Democracy, Capitalism and Socialism

I wrote the following post in an online forum where there was much bashing of the "socialist" stances taken by Obama in the upcoming election. I thought it was decent stuff so here is:


I would like to point out to everyone who runs with tail between their legs from "Socialist" political stances a few key points.

Canada and most of Europe in comparison to the US are much closer to Socialism than the US and the results are not bad. As an example, a major result of Canada's more "Socialist" workings we have Universal Health Care (Health Care to all its citizens). The USA being the wealthiest country in the world has no excuse not to offer Universal Health Care (UHC) to its citizens. Instead it puts almost as much money a year into it's military then the rest of the World combined.

As an example of a major benefit UHC would give the states when I was doing work with some homeless I met in LA I came across multiple people who were entrapped in the cycles of homelessness, drugs and the lot as a result of a minor injury that they couldn't afford to have righted. This put them out of work and down into the dumps where alcoholism and drug abuse drag them lower and lower. UHC would prevent hundreds if not thousands of these and similar tragedies a year in the US and add to the domestic workforce as a result.

In Europe, another step more "Socialist" than Canada every citizen is given the right to free Post Secondary Education if they excel through school and make the grade. I've not studied their system much farther than that observation, but, that alone IMO creates a situation where all citizens born the same year (rich or poor) are more likely to have an equal (or closer) chance at success.

Full blown socialism is not the answer to the World's problems. Full blown Capitalism has created a developed World that is most often dominated by the Rich who control elections through the economic backing of leaders who become their puppets who in turn control the governments. The Truth is that Capitalism has undermined Democracy in many cases and we should be looking for ways to return our countries to truly democratic states.

Capitalism and Democracy are not the same thing. In the same way Communism and Socialism are not the same thing. The World, the US and Canada, in particular should be looking for ways to improve the life of all by restoring true Democracy and not implementing Socialism but more of its ideas in order to harness the powers of Capitalism.