From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: NDP "communism?" (was Re: A vote for Reform...)
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 09:38:00 GMT

In article <93010.1835102893684@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> Andy <2893684@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:
>In article <1993Jan10.222143.12528@julian.uwo.ca>, larocqu@gaul.csd.uwo.ca (JOHN
>LAROCQUE) says:
>>
>>In article <93010.1355462893684@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> Andy
>><2893684@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:
>>>There's a difference between what Communists say socialism  isand what
>>>socialists say communism is. This is my understanding, Classical marxists
>>want
>>>the abolition of capitalism and it's replacement with a system run by and for
>>>the working class. Socialists want this done through parliament and by
>>>democratic evolution, Communists want it done through violent revolution.
>>
>>Means and ends. Why don't you get off your high horse and admit that they
>>both want the same thing but are going about it differently.
>
>The NDP and communists do NOT want the same thing, the latter want to abolish
>capitalism, the former want to make it more equitable, there is a world of
>difference between wanting to get rid of something and wanting it to work
>better. The NDP are social democrats, the communists are revolutionary
>abolitionists.

Splitting hairs. Making 'capitalism more equitable' is left wing 
doublespeak for what the hard core communists say they want explicitly
(abolishing capitalism and human liberty).

Dress up bogus, statist, collectivist, anti-liberty anti-individual ideas
in a sugar coated, moderate package, and you get the NDP.

Again, IT DOESN'T MATTER what the NDP says they are about. Their policies
are incapable of succeeding, unless you call making everyone poorer,
more miserable, success. The liitle NDP dance about supporting the market
is BS. The NDP act at every turn to subvert and destroy the market.
Proof: it is an economic FACT that rent controls cause housing shortages,
minimum wage laws raise unemployemnt, as unions also necessarily increase
unemployment. Throw in their government managed competition for laughs,
and you get worse. Anti free market policies are economically bogus,
and are doomed to failure. NDP Socialism is just a candy coated way
of failing the same way the communists, totalitarians etc. fail.
THe NDP is just a different way of getting to communism, but it'll
get there just the same if we let it.
>
>>>The NDP is not in favour of violent revolution and thus are not Communists,
>>>further more, the NDP does not call for the aboliton of capitalism but for
>>>making capitalism more equitable, thus they are not Marxists and in the
>>>Marxist use of the phrase they are not socialists but social democrats.
>>
>>Social democrats or democratic communists? According to the NDP and their
>>ilk in this country, the state is God and individuals mean nothing.
>
>According to whom in the NDP? What have the provincial NDP governments
>nationalised in the past two years?

The Ontario NDP effectively nationalised steel production, by propping
up the failed corporations with billions.
>
>>Making capitalism more equitable - what the f**k is that supposed to mean.
>
>It means trying to end poverty and economic hardship, it means trying
>to give people equal opportunity regardless of their economic origins.
>
I'm not against help others. But I am against the government stealing from
me to prop up a welfare state. Making capitalism more equitable means
forcing people to join unions, even though they'd rather not. It means
interfering in the market, distorting trade, and my right to trade with
others. It means a lot of excuses for government to steal the results
of my work, through taxes.

>>Hard working people who are told that their hard earned money doesn't
>>belong to them - it belongs to "society". People who are told that it is
>>better to go on welfare than to get a job. People who are harassed and
>>thrown in jail for opposing the state.
>
>People who are born into privledge as opposed to people born into poverty,
>true, some are able to overcome their origins, but not many.
>
Nobody said life was fair. I don't cry and whine because I can't run 100 m
in under 10 s. The free market is the most efficient way of distributing
goods and resources. The best and brightest will succeed, not by cheating
anyone, but merely by exercising their own natural talents, By creating
economic growth, the people who are more industrious distribute their
success to others.

Human nature often blames others for one's own failures. That's why less well
off people gripe about the rich, even though the rich never cheated or
stole from them; the rich got that way by exploiting their own talents.
The 'privelege' argument is just a socialist way to justify envy; to
blame others for one's own problems.

>>
>>Communism and socialism both espouse the same ideology - a system that will
>>solve all the world's problems. As a guy named Jesus tells us - we will
>>always have poor people. And unlike poor people 50 years ago - poor people
>
>Didn't he also say that a rich man has as much chance of going to heaven
>as a camel does to pass through the eye of a needle?:)
>
>>today have color tv's, and can spend welfare money on wasteful and anti-
>>social activities like buying beer and cigarettes. Poverty on the increase?
>
>and what of their children, how do we give them an equal opportunity to
>children of privledge?

