Telling the truth about a situation is not disrespectful at all. Might get some people's underoos in a bunch, but that happens when you just have a simple opinion about how a food tastes even. Never let that hold you back.

As an insider who has paid particular attention to politics in this country as I have gone through the years, and read a good deal about it's history I think you covered things pretty good. What has me befuddled is how people are so "loyal" (for lack of a better word) to their party line they refuse to accept the truth no matter how obvious. Even though the democrat and republican parties make a big show of hating each other like with this impeachment sham, or over things like pipelines, and social programs the truth is these two parties actually work hand in hand, and are compliments of each other rather than truly opponents in government.

Nothing, in my opinion, highlighted this more than Trumps run for office, and his election as well as all this criminality in the aftermath. He was fighting half the republican party in addition to all the socialists in this country. Every socialist policy the democrats have put in place in the past 60 years has never really been fought by republicans. They made a big show with BS lawsuits against O-bomb-a's affordable health care act but they were all meant to lose. Just wasting taxpayer money to put on a show to make republicans constituents think the party itself was against Obamacare, yet it still stands and republicans are only looking now to build on it when they have the chance. Much like democrats with their antiwar rhetoric. They ranted and gnashed their teeth when George W sank us into these illegal wars against terrorism, yet they provided all the votes necessary to get us in these wars, and since then they have supported these illegal wars ever since. Hell the the king of social justice warrioring politics himself, O-bomb-a just increased the wars rather than getting the U. S. out of them as was hinted at during his campaign. But democrats still think republican alone are responsible for our endless illegal wars. All this back and forth is just party favors to keep the serfs happy with something to watch thinking their party is actually fighting for their goals. It's a modern equivalent of gladiator games with these public exhibitions being the bread that used to be thrown to the crowd as a party favor to keep them happy, and distracted.

Hello. The Co-Op is a good example of community sharing.

Thank you for sharing, and being clear in your commentary. We do disagree though. Capitalism, in my opinion, is the best way to go. The problem with capitalsim in the U. S. for the past century is the slow creeping in of socialism.

That said I do want to say we have two thoroughly different views, and defintiions of soiclaism. For me socialism only has one connotation, govnerment control. I view socialism as nothing but a political/economic system meant to endow a centralized government absolute control over the people of society. Now for years I have heard folks argue that is communism, socialism is totally different. However all their definitions of both systems come to the same conclusion in my mind. About 3 years ago an online friend finally gave me what I thought was the perfect definiton between socialists and communists. He posted the question "What is the difference between socialists and communists?" on his FB page. He has friend on both sides of this political spectrum as well as many friends out in their own little bubble of social thought so there were many answers. Then he posted his own answer. A socialist is a communist with patience.

For capitalsim to work with full advantage to the average mutt on the street there needs to be a true free market economy. I do not think this means there would, or even should be, no laws or rules governing the market. The very nature of people would make that a terrible thing because garbage such as human trafficing can be justified and carried under such a definition of free market. However as was once said the government that governs best governs least. So there should be as little as possible in regards to laws and rules govnering a market system. Where socialism has stepped in (socialism per my definition of the word that is) and mucked things up comes with government intervention under the guise of protecting the public.

A quick example. Here in Oregon they have a law that anyone going into the food service industry has to have a state issued food handlers permit. To get this you have to pay for this class that lasts something like ten hours. Pass the class and get your permit after paying the govnerment for permission to work. The claim is these classes make sure the person knows all the food safety standards, and will this will keep the public safe. Of course the business would be teaching the worker the standards relevant to their business on handling foods safely, but for some reason people thought it is better if the government did that. The fact that this nets the government millions of dollars a years is of little consequence and certainly has no bearing on why this law was enacted. The fact this law is thoroughly useless seems to have no bearing on it remaining on the books either. The businesses were already teaching their employees what they needed to know. And it is up to the people who run these businesses to make sure these practices are carried out routinely. It not only is good for the business as per the law, but it also keeps them making money. If they are not carrying good practices then people quit coming in and they shut down. So all this extra government intervention has no real point. It creates a massive government agency that is run with almost no efficiency, and from my own , no actual set standards. What a person is taught in a food hanlding class differs from instructor to instructor. They have a book with the basic guidelines, but each instructor decides what of that book to share, and they almost always had their onw opinions to toss in as fact. Oe thing I forgot to mention, a food worker ahs to recertify their permit every year so in addition to all the new workers in the field the govenrment made sure it had repeat business with this aspect of the law to keep a steady stream of income that way. Of course anyone who has worked in the business that long is really one of the last people needing anything to be gained from a government run class on food safety. But as I have stated reason has no bearing on govnerment agencies.

