He considered himself a genius but he was just a loser. A man with delusions of grandeur.

That wasn't a very well thought out question. Do you also think that none of the other socialist nations got it right?

How many people do you want me to list off? Or better yet, the Democratic Socialists of America have infested the Democrat Party right before your eyes. Each one of those "useful idiots" thinks they are an expert on socialism and everyone else is an idiot.

So the democratic socialists of America are all liberals?

You are making a critical misassumption between liberals and socialists.

Liberals want to regulate and tax capitalism so that it becomes more stable.

Socialists want to GET RID OF capitalism.

So how are all the socialists in the DSA "liberal?"

No. The DSA are NOT liberals. They They are leftists. Liberals are leftists but not all leftists are liberals. For as creepy far left liberals have moved in the past couple of decades, the DSA is farther left.

I am not making any misassumptions between liberals and socialists. You made the misassumption that I said that liberals and socialists are the same thing. Liberals have moved much closer to socialism than ever before but they are NOT fully socialist. The DSA is not even socialist because on their website they advocate communism.

Liberals do not understand economics otherwise they would understand that the free market works best for everyone if it is left unregulated. Taxation is theft and negatively affects the economy. That's why we didn't have a federal income tax (with the exception of about 11 years after the Civil War) until 1913. The free market is self-regulating. Bad businesses collapse when either their employees leave or consumers stop doing business with them or both. It is only when the government plays favorites and props up bad businesses then you get the problems that liberal demand to be regulated. Keep the government out of private business altogether and those problems go away.

This is why liberals get accused of supporting or pushing us towards socialism. Eventually those regulations the liberal keep pushing for will just turn into fascism and fascism is socialism's slightly nicer twin brother. Fascists hate capitalism just as much as socialists.

So it is not that liberals are socialists, it is their actions over time will create the socialism that conservatives have been warning you about. I don't think liberals quite understand that. I think liberals only think in the now and never think about what future liberals will eventually turn this nation into. Nor to liberals consider what they have already done.

Take gun legislation. Liberals think that there should be another law and that will stop gun violence. They forget that there are already several gun laws nor to the pay attention to the fact that what makes a person a criminal is that they have no regard for the law. Another law means nothing to a criminal.

What most people tend to confuse is the level of governments. None of what you said pertains to the federal level.

Adam Smith (who was an economic philosopher who was more than just my screen name) said something to the effect that before the government takes a penny from you for something they have to offer you a service that is equal to the amount they take from you. I do not believe one bit that the federal government needs more money than my state government does. The state is much closer to home. The state should not take more than the county and the county should not take more than the city. The city is where I am most effected by the policy.

We are getting ripped off because aside from defense the federal government just does not affect my life. States handle the section of the interstate highways that cross through their states. States, counties or cities handle water infrastructure. Cities or counties handle police and fire departments.

Cleaning up hazardous waste should fall under the judiciary. In other words who the person who caused it should be responsible for cleaning it up. If they can't afford the clean up then they should be made to take out a loan to pay for the clean up. It is not the taxpayer's responsibility.

Businesses can make whatever rule they want but if they cease to serve their customers then say bye, bye to them. There must be absolutely no recourse for them from the government. None. When there is it is only because of corruption.

When a business is funded by the government they no longer have any need to satisfy the government.

BTW government handouts to businesses is NOT capitalism, it is corporatism. Corporatism is the forerunner of fascism.

We did always have government handouts. They started in the later 1800's because politicians got greedy.

Setting rules for the common good is the definition of socialism. It is collectivism. There is no common good, there is only what the individual sees best for themselves. People can volunteer to act for the common good but once the government starts legislating for the common good then we begin the road to socialism.

It is not one single legislation that leads to fascism. It is years of piling on more and more legislation until everything in business is legislated. When businesses are completely controlled by the government you have fascism. This is what Progressivism means. Slowing progressing to an ultimate goal.

The common good is not part of socialism, every economic system has that! Is setting rules like: you must not steal from others or don't ruin the public water fountains that everybody needs to use socialist in any way? You can still have a capitalist society, but there are infrastructure and services that everybody uses. Not ruining these is the common good.

I can agree that businesses funded by the government are bad. But what if there is a new strategic industry like AI that can improve our entire economy? You wouldn't want competitors like China to take over this industry. A lot of times, the market alone cannot drive a long term profitable change. Government money and subsidies are often needed to establish a new soon to be profitable industry.

