Actually, guaranteed minimum income plans aren't a terrible idea compared to what we have now. The cost of means-tested benefits right now averages about $60000 per recipient per year in the US.

Unless they have something to hide. And they think they can get away with it.

Maybe it's just insightful.

I generally agree Jeb is unlikely to win because people don't want him, but I'm more worried than you are. If your sort of analysis could be counted on, then we could already call a Hillary loss in the general election because people don't like Hillary. She has very little to offer and probably won't be able to do anything to surprise anyone or to motivate a strong turnout.

I'd guess the most likely outcome is President Scott Walker and Vice President Marco Rubio.

Unless Democrats cross over and vote Bush in the primaries to help Hillary out. That's how we got McCain.

She'll tell then she's fighting for them. They always say "I'm fighting for you!"

No one ever points out who they're fighting against: your fellow Americans.
And no one ever points out what they're fighting over: the desire to spend money other people earned.

About 30-40% of people have to vote for Hillary because they're partisan Democrats and Hillary's opponents for the Democrat nomination are very weak. There's almost zero chance they'd vote for the Republican instead of Hillary.

For black folks, 90+% will vote Democrat. They'll never vote a different way, so their support can be completely written off by one side and completely taken for granted by the other.

On the Republican side, there are a whole bunch of candidates and many of them are highly qualified, with years of successful governance of their states or years of less successful representation in congress. But some late night comedians and Hollywood douchebags said Republicans aren't cool. About 30-40% of people will vote for them anyway.

That leaves the decision up to the undecided voters. The press will tell them that Hillary should be given a pass no matter what she did, but that the Republican alternative should be held responsible for everything bad anyone ever did throughout the history of the world. We'll see what happens.

They're only extortionists if they threaten violence to extort money. If they don't, they aren't. I'm not sure what's unclear about that.

I wasn't the one who came up with the argument that paycheck earners should pay up to avoid violence. If you think that argument portrays poor people unfairly, then you should direct your complaints to the guys who made the argument.

I think it's a poor argument because I'd rather fight than pay people who would threaten me. And even if I chose not to fight every time, I'd still always view those threatening me as enemies and I'd look for opportunities to strike against them. It's not a great way to organize a society.

That's a really long stream of nonsense.

I'll still opt to fight rather than pay if people want to threaten me. So it's not really a persuasive argument.

Threatening people isn't a good way to get their help. It's a good way to confirm for people that you're an enemy and you have evil intentions.

It's not a gut reaction. Look how long it took for anyone in this thread to come up with any benefit from Socialism for the paycheck earner. People see their money being taken from them and they don't see their society getting better and they think they'd probably be able to spend their own money better than politicians do.

People look at Detroit and Baltimore and see the results of long term one party rule by politicians who offer lots of social programs, and they think maybe they don't want conditions in their town to be more like conditions in Detroit or Baltimore. People hear the defense that the leaders in Baltimore can't be blamed because they only had 60 years to improve things and they think they'd like their government to be more accountable than that. People ask socialists how they would improve Detroit and Baltimore and they don't hear any satisfactory answers, and they conclude that if nothing useful can be done, they'd prefer not to pay as much for futile programs.

Then they get slurred as racists or whatever when they know they're not and it seals the deal -- they mostly stop listening.

"Might someday be real if a lot of very fortunate things happen" is another way of saying "not real".

Not really. Insurance was created to pay for unlikely expenses such as your house burning down. Socialism pays for guaranteed expenses such as food and shelter. They're not that much alike.

It's just the exercise of power by the people in power. Humanity and empathy don't matter to them. The only fairness and justice they care about relates to events from 50-200 years ago, because their power stems from organizing against those old grievances. Fairness and justice here and now would limit their power, so they're eager to advocate unfair and unjust policies. That's who you're dealing with.

My limited success is largely my own. But that's not really the point.

The point is that we can't really have a society where we make decisions based on arguments like "give me what I want because ... fuck you". You can talk to people and get them to agree when you actually want something beneficial to all instead something that benefits person A at the expense of, and with zero regard or concern for, person B. That's what we've been missing for a long time. Where did it go?

When can we go back to "mutual benefit" instead of "us versus them"?

You obviously have nothing to offer the conversation, so fuck off.

To everyone else, the question was: Why should a guy earning a paycheck agree to Socialism?

It was actually answered below by someone not being a complete douchebag like this guy. If you earn a paycheck or if you want a better society that benefits all, see the post below where I thank the guy for finally coming up with a genuine answer to the question.