Close, but that to me seems much closer to the definition of communism than it is to the definition of socialism. Socialism as I understand it attempts to give power for decision making to the maximum number of people (preferably all). Whereas Communism tends to put all power for decision making towards a small number of people who make decisions for the collective.

Ref- Definition of Monarchy, Theocracy, Socialism, Communism, Dictatorship
(Not necessarily the best source of definition, but the best source I could find for quick definition that makes sense)

My theory for this is that the word "socialism" is the new dirty word replacing the former dirty word "communism".

Replace the word Socialism with the word Communism and I agree.

In school, Canada's political system was referred to as a "figurehead monarchy." Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has no real political power in Canada or Britain. Basically if she ever told parliament "No." to a resolution Canada would likely end up breaking away from the commonwealth very quickly.

Canada's current political system seems to be much closer to a "socialist democracy" meaning that the government has control over various aspects of social resources such as health care, transportation, etc... But still promotes capitalism in business ventures and in many cases helps people start business through various grants/loans etc. Also the parliament is a multi-party system with various political goals... historically there were generally 3 political parties in Canada

Conservatives - Right wing agenda
Liberals - Centrist left agenda
New Democrats - Left wing agenda

Today there is also the Partis Quebecois who have a separatist agenda and want Quebec to secede from Canada. Voting in a federal election means you vote for a single representative from one of the parties that will represent your constituency. That representative will sit in parliament and whoever has the most seats in parliament forms the government of the day. One of the checks and balances is that the government is either a majority or minority. Meaning either the government has so many seats that whatever bill is proposed will generally pass because the government controls more than 50% of the seats, or a minority which generally means the government needs to concede some things to gain the approval and thus votes of one of the other parties.

There is a senate in Canada... and as far as most Canadians are concerned, they don't do anything but collect a pay cheque from our taxes. They have no real political power and are appointed their seats by the government of the day... I believe (and may be wrong) a senate appointment is a lifetime appointment.

In any case everyone should read the Goat Politics page if for nothing other than a great laugh... oh how true.

A Satirical Look at Government Structure: Goat Politics


Once again, I agree, by strict definition Canada is technically a monarchy. Just as the US by strict definition is supposed to be a republic. However in the last 200 years a lot has changed. Heck Canada didn't even have its own constitution until 1982.

My thoughts on the present day is that Canada over time has become much more like a socialist democracy and the US is constantly in flux hovering between socialist democracy on the left and fascism on the right. Thankfully your forefathers built a system with enough checks and balances that things tend not to slip too far one way or the other... except for maybe the past 8 years but that's just my personal views.

I hope more people post, this has actually been a very good informative discussion so far.

Tomcat

Edit- For clarification... perhaps "constitutional monarchy" with socialist tendencies is an even more accurate description of Canada and Britain... either way I think that US citizens would be better off with a couple of socialist-like concepts in their society... like a universal health care system.

The debate over firearms is over killed as a "look they took away my rights" argument. In the US, yes the 2nd amendment gave citizens the right to bear arms. No such right exists in Canada or Britain where it is a privilege granted by the government with support of the judiciary to carry firearms. There's a lot of data that suggests gun related crime goes way down in countries that have a zero-firearms policy vs. the countries where there is proliferation of firearms.

So the minority in British citizens stating that they feel oppressed by not being allowed to have guns anymore... that's hardly a very good argument for the oppression of rights. If it was such a major violation of rights, technically speaking, new representatives can be elected to rescind previous policy.

As for regulation and oversight... if the government, which in either a republic or democracy, is elected by the people to represent their interests.... versus lets say, a health insurance company lead by a CEO/President who is unelected by any of the people and who's primary concern is profit and not health of the people... who should have oversight?

Socialism means higher taxes, and fewer choices.

Socialism means more comfort, and fewer worries.

You trade wealth for complacency, and sacrifice free thought for peace of mind.

I see Socialism as sub-contracting your freedom to the gov't, then paying them to manage it for you.

You can't "quit" a socialist program. Once it's in place, it's there until it either collapses, or the gov't is over-thrown, either by arms, or by a massive, peaceful change in power structure.

At least with a free market you have choices. If you don't like BCBS, switch to United Healthcare.

But this requires thought and consideration, and some effort on your part, and it's this part that folks want to sub-contract to their leaders.


- Saul

Crime goes up when there is gun bans. Criminals can still get guns they aren't concerned with the law in the first place.


People and the market are oversight not the ceo or the government.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Why is socialism bad?

Answer: Because it will put my family out of work through universal health care ... Thus, I chracterize it as eviiillll.

Good point,Kittencaboodle.Our capitalist system has put corporations ahead of the welfare of the working class for a long long time.I'm not advocating communism or socialism either-but anyone who thinks "the people" have any clout here is seriously deluded.We don't even know if our votes are counted accurately without the "paper trail".While the media pits "liberals" against "conservatives",the rich are still getting richer and the rest of us are left to fight over the scraps.