Posted on 10/31/2018 4:26:20 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
Socialism is traditionally defined as the government owning the means of production, and it just as traditionally leads to authoritarianism. Maybe it’s cool to think of oneself as a socialist now that we are decades away from Stalin’s Great Terror and Mao’s Great Leap Forward. With a body count in the millions, you’d think “socialism” would be hard to rebrand. But thanks to Bernie, being a socialist is in vogue.
One of the ironies of the Trump presidency is that his political opponents, while decrying his impetuousness and authoritarian tendencies, happen to favor modifying our political and economic system into one that invests more power in Washington and its leaders—who could very well turn out to be impetuous and have authoritarian tendencies. Decentralized government power, in the parlance of today’s politics, is a norm that shouldn’t be broken.
The Sandernistas say that “democratic socialism” is a more benign variant, akin to what is practiced in Scandinavia. Yes, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are clean, prosperous, and beautiful countries with robust social safety nets. They are also small and not particularly socialist. Their tax rates may be high, but they have thriving private sectors and no minimum wage laws. Their economies rank as “mostly free,” the same category as the United States, in the Heritage Foundation’s annual index of economic freedom. As the Danish prime minister noted in a speech at Harvard in 2015: “Some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Socialism is popular because the idea of something for nothing is an easy sell to many.
How many millions are killed, while the people are trying to figure out what it is?
That was the end of that "acquaintance."
Its the ‘rich’ are forced to pay for my housing, food, health care, college, funeral, everything, and only the wealthy pay.
Sweden,
Denmark,
Netherlands.
Immigration laws are tough ,
I’d bet.
Socialism is popular because the idea of something for nothing is an easy sell to many.
The ‘Progressives’ are having a fit over Trump’s ‘Nationalism’ term but LOVE ‘Socialism’. Still they can’t tell you the difference between Socialism and Fascism. Go Figure.
“...‘Socialism’ Is Popular Only Because People Don’t Know what It is...”
And, while government and civics classes where halted in public schools around 1972, Karl Marx became required reading throughout college curricula! Bravo NEA and komrade teachers alongwith your “socialust” unions.
“People don’t know what it is...” but all our legal immigrants know & they should be speaking out & defending America & our President.
But the homogeneous population ends when you start importing large numbers of foreigners, and the "strong work ethic" ends after a few generations of welfare state-ism no matter what, because people discover it's a lot easier living off the state than it is working for a living.
When you are robbing Peter to pay Paul, you can generally count on the support of Paul.
In other words, anything you might invent, create, or build belongs not to you but to society. Without personal incentive, individuals just stop inventing, creating, building. Nothing is produced except under duress. And when people are forced to produce under duress, they produce the bare minimum in quantity and quality.
This, of course, was the point behind Obama's statement (actually introduced previously by Lizzie Warren) that "you didn't build that." He and Lizzie are so steeped in socialism/Marxism that they hate the natural human need for incentive. They hate the fact that humans have an innate hunger for personal excellence and merit.
Individual excellence and merit are anathema to socialism.
>>Still they can’t tell you the difference between Socialism and Fascism.
See the Hayek quote on my profile page. It’s the 3rd one down, two paragraphs.
That’s why its important for someone to remind Paul that he’s next...he’s going to be robbed to pay Mary.
Isn’t Bill Kristol editor at large at The Weekkneed Standard? What a puke he is.
Either way, I don't want to have anything to do with you. If you're that mean that you want to impose socialism on your fellow man - because let's face it, you need a whole lot of fascist tactics and techniques to get the masses in line and keep them in line - you're not worth knowing. If you are intentionally that stupid, yes stupid to believe socialism is a good idea - then you're telling me you are weak-willed and weak-minded letting yourself be manipulated. That tells me you wouldn't be much fun to hang around except to use as the but of jokes that you wouldn't even realize were at your expense. However I'm not that mean, so again, you're simply not worth knowing.
“The idea of free this and free that makes EVERYONE feel like a lottery winner. Who wouldn’t want that?”
It’s they’re precious self-esteem that matters most to them. They don’t like to have it pointed out how wrong they are because that makes them feel bad about themselves. When they assume the worst and then learn that their wild assumptions were incorrect, they’re mostly disappointed and don’t know how to process an admission that they don’t know as much as they’ve been led to believe. So many of them don’t even vote, yet their expectations are that they should never have to admit to defeat. Their protests seem like exercises in a kind of public therapy session where violence and failure are options because it’s all about how they feel about themselves. How they can feel so good about being such assholes, I have no idea!
My daughter accrued some healthcare bills and said “we need socialized medicine”. My wife tried to talk her out of the tree but she is rebelling against all norms right now.
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