did anyone watch the yank elections?

[Todd]

Given that I understand that most modern politics is a stinky sham.

Can any of our American friends explain to me why y'all get so upset by the mere mention of the word Socialism. Many American chaps and chapesses seem to feel that there is a link to the failed ideology of communism. There is not.

Speaking as one who grew nurturing and nurtured by the bomsom of lovely socialist post-war Britain and who misses the free-education and weeps at the demise of our beautiful NHS - what's up folks? Socialism is a beautiful thing.

::: dons protective head-gear and prepares to run for the hills :::

Hi Luna,

I'll try to give this a thoughtful response. The US is hardly monolithic, and I don't imagine I speak for the majority. The answer is it varies.

Some probably do view socialism as communism. I don't think that's the main issue. I think it's that our government spends too damn much and seems wasteful, corrupt, and too incompetent to run massive programs either. There is also an independent spirit rags to riches narrative that is bred into a lot of us. There is a view that you may end up working hard only to have it taken away to give to people that don't want to work.

We see the riots in France and Greece, and think that's where socialism leads. Some truth there. That said, I don't believe that truth is the whole truth. I do believe that there is a mixture of capitalism and socialism that most people in the US want even if they don't like socialism philosophically they practically like some aspects of it. People aren't always consistent.

Another issue is that with the size of the country and 314 million people it's hard to pull off. If you restricted these programs to the discretion of the fifty individual states you might be able to pull it off. Though people would begin moving and skew the systems of some of these states probably overwhelming the system.

Nothing is ever easy.