Bob, I hate acronyms. I seldom kmow what they mean. So I look them up in my acronym finder. In doing that with “ECT” I found 77 possibilities, none of which seem to fit the context in which you use it. Can’t we just take a moment spell out our words for the sake of acronym-illiterate folk such as I?
Sorry, I thought most folk familiar with universalism had heard of Eternal Conscious Torment as one antithesis.
So for you guys who lean starboard there may be some stability and hope…
Here ya go, from Gutfeld:
But if I had an hour with our leading pre-eminent socialist, here’s what I’d ask him:
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If you had to teach a course on Marxism/Leninism, how would you address the 100 million-plus dead left behind? What caused it, beyond “administrative error?”
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Socialists bring up small successes in Europe without mentioning that economic growth is miserable compared to the U.S. Why hide that?
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You live in the greatest economic system in history. Yet, you see in socialism – a system rejected by nearly every nation that has tried it – as better. Given the previous questions: why?
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Do you see equality of opportunity and outcome as the same? Should there have been a cap on the book royalties which made you a millionaire? Should you only have one home instead of three? Also, can you give an example of economic inequality that exists after you factor in age, experience and education? Older people tend to have higher incomes and more wealth. You are
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Since you became a millionaire, you’ve trained your sights on billionaires. There are 585 of them in the U.S. If we took all their money, would our problems be solved?
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It’s been said that if you aren’t a liberal when you’re young you have no heart, but if you aren’t a conservative when you’re old you have no brain. What’s your excuse?
But maybe we are tired of economic prosperity, which is benefitting all classes; a change to the far left should be good, right? Wrong.
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Anything is possible, although not likely.
Like maybe folks, like what the Republican party is doing. But might choose, another Republican party presidential candidate?
Last night, I was watching The Legends of Tomorrow on TV. It’s a superhero TV show. And the heroes broke out, into a Bollywood (AKA movie from India) - song and dance routine.
So I started to think: Has there ever been, a Bollywood zombie movie - with singing and dancing? Well, I couldn’t find any. But I did stumble across, a singing and dancing zombie movie! 
What they are doing is - nothing. Trump is bringing the country back from the edge, pretty much all on his own.
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Just looking at “possibilities” Dave. As the BBC news item, got me to thinking. Let’s let the US population decide in 2020 - shall we?
How many of these 28 Democratic Socialist Countries have rejected it?
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/democratic-socialist-countries/
Here is a site that claims the following are the 10 most socialist countries in the world:
China
Denmark
Finland
Netherlands
Canada
Sweden
Norway
Ireland
New Zealand
Belgium
Have any of them rejected socialism?
Are ANY of them ‘socialist’ in the way the Democrats want our country to go? Nope.
China? They are more capitalist than ever!!
“The Communist Party of China maintains that despite the co-existence of private capitalists and entrepreneurs with public and collective enterprise, China is not a capitalist country because the party retains control over the direction of the country, maintaining its course of socialist development.” - that ain’t socialism, Don.
Norway, Sweden? No.
Here’s why it doesn’t work:
http://www.aei.org/publication/why-socialism-always-fails/
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Right, but you are beating a dead hoarse, (randy will have fun with that) None of them have any idea of the ideas the American Republic were founded on… and some would actually laugh at the ideas brought forth by our founding fathers. The Idea of freedom and liberty for all, the idea that no matter who you are, you have the rights and the full weight of the USA government behind you.
All of the socialist countries can do what they will, but the United States of America transcends and will fight against the socialist ideas, and will do so in a fervent manner.
[quote=“DaveB2.0, post:2518, topic:6062, full:true”]
(Denmark Finland Netherlands Sweden Norway
Canada Ireland New Zealand Belgium)
"Are ANY of them ‘socialist’ in the way the Democrats want our country to go? Nope…
“It is certainly true that Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark are notable economic successes. What is false is that these countries are particularly socialist.”
Dave, The right’s common citing of failed non-democratic communist dictatorships as proof that democratic socialism doesn’t work has always seemed disingenuous to me. So I appreciate your affirming the models so called democratic socialists actually usually point to are “notably successful.”