The republicans frequently subsidize gas. Are they fascist?

The federal government exists because it acts as the ultimate authority to enforce common good rules. Some states AND corporations may follow regulations, but other states and corporations may not. The federal government exists to enforce common good rules so that everybody across the entire US is not negatively impacted by irresponsible people's decisions.
People in another state should be able to have a good home environment like you.

Government money was not for helping businesses clean up waste. Government money was for subsidizing clean up companies early on so that clean up becomes more affordable in the long term.

"The common good is not part of socialism"

Of course it is. Marx summed that up the best, "To each according to their need, from each according to their ability". Those who had the ability to pay were required to pay those who had needs and it was all for the common good.

This common good idea has been so drilled into the heads of everyone for decades that people just believe that it is an American ideal. Nope. It is a communist ideal and always has been. You'll never read anything from our founding fathers about the common good.

I can see why you would think that laws against theft, vandalism and a whole lot of other things are for the "common good". It is a semantics problem. Common means the people, not the individual. It is used in the sense that Marxists use the term collective. The common folk are a collective. Now you are saying that you (not specifically you but the generic you) presume to know what is good for everyone in the collective. Yeah, a clean unvandalized drinking fountain is "good" for everyone who wants to use that drinking fountain. But that is a subset of the collective but the collective is told that they all must pay to keep that drinking fountain clean, even people who will never ever use that drinking fountain.

If there are people who will never use that drinking fountain then is it really good to force them to pay for it?

There is also a difference between who is saying it. If it is Red Cross or a church or any other charitable organization then your contribution to it is voluntary. You do not have to contribute or you decide how much you will contribute.

If it is the government, there is no choice at all on if or how much you will give. They determined what is "fair" for you to "share" while never even asking you if you want to share it. You might think that feeding your family is a far better use of the money you worked hard to earn but the government takes it anyway and they don't even say, thank you. They just act like it is their money and all you are is a slave whom they can take as much money as you have.

"The republicans frequently subsidize gas. Are they fascist?"

So do Democrats. No it is corporatism and it does not matter what party does it, it is still wrong.

It is wrong but at least oil, benefits everyone. 40% of all oil is used for plastics, medicine and rubber tires. The other 60% is gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Everyone in this country is affected by at least one of those products.

So you admit is wrong then republicans subsidize gas. But renewable energy is better for things like everyday electricity, light, powering appliances, cars, trucks, buses and trains.

The government does take your money and use it for their own good, and that's clear under Trump.

But most liberal politicians use the money to help the hardworking poor achieve a basic standard of living.

I don't think non working people should get aid, or that government aid should be used to achieve equality of outcome.

As a rich nation, every hard working family in America should achieve a basic standard of living, even if there are poor and rich people.

I am not referring to everyone getting the same thing or using a communist term when I say common good. Common good in my definition refers to basic rules and manners. You can own a corporation, but you should not toxic waste into a public river. That IS common good. Is that too much to ask for?

"If there are people who will never use that drinking fountain then is it really good to force them to pay for it?"

The answer is yes. Because they are impacted by these public services. EX: clean water stops sickness from spreading. Even if you never use clean public water, people who drink it have a lower chance from getting sick than if they drank an underfunded, dirty fountain. You wouldn't sickness spreading to you.

"So you admit is wrong then republicans subsidize gas. But renewable energy is better for things like everyday electricity, light, powering appliances, cars, trucks, buses and trains."

I don't care what party it is. Subsidizing private business is wrong. It is not economically sound.

Hydroelectric is the only viable means of renewable electricity production. Nuclear is not renewable but it is green in that it does not produce waste that pollutes the environment. Clean coal is closer to green than coal.

Wind and solar are pathetically weak when it comes to electricity production. It is just a waste of time and money. Especially with all of the electric vehicles on the road now and I don't just mean cars. Electric bikes and electric scooters are everywhere.

Then on top of that with all of the Data Centers going up. Our electricity demands are close to the breaking point right now as far as demand goes. We need to get over our fear of nuclear and build those plants everywhere.

"But most liberal politicians use the money to help the hardworking poor achieve a basic standard of living."

"Hardworking poor?" Who are they? The ones on welfare are the non-working poor. There are those who somehow got the idea that the minimum wage was a living wage who work hard. They do get some subsidies but how are those subsidies helping with their standard of living? Is it helping them to improve their skills and knowledge so that they can get a better paying job? Nope. All it is doing is keeping people poor and dependent. It was always about dependency and not lifting people out of poverty.

Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said, "The best way to help the poor is to make them uncomfortable in their own poverty." If we stop trying to tell people that the minimum wage is a living wage and never was a living wage then some of them will realize they need more than what they are currently earning. If we take away all of the hand outs then they will have no choice but to get off their butts and work. Even if it is minimum wage at first.

At some point we stopped telling Americans how to succeed in this country. You have to have a skill or knowledge that a business needs. This means education. Not everyone needs to go to college. Trade schools are great. As much as I hate unions they do offer training for whatever jobs they represent. You don't even have to go to any college or trade school if you are dedicated enough to learn on your own.

So you have a few good ideas there.

But keep in mind, democrat president Clintons and Obama kept emphasizing that welfare was tied to work. They gave people welfare to help them cover basic needs, not to make them dependent. Everyone who got welfare in the end needed to find a job and work.

I think welfare is necessary, but again, there should be an investment into accurate security and background checks to make sure welfare recipients actually work and have a job.

But you're right. Trade schools don't get enough attention. Colleges are great, but if they don't work out go to trade school.

"As a rich nation, every hard working family in America should achieve a basic standard of living, even if there are poor and rich people."

I agree but they also have to have a basic level of competence. There is no guarantee that you will have a job. We are not socialists after all. Employers only want to hire people who they believe can perform the tasks they are given. If all you have is a high school diploma and no other education or self training after that, they you severely limit yourself on the types of jobs that are available to you. No one will hire you just because you exist.

There are two types of valuation that a person has (probably a lot more) but an individual's life invaluable. You cannot set a price on the value of an individual's life. That must never be confused with your value as an employee. Your value as an employee is nothing at all related to the value of your life and yet far too many people on the left want to equate the two as the same.

If you do not know how to sweep a floor then your value as an employee as a janitor is zero or at least way down because it doesn't take much skill or knowledge to sweep a floor. Your pay will be equivalent to the value of that labor.

If you graduated medical school in top honors and you have years of experience, you keep up with the latest breakthroughs and you have a much higher success rate of properly diagnosing people's problems then you can expect to be paid very high wages.

In both cases between the unskilled janitor and the doctor their value as a individual is identical. But what they ha

"Common good in my definition refers to basic rules and manners. You can own a corporation, but you should not toxic waste into a public river."

I can agree with that. That is a good that does affect everyone who lives near that river. We should and do have laws that makes that illegal. In addition to any legal fines they must be required to clean up the mess they created.

I used to work for Chevron. I have a lot of respect for that company because Chevron will spend billions or trillions (if needed) to fix any problems they have caused. They bend over backwards to make things right, not just environmentally. They are concerned about their employees because their motto they repeat all the time is they want their workers to go home from work in the same condition they came into work. By that they mean healthy, uninjured and not dead.

I agree with what you say above. I think that even though welfare matters, having a job does more.

If you don't have a job, you should not have welfare. Your education and your skills are entirely your responsibility, not the state's.

"The answer is yes. Because they are impacted by these public services"

We're talking about a drinking fountain and not clean water. Clean water should be the responsibility of the local water district. Our water bill should be all they need to keep the water supply clean. The city government does not need a tax just to keep the water clean. I haven't exactly figured out the relationship between the my local water district and my city government. The water district is supposed to be a private organization and the water they provide covers several cities. However, I pay my water bill to my city.

But a drinking fountain in a public park or inside a school or wherever should burden a 90 year old woman who can no longer drive. That is theft.

I used to live in a small town just outside of Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas City wanted to levy a new tax to pay for a new football stadium for the Chiefs. The Chiefs make billions of dollars, they should be able to pay for their own stadium. I didn't have to worry about it because I didn't live in the city and we moved out of state not long after they passed the tax.

But the nerve it it all. Not everyone in KC cares about football but yet they are being forced to help pay for a stadium. As it turns out that tax was passed in Kansas City, Missouri and the Chiefs new stadium is being built in Kansas City, Kansas. All that money the people in KC, MO are forced to pay and all of the alleged taxes KC, MO was going to get from the new stadium is all gone. KC, KS is going to get those tax revenues from the Chiefs.

It was a total rip off. However, I am sure that all of the Chiefs fans in KC, MO, didn't care that they were getting ripped off because they'll get to watch the Chiefs in a new state of the art football stadium.

