Am I A Socialist?
Socialism, as defined by my “define socialsm”-“did you mean define socialism”-search on Google is a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
I don’t necessarily believe in all of that because I think we’re too corrupt as human beings to get that thing fully right. However, I do support everyone looking out for one another in a system that tries to treat everyone fairly.
Listening to the State of the Union Address last night, President Obama laid out some social programs that can help Americans. Naturally, this crop of Republicans are still holding to their “Party of No” philosophy and planning to block everything that Obama wants and even dismantle his progress. Thankfully, they don’t have enough votes to override a veto for that to happen, but honestly GOP, how petty are you looking to dismantle everything good that Obama has done to get this country back on track with policies that destroyed it under Bush?
(If you didn’t see it, please click play on this Vine to hear President Obama’s read [comeback]).
(And if you don’t already know, GOP, you won big in 2014 elections, but you also gerrymander-ed your districts and turnout was low nationwide and made that election all about hatred for President Obama. You really hate Obama. Like, hate HATE. You also talk about Hispanics like they’re gutter scum, hate anyone LGBT, despise women who want abortions, and are really only here for rich white men and you think you’ll coast to victory in 2016 everywhere? Chile, boo. You thought the same thing with the Tea Party wave in 2010 when you thought America wanted Congress to stop working to oppose President Obama. How’d that 2012 election feel?)
I support free community college. I support single-payer system health care. (Even as a teenager, I didn’t understand how we made health care a business that was wildly unregulated and even let them make profits on people living or dying! How is that not immoral?!) I support tax credits to help more parents go to work to get their kids day care. I support paid maternity leave and mandatory sick leave; mandatory vacations and holidays. Mental health is important and I’ve seen far too many overworked people who get 5-6 weeks’ vacation and only take 4 days a year because they’re scared they might lose a promotion or be considered lazy. I support as many tax cuts for the middle class as we can handle and higher taxes on the rich ($250,000 income or higher), especially on capital gains.
Here’s why I support those things: Because we only got here because capitalism breeds greed. We let Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan fool us into believing that anyone who wasn’t white and conservative and rich was a lazy bum who didn’t work hard enough, when many are working 60-90 hours a week for $7.25/hour, but a corporate executive managers others’ work for 50 hours/week and makes $100/hour or more.
When capitalism runs amok and without any regulation from anyone “above” the “system” we get the government involved to correct those wrongs. If we had a good heart to begin with and treated people and our goals with love instead of a “How can I use you to get the most bang for my buck?” mentality, we wouldn’t be here with the government getting involved to give more people a chance at bettering their lives. It’s almost impossible to do now and we’re worse off than we were during the Gilded Age. The American Dream is no longer attainable and you’re better off working in Europe or Australia to get a leg up and make life better for you and yours.
All capitalism isn’t good. All socialism doesn’t seem bad. Maybe I’m somewhere in the middle. Maybe I’m not a full-on socialist. Maybe I am a socio-capitalist. Is that a thing? Hearts need to change and no government can do that. But it sure can help to make it a little better by force since people seem to have missed the boat on that one.
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Category: Barack Obama, Conservatives, Liberals, Politics
