Do you want a socialist government? Would you have more or less freedom?

There's no one definition of any political label other than the most doctrinaire of political creeds.

What's called libertarian is often the extreme of anarcho-capitalism.

 

Yep. Call us "members of the reality-based community".

Like Finland .
Regardless of what I think of the libertarian dogma (a flip side of Marxism, imho), this above is a fair statement. It's just, we know Communist Utopia doesn't exist because the theory has fatal flaws. I believe the same is true about it's flip side. Not that both didn't start with valid observations on society, though.

 

The dogmatic libertarians are a vocal minority. IMO, most attracted to that movement have simply been live-and-let-live types. My guess is that a few million Americans have been attracted to that movement just to move on after a few years.

 

Year, success metric? The thing is, the whole health reform debate significantly predates Obamacare and even Hillarycare specifically because everything was not "well" for years. Still isn't.

That was an example of use of government coercion for demonstrable, quantifiable public benefit. We live free from the threat of pox and polio. I along with everyone I knew went through chickenpox infection as a child; my kids didn't, and I'm immensely thankful. Yet the antivax argument that vax programs thread on "freedom" are actually more coherent than most of their kind, including opposing Obamacare "on principle".

This would price a significant minority, eg. people with my BMI index, right out of the market. Gee thanks.

Yes, this is how the argument goes. This reveals that the underlining value is punishing sinners ("moochers") in this life. In case of healthcare provision, punish them by death, literally. I don't think such faith should drive policy, and btw this is not compatible with traditional Christianity. Also, since life isn't fair, this would be a nightmare in practice.

 

Philology (Gk. "Love of words/ learning/literature/argument/reasoning") refers in English specifically to the study of language(s) and linguistic matters. You may indeed be some sort of philosophical success (if you say so) but to me, you don't sound like a philology major.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philology

 

Good observation, I am not good with words, logic or anything else, but I am improving, thanks to DI. So is that a success? I know a lot about some Philosophers, like in ethics, Kant, Hobbes, Bentham etc; stoicism which I partially practice, like Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. Other than that I stick to accounting. Hey, I forgot about Michel Foucault which I am just getting into.

 

Sure it's a success! You learn something, that's success. You know about some important philosophers - I think that makes you a philosophical success. I know a bit about words and languages - so maybe I'm the philological success - or maybe I have to learn half-a-dozen more languages ... I'd be OK with that.

 

Online degree programs in Philology must be pretty rare because my quick search turned up nothing. I believe that Nietzsche had his doctorate in Philology as does one of my favorite Philosophers, Martha Nussbaum. The closest I got was the sense that Philology courses tend to live inside linguistics programs. Maybe someone else will have better luck.

 

Philology involves the study of (written) language in a historical context. Combined study - history and language. Sample philological question: What did the Greeks mean when they wrote about "democracy?" Is it different from our interpretation today?
Good basic summary at Study.com: https://study.com/articles/Become_a_Philologist_Education_and_Career_Roadmap.html

 

Let me show a little, Foucault’s later work was inspired by reading Nietzsche. Anyway, I am looking to hookup with anyone who is familiar with Foucault’s Governmentality.

 

Socialism/Communism has failed miserably EVERYWHERE it's been tried.

It boggles my mind that some people still think it can work. As the old saying goes, one definition of insanity is trying the same thing, over and over again, expecting a different result.

 

My understanding of these isms is that they are on the the same spectrum. What most people debate is the ideal position on the continuum. You have the USA and China, 1&2, at the two feasibility ends of the same spectrum . The difficulty is with those who are to the left of China, and to the right of the USA

 

Would you rather live in the United States, or the People's Republic of China?

 

Prefer Canada, which is somewhere in between those two.

 

A VERY conservative estimate of people killed by Socialist/Communist governments is 20 million people.

So, you're okay with splitting the difference, and hoping you're not among the 10 million people killed by the government?

 

I am not sure what you meant. I am not advocating anything. I am trying to be descriptive.

Government are people, so it is people that killed people, not systems. Someone said it 2000 year ago, it was not the sword that killed it was the person.

 

Canadian government is party to killing 10 million innocent people? I hope you realise how you sound right now.

P. S. I would actually prefer to live in US, but not because Canada is "socialist". As I said, the label that can be stuck on both Finland AND North Korea is, because of that fact, completely meaningless. To be sure, Leninist-Stalinist state is an oppressive evil group, among the few primary villains of the XX century. But you know what? Just about the most potent stump of that regime is Putin's KGBcleptocracy, and what I see is Trump signing it praises and his "patriotic" supporters openly allying with it. Tell me, why do your buddies like Russia more than their own country?

 

The way you guys define "Socialism", no it didn't. Not by a mile. Now, aiming to build Communism did fail everywhere. But if you treat any government service as "socialism", it failed in some cases and succeeded in others. Even fully government-run healthcare, while riddled with problems, cannot be said to "fail everywhere it's been tried". It failed in most full-on commie regimes, but all of them suck in many areas, not just health. OTOH, I believe privatized fire services were dreadful failures, and private prisons are both bad and expensive.