The example of the drinking fountain and what happened in KC, MO are just two examples. There are a gazillion examples all across the US. Some of those one off events are funded by the Federal Government. Years ago, way back when Senator Teddy Kennedy was alive he finagled money from the Federal Government to go into a bridge project in Boston that was labeled, "The Big Dig". I have been to Boston back in the late 70's but I have never been back there since. This was before the Big Dig. So I had to pay whatever percentage of my taxes to go to building something I will most likely never use.

That is NOT for the common good.

"We've seen the horrific effects of what happened when the Trump administration kept favoring the declining gas industry over renewable energy, which is proving to be a lot more successful."

Were did you get the idea that the oil industry is declining? 40% of all oil that is refined is turned into plastics and medicines. Even if we went 100% electric, those cars have a whole lot of plastic in them. Even tires are made from oil.

In some places electricity is generated by oil. That isn't common because coal and hydroelectric are the least expensive methods of generating electricity. Wind and solar are a complete waste of money and time. They will never even come close to satisfying our electrical demands.

Trump is NOT propping up the oil industry. He is trying to get our government out of the way of us producing our own oil. He was trying to accomplish that in his first term but then Biden screwed that up and put us right back on foreign oil. He probably got a big pay off for doing that from the Saudis but I don't know if that happened or not.

There is no reason why we cannot produce our own oil. The excuse used to be that we didn't have sweet crude oil in America but technology has changed to where not only can we turn oil into sweet crude but we can also extract it from shale rocks.

Having grown up in So Cal and I now live in Utah, shale rocks are everywhere and I mean everywhere.

If we can produce oil found in the US and refine it here then we are no longer at the mercy of OPEC. We are just not there yet.

Environmental regulations have so hamstrung this country that it is amazing that we can even produce anything. We no longer build nuclear power plants because of a movie that was released in the 1970's. That was over 50 years ago and technology has so vastly improved that what was depicted in that stupid movie would never happen. I know in California a new dam has not been built since the 70's. 80% of California's rain water flows into the ocean. And yet California has pulled so much water out of the Colorado river it no longer even reaches Mexico, let alone the Gulf of California where it used to flow to. California has nearly drained Mono Lake.

They really need to build more dams but that will never happen unless they kick out all of the Democrats in the state government and the various counties in the state.

We used to make tires out of rubber. They went flat all the time and didn't last anywhere close to as long as petroleum based tires.

If they can make tires out of bio fuels (BTW oil is a bio fuel), plant oil or something else, then let the free market decide. If the government forces that on us, then we'll be stuck, like always, with an inferior product. If there is a market for tires made of something other than oil then we should start seeing tires made out of those products any time now.

The reason why I say oil is a bio fuel is because it is produced, not from dinosaurs but from everything that was once alive. I read about a group of people in the San Francisco Bay area who created a bacteria that literally pooped oil. And it wasn't just crude oil, it was equivalent to oil that had almost been refined into gasoline. They said that in order to produce enough oil from these bacteria they would need an area about the size of Chicago. Well, I'm okay if they just turned Chicago into a huge oil pooping bacteria field.

I haven't read anything about those people in several years and I pretty much had forgotten about them until right now. I have no idea if the government stomped all over them, like our government has done so many times before, or if they have actually made any further progress on this oil pooping bacteria.

Regardless, why would you want to stop using oil for all of those products? What everyone complains about is burning gasoline not car dashboards and tires.

BTW I don't know where you get the idea that oil production is down. Sure there are a lot more electric vehicles on the road then there used to be but they have not even made a dent. There are a whole lot of people, me included, who really do not want an electric car. They do not travel as far on a charge. Charging stations take hours to recharge the car and there just aren't enough of them to make it convenient. Plus lithium batteries wear out in about 10 years and a new one cost about as much as the car.

Mining for lithium is tearing up China's landscape because it is hard to find. Producing lithium batteries does not reduce the pollution that gets into the atmosphere. Charging the batteries right now is mostly done by burning coal. So there is really no environmental advantage to electric vehicles.

They just found the worlds biggest lithium deposit in the Appalachian mountains. At least we'll still have the Rockies after all the lithium has been mined.

On the first line of my reply "They" is repeated. My ADD kicked in and I didn't finish what I was going to say after the first "They" is "They (the DSA) actually hate liberals, they hate the Democrat party."

That is why they are infesting the Democrat party so they can remake it into a socialist/communist party. Democrats have pushed so far left the DSA sees an opportunity to jump in and make the take over look seamless.

