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YZFyesterday at 8:37 PM3 repliesview on HN

Respectfully does the government run the grocery stores in your European country? Is public transit free in your European country? Do your center-left parties advocate for abolition of your parliament and democratic processes? Do they talk about how the rich are the source of all evil? Have you studied the DSA agenda in depth?

And sure, there are also ideas like healthcare for all which I think are similar but that isn't really what the DSA is about. It's definitely not about transforming the USA to have a better social network like healthcare or protection for employees. It's a lot more radical than that.


Replies

indoorfishyesterday at 8:47 PM

> Have you studied the DSA agenda in depth?

Yes, they are center-left at best, and your frenzied rebuttal against regular people trying to improve their lives and the country they live in is alarming. Free public transportation..the horror.

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retromarioyesterday at 10:16 PM

Canada has government-rune liquor stores, they're doing ok. Not exactly a "grocery store", but still PRETTY SHOCKING. UK has co-op (chains). There's Mondragon in Spain - I know it's employee-owned but that's not much different than government-owned if you really think about it.

Public-transit where I live is not free, but it is subsidized, with various recent efforts from municipal and state governments to further reduce costs for all residents.

Germany is defined as Social Democracy or a Social Market Economy. It marries free-market capitalism with social welfare policies, state regulation, and collective bargaining to ensure economic growth and social security, including robust social safety nets.

The US once had stronger unions and basic worker-oriented safety nets. This has been dismantled since the 80s, while piling on the National Debt by pilfering the treasury and "returning" the money to the (rich) end of the tax base.

There was a great quote in the original Deus Ex: "In 1945, corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent."

In my mind the DSA is trying to shift the Overton window towards something more reasonable, that has already existed in the US. Focusing on the extremes to dismiss the DSA entirely is like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

hdgvhicvyesterday at 9:53 PM

Free public tenant is very common. The wealthy being massive sources of the problem is very common. The U.K., hardly a bastion of socialist views, has massive amounts of food banks and he only attempt to overturn democracy I’ve seen was on Jan 6th 2021.