Settle it: Who thinks Obama is a socialist?

[Tricky]

Obviously Obama is a communist. Here's a picture of him with Karl Marx.

 

[Trish Randall]

Tricky,

Freaking awesome!

 

[AvalonXQ]

No national health, still have Bush tax rates, loans to auto makers instead of, say, nationalizing car manufacturing?

Right, so he's not a very effective socialist.

 

[Trish Randall]

Avalonxq, It's not like he put them on the table & got shot down. The health care bill never had national health/single payer, they were the Bush tax rates & Obama hasn't threatened to revoke them, first idea loans to auto companies (nationalizing never even mentioned).

So what is the definition of "socialist" you're using, someone for whom you have visceral dislike of?

 

[Muldur]

Also, it's only "class warfare" if the middle or working classes try to fight back.

Been saying that for years.

 

[gnome]

Well, that's true... a beatdown doesn't turn into a fight until the other side starts fighting back.

 

[xjx388]

So when Obama said:

I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. That's what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we've got to take back the White House, we've got to take back the Senate, and we've got to take back the House.

. . . that wasn't advocating for socialized medicine? It seems to me that that's his end goal. He's a very smart guy and he realizes, as he intimates in this speech, that the road to his end goal is long. But I think it's obvious that he certainly would like certain aspects of the economy socialized. Furthermore, he advocates straight-up wealth redistribution. "At some point you've made enough money." "Spread the wealth around."

So explain again how he's NOT at least socialist-leaning?

 

[DavidJames]

So when Obama said:



. . . that wasn't advocating for socialized medicine? It seems to me that that's his end goal. He's a very smart guy and he realizes, as he intimates in this speech, that the road to his end goal is long. But I think it's obvious that he certainly would like certain aspects of the economy socialized. Furthermore, he advocates straight-up wealth redistribution. "At some point you've made enough money." "Spread the wealth around."

So explain again how he's NOT at least socialist-leaning?

No more then Reagan was for supporting medicare.

 

[xjx388]

No more then Reagan was for supporting medicare.

The difference is that Reagan didn't create Medicare. In fact, he vehemently opposed the creation of Medicare. But that was some time before his Presidency. By that time, Medicare and SS were firmly entrenched and it would have been political suicide to advocate cutting or eliminating it. He did, however, advocate cutting Medicaid.

 

[DavidJames]

The difference is that Reagan didn't create Medicare. In fact, he vehemently opposed the creation of Medicare. But that was some time before his Presidency. By that time, Medicare and SS were firmly entrenched and it would have been political suicide to advocate cutting or eliminating it. He did, however, advocate cutting Medicaid.

Whatever. Obama is a socialist, whatever makes you feel good.

 

[Dave Rogers]

So explain again how he's NOT at least socialist-leaning?

Maine is a long way east of the geographical centre of the USA, but it's still in the Western hemisphere. In the same way, being "socialist-leaning" in the USA is a very different thing to actually being a socialist.

Dave

 

[AvalonXQ]

In Romney's case, the kennel falls off the roof of the car.

In Obama's case, the chef has to go with chicken instead.

 

[Croydon Bob]

So explain again how he's NOT at least socialist-leaning?

Health insurance isn't a socialist system, it is a capitalist system. In the UK the “insurance” is paid through our taxes and we are then treated by the state. Far superior to the system Obama was proposing, which was far superior to what he has ended up with.

Doesn’t the US have a socialist military? A socialist security service? Socialist police force? A socialist prison system (which uses the prisoners to do work for the state, more like Stalinist Communism than Democratic Socialism). If you own a car you have to have insurance, is that socialism? Public libraries are most certainly socialism.

The US is not a socialism-free country. Does wanting to reduce unnecessary suffering make someone a socialist? Wanting to get the US to catch up with the rest of the civilised world regarding the health of its own citizens makes him a socialist? I don't see any evidence that Obama is any more socialist than the average USAian.

 

[Muldur]

^Thank you!