Warm. Very warm. With humidity and 68f dew point on the side dish.
And I'd take capitalism any day over slavery-ism which is what socialism is. Ask anyone from Russia in the 70's. They told you what you could eat, where you would live, what you would do for a living and you cannot own anything. The government owns *everything* including your liver if someone more important that you needs it. Remember, you can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.
I appreciate ya. I like ya. I don't think you're dumb. I just want to say that before I say this next bit:
I would argue that the issues with the USSR had a whole lot more to do with autocratic rule and unflinching dedication to a singular worldview, to the extent that the powers that be in the USSR would not respond to feedback from the real world.
Trofim Lysenko, for instance, completely disregarded the science of genetics and natural selection. He was quite influential in the USSR in the 1940's and his ideas about agriculture were put into practice. Those policies helped contribute to a pretty brutal famine that killed *tons* of folks from the USSR. His ideas were based on pseudoscience and kowtowing to a leader who was known for having folks murdered that he didn't particularly like.
The problem was not their economic system. The problem was dictatorship with no means of feedback from the real world, nor a method to air grievances given to the population. In that sort of scenario, a leader can simply surround themselves with yes-men and zealots who continually tell them that "yes boss, everything is great. Laaaa dee daaa".
Socialism does not mean that one cannot own anything, it is simply an economic system in which the means of production are controlled and owned by the workers. We have plenty of worker-owned co-ops around the USA: nobody there is being forced into slavery. I am a Union member, which is based on the socialist idea that I own my labor and that I and my peers have the right to collectively bargain with our employers over things like compensation and benefits. It means that I get to refuse to work on an unsafe job site without fear of losing my means of income.
The USA has gone *hard* on the idea that socialism is evil for quite some time now. Its what I was taught in school. Hard to square with the fact that our capitalist-based healthcare system is the most expensive in the world and yet has the worst health outcomes of high-income countries. Or the fact that Social Security, a socialist program that acknowledges the fact that a person's value extends beyond the wage that they are compensated with for a job that they performed, has survived the last hundred years.
Slavery it is not. The loss of all property rights it is not. Unrestrained capitalism would have no issue with slavery, though: Capitalists throughout our history have spoken at length about how much more important property rights are than human rights. It's really quite problematic.
I say all this not to shame, or to offend, or to upset. Slogans (You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out) are quite good at propagandizing a population and turning them against an idea, especially when that idea has been distorted and misrepresented by those who have the most to lose from an economic system that doesn't allow those same individuals to siphon surplus value from their employees.
We disagree. Basically. And that, to bring it back to the original point of this thread, IS WHAT IM DOING WITH MY SUMMER GODDAMMIT. I'M DISAGREEING WITH PEOPLE FROM BEHIND A KEYBOARD.
ITS TOO DAMN HOT!!!!!!!!!!!
