Will the U.S. ever become a social-democratic country?

[Kitteh]

lol teenage internet libertarians

[Kitteh]

Social Democracy isn't socialism. At least not of the type you're describing. Norway, Sweden and Denmark are social democratic countries, but you can't call them socialist in the manner you're describing. They're capitalist; in fact, I've read an article that state that Norway was better for start-up businesses than the US. And the way that the Scandinavian countries operate isn't incompatible with American life.

No its not, but its pretty darn close. The only reason I even mentioned socialism was because the author mentioned socialism as well as social democracies. I never intended to call them "socialistic". I kind of lumped the two together and that was unfair of me. And I said that socialism and social democracies go against founding principles, not our way of life.

Those countries you mentioned are livable, but they are, like all social democracies, high debt, many social programs (welfare state), high debt, and big government. Those are all things our founders tried to avoid happening, and it was certainly not what our country was based upon. Anyway, I obviously have a strong opinion against socialism/social democracies, but its because I think its one of the most dangerous things that could happen. In fact, we may be going down that road as we speak.

That is a flat out lie

It is and it isn't. It was designed to block any form of dictatorship, which could entail a monarchy, or a socialist, fascist, or corporatist dictatorship. It was also designed to allow for the United States to try certain things out (see Prohibition) over time.

Social Democracy

Social Democracy isn't socialism. At least not of the type you're describing. Norway, Sweden and Denmark are social democratic countries, but you can't call them socialist in the manner you're describing. They're capitalist; in fact, I've read an article that state that Norway was better for start-up businesses than the US. And the way that the Scandinavian countries operate isn't incompatible with American life.

No its not, but its pretty darn close. The only reason I even mentioned socialism was because the author mentioned socialism as well as social democracies. I never intended to call them "socialistic". I kind of lumped the two together and that was unfair of me. And I said that socialism and social democracies go against founding principles, not our way of life.

Those countries you mentioned are livable, but they are, like all social democracies, high debt, many social programs (welfare state), high taxes, and big government. Those are all things our founders tried to avoid happening, and it was certainly not what our country was based upon. Anyway, I obviously have a strong opinion against socialism/social democracies, but its because I think its one of the most dangerous things that could happen. In fact, we may be going down that road as we speak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

[Kitteh]

That is absolutely true, however, if we governed like we were supposed to, we wouldn't be in so much debt. With social democracies, you're going to naturally have high debt to the welfare state, programs, and such. It is absolutely America's (and specifically politicians over the years) problem that we have a huge debt problem that isn't going away (that's another conversation).

I generally hate getting into arguments about debt because a)I have mixed feelings about the existence of the state in general and b)I'm not convinced that if we must have a state at all that state debt is an issue in itself, but this is really ridiculous. High state spending doesn't create debt. State spending that is higher than state revenue creates debt. You can argue that high spending necessitates either high taxes or high debt and that's bad, which is a legitimate (though not correct imo, but logical) argument, but saying that high spending necessarily leads to high debt is a non-sequitur.