A brilliant piece by Per Bylund on the degrading effects of the welfare state on Swedish society.
The problem is that the welfare state was created and it would dramatically change people’s lives and affect their morality in a fundamental way. The welfare state might have been a successful project if people had continued to have the pride and morality to supply for themselves and only seek support if really in need. That is, adding a welfare state could possibly work in a ceteris paribus world, which is what the welfare state really presumes. But the world is ever-changing, and the welfare state therefore requires people to be stronger and morally superior to people in societies lacking a welfare state.
[…]
The children of my grandparents’ generation, my parents among them, quickly learned and embraced a new morality based on the welfare “rights” offered by the social security system. While the older generation would not accept dependence on others (including state welfare benefits) they did not object to sending the younger generation to public schools to get educated. I am certain they never thought in terms of having a “right” to have their children educated. Rather, they accepted and appreciated the opportunity for their children to have a chance they themselves had never had — through “free” education.
So my parents’ generation went to public schools where they were taught mathematics and languages as well as the superiority of welfare and the morality of the state. They learned the workings of the machinery of the welfare state and gained a totally new (mis)conception of rights: all citizens enjoy a right — only through being citizens — to education, health care, unemployment, and social security.
Being an individual, they were taught, means having a right to support for your individual needs. Everybody has a right to all the resources necessary to pursue one’s own and society’s happiness, they were told. And everybody should enjoy the right to put their children in state daycare centers while working, making it possible for every family to earn two salaries (but not enough time to raise their children). The opportunities for “the good life,” at least financially, must have seemed enormous to the older generations.
This new morality permeated the populace and became the “natural” state of things, at least in their minds. This generation, born during the two or three decades following World War II, became considerably different from their parents’ generation morally and philosophically. They got used to the enormous post-war economic growth (thanks to Sweden never entering the war) and the ever-increasing welfare rights of the rapidly growing state. (To sustain the growth of the welfare state and satisfy the popular demand for benefits, the Swedish government devaluated the currency a number of times during the 1970s and 1980s.)
The effects upon society of this generation growing up and entering the labor market were principally two: increased public pressure for more progressive politics; and large-scale, society-wide failure to raise independent and moral children able to be their own masters in life.
Read the whole thing. (Though, it’s going to be a tough swallow for our readers on the anti-depressant left….)
memo to Jack Layton
1. Print copy
2. Staple to your forehead
“But this is also a personal tragedy for many thousands of Swedes. People seem unable to enjoy life without responsibility for one’s actions and choices, and it is impossible to feel pride and independence without having the means to control one’s life. The welfare state has created a dependent people utterly incapable of finding value in life; instead, they find themselves incapable of typical human feelings such as pride, honor, and empathy. These feelings, along with the means to create meaning to life, have been taken over by the welfare state.
Perhaps this explains why such a large part of the young population now consumes antidepressant medication, without which they are unable to function normally in social situations. And presumably it explains why the number of suicides among very young people who never really knew their parents is increasing dramatically (the total number of suicides remaining about the same). Still people are totally unable to see the problem or find a solution. Like spoiled children, they call for “help” through the state.”
Well, does this not sound EXACTLY like how our aboriginal population has become?…I have to wonder if Swedes also face politically correct bastions preventing any positive change from EVEN being discussed?
Fred, do you think Wee Jackie would get it, being the Commie he is?
The essay also reminded me of one Maritimes voter, being polled before Canada’s recent election. On being asked if he’d be voting Conservative, he replied “No, they won’t give us as much.”
The author seems to have a lot of sympathy for the older folks and little for the young. I think the distain should be reversed. It was the older generation that was greatly responsible for the current state of affairs. How fitting that they be asked to step aside after they screwed things up so badly for the younger generation. In Canada, I often read of how retired people of fixed income are griping about creeping expenses. I’ve seen complaints in newspapers asking why retired people should be supporting education of the young. I’ll tell you why…because 25-30 cents of every fedearl tax dollar tax dollar goes to pay the national debt. There is provincial debt and municipal debt in some cases that also needs to be serviced. Who ran up that bill? Tax me 30% less for the debt and I’ll easily pay for my own kids education. While we’re at reducing my taxes, reduce the portion that can be attributed to taking care of elderly people. Why should I pay for the old when my own retirement is such a struggle to put away for. Difficult or not though,I will take care of it.
