2761377 wrote:

It's called social democracy. It means taking care of the poor and unfortunate ones so they don't lose hope. It has nothing to do with Marx or Stalin. Besides, how can paying taxes to "the greatest country in the world" be a punishment? a perfect example of an arrogant european making judgements on american culture. from my point of view, 'social democracy' is another way to say 'tyranny of the masses'. american political tradition was formulated by people escaping oppression by the majority- new england was colonized by folks wishing to practice religious freedom denied them in the old world. we cast aside all relics of serfdom and tell the manor "f**k you". it's called personal liberty. personal responsibility follows from personal liberty. american tradition is that each person has the opportunity to make a successful life and those that don't are failures as people. sure, there are exceptions due to outside circumstances but we value what's called 'the protestant work ethic', a value based again on personal liberty. the nursemaiding of the 'poor and unfortunate ones' should be left to those who are soft hearted enough to care, not by coercion on all of us. please explain how preventing 'lost hope' could possibly benefit me as a taxpayer. government entitlement is worse than heroin in destroying initiative. of course european 'social democracy' is related to the theories of marx and engels. a basic premise of marxism is that government should serve to promote social and economic equality, especially in service to the 'poor and unfortunate'. btw, stalinism was way closer to fascism than pure marxian theory. as for it being my privilege to pay these taxes, in support of the state agenda, well all i can say is that sounds like the austrian corporal talking. robert w.

Thanks for calling me an arrogant European, but you're missing the point. There is a great distinction between social democracy and communism. Using tax money for the benefit of a people is something most European countries do. If you call that communist it's like calling a cop a fascist. We don't put people in gulags, or starve them by the millions. We are too soft-hearted (read: gay) to do a thing like that.

By the way I love these political threads on this board. They go all over the place! :)
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