Originally Posted by mynameisjim

Of course a country can be a little socialist. But the term socialism has been abused so it's not even an appropriate term to use anyway.

The same way a country can be a little capitalist. Look at China.

But having people work for unemployment sounds good, but it's completely impossible to implement on a huge scale. First of all there is the cost, people bitch about the costs of unemployment benefits yet now they want to administer some huge work program placing people in jobs, managing them, dealing with human resource issues, etc. They can't just be slaves, so you will have to deal with all those issues a normal employer deals with. People say they don't want socialism but now they want the government to place you in a government job before you can get money...what the hell is that?

I would like to see some sort of volunteer system set up, but forcing people to work for a government check is more socialist and more "big government" than just giving them a free check outright. I don't get the logic.