They should embrace that. Yes, it is socialism. Socialism is how you get these good things for the community. Stop treating the word Socialism like it’s scary and own it.
I must say, this Mamdani fellow seems to be having a lot of success very quickly. One has to wonder why nobody ever tried any of this before. Can it really be that the switch to using Ranked Choice Voting in NY primaries made THAT much of a difference in the type of candidate that made it through?
Why do you think republicans are trying to make it illegal?
I think, for the longest time, the mayors have just been in on the racket. If you don’t ruffle feathers, the rich keep schmoozing you. Just keep your head down.
I think it’s always been that “easy”; they just didn’t care to do it.
There’s a certain type of person who sees politics as a route to personal enrichment. That type is present in both major parties in the US, and probably the minor ones as well.
Tbh it’s likely.
Is the fire department socialism? Everyone pays for a service/insurance that 99.9% people might never use, but want to have in case some shit went down. Why does nobody think this is socialism is beyond me.
There are some dumbass libertarians who advocate for privatizing fire fighting because of that
A lot of firefighting company actually used to be private, owned and operated by insurance companies
Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production
That might be the European definition. In the US, socialism is anything the billionaire class doesn’t like.
WORKERS collective ownership of the means of production is what socialism is.
PA also has state run liquor stores. I always thought Ohio was the only other state.
Anywhoots, yea I think that is a good thing. And not just because it eases people into seeing how socialism is a good thing.
Utah and Idaho are both state run liquor stores.
Wooo! Someone mentioned my state!
So many more than I thought. Dayum.
NH has them too, and it’s some of the cheapest prices around. One of the biggest stores is right on the state line because people from MA cross the border to buy booze cheap.
It’s also the only place in the area that doesn’t have legal pot, and the theory is that lawmakers keep rejecting it until it’s federally legal because they want to make tax money on it just like they’ve done with liquor. Problem is that it doesn’t look like the feds are getting on board any time soon, and being the “live free or die” state with the only place with no weed when all the places its border touches have it is kind of embarrassing.
the theory is that lawmakers keep rejecting it until it’s federally legal because they want to make tax money on it just like they’ve done with liquor.
Um… that is really odd. I used to live in Illinois, which has had legal weed for years, and they’ve been taxing it and raking in the dough all along. In fact, a lot of states with legal weed collect tax on the sale of it.
Yeah it’s pretty stupid. It’s like they’re not satisfied with just taxing it because they want to be the only game in town. Anyway for such a “libertarian” state it’s got some problems.
the theory is that lawmakers keep rejecting it until it’s federally legal because they want to make tax money on it
That makes no sense, because other states tax it when they sell it. If it’s legal to be sold in the state, why wouldn’t they be able to tax it?
NC too. At least for a bit longer.
Oregon and Washington too
Washington DC maybe I don’t know.
But as someone aware with Costco pushing hard to sell liquor and Costco being centered in Washington state, I would imagine they have pushed the legislation through by now.
Just looked it up. States with ABC stores:
- Alabama
- Idaho
- Iowa
- Maine
- Michigan
- Mississippi
- Montana
- New Hampshire
- North Carolina
- Ohio
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- West Virginia
- Wyoming
Though there are several asterisks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage_control_state
Wow fuck. When i went thro training they literally told me ohio was only other one, maybe its a licensing vs operating thing?
I do recall being in NC and their stores being called abc. Thats not a PA thing tho, we have plcb. (Commercial name FWGS, fine wine and good spirits).
I aint doubting yous, just surprised.
I meant to link the wiki page, oops. Added it.
Wyoming may have state run stores. The majority are not, but it’s up to the city and county to decide how they sell them. In one county I can go into Walmart and purchase liquor. In another it’s only liquor stores, in another the gas station sells liquor based slushies.
I don’t drink but holy hell I gotta try a slushie now
Slushice with vodka is great! Can recommend.
Every time I drive through Evanston always have to stop at the Maverik that has them. It’s the only one that I’ve ever seen that has it and it’s fantastic.
It is
But liquor is a vice and the old school Christians wanted to crack down on that.
We should ban alcohol nation wide! That’ll show them! /s
[WCTU has entered the chat.]
The only godly vices are the abuse of power and children.
There is nothing wrong with regulating vices, but not because they are offensive to God, that’s just stupid superstition.
The reason to regulate vices is because they tend to be addicting and destructive, and there are many immoral people who will deliberately addict as many people as possible, just to shake the Almighty Profits out of their pockets.
I don’t care about that when it’s voluntary - nobody is addicted to buying a new car, or a new couch, that’s a personal choice. But when they have been enticed into becoming ADDICTED by marketing and advertising, the choice is no longer theirs, and they are spending money they don’t really want to because a corporation got them literally addicted through shrewd and effective advertising.