Nexus-“Generation X” straddler with 3 kids.
This is easy to quantify, when more than 50% GDP is hooked into the government.
Then most of the people are parasites of the governments.
Game over, no change is possible.
I was on board until I saw the footer: the author is the brains behind “anarchism.net”. Tough to take his arguments on their own merits after seeing that.
Just shows how social Democracy is the kiss of death to any polity. Its fruit is poverty, state killing, & final extinction.
Morality becomes an Ideal not a day to day reality. Human life becomes cheap. Children become societys victims. Abortion on demand, Euthanasia, Mercy kiling, Namba, gay marrage, beastality,child porn,every filth & uglyness , called progresivism by these despots in drag. The list of ways to kill the populace off is endless. Soon it will be geratric psudo-hospitals, where they kill off the old. Its people gone, those who did not shre in there death wish, will inherit there labours & Nation.
Total public revenue and spending, 2005 OECD figures:
Country Rev Exp
(%GDP) (%GDP)
Australia 36.6 a 36.2 a
Austria 49.3 50.6
Belgium 49.3 49.3
Canada 41.7 a 41.1 a
Czech Republic 41.5 44.6
Denmark 58.9 56.3 a
Finland 52.5 50.7
France 49.8 53.4
Germany 43.2 46.8
Greece 46.0 52.0
Hungary 44.6 48.9
Iceland 48.1 47.6
Ireland 35.6 34.2
Italy 45.4 48.5
Japan 30.3 b 38.2 b
Korea 31.3 a 30.9 a
Luxembourg 44.8 45.9
Mexico .. ..
Netherlands 46.2 48.6
New Zealand 41.2 b 37.0 b
Norway 57.9 46.4
Poland 40.2 45.0
Portugal 45.4 48.4
Slovak Republic 45.7 49.0
Spain 38.4 38.6
Sweden 58.3 57.3
Switzerland 35.6 35.5
Turkey1 .. ..
United Kingdom 40.8 43.9
United States 31.9 36.5
Get off the dole
National Post
June 01, 2006
….the unemployment rate on Prince Edward Island is 14.6%; yet just last month, the island’s Ocean Choice lobster processing plant had to import workers from Eastern Europe to fill a 50-worker labour shortage. Even at a starting wage of $9.40 an hour, too few Islanders could be enticed to give up their federal benefits in order to take up full-time employment. For the 7,000 or so individuals on PEI who receive payments from the expiring program, the economics simply didn’t add up: Why go to a tough job each day when Ottawa would pay you almost as much to stay home?….
http://tinyurl.com/renxe
The descriptions of the changes to Sweden’s collective psyche are exasperatingly familiar to any Canadian who has watched “Liberal values” penetrate our country’s traditions.
After reading Bylund’s piece I came eagerly here to the comments section, hoping to see the reaction of some of our friends from the left. Presumably they wouldn’t see the negative outcome he so aptly describes.
Fantastic, articulate, scary article, which pretty much sums up the direction Canada has been heading in as long as I can remember.
I was a “true child of the sixties,” and though I’m proud to say that I never voted for PET (I smelled a rat when he put that stupid rose in his mouth and did a fandango: what an exhibitionist) I fell for some of the state-speak, state-mindset until I “grew up” and began to realize, at the age of almost 30, that taking responsibility for my life was far more exciting and MORAL than asking others to bear burdens for me.