Thus your comment that these are not “the way the Democrats want our country to go” seemed puzzling. For aren’t these are the very models that leading progressive Democrats typically point to as the models they desire to imitate? Shucks, when the president wants to cite the kind of immigrants he prefers, even he says he wants a load of people from those “compassionate” Scandinavian countries.
Oh Bob, Have you been listening at all to what the Dems are running on? I’m not going to re-cap it all, but it is far from democratic socialism. Don’s question was about socialism - and dang it, you know very well that it is NOT just the ‘right’ that sees the wreck that is socialism - history has proven it out as a failure. Do you want us to recapitulate what others have learned the hard way
And I’m getting a little tired of the “GOP” has no compassion" motif. That’s malarky. Do you think Bernie and Hil and Beto (my God, Beto?) and VOC want socialism because they CARE? No, they want votes, and they know that THEY WILL STILL BE THE ELITE WHILE THE REST OF US SUFFER. They have no program to pay for socialism, but hey, apparently even smart people are willing to throw reason aside under promise of free everything, so-called compassion, and etc.
I do not see that your Models - Sweden, Norway whatever - are any more enlightened than we are. That too is malarky.
I won’t give an inch on Capitalism - the greatest force for good, overall that the world has known. That is not a righty thing. Now go ahead and list the problems with it - which there are. Me, I see the vast good that flows out to the rest of the world.
I find your position woefully weak and unsubstantiated. As is the Left in general.
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Dave, I’m a news junkie of a Dem, but you can claim that you know our positions far better than I if you like. I see no basis for your assertions, but I don’t know everything. The problem is that I don’t see you offer a scintilla of evidence that challenges any observation I made, or addresses my question at all.
When I see reckless people like Sanders cite the models they like, they do exactly what I said. My friend, when you address exegetical theology, you generally engage in a thoughtful way. But when it’s politics, does ever occur to you that when someone confused asks an honest question of clarification, but you assume they don’t share your passions, that you react with great antipathy full of “my Gods,” assertions of that person being full of woeful malarkey, how tired you are of me, etc?
I simply wondered why you spoke as if no Democrats see the Nordic states as a model. Apparently if they ever did, you see those nations as not much socialist, and that’s fine. If they are not what you are outraged about, then I agree with you that real ‘socialism’ (as you define it) sucks.
OTOH, why would ANYONE want socialism?
A series of polls have shown that pluralities of Democrats and millennials prefer socialism to capitalism. These surveys also make clear that respondents do not know what socialism is.
Also Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has shown that Democratic primary voters will cast their ballots for an avowed socialist if he packages his brand properly.
Socialism’s new face, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, upset a major establishment figure in the New York primaries. Like the poll respondents, she was also hard pressed to explain what socialism is. In another development, the primary upset victory of Andrew Gillam gave Florida democrats their first socialist candidate for governor.
Speculation about a socialist renaissance is premature. Americans won’t vote for socialists if they come to understand what socialism is. To win, socialist candidates must conceal their beliefs; to do otherwise would condemn them to the ash heap of history.
Throughout his 2016 presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders assured primary voters that his socialism is nothing more than free medicine and education and a fair distribution of income. He soothingly assured voters that democracy, with a small “d,” and socialism are perfectly compatible.
When challenged to give real-world success stories of socialism, Sanders regularly cites not the Soviet Union, Cuba or Venezuela, but affluent Scandinavian countries.
Indeed, Denmark, Norway and Sweden have generous welfare states, as does most of Europe, but some 90 percent of the Swedish economy is privately owned. Sweden and Denmark outrank the U.S. in economic freedom, and all three Scandinavian countries outperform the U.S. in business freedom.
The Scandinavian countries are wealthy because of more than a century of capitalist growth, not on account of their welfare states. In fact, when their welfare states threatened their affluence, they beat a hasty retreat. Remarkably, the purported rise of socialism in the United States is being accompanied by its collapse in Europe.
In the course of his long career in public office, Sanders has not deviated from this soothing rhetoric and has dodged the fact that socialism calls for public ownership (or state regulation), substitutes government for private choice, decries profits and tends toward an authoritarian state. Socialism is not simply a generous welfare state, as Sanders would have us believe.
Sanders cannot come clean on socialism and be more than a fringe candidate. To the contrary, the “old” socialist party of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas featured Marxist epithets against capitalist exploitation, immiseration of the working class and capitalist collapse in their publications.
