Bernie Sanders sounds just like Hitler
- Thread starter wildchild
- Start date
yeah, except the reponsibility and performance part
And yet it was capitalism which allowed for America to become the world's most wealthy... with the largest and strongest middle class.
Now somehow, that's all bad... at least according to greedy, power-hungry Lefties.
Our "problem" isn't capitalism... rather we've got waaaayyyy too many parasites getting their living at the expense of other citizens. What happens to all of us when we run out of "other peoples' money" to redistribute, eh? And Bernie wants to RACE us down that path!
My fear is that Bernie's "tons of freebies" campaign message appeals to ne'er-do-wells. And if enough of them vote, that's what we'll get.
Now somehow, that's all bad... at least according to greedy, power-hungry Lefties.
Our "problem" isn't capitalism... rather we've got waaaayyyy too many parasites getting their living at the expense of other citizens. What happens to all of us when we run out of "other peoples' money" to redistribute, eh? And Bernie wants to RACE us down that path!
My fear is that Bernie's "tons of freebies" campaign message appeals to ne'er-do-wells. And if enough of them vote, that's what we'll get.
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Actually, it was colonialism, slavery, esp. the cotton trade, and finally, unions, which enabled all that.
I see you are enjoying your own version of history today.
Our Socialist Founding Fathers
Monday 12 October 2009 at 8:01 AM ET edited by JURIST Staff
JURIST Guest Columnist Mark Brown, holder of the Newton D. Baker/Baker and Hostetler Chair at Capital University School of Law, says that in the midst of the current furor over health care reform legislation we should remember that America's own revered Founding Fathers authorized, and sometimes embraced, governmental programs that offered essential services to the masses at low or no cost...
"The ongoing debate over health-care reform has generated renewed interest in "socialism." Some claim that governmental competition in the health insurance industry is socialism; others insist it is not. For many on both sides of this divide, it seems, whether a "public option" is legitimate depends on how this definitional question is answered. After all, everyone knows that socialism is unconstitutional. It clearly contradicts the ideals of our Founding Fathers.
"Actually, it doesn't. Here's a shock. Many of our Founding Fathers were socialists. They believed that "essential" services should be provided by government to the public at large for little or no remuneration. The costs of these services would be shared by the whole. This, by most modern accounts, is socialism.
"The Constitution of the United States, drafted in the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia by some of the smartest men on this side of the Pond, proves this to be true. In that cherished document, the Founding Fathers demanded socialism. Section 8 of Article I, for example, empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and post Roads." That same Section also authorizes Congress "To raise and support Armies," and even "To provide and maintain a Navy." Although the text does not preclude privatization of these public institutions, indeed, they continue to include entrepreneurial elements to this day, the Framers understood that they would certainly have public, social elements as well. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, among others, all signed this document. They agreed that the new national government would facilitate communication and defense through taxation. They agreed that these essential services would not have to be purchased on the open market. They agreed that these services would not be limited to those who could pay fair market value.
"The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson (who skipped the Constitutional Convention in favor of traipsing off to Paris during that hot summer in 1787), also supported the fledgling Nation's foray into socialism. Perhaps the greatest of all of America's socialized institutions, the Nation's modern highway system, was begun in 1806 by then-President Jefferson's authorization of the Cumberland (National) Road. Transportation, too, was deemed to be one of the Nation's essential services that could not be relegated to private industry.
"The Congress did President Jefferson one better. It socialized the great bulk of America's navigable waterways in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The founding generation recognized early on that the national government needed the power regulate interstate commerce, this was written into Article I of the 1787 Constitution, and waterways provided the most important channel of commerce. The national government, using this authority, opened America's internal waterways to commerce. These immense "social" highways proved a boon to entrepreneurial activities (and perhaps saved the Nation).
"Communication, transportation and mutual defense provide only the most obvious examples of the Founding Father's interests in socialized institutions. Contrary to some popular reports, many in the founding generation had "republican," communitarian leanings. Our forefathers were not devout disciples of Adam Smith, let alone Herbert Spencer (who in the mid-nineteenth century infamously coined the phrase, "survival of the fittest"). They were pragmatists, capitalists and socialists, willing to try whatever was necessary to insure that the American experiment did not fail.
"Of course, the Founding generation did not believe that every human endeavor benefited from governmental competition. The founding generation's socialism only went so far. The Founders believed in private enterprise.
"But it was not long before the Founders' sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, discovered the benefits of extending socialism beyond communication, transportation and national defense. Libraries, fire protection, police protection and education were all socialized to some extent in the nineteenth century. None of these developments replaced private enterprise, they merely insured that more Americans reaped the benefits.