The author has hit the nail on the head about adolescent parents who expect everyone but them to discipline and bring up their children to be productive citizens and about the plight of the elderly. I expect that I’ll be getting “the needle” unless, as my daughters say they’ll make sure happens, I’m spared a hospital or nursing home in my dotage. I fully expect that I’ll be told that I’ve got so many days, and so many hours, of public health care at which time, I’ll either be heaved out of the public health care facility or taken home by loved ones.
I am seeing very little human kindness in the classroom, very little altruism, but a lot of what’s in it for me? When you feel entitled by the state, that attitude very soon pervades all of your personal relationships, as well. Give and take is fast becoming a rarity, as are the ideas of sacrifice and helping others from your own store of goods: It’s OK for the government to give handouts, but don’t ask me or my family to.
Not mentioned in this discussion is the role of religion/faith in people’s lives. The attitude of selfishness and entitlement has increased in direct proportion to the decrease in Canadians’ attending synagogue or church on a regular basis. This is not my opinion. It is a fact supported by statistics. Another fact is that in Ontario 65% of all donations of time, treasure, and talent, to religious AND secular institutions, are given by people affiliated with a religious faith (Queen’s University study @ 1998 – 2000, I’m just not sure of the year).
We need to revisit a great many values and beliefs held by our forefathers and mothers to begin to reappropriate ways of life that are, in fact, kinder, gentler, and more generous. We could do with a whopping dose of them in this frenzied and increasingly barbaric world of ours.
If you want to read about the man Who almost destroyed us as Sweden is now dying. Go read this fantastic article on PET by MARK STEYN
O come on all you Trudeau faithful
http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/article.jsp?content=20060605_127892_127892
This is hilarious.
Its amazing that Sweden doesn’t just melt.
Poor Sweden. The people aren’t thrown into deep water as children and told to swim.
The children are coddled. The parents have support, if they want it.
The average person has 40 days off a year. We don’t need 40 we only need 14. We like working. No we love working. We can’t get enough. That’s why our standard of living is about the same as theirs. We wouldn’t know what to do with 40 days anyway.
A year off with pay for having a kid. Nanny state. We don’t need but 3 months then kiss the kid goodbye and off to work we go. None of this huggy,kiss kiss bs. It just makes them soft.
The trouble is that anyone who studies children and their needs as opposed to corporations and what they need. The child psychologists would always tell you that Sweden has the right idea. But then they study it and we know how anti-intellectual the Right is. Don’t trust the nerds. They are all closet socialists. They are just part of the socialist plot. The conservative thinks(?) that BS beats brains. Too bad.
“instead, they find themselves incapable of typical human feelings such as pride, honor, and empathy. These feelings, along with the means to create meaning to life, have been taken over by the welfare state”
LOL. Run for your life, the welfare state is coming for your soul!!!
Hahahaa…on any other site I’d say this was satire.
Was the post too long for people to read, or what? It’s at least as important as all the other posts, because it articulates what’s going on in Canada, with such serious repercussions for years and years to come.
One thing I find about being Canadian: We don’t like to look disaster in the face and stare it down. Another nasty consequence of the Nanny State and Political Correctness. This guy articulates the nastiness of what a socialist, what can you do for me state does to people’s humanity.
And politics isn’t the answer.
Too bad nanny states like to acknowledge all humans as important. Don’t they know that some are throw-aways? We could teach them about throw-away children, throw-away poor, throw-away handicapped, throw-away elderly.
Stupid Swedes try to keep everybody. Don’t they know it costs money? Don’t they know its bad economics? Is there anything worse than bad economics?
Steve d,
Prior to the socialist movement in Canada mommy and daddy were not kissing their children goodbye and then off to work. Families only required one income so a mommy or daddy could stay home with their children. Now your taxes are up by 1600% since 1961 due to inadequate social reform and both mommy and daddy need to work.
“The trouble is that anyone who studies children and their needs as opposed to corporations and what they need. The child psychologists would always tell you that Sweden has the right idea. But then they study it and we know how anti-intellectual the Right is. Don’t trust the nerds. They are all closet socialists. They are just part of the socialist plot. The conservative thinks(?) that BS beats brains. Too bad.”
