Things you should Boycott in support of Capitalism

I've heard from a few sources recently that some of the changes to American politics lately, such as the Economic Rescue (Bailout) plan, are communist or socialist. Usually I hear this in a pretty negative light, and from what I remember when I was a kid, we as a culture have decided that communism and socialism are bad.

In light of this, I realized that we as a country desperately need to take action against communism. I propose, therefore, that we boycott the following communist institutions:

Libraries
Yes, as Stephen Colbert pointed out in his October 7 show, libraries are perhaps one of the most blatantly communist institutions in the country. They don't charge for their services, and they provide equally to everyone regardless of their income. Not only that, but as Sarah Palin has pointed out, many libraries refuse to even let certain elites dictate the content that they carry.

What's worse, libraries make things like knowledge and the internet available to everyone- even the poor, the homeless, and children!

I remember when I was a kid, I used libraries as an alternative to expensive activities that I couldn't afford during the summer, like movies, and as a cheap way to stay cool in government funded air conditioning. Not only that, but I was able to read and get ahead on schoolwork, which threatened to help me break out of my rigidly defined class line.

Social Security
This is perhaps the most insidious bit of communist infiltration in America. It's communism in its purest form: it takes money from everyone at a rate (usually) proportional to their income (well, the rich pay less, but other than that) and then pays out in a more or less equal fashion. Generally speaking, everyone who lives to a certain age gets to collect. But some people will get to collect without even having to live that long. Some orphans and widows get free money- I'm outraged. Not only that, but many disabled people get free money that everyone else pays for.
To the rescue: People like GW Bush and John McCain have made efforts to try and convert this into an individualized investment system like a compulsory Roth IRA. That way, those who are savvy about stock markets and securities can earn more with it, while those who are less knowledgable with investments can either lose it all with ill informed stock purchases, or earn nothing with "safe" treasury investments. Hopefully, the next administration can succeed in privatizing it to help eliminate this insidious threat to laissez faire economics.

The Military
The entire military, all five branches, officer and enlisted, active and reserve, stinks of pinko corruption. I don't even know where to begin.
Let's begin where I began: recruiting. Theoretically, the military is evenly drawn from all walks of life- and they serve from each according to their abilities. (This isn't entirely true, since the volunteer nature of the military means that rich families are statistically much less likely to send their children to serve, with the exception of those in high political power who stand to gain from the publicity.)
The basic pay structure of the military is fundamentally communist. First off, all military people are salaried, which means that nobody's income is directly affected by how much work he or she does. That's right, there is absolutely zero profit-motivation among military members. Well, in theory anyway.
This is guaranteed to be an oversimplification in the interest of brevity, by the way. But the military is perhaps the only place in America where you are paid based on your family status. How so? In many cases, a married person is literally paid twice as much as a single person. This is because while one portion of compensation is referred to as pay, which doesn't change based on family status, other elements of compensation are called "allowances" and are supposedly designed to cover a servicemember's costs. So the allowances for housing and sustenance are increased for married people, and in many cases are paid out only if you're married. "To each according to his need."
The other two factors that impact pay are promotion, which is composed primarily of time served, and special duty pay. Special duty pay might be the least commie thing about the military, and so I mention it in the defense of our government- to say it's not totally red. Usually, this rewards people for taking hard-to-fill jobs. But it should be noted that this usually only serves as a partial bridge to make up for how little these people actually make for their work.
Another example proving that the military is communist is COLA, the cost of living allowance. This is an adjustment to pay to try and equalize what members make in different locations, so that for instance a sailor in Hawaii will bring in more total cash than one in South Carolina, so that they end up with more equal spending power.
So yeah, to help fight communism, you should um, not join the military, and for the particularly hardcore capitalist, I suppose you could, err... not support our troops. Oops. (Me, I'm gonna stay pink and support the troops.)

Veterans Benefits
Vets benefits are really just a continuation of the communism of the military, but it deserves a separate mention. Veterans pay basically nothing, and in return get things like free homeless shelters, social work, mental and physical health care, subsidized college, discounted home loans, discounted life insurance, free burial, some free education, and in some cases, actual cash payouts to the disabled.
To the rescue is John McCain. Not many other veterans have the wisdom and courage that he has, to stand up against the communist infiltration that is the VA. A disabled veteran himself, McCain has consistently fought this insidious organization, earning a record 20% approval rating from the Disabled Americans Veterans organization, and earning a grade of D from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Together with John McCain, we can stand up against... um... the troops.
Again, if you want to help fight communism, you should... err.. not support the troops. Yeah, I'm going to opt out of this one as well.

Health Insurance
It turns out that technically, even private health insurance is somewhat communism. The entire insurance industry, really. See, what insurance does is it charges most people money in a somewhat equal fashion, and then pays it out as needed. So at its most basic, insurance is a private form of communism.
This is mitigated by all sorts of things, though. For one thing, the most companies protect themselves from ever having to pay out by excluding certain people, such as those who are outside of an age range or are already sick. They can also cut their costs by choosing which services to provide, and which to make you wait for. Strangely, this is one of the critiques that many people level against government programs, yet one of the key differences would be that government programs would be mandated to cover everyone, while private companies are free to discriminate and withhold.
Not all insurance companies are equal, though. Some are required to play by pretty nice rules, such as those that are used to provide coverage for government employees. This leads a lot of government employees to hold a very rosy picture of insurance, but it's actually more communist than a fully private system would be.
To fight communism, its simple: don't have health insurance. Simply set up a savings account, and pay out of pocket if you ever get sick. Hopefully, you started out richer than the average doctor, and hopefully, you don't live long enough to get something like cancer. If you do, though, it's ok. Once you run out of money, you'll die soon enough without care. You can turn to your neighborhood junky for pharmaceutical help when you're down to your last few hundred dollars of savings.

