None of You are Fucking Socialists

Hey, all my American (see USA) friends and family debating who to vote for in the next presidential election. Can you do me and yourself a favour? Can you please stop using the words socialist and socialism in your debates.

This is the definition of socialism:

“a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies.”

A deeper look into the definition exposes the fact that a socialist economy is pretty much a state owned economy. State owned is not the same as regulated.

Delivering support to the poor, providing education to the masses, and even providing basic healthcare (surprise! your private healthcare companies get a lot of money from the US government) are not socialist ideologies.

Ironically, it’s private industry that started mass education for free and encouraged the government to provide it — apparently too many of us were showing up to our mindless, dirty, and dangerous factory jobs…drunk.

The actual idea of government, its purpose, is to essentially deliver services to the public that are, in the main, not commercially viable — but are deemed necessary to a functioning society.

We can disagree about how much needs to be provided by the government, but using the term socialist or socialism in these debates is idiotic because it’s incorrect and unhelpful to actually discussing the issues facing society. It’s polarising.

The United States is so far away from socialism, it’s absurd to even be using the word socialism and the United States in the same sentence. The current candidates on both sides are so far away from socialism, it’s also laughable.

You are insulting socialists by comparing practically all the policies up for debate at the moment to some kind of socialist ideology.

I think if we had actual conversations about what we desire for ourselves, our families, and society — we would probably agree on many things. But, without discussion, all we get is tired and dirty from so many skirmishes.

Meanwhile, our house falls down around us.

Peace.