Are you honestly trying to say that state run daycare workers can take care of little Johnny better then the parents? Corporations need both mommy and daddy working or there will not be an adequate enough workforce, the kids need someone to take care of them. I think your logic is completely twisted and in need of some major revamping.
Steve I would like to laugh at your statements as complete hypocrasy.
“throw-away children” Obviosuly every child who has not reached the age of 9 months yet is a throw away child to the left. Also socialism, as was pointed out, turns EVERYONE into children. All dependent on Mother Russia!
“throw-away poor” The left and communism believes in keeping it fair. Make EVERYONE poor then we can all complain together! The smart person would find out WHY they are poor and fix the root, not just throw money at an issue.
“throw-away handicapped” just becasue someone is handicapped does NOT mean taht they are useless to society adn have to be institutionalized. It does not mean the state has to care for them. That means giving them opportunity. Being on the right means having the OPPORTUINITY to make yourself the best youcan be with your god given strengths. It also means coping and succeeding with your weaknesses. all this happens in the min and spirit, not the body. Socialism can sustain the body, but it kills the rest!
“throw-away elderly” yes because all of us on the right are fighting for Euthanasia “see NDP bill supporting it!”
“Is there anything worse than bad economics?” Yes, SOCIALISM!
“Too bad nanny states like to acknowledge all humans as important. Don’t they know that some are throw-aways? We could teach them about throw-away children, throw-away poor, throw-away handicapped, throw-away elderly.
Stupid Swedes try to keep everybody. Don’t they know it costs money? Don’t they know its bad economics? Is there anything worse than bad economics?”
I guess throw aways are what you are calling children that are not brought up in a proper family setting. If we didn’t have your social programs mommy or daddy could stay at home to ensure little Johnny is getting the proper care and not becoming a throw away.
I am guessing that you were brought up in Canada’s mini nanny state and do not remember the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s when Canadians actually cared for one another, the vast majority of kids were well behaved and there were no such thing as gangs that ran rampant in the streets of our major cities. Gee, I wonder what has changed since then? Could it be that we pay too much in taces to support social programs and too many little Johnny’s have to fend for themselves while mommy and daddy are at work trying to ensure there is food on the table and the government has enough money to run the mini welfare state?
Well, Ireland has am extensive social welfare net and they’re doing just fine, thank you very much. And you may have noticed that Canada’s unemployment rate is at a *30 YEAR LOW*. So what exactly is the problem in Canada? The labour markets are pretty flexible and the economy seems to weather shocks without too much disruption.
And, Right Mind, there are two more fundamental reasons why both “daddy and mommy” go to work. (1) Mommy is mommy later due to the pill and (2) an increasingly open economy and the deindustrialization of North America means daddy’s value as a labourer (especially if daddy is low skilled) ain’t what it used to be. Taxes are secondary (and besides, daddy used to pay for private health insurance in the past instead of taxes).
“Obviously every child who has not reached the age of 9 months yet is a throw away child to the left”
Best line of the thread, that one.
Steve d. is one of the countless of Delusional Left that see no fitting alternative to the government offering BASIC care for those who need it, and some Scrooge McDuck-like tenth circle of hell whereby we bring back poorhouses, send welfare moppets to work by the age of 8, and use slow-burning fires to render the elderly poor to carbon-based fossil fuels to power some CEO’s Hummer.
Typical left-wing lazy thinking: it can’t work unless it’s massively abused.
I think if you polled even the most rabid, right-wing unfeeling monster, they’d still advocate a helping hand for those who’ve lost jobs or encountered massive personal diffculties and have no prospects. The difference is in the amount of help, of course.
Canada’s problem is that its original idea of a welfare safety net has morphed into a hammock or La-z-boy recliner, and far too many Canadians don’t want to get off the system and provide for themselves, and many more earnest, caring “progressive” Canadians are guilted into agreeing with the system, lest they be considered too “uncaring” or lacking in “Canadian values”.
