"Socialists try to convince you to surrender your freedom, whereas Communists forcefully seize your freedom".
Posted on 04/09/2016 2:50:23 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Thanks to Bernie and Hillary, Socialism is on everyone’s mind. These politicians, like so many in our media and universities, claim it’s a glorious idea.
Usually thought of as an economic philosophy, Socialism is more sweeping than that. It dictates how all of society must be organized. It claims to be fairer; it claims to deliver happiness. Socialism is a philosophy of life that, I’ll argue, steals the life right out of you.
The central vision, indeed the central requirement, is that everyone be equal and cooperative. Competition is evil. Striving for success is scorned. In order to obtain the promised benefits, you agree to be a cog in the machine.
What do you give up in this transaction? A lot.
In Socialism, everything you have, and everything you are, is given to you by other people. That’s the critical point. If you keep quiet and behave, authorities will pat you on the head, take care of your basic needs, and say you are a successful human being. You don’t earn or build anything yourself.
But what about having personal goals and working toward them? Isn’t that where most people achieve their greatest satisfaction in life?
The Greeks praised the pursuit of excellence, embodied in the word arete. An athlete, a painting, or a business can have arete. Humans are alive in order to pursue arete, that’s the Greek idea.
There are many kinds of excellence. The Spartans had a harsh military code, Buddhists taught the Eight Fold Path, Jews and Christians preached Biblical virtues, Boy Scouts have their code, Fortune 500 executives have other values. Point is, all religions and philosophies give you a challenging map to follow. You have values and goals that you pursue. Succeed or fail, working toward a goal is often more fun than achieving it.
In Socialism, you give up every goal that used to be considered worthy and ennobling. That’s the swindle. Socialist leaders enjoy this trade because they get to dominate everyone else. You get to be a peasant. You are supposed to settle for being a member of the herd. In return, you forgo the ambitions that traditionally motivated people: money, advancement, prestige, helping your family, a new car, etc., etc.
After almost everyone has agreed to be a member of the herd, who is still striving and achieving in their lives? The bosses, the ruling elite, the people at the top, that’s who. They get the satisfaction of working toward a goal, toward arete. They are players. You get to be a number.
John Dewey, America’s most famous educator, preached Socialist ideals 100 years ago. He hated individualism (which is a major factor in America’s success story). He wanted children to be cooperative and interdependent, and he wanted to stamp out everything that got in the way of that, for example, academic achievement that set one child above another. There goes education as normally understood.
The public schools have been a workshop, a research lab, for Socialism since before World War I. Everything that Sanders and Clinton hope to do throughout the society, John Dewey did in the public schools. His schemes have been devastating for education. On the positive side, they allow us an inside look at this brave new ideology in action.
Let’s zoom in on the central activity or moment in Socialist classrooms. The big shift, as you move into Socialism, is that you are not supposed to strive for or earn anything. John Dewey and all the other Socialists will tell you that such behavior is immoral.
Consider the individual cog. There you are, a bona fide member of the herd. Your name is John 6281 and you are pretty much identical to John 6282, John 6283, and so on. So, are you a success? Or a patsy? Effectively, you are a peasant who does not want to be anything else.
You may be as close to a husk of a human being as is possible to be. Which part of you is alive, other than your physical body?
Academics like to argue (disingenuously) about the distinctions between German Fascism and Russian Communism. They are identical in that nearly 100% of the people are ciphers forced to conform to endless rules and regs.
Inevitably, the social engineers that Hillary and Sanders are fronting for never know when to stop. Some historians say that totalitarian regimes killed 100 million people during the 20th century. Socialists and Communists always want more power for themselves. Your job is to do what you are told. For all practical purposes, you are a slave.
As for Socialism versus Communism, the difference is that Socialists try to convince you to surrender your freedom, whereas Communists forcefully seize your freedom.
Before you let Socialist dictators dictate your life, consider what you’re giving up and what they’re taking away.
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Bruce Deitrick Price / Improve-Education.org
At the very least, it adds the cost an extra layer of bureaucracy to every transaction that can be handled by two private parties between themselves.