Private charity? Who says everyone deserves an equal opportunity? We are not
equal, except when judged by the law. Some people are hard working, or
lucky, or particularly talented. Socialism wants to drag others down.
>
>>Maybe anti-social activities like single mothers on welfare who get pregnant
>>are making the problem worse. That's right - people are to blame for their
>>own problems.
>
>and are children to blame for their parents problems?
>
>>
>>If we cut taxes by 20% accross the board, we wouldn't need all of this
>>social junk. Healthy people wouldn't have to pay for all of those idiots
>>in the hospital who smoke a pack a day and are now dying of lung cancer.
>
>and the children of the poor struck with curable ailments would just die
>or be permanently disadvantaged.

typical socialist arguing. One drastically sick person deserves piles of
money for treatment, even though you would actually save many more lives
by spending the same sum on prevention, or more effective treatments.
>
>>That's right. People are to blame for their own problems. And its time
>>we stopped bankrolling them. Idiots who have liver problems because they
>
>People are to blame for diabetes or meningitis?Children are to blame for
>congenital heart, liver or kidney problems?

What a red herring. Health insurance would take care of that. And health
insurance premiums would rise if you chose to smoke, etc.
>
>>buy a case of beer a week. Let them die. I don't want to pay for these
>>idiots. Fat people - make 'em diet or cut off their health care. That
>
>Talk about the state dictating the lives of individuals! Some individualist
>you are.

he never said the state would be the judge. The state shouldn't interfere.
If you want to smoke/drink/drug yourself to an early grave, YOU bear
the cost, that's all he means.

People wash their hands of responsibility, and expect government to look
after them.
>
>>is right - make them pay. People who care for their health should stop
>>bankrolling those people who don't.
>
>I hopeyou never need a transplant, heck, I hope you never get ill.
>
Well, as long as he's forced to participate in a system he doesn't support,
he might as well exploit it if he needs to. Why not give him the option
to opt out? But no, we have an Iron Curtain of laws and taxes that force
us to submit. If your system were so great, you'd let people who didn't
like it opt out, and forfeit benefits, while not paying for socialist
oriented taxes. The socialists won't do that, because they would not
be able to explot/coerece us any more; just as the unions would
never voluntarily agree to non-coerced membership (there would be an 
exodus from the unions if people weren't forced to join).

I'll repeat: if your system is so great, give us the choice to opt out.
I'll take my chances.
>>
>>And guys who get AIDS because they were too stupid not to put a condom on
>>their weenie or keep it inside their pants. Let them die. I don't want
>
>AIDS has a long incubation period, many got it before "safe sex" was an
>issue.
>
So why does AIDS research spending outstrip cancer spending? More die
from breast cancer than from AIDS, yet AIDS gets more funding.
Do you know how to fight a brush fire? You build fire breaks to stop
the spread, and then you let it burn itself out. AIDs is not very contagious;
educate people and give them condoms, and AIDs will go away by itself.
AIDs funding has turned into a giant special interest group gripe session.

>>to pay for idiots. Punish stupidity - not working people who care for
>>their health, who actually earn their own money and can look after
>>their families.
>
>Why blame the families if they are not supported, why blame the children for
>the misdeeds of their parents?
>
Good point. I'm not against funding for children, because if one funds
them, they will repay it later when they succeed; if one doesn't fund them,
they will just grow up to be crooks and gang members, and I'll just have to
pay money to keep them in prison.

>>
>>Maybe the destruction of the universal health care system is a necessity.
>>Or maybe a new rule - not that of wealth but that of health. In this
>>system idiots have no right to leech off the rest of us. Fat people
>>alcoholics and cigarette abusers - watch out. You are costing the system
>
>Systems with universal health care are more productive as adults are less
>likely to beeffected by inadequate health care when they were children and
>as there are fewer days off due to illness or disease.

There's some truth in this; but the point is that universal health care
doesn't do anything to evaluate risk. People who smoke should pay higher
health premiums, not higher cigarette taxes. Cigarette tax revenue 
disappears into general tax revenue, and god knows how much gets spent
back on health. Higher premiums would hit them, and make them associate
health and costs.

(I think actuaries say that smokers cost less to society, because they die
sooner, leaving heaps of money which would have been spent on social security!)


-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
 John Paul Morrison                     |  
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  
 Electrical Engineering                 |   .sig file without a cause
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca              VE7JPM |  
________________________________________|_________________________________
Newsgroups: can.politics