... For those of you using the socialist arguement, please, tell me what is wrong with it. I'm serious.
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I'm sorry, I just hear too much of this from kids who are barely out of university. I have to try to understand that it is not their fault that they simply don't understand. Their brains have been trained by the socialist-biased public education system. The United Federation of Teachers is the largest socialist organization in the nation, and they have a lock on the minds of future generations who are required BY LAW to attend their classes and listen to their members. Rarely are dissenting viewpoints proposed to our youth. I have to remember that unless someone explains it to them, they may simply accept what they've been taught in school, as they really don't have much else to go by.
Here are my thoughts on why socialism is bad:
Of course it is very noble to help others who are in need. We should all be charitable and try to donate our time, gifts, and money to charities that we know benefit mankind.
Socialism is not about charity, however. Socialism is about government deciding who is worthy of our charity, and deciding how to control the charity. Socialism is about big government making decisions about how, when, where, how much, and on whom you must spend your hard-earned money. Socialists believe that only the elite "intellectuals" in the ruling class are capable of making those decisions, and deciding what's "best for the people".
Socializing is about labotomizing, dis-empowering the Common Man, and assuming control of every aspect of their daily lives, because the government knows "what's best for the people" better than The People do.
Socialism is about the government taking control of how you raise your children because you are certainly not capable of making such decisions for your family. You don't really think that working hard and saving so that your kids can go to better schools is a good thing, do you? Socialism is about the government deciding which kids go to the best schools, and funding those kids' educations through taxes collected from The People. Pay no mind to the fact that The People have that much less money to fund their own educations, or their childrens' educations. That just makes the government control that much more entrenched. If your kid's views don't align with those of the government (including the public education system's teachers), rest assured that they are doomed to a life of hard-working frustration at the hands of government tyranny. That's because the socialist government knows "what's best for the people".
Socialism is, in fact, very closely tied to Marxism. Marx, in fact, called socialism "the first phase of communist society". Marx and Engels both argued that socialism is "the transitional phase between capitalism and 'higher phase of communist society'". See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_socialism and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism. Also, read the communist manifesto, if your mind is strong enough to resist the appeal of getting something for nothing without regard for the long-term sustainability.
Once The People are dis-empowered and weak, how can they resist government control? I could go on and on with examples of how socialists throughout history have done nothing but dis-empower the people they ruled (Adolph Hitler was one prominent socialist), and then proceeded on to tyranny. But then again, you should go google it, and empower yourself to make the right decisions.
Try this:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22what%27s+wrong+with+socialism%22&aq=0&oq=