A Facebook friend of mine was complaining about David Suzuki’s recent fear mongering. A friend of hers, originally from Quebec but now living in Illinois, wrote the following:
Why you hatin’ on David? Actually, I am one of those that believes we are still moving out of the last ice age, and it will get warmer no matter what we do (and it will get much colder in a few thousand years). But yes, human activity is helping the warming process. How significantly is up to debate.
I was curious, so I took a quick look at his Facebook profile. There, staring at me in the centre, beside “Political Views”, was a red flag with a link to this page:
Would this constitute a textbook example of “a wolf in wolf’s clothing”?
there is no such thing as “democratic socialism” it is always a dictatorship by those who will try to impose their views on the rest of us. whenever they use the word democratic or people’s democratic republic you can be assured there is no democracy.
I’d agree with the “useful idiot” characterization. Socialism has been shown to be a failure and the primary reason it fails is that socialism scales very poorly. The maximum size of a socialist society is that of a functioning kibbutz in Israel.
Reading about “social democracy” was interesting but it’s an idealistic philosophy likely supported by those individuals who have little real-world experience. I’ve been hoping for a world in which dealing with leisure time is the primary concern, but the main problem with this theory is that human wants are infinite and industrial resources (at least at present) are finite. Everyone who lives in Vancouver wants to have a large house near the ocean but there is only a small amount of property available and thus the prices of such houses are far beyond the reach of the average Vancouver resident. People who are on welfare in Vancouver have access to vastly more technology than the average worker in the 1950’s but they’re unhappy because other people have more.
Given that people differ in ability and drive, inequalities of wealth are a natural outcome. The only way to reduce such inequalities is through a totalitarian system but this universally results in those running the government becoming the wealthiest individuals in the country. When we have antimatter batteries for energy and universal nanotechnology then it might be time to look at some form of guaranteed annual income for people, but even in a society that technologically advanced the scarcity of desirable dwelling places will be unchanged.
I’d be interested in what this persons facebook page would look like after an additional 20 years of real world experience.
A perfect example of democratic socialism is the wheat board. Its supporters think its OK because they voted on it, and sane people think that what they do with their own personal property is no one else’s business.
Loki’s comments about “a functioning kibbutz” illustrate the important point that egalitarian communities can exist without coercion, but they tend to be small, rare, and, more often than not, sustained by devout religious belief. We are capable of the kind of selfless sacrifice required to sustain an egalitarian community, but it isn’t easy, and such utopian communities either collapse and fade away quietly or descend into the madness of Jonestown.
“Would this constitute a textbook example of “a wolf in wolf’s clothing”?
You betcha!!
Democratic socialism is just another euphemism for communism. The term’s been around since for ages. People confuse it with social democracy, which is socialism. Both are extremes of the same paradigm: appropriating other people’s productivity as yours under the guise of “social justice”. Its the main antagonistic theme in Atlas Shrugged, and Rand describes it very well through her characters, especially Orren Boyle. Its the root of the current popular phrase “all of your [insert item] belong to us”.
Egalitarian communities like kibbutz tend to be rare and small because they are tribal, as are we, by nature. Their size is limited to the number of people they can support before either resources, or disparate interests of the “tribal elders” begin to clash. For man, this is an evolutionary consequence that will be around for as long as we are an identifiable species. It’s part of a highly evolved survival mechanism which we are incapable of overcoming. Wolf packs, lion prides, baboon troops, we are all hiearchical tribes. That’s how we got past the last million years or so.
In 1984 Tommy Douglas confessed that the CCF had wanted to impose a “temporary” police state to implement their policies. So now we know the terrible secret in the NDP constitution.
One vote, one man, one time. Unless voting is continually allowed on a subject, it is meaningless because the populace needs to be able to correct its mistakes. Methinks those who sign on to the above need to learn history in a more coherent way.
Democratic Socialist vs Social Democrat. Is that like the Judean People’s Front vs the People’s Front of Judea?
Guess if your principal area of success is Red Sluts doing recruiting, go with more of what works.
denis miller @ 5:21 and skip @ 7:04, well said and describes this ideology perfectly. The useful idiots end up having their illusions about the promised utopia shattered when the commissar and leather jackets show up.
That says it all.
You unwashed poor working class should never be educated,
vote or think for yourself.
Our wonderful overlords the Socialist Democrats will tell us which bicycle to ride,
the food we can grow/eat,
and that we are not worthy to worship at their environmental altars.
