Take the most fundamental question dividing left-liberals from socialists: Should the means of production be socialized?
It sounds like the 90's all over again, and I mean the 1890's. And never mind the fact that "socialized" means "confiscated by the state". The author is welcome to examine how well that's working out for Venezuela.
No, it does indeed appear that this one needs a significant corrective dosage of conservative sanity, and he won't be getting that from anyone he currently associates with. I do sense a certain desperation, however, both in the New York Magazine piece and in today's offering from Leonard Pitts - apparently the latest proggie party line is that they're giving up dialogue and now they're going to crush us. Bring your lunch, bub.
“apparently the latest proggie party line is that they’re giving up dialogue and now they’re going to crush us. Bring your lunch, bub.”
Yes, Venezuela where they would gladly change the proggie party line for a pierogi party line as the best thing that has come from Mother Russia. Lunch indeed!
It sounds like the 90's all over again, and I mean the 1890's. And never mind the fact that "socialized" means "confiscated by the state".Take the most fundamental question dividing left-liberals from socialists: Should the means of production be socialized?
Speaking of the 1890 era, in 1910 Theodore Roosevelt gave his famous “Man in the Arena” speech in France.It is the best secular attack on cynicism of which I am aware - and IMHO cynicism about society is precisely what “socialism" is about. Cynicism about society corresponds to faith in government “solutions” to all the supposed “problems” of society. Forget “government ownership of the means of production,” socialism is cynicism towards society and naiveté towards government.
- From Theodore Roosevelt's 1910 speech at the Sarbonne:
- There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The rôle is easy; there is none easier, save only the rôle of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.