Really, now, how “caring” are you when you aren’t outraged by multi-generational welfare recipients? Or when you’d rather see the government act as some sort of social services pusher, creating additional addicts on exciting new and wasteful social services rather than encouraging people to use what was needed in hard times but then move along to provide for their own welfare in time?
How much more disenfranchised can the government make a person, than by convincing them they have no worth or prospects other than to blindly accept government handouts ad infinitum, and – worse yet – to use this as a permanent crutch with which to raise a family? What sort of life message is this to someone’s child?
Steve d. reminds me of some left-wing windbag I saw a couple years ago who interviewed then-Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura on welfare. When Jesse said (I paraphrase from memory), “We need to help people when they are down, but why should people on welfare have cable TV? Other folks who watch cable TV have to work to pay for it; it’s not handed out free”, she started jumping up and down like an organ grinder’s monkey. Jesse’s subsequent comment that rabbit ears were still cheap and pulled in local TV channels, if not HBO & ESPN, had her apoplectic.
So it is with misguided Canucks who think that taking care of folks in need means providing for their every comfort and need. Hey, there’s plenty of working Canadians who can’t provide for all of their own wants and needs, so where’s the insanity in thinking those who won’t make the effort to take care of themselves should enjoy the same or better priviledges? The dangerous thing is that these are the people (NDP-ers or liberals, mostly) that have no problem hiking the marginal tax rate to obscene levels to achieve this social “paradise”, and as the article notes, the more you trundle down the welfare state path, the worse things become.
The reductio ad absurdum to this twisted logic would be – at the outer limits – Soviet Russia of old. There, everyone worked for Nanny, and Nanny took care of everything. And it was fine, if you didn’t mind waiting in line-ups for bread, for milk, for shoes, whatever.
Supercharged welfarism kills incentive and takes away self-respect and pride. Well, it used to take away self-respect and pride; in some Canuck circles it’s almost worn as a badge of achievement.
mhb23re
(email is above username at google webmail service)
Right Mind
yeah I remember jumping down a hill onto a nail. No nanny state medicine back then. A doctor wasn’t mentioned or thought of. When you were working class or poor you didn’t even think doctor. My mother used her folk medicine. I was lucky all I have are scars where I should have had stitches. Care? It was every family for itself.
I was running from local gangs before I was ten.
I know all about where Harper wants to return us. I have been there and I am not interested in seeing children run the risks that my mother had to run with me because doctors cost money.
I remember my sister stopped breathing one day, she was two. My mother ran screaming to my grandfather who slapped her on the back a few times. Nobody knows to this day what happened. Again, just lucky. My brother wasn’t though, he drowned at two because my mother had to run her little business, and of course, there was no nanny state help. Again, every man for himself. Just great. Bring it back? HEll NO.
Remember one more thing about Mother Russia: everyone became poor, line ups for everything, EXCEPT for the guys at the top who’d ushered in the wonderful Communist system, we’ll take care of everthing/everyone if you just give us your money, comrades. TRUST US. Trust us that this is the best way to share resources and make sure that the distribution of wealth is “equal.”
Yeah, so equal that nobody got anything, or very little, at any rate. EXCEPT the guys who ushered in the system. They lived in palatial splendour, going to their dachas in the country in chauffeur-driven limousines, stashing away their comrades’ hard-earned cash in Swiss bank accounts.
Great system, that, if you’re one of the miniscule number of guys at the top. Look where their Utopian Nanny State took Russia. It’s KAPUTSKI.
Anyone who wants this for Canada must be a whip-loving masochist with absolutely no self-respect left.
Steve, you so obviously do not remember those days. I see you can make up dreams about them though.