There's a lot of liberals who are bewildered at what has happened to the Democrat party even before the DSA started infesting it. They didn't sign up for the men in women's sports. Men in women's public showers, locker rooms or bathrooms. They didn't sign up for obliterating science when it comes to gender. Some tolerated it. Some accepted it only because they would follow blindly whatever the party told them.

I look at people like Bill Maher who now spends now longer just spews the propaganda against the right. Some how someone got to him and he had to take a look at the left. Now he's pretty much abandoned. He can't agree with where the mainstream left has gone but he still firmly believes the propaganda against the right. There are leftists on ImgFlip who no longer like Maher.

Then there are people like Joe Rogan and Russell Brand who started off on the left and an atheist who are now a little bit on the conservative side and Christian.

I don't know where you fit in all of this. I do know that my dad, who would be over 100 if he was still alive, was a Democrat all his life until sometime in the 1950's when he saw that they seems to be on the wrong side of the cold war and he switched parties.

The left has been trying to make that shift all about racism but that is nonsense. No one built bomb shelters in their backyard to protect themselves against black people. Plus the most racist politicians, Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd, never left the Democrat party.

What you need to understand is a part of history that has been buried. In the early 20th century the Democrat party became the home of the Progressives. Progressives openly praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin for years then WWII happened and that went underground. So the DSA infiltrating the Democrat party is nothing new. They are essentially returning to the Democrat party even though no one in the Democrat party or the DSA knows that because that history is not taught in colleges or schools.

This is why Democrats do not understand simple economics. The last thing you want is the government interfering in the free market. It is the free exchange of goods and/or services that builds wealth. That is the only thing that builds wealth.

Any interference by the government in the exchange destroys wealth.

If you want a nation that is the freest and most prosperous then you cannot give government any control over the free exchange of goods and services. There is absolutely nothing safe about the government destroying wealth. The government only takes and offers nothing in return.

The DSA is much closer to that then you think. Bernie Sanders may not be a member of the DSA but he certainly agrees with them on just about everything. AOC is the same. Mamdani is DSA.

But they do not have to be a president to cause problems. They don't even have to be in the Federal Government. The closer they are to you the more serious the problem they become.

Progressives ARE fascists. They claim they hate fascism only because they don't know what fascism is. I don't know what you think fascism is but I defer to the source.

Fascism is the invention of Giovanni Gentile and Benedetto Croce. Gentile explained that fascism is a better version of socialism. Gentile believed that fascism placed all political power in the government. You could own land, your house or your business but you had no control over it. Socialists took all private property rights away and you owned nothing. In the end the results were the same.

So fascism and socialism might differ on that one point but in the end the results are identical. If you can own land or a business but you cannot do what you want then there is no difference between not owning.

This is why early progressives were so quick to adopt any form of statist collectivism. They all looked similar and some went off into their own camps but unlike in Europe, they didn't get all bent out of shape over the minutia.

When we got involved in WWII the progressives saw that we were fighting nazis and fascists and realized they needed to distance themselves. Then they thought, what better way to distance themselves than to call those who still believe in the original America nazis and fascists. And that is how that started. The fact is you cannot possibly be a nazi or a fascist and believe in the Constitution. They are polar opposites but the names stuck anyway.

Just so you know, I'm not progressive. I dislike the modern progressive wing of the democrat party. But I am a center left liberal.

Free exchange of goods and/or services does build wealth. But so does good public infrastructure. If you have clean water, then nobody gets sick and the government doesn't have to pay for a costly medical emergency. If you have good roads and railways, then goods can move around quickly. If you fund welfare, then your workers are more motivated and productive. If you fund rehab-jails, then criminals have a higher chance of coming out as better people and a lower chance of recidivism.

Free market certainly matters, but free market alone cannot improve society. Strong public infrastructure is also needed. There should be a balance between free market and public infrastructure.

Whenever I hear a Democrat politician use the word, "infrastructure" I want to scream. When ever a Democrat politician running for president or for congress uses that word they always follow it with spending money for projects that are the responsibility of a state, county or city government. For a while is was "crumbling bridges".

"Infrastructure" I have come to realize means that they have pet projects that they want to waste my money on. I am in Utah, why should I have to pay to fix a bridge in Philadelphia? I have never been there and if I ever get to go there, I may not even drive over that "crumbling bridge" that my tax dollars fixed.

