Two problems:

1. this is as usual, written by someone who started from THE PRESENT, and then rewrote "predictions" from THE PAST, to make it appear that the "predictions" were accurate. It is LITERALLY the oldest trick in The Book.

2. the characterizations are FALSE in a point by point way anyway. Gun control laws are DECLINING. Welfare is DECLINING. Religion has ALWAYS been prevented from controlling our political lives, going back to the writing of the Constitution and before. And so on.

So calm down.

Or, if you like, you can get at least equally paranoid that we are about to be pushed into a right-wing dictatorship, since the exact same list of crap has been used to make THAT claim as well.

And more than that, the number one trick that has always been played by those who DO want to start a right-wing dictatorship, has been to get people so scared that a LEFT wing thing is about to be launched, that they will run to the protection of the Right, to escape it.

If becaming a socialist country you call it a trick...
It happened in many countries, now bankrupted.
Starting with Italy.

If America becomes bankrupted, I think we are going to know where the money went. America's richest capitalists have it all. Damned socialism!

So, I guess this is what "commie America" looks like. We have a surging capitalist stock market where American capitalists are today richer, fatter and happier than they have ever been.

You Republicans might want to take note in particular of how great the surge in the capitalist markets was during the Clinton presidency and now the Obama presidency. Those "f**king commies" Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have actually been the greatest capitalist presidents in the history of America. Why is it that Republicans cannot recognize truly-great, capitalist presidents from "evil socialists?"

I have been given unto a parable to share.

We have 20 racers that split into two separate groups for ten-lap timed qualifying races. The ten in group-A beat and bang their way all the way to the checker flag and some may not even make it while even the winner has been damaged and progress and performance slowed. Group-B runs nose to tail like a freight train right to and beyond the checker. Not even a scratch at the finish on any of the ten competitors in group-B. The winner of Group A has a slower qualifying time/speed then even the last place competitor in the unblemished cooperatively aerodynamically advantaged group B.

Group-A displayed Laissez faire capitalism and raced only for personal victory at all cost even at a personal risk of sustained damage in effort to beat and or eliminate competitors. Group-B displayed the democratic Christian communist principle. One for all and all for one. The entire group-B outperformed even the winner of group-A.

The entire group of capitalists do not qualify in the top ten performers. All ten democratic communists survive and thrive.

"Ask not what your country,(fellow man), can do for you, but rather ask, what you can do for your country, (fellow man)". JFK.(me)

This is not the statement of a capitalist. This is the statement of a husband, a father, a partner, a leader, a patriot, a democratic citizen, a communist.

The story is a parable of civilization. The participants form the groups for the same reason man forms communities, societies, civilization. The diverse universe demands the harmonic cooperation of equally diverse entities for survival.

Private property capitalism is Darwinism. Survival of the fittest does not exclude a diminished outcome nor extinction. In fact, the battle for superiority, survival, when pitted against a potential partner, virtually assures a weakened diminished capacity for survival.

You have a strange and catastrophic inversion in your terminology.

- A "strong and large middle class" is the definition of Socialism, where the people who do the work reap the benefits of that work.

Wrong on all counts, Streg.

lobo_corazon seems to have plenty of sense.

"Donald (Trump) slept with a book of Hitler quotes" "he had stopped sleeping with me" [Ivana Trump, September 1990,Vanity Fair]

Venezuela's collapse into disarray is of a scale unseen in the Western Hemisphere.

Even the poor working stiffs that managed to put some money aside are traveling outside of the country just to purchase staple goods. Some have been reported as eating out of trash.

Over half of the Police cars are idle, no gas. Police are begging for simple items such as pens/pencils and paper products.

But guess what? Their elite class is still living high on the hog.

Government does not equal the productive workers in control of the means of production (Socialism).

The things you list have been in place throughout capitalism, since there was civilization. Are you arguing that civilization is socialism?

Civilization is social. Socialism is about making it work for the people who make that society run, rather than mainly the wealthy.

I posted a link but I could post 100 about it. Also google the classic economists such as Ricardo and Smith.
Historically Capitalism has been created by the bourgeoisie, that was the Middle Class. Do you understand?

Socialism is defined by the fact that all the means of productions are iwned by the government...

So where does this theory of yours that calls "Socialism" something that is not come from?
Can you name some articles or author about that?
Anything other that your imagination?

you do know that parables are not real right?

private property capitalism? Ive never heard that term or did you make that up? first thing sport is perhaps do a little homework to understand what capitalism actually is? survival of the fittest??? please.

(Gen 2:9) And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

(Gen 2:17) But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

...And dictatorship being the opposite of Socialism.

But hey, it makes a great talking point!

Mustangwriter, perhaps you would like to explain where you see socialism (Def'n: The productive workers being in control of the means of production) in North Korea?

You know what you are doing Lobocorazzon?
(probably without being aware of that)

You are behaving like those bullshitters who paint Islam like "a religion of peace" when anyone who read the Koran and the Sirah and Sunna knows that this is not true.

You are trying to paint Socialism like something that does not stink.
When everyone who read any decent economic text about it knows that that is not true.

Actually there are a few parallelisms between Islam and Socialism:
Both lie. Both take away the freedom from the people. And both are totalitarian dictatorhips.

(Islam is not a religion is a form of government).

Lobocorazon you are an idiot.

Chuckle.. One could pretend a democratic socialism but socialism is a form of private property capitalism and therefor cannot be democratic which is an equal voice/value for each and every citizen. Pretend all one wants but in the end the two democracy, and socialism are two very different paradigms. Democracy an equal voice/value for all. Just one public interest. Socialism is the, always doomed, attempt to apply the principle of civilization to the exact opposite interests of private property owners. It seems to help mitigate the tool of enslavement by treating the symptom while fully complicit with the cause.

Private property (capitalism) is the opposite, (enemy), of state/civilization. Private property is an enticing lethally toxic poison to any endeavor at a civilized society and socialism is just sugar/fig leaf to entice slaves to swallow.

Communism, true Christianity, and Democracy are all societal structures of one collective interest, public property, a kingdom, a nation, a species, and most important of all, a family. This is the concept of shared resource management. LORD God or Nature's intention.

Once a society introduces private property into the resource management system, the society can never again be a civil partnership of equality and from that moment on the society is doomed to fail from the inherently inevitable divisive inequitable leverages that private property create and nurture. Profits are not derived from thin air they are extracted from opportunity. The advantage of profit always produces greater disadvantages to thee whole. A species cannibalizing itself will eventually become extinct. LORD God or Nature's intention.