Another Silly Meme on Socialism

What an excellent example for Capitalists to use to try to prove some point against socialism: The infamous Monopoly game! Read this meme and then think about it for a minute. Digest the contents of this and try not to regurgitate. Now… 

Ever wonder how Monopoly got its name? Because the objective was to buy up all properties, brutally running everyone else out of business, which meant out of their livelihoods, too, so no competition was left… It was literally the game to establish monopoly, i.e. winner literally takes all, leaving everyone else with nothing. Now that’s Unbridled Capitalism in a nutshell! (Of course, it is just a game … and one I’ve always personally enjoyed!)

But there more to this meme that strikes me as humorous. For example: In the game as it is, every player gets exactly $200 when passing Go, no more, no less. That’s equality of income, my friends. And anyone who lands on Income Tax must pay 10% or $200. Anyone who lands on Luxury Tax must pay $75, whether they have luxuries or not! LOL Anyone landing on Go To Jail must go to jail, and anyone landing on Free Parking … well, they get free parking! Imagine that: parking that’s free, income equality, justice for everyone across the board, equitability in taxation, not to mention equal distribution of wealth at the onset of the game… Wow! Even the game of Monopoly has built-in socialistic elements! Who’d have thought???

Perpetuating Another Myth: Government Funding of Abortion

I am and always have been pro-life; however, I have always tried to be careful in the information I share on this oh-so controversial topic … and I’ve encouraged others to please do the same, but I kind of got in trouble the other day when I replied to a misinformation meme that said, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the government funded adoptions instead of abortions?” I simply pointed out to my fellow pro-lifer that the government does not fund abortions per the 1977 Hyde Amendment. Planned Parenthood receives approximately $500 million per year as of 2016, none of which may be used for abortion procedures. It’s very important to keep our fact straight! He was not very happy with me.

So God Told Nehemiah to Rebuild the Wall

Evidently, somewhere along the way in the debate over Trump’s proposed Wall along the Mexican border, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must have asked, “What would Jesus do?” I personally don’t remember her asking this, but many evangelicals started circulating a meme claiming that God told the Old Testament character, Nehemiah, to reconstruct the Wall around ancient Jerusalem; therefore, Jesus would presumably tell us to build our President’s “big, beautiful” Wall! The meme ends by saying to Pelosi something like, “So stop asking what Jesus would do and just read the Bible”

Huh? God told Nehemiah to rebuild the Wall around Jerusalem sometime in the fifth century B. C. (or BCE, if you prefer), so Jesus of Nazareth would instruct the 21st century United States to build a wall of protection along the Mexican border. Right? Yeah, right! This is so convoluted it’s not even funny, but folks shooting this meme around are actually quite serious, and will even add the fact that there is (supposedly) a wall around heaven, or the New Jerusalem, as it’s described in the apocalyptic Book of Revelation, perhaps the most symbolic and esoteric book in the Bible.

Of course, Nehemiah was also a eunuch, so maybe we should think about something similar for our POTUS??? 

Ah, but the lengths some will go to in order to prove a point… Ridiculous but often times funny, really! More later, and till then blessings to one and all!

 

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One Memetic Distortion of Socialism

Looking at memes can be fun, sometimes aggravating, but then at other times somewhat infuriating, as is the case with the below pic and statement. One does not have to be socialistic to conclude that these claims are either wrong or, at least, overly simplistic. It certainly is minimalistic, which is one glaring problem with memes anyway.

1) No socialist has ever claimed that “free” means completely free in the sense of wholly economically free.

2) Perhaps you are not entitled to someone else’s “hard earned money,” but you are entitled to just compensation for honest labor, which is what socialism (as well as other socio-economic perspectives) demands for all people.

3) No, you cannot tax any nation into prosperity, but you can guarantee a more just distribution of wealth, along with adequate healthcare for all, good education, adequate food, clothing, and shelter, etc.

4) As a matter of fact, sometimes (oftentimes) the rich ARE responsible for the poverty of many, many peoples, who have no other recourse to address the injustices foisted upon them by an oligarchy than the gov’t they elected to represent them.

5) It is absolutely FALSE to claim socialism always leads to Communism; point in fact, there are many democratic-socialist nations today that are not Communist, but this claim simply betrays some confusion between democratic-socialism as a socio-economic system as opposed to Communism as a form of governance.

In the end, democratic socialism may not be the greatest answer to what ills our nation, but I do wish some folks would take the time and make the effort to educate themselves before posting memes like the one above.