I have noticed that Matthew Broderick is now doing commercials for a new gambling app that uses Candy Crush type games to gamble instead sports or cards, and they are aiming it at middle aged women. Worse, they are aiming it at UNSATISFIED women. The ads show women with adult children who have moved back in, with husbands, or children, who won’t pay attention to them, etc. They are aiming at older women who feel unfulfilled in life, and encouraging them to feel better by playing a video game that is barely disguised gambling.
It’s not enough that they are addicting young men to sports gambling, now they’ve identified a new demographic - unhappy middle-aged women, many of whom control the household finances. It’s only a matter of time before we hear about families losing their home because mom gambled away the mortgage.
Vices need to be regulated to keep the Corporate Predatory Parasites under control, or they will eventually enslave ALL of us.
That’s the logical argument, but that’s not why we have liquor laws. Think way back when, it started with religious anti-drinking. Think prohibition, that was all rooted in religion. But when prohibition failed they had to settle on strict control.
Funny thing now is that as the right loses its “real” religion and becomes “gubment bad” they want looser liquor laws, and now its the left that wants the logical liquor control. But the current laws still came around from way back when.
The reason for gambling laws was to keep the money out of gangs.
and now its the left that wants the logical liquor control.
Who and why, exactly? Outside of drinks hirting others I couldn’t give two shits.
I’m much more concerned with how easily it is to get a gun over a drink.
Asks why. Lists why. …
I mean, that’s cool and all, but I don’t give a shit about people drinking.
Being a smug shit is cool, too.
lol ‘but liquor’
Well yeah, it is far enough south to be as hot and humid as Satan’s taint for large swaths of time, covered in insects like mosquitoes, and it is filled to the brim with corrupt, hypocritical politicians, and the ignorant masses that keep voting for them.
Don’t lots of states operate liquor stores? I know Canada does.
Canada has a mix.
Alberta is fully private, BC is mixed, Ontario is mainly government with carve out private owned store for breweries, Quebec is mixed.
Fair enough. I’m not Canadian. I was going by Trailer Park Boys, which takes place in Nova Scotia.
Incredible show
Still sad to know Bubbles’ actor is a total POS though. I can’t lie though…I still watch the show.
Ohio has very strict liquor licensing for sale.
One of the few things I agree with the Christian right on except I think all vices, including all drugs / gambling, should be sold by state run stores. The profit motive and addiction don’t mix well
Wut?
The reason Alabama has state run liquor stores is that Christians clutched their pearls at the idea of people making profits off of the vice of alcohol. This individual agrees that vices and profits don’t mix from a moral perspective. Where this individual and the “alleged” inbreds split, and I’m assuming, is that they would like the state to supply all vices in a profit free environment. A novel idea that would surely not go down in a favorable way in a state that never finds itsself at the absolute bottom of any quality of life list, solely because of the existence of Mississippi.
This is dumb, because there is still a profit, it’s just the state collecting it instead of a private individual. If there was no profit, the product would be significantly cheaper, but it’s not. There’s a profit being made, it’s just going to “the people.”
The problem is that the government is going to operate the retail operation so inefficiently, that the profit will be eaten by bureaucratic costs.
That’s the real value of profit - it drives efficiency. Without a profit motive, there is no reason to value and implement efficiency, so money gets wasted.
Speaking of dumb:
Without a profit motive, there is no reason to value and implement efficiency
I work for a non profit organization. An enormous amount of effort goes into ensuring efficiency so that we can maximize the success of our mission.
Excellent point. Obviously, there is a lot more nuance involved that can’t be contained in a single sentence.
The problem is that the government is going to operate the retail operation so inefficiently, that the profit will be eaten by bureaucratic costs.
Citation needed. You’re just repeating right wing talking points that holds that government can’t be efficient, and that profit is the only source of efficiency.
Profit drives selling things for more profit, not efficiency. Sometimes efficiency is the driving force for more profit, but not always by a long shot.
The value of regulated pricing for vices is that it prevents the profit drive to lower prices, increase addiction, and then raise prices.
The goal isn’t cheap vices. It’s stable prices, controlled quality and predictable supply.
You also make excellent points.
I understand that it could sound like Right-wing talking points, but RW talking points often have a kernel of truth, that gets distorted. We have all seen government agencies that are hopelessly bureaucratic, but that doesn’t mean ALL government agencies are that useless. I’ve been to terrible DMVs in past locations I’ve lived, but the DMV in the area I live now is amazing. I’m never there longer than a half hour. Government doesn’t have to be inefficient, MAGAs just like to make it that way, so they can invent excuses to cut programs.
The goal is lack of a profit motive, means they are less likely to exploit the human weakness. They’ll sell you your vice but not try to push more
Don’t forget Trump’s gas stations which sell gasoline below market rate!
Doubt it. We just don’t know how’s he’s enriching himself with that yet.
How could he possibly afford that!?
It’s like suddenly there’s more money and it’s getting distributed /s
It’s not even more money yet. This is just the same city funds being redistributed to areas where it can be useful.
Meaning ANY Mayor could have done this, they chose not to.
This is just the same city funds being redistributed to areas where it can be useful.