You see, I was born and raised in the poorest parts of Toronto in the days you think you know. I remember not only having a family doctor, but him making house calls for free. Yes, for free! My parents couldn’t afford to pay him so imagine, he actually cared for his patients. That simply doesn’t happen today. Now simply try to find a family doctor that will see you in his office. I remember being on a hockey team in school from the third grade on, the teacher didn’t complain that they had to work on Saturday’s and Sunday’s taking care of kids. He actually cared and enjoyed it. In todays world I know this must be difficult for you to grasp, but it is fact! I remember my mother handing out complete meals to some of the local homeless people. She actually cared for the person, how often do you see that in todays world?
You see Steve, you are delusional and like to make up stories about how you think the world was pre-socialism. Others of us are really old enough to remember how it was, but we are fading fast and the Canada will be left to you non-thinking, me me me types.
Ask yourself these questions. Why do people, in general, not care for their fellow man any longer? Is it because they are forced to give rediculous amounts of their money to the lazy ass people directly from their pocketbook? Why are there so many unruly children in our schools and on our streets? Could it be that there is no mommy or daddy at home for them as they both need to work to fund your socialist dream world?
Steve, you and your ilk are destroying this country as those like you hace destroyed so many other countries through social destruction of the family. You and your ilk do not take the time to think about what you are truly doing, you react to rather than analyze problems which leads to further destruction.
This comment is for Steve . You state that if you talk to any chid psychologist they will say that regulated daycare or state run daycare is the best way to raise a child. These individual are the same group that Dr. Tan Dineen talks about in her book titled “Manufacturing Victims”. This is a very interesting read and discusses the impact of the “psychology industry”. Her basic premise is that the psychology industry has a vested interest in creating dependance(This is how they make their living). What better way to do so than to convince anyone they treat that they are victims and that they are not responsible for anything that happens to them. So if everyone is a victim who are the victimizers?
It all fits very well with the woe is me attitude perpetrated by the leftist crowd. Just get off your butt and take responsability for your own life and happiness instead of blaming someone else mostly “society”. Deep down in your heart you know that the personal choices you make control your life not the actions of “society”.
Anyone who habitually practices this type of destructive thinking(blaming everyone but themselves and their bad choices when things go wrong) will end up angry and depressed because when you abdicate responsablity you also give up control of your life. It is interesting to read the thought of the socialist crowd when confronted with the evidence all they can do is try and lay a guilt trip on anyone who doesn’t share their deluded thinking. It’s like the old saying “I’ve made up my mind. Don’t confuse me with the facts.”
Dr. Dineen worked in the psychology industry for many years and write a startling analysis of predominant methods used today in the industry. It is not a pretty picture.
But Steve read this book and than rethink the motivation of the psychologists who recommend state run daycare as oppossed to loving , nuturing parents. Just think a whole new steady supply of victims !!!!! Could it get any better than this????
The link to Dr. Dineen’s website is http://tanadineen.com/psychology_victims.htm
FYI,
I just did a payroll for May and the Receiver General was the second highest paid on the crew, as usual.
One young man who made about $2900 paid $600 to the government. His monthly rent is $400.
As his employer the company also had to match his CPP so that was $130 and pay 1.4 times what he paid E.I. so that works out to about $75.
The total paid to Rev Can on one part time employee making $2900 for the month of May comes to over $800.
Also the money remitted to the Receiver General does not include the cost of bookeeeping, accounting and maintaining all the records required.
Concrete,
Ain’t socialism grand? **sarcasm**
mhb
You have some weird ideas. Typical RIGHT winger. You THINK people don’t want to work. You THINK people are lazy. You THINK millions are freeloading and YOU are carrying them.
The trouble is the numbers of people who are the way you THINK they are are really quite tiny.
Why is unemployment only 6.5%. Economists tell us that at least 3% of that is just people between jobs. So you fret and whine about a very small number who probably aren’t working because nobody will hire them(ie low IQ, illiterate, obesity etc.) So the so called nanny state is just an illusion. A cover for a philosophy that wants to see everything privatized(oh thats funny it is feeding the corporate pig? what a coincidence)
Time for your lesson lazyboy.
