How dumb are the Democrats?

Believe it or not, socialism, to a degree does work. Our police, fire, even military is to a great deal a form of socialism. Imagine if your house was on fire and the department was privatized. It would be FAR more expensive than it is. Also, your insurance rates for your home would be MUCH higher do to the increased costs of those services. Socialism, in moderation, is needed for the survival of the country. Imagine if your city services were all privatized... Competition does NOT drive prices now as the old economic models indicate. Not that socialism is the answer. It clearly is not. But to say we don't have it already ignores some obvious systems.

I, too, think people who can, should. However, I am also aware that many don't have the knowledge or support they need to make something of themselves. And this comes from a child that grew up seeing my parents hand over cash and these funny looking stamp things when we went to the grocery store. The government cheese though was OUTSTANDING. I do miss that cheese. Without social programs, both in need programs and service programs, I doubt I would be typing this.

I live out in the country and our fire department is a volunteer force that we support via charitable contributions.  They come by once a year asking for donations and we always support them.  Our insurance is actually a little lower because our volunteer fire department is rated higher than the one that services farther down our street (we support both).

Many communities / cities use private emergency services (ambulances, etc...).  Some are better and some are worse than the comparable government services.  Of course the quality of government systems also varies widely in different areas.  When I was a kid most communities had public garbage collection systems but many have gone to private companies because they have proven to be more efficient.

It's not "socialism" when people have a choice.  You don't have to become a cop at $40k per year; you can become anything you want.  You can move to a different location and become a cop at $55k if you want.    I'm not sure how you think these services are all socialist. 

I can see how the military compares to socialism but do we really all want to have the rules and regulations that the military enforces placed upon us?  If everyone had to run 1.5 to 3 miles (service dependent) in a set time and stay within strict weight guidelines for physical readiness testing then we'd have lower health care costs related to diabetes, high blood pressure, etc...  If everyone was required to wear the same clothes to work we'd have lower clothing costs.  If everyone knew that they'd be paid the same regardless of how hard they worked we'd have less doctors, nurses, etc and people would have no incentive to produce more than the lowest common denominator.  The military is not the same as the general public.  The former Soviet Union tried socialism and they couldn't compete with the free market as far as providing a higher standard of living for all citizens. 

My point is there are socialist principles in our society that we rely on. Sure we can take it to the extreme which I think your running and weight guidelines are a point to prove a point that was never sent. The Soviet Union was not pure socialism and this country is not a pure democracy. I'm not going to get into a social studies lesson here. To boring and no one would want to read that. The point is the oversimplification or the over generalization of issues breaks away from "intelligent" conversation.

Pete,

Don't misunderstand my last e-mail. I agree that people need to pull themselves up, but many want to throw out the baby with the bathwater claiming that all those "programs" are crutches and should be eliminated. The only point I was trying to make was without those, I don't know if I would have had the success that I was ABLE to work for. When it comes to welfare programs, it seems the only ones that are the "good" ones are those that give millions to the airlines and the oil companies.