Like I said in another comment, clean water is the responsibility of the water district you live in. You pay for water and that money goes towards keeping the water clean. What I pay, even though it is collected by my city, is NOT part of my taxes. Not all places are water bills paid through the city. Some are directly to the water district. Still, that is not a tax.

Roads are the responsibility of the city, county or state. Railways are the responsibility of the Railroad industry. You pay for the transportations of goods in the price of the goods, not through taxes.

Welfare creates workers????? When did that happen? Welfare creates lazy dependent people and nothing else.

"Free market certainly matters, but free market alone cannot improve society"

We would not have the level of technology and medical advances that we have without the free market.

This nation was founded on the principles of free market economics. Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" was first published in 1776. All of our founding fathers read his book which was all about free market economics.

We made a massive leap in education, technology, medicine and everything else. The degree of advancement that used to take 5,000 years we did in 200 years because of the free market. Without freedom there is no free market.

All the free market has ever done is improve society. We would still be putting leeches on people to cure them of their illnesses and riding in horse and carriages if it wasn't for the free market. The government did NONE of that. Building roads and bridges did not cause that to happen. They would have built them regardless of the free market.

There is one area where the government actually did cause improvements and that was in the Space program and the miniaturization of electronics but that was it.

I never said that free market doesn't matter. I included that external factors like good public infrastructure matter too. I fully back capitalism and I encourage everybody in the world to either find a job, or make their own buisness. I agree with you. Free market innovation made our world. But so did public services like police, roads, and water.

I understand how you believe you should not have to pay for a road that you'll never use. But think about it. The global economy is interconnected. Luxury products arriving in Pennsylvania might travel down to your state, depending on where you live. If the roads are good, then your tax money might be worth it, because good roads reduce transportation cost and the cost of goods.

I understand that. I think I did a bad job of explaining myself. What you are talking about is a significantly less free market and you believe that it is for our safety. This is based on your current legal status towards business.

When you regulate business you add an additional overhead expense that is passed on to the consumer is higher prices. The more regulations the more businesses have to spend money not producing a product. All of that gets passed on to the consumer.

Depending on the regulation the business may have to hire someone or a team of people just to insure that the company complies with those regulations. They have to hire lawyers, accountants or other job titles who cost money. Money that could be used producing the product. Money that could be used to pay salaries causing the business to cut back on productive staff just to fund non-productive staff.

This is the reason regulations are bad for the business and the economy. Some businesses have had to close their doors for good because the regulations were too costly.

If businesses were 100% separated from the government and all of it's regulations then they would we be at the mercy of the consumer. If they cheated a consumer then that person will tell others and that gets around and that business falls apart.

Now that we have the internet, businesses who are not partially of fully funded by government handouts, cease to operate.

I am not opposed to laws that prevent businesses from selling products that can kill or cause damage to an individual. Or laws that prevent businesses from polluting the environment. Or other laws that I can't think of right now. But just like a private citizen, businesses need to be held innocent until proven guilty. You cannot preemptively punish all businesses because of one businesses bad action, and yes that did happen with Sarbanes-Oxley. Sarbanes-Oxley was passed in the 2000's to punish all businesses because of Enron. The company I worked for at the time was a small business with less than 100 employees. Sarbanes-Oxley caused them to hire 4 or 5 people (if I remember correctly) and compliance to that legislation cause the business over a million dollars.

So anyway, all I am saying is that the free market works better with more freedom, not less. More people have jobs and more people prosper. If you think you are saving people with excessive legislation then you are doing the opposite. You are killing productive jobs.

Well that's the thing. I don't believe in excessive regulation. Just basic rules like overtime pay, environmental laws, and ai privacy. Agencies should be made and trained to enforce these rules quickly and well.

In the case of AI or environmental laws, you can invest in clean up companies or ai tech to make sure it becomes easier to follow regulations.

'Well that's the thing. I don't believe in excessive regulation."

I don't either but that is not what we have. So when I read that you thing the free market needs regulation I thought you were justifying what we have now.

"Just basic rules like overtime pay, environmental laws, and ai privacy. Agencies should be made and trained to enforce these rules quickly and well."

In a free market, things like overtime pay will come about by the market. If company A gives outstanding benefits then people will jump ship trying to work for that company. Company B in order to retain their employees will have to make concessions.

Did you know the 8 hour work week did NOT come from unions? Long before unions Henry Ford set a working day for his employees to 8 hours a day. Ford paid his employees very well so that they could also be customers.

When ideas like this show up in one business it isn't long for their competition to offer those same benefits or more.

