28 Jan 2023 9:48 am
A fire department has the authority to put out a fire in your house. You pay money in the form of taxes and the government uses that money for the benefit of ALL the citizens, but that benefit is only realized when one's house catches fire. If you live your entire life in a city, and your house never catches fire even once, then all the tax dollars you have paid were money thrown away from your perspective. Except, in the "village" we live in, taking care of each other's house fires with a mutually funded fire department is the way that the majority of the citizens of that village deemed appropriate. If you don't LIKE the idea of paying for a fire department, you can move to some unincorporated piece of land that is NOT protected by the fire department. Similarly, we do not expect every homeowner in a city to be responsible for getting out and shoveling the snow off of the street in front of their individual house. It works better when a larger organization, funded by the mutual contributions of the villagers, plows the streets for everyone. Similarly, it would not be cost effective for every home owner to have to purchase his own CAT SCAN machine... so we have hospitals and health care delivery systems for that as well. If you don't WANT to participate, move.Beekeeper » 28 Jan 2023, 10:29 am » wrote: ↑ A fire Department does NOT have any authority over your ability to make a choice in life. It was given the sole authority to save lives from fires. The PEOPLE of a community have given CONSENT for that to be established with ONLY ONE PURPOSE IN MIND!! AND you have an OPTION to call them or not. YOU CHOOSE!!
When GOVERNMENT has control over ONE or more aspects of your life in which you have NO CHOICE to participate or not and have NO other alternatives, you have established a SOCIALIST FORM OF CONTROL. PERIOD!! Government controls the means of production (your healthcare) and also will control the WAGES of those who provide care and also control YOUR choices for treatment. Care to explain how that is NOT SOCIALISM under YOUR very own definition??
In answer to your last question, a government cannot be a little bit socialist, just like a woman cannot be a little bit pregnant. You either are or your aren't. Socialism is the government controlling the means of production. Period. Not a little of the production.. not just the water pipes, or the sewer system, or the fire department or the roads, or the health care, but everything. Under a socialist government, there would be no private corporations, there would be no private hospitals, there would be no privately owned farms. As long as capitalism exists, and free markets exist... and you get to chose between General Mills and Post cereals, or between Ford and Chevy cars, then we are not a socialist state. Our capitalist, representative democracy, that derives ALL of its power from the the people it governs, has determined that it makes more sense to not have you plow your own streets or perform your own CAT SCANS or put out your own fires. That's democracy at work. That's the way AMERICA works. If you don't like it, don't let the door hit you in the *** on the way out.