“Old” socialists got a few percentage points of the presidential vote and elected an odd mayor or congressmen now and then. Preempted by the New Deal and discredited by Nikita Khrushchev’s condemnation of communist atrocities, the “old” socialists ran their last presidential candidate in 1956.
If Sanders won’t explain what socialism really is, perhaps we should listen to what America’s largest socialist party, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), has to say. Like the “old” socialists, the DSA unabashedly enunciates its electoral strategy to lead the Democratic Party to electoral victory under a socialist platform.
Like the Democratic Party, the DSA proposes to focus on grievance groups — minorities of all stripes, the LGBT community, immigrants, women, seniors, students, etc. Each group is to be promised free stuff and special benefits — free medicine for all, tuition-free schooling through college, a guaranteed income and a right to housing and food.
With respect to the economic system, the DSA openly propose to do away with capitalism via a number of measures. Municipal authorities or worker collectives will replace private ownership and management of enterprises. These socialized enterprises will produce for the needs of society, not for private profit.
The smaller companies will not be planned from above but will operate in a market setting. Heavy industry, finance, transportation and other large concerns will be planned by a national or even international planning authority. As planned entities, they are also supposed to meet society’s needs, not those of the rich.
With big business accounting for more than half of GDP and run by a national plan, “bureaucratic socialists” will indeed run most of the show. So much for the people calling the economic shots.
The DSA has laid out a fairly typical socialist platform. Bernie Sanders accepted their endorsement and calls himself a Democratic socialist. Sanders may not subscribe to all the points in DSA’s platform, but why call yourself “socialist” if you do not support its most basic tenets? Either he does not know what socialism is or he deliberately conceals what it stands for from voters.
When challenged to differentiate himself from traditional socialism, Sanders claims that he is a Democratic socialist, not just a socialist. Sanders does not want to acknowledge that Democratic socialism is an oxymoron.
Once people have seen what socialism is, they will not vote for it, but by that time, they may have no choice. Just take a look at Venezuela.
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Chad to Dave 2.0
We need a music video, to illustrate this point!
Well, I’m off for a while…like
To dream the impossible dream. To find a Bollywood musical, zombie movie - with singing and dancing. But first, this thought came to mind!
I found an “informative” video, regarding David’s soapbox! Maybe this is Dave2.0 in disguise? 
[quote=“Bob_Wilson, post:2520, topic:6062, full:true”]
The animal in that video don’t look like no horse!
This one does:
I’m just saying - the following things are getting kind of old - members have been dumping on me over these over and over and yes, over. No good thing is said about the USA, Capitalism, pro-life, the Trumper, the 67 countries we have treatied to protect in time of war, the tremendous amount of foreign aid we do etc etc ad nauseum, the 25 million + refugees that are now in the country - illegally, that in large part are financed by American taxpayers.
The USA is the greatest country, on almost any level, the world has known. Capitalism has rescued the entire world, wherever it has sway. Read your history.
We abolished slavery, and blacks now are employed and better off than EVER. Trump has done that.
Hell, I’ve said this and much more for years now. NOT ONE of you even responded to, say, the list of 200 accomplishments so far by Trump. Not One. What’s the matter with you? I believe the Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing - I don’t know how else to explain the hatred, for Trump and for America, the idiocy of the press and the worship of that press especially in other countries - you know who you are - that only understand the world through hateful rhetoric from the Left, because - oh my - we elected Trump.
The Left wants to bring it down. Obviously, overwhelming success is not enough - socialism is the answer! Power to the elite socialists!
I’m going to try even harder to keep off this thread. Wish me luck.
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You have missed your calling, Dave. You should be hired on…as an official member, of the Trump PR team…You’re a natural! Seriously!
Anyway! Here’s an interesting article, from today’s Pathoes’ Evangelical newsletter:
It ends with an interesting question to ponder:
Should the norm of the normless really be allowed to remove any other norm and totally change the world for the next generation?
Perhaps a song, to inspire you?
These are things that we Americans have to put up with. We for the most part fund the world. We give untold millions to many countries. We in this country have the ability to change things through the electoral/ representative government we have. And it is a good way of dealing with these things. The founding Fathers really knew what they where doing.