Aspies For Freedom

have to agree with Callista on that one... noble concept, bad idea.

"(ie that criminals shouldn't be punished, that people's fears about crime and anti-social behaviour should be dismissed etc), "

What progressive or liberal person ever said that?

never said but cration of the FCC and them wanting to set cameras up in citys implys it. invasion of privacy to weed out those of us that have a more difficult time with every day life.

Er no it hasn't. You just need to look at the distribution of wealth and assets to see that is not true.

10% of the US populationown 71% of the wealth in the USA, the richest 1% own 38% of the wealth. The poorest 40% of the USA population owns less than 1% of the wealth.

World wide the richest 1% own 40% of global wealth and the richest 10% own 85% of the worlds wealth. The poorest 50% of the worlds population own less than 1% of the worlds total wealth. These figures are based on the report of a global study by World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations

This is purely wealth. I'm sure people are well enough aware of droughts and famines in developing countries for me not to need to start highlighting this.

The reason that people generally do not starve in western and developed economies is not because of the efficiency of the market economy in distributing and allocating resources but because of the various welfare systems that exist in these countries, thats not to say malnutrition is not an issue in western economies.

The very reason people become dependant on the welfare state is the failure of the market economy to provide equitably.

I agree with both of you.

Chergh, very well put. I agree with you 100% on this one.

A good example of leftist socialism is in South America.  The most well-known leftist is Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela.  He is rapidly putting the major industries there under state control, and is a fierce critic of U.S. policy.

Bolivian president Evo Morales is as fanatic of the leftist movement as Chavez.

Virtually all of the other socialist leaders in South America are taking a more moderate approach and often have good ties with the U.S.  An example is President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil.  

While not in South America, Nicaragua is once again led by Daniel Ortega--who, although still socialist, is not the fanatic leader he was in the 1980s.

Colombia and Peru are not socialist, and Colombia was the only South American nation to support the war in Iraq.  And we never hear about Guyana or Suriname, so I don't know where they are politically.

Tim

As for me, I am not a "socialist" per se.  Rather, I would be more along the lines of Hillary Clinton or John Kerry.

Incidentally, as far as the Democratic presidential candidates go, I would probably vote for Barack Obama.

I would like to see the 2008 election pit Rudy Giuliani against Barack Obama.

Tim

John Major/ken Clarke didn't run the UK too badly at all in 1997. But 'the public' wanted a change so they voted in Blair/ Brown, they stole all the good Conservative policies and mixed them with many costly socialist policies. The result is 9/10 places in UK are unaffordable to buy homes in, pension funds have been destroyed and generally people are worse off than ever, except those on City bonuses that new labour loves.

"Time has shown that a market economy is the most efficient way to distribute and allocate resources. "

most = least?

I work for a company that does work for the UK Labour Party.  

I have socialist tendencies but have a strong belief in egalitarianism so am overly keen on the idea of government.

Hey, perhaps I should become an anarchist.

Sorry going to have to stop you right there. Your talking about the way it has happened in the past. The versions of socialism that you refer to have failed more due to the totalitarian aspects of the regimes and their desire to control.

A future implementation of socialism wouldn't necessarily have the same failings. The failure of Socialism isn't in my opinion in the ideology but rather the autocracy that these regimes tried to bring with the socialism.

Socialist ideology has many positive aspects with it and if combined with a neoliberalism rather that autocracy it quite possibly would offer a far preferable alternative to the current "free market democracy" that currently in place.

StuartM, a quote I ran across recently said, "Don't argue with a crazy people -- an outsider can't tell the difference."  It helped me realize the futility of debating crazy people.

StuartM, a quote I ran across recently said, "Don't argue with a crazy people -- an outsider can't tell the difference." It's messy and futile.

I used to believe all the Ayn Rand garbage but I was only 13, so I think it was forgivable.