Quote Originally Posted by Rusty Trichome
In my book the chicken or the egg corollary is flawed. It should read the chicken or the wolf...

The interstate highway system was built for US military infrastructure, supposedly. It wasn't a "general welfare" project that was built because we have a right to drive to grandma's house.
Funny you should mention the military being socialist. Having served a hitch in the US Air Force back when Carter was promoting Billy Beer and blanking on the hostage crisis, the enlisted I hung with know what is expected of them, why it's expected, and what the consequences are if you fail in your personal responsibilities. Especially if it affects the military, the civilians, or the constitution.
Tell me, what form of socialism sounds nice? Those that do the opressing will not give a rat's ass about your personal freedoms, and ultimately you will either comply with the state's demand of doing what you are told, (or what you are told not to do) or pay the consequences. And being as you personally will not likely be on the top rung of that elite ladder, you will do as you are told.

In a capitalist society, the consumer picks the winners and the losers. In a socialist society Obama picks just the losers. (Solyndra, for instance) Doesn't sound very inviting.
As it stands now, the unemployed are striking for more benefits than they deserve, the employed are demanding the richer folks pay more than their fair share even though the lowered capitol of the company might cost ther husband his job, and (former?) students want school loans written-off, and the unions want the "Jobs Bill" money to fix state union shortfalls after the gross mismanagement of said unions. Did I miss any of the partiers complaints...? In the Marxist/Facist/Socialist/Communist world, their physical survival could be in question.

So the Stalin brutality, the Hitler hate and control, the Mussolini facism sound like the road to American salvation? Seriously? You go down that road, you get those results to varying degrees. Those forms of government are nothing more than a house of cards waiting for the next madman or military coup.
Capitalism can only work if its a free market capitalism. Something that has never existed and probably never will.
Capitalism is not a form of government or a way in for someone to run there life. Its only about money. No morality, no ethics no right or wrong, just money.
If capitalism was unregulated, which is pretty close to what we have now, the wealth slowly gets transferred to fewer and fewer people. Eventually you end up with one giant WalMart store running everything. That is not good for a free society. More important than free market capitalism is to live in a free society. Capitalism slowly erodes free societies. Its just the nature of what capitalism is.
Capitalism is just getting the raw materials for whatever product you're going to make as cheaply as possible.
Manufacture in a country that has the least amount of regulation and taxes
Pay as little as possible for labor costs and automate as much as possible to have even fewer labor costs
And to sell that product for as much as possible.
SO what you end up eventually with unregulated capitalism is big polluters, tax cheats, corruption of government agencies and eventually no workers.
So that begs the question. Once capitalism follows its natural laws where will people be able to find employment to live?