Minister of Truth
Practically Perfect
In spite of every physical case study?
Socialists Are Such Garbage Human Beings
- Thread starter Minister of Truth
- Start date
In spite of every physical case study?
Minister of Truth
Practically Perfect
How goes the war against liberal democracy?
Minister of Truth
Practically Perfect
"Progressive thinkers are developing a foreign policy approach that opposes military confrontation while acknowledging Beijing’s oppressive policies."
We know why, don't we?
Progressives always manage to come across as more pathetic than their more radical spectrum peers. I guess it's because they don't really know what they want, aside from empowering the civil bureaucracy and their industrial benefactors. Socialists and Marxists know precisely what they want, and can always be more decisive.
Matt Dillon
Semolina comes from wheat
Yeah, America was better off without it. You could call LBJ welfare socialism I suppose.
I don't call that a good thing at all.
NiftyNiblick
1960s Chick Magnet
Liberal democracy is impossible in a right wing oligarchy.
Minister of Truth
Practically Perfect
Progs like you are physically incapable of saying a true thing about socialism (and communism), ever. You'll have one foot in the grave, and you won't so much as be able to criticize them. Unless Jesus suddenly appears to you and says "yep, I'm real. You can abandon your leftist politics now."
AProudLefty
He cries for attention. :)
I don't understand your question.
Matt Dillon
Semolina comes from wheat
Thank you for the kind comment, OwlWoman.
Duck and cover? I recall doing that seventy years ago, when the Cold War was beginning... and it's actually an exercise
that might be usefully re-instituted in American schools, just in case. If there is a bright flash, drop to the ground -- as many
or more people will be killed by being shredded by glass and debris riding the following shock wave, than will die of burns or radiation.
And while I'm on this cheery topic, may I suggest that everyone purchase a bottle of potassium iodide tablets (unless you've had your thyroid gland removed).
If some stupid quarrel somewhere goes nuclear, and the air is filled with Iodine-131, which is radioactive and can cause thyroid cancer,
your thyroid gland will thank you for offering it the benign 128 isotope present in commercially-available potassium iodide.
131 has a fairly short half-life, about two weeks I think, so things will be okay in a couple of months.
This is especially important if you have children or grandchildren.
On the word "socialism". It can have three rather different meanings:
(1) A more or less fully-nationalized economy directed by a central plan -- what the
USSR had, what China under Mao had, what North Korea and Cuba still have.
No one really believes in this any more. (Google "The Socialist Calculation Question" for an explanation of why,
without a market, rational price setting and thus resource allocation is not possible.)
(2) Any example of state ownership. We don't think of the Marine Corps as a socialist institution, but on this definition, it is. (Engels joked that if socialism just meant state ownership, then the regimental tailor was the first socialist institution.)
(3) The array of state-mediated welfare reforms that all civilized advanced societies have: Social Security, Old Age Pensions, socialized medicine (except in the US, although Medicare is an exception to the exception). Wise capitalists do not oppose these -- in fact, one of the earliest pension systems was introduced by Bismarck in about 1875, in order to keep the German workers from becoming socialists. (It didn't work.)
When I read polls that say that some frighteningly large percentage of Millenials think socialism is superior to capitalism, I assume what they mean is that they want someone else to pay off their college debt -- not that they want the government to take over their employer and impose wage-equality.
American conservatives, in their great majority, are perfectly happy with the amount of socialism the US has, and if it's presented right, might even like a bit more.
However, consevatism, like liberalism, is a disposition, not an ideology, and most of us find having a nice simple ideology is very handy.
So American conservatives culturally appropriate libertarian economics. It makes debating easier: a few simple axiom and rules of inference, and you can easily come up with a theorem to refute that annoying liberal. But tell that same conservative that Mr Trump, when he resumes the Presidency, will abolish the Social Sececurity system ... make everyone cash out and do what they want with their money -- and see what happens.
And actually, Mr Trump has taken the American conservative movement some way into 'socialism': the Republicans used to be for free trade. (Basically, the Republicans were the Chamber of Commerce Party, whose answer to all problems was, "How about a tax cut?" )
The Republican position was, if a refrigerator can be made cheaper in China than in Indiana, well, so be it. Let those assembly-line workers retrain as website designers or PHP programmers. (It was the Democrats who baulked at this.)
No longer. Now most ordinary conservatives are perfectly happy with the state telling the refrigerator manufacturer that no, he can't get those refrigerators built in China, and throw thousands of Americans out of work. (For the life of me, I don't see why liberals hate Mr Trump so much. He's brought the Republican base over to your position on domestic issues, and on foreign policy, he just continued the policy of Obama.)
Trump's foreign policy reflected the deep change that the base of the American Right has undergone in the last 20 years. When George Bush invaded Iraq on the pretense that they had A-bombs, the American Right was all for it: foot-stomping, cheering, USA-ALL-THE-WAY. Same for Afghanistan. They didn't necessarily buy into the neo-con "drain the swamp" theory -- it was more reflexive patriotism. Whereas liberals, with some exceptions, opposed it. (I'm not talking about the Democratic Party leaders.)
