Brigham Young the Socialist

[_Dr. Shades]

The worst country's in the world are ran by liberal ideology, the best country's in the world are ran by conservative ideology, including capitalism.

So, are you telling us that Iran is better than the Netherlands?

[_Drifting]

The worst country's in the world are ran by liberal ideology, the best country's in the world are ran by conservative ideology, including capitalism.

So, are you telling us that Iran is better than the Netherlands?

How come Scandinavian Liberal Country's are considered the healthiest and safest in the world in which to bring up children?

I suppose it depends on how ldsfaqs defines 'best'...

[_MeDotOrg]

...Capitalism has "equalized" the differences between the rich and the poor more than any system. It has given a higher quality of life for ALL citizens than any system ever tried. Liberalism however destroys quality of life. Every country that follows it in whatever degree be it socialism, communism, marxism etc., is much less quality of life for all than America.

...The worst country's (sic) in the world are ran by liberal ideology, the best country's (sic)in the world are ran by conservative ideology, including capitalism.

There’s a saying in business: “What gets measured gets done.” In a capitalist system, we primarily look at income and GNP as our measures of success. But what do they leave out?

Incarceration rate: United States has 730 prisoners per 100,00 people. By far the largest number in the world. The number dwarfs those of most industrialized nations. By comparison England/Wales has 156 per 100,000.

Infant mortality rate: The United States ranks 48th in the World, right between Croatia and the Faroe Islands, and behind every other Western Democracy.Cuba ranks 39th, 9 places better than the United States.

Life expenctancy: The U.S. ranks 50th.
Murder rate: The U.S. ranks 50th.

One index I think is interesting is a quality of life index that measures purchasing power, safety, health care, consumer price index, housing to income ratio, traffic commute time and pollution. On this index the United States ranks 10th (Switzerland, Germany and Norway are 1-2-3).

Economic mobility is regressing in the United States. The United States has less economic mobility than Denmark, Canada, Finland, Norway, France, Germany and Sweden.

...What do you think one of the main reasons third world country's exist??? It's because a small few wicked horde the money for themselves, and it's not distributed to the people.

Wealth distribution: in 2007 the top 1% of Americans had 34.6% of the wealth, the bottom 40% of Americans had 0.2% of the wealth.

After-tax income of the top 1% earners has grown by 176% percent from 1979 to 2007 while it grew only 9% for the lowest 20%

Further, we already have socialized health care. The poor get the same care as anyone else. No one is turned away.

I would imagine it's rather difficult to get chemotherapy in an emergency room. By not having preventative medicine, many conditions that can be detected with a blood screening or normal medical checkup blossom into diseases that are very expensive to treat. Giving proper health care treatment to the poor would help mitigate those costs. And, (oh, by the way) possibly alleviate human suffering.)

MONEY is not the problem Kerry..... Character is. Throwing money at things don't fix things. It takes charactered (sic) individuals in a community that create a community, and create quality of life.

People are not born with character. You learn character. You need a role model. If your family is lacking in role models, to whom do you turn? I would agree that the family is the best place to start, but if the family doesn't have the support structure, shouldn't someone be able to turn to their community? This is the whole 'it takes a village vs. it takes a family. Sometimes it takes both.

Mark Twain said: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."

We are approaching wealth inequality in this country that has not been seen since the Gilded Age (a term which Twain also coined), the age before Progressivism. Social Darwinists like Herbert Spencer argued that cutthroat competition was natural and that embodied "survival of the fittest". John D. Rockefeller argued that the age of the individual was over and that only large monopolies could provide order. (I guess corporations really are people after all!).

One of the most interesting political phenomenon today is watching the cognitive dissonance created when people believe in Social Darwinism (or Ayn Rand's Objectivism), and simultaneously believe in being a compassionate Christian. John Rockefeller concluded that 'God gave me my money.'

Perhaps closer to the truth is J. Paul Getty's guide to becoming rich:
1. Rise Early
2. Work Hard
3. Strike Oil

Now we have Herman Cain saying '"If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself." (Kinda takes the wind out of Romney's argument that all the unemployment is Obama's fault).

I just can't understand how someone (who considers themselves a Christian can say it's a fault (or a character flaw) NOT to be rich when Jesus said "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

I always imagine that somewhere is a gigantic consortium of stock brokers, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists contracting with Bechtel or Haliburton to make a really big needle, or getting Genentech to engineer a really small camel.

By the way, still haven't seen your documentation for how over-regulation cause the housing bubble and market crash.

[_MeDotOrg]

...Capitalism has "equalized" the differences between the rich and the poor more than any system. It has given a higher quality of life for ALL citizens than any system ever tried. Liberalism however destroys quality of life. Every country that follows it in whatever degree be it socialism, communism, marxism etc., is much less quality of life for all than America.

...The worst country's (sic) in the world are ran by liberal ideology, the best country's (sic)in the world are ran by conservative ideology, including capitalism.

There’s a saying in business: “What gets measured gets done.” In a capitalist system, we primarily look at income and GNP as our measures of success. But what do they leave out?