*******************************
I am not worthy,
I am not worthy,
I am not worthy,
In practice and principle, the commune/kibutze/clan/tribe functions on the principle of a family unit….
It is common and manifests because it has definite advantages over individual survival…to a point.
Witness the inevitable disintegration of family farms/businesses….few survive beyond 2 generations….
The founders are the dictators and when they pass or decline, unless a successor succeeds in suppressing dissent or non contribribution from the whole, it disintegrates.
Sibling rivalry is generally blamed but inevitably the leader/patriarch/chief morphs into a dictator and clique, complete with trappings and privileges(some are more equal) and poof….gone with the wind.
Ambition and envy generally co-habit the organization.
The US founding fathers deliberatly avoided democracy in favour of a constitutional republic for just these reasons.
Stop at socialism, all the modifiers are pointless.
Basically once that ism happens and the socialists of any strip get in, civilization is in danger and we’re onteh crazy train to hell.
The only question being whether it’s straight to hell (All you bourgeois pigs, against the wall, we’ve got 100 million of you to kill.) or you’re taking a detour of a few decades into soft fascism and debasement of culture followed by chaos, where the straight up hell is more likely outcome than restoration.
loki and other’s comment about the limits in size of a socialist society are excellent. There seems to be a natural limit to the size of such a community. Hunting and gathering bands, which fall into this category, are usually no more than 30 people and tend to split up if the size increases. The causes are both limits of food production and psychological interactions.
But a problem with this article’s outline is that it mixes terms. Capitalism is a mode of production. Socialism in my view is only a mode of distribution. I can never understand how it works as a means of investment and production. H&G societies neither invest nor produce; they simply hunt and gather what is there naturally.
What is always missing in articles that promote socialism is: the means of investment and production of wealth. Where does socialism get its wealth that it so happily redistributes?
The answer is always the same: from the rich. Heh. But if it’s a genuine socialist realm, there are no ‘rich’. So, where does the wealth come from that is redistributed? I consider that socialism subscribes to the Magic Cauldron view of wealth production; it bubbles up, constantly, in some Evil Person’s basement, and the Good Socialist Government takes these ill-gotten gains and gives it to the Good People.
Capitalism isn’t a mode of distribution but a mode of investment and production of goods and services. ‘Distribution’ is by choice not by govt.
[And one chooses to give a small proportion to govt to fund common needs such as roads, defense.]
Glad to see you back ET! Always well worth hearing from you.
No, it’s just evolution in politics…much like how in the past, Conservative and Republican parties had honour and integrity and now they are just corporate bag lickers.
You mean like GM (Government Motors)and Solyndra?
Who is licking who’s bag exactly, little commie?
This socialism thing has been tried over and over again and always ends in horrors.
Insanity: Trying the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.
We continue sending our kids into the education industry over and over again while expecting different results.
Conclusion: We are all insane.
Suggestion: Close all public schools, privatize education and wait twenty years.
We don’t have twenty years you say?
I know that.
You can add Haliburton, Lockheed Martin and dozens of other corporations to that list, doogie. Obama is just carrying on Bushian policies, in some cases even going further…admit it, you guys just don’t like him because he’s black.
There ya go again Robert, lowering this blog to their level one post at a time! Enough with the name calling. We are better than them, or at least I would hope we are. You seem to bent on proving otherwise.
Iberia — Based on your last couple of comments, I don’t like you and I don’t know (nor care) what colour you are. Correction: You certainly are Red, and that’s why I don’t like you.
Facebook …. friends?
Social media?
Democratic Socialism doesn’t even work at the tribal level for the Indian reserve nearest you.
But if it’s a genuine socialist realm, there are no ‘rich’. So, where does the wealth come from that is redistributed? I consider that socialism subscribes to the Magic Cauldron view of wealth production; it bubbles up, constantly, in some Evil Person’s basement, and the Good Socialist Government takes these ill-gotten gains and gives it to the Good People.
~ET
Very true.
And the elites in the socialist model seem to always distribute the wealth unevenly, favoring their cronies and the armed men who safeguard their elite position.
Why does it work at the functioning kibbutz in Israel?
Because the kibbutzniks are productive and because the kibbutzniks have a unifying world view and unchangable basic rule of law that they believe in, courtesy of the Talmud and Torah.
Wow, it didn’t take long for iberia to get down to the good old “racist” meme, did it. Bypassed the ad hominem attack phase completely.
“Democratic socialism is difficult to define”…and that’s the beauty of it!
Every tyrant can call himself a democratic socialist,and it sounds so nice and un-scary. Nobody will notice as those nice,caring dem-soc’s take away all our freedom under the guise of “equality”.
Then one day you awake in a dem-soc society where everyone is equal,and try to figure out how in hell it happened.
Obama is only half black. Get your facts straight.
oz- ‘socialism’ might work at the H&G level, at the small kibbutz level, in some small dry and wet horticultural econmies and in some Amish and other small population groups, but that’s it.
My key question is: socialism is not a mode of investment and production but only of distribution. Where does the ‘wealth’ come from?
In the small agricultural communities where it can work- the criteria are:
-no growth population. The population must remain small, stable and also isolated from others;
-the land must be rich enough to carry that size of population, since the society does not have the ability to adapt, change, develop new technology; that’s because dissent is not allowed;
-that’s important: dissent is not allowed; no individual desires or ego.
So, this mode of distribution of small local wealth (the local farming produce or the hunting and gathering in the area) relies on the existent capacity of Nature to produce goods. That’s it.
This economic method, which refers only to distribution of wealth and has no capacity to produce wealth – has an extremely low population carrying capacity. It can’t support large populations. Never has; never will.
Once you get into large populations, you must find the means to produce surplus wealth, and this moves the society into inequality of investment, production..and consumption.
Capitalism is the most efficient and productive method of producing wealth – far superior to any collective modes. It’s efficient because it weeds out incompetence while socialism supports the unproductive and incompetent.
It’s productive because it encourages innovation, rapid adaptation and solutions to new problems. It’s productive also because it enables flexible copycat production, which adapt to local realities and cultures…something a socialist one size fits all tactic cannot do.
And capitalism is democratic; it accepts new ideas from all, while socialism is smug, sanctimonious and elitist, considering that only its Rulers have the wisdom to solve problems – which are then forced on the people. Obama and his stimulus, his health care, his pompous contempt for the people – is a perfect example of a socialist type.
And we didn’t like Bush’s economic policies because, what, he’s black too??
Iberia
“admit it, you guys just don’t like him because he’s black.”
I like Herman Cain and he actually is black. I don’t like Obama because he is a dictatorial socialist fraud.
Trent 7:32 am
Do you have a link for that…..thats something I hadnt heard before.
Harry’s friend Rudy, set Harry up.
Post from the Moooooselimb thread below.
/”he pointed out everything I believed in and I agreed with all his points and commented to the affect that he understood my beliefs very well. He then gave me a copy of Hitlers book, (American Edition @ 1935) Little sticky notes attached to correspond with everything i believed in”/
Posted by: Harry from Burnaby at December 5, 2011 7:04 PM
From their web site.
“Communist Party Of Canada”
“Celebrating 90 Years As Canada’s Party of Socialism”
http://www.parti-communiste.ca/
People like this want us all to be Government workers with one head. In other words workers to a Queen bee. A Hive , not humanity.
This is an example of a the mentality of the hive mind.
“They are who we thought they were…and we let’em off the hook” Dennis Greene(former M.Vikings coach)
“In the small agricultural communities where it can work- the criteria are:
-no growth population. The population must remain small, stable and also isolated from others;
-the land must be rich enough to carry that size of population, since the society does not have the ability to adapt, change, develop new technology; that’s because dissent is not allowed;
-that’s important: dissent is not allowed; no individual desires or ego.”
Interestingly enough, this has been the operating meme of the provincial NDP in Saskatchewan for the better half of the last century. They deliberately created an environment where the youth left the province via brain & labor drains in order to maintain a population under 1 million, and a ratio of public workers at 35%.
You need to look no further than the past and recent history of Saskatchewan to see the outcomes of socialism verses free markets.(I was going to say “vs Capitalism” but would rather not be corrected by ET)
Good to see your comments ET.
Skip:
Not to go violently off-topic, but the origin of the meme “All your [noun] are belong to us” is actually the 90’s video game “Zero Wing”. The game was created in Japan, and in the usual poor “Japlish” translation, the opening scene had the phrase “All your base are belong to us”. Internet nerds (can we call them iNerds now that Jobs is dead?) picked up on this, and it roared around the net for a couple of years.
Democratic Socialism:
“Would this constitute a textbook example of “a wolf in wolf’s clothing”?”
Absolutely. Democratic socialism is no different from totalitarian communism apart from the fact that you got there “democratically” — you elected your dictator. Instead of seizing power by force you use deception. Don’t forget that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party also came to power using the democratic process. And don’t forget that totalitarian North Korea describes itself as “Democratic Socialist”.
BTW, when the NDP had their last convention (before Jack Layton died), one of the main issues for discussion was the constitution of the NDP: Whether the NDP would continue to be officially Democratic Socialist, or change to the softer Social Democrats. The NDP voted overwhelming to continue to be known as Democratic Socialists — “wolves in wolves clothing” as it were.
The NDP is also a member of the “Socialist International” of which all the hard core Communist countries are members. If the NDP is ever voted into power then Canada is screwed as a free nation, although they would have to change our free Constitution in order to truly establish their Commie utopia.
Mr. Miyogi(Suzuki)is not ‘useful’, and I don’t think he’s an idiot.
Just an egotistical geneticist who wants to be taken seriously on matters far outside his field of expertise.
By the way, for the first time I heard someone refer to Premier Dalton McGuinty as a “Communist” (on Talk Radio today) because he is obstinately ignoring parents’ demands to stop the homosexist sex ed curriculum for children in the Public Schools, and ignoring their demands not to force Catholic Schools to accept “Gay-Straight Alliances” which essentially force everyone to admit to being potential homophobes. McGuinty is enforcing both, and Constitutional exceptions to Catholics be damned.
So what happens if parents refuse to comply? Will parents go to jail? Will Children’s Aid take away their children? Will they adopt them out to Gay couples as punishment? Will public education still be available to families who refuse to admit to being homophobes?
Serious questions folks that would have been unthinkable only a year ago, but we are actually there in Ontario — without an actual revolution having taken place the fascists/Socialists are in control of our Education system and are legislating against the Canadian Constitution — with nary a peep from the media.
I personally think NAMBLA is behind the whole thing. If so, then time to “lock and load”…
nothing like a good old fashioned counter-revolution to put McGuinty and his Commie pedophile lobby in their place!
Yeah!! Put thoses homos into barb wired camps and starve them…that will take their minds off of corn holing…
Iberia:
Yeah, I guess that’s what your ancestors from the Spanish Inquisition taught you, sicko.
I think, with reference also to the thread on this blog referring to the abysmal teaching of mathematics and English in our schools, that our schools should get out of social engineering and stick to: ‘reading, writing and arithmetic’. But I’ll add one other. A vital, vital area which is never taught in our schools…
I suggest that it is not the business of schools to socialize our children in the cultural pop theme of the day. What is notable about these pop themes is how they are all, all of them, bereft of facts, empirical grounding and require emotional faith in their axioms and a rejection of questions and analysis.
The past few years, it was AGW, ‘taught’ with all the messianic emotionalism of all false dogma. Another time, it’s cultural relativism, with a strident assertion, easily proven false, that ‘all cultures are equal’. And more recently, it’s the movement into the prioritizing of gay, lesbian and transgender lifestyles.
Again, the common aspect of all these teachings is the insistence that they are ‘fundamental truths’ and immune to not merely the need for empirical evidence but also, any hint of questioning their elevation to “Truthdom’ in our society.
That brings me to the fourth area which I suggest is vital for our children to learn. Critical thinking skills. This includes basic logic, the necessity for analytic and empirical grounds to an argument, the weeding out of fallacious argumentative tactics, false statistical tactics, etc.
Yes, I’d also add, once these basics are taught, basic courses in history, geography and economics.
But no social studies. None. None. Never.
Ahhh, retardo…obviously your drunk mother dropped you on the head a few times when you were a baby.
Can anyone name ten useful things that happened on facebook? I have the rest of my life which could be twenty years if I don’t exert myself at Farmville.
The definition of socialism is that the means of production are in the hands of “the people”, which actually turns out to be “representatives” of the people who often self-appoint themselves (i.e., Stalin, Mao).
In other words, the means of production are taken away from those who know how to use them properly and put in the hands of power-hungry attention-seeking gangsters who don’t.
Democratic socialism is just a socialism with a democratic decoration. As for social democracy the whole present Western World is organized by it. You vote in some sort of democratic elections and the government responsibility is to take care of the society while individuals pay for it.