Socialism: Not Labels, But Principles

[konradv]

Of course Marx's own argument is self defeating since he acknowledged that "there's always corruption at the top" and then proceeded to offer a prescription that requires ever increasing power at "the top", so just like so many other ideas communism is nice in theory but unworkable without completely re-engineering human nature.

IMO, the same goes for libertarianism. Without a state to enforce basic rules of conduct regarding labor, safety, the environment, etc, there will always be those amongst the strong only too happy to prey on the weak.

Ummm... yeah... apparently you have not realized that the state itself is the very institution that the strong use to "prey" on the weak, it's been that way since the first state was instituted and continues to this day. Perhaps you're operating under the illusion that you have some control over the state? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but you (and I) are nothing more than free range tax sheep to be sheared by the tax farmers that run the machinery of the state. Lastly you apparently aren't aware the libertarianism isn't synonymous with anarchism.

If libertarianism isn't anarchy, then it comprises a state and is just as susceptible to corruption as any other form of government, since it's run by humans. Apparently you're not aware that you're not as smart as you think you are, snarky comments notwithstanding. If you're really interested, perhaps you could supplement your education by perusing the following website.

Critiques Of Libertarianism

 

[PoliticalChic]

Of course Marx's own argument is self defeating since he acknowledged that "there's always corruption at the top" and then proceeded to offer a prescription that requires ever increasing power at "the top", so just like so many other ideas communism is nice in theory but unworkable without completely re-engineering human nature.

IMO, the same goes for libertarianism. Without a state to enforce basic rules of conduct regarding labor, safety, the environment, etc, there will always be those amongst the strong only too happy to prey on the weak.

We have a winner in the category of "Unintentional Humor"!!!!

This:
"Without a state to enforce basic rules of conduct....Without a state to enforce basic rules of conduct regarding labor, safety, the environment, etc, there will always be those amongst the strong only too happy to prey on the weak."


1. This...from a supporter of one of the shameful six, communism, Progressivism, socialism, Liberalism, Nazism, or Fascism....

a. Leftism, Inc......murder as their 'rule of conduct'
Stalin....42,672,000

Mao.....37,828,000

Hitler....20,946,000

Lenin....4,017,000

Pol Pot...2,397,000

Tojo.....3,990,000

Total......111,850,000

#14 Liberal Demagoguery, Hate and Violence – A Compendium



2. In Thoreau’s On the duty of Civil Disobedience, he states: “ There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all of its own power and authority are derived.”

Keep up the good work, konny!

 

[PoliticalChic]

Of course Marx's own argument is self defeating since he acknowledged that "there's always corruption at the top" and then proceeded to offer a prescription that requires ever increasing power at "the top", so just like so many other ideas communism is nice in theory but unworkable without completely re-engineering human nature.

IMO, the same goes for libertarianism. Without a state to enforce basic rules of conduct regarding labor, safety, the environment, etc, there will always be those amongst the strong only too happy to prey on the weak.

Ummm... yeah... apparently you have not realized that the state itself is the very institution that the strong use to "prey" on the weak, it's been that way since the first state was instituted and continues to this day. Perhaps you're operating under the illusion that you have some control over the state? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but you (and I) are nothing more than free range tax sheep to be sheared by the tax farmers that run the machinery of the state. Lastly you apparently aren't aware the libertarianism isn't synonymous with anarchism.

If libertarianism isn't anarchy, then it comprises a state and is just as susceptible to corruption as any other form of government, since it's run by humans. Apparently you're not aware that you're not as smart as you think you are, snarky comments notwithstanding. If you're really interested, perhaps you could supplement your education by perusing the following website.

Critiques Of Libertarianism

Speaking of "not as smart as you think you are,"....I love when posts become boomerangs!

 

[BlindBoo]

but it sums up the future of our once great nation.

Regardless of how much damage President Bush did to our country, the USA is still the greatest nation on earth despite what you negative ninnies have to say.

"Regardless of how much damage President Bush did to our country..."

I would certainly like to see your recitation of said 'damage'....
...certainly you can't be referring to the mortgage meltdown, whose origin and amplification must be laid at the feet of Democrat/Liberal policies and obstruction to any amelioration thereof.


It is beyond amusing that you blame Bush....while supporting the unmitigated failure....in both domestic and foreign policy of Barack Hussein Obama.


