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[sluissa]

FEMA is fine, we all know it's just a front for a conspiracy run by aliens and Illuminati to put electronic old men within positions of power within 6 month.

EDIT: Reference

[Puzzlemaker]

So I am going to do a brain dump on my views of socialism and capitalism.  Please correct me if any of it sounds crazy and/or is wrong.

The problem I see with Socialism isn't the socialism part, it's that someone has to decide who gets what.  In a centralized system, that basically means an oligarchy (Or dictator) controls all the resources of the state.  This has upsides and downsides.  The biggest downside is that such centralized power is a Bad Idea, because it would allow someone(s) to take over and use the country as their own personal piggy bank (See numerous dictatorships throughout history).

A decentralized system would be something like the Israli Kibbutz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz).  Of course, doing that country-wide would be hard, since you do need some sort of large centralized power to function (Military, transportation, etc).

Capitalism's strength (In the ideal sense) is that it allows a decentralized system that can rapidly adjust to changes.  It also promoted innovation, basically using human greed as fuel to power a country.  The downside is that what makes the most money doesn't always match up with what is best for the country, so you do need a centralized law system to keep it in check.  See Enron for an example of this.

A Centralized Capitalistic system would basically be a warlord controlling all the money in a country.  Basically the same as an extreme socialistic system gone bad.

That's an important point, I think.  A greedy man with few moral scruples taking control of an extremely centralized government is always a disaster waiting to happen.  Socialistic systems naturally start closer to that point, hence why you see it happen so often.  Again, this is mostly from my own understanding of how this all works, so tell me if I am wrong of off point.

Anyway, ideally you want the best of both worlds.  What that means is up for debate.

It makes me view all these cries about communism with a bit of a confused look, since I don't think they fully understand what is wrong with "Communism".  Cries of "Less government control" I can understand, and make sense in context.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If there's anything that's clear to me about socialism, it's that nobody has a rigorous definition of what the hell socialism even is.

[Frumple]

It's less that and more one or more groups are just violently misusing the term, to the extent it causes quite a bit of muddyment.

[smjjames]

To me, the Republicans calling people (Obama for example) socialist or calling something socialist has become akin to the Republicans just screaming 'HERETIC!' and 'HERETICAL!', because that's ecactly the way they have been using it.

I know 'socialist' does NOT have the same meaning as 'heretic/heretical', but that's the way it's been muddled.

[Starver]

That's just what a socialist would say, you socialist!

[TheBiggerFish]

TSA could get its budget cut to its success rate...

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The CIA uses TvTropes, they are the worst alphabet

[smjjames]

0/10 for imagination, lol.

Though obviously it's just that persons personal opinion.

[redwallzyl]

Ongoing health care disaster news.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/us/politics/affordable-care-act-obama-care-health.html
Doctors hate it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/us/politics/affordable-care-act-obama-care-health.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fhealth
Super conservatives hate it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/health/risk-of-losing-health-insurance-in-republican-plan.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fhealth&_r=0
It screws poor people.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/upshot/gop-health-bill-would-cut-funding-for-poor-and-taxes-on-rich.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fhealth&_r=0
It just doesn't work well.

I do so enjoy watching republicans finally catch the car they were chasing for so long.

[smjjames]

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/8/14849512/death-spirals-experts-republican-health-care-bill
And it may still end up in a death spiral. Although I think the ACA has been accused of the potential before and it's actually rather unstable right now, so, ACA may actually be in danger of it right now.

I wonder how other countries deal with the mandate stuff or otherwise avoid such a deathspiral.

[Lord Shonus]

Even tackling health care this early in the term was a really stupid idea, politically, as 2017 is not an election year. As it is, if they manage to get anything passed it will be in effect long enough to be blamed for any problems, and if they don't get it passed they'll inherit all of the gripes about the existing system as "they should have fixed this by now, they've been working on it for two years!".

The extreme badness of the bill means that not being able to pass it is a good thing, but the political strategy here is much worse.

[smjjames]

To be fair, they didn't want to wait any longer because the ACA actually is having some issues, plus that's what they've been campaigning on and all that jazz.

Also, you make it sound like they're in a 'damned of you do, damned if you don't situation. Which they might have been anyway considering how hard they had pushed to repeal ACA and consistuents threatening to vote them out if they didn't.

[Frumple]

If you're looking for political savvy, you're... kinda' looking at the wrong administration. It's going to be a while before you see political strategy out of that lot become much of a thing. If ever.

[Lord Shonus]

There's a good chance that they are in such a situation by pushing this early. Politically, the sensible thing would have been to start pushing this fall, giving them enough time to get a bill out before the 2018 elections, but while keeping Obamacare as a scapegoat for any problems. As it is, they're running a serious risk of either taking a beating at the polls for wrecking healthcare, or taking a beating at the polls for not fixing it. At this point, the only way the GOP's health care push isn't a live grenade for the next elections (barring them actually coming up with The Best Healthcare Plan Ever, which I will charitably call unlikely) is for memories of the fiasco to fade in the next 18 months.

Nothing, of course, is guaranteed, but this puts them into a dangerous position.

That actually makes me a bit more hopeful about the midterms. If the Republicans are reduced to the state of confusion the Democrats are currently in by 2018, and the Democrats don't manage to rally around the issue, we just might get a non-binary Congress for a couple of years, which this country really needs.