Why is Socialism not a good thing?

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I can safely assume that there is no perfect "ism", including both capitalism and socialism. While still in university (accessible to me thanks to social programs) my wife and I had a baby. No career yet, and we were both very young. After our baby was born (all prenatal and delivery paid for by healthcare) we lived off child benefits, my meager part-time minimum wage income, and my wife's maternity benefits for a year (we're from Canada). I finished my degree, got a job, started to save, started a business, and ended the cycle of poverty that I was born into.

My wife stayed home and worked hard to raise our baby, I studied to not only better myself, but better my future family. Not even considering the debt load I would have had to take on to pay for the birth, if we didn't have healthcare, we could not have done it without social programs. The alternatives we had to face, was either put our baby in daycare right away, which would have netted us very little money, I would have had to quit school and get a full time job, or my wife have an abortion. We decided to use the social programs, it saved our lives, and I had the opportunity to do what I want with my career. Socialism gives hope to the poor, and it puts the poor on an equal playing field with the rich.

If someone decides to abuse a social program that's their own choice, but there are some who use social programs to better themselves, and get ahead. My business hasn't grown as fast as it could if I wasn't taxed, but I don't care, because I know that somewhere there is another me, who just needs a helping hand to be able compete with those born with a "silver spoon".

In our country a person's health, and access to education, should not be a direct reflection of their income level, or their parents income. That is why socialism is a good thing....Show more

Sweetie, I just hope you didn't vote today.

Our country, the United States of America, is built on capitalism.

Capitalism is the characterization of our economic system which is based on private & corporate ownership of goods (the stuff we buy and sell), through investments which are purchased by the people (like you, me and bill gates) which the prices, production, and the distribution of the goods are determined mainly by competition in a free market.

In other words if you have a good idea oh like to create a toothbrush that automatically brush your teeth as long as you direct it around your mouth, you can develop the idea, name the idea "electric toothbrush", put it for sale at a price you think people will pay for it, negotiate contracts to have stores sell your product where they too can make a profit off it and you make billions of dollars because everyone wants to buy your product you get to live in a big house, buy expensive clothes, donate a lot of money to charity and live happy having worked about 27hours a day thinking, worrying, planning, developing and implementing the America Dream. Now other people can too develop an electric toothbrush and sell it at a competitive price to compete with you, which is what's called competition and keeps you (or electric toothbrush company) from being the only one to decide the price (which would be a monopoly).......now people can believe in your idea and invest in your idea which would then give them the opportunity to make money off your idea while your idea grows......I can't believe I'm explaining this....don't they still teach this is school? The people who invest in your idea could be doing so in the form of stocks which are what in people's 401ks.....etc feel free to look up a full explanation hopefully you get the idea.....

and at it's root
Socialism is let's all share in your success.....which begs the question as to what's the motivation to succeed......and live the American Dream?...Show more

It's because all that socialism does is make sure that everyone is equal.

Sounds good?

It's not.

Think of it this way:

You have a guy who's worked his butt off to get through college, payed tons of money for it, and because he's worked so hard and gotten tons of promotions, is now making 200k a year.
Now, there's another guy who dropped out of school when he was sixteen because he just didn't feel like bothering with it. He sits on his porch drinking beer all day and has never had a job in his life.
With socialism, The hard working guy will get taxed to the point that he and this bum are making the same amount of money.
So, basically, hard working people get punished for being hard working, and people who could care less get rewarded for that.
I'm not saying it's always like that. There are good points to socialism, like people who just can't get a job because of uncontrollable reasons, but for the most part, it's like I listed above.
It takes all of the point out of ever trying hard. No one (with socialism) every feels the need to try hard to achieve something because they're going to get money to live on anyway....Show more

because socialism takes money from the rich and gives to the poor. It allows lazy people to be even lazier and puts all the burden for the country on the people who are already working the hardest. Capitalism is the way to go, its the only form that actually works. If you look at every other socialist country, it fails miserably. When theres no incentive to work hard, then everyone will be lazy. ...Show more

Socialism is terrible because the government controls everything you do, your job,finances, tells you what to think and you basically have no freedom. It goes against everything this country was founded on. Many people fought for our freedom and it would be a shame if obama leads this country to socalism....Show more