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I am not a socialist. I do not advocate for socialism. I would argue though that progressive policies such as anti child labor laws, women’s suffrage, clean air and water legislation, workplace safety, weekends, regulation of banks, etc, along with public works projects like the TVA, and the aforementioned interstate highway system have benefited all Americans immensely.

As has been pointed out, it is not 'socialism' but it is a significant step towards socialism. And yes, free universal education K-12 is also a significant step towards socialism and is a good indicator as to how 'free' college would change our graduate education system in America. I have only a couple friends who went to private school as a kid, but I know lots of people who went to a private college. Many of the private colleges will close when people have the option of going to school for free vs paying everything themselves. Rather than looking to take what has worked really well in America (capitalism) and applying it towards parts of our country that need significant improvement (health care, education, etc), a large group of people seem to want to take the worst parts of our country (a grossly oversized government at most levels) and apply that to what needs fixing. The inevitable result will be a complete shit show that will spiral to the parts of our country that work well like the relatively free market economy. It is easy to see how people label things as 'socialist' that are not actually socialist in and of itself, but will take a significant step towards socialism when taken to their logical conclusion. You are correct that the ACA is not completely socialist, but it is trending our health care system away from free market economics towards the socialism end that many seem to desire. The ironic part of military members speaking in support of things that point towards socialism is that the military is about as socialist as you can get in America. How many times do you speak well of the MPF, finance, or similar things in the military? Virtually everything that is broken in the military is a great example of what our country as a whole would look like under people like that lady. Having lived in countries with socialized medicine and governments that lean far further socialist than ours, I can tell you that absolutely nothing of that style of government will help us. Government and bureaucracy is both naturally inefficient and naturally self interested in getting bigger and more control. The bigger and more control it gets, the more time, energy, and wealth is wasted simply maintaining it.

Since we're on the semantics train, and since Seriously is still engaging in this debate in (very) good faith, here's where I see the wording issue getting cloudy. I think you are getting a hung up on the absolutist definition of socialism, where the government has to own the means of production. It's not just the production that makes a system socialist, the "distribution and exchange" are also controlled, or regulated, by the government. I don't think we're going to see a system anytime soon where the government overtly tries to take control of the production, such as nationalizing the industries. But they are very much moving towards controlling the output, and taxation is a part of that. The more of your (and corporate) income that the government taxes, the closer we get to that type of socialism. Another key distinction here is choice. Many of the programs that you point out as not being socialistic hinge on whether or not you end up with a choice. Schools are a perfect example. There are many "liberals" who are very much against the idea of school choice. So if the government is providing a public school system, you are not allowed to pick which school your kids go to, then it doesn't really matter what you want to call it, it's socialism. Same thing goes for medical care. We can move to Canada for an example. They have the government-run system that many progressives desire, and recently a case was brought before their Supreme Court where the government did not want a doctor to open up a practice that was separate from the state-run system. As what schools, if you take Choice out of the equation it's socialism. Taxation is not socialism, but it is an integral and necessary part of it. And when you see taxes approach absurd levels (like 50% of your stuff when you die), it's probably the smoke to socialism's fire, since it costs a lot to run socialist programs. A somewhat reliable litmus test is to look at what the program is doing. If the government is taking your money in order to fund a program that promotes choice, then it's probably not socialism. The interstate highways are a good example of this. They are facilitators of business, travel, choice. Same goes for bridges, and fire stations, and many financial regulators. Because capitalism requires some measure of oversight, once again, because people are flawed.

You are describing taxation. Taxation is not socialism. Let’s allow words to still have meaning.

Gotta love the military industrial complex

Two of my AFSCs are 18X, I learned from the first BSA ride that the rifle call comes before splash. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Say, in a socialist society, doesn't somebody ultimately make the decisions, allocate the resources, and decide winners and losers? Is there a site where I can download the application for that gig? In doing some casual research, I'm not finding a poor socialist leader. Heck, even Bernie is a multi-millionaire and, to the best of knowledge, he's never, since his late twenties, been anything other than a politician. Yes, please, I'll have some of that. My neighbors can eat cake...

Another semantics point: there is nothing liberal about today's Democrat party. Liberalism is exactly the concepts today more associated with the right of American politics, like freedom of expression and the sovereignty of the individual. If anything, libertarians are the closest thing we have to liberals in modern America.

This is the logical conclusion of this change in policy coupled with the BRS and the fact that they don't select majors for school at the board anymore (i.e. you don't know exactly where you stand at decision time). The #1 problem with the new ADCS policy is that guys hot for non-flying 365s will have to go on said 365, then they incur a 3 year adsc when they get requal'd to fly the plane they already knew how to fly. It's like getting caught in a hydraulic in the rapids. Beatings will continue whether morale improves or not.

Hopefully you won't find that the seat doesn't fire when you pull the handles...metaphorically speaking, of course.

I can’t believe people advocate for socialism. How dumb are you?

Lmao the perfect retort to the use of the word “faggot” is to tell someone to “eat a dick” from the moral high ground hahahahaha! That was classic.

Yeah, like saying “rifle, time of flight 20 seconds” post splash. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk