"when Socialism wasn’t just something people laughed at"

It is a mistake to "laugh" at socialism.

Socialists are the prime advocates of the coercive state.

Proponents of statist socialism in western democracies have taken the once limited and small governments (restrained in size, scope and power by constitutions and limited revenue streams) of the former republics and democracies and replaced them with the large coercive state of collectivist statism.

Collectivist statists in all parties have made our once free populations slaves to many coercive socialist dystopian institutions:

We have centrally planned economics

We have command economy with state monopolies

We have a valuless fiat debt-issue monetary system which depreciates in the user's pocket.

We have a tax system which confiscates personal productivity by witholding under coercive force

We have no individual property rights and a government which claims all final regulation/dispensation of private property

We have strong social engineering tendencies in Government...government see's itself not as a public servant but a shaper of society.

Where have statist socialists failed?

Probably socialism's greatest feat was gaining wide aceptance in free capitalist democracies of the "big lie".

The single most dangerous belief of the modern age, is the misperception of government as an agent of compassion.

Soclialist statist government is nothing more than structured widespread coercion...and the concept that it can implement compassion for us by force is simple the greatest lie of the last 2 centuries.

Socialist statists of all political stripes have been wildly successful in selling big government as a “kind caring and protective” parent figure.

Statists do this by constantly repeating the lie that coercive government’s justification for stealing from us and running our lives for us is "to exercise compassion"...by domestic force of arms if necessary.

Consider this: in the last 87 years of the 20th century, the coercive structured governments which replaced the rule of kings in Europe, latin Anerica and Asia “murdered” 287 million of their own citizens....3 times the number killed in wars during that period....100 million by communist governments and 187 million by governments of varying degreees of coercive statism.

Government is NOT compassion...government is raw brutal force...the larger the government the bigger the risk...pass it on!

We we dispell the single most widespread lie of socialism, then maybe we can afford to "laugh" at socialists.

You just have to remember that socialism is an artificial form and is kept alive by the most selfish people that proclaim sharing of wealth. Of course they tell and make others, by force, to ‘share’ their wealth thought themselves only collect the share. This is a standard socialist practice. Those who grew up with socialist breathing heavily down on their necks know it well. The reason that people in democracies don’t believe it is because the news manufacturers wrap it up in a ‘just wonderful’ prose. Socialism is just totally destructive ‘ism disguised as something warm and fuzzy.

WLMR...that's a rich statement in light of your anger toward the CPC re: the federal transers and Atlantic accord(Lib. socialist vote grabber) on another thread.

I don't know about you folks, but socialists scare the s**t out of me. Can you imagine Jack Layton as Prime Minister.

If the CPC keeps on the way they are, it might happen. Then there'd be hell to pay.

None of the ardent Socialists that I know are people who actually have to produce something, in other words, work hard at physical labour.

All that I've met are "educators", civil servants, "artists", "journalists",or some other member of the "chattering classes".

Their understanding of economics, and how to maintain the infrastructure is laughable.

They should all be invited to go form "Llama farms", or communes, where they can reproduce their idea of utopia. And if they have to call on any of us tradesmen to fix any of their infrastructure, why, we'll be glad to help, and give them a lesson in capitalism at the same time.

To me socialism is another example of Pareto's Iron Law of Oligarchy. He argued that human groups will always have elites bubble to the top, whether that be Russia or the Boy Scouts.

With socialism, the capitalist and/or royal elite was replaced by another elite, Lenin or Stalin, who made sure they enhanced their power and prestige, usually at the expense of the people. Remember Breshnev lived in decadent luxury, while the people waited in line for hours to purchase basic groceries.

I don't think it is anything to laugh about either, with its alliances with Islamism, anti-modernity, anarchic anti-globalists and neo Marxist envirofascists.

We can never let our guard down. Socialism is dangerous. I believe it was Schumpeter who called central planning the "fatal conceit," the arrogant belief that some top down bureaucrats or "papperase" (pardon the spelling) could decide from their ivory towers what was required.

Socialism has degraded almost, if no every, society where it has gained control.

Watched a few of the segments; couldn't help but be struck by what a dank, neurotic world these people inhabited, especially the squatters and feminists, who took that whole "personal is political" thing to an often self-destructive extreme. Some still seem afflicted, others have obviously pulled back, embraced the comfort and affluence hated capitalism provides, and are either channeling their energies into environmentalism - socialism's new t-shirt - or vague self-hatred.

It's the Canadian reality that scares me. Of the parties with any public support and going by their current policies. We currently have 4 far left parties (NDP, BQ, Green and Liberal) and one Center Left Party (CPC). The left parties have between 60% and 70% support. Any thoughts on were we are headed

Socialism must be understood, feared, hated and fought.
Laughing at socialism is too dangerous.

Got to love the "left wing anti-capitalist" with his pool as backdrop. "Work on a llama farm", "painting", "a trip to India".....these affluent cretins have the time and money to waste. Their narcissism is appalling. They don't even see their hypocrisy. What useless lives.

Anyone notice that one of them in the video was an editor at the Economist?

If it wasn't for the MSM which is infested with them they would have faded into the oblivion that they deserve.

VF said: WLMR...that's a rich statement in light of your anger toward the CPC re: the federal transers and Atlantic accord(Lib. socialist vote grabber) on another thread."

How so? I think the CPC are part of the problem...collectivists acting like populist democrats and small government conservatives...My problem was with Harper breaking his personal word.

Secondly, constitutionally he flipflopped in taking provincial resource revenies which is a breach of constitutional protocol and dimetrically opposite to Harpers sattements about renewing constitutional fenderalism and putting the fed incursion into provincial affairs back in the box.

