Out of ignorance or principle? My best guess is no conservative would give them all up. And that makes the ones who try to equate this with communism hypocrites.
Conservatives love to throw around the term "socialist" to try and make it stick to their Democratic party opponents. They are depending on Americans being pathetically ignorant about the use and definition of these political terms and they are trying to equate Democratic Socialism with Communism. Of course, the average American with a high school diploma or a couple of years of college is not likely to recall facts from their civics education which explain that the kind of Democratic Socialism that exists and is being promoted in the United States is the diametric opposite of Maxist Communism, the key being the term "democratic" in the essence of what it is.
American Democratic Socialism, specifically, is more of the opposite of Marxist Communism, especially as an economic perspective, than the perceived "capitalism" that most people mistakenly think is the automatic partner of democracy. And mistakenly think is the economic system that is put in place by the Constitution. It's not.
Our constitution does not specify or dictate the kind of economy that exists in the United States. In fact, the role that our government plays in the economy, when it comes to regulating the value of currency, determining interests rates and using taxes to provide resources for government operated agencies and institutions that it has as responsibilities given to it by the people who empower it, is socialist, and by the pure definition of that word, always has been.
Social Security and Medicare are Democratic Socialist Programs
A post on Facebook tried to contradict me when I stated that Social Security was the result of Democratic Socialism, and so, by principle, she should waive her right to receive her benefits. She responded that Social Security (note--the "social" part of the term) wasn't socialism because we pay into the program. But that isn't what defines something as socialist or capitalist.
What makes Social Security the pure result of Democratic Socialism is that the people had the final say over its existence and what it would do, and it is government administered, with a required contribution from all citizens. It's not market driven, the costs of the program determine the contribution of each person, and the amount they eventually earn, and pay in determines the benefits they take out. So it is a purely socialist program, and as a pension provider, it is the most secure safety net older Americans have, because a high percentage of retirees in the United States are dependent on it.
Medicare, too, is a result of Democratic socialism. It is a government administered program, in which government determines the rates, premiums and benefits, funded by contributions made through the FICA deductions from paychecks. The payouts are determined by government, not by supply and demand, and the program works, because collectively, the health care business needs the patients provided by medicare in order to fund its operations.
So a conservative like my Facebook friend has a choice to make. Either grow and learn in their understanding of Democratic Socialism, and how it benefits themselves, or by principle, turn down participation in any institution that is socialist by nature. This would include social security and medicare, your local ambulance, paramedic and fire protection service, your police force, flying on an airplane where the safety is guaranteed by government provided services in air traffic control and where airplane arrival and departure is from a government owned and operated facility, some utility providers, including the electricity generated by hydroelectric power generated by dams, like the Tennessee Valley Authority, and even driving on highways that are paid for by tax dollars.
Let's Talk Being a Patriotic American, the Constitution and How Democratic Socialism is the Diamentric Opposite of Marxist Communism
Democratic Socialism is a protection against excessive capitalism, especially in those areas of the economy where corporate wealth enables large corporations to build monopolies, violating laws against doing so. That actually skews the basic principle of capitalism, which is built on the law of supply and demand by artificially controlling the supply to jack up prices or eliminating fair competition in order to rake in excessive profits.
Democratic government is outlined in the constitution as being of, by and for the people. The Constitution does not establish a capitalist economy in the United States, but it does offer freedoms which make a fair capitalist system possible. It provides protection, at taxpayer expense, so that businesses are able to operate in relative freedom and engage in fair competition. It protects business against unfair competition and excessive greed, by allowing legislation which ultimately regulates business for the good of the people.
In that aspect of its operation, Democratic Socialism is the ultimate expression of the will of the people, while in any Communist system, the will of the state, usually determined by a small, powerful oligarchy, is protected. The theory is that if the state is collectively the sole beneficiary of prosperity, it is able to guarantee the equality of the economic circumstances of its citizens. And of course, because of all kinds of variables, inequality can't be overcome. Under the kind of Democratic socialism that now has a following in the United States, mostly under Democrats, the people are the beneficiaries of whatever service or product that is its ultimate result.
Democratic socialism promotes and supports individual rights and freedoms, even in the American political system, in far greater proportion than the regulated capitalism of the Republican party's economic philosophy does. It prevents the provision of basic human needs from being priced out of the ability of many Americans to afford.