Russia was never marxist or communist or socialist(write that out 100 times).
Russia was a Totalitarian state under Stalin. Total control by and for the state. THIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF MARXISM. As it turns out what most people want is Marxism, they just don’t know it because of what they were fed and were too lazy to find out for themselves. So you see how funny it is when I see someone on the Right pontificate about socialism, or communism or Marxism. RARELY do they have any idea what they are talking about. Its hilarious, because they are convinced that they KNOW.
Marx saw the state as a necessary evil to be tolerated until people were free and set up in their own small businesses(communes). Then your small community would provide everything you need. The state become obsolete. This is the exact opposite of what most people think!!
People want to “help business” because business is the economic engine that makes everything work. Yes and no. What usually ends up happening is that the business that gets the boost is the multinational corporation. It is this entity which swallows small business and lobbys governments and seconds their employees to work in government so that government will work for big business.
The proletariate are the workers. The ones who create wealth for the corporation. They have to work.
The bourgoisie are the owners of production who live off the excess wealth created by the proletariate
The petty bourgoisie are the small business owners who Marx thought would end up being driven out of business by the big business (ie Walmart).
In the end the large companies would collapse and the proletariate would be free to create their own wealth in smaller working groups who would share the work and profits as they see fit. The little guy would at last be free to feel the dignity of work as opposed to only its drudgery.
There is no lazyness in the model. There is human scale and human input as never before.
There is a small scale example of this going on in Argentina where factory workers have taken over factories abandoned by their owners. Google “argentine factories”.
As a dear friend of mine (RIP) used to say, “If only Marxism had been tried in a country other than Russia, I think it might have worked.”
This friend was a university professor, which should have boded well for his logic but didn’t, and he was such a good friend that I hadn’t the heart to say, “Well, G_____, that’s the whole point: It was tried in Russia and failed miserably and, guess what, it couldn’t have succeeded anywhere else because it’s inoperable. It doesn’t work because, at bottom, it doesn’t have a grasp on human nature: It assumes that human beings are benign and generous creatures. Ha!
“Russia was a totalitarian state under Stalin. Total control by and for the state. THIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF MARXISM.” — steve d.
Er, how can you have Marxism without total control by the state? This isn’t a rhetorical question.
Right Mind’s comments at 7:03 are bang-on. This is the paradox of the caregiver-state, that individuals inevitably gradually lose a sense of responsibility for their family, and for those around them, becaues they have collectively voted to off-load compassion onto a large bureaucracy of people they don’t know.
Steve d and others haven’t yet come to understand that the government cannot replace bottom-line human interactions, yet that’s exactly what they are voting for: state compassion over individual’s responsibilities to those immediately around them.
After years of such thinking, we’ve reached the absurd point where the sorry condition of someone lying half-dead on the sidewalk is considered to be prima facie evidence of failed government policy, rather than being seen for what is actually is — a failure of family, of faith, and community i.e. the sort of things that are the focus of conservatives.
Before the giant G-tit was ever considered the end-all for social justice, people had to look out for their own family members. Now the official “caring” community are those who loudly announce that the government should be doing more for their own family members, and others’ family members.
When multiplied by millions, steve d’s misguided belief that government bureaucracy can love and care for him and others leads to unintended bad consequences. These consequences are considered, of course, to be the result of insufficient implementation of that bad idea.
The solution to the problem is more of the problem, in their mind. “We pay a Love Tax,” they seem to say, “why isn’t everyone being loved?” Not enough love tax, obviously.
Also WCB at 6 1/4 % of gross earnings and gross must include earnings for the May 22nd stat and 4% holiday pay.
So the 6 1/4% WCB insurance is required even when the employee is given a bonus or is on vacation and not eligible for WCB coverage.
So add another $180 for WCB.
steved, you could be more informative and entertaining if you just quoted Bruce Springsteen about “closing down the factories boys, and they ain’t coming back.”
Who the heck on sda cares about Marxist theory?
