Beware of "ISM"...

nooshinjohn

The religious right is wrong 90% of the time, and I agree with you completely on that Brett, but the athiest left is just as wrong. They also seek to impose their dogma on everyone else with just as much agression as the religious nuts do. In fact, secularism/atheism is accepted by the SCOTUS as a form of religion.

quadzilla

Timothy Smith wrote: »

We can argue all day about what "left-wing" and "socialism" mean, just as we could argue what "right-wing", "conservative" and "progressive" mean.

These terms mean different thing to different people.

Do you agree with the meat of the article that we will do better as a capitalist-based country vs. a socialist based one?

No, they have fairly well-defined meanings within the political sphere. The fact that some consistently misuse them in an appeal to emotion does not make them mean different things.

I couldn't make it through the article. The immediate appeals to emotion set off so many red flags that I couldn't read any more. And since I've never lived in either a purely capitalist-based, nor a purely socialist-based society, I'm probably not fit to judge. But if you want to know what I think would work best, then that would be a well-regulated system of free enterprise with certain safety nets for those unable, for whatever reason, to take adequate care of themselves. Or as Matthew 25:41-46 (New International Version (English Translation)) says:

41 "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44 "They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
45 "He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
46 "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

But hey, what do I care what the Bible says? I'm a heathen and a blasphemer. I just find it both ironic and hypocritical that those who so hold up those books (can't forget the old testament, you know, even the inconvenient parts) as the ultimate source of (some might say appeal to) authority are the same people that want to slash, or ideally, abolish, all the social programs.