So 20 years have passed and ... there is now no appetite for more foreign wars among the Republican base. Evidently, they didn't really want any Lesbian and Transgender Outreach Centers in Kandahar. And all those optimistic "We're making progress" reports, year after year ... turned out to be a pack of lies. Well, as Ben Franklin said, "Experience keeps a dear school, but [some of us] will learn in no other."
And now ... we -- conservatives and liberals alike -- have a chance, which won't last forever, to re-orient the US away from its current foreign policy, towards a
non-interventionist stance. Shut down things like the military's ridiculous "Africa Command" (hell, we can't even command South Chicago), close down those 400 military bases, and bring the boys home. (And the girls.)
Can we do it? It will be hard, because we hate each other so much. But in a war, you don't ask that your allies be nice people, just that their guns are pointed in the right direction. We ought at least to try, so that those potassium iodide pills never get used.
Duck and cover? I recall doing that seventy years ago, when the Cold War was beginning... and it's actually an exercise
that might be usefully re-instituted in American schools, just in case. If there is a bright flash, drop to the ground -- as many
or more people will be killed by being shredded by glass and debris riding the following shock wave, than will die of burns or radiation.
And while I'm on this cheery topic, may I suggest that everyone purchase a bottle of potassium iodide tablets (unless you've had your thyroid gland removed).
If some stupid quarrel somewhere goes nuclear, and the air is filled with Iodine-131, which is radioactive and can cause thyroid cancer,
your thyroid gland will thank you for offering it the benign 128 isotope present in commercially-available potassium iodide.
131 has a fairly short half-life, about two weeks I think, so things will be okay in a couple of months.
This is especially important if you have children or grandchildren.
On the word "socialism". It can have three rather different meanings:
(1) A more or less fully-nationalized economy directed by a central plan -- what the
USSR had, what China under Mao had, what North Korea and Cuba still have.
No one really believes in this any more. (Google "The Socialist Calculation Question" for an explanation of why,
without a market, rational price setting and thus resource allocation is not possible.)
(2) Any example of state ownership. We don't think of the Marine Corps as a socialist institution, but on this definition, it is. (Engels joked that if socialism just meant state ownership, then the regimental tailor was the first socialist institution.)
(3) The array of state-mediated welfare reforms that all civilized advanced societies have: Social Security, Old Age Pensions, socialized medicine (except in the US, although Medicare is an exception to the exception). Wise capitalists do not oppose these -- in fact, one of the earliest pension systems was introduced by Bismarck in about 1875, in order to keep the German workers from becoming socialists. (It didn't work.)
When I read polls that say that some frighteningly large percentage of Millenials think socialism is superior to capitalism, I assume what they mean is that they want someone else to pay off their college debt -- not that they want the government to take over their employer and impose wage-equality.
American conservatives, in their great majority, are perfectly happy with the amount of socialism the US has, and if it's presented right, might even like a bit more.
However, consevatism, like liberalism, is a disposition, not an ideology, and most of us find having a nice simple ideology is very handy.
So American conservatives culturally appropriate libertarian economics. It makes debating easier: a few simple axiom and rules of inference, and you can easily come up with a theorem to refute that annoying liberal. But tell that same conservative that Mr Trump, when he resumes the Presidency, will abolish the Social Sececurity system ... make everyone cash out and do what they want with their money -- and see what happens.
And actually, Mr Trump has taken the American conservative movement some way into 'socialism': the Republicans used to be for free trade. (Basically, the Republicans were the Chamber of Commerce Party, whose answer to all problems was, "How about a tax cut?" )
The Republican position was, if a refrigerator can be made cheaper in China than in Indiana, well, so be it. Let those assembly-line workers retrain as website designers or PHP programmers. (It was the Democrats who baulked at this.)
No longer. Now most ordinary conservatives are perfectly happy with the state telling the refrigerator manufacturer that no, he can't get those refrigerators built in China, and throw thousands of Americans out of work. (For the life of me, I don't see why liberals hate Mr Trump so much. He's brought the Republican base over to your position on domestic issues, and on foreign policy, he just continued the policy of Obama.)
Trump's foreign policy reflected the deep change that the base of the American Right has undergone in the last 20 years. When George Bush invaded Iraq on the pretense that they had A-bombs, the American Right was all for it: foot-stomping, cheering, USA-ALL-THE-WAY. Same for Afghanistan. They didn't necessarily buy into the neo-con "drain the swamp" theory -- it was more reflexive patriotism. Whereas liberals, with some exceptions, opposed it. (I'm not talking about the Democratic Party leaders.)
So 20 years have passed and ... there is now no appetite for more foreign wars among the Republican base. Evidently, they didn't really want any Lesbian and Transgender Outreach Centers in Kandahar. And all those optimistic "We're making progress" reports, year after year ... turned out to be a pack of lies. Well, as Ben Franklin said, "Experience keeps a dear school, but [some of us] will learn in no other."
