User blog comment:Centrist16/SOMETHING EVERYONE MUST KNOW/@comment-3398633-20150809140026/@comment-3398633-20150809202435

@Fallout: Dude, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were Labour PMs, with Labour ruling your country from 1997 to 2010, and still had a strong hand in it until 2015. Your British. How do you not know this? Labour politics led to a runaway immigration system that has resulted in terrorists waltzing in and out of the country at will, and any attempt to critize the policies behind radicalism in the British Muslim community is branded as "racism". Labour did that. One of the main tenants of socialism is equality no matter what. The price of that tenant is the branding of individuals critical of Britain's immigration policy or the immigrants themselves as racist. I'm simply pointing out what is a painfully obvious problem brought about by the largely socialist government the UK had for more than a decade.

I acknowledge that Syriza wasn't directly responsible for the predictiment Greece is in right now, but it exacerbated it, and it was largely socialist policies already introduced in the nation that drove up the national debt. Also, the way you said that portion of you response was very Marxist. Nice job.

Since you speak of India, let's look at India's socialist history. After independence, Nehru (devout atheist and textbook socialist) wanted to build a socialist state in India. His policies in that country that lasted for sixteen years, weakened the economy, stunted its growth, handicapped businesses in the country, and delayed the potential economic explosion in that nation for nearly half a century. The Paris Commune failed because it was a communist state, the fully realized goal of socialism. No one wanted to work, the politicians had to do all of the work of governing themselves because there was no bureaucracy, the military was a joke, and the religious were persecuted and murdered in the streets.

As for Cuba, it is embargoed solely by the US, not the rest of the world. Cuba is free to trade with any nation that it pleases, and it does. But Cuba's socialist government is handicapping its economic growth, not the United States, by wasting resources on fruitless public projects, forcing everyone to earn the same (therefore weakening what people can spend and destroying the middle class), refusing to allow private enterprise, and cracking down on any state-sanctioned businesses that make too much money. Tell me, how can I expand my business and output to areas where it can grow and there is demand if my socialist government keeps cracking down on me for have a capitalist spirit?

Capitalism has had its moments, but it is vastly superior to socialism. If socialism was so wonderful, how come there are only four official socialist states in the world, and a handful elsewhere with socialist parties in power? Could it be that socialism is an abject failure of a system that has resulted in economic and political collapse and total anarchy in the states where it was implemented? Vietnam and Laos are socialist states, but the people are poor and the governments corrupt. China is a socialist state, but it dumped socialism for capitalism because it works. Cuba is a socialist state, but the people are still driving cars from the 1950s because they can't buy new ones from overseas.

Now on Sweden, it has a socialist party in power driving the country into ruin. There aren't enough jobs and housing to go around, yet the government insists on importing labour from overseas. Both locals and immigrants are baffled by the government's asinine behavior. The murder and crime rate have gone up, and the standard of living is declining. Any Swede could tell you that, but their afraid of being called a racist. Sweden only had a high standard of living because it had a small population and wide open spaces to develop. Sweden could afford to have a welfare state because it was sustainable. You can support nine million people on a shoestring budget. You can't if you have twenty million. Your socialist dream has failed more times than capitalism, and I'm more likely to make it ahead in life under capitalism than under socialism. I'm not sharing my wealth with some bum simply because he didn't get to go to college (or graduate), all because some hipster with a gender studies degree wants to to "change the world" (not speaking about you to clear).

@Dog: That is exactly what I said. Cameroon needed a coalition to govern the nation, but the Labour Party had a strong hand in the management of the economy. Typically when you have coalitions, the opposition has a greater say in the political dealings of the nation, seen coalitions only provide the slimest sliver needed to be recognized as the majority party. Labour was the largest individual party in the UK prior of May 2015, and the Tories only won a majority because the Labour Party screwed the nation over from what most Brits I've spoken to have said.

As for France, as with Obama here, just because Hollande says he supports Third Way politics, doesn't mean that the rest of his party, the Socialist Party of France, are going to fall in line with Hollande. Additionally, once again looking at the example of Obama, the only reason he was elected was because the American people didn't trust the Republicians after the Iraq War. After Sarkozy's actions, the French people didn't trust his party, and went with what they regarded as the lesser evil, the Socialist Party. However, taxes have gone up in France, immigration is on the rise, and local terrorism has explored (no pun intended) throughout the country. None of that helps the Socialist Party, though their policies produced some of the end results.

As for Greece, it was socialist policies, such as lower retirement ages, larger pensions, and a runaway welfare-state that drove up the Greek debt. Syriza exacerbated the issues with their anti-capitalist policies, such as refusing to pay anything to the Eurozone banks and lenders, and threatening to sink the Eurozone if its demands for a bailout wasn't met. I will agree with you on that Greece's current state isn't solely the fault of the socialists in that nation, but I will remain firm on in my conviction that it was socialist policies that did it in. And regarding Germany, universial healthcare and education isn't a purely socialist ideology, as every major political ideology has supported the same thing. It's just that socialist nations have it as a primary party goal.