Incarceration rate: United States has 730 prisoners per 100,00 people. By far the largest number in the world. The number dwarfs those of most industrialized nations. By comparison England/Wales has 156 per 100,000.

Infant mortality rate: The United States ranks 48th in the World, right between Croatia and the Faroe Islands, and behind every other Western Democracy.Cuba ranks 39th, 9 places better than the United States.

Life expenctancy: The U.S. ranks 50th.
Murder rate: The U.S. ranks 50th.

One index I think is interesting is a quality of life index that measures purchasing power, safety, health care, consumer price index, housing to income ratio, traffic commute time and pollution. On this index the United States ranks 10th (Switzerland, Germany and Norway are 1-2-3).

Economic mobility is regressing in the United States. The United States has less economic mobility than Denmark, Canada, Finland, Norway, France, Germany and Sweden.

...What do you think one of the main reasons third world country's exist??? It's because a small few wicked horde the money for themselves, and it's not distributed to the people.

Wealth distribution: in 2007 the top 1% of Americans had 34.6% of the wealth, the bottom 40% of Americans had 0.2% of the wealth.

After-tax income of the top 1% earners has grown by 176% percent from 1979 to 2007 while it grew only 9% for the lowest 20%

Further, we already have socialized health care. The poor get the same care as anyone else. No one is turned away.

I would imagine it's rather difficult to get chemotherapy in an emergency room. By not having preventative medicine, many conditions that can be detected with a blood screening or normal medical checkup blossom into diseases that are very expensive to treat. Giving proper health care treatment to the poor would help mitigate those costs. And, (oh, by the way) possibly alleviate human suffering.)

MONEY is not the problem Kerry..... Character is. Throwing money at things don't fix things. It takes charactered (sic) individuals in a community that create a community, and create quality of life.

People are not born with character. You learn character. You need a role model. If your family is lacking in role models, to whom do you turn? I would agree that the family is the best place to start, but if the family doesn't have the support structure, shouldn't someone be able to turn to their community? This is the whole 'it takes a village vs. it takes a family. Sometimes it takes both.

Mark Twain said: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."

We are approaching wealth inequality in this country that has not been seen since the Gilded Age (a term which Twain also coined), the age before Progressivism. Social Darwinists like Herbert Spencer argued that cutthroat competition was natural and that embodied "survival of the fittest". John D. Rockefeller argued that the age of the individual was over and that only large monopolies could provide order. (I guess corporations really are people after all!).

One of the most interesting political phenomenon today is watching the cognitive dissonance created when people believe in Social Darwinism (or Ayn Rand's Objectivism), and simultaneously believe in being a compassionate Christian. John Rockefeller concluded that 'God gave me my money.'

Perhaps closer to the truth is J. Paul Getty's guide to becoming rich:
1. Rise Early
2. Work Hard
3. Strike Oil

Now we have Herman Cain saying '"If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself." (Kinda takes the wind out of Romney's argument that all the unemployment is Obama's fault).

I just can't understand how someone (who considers themselves a Christian can say it's a fault (or a character flaw) NOT to be rich when Jesus said "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

I always imagine that somewhere is a gigantic consortium of stock brokers, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists contracting with Bechtel or Haliburton to make a really big needle, or getting Genentech to engineer a really small camel.

By the way, still haven't seen your documentation for how over-regulation cause the housing bubble and market crash.

[_ajax18]

Economic mobility is regressing in the United States. The United States has less economic mobility than Denmark, Canada, Finland, Norway, France, Germany and Sweden.

So why doesn't everyone emigrate to these countries if they're so great?

[_bcspace]

Doesn't matter what BY opinion was. LDS doctrine confirms socialism as evil and the LoC requires a capitalist system to work and itself relies on free market capitalist principles. See Enrichment section L of the appropriate manual.

[_Kevin Graham]

Economic mobility is regressing in the United States. The United States has less economic mobility than Denmark, Canada, Finland, Norway, France, Germany and Sweden.

So why doesn't everyone emigrate to these countries if they're so great?

The only reason I moved back from Brazil (considered by many to be a "third world country") is because most of my family is in the USA and I wanted them to have a relationship with my children. Most Americans have never left the country and live in their own world thinking this is without a question, the best country to live in. It isn't just coincidence that those who adopt this view are generally those stuck in rural areas of America, clinging to their guns and religion. They're not likely to leave their own state, much less the country. They lack culture and understanding.

Social democratic nations throughout Europe generally lead America in a number of quality of life categories. http://www.redfortyeight.com/2010/10/15 ... s-the-usa/

Why Germany Has It So Good – and Why America Is Going Down the Drain


Germans have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, and nursing care. Why the US pales in comparison.

October 14, 2010 | While the bad news of the Euro crisis makes headlines in the US, we hear next to nothing about a quiet revolution in Europe. The European Union, 27 member nations with a half billion people, has become the largest, wealthiest trading bloc in the world, producing nearly a third of the world’s economy — nearly as large as the US and China combined. Europe has more Fortune 500 companies than either the US, China or Japan.