Socialism is suicide
Communism is murder
You are dead either way
As for Socialism versus Communism, the difference is that Socialists try to convince you to surrender your freedom, whereas Communists forcefully seize your freedom.
No. Socialists use government to erode your freedom slower than communism does, so as not to alarm you. The end point is the same.
“Socialism is suicide
Communism is murder
You are dead either way.”
I think they are both murderous.
One is just faster than the other.
I’d rather be dead than red.
Exactly. Socialism is an evil soul-sucking sick putrid festering wound of an ideology, dressed up in free crap for lazy, undiscerning, mob-ruled gimmedats at the expense of what remains of the middle class. For God’s sake, wake up, America.
"Socialists try to convince you to surrender your freedom, whereas Communists forcefully seize your freedom".
I know some young “useful idiot” new college graduates that think Bernie is great. They don’t realize that they are too delicate to actually survive the brutality of such a system.
Fascism is socialism via rules and regulations. All the rules and govt gets none of the blame.
Here’s my reason why:
Because it’s never worked anywhere
What more arguments does one need?
Yep.
Communism vs socialism. They’re akin to getting murdered or committing suicide at gun point. Respectively.
Hayak’s book “The Road to Serfdom” clearly and eloquently describes how socialism means an end to personal liberty. Those who point to countries like Sweden or Denmark as models of progressive socialism, fail to recognize how individual choices are compromised in exchange for government “freebies”. Free college means that your choice of college or even classes is dictated by the government. Free healthcare means a government bureaucracy will dictate your doctor and even whether or not you will be treated. Green energy may mean you won’t have your own car or be able to afford the gas to go anywhere.
Socialism is a narcotic, a pyramid scheme that promises a great return for very little investment.
The problem with socialism, and the reason it will never work is
because it doesn’t take into consideration human nature.
There is always people who want more than everyone else,
think they are smarter than everyone else and think that
everyone should do as they say and not as they do.
Rush Limbaugh’s story about Thanksgiving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esg-UgAED1o
They can’t even handle Trump 2016 written in chalk on the sidewalk!!
Although our modern socialists' promise of greater freedom is genuine and sincere, in recent years observer after observer has been impressed by the unforeseen consequences of socialism, the extraordinary similarity in many respects of the conditions under 'communism' and 'fascism'. As the writer Peter Drucker expressed it in 1939,'the complete collapse of the belief in the attainability of freedom and equality through Marxism has forced Russia to travel the same road toward a totalitarian society of unfreedom and inequality which Germany has been following. Not that communism and fascism are essentially the same. Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany.’No less significant is the intellectual outlook of the rank and file in the communist and fascist movements in Germany before 1933. The relative ease with which a young communist could be converted into a Nazi or vice versa was well known, best of all to the propagandists of the two parties. The communists and Nazis clashed more frequently with each other than with other parties simply because they competed for the same type of mind and reserved for each other the hatred of the heretic. Their practice showed how closely they are related. To both, the real enemy, the man with whom they had nothing in common, was the liberal of the old type. While to the Nazi the communist and to the communist the Nazi, and to both the socialist, are potential recruits made of the right timber, they both know that there can be no compromise between them and those who really believe in individual freedom. - F A Hayek,The Road to Serfdom (Reader's Digest Condensed Version, April 1945)
Ever notice that the solution to every problem the liberals
say we have is always higher cost, higher taxes and less
freedom? Always. The only time any freedom is granted it’s
always to some minority group or another. Affirmative action,
homo marriage, sanctuary cities, etc....
Don’t forget, the New World Order will be a socialist world
order and before it can happen, America has to fall. We are
the only thing standing in it’s way. That’s what the past
four presidents were all about, making us more palatable to the
one world government.
All of these believers desperately need to spend a week in the socialist paradise of Venezuela.
By following the spontaneously generated moral traditions underlying the competitive market order (traditions that do not satisfy the canons or norms of rationality embraced by most socialists), we generate and garner greater knowledge and wealth than could ever be obtained or utilized in a centrally-directed economy.
She sounds like a smart lady.
I’m vehemently opposed to anything that runs against God’s Word and freedom.
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