Car Insurance
This insidious invader is similar to health insurance, but perhaps not as bad. It's pretty simple: you pay a rate that is determined by factors you can't control, like your age and geographical location, along with factors that someone else thinks impact your risk of costing them money, such as your driving record and credit score. (Did you know that people with bad credit are more likely to have a severe car accident? Me neither, but it must be, because they pay more for insurance.) This money is pooled, which is used indiscriminately to pay for those irresponsible and stupid enough to make a mistake while driving.
If it was just a protection from risk, I'd probably call this one capitalist. But since the entire industry is sustained by states mandating coverage, this is a form of government mandated socialism.
Opting out is easy: Turn in your driver's license, sell your car, and cancel your policy. Alternately, you could just put something like $250,000 in a dedicated savings account and declare yourself self insured to your state. Either way, enjoy capitalism. Either you're rich, and already enjoyed it pretty well, or you're getting familiar with... walking. Because as we're about to see, you can't do anything else.

Public Transportation
Yes, that's right, public transportation- for the most part- is an evil communist plot. Why? Because, for the most part, it's taxpayer subsidized, and while you usually do have to pay something to use it, what you pay is rarely equal to the full cost or value.
True, a few public transportation systems in high density areas like major cities are self-sustaining. But even those rely on our next insidious communist establishment...

Roads
The government builds them. Taxpayers fund them. Yet with the exception of a few toll roads, anyone is allowed to use them free of charge. Even...

Police
How is this communist, you ask? Why, by definition. While cops in some municipalities are in fact self funded with traffic tickets, that only applies to their direct costs. The entire establishment, though, including prisons, courthouses, forensic examiners, public attorneys, and (in most towns) rape kits, is funded by taxpayers. Get this- real criminals get to use the system for free! Not only that, but in most jurisdictions, victims of crimes don't pay monetarily, either, though Governor Sarah Palin did make some progress on that in Wasilla, Alaska. (though she is guilty of building roads. Shame on her.)
I'm not really sure how the well meaning capitalist would even go about boycotting this one. I guess don't commit any crimes.. or report them, either, if you happen to be a victim. Maybe you could hire a private bodyguard. Shame on you if you get pulled over, though... pinko.

Medicare/Medicaid
Just like a cross between Health Insurance and Social Security. Even worse than the VA, because aside from getting old, poor, and/or sick, you didn't even do anything to deserve this freebie.
To boycott: just don't go to the doctor if you can't afford it. Simple.

Welfare
In some states, and for some people, this is kinda commie. For others, its just bad economic sense. For may New Yorkers, collecting welfare actually requires so much work (especially the Workfare programs) that it may actually be cheaper and easier to join the military, if you qualify. Or get a job, if you can find one. If not, consider moving to a country with a better labor market. Like China.

About to punch Firefox in the head...

ok, this is at the moment getting to me to a spectacular degree.

It has gotten to me to a spectacular, psychotic degree many times before.

It's honestly getting to the point where it annoys me so much I may actually consider more than casual use of Safari because of it.

It's so simple it's stupid. Here's the problem:

No matter what I do, my downloads won't download to my downloads folder.

No matter what I do, every download lands on the desktop.

This would be less of a big deal if it didn't include every PDF I read and half the audio/video files I click on. And I download quite a few neato little apps and erroneous unrecognized documents, and they all end up on my desktop.

My desktop is a sacred place. It contains very few allowed items. Properly, it contains shortcuts to mounted volumes, and underneath that a wallpaper which is different depending on which monitor of which computer. But random stupid files simply don't belong there.

I'd switch to PC, but then I'd really kill myself.

I win!

I beat her!

In 2007, I gave more to charity than Sarah Palin. I gave a whopping 3.5%, while she gave 2.0%- even less than "hypocrite" Barack Obama.

Hmm... I gave $1500 on an income of $41,000, vs $3300 on an income of $166,000. She actually did a lot better the year before, giving a bit more in absolute terms while making slightly less. So I wonder what happened in 2007 that motivated her to halve her charity? Trig wasn't born yet, so I don't think he figures into the equation- although on this year's return, she'll get an extra $3500 tax deduction for him.

I don't really feel that's a good measure of a candidate. But you have said that you do, so I just want to make sure you're aware of how your candidates stack up on your own criteria. Its actually really ironic- if you take the whole group of present and recent candidates, the winner for charitable giving (and taxpaying) is Dick Cheney by a wide margin. Yet I don't hear anyone extolling him as the paragon of political virtue.

The latest on politics is really pissing me off.

Why are the Republicans being allowed to so blatantly misrepresent and outright lie?

This is just a summary, and I'll follow it up.

Sarah Palin does not have a history of lowering taxes, opposing pork barrel spending, or being a fiscal conservative.

John McCain is not a maverick. He rarely deviates from his party, and on the rare occasions he does, it' not usually in favor of most Americans.

Raising taxes on businesses won't cause people to get laid off. (If a business were to lay off employees in an effort to raise their profits, they would end up disproportionately raising their tax burden, and lost productivity would probably cost them even more in the end; only an idiot would try such a stunt.)

Ok, those are my major points of contention for the moment.

Oh yeah, one more thing:

The capital of the US is Washington. I've never heard of "Warshington" except from John McCain.

Power generated from mass defect is nuclear. "Nucular" is an inside joke in the Nuke community to make fun of people who don't understand new-clear power.