There are trillions of examples of the state stepping in to "protect" the people with asinine laws like this. From city, county, to state, and federal laws, so actually trillions. The only real common denominator with all these laws is the fact it gives government more power, and denies not only a free market to the people, but far less personal liberty. And so many of these laws are only enforced when it is convenient. Convenient enforcement usually means when some person in power wants to cause trouble and damage to a particular individual in society for what ever reason. Another reason these laws exist with only selective enforcement is random power and control. Another example, the fact it is illegal to have a lit cigarette or other smoking item within 20 feet of a gas pump. Cops will enforce that when they want to roust someone in particular but have no other real reason. Another example being a friend of mine. He was walking down the street minding his own business when a cop decided he wanted to roust the guy, but he had no real probable cause for a stop. My friend happen to be smoking a cigarette. He walked past a gas station, and even though he was further than the 20 foot limit that was the excuse the cop used to roust him. Even when there were two more cop cars on the scene and my friend pointed out people pulling right up to the people with lit smokes they did not equally enforce this law. When one guy was actually starting to pump his gas with a lit smoke the cop only shouted at him to put it out, no rousting, no tickets. This is what my definition of socialism brings to the table.

So folks have not had the advantage of an honest capitalist society for many decades. What so many are calling failures of capitalism is actually the success of soicalism giving the government far too much power and ingoring the Constitution in this country.

And I will apologize in advance for the typos. I just need to go do something and am not cleaning this post up

@Naomi yes, and libraries, community centers. These would be FAR better community run. I'd say it's lazy, slack that let the STATE in.
State is impersonal, and impersonal means FRAUD.

@Naomi, @KCSantiago Certainly your definitions I 100% agree.
I got the TRUE DEFINITION of SOCIALISM off Wikipedia, being SOCIAL, being community.

Capitalism is 'me first, you slave'. Communism is 'us elites first, you share the crumbs dropped.
Socialism is 'we are a group working together'.
As Putin said, it's really a Christian system, but he's right, needs fine tuning.

Capitalism is cruel.
I got billions, you stupid *** got bad cuz you're useless.
I SEE it in US.

Find out how the wealthy did, FAMILY did under Trump.
Biden's just FAR WORSE.

Hello 2FollowHim,

Black & white debates, like communism vs capitalism and the left vs the right, never seem to develop very well because they don't allow any grey areas in between to be taken into consideration.

I'm glad that you've got the definition of socialism right. I've always felt that it is a little lazy to talk about socialism and communism as if they were exactly the same. When you said "community sharing", I knew you were talking about a moderate form socialism and not communism, although I'm aware that communism is a much higher, more advanced form of socialism.

@Naomi you're right! I debated another Chrwho said 'you need both and 'a blend' and I saw this was true. There are LEADERS who set things up, love positive risk, good at it. The WAY communism, SO CALLED is done, I'd call it OPPRESSION.
Sharing in especially HARD times makes sense: 2 cars, not 8, 2 lawnmowers not 6 etc.

So, I hear FLEXIBILITY. SOCIALISM is...social.
The only way they make capitalism work (and it doesn't), is taxing the daylights out of the elites: so, they set up a system where they DON'T pay, and those less risk taking, less pushy, aggressive get very little.

@2FollowHim Adam Smith is often called "the father of capitalism". (He wasn't an economist; he was a thinker.) Even he didn't completely rule out socialist approaches; he recognised the importance of education for all and health care for all.

@Naomi We need more than MSM health'care' which I think is a misnomer.
Let alternative, other ways be included. This is just big money, drugs.
Education is also corrupt because there's just ONE free choice.
It's the worst.