventually give back and they all were to assume you are a lazy drug addict and say they assume you just die because you are not worth being helped, what would you do? Scrounge up some change and go buy a fifth of MD and drink until you don't feel that pain anymore? I would. What else is there to do but self destruct when told that you need help but none is given from anyone in your world? Really!?

There is plenty of money for weapons of war but none so that the people who live in our communities can feel that anyone cares? Do you want to see Americans dying on the street and have to step over them on your way to your job everyday while knowing they are laying there dying or dead because you would not allow them to receive healthcare, food stamps, and a bus ticket or carpool with them? What will you do when you arrive at work to find none of your subordinates are there and your company is bankrupt because all the people who buy your products are too drunk and distressed to leave their houses and come to work because of all the death and decay outside and now you look to your government who says we can't afford to do anything because we cut your taxes and bought bombs with what was left.

It's up to YOU to do something!! You call the police and they too are dying from influenza and so are their kids because they could not afford the $1200 deductible to see a doctor and pay their mortgage and buy food & gas so they too are hiding at home with a bottle of gin, shooting heroin to numb the feeling of failure and that no one cares about them and yet expects them to clean up this mess you put us in because you could afford to take care of yourself and kept all of your salary instead of asking for a program to keep our country running and happy and healthy!! What now?? Jesus returns?! What will he say if that happens and who do you really think he should take with him, the dying and suffering or you the sadists? Greed is a sin ~ let he who hath not sinned throw the first stone. Greed is more evil than laziness or addiction because addiction is fueled only by suffering.

Judge not lest ye be judged. 

Did Jesus die for you to be greedy and torment everyone else on the planet or so that you might learn to Love one another?

The reason Jesus died on the cross was so that none would have to suffer the same fate! He was trying to make a point!! God was going to destroy all of creation because we are greedy, selfish, and evil and Jesus said, wait.. let me try to show them the way. It is by giving of yourself that you come to know eternal life! Jesus didn't do it for you but to show you how cruel and wrong the world is. There is no way to the father but by me for God is Love and not hate & cruelty and judgement and punishment of those who are less fortunate and yet you would crucify your brother man and call yourself superior and be the other's executioner.

JESUS WILL NOT SAVE YOU UNLESS YOU REPENT YOUR WAYS AND LIVE THROUGH HIM WHICH MEANS YOU MUST BE WILLING TO DIE TO SAVE THE WORLD INSTEAD OF BE WILLING TO KILL. 

Now should we spend tax money on universal healthcare, medicaid, food stamps, treatment for addicts (forgiveness), build new roads and infrastructure, parks & gardens, produce more oxygen so we can breathe instead of burning fossil fuels so that billionaires profit short term OR should we get rich and make war and turn our backs on God, Jesus, and Creation? Don't think for one minute that anyone will save you if you won't donate a small portion of your income tax so that others may simply live. God might save them but you will be left here to serve as slaves to Trump for eternity for it....

Let us talk rationally about conspiracy

Why are conspiracy "theories" so popular on the internet? What provokes ordinary humans to get drawn into researching them? Could it be that nagging gut instinct that something is amiss? Fear. 

Let's look at the facts ~

1.) 1 in 100 of every American is a diagnosed clinical sociopath and these are only those who confess to a psychologist. source: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/antisocial-personality-disorder.shtml

2.) 0.36% of the world's population own more than $50 million which is more money than they can ever spend in a lifetime if they tried and their children tried and their grandchildren tried because let's say if they spent it all they would be rewarded another $50 million.. They couldn't and of course they're not trying to spend it and instead invest it into more wealth and power with a lust that shows no remorse. Meanwhile 71% of the population owns less than $10 grand which is the recommended "emergency savings" not an actual retirement fund. source:
http://fortune.com/2015/10/14/1-percent-global-wealth-credit-suisse/ 

3.) 23% have far, far less than $10 grand in savings. In fact, 23% of Americans struggle and will continue to struggle indefinitely just to bring their accumulated life's net worth value back to the $0 they were born with. I would call this volunteer or more likely coerced slavery considering that the odds are stacked against them given the current rate of inflation, interest rates, and the average wage increase compared to the rate of inflation or costs of living are nowhere near an ideal match. Not to mention credit card interest rates compared to savings account growth which is easily annihilated by overdraft fees which this 23% know about all too well. I know! I paid my bank $140 for the month of March and was literally starving 5 days of it but I am not in this category as I have zero dollars net worth opposed to negative $10 grand. source: www.bankrate.com/finance/consumer-index/many-americans-living-paycheck-to-paycheck.aspx



So from these 3 facts we can draw irrefutable conclusions that are also facts. This is known as circumstantial evidence and it is precisely what every day is used by a Court of Law to convict criminals. Circumstantial evidence is equal to eyewitness testimony. This is by way of the constitution that set in place a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. But who really controls the facts or rather our perception of these facts? What's the difference between the conjecture of something labeled a "theory" and something declared an "official" agreed upon irrefutable "fact". Acknowledgement of the press. Do I even need to dig up the facts on who owns the press or is it safe to say now that we have a common household term of "fake news" that there is in fact a conspiracy to control our perception and enslave us to suffer endlessly at the hands of overly greedy, malicious, evil sociopaths? I have proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now, what are we going to do about it?

They know if we stop believing in the system then we will starve to death. They don't care, they laugh and pat themselves on the back taking joy in how brilliant their plan is taking effect. They also know that our emotions are our weakness and stress will likely kill us before we are able to organize ourselves into a more powerful mass. Let us begin to think of a simple solution to take our lives and our world's bountiful resources back. We know where the source of power lies: The banking industry and the federal reserve.

What fuels it? The internet or world wide web we're all caught in like dolphins in a tuna net. What if we flick the switch? Let us contemplate the greater good and the end result of short term suffering vs. long term if not infinite slavery and continual suffering. Or maybe our God the Sun/Son will save us. I'll pray for us and I'm a rational agnostic which is why I refer to Jesus as Sol. This opinion matters not and does not negate a single fact as we are united in one common denominator:

"We the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union... with Liberty and Justice for all."

I believe in love at first sight

I'm cursed. I'm in love and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. No matter how unreasonable it is to feel this way already, I am. He's not. He makes me want to be a better person, the best me, someone worthy of being a good equal partner to him. There's no point in browsing tinder. There's only one him, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I'm smitten and also hurting because he is and I don't have a clue what I can do but wait. For the first time in 6 years my ex was replaced in my dreams so I went to meet him. It was the cutest thing I've ever experienced ~ utterly adorable!! So now it's too late. I have no choice but to hope I don't get crushed, seems inevitable. I don't care. For him I'll wait as long as it takes...