European nations spend far less than the United States for universal healthcare rated by the World Health Organization as the best in the world, even as U.S. health care is ranked 37th. Europe leads in confronting global climate change with renewable energy technologies, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the process. Europe is twice as energy efficient as the US and their ecological “footprint” (the amount of the earth’s capacity that a population consumes) is about half that of the United States for the same standard of living.

Unemployment in the US is widespread and becoming chronic, but when Americans have jobs, we work much longer hours than our peers in Europe. Before the recession, Americans were working 1,804 hours per year versus 1,436 hours for Germans — the equivalent of nine extra 40-hour weeks per year.

In his new book, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?, Thomas Geoghegan makes a strong case that European social democracies — particularly Germany — have some lessons and models that might make life a lot more livable. Germans have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, and nursing care. But you’ve heard the arguments for years about how those wussy Europeans can’t compete in a global economy. You’ve heard that so many times, you might believe it. But like so many things, the media repeats endlessly, it’s just not true.

According to Geoghegan, “Since 2003, it’s not China but Germany, that colossus of European socialism, that has either led the world in export sales or at least been tied for first. Even as we in the United States fall more deeply into the clutches of our foreign creditors — China foremost among them — Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy without shipping all its jobs abroad or creating a massive trade deficit, or any trade deficit at all. And even as the Germans outsell the United States, they manage to take six weeks of vacation every year. They’re beating us with one hand tied behind their back.”

Thomas Geoghegan, a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School, is a labor lawyer with Despres, Schwartz and Geoghegan in Chicago. He has been a staff writer and contributing writer to The New Republic, and his work has appeared in many other journals. Geoghagen ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic Congressional primary to succeed Rahm Emanuel, and is the author of six books including Whose Side Are You on, The Secret Lives of Citizens, and, most recently, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?

[_MeDotOrg]

Economic mobility is regressing in the United States. The United States has less economic mobility than Denmark, Canada, Finland, Norway, France, Germany and Sweden.

So why doesn't everyone emigrate to these countries if they're so great?

The flip answer is: they don't share a border with Mexico. (But seriously, I will answer your question).

But first, I want to point out that I was responding to ldsfaq's assertion that Capitalism has "equalized" the differences between the rich and the poor more than any system. It has given a higher quality of life for ALL citizens than any system ever tried. Liberalism however destroys quality of life.

If your're an American, chances are that you will make more money than you would if you lived in most European Liberal/Socialist Democracies.

You are also more likely to be shot, murdered, spend time in jail, work longer hours, get much less vacation time, have a shorter life and be less healthy. Your children will be more likely to die in infancy, be obese or have diabetes, and be less literate and educated.

In short I would say there is an ample body of evidence that suggests that perhaps America does NOT provide "a higher quality of life for ALL citizens than any system ever tried." And the idea that "Liberalism however destroys quality of life" is a case not made by the statistics I looked at.

If highest average annual income is the ultimate determinant factor, might I suggest Qatar? The IMF says the AVERAGE annual income is $102,000. Relative to its population, Qatar has the highest immigration rate in the world. Heck, even Dick Cheney's alma mater, Haliburton, gave up the good ol' US of A for sunny Qatar.

But most people, even looking at how much money they would make, would think twice about moving to Qatar. It makes you realize that there are a lot of quality of life factors other than money.

But in answer to your original question, why is America the number one immigrant destination in the world, I think there are several reasons:

1. Northern European Countries don't share a border with Mexico. Most of the countries mentioned do not share borders with countries that have high birth rates, lack of opportunities and economic problems of Mexico. (50,000 Mexicans have died in drug wars in the last decade).

2. The United States is the greatest exporter of popular cultural in the world. Many years ago I worked as a film processor for Technicolor, and spent many a night shift watching Spanish-dubbed 16mm prints of 'Leave it to Beaver' spool up for export to South America. American Television is probably the most exported cultural commodity in the world.

Quick: Name a television show from Denmark, Norway or Finland.

When you drive through very poor villages in Mexico, you'll often see a Coca-Cola sign. I bet there's a kid in Nigeria wearing a Spongebob T-shirt as you read this. American popular culture is our 24/7 immigration advertising campaign.

3. WE ARE A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS. The Statue of Liberty looms large in our mythos, and is a symbol known throughout the world. We ARE a melting pot. I know where to find Chinatown in San Francisco, but I'm not sure I could find it in Helsinki. Immigrants know they are not alone here. And for the most part, we welcome them.

There is much to recommend in this country. But a country does not remain great by indulging in self-flattery. Acknowledge the things we do well, yes, but be equally honest about the things that don't work.

[_Kevin Graham]

Not only that, but Hong Kong is by far the most Capitalist part of the world, second and third are Singapore and Taiwan.

So ldsfaqs, why don't conservatives move there?

[_SteelHead]

My life is more enjoyable since I put faqs on my ignore list.