Our Ignorance of Socialism is Dangerous

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Moose said:
It is this sort of shallow and insipid post that fascinates me. Utter ignorance is that which we are left by the current public school system. Abject ignorance is just pathetic…
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Which is why anyone who cares about their kids won’t send them to the state citadels of indoctrination and imprisonment.
 
Brendan_64 said:
I think there is often confusion between social democracy, socialism and simply a government (even a conservative one) providing public services for the public. In the UK, the Conservative government provides healthcare and state benefits funded by taxation. Are they socialists?
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Yes …
 
So is any government that provides public services funded by taxation socialist?
 
If government competes with the private sector to provide goods and services, it’s socialism. Government for the most part is an evil monopoly.
 
Lemuel said:
If government competes with the private sector to provide goods and services, it’s socialism. Government for the most part is an evil monopoly.
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On that basis pretty much all Western governments, including the current government of the USA, are socialist.
 
Yes, of course. You can’t be a Democrat or Republican and not support socialism to some degree. You also cannot be a Democrat or Republican and support the Constitution. Its impossible.
 
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thistle said:
Why do people in the USA keep using the word Socialist when in reality they mean Communist.
Socialist parties in Europe, for example, who even form the government in countries from time to time are NOT Communists!!
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It comes down to lazy thinking .

Some people go around sticking labels on people because they can’t be bothered to dialogue .

It happens in religion as well . Just stick labels on people , liberal , conservative , traditional etc , and that puts them beyond the pale .
 
My point is that poverty in some cases is the natural consequence and just punishment for moral evil. Those who seek dishonest gain or squander their wages on gluttony are ruined by their vices. Of course we are to help those ensnared by vice, but our help must be conditioned on firm purpose of amendment, else we are not helping, but enabling.
 
mythbuster1 said:
My point is that poverty in some cases is the natural consequence and just punishment for moral evil. Those who seek dishonest gain or squander their wages on gluttony are ruined by their vices.
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True. But those behaviours can be a result of problems in society and how it functions. It’s not so black and white when you take it seriously. For your argument to work everybody would have to be equal to begin with. Equal in tendencies, equal in strengths, equal in mental temperament, and equal in opportunity. Then if one failed we can argue that it’s more likely their choice. But if we live in system that aggravates the potential for poor decision making, then their fault is less so. And if the system is truly fair, then even if they are poor because of bad choices, such a system ought to accommodate good choices also; that is to say they should never be without the means to production; then one can say they truly have a choice.

It is never a just punishment to take away the means to production. True, there are some industries involving sensitive or valuable information that requires the utmost moral standard. I understand that you cannot work at a bank if you are known for stealing from banks, but i don’t see that as an excuse for poverty.

Institutionalised poverty is the problem. It’s the idea that if you fall through the cracks that it is near impossible for some people to come back, and that is because there is an intrinsic flaw in the system, not just because of poor decisions. That’s what i find disturbing. It’s a sign of the extreme individualism that is the mentality of society.
 
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The question is: How do you protect the profligate from themselves? Every means of production is also an asset, which can be sold or mortgaged in order to support profligacy.
 
IWantGod said:
because there is an intrinsic flaw in the system,
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The system is basic human nature, not something dreamed up by an economist or social justice warrior. Socialism and Communism repeatedly fail to benefit ‘the people’ expressly because it contradicts basic human nature.

Regulated capitalism has worked consistently and repeatedly across the globe (raising living standards) expressly because it harnesses basic human nature.
 
Thank you, what you say is very true. I saw much the same thing beginning to happen in Norway when I was there a few years ago. with many of the residents seeming not aware of the ground they were losing.
 
What do you think of these positions?
  1. 1 man, 1 vote (except insane and prisoners)
  2. secret ballot
  3. each electoral district should have approx. the same population
  4. members of the legislature should be paid (otherwise only rich people could afford to run)
  5. members of the legislature should not be required to own property
Pretty radical stuff, right? This was the platform of the hated liberal extremist Chartists, opposed tooth and nail by the conservatives of the time.
 
Erikaspirit16 said:
This was the platform of the hated liberal extremist Chartists, opposed tooth and nail by the conservatives of the time.
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The quibble I have with the Chartists was that they wanted annual Parliamentary elections . God forbid !

They were socialist rather than liberal , and I have no problems with socialism .The Chartist movement of the 1830s and 1840s was the first mass revolutionary movement of the British working-class. Mass meetings and demonstrations involving millions of proletariat and petty-bourgeois were held throughout the country for years.
 
Rob2 said:
The quibble I have with the Chartists was that they wanted annual Parliamentary elections . God forbid !

They were socialist rather than liberal , and I have no problems with socialism .The Chartist movement of the 1830s and 1840s was the first mass revolutionary movement of the British working-class. Mass meetings and demonstrations involving millions of proletariat and petty-bourgeois were held throughout the country for years.
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I found an interesting article after reading your post.

 
If you’ve seen Alexandria Occasio Cortez she’s basically a closet marxist that doesn’t have the gumption to say “seize the means of production comrade.” And if you look at the “progressives” they’re basically parroting marxist rhetoric and identity based politics based on race.
 
The US. She’s a member of the House of Representatives and she is just so dumb. She’s a left wing ideologue version of Trump basically. She says really dumb things and she’s affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, and the DSA have a lot of things that put them at odds with the Church. They’re pro-choice, and they generally seem to dislike Christians. Even though they pretend that they like them, their politics say otherwise.
 
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