People tend to think all benefits in the working place came from unions and a lot of them have but unions, at their heyday, made up about 13% of the labor force. That means those benefits may have started as a union idea but non union businesses picked up on them to try to attract more and better employees.

What I am saying is that the government must not be involved in the business world to where they regulate overtime pay. That reaches to far into how a business operates. Businesses who offer overtime pay will attract employees and those who don't will lose employees. That is how the free market is supposed to work.

I don't think there are any laws in place currently about AI privacy. I don't see that as a business concern anyway. AI is one business where I think the government should pass a lot of regulations. BUT I do not want the government controlling AI because that would also be bad.

I fear that AI is a bad genie that has now been let out of the bottle and there is no one to stop it. I'm 68. I don't want to die anytime soon but I hope before AI becomes all knowing that I have passed away. I don't want to live through that. But I don't think I will get my way. I don't think it is very long from now when Super AI rolls out. Currently AI is as smart as what it can find on the internet. It's like a search engine on steroids. But we will see a day when AI becomes smarter than mankind. That's when Skynet is build and we will need to protect Sarah Connor from the T-800. 😁😨😬😨😬

Labor unions fought for an 8-hour 5 days a week work week decades before there was a Henry Ford.

Sometimes, in rare cases, businesses don't ensure overtime pay.

I think AI should get regulated because as it develops, it could develop loopholes or errors that risk security.

So I'd say it should be a rule that no matter how far AI goes, the market should always test it before releasing it just in case there's a corporation that doesn't want to test it.

You work for the government. You've worked for the government for generations. You're a socialist taker.

"Labor unions fought for an 8-hour 5 days a week work week decades before there was a Henry Ford."

Dude!!!!!!!! Stop lying.

You sure didn't mind when FDR introduced infrastructure to the South, which at the time was basically Third World it development, or rather, in lack of... Obviously a mistake because everybody would have been better off if those people were restricted to dirt roads and no electricity.

Nobody in Utah pays for infrastructure in Philadelphia, or any other place, including Utah. Utah is a taker state, a welfare state. They get far more from the Federal Government then they put in with taxes.

"Nobody in Utah pays for infrastructure in Philadelphia,"

Perhaps, perhaps not. Philadelphia is not the point, the point is making someone pay for something they will never use. That is a rip off.

I am pretty sure your Overlord Mamdani will try make the entire US pay for his massive money grab.

Utah is a taker state.

New York is one of five giver states. It and they fund the rest of the United States.

New York City is the economic engine of Planet Earth.
Remove it from the economic equation, and the entire world's economy collapses, much like the end of Rome ushered in the Dark Ages in Europe.

Remove Utah, and the only consequences would be that the Great Salt Lake will have more room to fill in. That is literally what would be the impact of Utah going missing.

"Utah is a taker state."

"New York is one of five giver states. It and they fund the rest of the United States."

There you go trying to be funny again. NYC was the economic hub for a very long time but it has been dying under Democrat oppression (with a slight relieve when Giuliani was mayor) for a very long time. Mamdani was elected to finish off the city so that everyone will have to leave.

You're fooling yourself if you think NYC is still what it once was 60 or 70 years ago.

I used to hear all of the pride about how California by itself had one of the world's largest economies. People still try to say that. Mamdani is just wrecking your city. Newsome wrecked an entire state.

"Remove Utah, and the only consequences would be that the Great Salt Lake will have more room to fill in. That is literally what would be the impact of Utah going missing."

You should visit Utah. We have a booming economy and nearly all of the high tech businesses have either completely relocated here or have built offices here.

I actually wish that a lot of people would move out of Utah. I have nothing against the people but it's getting far too crowded here. But then I'll be in Alabama soon enough. I like the south but Utah is the prettiest state in the union. It is just so awesome living here. But I want my retirement dollar to stretch further and Alabama's cost of living is lower than Utah's. But then you would look at Utah how I look at Alabama because everything costs less in Utah than NYC. Your Fuhrer Mamdani is just turning the screws on you making your life harder and harder to live there.

Oh and by the way. People are nice to you in Utah. They wave and say Hi. The streets are clean. Even in ultra leftist Salt Lake City, the streets are cleaner than in NYC. The air is fresher and we have no humidity so it does not feel like you are covered in warm snot all the time.

"Oh, and you don't live in Utah."

I do live here and you really wish you could live in such a wonderful place. But you're not just stuck in the Bronx, you're stuck in the Bronx with Mamdani as your mayor.

