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Originally Posted by aceventura3
Assuming a socialist falls under the general concept of a liberal and that (in current US vernacular), a socialist is never a conservative - you have not really said anything. Drill it down another few levels for us. A centrist is nothing, on big questions, you can not be on the fence. A person has to believe wealth redistribution is a proper role for government or not. what is a centrist point of view on something like that?
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I don't want to write a treatise on modern liberalism in a thread about Glenn Beck, but to put it in a nutshell, liberals tend to support the idea of a social safety net, that people shouldn't suffer falling through the cracks of a purely capitalist system, that the state has some role in striving toward an egalitarian society. You get things like social security, health care, unemployment insurance and support, and welfare. They believe that people should have a minimum standard of living. They also support the idea of progressive taxation to help pay for it. This is where you get into "redistribution of wealth," but that has become a pejorative term. Liberals believe in capitalism and the markets, but they see the stability of a mixed economy. But you also get support for women's rights, gay rights, and the like, so there's clearly a social component as well.
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Yes, but they won't come out of the closet for some reason, I don't get it. Sure I understand the history and the McCarthy era, but this is 2010. As a capitalist I would love to openly discuss political and economic issues with a real socialist. I can not find any who will admit to being a socialist.
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Being a socialist in the U.S. must be difficult. Even democratic socialism gets much resistance. Hell, when you get the consensus that liberalism is socialism, what are you supposed to think? It'd be like taking right-of-centre/moderate conservatives and calling them fascists.