Head start (one of my favorites), Some of the Federal land management programs- although the way they are leasing federal lands brings tears to my eyes, national parks, national Wildlife areas, the Center for Disease Control- and several other programs in health and human services, The entire federal court system (I assume courts are socialist?), welfare, medicare/medical, foodstamps, subsidized housing, parts of the department of transportation come in quite handy, the NTSB, Gosh- I could just go on and on.
Capitalism is great- but unregulated you get airplanes that crash, food that is adulterated, cars that explode, ground water so polluted it kills- and on and on and on- such are the abuses of greed and capitalism. Because people/corporations often don't have to bear the REAL costs of the misery they cause in their risk/reward calculations. If they get it TOO far off they can just go bankrupt. And quite frankly that sucks.
I also don't want to live in a society where there is no safety net. I've seen them all over the world. Beggars who mutilate themselves to get more money- or worse, mutilate their children to get more money. People living off piles of rotting refuse. I'm not a socialist, but I'm certainly not for pure capitalism. The socialists at LEAST have their hearts in the right place- but socialism is ruined by the same thing that ruins capitalism- greed and the need to exploit.
I could name you a lot more programs I like, and quite a few I don't.
I saw an interesting movie that showed how society breaks down when the business of civilization breaks down. It's called Cabaret Balkan. Not much of a safety net there. People willing to kill you if they THINK you've stolen something- no need to actually search for the truth. No safety net, no law, no humanity. It's a brutal movie but quite well done. It reminded me of Underground- but it's set in the present day (as opposed to Underground). |