As Bill's wife promises to continue Obama's abysmal policies, here election would signal the end.


You know that....yet, simply shrug.


"Principle is nothing to liberals. Winning is everything."
Coulter

Of his many failings as President the greatest blunder of them all was his decision to invade and occupy Iraq. Eventually to be forced to sign the SOFA that led to our withdrawal from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Pearls of wisdom from Ann. </sarcasm>

 

[konradv]

Speaking of "not as smart as you think you are,"....I love when posts become boomerangs!

IMO, you're running into the same fire as the previous poster. That's about as smart as a WW I commander ordering a charge into entrenched machine guns. Per usual, your posts devolve into a very unrealistic either/or situation in which one is either a glorious freedom fighter or a bloodthirsty authoritarian maniac, i.e. the False Choice fallacy. Come on, you can do better than that.

 

[PoliticalChic]

7. Comprehension, and the ability to use one's understanding of human nature, seems to have been beaten out of the last few generations, by the subsidiary of Liberalism, Inc., the school system.



"Socialists like Bernie Sanders rarely call for full-blown government ownership of the means of production. They call for policies that amount to government management of the means of production. Such policies calling for extensive federal intervention into local affairs stand in direct violation of the limits placed on federal power by the U.S. Constitution.

When a nation isn’t grounded in the rule of law, it’s not hard for the fickle will of the majority to be subverted by the willpower of a dictatorial autocrat!



Inspired by the writings of Communist philosophers like Antonio Gramsci and Herbert Marcuse, these student radicals of the New Left movement believed economic revolution had to be preceded by cultural revolution.

While this radical movement definitely favored socialist economic reforms, its supporters focused more on matters of sex, gender and race than on who owns the means of production.

... many Gramsci-inspired student radicals flooded into two professions in particular: community organizing and academia.




As professors, they taught that the classic American narrative about individual liberty and constitutional checks and balances was a mask for the power of wealthy, white, European males. They touted alternative histories such as Howard Zinn’s Marxist-inspired textbook People’s History of the United States.

As recently as 2006, a nationally representative survey of American professors revealed that roughly 18 percent of social scientists in American universities self-identified as Marxists!


Tragically, the first generation in American history that could afford mass higher education was taught that traditional American principles like personal responsibility, individual liberty, free markets and limited government were racist and elitist. " Falling in Love With Socialism





"American" is identified by the “American Trinity” of “Liberty,” “In God We Trust,” and “E Pluribus Unum.” Liberty refers to personal freedom, based on small government , a free economy, and a God-based society,” “In God We Trust,” proceeds from the moral values axiomatic with the Founders. “E Pluribus Unum.” refers to a society based on neither ethnicity nor race. Dennis Prager

The Left-wing ‘trinity’= race, gender, class

 

[PoliticalChic]

Speaking of "not as smart as you think you are,"....I love when posts become boomerangs!

IMO, you're running into the same fire as the previous poster. That's about as smart as a WW I commander ordering a charge into entrenched machine guns. Per usual, your posts devolve into a very unrealistic either/or situation in which one is either a glorious freedom fighter or a bloodthirsty authoritarian maniac, i.e. the False Choice fallacy. Come on, you can do better than that.

Now, konny, I certainly don't want to dissuade you from posting.....the comedy is far too entertaining...
...but, in the service of making you a better poster, consider this.

When you write
..."your posts devolve into a very unrealistic either/or situation in which one is either a glorious freedom fighter or a bloodthirsty authoritarian maniac, i.e. the False Choice fallacy."


You should continue with examples...
"...such as .....blah blah blah...."

Of course, you and I know I will eviscerate same...but, still, you should try.

Otherwise, your posts remain consubstantial with the cause of the Hindenburg explosion, hot air.


au revoir

 

[konradv]

You should continue with examples...
"...such as .....blah blah blah...."

In other words I should copy the format of your typical post, throw in so many "facts" that the original point fades into obscurity?

 

[PoliticalChic]

You should continue with examples...
"...such as .....blah blah blah...."

In other words I should copy the format of your typical post, throw in so many "facts" that the original point fades into obscurity?

1. You could certainly do worse than "copy the format of your typical post, throw in so many "facts" ....

2. I certainly have a Manichean bent to my posting....it makes no sense to me to post wishy-washy posts.
I agree with Reagan's 'Bold Colors' Not 'Pale Pastels'

3. Nor that not agreeing obviate the efficacy of giving examples, as you are loathe to do.

 

[PoliticalChic]

8. So....the decline of this one great nation is presaged by a generation that embraces socialism....but doesn't understand what it means, or the political and economic costs of the doctrine.