"Would the Founders have objected to these modern developments? No clear answer exists. Private educational institutions were known to the founding generation, and it obviously did not make any concerted effort to extend this benefit to the masses. But formal education was relatively unimportant in the late eighteenth century. I cannot believe that those Founders who favored a socialized communication network, the Post Office, would have necessarily frowned on an additional public institution designed to convey information. Nothing in the document signed in Philadelphia in 1787, at least, prohibits governments from opening public schools.
"What about medicine? Would the Framers have objected to governmental competition in the health care context? At the turn of the eighteenth century, of course, the medical profession bordered on witchcraft; few Founders would have wished it on anyone. (George Washington, remember, was bled to death by his doctors. Dr. Benjamin Rush, another important Founder, routinely prescribed mercury for anything and everything.) Assuming that they thought the medical profession could do any good, which is doubtful, no one can say with any certainty whether the Founding Fathers would have rejected measures that made it more accessible. All we know is they wrote nothing into the Constitution to prohibit socialized medicine.
"History teaches us that the Framers were not averse to socialism. They authorized, and sometimes embraced, governmental programs that offered essential services to the masses at low or no cost. Communication, transportation, and defense were what the Founders deemed essential at the end of the eighteenth century. That was their time. They did not call it socialism. They called it good government. "
Mark R. Brown is the Newton D. Baker/Baker and Hostetler Chair at Capital University Law School.
Monday 12 October 2009 at 8:01 AM ET edited by JURIST Staff
JURIST Guest Columnist Mark Brown, holder of the Newton D. Baker/Baker and Hostetler Chair at Capital University School of Law, says that in the midst of the current furor over health care reform legislation we should remember that America's own revered Founding Fathers authorized, and sometimes embraced, governmental programs that offered essential services to the masses at low or no cost...
"The ongoing debate over health-care reform has generated renewed interest in "socialism." Some claim that governmental competition in the health insurance industry is socialism; others insist it is not. For many on both sides of this divide, it seems, whether a "public option" is legitimate depends on how this definitional question is answered. After all, everyone knows that socialism is unconstitutional. It clearly contradicts the ideals of our Founding Fathers.
"Actually, it doesn't. Here's a shock. Many of our Founding Fathers were socialists. They believed that "essential" services should be provided by government to the public at large for little or no remuneration. The costs of these services would be shared by the whole. This, by most modern accounts, is socialism.
"The Constitution of the United States, drafted in the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia by some of the smartest men on this side of the Pond, proves this to be true. In that cherished document, the Founding Fathers demanded socialism. Section 8 of Article I, for example, empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and post Roads." That same Section also authorizes Congress "To raise and support Armies," and even "To provide and maintain a Navy." Although the text does not preclude privatization of these public institutions, indeed, they continue to include entrepreneurial elements to this day, the Framers understood that they would certainly have public, social elements as well. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, among others, all signed this document. They agreed that the new national government would facilitate communication and defense through taxation. They agreed that these essential services would not have to be purchased on the open market. They agreed that these services would not be limited to those who could pay fair market value.
"The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson (who skipped the Constitutional Convention in favor of traipsing off to Paris during that hot summer in 1787), also supported the fledgling Nation's foray into socialism. Perhaps the greatest of all of America's socialized institutions, the Nation's modern highway system, was begun in 1806 by then-President Jefferson's authorization of the Cumberland (National) Road. Transportation, too, was deemed to be one of the Nation's essential services that could not be relegated to private industry.
"The Congress did President Jefferson one better. It socialized the great bulk of America's navigable waterways in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The founding generation recognized early on that the national government needed the power regulate interstate commerce, this was written into Article I of the 1787 Constitution, and waterways provided the most important channel of commerce. The national government, using this authority, opened America's internal waterways to commerce. These immense "social" highways proved a boon to entrepreneurial activities (and perhaps saved the Nation).
"Communication, transportation and mutual defense provide only the most obvious examples of the Founding Father's interests in socialized institutions. Contrary to some popular reports, many in the founding generation had "republican," communitarian leanings. Our forefathers were not devout disciples of Adam Smith, let alone Herbert Spencer (who in the mid-nineteenth century infamously coined the phrase, "survival of the fittest"). They were pragmatists, capitalists and socialists, willing to try whatever was necessary to insure that the American experiment did not fail.
"Of course, the Founding generation did not believe that every human endeavor benefited from governmental competition. The founding generation's socialism only went so far. The Founders believed in private enterprise.