Democratic socialism will be opposed to what is going on in the American economy now, almost unchecked by any kind of regulation, and even if there is regulation, enforcement of it is being ignored by a majority Republican congress. They claim to be supporters of the rule of law, but they have abandoned that support when it contributes to the wealthiest of the wealthy profiteering and exploiting the 99% of the population that has to work for a living and the majority who live paycheck to paycheck.
Affordable Health Care and Affordable Housing Are The Single Biggest Issues
The fact that access to necessary health care is not considered a basic human right in this country is one of the biggest moral and ethical failures of the whole idea of American exceptionalism. In a system where the Constitution claims that the government is responsible for the overall protection of the lives of its people, and where the language of political debate includes insistence on protection of "the sanctity of human life," the way we manage health care, compared to the rest of the industrialized, prosperous countries of the world is a colossal moral failure.
The "death panels" that Sarah Palin incorrectly asserted would be a part of the "socialized medical system" that she claimed Democrats were promoting when she was John McCain's running mate already exist and consist of the executives and agents of the major health care insurance companies in this country who have almost complete control over decisions made by doctors on behalf of their patients. The individuals who make these decisions don't have medical degrees and can't practice medicine, but they have plenty of office space in every hospital in the country, and they must be consulted before they will pay for any procedure or treatment.
And that's far worse than anything Sarah Palin envisioned in her propaganda regarding a single-payer, government operated health care system.
And while insurance companies control the treatment decisions made by doctors, major corporations, including the insurance companies themselves, are buying up hospitals and medical practices, to turn a profit out of the care that the insurance companies do approve. There are very few non-profit medical and hospital systems left in this country where, at one time, more than half of the hospitals were operated by Christian denominations.
I've observed this first hand. The hospital system where I've seen doctors and received treatment for the past eight years transitioned from being owned by a non-profit corporation originally owned by the Catholic church three years ago. The quality of medical care declined almost instantly, the wait time to get in to see a physician in just about any specialty increased from weeks to months, including our family practice doctor. In two subsequent hospital stays, I noticed a distinctive decline in the quality of nursing care in the hospital itself and a nurse who works there told me that the number of patients they are assigned on a shift has increased by a third since the corporation took control of the hospital operations.
Emergency room wait times have become endurance contests. There are three hospitals in this particular system, all of them in urban settings. Prior to the corporate takeover, wait times at the largest of the three, connected to a medical school, averaged about two hours, while an hour to 90 minutes was typical for the other two. Now, wait times after triage, before being assigned to a bed, run more than ten hours at the larger of the three hospitals, and eight to ten hours is typical for the other two. And from personal experience, it may be at least another two hours, after being assigned to a bed, before a doctor actually shows up.
Prior to the corporate buyout, the physicians connected to the hospital owned and operated their own practices. Now, the corporation has organized the specialists into "groups" and I've noticed that there is a lot of empty space in the professional building at one of the hospitals. I thought something was different when I started seeing my podiatrist and my cardiologist in the same clinic, having to wait in line to check in, and often waiting an hour to be called in to the appointment. And since the corporate takeover, I'm on my fourth cardiologist. One of the other three left to accept a position in another state, and the other two decided to take the opportunity to retire.
Across the country, small, rural hospitals are closing everywhere, in some cases leaving communities without an emergency room, and an hour's drive or longer to the closest hospital. I recently read that the small, coal-mining town of Williamson, West Virginia, the seat of Mingo County, lost its hospital as a result of financial difficulties it encountered during the COVID pandemic. This left the county population of 22,000 without an emergency room. The local medical clinic put up an investment to help get the hospital open again, and they got help from the Biden administration, via Senator Manchin, in the form of several million dollars, to get it open again. The Republican senator, and congressman, did nothing. Their "capitalist" economic philosophy apparently does not extend to helping their constituents access affordable medical care.
And while health care involves the interest of humanity against corporate profiteering, housing markets are headed the same way. Corporations with huge amounts of cash are buying up houses and rental property like the sky is the limit, raising rents while doing nothing to improve the properties they are purchasing. Buying a home is becoming impossible for two entire generations of Americans, home ownership is staggeringly low, compared to just 50 years ago. And costs of housing have jumped significantly. So has homelessness.
The solutions offered by the capitalists are, well, to lower the taxes paid on the profits of the profiteers. That would be Republican policy. The Democratic socialists want to invest in building new housing, cutting out the middle man corporate ownership, and either selling or renting directly, at costs which are much lower because the buyers and renters are not paying corporate profits at rates of 50% or higher. And they want to fairly tax the profits being made on housing to pay for it.
Which of those plans fits best with the American, Christian-influenced idea of basic human rights and the "sanctity of human life"?
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