Quote Originally Posted by Eldryan View Post
So much misinformation in this thread, Kira is right though, Americans have distorted the definition of socialism and many people now throw that word around without understanding what it really means, and end up mistaking it with communism.

Socialism is an ownership structure where society and it's citizens take a collective responsibility in the enterprise in question, and the benefits and services of that enterprise is then distributed fairly amongst the citizens. Your police and fire departments, are an example of a socialist organization, because they are paid for and funded by the public, and are suppose to serve each member of the public equally in it's entirety. A private police/security force on the other hand, would serve the private interests of whomever is paying for them, such as bank security guards. A private fire department would only respond to, and put out fires of homes where the owners pay a monthly protection fee.

Another example of a socialist enterprise (if you do not live in the US) is healthcare, every developed country excluding the US uses a socialized healthcare system. I'm not gonna get into any debate of which structure works better, but at the very least people should educate themselves on a topic before making false assumptions.

Some countries socialize their natural resources, meaning the profit from sales of natural resources of the land in their country are used to fund government operations, such as those mentioned in the previous paragraphs, which in turns allow the country to lower the taxes it need to collect from everyone. While other countries privatize those natural resources, allowing individuals or group to profit from sole ownership of the land, and not have to share that profit with the rest of the country.

Again, I will say I don't plan on getting into a debate on this forum, but hope I at least helped better inform some people. Using a word in the improper context or definition is akin to someone new to a country waving their middle finger everywhere because they thought it's a way of saying "hello".

^

Also your post reminds me of a fire department in ... Florida? I can't remember. They let a house burn to the ground, watching from a few hundred feet away saying that the owner's didn't pay the city/county its fire protection fee. America at it's finest haha. Also refused to take payment right there as it had to go through some sort of processing if I recall.