And now ... we -- conservatives and liberals alike -- have a chance, which won't last forever, to re-orient the US away from its current foreign policy, towards a
non-interventionist stance. Shut down things like the military's ridiculous "Africa Command" (hell, we can't even command South Chicago), close down those 400 military bases, and bring the boys home. (And the girls.)
Can we do it? It will be hard, because we hate each other so much. But in a war, you don't ask that your allies be nice people, just that their guns are pointed in the right direction. We ought at least to try, so that those potassium iodide pills never get used.
Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
ThatOwlWoman
Leftist Vermin
No wonder I grew up with a horror of nukes -- and sirens.
The anonymity of the internet promotes short attention spans, and encourages insults instead of informed argument. It's a two-edged sword, because in other ways, it's doing a lot of good.
Conservatives should refrain from insults and rude remarks. We want to destroy our enemies, by making them our friends, as Lincoln said. We can do that by patiently explaining that the motives that made them Leftists -- a concern for the welfare of the less privileged -- are noble ones, but that the best way to do that is the promotion of a sensible capitalism, with the state's involvement in a sensible way, eg welfare that promotes self-reliance, learning a skill, entering the workforce, rather than dependence.
You may say, "Oh, Leftists claim that they want to help humanity, but they really want to control it." And that's true, for some of them, just as there are some conservatives whose motive is not the defense of liberty, but the defense of their own privileges. However, many people on the Left sincerely believe that their ideas will elevate poor, rectify injustice, etc. These are the people we must reach.
And there is another reason to be respectful, even in disagreement, with the Left, and to listen carefully to what they have to say: Namely, ... they are not always wrong, and we are not always right. Horrible to admit it, I hate to say it, but reality is reality.
A case in point: the US has spent twenty years trying to bring liberal democracy to the Muslim World, at the point of a bayonet, and at huge cost in blood and treasure.
Now ... when Mr Bush proposed invading Iraq, chanelling the neo-cons [note, neo-cons, not neo-liberals], who was enthusiastically for it, and who was against it?
We were for it, and they were against it. Maybe they were against it for the wrong reasons. But they were right, and we were wrong. Only a fool doesn't learn from his mistakes. It turns out they don't want Lesbian/Transgender Outreach Centers in Kandahar. It turns out that we were systematically lied to by the Deep State: there were no atom-bomb factories in Iraq, and the yearly progress reports from Afghanistan were written by people who had smoked too much of that country's principal export.
So now, it's conservatives who are balking at more foreign wars, and, ironically, many liberals who are becoming beligerant -- anything Tucker Carlson opposes, they support. They're calling us tools of the Russians! McCarthyism turned on its head!
But there are people on the Left who understand the role of what President Eisenhower warned us about: the military-industrial complex, a component of the Deep State. We can work with them.
So leave the insults for the kindergarten and let's act like adults.
Conservatives should refrain from insults and rude remarks. We want to destroy our enemies, by making them our friends, as Lincoln said. We can do that by patiently explaining that the motives that made them Leftists -- a concern for the welfare of the less privileged -- are noble ones, but that the best way to do that is the promotion of a sensible capitalism, with the state's involvement in a sensible way, eg welfare that promotes self-reliance, learning a skill, entering the workforce, rather than dependence.
You may say, "Oh, Leftists claim that they want to help humanity, but they really want to control it." And that's true, for some of them, just as there are some conservatives whose motive is not the defense of liberty, but the defense of their own privileges. However, many people on the Left sincerely believe that their ideas will elevate poor, rectify injustice, etc. These are the people we must reach.
And there is another reason to be respectful, even in disagreement, with the Left, and to listen carefully to what they have to say: Namely, ... they are not always wrong, and we are not always right. Horrible to admit it, I hate to say it, but reality is reality.
A case in point: the US has spent twenty years trying to bring liberal democracy to the Muslim World, at the point of a bayonet, and at huge cost in blood and treasure.
Now ... when Mr Bush proposed invading Iraq, chanelling the neo-cons [note, neo-cons, not neo-liberals], who was enthusiastically for it, and who was against it?
We were for it, and they were against it. Maybe they were against it for the wrong reasons. But they were right, and we were wrong. Only a fool doesn't learn from his mistakes. It turns out they don't want Lesbian/Transgender Outreach Centers in Kandahar. It turns out that we were systematically lied to by the Deep State: there were no atom-bomb factories in Iraq, and the yearly progress reports from Afghanistan were written by people who had smoked too much of that country's principal export.
So now, it's conservatives who are balking at more foreign wars, and, ironically, many liberals who are becoming beligerant -- anything Tucker Carlson opposes, they support. They're calling us tools of the Russians! McCarthyism turned on its head!
But there are people on the Left who understand the role of what President Eisenhower warned us about: the military-industrial complex, a component of the Deep State. We can work with them.
So leave the insults for the kindergarten and let's act like adults.