Conservative (Pro) vs. Liberal (Con)

And here I was, excited for social policies. Oh well. To begin, I would like to clear something up. You have a clear misconception about Communism. It sounds to me like what your parents fled was not Communism itself, but a corrupt government in charge of a Communist state. There is a difference. Now, here is what Communism is, or ought to be, in the viewpoint of Karl Marx. Marx noticed that Capitalist nations, such as America, had become extremely efficient at producing goods. One Capitalist nation like America was so efficient, it could provide every family on earth one house and one car. He saw this type of system as an opportunity to creat leisure, which is essentially what Marxism is about. If the state could take control of industry and have it be as efficient as in a Capitalist nation, they could minimalize the work force, leaving many people without a job and with leisure time, instead. Then, the state takes the profit and redistributes it back to all of the people. So, now you have a population where a majority of the people don't even have to work and still have a good standard of living, and those who are working, with enough scientific advancement, don't even have to work terribly hard. This is ideal Communism in the eye of Marx and myself. This system, per se, is not bad, it's just that throughout history, the governments in control of Communist nations have happened to be corrupt. Perhaps this is why I go with the more moderate position of Socialist, but whether it be Socialism or Communism, democracy should always be involved. I like that you brought up Bill Gates because I think he serves as a good example. Bill Gates is currently worth about 79.3 billion USD. That's more money than anyone needs, and that's more money than any one person could ever spend. Do you realy think it's morally irresponsible to take some of that enormous wealth and give it to those who are barely scraping by a living? I think it would be irresponsible not to. The 1% in this country hold about 40% of all its wealth, last time I checked the statistics. At the same time, the middle class is slowly disappearing, some heading into the upper class, but most into the lower class, and the population below the poverty line is slowly increasing. Does it really seem like a moral injustice, even to a Conservative such as yourself, to take some of the massive piles of wealth from the 1% and distribute it to those who don't make a living wage or can't even get a job? That's another thing, it's not as though everyone in this country is even able to get a job. And some are able to get a job with a skill they require, but there are no means for them to earn higher. Say you live in a small town and you work at the grocery store. You're the only grocery store in town and you make minimum wage. You have a a wife and a couple kids and you're barely making a living. Because you're only skill is say, working a cash register (for the sake of exmaple,) and there's nowhere else in town to go, how do they persuade their boss to give them a raise? They certainly don't have enough money to move to a new city, and there's no other business that's offering a better wage. All I am advocating for is that the government raise all minimum wages to a high enough wage that even minimum wage earners with a family can have a decent living. And that is not much no ask for. It is ust the government stepping in and making sure that CEOs and bosses pay their employess enough to have a good life, no matter what job they perform.Now for my final point. Concerning, once again, one of your largest conflicts with Socialism is that you believe wealth will run out. I argue that it will not run out so long as it is done carefully. As I've previously stated, there should not be complete wealth distribution. There should still be a wealth gap, and it should be large enough that people will want to work hard because they may get rich, but there should still be enough distribution, through larger minimum wages, that people who aren't able to become rich can still be assured a good living. As long as you keep this balance, there will still be people who want to get rich, and will, and you will always have a source of money to raise minimum wage and help pay for social programs, but another way the government can do this is through state-owned industry.If the government controls industries that supply the people with basic needs, they can still charge for it but at a much lower price than a private industry would. So, the people now have much cheaper electricity, water, and other needs and the government is making a profit off of it. Using this profit, the government can convert it into social programs for the people that are free, such as healthcare, medicaid/medicare, social security, welfare, etc. Using a carefully balanced system like this, they will not run out of money to spend on the people. The trouble is not finding wealth, it is balancing it.