I wonder what the National Socialist Movement thinks when people call Obama a socialist. I'm not going to link to them here, but I'll give you a hint-- They're Nazis. I get the feeling that someone hasn't quite defined "socialist" properly.
They have mad official statements to the effect that Obama is not a socialist.
On the other hand, I have definite socialist leanings...not to say that I am ok with Nazism, but the idea of sharing everything equally has a real ring of the Law of Consecration...
Discussions like this are always hard. Some people use the term "socialism" to mean American liberalism or progressivism. "Socialism" can also mean a whole spectrum of things, all the way up to something just shy of National Socialism.
So, I don't think it's fair to just call Obama a socialist and leave it at that - that implies that he's much more socialist than he really is. But, it is fair to point out some of his ideas that are socialist to some extent.
National Socialists are not socialists, they are fascists. When people on the right of the political spectrum in America refer to someone as socialist, they would like to say communist. The Nazi party was most certainly anti-communist. The National Socialist party may have started out as a socialist party, but they became neither communist nor capitalist and something much worse under Hitler. And any group that goes by the name of National Socialist today probably has no problems with being associated with Nazi Germany, so I doubt they are actually very socialist.
Wow! A lot of posts. I guess I just hadn't made the connection that socialist can equal Nazi. If you define "socialist" as "how Western Europe does things" then Obama has leanings in that direction. (Having lived there, I might add that I have leanings in that direction--Universal Health Care sure sounds good.) If you define it as "how Russia did things" or "Nazi" then I'd have to say that's not how Obama leans.
Oh, and mommy bee, don't you know that when we discuss politics in the LDS church, we're supposed to entirely forget the Law of Consecration? :) In reality, I don't think we're ready for "share everything," but I do think that crime and costs go down when no one is homeless (and I believe there are some very good statistics for that in Salt Lake recently). And, more importantly, we're taking care of others--and I think that when a representative government takes care of the poor, that all of us can stand up and say "I support that" and "that's the government that represents me" like they do in Norway. I think that private individuals and organizations are well-suited for taking care of the poor...but they're obviously not doing a very good job of it--and I don't think it's a problem if the government steps in, like it did with the early church (where, for much of the time, the government was run by the church).
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They have mad official statements to the effect that Obama is not a socialist.
On the other hand, I have definite socialist leanings...not to say that I am ok with Nazism, but the idea of sharing everything equally has a real ring of the Law of Consecration...
Discussions like this are always hard. Some people use the term "socialism" to mean American liberalism or progressivism. "Socialism" can also mean a whole spectrum of things, all the way up to something just shy of National Socialism.
So, I don't think it's fair to just call Obama a socialist and leave it at that - that implies that he's much more socialist than he really is. But, it is fair to point out some of his ideas that are socialist to some extent.
National Socialists are not socialists, they are fascists. When people on the right of the political spectrum in America refer to someone as socialist, they would like to say communist. The Nazi party was most certainly anti-communist. The National Socialist party may have started out as a socialist party, but they became neither communist nor capitalist and something much worse under Hitler. And any group that goes by the name of National Socialist today probably has no problems with being associated with Nazi Germany, so I doubt they are actually very socialist.
Wow! A lot of posts. I guess I just hadn't made the connection that socialist can equal Nazi.
If you define "socialist" as "how Western Europe does things" then Obama has leanings in that direction. (Having lived there, I might add that I have leanings in that direction--Universal Health Care sure sounds good.) If you define it as "how Russia did things" or "Nazi" then I'd have to say that's not how Obama leans.
Oh, and mommy bee, don't you know that when we discuss politics in the LDS church, we're supposed to entirely forget the Law of Consecration?
:)
In reality, I don't think we're ready for "share everything," but I do think that crime and costs go down when no one is homeless (and I believe there are some very good statistics for that in Salt Lake recently). And, more importantly, we're taking care of others--and I think that when a representative government takes care of the poor, that all of us can stand up and say "I support that" and "that's the government that represents me" like they do in Norway.
I think that private individuals and organizations are well-suited for taking care of the poor...but they're obviously not doing a very good job of it--and I don't think it's a problem if the government steps in, like it did with the early church (where, for much of the time, the government was run by the church).
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