"But it was not long before the Founders' sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, discovered the benefits of extending socialism beyond communication, transportation and national defense. Libraries, fire protection, police protection and education were all socialized to some extent in the nineteenth century. None of these developments replaced private enterprise, they merely insured that more Americans reaped the benefits.
"Would the Founders have objected to these modern developments? No clear answer exists. Private educational institutions were known to the founding generation, and it obviously did not make any concerted effort to extend this benefit to the masses. But formal education was relatively unimportant in the late eighteenth century. I cannot believe that those Founders who favored a socialized communication network, the Post Office, would have necessarily frowned on an additional public institution designed to convey information. Nothing in the document signed in Philadelphia in 1787, at least, prohibits governments from opening public schools.
"What about medicine? Would the Framers have objected to governmental competition in the health care context? At the turn of the eighteenth century, of course, the medical profession bordered on witchcraft; few Founders would have wished it on anyone. (George Washington, remember, was bled to death by his doctors. Dr. Benjamin Rush, another important Founder, routinely prescribed mercury for anything and everything.) Assuming that they thought the medical profession could do any good, which is doubtful, no one can say with any certainty whether the Founding Fathers would have rejected measures that made it more accessible. All we know is they wrote nothing into the Constitution to prohibit socialized medicine.
"History teaches us that the Framers were not averse to socialism. They authorized, and sometimes embraced, governmental programs that offered essential services to the masses at low or no cost. Communication, transportation, and defense were what the Founders deemed essential at the end of the eighteenth century. That was their time. They did not call it socialism. They called it good government. "
Mark R. Brown is the Newton D. Baker/Baker and Hostetler Chair at Capital University Law School.
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This has got to be the most stupid column that I have read in the past six months. Trying to state that our founding fathers were socialists because they supported establishing Post Offices, and raising an Army and Navy is absurd. These are basic foundational reasons to have a federal government, not a form of socialism. I expect that any of our founding fathers would be shocked if you called them a socialist; most in that era would challenge to a duel for disgracing their name.
It's irrelevant if you think that's an acceptable level of socialism, or if you feel those can't be socialism because "they're too American". They are socialism. So is unionism.
Meanwhile, back to "Hitler the socialist"...
Communist resistance in Nazi Germany
By Doug Enaa Greene
October 29, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- "In 1943, a member of the Communist Party, sentenced to die for resistance activities as a member of the Red Orchestra, wrote these final words to his father:
Be strong! I am dying as I lived: as a fighter in the class war. It is easy to call yourself a Communist as long as you don't have to shed blood for it. You only show whether you really are one when the hour comes when you have to prove yourself. I am one, father…The war won't last much longer and your hour will have come. Think of all those who have already travelled down this road that I must go down today and will still have to travel down it and learn one thing from the Nazis; every weakness will have to be paid for with ... blood. So be merciless! Remain hard![1]
"I think these words express the spirit that motivated thousands of communist resisters to Hitler: a hardened sense of responsibility, militant anti-fascism and a readiness to sacrifice everything. It is a chapter of our history that too many Marxists and communists have forgotten and, if nothing else, I want to tell this story of communist resistance against all the odds.
"From 1933-1945, the Communist Party of Germany maintained the most sustained resistance to Nazism and as a result at least 25,000 party members were killed. While there were plenty of heroes and martyrs among the Communist Resistance in Nazi Germany, the party made a number of deadly mistakes both before Hitler's rise to power and afterwards. We need to ask ourselves what these errors were and understand them in order to utilise the lessons for current struggles.
End of the Weimar Republic
"Before discussing the Communist Resistance, we should step back and ask how the Nazis were able to come to power in the first place? And to do that, we will begin our story in early 1929, at the high point of Germany's Weimar Republic."
More >>
So Ricter, what are the basic minimum functions of Federal government? Without these functions then you would be better off not having a Federal government.
This is what the Founding Fathers were debating. Either they 13 colonies could remain as 13 separate states (each a country), or you could have a Federal government. The Founding Fathers wanted a light-weight Federal government if one was put into place.
They wisely decided that the minimum functions of a Federal government was a common defense (Army & Navy) and the regulation of interstate commerce (including post office and tariffs). The intent of interstate commerce regulation was to avoid disputes between the states by one state placing tariffs on goods from another or not allowing postal deliveries.
I agree with our Founding Fathers that these are the minimum functions of a Federal government. If a Federal government does not do these things then why have a Federal government?
However these basic minimum functions of Federal government are in no way socialism. And anyone who pushes that they are the foundation of socialism is clearly off their rocker.