Politics, schmolitics, then! The truth be told, socialism, in the U.S., is defined as bad in terms of what the other guy gets from the government. What was that famous thing some angry guy shouted at a political rally some years ago, wrailing against socialized medicine, something like, "I don't want the government messing with my Medicare!"
The apostles of and bastions of capitalism, Wall Street, billionaires who would withhold ketchup from rural school children, would let you and any small business go belly up, because it's what you deserve, for your failures by the sacred rules of capitalism, but what did they do in 2008? Came crawling, hat in hand, to the government for a bailout, Goldman Hank even getting on bended knee to Nancy Pelosi. And you like clean water, don't you, clean food, wouldn't think kindly of dumping nuclear waste in a nearby pond, if your children go to public school probably like the idea the single and childless are helping foot the bill for you? I've not seen anybody screaming they didn't get a bill for the whole cost of the public education of their children. Those of you with a mortgage, who's going to be first in line, to reimburse their mortgage tax break? Renters don't get such socialism.
The whole corporate world loves tax breaks, writeoffs, government subsidies individuals don't get, the plant and equipment of the industrial economy partly, or even wholly, paid for by tax breaks, whereas not a dime of your home furniture or appliances subsidized, that is, the big corporate capitalists the greatest beneficiaries of government largesse. Some of them make profit hand-over-fist and pay closer to zip in taxes, compared to the some poor, struggling slob they resent employing, when there's no possibility of using slaves overseas.
You've got NASA, who gave you Tang and Velcro, some interesting pictures and revelation there's dust on the moon, but for how many billions? You know something about NASA, a dirty little secret? It's more a government welfare program for scientists who wouldn't otherwise find use for their degrees in the private sector, specializing in PR to the public as to why more billions need to be thrown at them: you can one day look forward to the pants zipper being replaced.
The truth is, you have a whole corporate universe, and you too, one way or another, feeding at the trough of the biggest business on the planet, the U.S. Federal Government, and throw in state government. Life was ugly in the Soviet paradise, would be even uglier, in a capitalist paradise, which, you Americans, your nation is not, by long shot the government deep in the grinding of the economic wheels, and you'd have it no other way. What do you think would happen, if that government spending dried up? What do you think the markets would look like, the past few years, without Fed funny money?
In any event, let us continue to "fight the good fight" against the horrors of socialism that benefit somebody else, and, be warned, D.C., stay out of our Medicare! (Or Iraq will have hell to pay...)
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