How can this be?????

Answer: academia.


Universities have become to Liberalism what a Christian seminary is to Christianity. The difference is that Christian seminaries acknowledge their purpose, to produce committed Christians.

Leftism is so pervasive, that if applied to any other way of looking at life, it would be widely recognized as a form of brainwashing!

Image a person who attended only fundamental Christian schools from preschool through graduate school, who never saw a secular, let alone anti-Christian, film, and who only read religious books. Most would say that they had been ‘brainwashed.” Yet, we regularly find individuals who only attended secular liberal schools from preschool through college, watched or listened to only Left-of-center television, movies, music, and had essentially no exposure to religious or conservative ideas. Brainwashed?

Of course not! Liberals are open-minded!!! The irony here is that the denial itself shows how very effective the brainwashing has been.

Now, Christians or Jews who have rarely been exposed to secular ideas and values would readily acknowledge same. It is only those on the Left who fool themselves into believing that they have been exposed to all points of view.
Dennis Prager


a. “The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible.” The University's Part in Political Life” (13 March 1909) in PWW (The Papers of Woodrow Wilson) 19:99.



b.

 

[NightFox]

If libertarianism isn't anarchy,

There is no "if", it's a fact, libertarianism isn't anarchy, because some libertarians self-identify as anarchists doesn't change that fact.

then it comprises a state and is just as susceptible to corruption as any other form of government, since it's run by humans.

Who said it wasn't? perhaps you should work on those reading with comprehension skills.

Apparently you're not aware that you're not as smart as you think you are,

Apparently I am as smart as I think I am since you didn't come up with a single thing even remotely resembling a coherent rebuttal to what I posted.

If you're really interested, perhaps you could supplement your education by perusing the following website.

I'm far more educated on the subject than you apparently are, perhaps you should stop relying on silly blogs to get your information and do some actual research, maybe then you'd understand the difference between libertarianism and anarchism.

 

[gipper]

You should continue with examples...
"...such as .....blah blah blah...."

In other words I should copy the format of your typical post, throw in so many "facts" that the original point fades into obscurity?

1. You could certainly do worse than "copy the format of your typical post, throw in so many "facts" ....

2. I certainly have a Manichean bent to my posting....it makes no sense to me to post wishy-washy posts.
I agree with Reagan's 'Bold Colors' Not 'Pale Pastels'

3. Nor that not agreeing obviate the efficacy of giving examples, as you are loathe to do.

Great quote to follow....


by Ludwig von Mises:

“A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.”

How can this be disputed? Is it not evidently true to anyone knowledgeable of the history of socialism?

 

[regent]

You should continue with examples...
"...such as .....blah blah blah...."

In other words I should copy the format of your typical post, throw in so many "facts" that the original point fades into obscurity?

1. You could certainly do worse than "copy the format of your typical post, throw in so many "facts" ....

2. I certainly have a Manichean bent to my posting....it makes no sense to me to post wishy-washy posts.
I agree with Reagan's 'Bold Colors' Not 'Pale Pastels'

3. Nor that not agreeing obviate the efficacy of giving examples, as you are loathe to do.

Great quote to follow....


by Ludwig von Mises:

“A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.”

How can this be disputed? Is it not evidently true to anyone knowledgeable of the history of socialism?

So is the old saw: socialism leads to communism now dead?

 

[PoliticalChic]

You should continue with examples...
"...such as .....blah blah blah...."

In other words I should copy the format of your typical post, throw in so many "facts" that the original point fades into obscurity?

1. You could certainly do worse than "copy the format of your typical post, throw in so many "facts" ....

2. I certainly have a Manichean bent to my posting....it makes no sense to me to post wishy-washy posts.
I agree with Reagan's 'Bold Colors' Not 'Pale Pastels'

3. Nor that not agreeing obviate the efficacy of giving examples, as you are loathe to do.

Great quote to follow....


by Ludwig von Mises:

“A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.”

How can this be disputed? Is it not evidently true to anyone knowledgeable of the history of socialism?

So is the old saw: socialism leads to communism now dead?

C'mon now.....clearly, is your ability to incorporate knowledge into a worldview that is dead.