Posted on 04/18/2009 2:00:04 PM PDT by george76
Apparently in our current political climate "socialism" has become a word that does not convey the horror it actually represents. It has become common and thus meaningless beyond the virtuous idea of "sharing" and "taking care of the poor".
People, especially among the ignorant -- particularly the college educated -- seem proud to call themselves "Socialists" today. And the supremely ignorant -- our politicians -- go a step further, and celebrate the word "Progressive" as though it had a glorious and honorable history.
I refuse to allow "Socialism" and "Progressivism" to be understood as benign, helpful, caring, sharing- as another way of saying "The Brotherhood of Man".
Socialism and Progressivism are cannibalism.
When I work, I use up hours of my life... my limited, mortal, human, physical life. The money I am paid represents the life I expended to earn it. My pay-my wealth-is my labor. It is the expenditure of some of my body's short, precious life on earth.
So when someone takes my money, they steal my hours of labor. They consume not only the fruits of my labor, but my labor itself, that labor which is the very expenditure of my life.
When someone loots and consumes the money I have earned, they consume the part of my life devoted to producing what they have taken.
What is that but cannibalism? A selfishness so profound, so inhuman, so greedy, so barbaric that it encourages and celebrates-and seeks to legally require- the consuming of the life's blood of one human by another.
That is the vicious reality of Socialism.
Don't let the bastards call it anything else.
Socialism is analogous to rape... taking by force
The Left and their ideology are "progressive", only in the same sense that Cancer is Progressive. With the same end result.
bookmark
And if we don't resist the raping of our country,
then Socialism will become Communism, which is Socialism
with a gun to your head.
It’s soooo...much easier just to call them all communists, which has that desirable negative connotation that you’re looking for. And you’ll know right away if you’re talking to one!
A worthy concept,and just politcally incorrect enough to add to my repertoire...I plan to celebrate your thinking ability many times in the future!
Ayn Rand called socialists “moral cannibals”.
Socialism is also slavery.
Socialism is also destructivism (von Mises)
Socialism is also absurdism.
Those who call themselves "progressives" need to be reminded of the political repression by Woodrow Wilson and his ilk... The tens of thousands of political opponents who were locked up...
Mark
Well said!
It’s nice to see everyone on the same page wrt socialism.
See tagline.
You make it sound as though this is something that: 1. They are unaware of, and 2. They would be shamed by the knowledge.
I'm pretty sure that they: 1. Know all about it, and 2. It's exactly what they have in mind.
I'm also pretty sure that they would like to start by rounding up the 250,000 "right-wing extremist, redneck racists", who attended the Tea Parties on April 15th.
Don't kid yourself about "Progressives" being "well-meaning, but misguided", as many Conservatives believe. They, and their goals, are pure evil. No exaggeration.
This is a nice take on the taxation side of socialism.On the regulation side, my limn is that price and (same thing) wage controls are censorship.
Consider someone who is selling a house. The seller and the buyer are the two people in all the world who care the most about the value of that particular house. And yet at the start of the process, neither seller himself nor the buyer herself knows the value of that house. The seller does not even know the identity of the buyer, and the buyer does not even know which house she will ultimately purchase. The actual sale/purchase is the product of a negotiation, in which other people who wish to buy, and other people who wish to sell, houses similarly situated and of similar quality (if indeed such exist for a particular house) figure prominently.
If ever a socialist could understand the folly of price controls, house sales should disabuse them of any notion that central planners are capable of defining the value of an individual house. And although the stakes are generally lower in other transactions and the irreducible uniqueness of the product being sold/bought is generally less, similar considerations apply to the sale of all used products and actually apply to new products as well. A brand-new car has more or less interior room, legroom, power, fuel economy, and so forth - only commodities have little distinguishing characteristics, and even with commodities the terms of delivery may vary.
To control the prices of goods and services is to control behavior, and thus events, without understanding the consequences - without even a glimmer of understanding of the scope of the consequences, being set in motion. Socialism censors the information about quality for the user's purpose of which the censor may be perfectly ignorant. The result of a price set arbitrarily high or arbitrarily low must be a useless glut or an unnecessary shortage, requiring the central planner to revise his plans - and then react to the consequences of the revisions. This is no different from a capitalist doing the same thing, except that the capitalist reacts faster and more flexibly to price signals than the price regulator reacts to gluts or shortages. The capitalist may reduce quality/cost or may increase production rate (possibly in a way that reduces unit cost) in response to a shortage.
The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a many who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
Adam Smith on monopoly:A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register, facilitates such assemblies...Socialism is nothing other than the systematic destruction of competition by sellers in society.A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves in order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows, and orphans, by giving them a common interest to manage, renders such assemblies necessary.
An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole. The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter X
To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it. The Wealth of Nations, Book I Chapter XI
And, be it noted, in 1945 the Associated Press was found by SCOTUS to be a monopoly. Any wire service naturally has the dolorous effects on competition which Smith described.
It is no accident, comrades (I use that word as a trophy of victory in the Cold War), that monopolistic journalism favors monopolistic government.
Monopoly...is a great enemy to good management. The Wealth of Nations,Book I Chapter XI Part IThe monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked, by never fully supplying the effectual demand, sell their commo-dities much above the natural price.The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter VII
BTTT
Thanks for the ping, post(s). Great thread BUMP!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.