You’re mad! Mad, I say! It’ll never work!
Welllll one of the ways he did it was by delaying pension fund payments. So it’s not all roses.
That pension system is nuts btw.
These savings would be achieved by smoothing out a bizarre feature of the city’s pension payment schedule instituted in 2010, which had required accelerating payments through to fiscal year 2032, at which point the payments would turn negative and the pension funds would return money to the City over a seven-year period. The $8.2 billion “contribution cliff” created by this structure was not reasonable fiscal policymaking. The proposed change unwinds this drop off by smoothing payments over an additional five years. It does not—and cannot—affect the pensions owed to City workers or impact the City’s ability to meet those commitments.
Source: https://fiscalpolicy.org/explainer-the-proposed-restructuring-of-new-york-city-pension-payments
how could he afford that?! NO you shouldn’t look at the for-profit businesses making healthy revenue!!!
But but FREEDOM!
Freedom Fuel^TM
The next time they call you ‘Socialist’ ask them to explain how the Homestead Act wasn’t Socialism.
I’m not from the US and hadn’t heard of this. But are we arguing it WAS socialism?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts
From my very cursory reading of the above, seems like imperialism handing out indigenous land to settlers, no?
In conclusion, I’m saying this definitely does not look like socialism to me. Socialism is democratic control over society by the workers, and the Homestead Acts (from my cursoru understanding) don’t seem to be that. Just maybe the tiniest bit better than having massive slave operated holdings by oligarchs.
I think that they’re implying that people likely to argue that state-controlled stores are socialist are also likely to conflate any service or good offered by the state is socialism.
In the US, “socialism” is both demonized and the actual definition is obfuscated by right-wing (read: most) media in the same way other terms are, such as “woke”. This alienates the average person in the US from movements, policies, organizations, etc that would benefit them, from free school lunch programs to socialist representatives running on taxing the wealthy.
Yes, my comment was very US centric.
First, the Homestead Act gave land to a lot of people who were tenant farmers. It enraged the rich folks who saw their profits go down, and it was a boon to the ancestors of a lot of the MAGAs. They’ll crow about how their great grandparents came in covered wagons and ignore the fact that they couldn’t have afforded the land if it wasn’t for a government program.
Second, in my opinion, all political labels are meaningless outside the classroom. There are billionaires in the Chinese Communist Party and North Korea calls itself a Democratic Republic.
I’ve literally had this conversation with some of my fellow americans.
Them = All Socialist states fail!
Me = What about the Scandinavian countries?
Them = They aren’t really Socialist.
Me = So, we can have their health care system?
Them = [Usually silence, sometimes and explanation that it only works there because the population is not as diverse as america.]
all political labels are meaningless outside the classroom.
This is the real truth. None of the world’s governments are what they claim to be. All of them have taken a basic foundation, and then added various things from various systems until every government in the world is some Frankenstein’s Monster of bureaucracy.
We’re supposed to be a Democracy, or a Republic, or a Democratic Republic, or something, who knows, but a lot of the best stuff in America is straight up Socialist, like parks, schools, libraries, museums, roads, bridges, etc.
Fire Departments are one of the best examples of American Socialism. In the olden days, if you owned a building, you’d buy fire insurance from a local fire brigade, and they’d give you a “fire mark,” a cast iron medallion, that you would attach to your building. That proved that you were paid up, and if your building caught fire, they’d show up to put it out. If you weren’t paid up, they’d show up to watch your building burn, unless you paid.
Eventually, they replaced the profit-making fire fighting system with a municipal fire fighting system, paid for by ALL the citizens, to benefit ALL the citizens, and not just those with enough money to pay. Same with public schools, roads, bridges, etc. Much of the best of America is already Socialist.
NONE of the world’s governments adhere to the political philosophy they claim to follow, except in the most basic ways. Whatever labels they apply to their own systems, or the systems of others, is meaningless propaganda. There are no Socialist, Communist, or Democratic nations. They are all mixed systems, that exist more by evolution than design.
Thank you.
There are military members who would say that while using military food pantries that are run by the government and not see the irony. It is hopeless.
Funny how they also don’t say a peep about Mitch shit bag basically using our tax money to pay his healthcare… in essence, something we pay for–all while not having to go to work for weeks on end. Something the rest of us would not be privileged to have. Fucking wanker.
Mitch literally pulling a no-call no-show and getting away with it.
So apparently it’s not socialism when you get drunk?
How the USSR achieved full communism. Yes.
Tremendous amounts of alcohol were involved in the creation of the Confederacy as well.
The first few battles were basically bar fights.
Axshually Alabama has private liquor stores. Source: go there occasionally.
But the point still stands.
Yes, but the distribution is mostly controlled by the State, meaning all imported alcohol into the State has to go through the government first.
I lived in Mississippi which has a very similar setup.
Unlike Wisconsin where drinking alcohol is so intertwined in their culture that their tavern lobby has tried to make it harder to get recreational weed legal there.
