Why don't you explain this to Mav who thinks that because we pay taxes in the US we're a socialist country. Read his first post that started this thread. You tell him that "people in every freaking country with any sort of government pay taxes", not only in socialist countries. Other than that I am not even sure what you are arguing about. Granted you're a self-admitted neo-con so I do expect a lot of anger and personal attacks and don't expect a lot of intellect or impecable logic but what exactly I said that you disagree with? I said the soviet union was a socialist country, I said the US is not. I said that the soviets paid virtually no taxes because the government owned everything, everybody worked for the government and received very small compensation for their work. What do you think I got wrong?
Cesko: keep in mind that not only is dddooo a socialist, he also lives large (several times the $ amount of those in poverty) on a government pension. In fact dddooo's retirement package is higher than the average SALARY of most American's. Ah, big government. Good work if you can find it.
Pabst, I did not realize you're into class envy, try to get a better job in the next life. Of course Exxon's CEO collecting half a billion dollars does not upset you at all, government employees living above official poverty level after retirement do.
My taxes don't support CEO compensation. However my taxes do support you and others who live on the government dole. And yea, like many I find it offensive that liberal Democrats who are raking in tens of thousands in Federal pensions after 20 years of shuffling papers in the Dept. of Commerce are the same folks telling small business owners and others who are self employed that we're not paying our "fair share." By your reasoning MY retirement is less important than YOURS even though I fund my retirement with MY earnings and you fund YOUR retirement with MY earnings ALSO.
Your taxes don't support government employees, you're not doing them no favors, unlike you (a speculator who has not done anything useful in his entire life) they work for a living, provide real services and earn their paychecks. Don't forget they pay taxes too. Stop claiming you're supporting them, they are not responsible for your taxes. If their job is better than yours - tough luck. Our taxes support a lot of different things - roads, police, the FAA, the war in iraq, rebuilding of New Orleans, environmental protection, corporate welfare, medicare drug benefit and tens of thousands of other programs. Some of them are good and some of them are not but singling out and blaming government employees for your taxes is absurd and riduculous, do you actually expect them to work for free or what? If you hate them because their benefits are better than yours - it's a typical class envy, why don't you apply for a government job instead if they are that lucrative. You'll be set for life. BTW if you think you're not paying for Exxon CEO's outrageous compensation package - you're insane. You are not paying him through taxes of course but you're still paying and paying a lot.
Socialism is not defined by taxes, as a matter of fact they paid virtually no taxes in the former soviet union, there probably aren't any taxes in Cuba and North Korea. Do I have to say more??
Yes you do as you've said nothing yet. How much taxes did you pay? If you had a job in Czechoslovakia and your monthly salary was 1000 korunas (or whatever) how much of that 1000 korunas did you pay in taxes?
I think you what you guys are saying is that socialism is supposed to resemble the division of labor in a normal family. That I can see. But I don't think the metaphor works the other way around; saying that normal family interactions are socialism doesn't make any sense. Socialism administered by the state is forced upon people. In a normal family you don't do things for the other family members because some outside force is making you. You do it because you want to. Wanting to do something and being forced to do something are two VERY different circumstances.
How much did you say? You lost an argument so now you are going to be drilling about irrelevant stuff? OK you won because I don't remember how much it was. Have a nice day.
socialism is Socialism (tm), when it is govt. enforced. A NECESSARY component of socialism is STATE ownership. iow, it's collective ownership by the barrel of a gun a family may have a "socialist" structure in some sort of analogous sense, but that's kind of meaningless. the term "Socialism" refers to a GOVERNMENT imposed structure. if it is self imposed within a family unit, it is not socialist in any meaningful sense, since it is not a political system set up by the state.