JDoolin said:
Socialism means you provide a safety net; education, training, housing, food, basic medical care, so that those who are poor have some way of bettering themselves.
Socialism means you have the government run the economy. Social democracy means you provide a social welfare state. A basic safety net is not socialism, as Adam Smith and Milton Friedman were both okay with basic safety nets. Once a society becomes rich enough, it is fine to use taxes to create a set of basic safety nets. What you don't necessarilly want is an outright welfare state.
Anti-Socialism is Anti Poor.
No it isn't. Take a look at how prosperous all the socialist countries were/are.
To be more explicit, the Tea Party is against this safety net. They demonize public school teachers, they are against basic medical care for the poor, they are against giving housing or food to people who haven't "earned" it.
Again, if you can come up with a good argument against what I am saying, I would LOVE to be wrong about this. If I AM wrong about this, then show me that I am wrong. I would LOVE to find out that somehow the TEA party has been fighting for the same things that the Democratic party has been fighting for, and its just been a matter of miscommunication?
Yes, it is. The Tea Party are not against giving aid to the poor, their belief is that it can be done through things like churches and charity. They also understand that many of these poverty programs either do not fix the problem or only make it worse.
I don't think so, though. Democrats are the party for the people. Republicans are the party for the corporations against the poor.
What this tells me is that, like too many on the Left, you do not have the first clue about what Republicans stand for or what their policies are. There's so much wrong with that statement, I don't even know where to begin. What you said is exactly what the heads of the Democratic party would like you to think, though, even though it isn't true. I could say that the Democrats are the party for enlarging the government and making the people dependent and needy on the government as a result, that they are the party of the labor unions, the trial lawyers, the environmental lobby, and other various left-leaning special interest groups. That they are the party that loves to appeal to people's base emotions, by talking about things such as "fairness," "justice," "equality," pointing out how some are rich while the vast majority are not (appealing to the base emotions of envy and jealousy), etc...not all Democrats are like that, there are plenty of good ones, but too many are.
Your claim about Republicans being for corporations against the poor has to rank as one of the most prevalent myths that exist. Republicans are not for corporations. Republicans are for the free-market, something corporations are notorious for seeking to undermine and undercut. Republicans are also for limited government, low taxation, and light levels of regulation, things many large corporations are also against and historically have been against. The crux of your misconception is the belief that it is government that can fix all of society's problems. Need to fix education? More government. Fix poverty? More government programs. Get more housing to the poor? More government. A corrupt industry needs fixing? More government regulations. Making sure everyone has healthcare? More government. Republicans recognize that not only does government oftentimes not work at fixing these problems, but instead often has a tendency to make them even worse in its attempts at fixing them. Republicans very much care about the plight of the poor, the environment, education, healthcare, etc...but have a whole lot of limited-government to non-governmental solutions to these problems.
People such as yourself who do not have any understanding at all of these limited-govenrment and non-governmental solutions thus reason that since Republicans are against a whole slew of large government you are for, that they therefore must be evil and "don't care."
It's not like its just me that thinks this. I don't really need to support this argument.
Actually, yes you do. You make baseless accusations about Republicans that tell me you don't know anything about their beliefs or policies.
This is THE commonly held belief of Democrats, and Republicans alike.
It is the commonly-held belief among a great many Democrats. Have you ever heard the saying, "When you're young and dumb, if you're not a Democrat, you don't have a heart. When you're over thirty, if you're still a Democrat, you have no brain." Now I don't agree with that statement in terms of what it literally says, but the point of it is that when you are young and haven't a clue about how the world works, if you have a heart, you will likely be a hardcore Democrat. When you learn more about how the world works and thus about other policies (such as Republican policies), you may still be a Democrat, but you will be one that understands the opposition one heck a lot better and probably would be deemed a center-left person as opposed to left-wing.
Watch some Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman, Bill Mahr. You'll see over and over and over again, the same story. Democrats trying to defend the poor. Republicans trying to defend the rich.
First of all, all of those people are among the most leftwing commentators in the media. Your definition of Democrats "defending" the poor often comes out to their trying to appeal to the base emotions of the masses to engender jealousy and rage, to engage in class warfare. The basic strategy of the politician that promises to rob Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul. Republicans, when they "defend" the rich, are usually just forced into pointing out where the Democrats are wrong on many issues, such as the notion that there's a fixed pie (the idea that for one guy to get rich, someone else has to become poorer), or that it's the fault of the wealthy that the economy came down, or arguing against wealth redistributionist policies, etc...
That's why I say, make your argument, and make it well. Because even if you can convince me that the Tea Party is not anti-poor, you need to make the argument for Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman, Bill Mahr, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and everybody that watches those shows.
I would say that every single one of those people is to a good deal clueless about the conservative and Republican positions on issues. Not all on the Left are, but a lot, and in particular those ones. As for the people that watch their shows, they IMO have no business even voting if they get all of their information on politics and policy off of those shows. That's like a right-leaning person getting all of their information from Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
(and not saying you will agree with them 100%, but just pointing out that there is a whole different universe of thinking on these issues) 