How does that not square with me being an advocate of small constitutionally restrained government?

Never once have you seen me support transfer payments or equalization....the Atlantic accord is quite a different beast from the fed grab on constitutional provincial recource revenues.

Harper's flip flop on this reveal his regime to be quite collectivist and coersive (untrust worthy) statists....no differnt than the Liberal....all that's missing is some revenue "magic" and that will come if they stay in power long enough...the pattern is the same...we have a system so corrupting that even those with principled intent end up being corrupted by it....seems to make sense to me to make the government as small as possible to reduce the scale of corrution and reduce the impact of it.

Mackenzie,

You speak for me here too.

Thanks

You sound like a guy who would like Ayn Rand's philosophies.

I sure do.

@Shamrock: The man who used the phrase "The Fatal Conceit" was Friedrich Hayek. Joseph Schumpeter's take on the mess, in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, is that successful capitalism grows its own anticapitalistic elites.

Leftism is a mental disorder.

I've come to the conclusion whomever we send to Ottawa has about a year to implement true change before the staggering force of the federal bureaucracy regains control. Once the new incoming ministers have been brainwashed (takes about a year) these parasitic liberal/socialist mandarins feel free to continue to run the nation's business as they have always done. Ottawa disease. First order of business for Canada's new government should have been to terminate all senior bureaucrats and maybe then
Harper's government would have had opportunity to govern as true conservatives. I fear it is now too late for that to happen.

I've come to the conclusion whomever we send to Ottawa has about a year to implement true change before the staggering force of the federal bureaucracy regains control. Once the new incoming ministers have been brainwashed (takes about a year) these parasitic liberal/socialist mandarins feel free to continue to run the nation's business as they have always done. Ottawa disease. First order of business for Canada's new government should have been to terminate all senior bureaucrats and maybe then
Harper's government would have had opportunity to govern as true conservatives. I fear it is now too late for that to happen.

Thank you Daniel, I wasn't quite sure. Now that I think about it, didn't Schumpeter talk about "creative destruction" of capitalism, but socialism leads to decay because there are no profits to reinvest.

Nevertheless, I guess you get my point.

Canada is broken and cannot be fixed. The east has shown complete indifference to western Canada regardless of the issue. The only issue east of Manatoba is not losing the strangle hold on Canada's purse strings, and no cost is too high! Eastern Canadians will even let the enemy into their own beds, because the ends justify the means.

Its been evident to me for a long time: Western Canadian Sovereignty

Glad to, Shamrock. One of the neat things about the Austrian School of Economics is how its analyses tend to gibe with common sense. If you want a street-level paraphrase of Schumpeter's model of capitalism's decay, here it is: Capitalism tends to produce heirs as its upper class, who cultivate a genteel aversion to the nuts-and-bolts of business, and sometimes to (new-style) business itself. As prosperity meshes with the natural desire to rise socially, these heirs become the vanguard to a whole new class who are both educated and contemptuous of business. The connecting link is the university, for which admission was largely confined (in North America) to the plush set until about fifty-five years ago.

wlmr perfect, i can't say any more or even critize.

I beg to differ. Inheriting fortunes has nothing to do with cultivation of socialism. Charitable spending does. Don't ever give money to those who did not earn them and you won't have parasites telling you what to do.

kevin, it is about 60% socialists and another 10% that think there is actually a conservative party in canada.

@Aaron: There's a kicker that you may not be aware of. Karl Marx was the (feckless) heir to a rich German lawyer; Friedrich Engels was the heir to an English factory owner. So was Robert Owen.

A lot of the pink-limousine circuit got into that track simply out of class solidarity, if not plain snobbery: "I am better than the grubby businessman that my (grand)father wasn't."

DMR: You are very educated about Karl Marx indeed, much more than I am. Rightly so, because I was in university in the last year in human history when History of the Communist Party was in the curriculum and I was not bent on studying the subject. But I think that your posting does not negate mine above. It matters not that Marx was a heir - thousand times more heirs used their fortunes to succeed in business. Giving money for free to those who had not earned corrupted many more than those two pricks and keeps corrupting. The number of them is millions, you can see them in the social support offices across the world.

@Aaron: I wasn't really trying to refute what you posted; my purpose was to flesh out what I had written earlier.

To be honest, when you ducked out of Marx studies, you didn't miss that much. It would be a hopeful sign for the world if The Communist Manifesto was a text for a course on critical thinking, as a challening document to critique. It took me many a year to come up with specific criticisms of its model of capitalism's rise and fall.

Prospector...that sounds about right..reminiscent of the old BBC sitcom..."Yes Minister". I suspect life was the inspiration for the art.

Syncro

This certainly paralles the documentary on the ill conceived and received talk radio program, 'Air America' - featuring of course, Al Franken.

As usual, while none had any business sense, all had highly inflated egos. These inevitably leads to everyone wanting to be a leader and no one a 'worker'.

The only good that apparently came of either the British 'Daily Lefitist' and the 'Air Left' radio show, was that the pockets of other leftists were cleanly picked and the money distributed to manufacturers of equipment, office furniture, telephone companies and others who actually make things for a living.

When will they ever learn? Unfortunetly, socialist delusion apparently lasts forever.

No, I can laugh!
AhhhHahahaha, could'nt manage the sheeple with marxist spew, try llamas, dumbass.
You have to make your own fun when circumstances allow.
That's rich!

Penny one of the future llama stall muckers is curently editor for BBC documetaries, which are piped into Canadian households free by our socialist luvin overlords.

I've been reading David Thompson's blog for awhile and have often left links here. He's terrific and it's well worth going through his archives, especially his essays on post modernism.

Could the war on stupid be anymore clear?