You so funny. If I said California was the 5th largest economy you will tell me that they had no economy at all. I certainly doubt California is 5th any more. Everyone is leaving at the speed of light. Businesses are running away the fastest.

No, you don't live there.

Utah has some beautiful scenery, but beautiful scenery is a trip that people have to take. It's not a daily basis thing. Although they do have that statue of a seagull in Salt Lake City, so I guess there's that. That's the only thing to see there, other than the Tabernacle Choir building.

Other then that, it is really really boring over there, stuffy, oppressive, and a bit weird living under a cult which controls the government which has more control over people's lives than anywhere else in the US.

They even tried exerting that control on other states like California, meddling in their politics. I know Republicans like big people-stomping governments that seek to tell people what to do even in the bedroom, but goodness gracious, by a Sci-Fi cult?

Oh Modda, Modda, Modda..... What am I going to do with you.

"Utah has some beautiful scenery, but beautiful scenery is a trip that people have to take. It's not a daily basis thing. Although they do have that statue of a seagull in Salt Lake City, so I guess there's that. That's the only thing to see there, other than the Tabernacle Choir building."

I know that being an economic prisoner in NYC all you know is cities. So when you try to explain Utah to me all you can do is mention two things in Salt Lake City. And even at that you missed a whole lot of stuff.

Yes there is a statue of a seagull. A bird that prior to 1847 did not exist in the state of Utah. They all flew in from California just to eat up a cricket infestation that was killing all of the crops of the LDS people who had just arrived. The seagulls would swoop down pick up a cricket, eat it then throw it up so they could go back for more. Because of that the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not starve to death once they got there.

BUT let me list off some of the most spectacular landscapes you will ever see that are only found in Utah, with some of it in Arizona and New Mexico.

Zions National Park
Arches National Park
Monument Valley National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park
Goblin Valley State Park
Capitol Reef National Park
Escalante - Grand Staircase National Monument
Bears Ears National Monument
Canyonlands National Park
Dinosaur National Park

Next to Nevada we have the most Bortle Class 1 dark sky locations for doing astrophotography.

We have the Uintah Mountain range, the only east-west mountain range with peak over 10,000 feet.

"Other then that, it is really really boring over there, stuffy, oppressive, and a bit weird living under a cult which controls the government which has more control over people's lives than anywhere else in the US."

Oppressive? You live in NYC and you dare call Utah oppressive? We have soooooo much more freedom that you do. There is no cult running the government in Utah. There are Republicans. We have one of the best Senators to ever serve office, Senator Mike Lee. The MOST constitutional senator of all of the currently serving senators. You can't say that about any Democrat, especially Mamdani whose only loyalty is to Islam.

Oh!!! BTW is that Mamdani store opening near you? No??? I hope you have a subway stop near your house so you can travel across the city to stand in a bread line at the Mamdani store.

So what I said then?

Doth projecteth much.

Yes, I know, I know, you threw away all your money from your government socialist job and so are an economic prisoner of your own waste and have to move to the poorest state in the United States, Alabama.

"Yes, I know, I know, you threw away all your money from your government socialist job and so are an economic prisoner of your own waste and have to move to the poorest state in the United States, Alabama."

YEEEEEEE HAWWWWWW!!!! I'm goin' to good ol' Alabamy.

I guess I have been on ImgFlip for a lot longer than I thought. I haven't worked for a military contractor in almost 5 years. I worked in the private sector for the last 4 1/2 years before I retired.

Now I am living off all of that money that I gave to the government for over 40 years work. Social Security. Yeah, it is supposedly the money I paid into the system but we all know that it is a Democrat created Ponzi scheme. The money I paid into is long gone. I am now just freeloading off of the working class. We were promised that Social Security was just a retirement fund. It was a horribly crappy one if that is what it was. The return on investment is utter crap compared to if I was able to invest that money.

I really will miss Utah when we move. I hate humidity.

You said you were still working.

Social Security would be in the black right now if it wasn't for Republicans raiding its coffers to plug in gaps in their wasteful spending budgets - something which is illegal, mind you, as a Social Security funds are supposed to be untouched by the government for anything other than Social Security.

But you already knew this.

Dr Fauci.

Oh, with your lack of clarity it looked like you were asking for an example of one liberal who believes he is an "expert." Anyone who leans socialist and beyond is standing on Marx codification of communism, or also known as "Marxism." If you buy any of it, you don't hate Marx enough.