Steve, your delusion astounds me. Lenin ran the Russia fairly close to a marxist state. The minor changes he did make is why we know it as “Marxist-Leninism”. Marx did not take into account that the leaders of this fairy-tale world would ever become greedy.
Remember the saying “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”?
May I ask do you argue certain points and than once shot down you never respond to those counter-points? Is it because you do not have the means to respond as you would need to discount actual facts for your world to become a reality? Do you always attack those that you feel are the weakest link? Please let us in on the reason for this strange phenomena.
Steve, your delusion astounds me. Lenin ran the Russia fairly close to a marxist state. The minor changes he did make is why we know it as “Marxist-Leninism”. Marx did not take into account that the leaders of this fairy-tale world would ever become greedy.
Remember the saying “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”?
Why, may I ask do you argue certain points and than once shot down you never respond to those counter-points? Is it because you do not have the means to respond as you would need to discount actual facts for your world to become a reality? Do you always attack those that you feel are the weakest link? Please let us in on the reason for this strange phenomena.
steved (and Marx) has a 2 percent slump.
Right Mind
Lenin didn’t really have much time to do much. His health was bad and Stalin took over pretty much after about ten years. Lenin did base his ideas on Marx. He set up a more formalized democratic style government. He extended Marx’s idea to include globalism as the final stage of capitalism but that it would have to be done violently. But all these ideas never came to very much. To take a country from extreme poverty and feudalism into the industrial age with an entirely new form of government in 12 years.
Stalin was an entirely different kettle of fish. He did not follow Marxist-Leninism. He was a despot. He ran a totalitarian government which has nothing to do with Marxism and more to do with authoritarianism.
Marx saw the Stalin type governments as more suited to capitalism. Capitalism required passive, cooperative populations in which to run their businesses of exploiting raw materials using workers labour.
This was the secret behind the rapid rise of Nazi Fascism. Hitler was supported financially by rich capitalists. In turn, Hitler changed the laws to be business friendly so that they could work without labour strife or any other obstacle to maximize their productivity. Of course, most of what they were producing was military armaments.
I can respond to anything. I am happy to respond. I never avoid anything because I feel I have the evidence to prove most of what I say.
But then it will always come down to whether or not you believe my sources and my interpretation of my sources. I am under no illusions as to how hard it is to change someones opinion, even a little, especially someone on a conservative website. It is fun trying nontheless. I just sometimes have too much on my plate and I lose track of where and when and what I comment.
Right Mind,
Lenin did not run a democracy. He was a communist or as you prefer a Marxist. The were no elections during his time where it was not all communists (Marxists) on the ballot. Stalin showed the world that human greed will always overcome when one man is given so much power. This is why communism (Marxism) will never work. When one is given ultimate power he will become corrupt. Stalin was also a Marxist, you cannot explain it away, he was a Marxist just as Trudeau and Chretein were Liberals. You cannot disregard what he was simply because you don’t like the history of your political leanings. I don’t deny that there were conspiracies in right wing politics so don’t try it with your socialist views.
Second point,
Don’t get confused over fascism and nazism. Nazism contains traits of fascism, but that does not make them equals. Read about it, don’t be afraid to learn no matter which way your political beliefs lean.
No one here wants another 1930’s Germany or Italy so why do you try to act like some of us do? Can you not argue your point of view without bringing in rediculous comparisons? Is your arguement that weak?
new kid on the block
Maybe we are hijacking them because we have more compelling things to say??? You know there is a lot of agreement most of the time. People look for a little more content than just things like this:
there goes another Librano caught stealing
yeah i am not surprised at all
me niether, how come their not in jail?
I love seeing these Liebrals finally get it
yeah me too. enough already put them all in jail/
yeah and throw away the key
roger that conserveboy i am wit u
It can go on like this from one thread to another. Some people may actually see someone like me as a relief from the predictable drone.
Not me.
Not me either, NKOTB.
Count me out too.