Supporting Socialism, Like A Good Republican

 CAPITALISM is an economic system in which goods and services are produced and distributed to the public by privately owned (non government) business enterprises for profit in the free market. Socialism is an economic system in which goods and services are produced and distributed by government at tax payer expense. The system which provides social security, roads, highways, public schools, police and fire protection, and numerous other services in the United States, obviously, is socialism. Most material goods in America are produced and distributed capitalistically, but often with government assistance in the form of tax breaks and subsidies, such as the aircraft industry and agriculture, among others. Both capitalism and socialism can exist flourish in any political system, ranging from totalitarian dictatorship to direct democracy, to anarchy. When you hear someone say, usually a conservative, that social must at all costs be kept out of the United States and that socialism has never worked anywhere it has been tried, as you have heard a trillion times if you have heard it once, you are hearing a lie, and please beg to differ with it, then refute it. Use the U.S.A. as your example. Social Security works like a charm. So does all other socialism in America. The roads are drive-able, the schools teach, the police catch crooks, and so forth. Suppose you are a progressive, are running for high or low political office, and your opponent, a staunch conservative, repeatedly warns the electorate that you are a "closet" socialist, and that if elected, you will open the door to the dreadful specter of socialism in Amerikah.  You panic, deny every word of the malicious allegation, accuse your opponent of vicious slander, and, as we like to say these days, "push back". That, of course, is totally useless. Instead, try this. Proudly proclaim to the initially shocked public that yes, indeed, you are a socialist, out of the closet.  You are a democratic socialist of the enthusiastic kind, and that so is your opponent, although she doesn't seem to know it. She is either ignorant of what socialism is, in denial, or ashamed to come clean. Remind the public that they too are democratic socialist, every last one of them, because they do not want to pay a tool fee every time they get in their car and leave their driveway and head for the parkway.Nor do they wish to pay a fee to the local capitalistic police force, and the corporation which owns it, for every burglary or trespasser on their property. Unless some weirdo wants to live in a dictatorship, and wants to corporate community to own and control every street, school, library, fire department for private profit, everyone in Americah is a democratic socialist, at least partly, even if our right wing brethren and sistern refuse to acknowledge this simple fact.It is absolutely crazy the way right wingers claim that socialsm never works anywhere, and that we must keep it out of our country, when it works great her in America,  has been here for decades, and yes, we want to keep it. Either that, or refuse to accept social security and medicare when you turn sixty five, whcih, I promise you, as a new sixty five year old, you most certianly do not want to do.