Asked by Gallup to define socialism,
… the largest number of respondents — about a quarter of both Democrats and Republicans — said it meant equality. Another 13 percent of Democrats, but only 7 percent of Republicans, saw it as government services, like free health care.
About 6 percent believe socialism means being social, including activity on social media.
h/t ES
I was trying to think of a short definition of socialism, but have always liked Winnie’s remark ,” the chief virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery”.
I’ve met numerous socialists in my lifetime,and imo they come in two categories; 1: the “educated” who believe THEY will be exalted under socialism, and 2: those who are too f***ing lazy to get out and work hard for a living.
Confirming that those who think socialism is the best political/economic system ever devised base their faith on ignorance.
And socialist politicos are more than happy to take advantage of that ignorance to advance their agenda.
Free stuff followed quickly by equality of misery, once the onion is fully peeled, except for the ruling class at the rotted core.
Socialism is a beautiful thing. That’s why it’s compulsory and collectivists say you are defined and determined by your class.
So no need to be concerned about redundant freedom and liberty and atomization with the state is better for you.
They’ll give you anything you need; after they’ve taken everything you’ve got. Then they start with the water cannons.
Escape your freedom on your road to serfdom. All hail the totalitarian warlords. Left vrs left is always ugliest.
Liberalism descends to NDPism (Canadian eh!) which descends to socialism which inevitably descends to communism! And how many have died under communist rule in the last century or so? A quarter of a billion or so?
Never has so much information been so readily available to the masses and yet stupidity reigns supreme – it is at an all time high!
Actual liberalism (for contemporary reference google Murray Rothbard) is antithetical to the LPC, NDPism and progressivism.
One seeks to free society by empowering the individual around natural rights and responsibilities, while the others have no problem using the power of the state to abrogate natural rights to the point of a barrel might.
Voluntarism vrs compulsorism; individualism vrs collectivism; free enterprise vrs capitalism bent through the socialist prism.
” A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” Attributed, apparently falsely, to Thomas Jefferson
But, but, but the children are getting the best education a teachers union can provide. We are ALL F@$#%&#ED !!!!
Even if the little people wanted it, the actual abolition of private property was never completely realized anywhere—though Democratic Kampuchea came close—and all attempts to carry it out have been total failures. The enemy is not stupid, and has learned that much.
The Soviet experiment in central planning will not be repeated in its original form—not while human proles are still needed as inputs to production, anyway. (Once we’re exterminated in favour of robots, perhaps, but we aren’t there yet, thank God.)
Even by the 1930’s the globalists had started experimenting with fascism as a bug-fix designed to get around the lack of incentive to produce in Soviet socialism. That didn’t work out either, to put it mildly.
Stealing money from white male “bourgeois” without political power remains popular among the parasite classes who thrust globalists into office, though, most of whom no longer remember Stalin or Hitler. If the useful idiots want to call it socialism, nobody will bother correcting them.
“descends to socialism which inevitably descends to communism” That is only one way to achieve what they demand, but Hitler was also the winner of the socialist democracy in Germany…. Socialism eventually demands absolute power…. Communist and/or a ruthless dictator….
JMHO
Socialism is humanity in the capacity of ants. Socialists believe that virtue comes from the barrel of a gun and vice flows from free will. They hold that good societies must be engineered from above, necessarily by force, with no dissent allowed. Socialism is serfdom beneath a fog of preening poseurs.
So, someone tell me why “equality” isn’t THE primary goal of Socialism? “Taxing the Rich” … is all about income “equality”. Obamakkare is all about medical “equality”. Sheesh, in Canada the government even makes it illegal to buy “better” than government healthcare. “Affirmative-action” is all about “leveling the playing field”. “500 genders” is a means to erase any “gender bias” … to make us all “equally confused”. “School bussing”? giving urban youth “equal” suburban schools.
EVERYTHING about Socialism is done in the name of “equality”.
So why does this author feel the NEED to diminish that notion? Because “equality” of all people is ridiculous. Because it runs counter to EVERY human being’s innate impulse. Every human is SELFISH by birth … by nature … by DNA. It is central to our survival instinct. Go ahead, ask anyone scrounging for scraps of food on the streets of Caracas to … s-h-a-r-e … the crumbs they discover. They’d be more likely to smash you in the head and RUN! Go ahead, ask the Obama’s to enroll their daughters in the Washington DC, urban, “equal” public schools. Yeah, right.
So the highly educated writer of this piece poo-poos the notion of Socialism being about “equality”. This is called a LIE. And when people start conversations with a LIE … run! RUN away from anything they’re selling. Because those (highly educated in Bernstein) people will always be “more equal” than you.
bussing? oooooh gawd Kenji dont get me started on that one.
I am eternally grateful I didnt have to go thru that, considering as soon as I could, the quickest route to grade school was right over the chain link fence at the back of my yard.
or ship me to the next county? fcuk no. (there might have been a raft of punctured goddamn tires on those buses soon after).
I recollect a very depressing ‘second look’ story at the whole rotted leftist scheme, the kids, including blacks, performance in school was SEVERELY degraded they were so fcukin EXHAUSTED from getting up at 4 oclock in the godfersaken morning to be ready for the bus in time.
and slept thru class etc. here’s a hint mr pro-bussing: KIDS NEED LOTS OF SLEEP TO BE HEALTHY AND ALERT.
there is so much ink about this I cant find a specific reference to the article about whosits who came up with the lamebraindead notion in the first place, having second thoughts about the scheme.
jeezuz murphy, talk about ‘law of unintended consequences’. but THAT’s the problem with politishuns, when, when, WHEN do they EVER play devil’s advocate and see if they can punch holes in their latest pet project? certainly not liberals or socialists.
It’s a question I ask every lefty who espouses socialism.
Define it for me. Then they typically give the equality etc drivel.
Then I define it for them in 7 words.
“The government owns the means of production”
No private business, jobs or ownership.
State owns and runs all.
Then said lefty’s look befuddled.
Free stuff with it’s corollary “someone else pays for it, not you.”
By the time that fallacy is fully revealed, it’s often too late for the serfs, along with their liberty, standard of living and safety.
Socialists want to be like Norway (20% of GDP comes from oil) or Finland (less than 7% of the population are immigrants) or Sweden (rape capital country of the world). They want to be like these countries because of their social programs, supported by a wealthy, mostly white, capitalist system (which they refuse to acknowledge).
Socialists never want to be like Cuba (free health care) or Venezuela (free food if you can keep up to the garbage truck) or China (a bit totalitarian for me but a well organized society). This is because there is no freedom in socialism. Everyone is treated the same, unless you are in power. Then the rules are different.
and steve, what the brain dead lefties do not get is that those countries, Norway, Finland Sveden, and Denmark are not actual socialist countries, they are a socialist/capitalist hybrids. Something that confuses the fools. Hell, in many way Canada is more socialist than Finland. I know, as I have been there a few times.
I like to say, “socialism kills exceptionalism”
Shame on you, criminal. Criminal!!! It is CRIMINAL to strive for … “exceptionalism”. What? D’ya think you’re BETTER than your fellow citizens?! D’ya think you DESERVE MORE than your fellow citizen!!?? I’ll bet you actually don’t want to wait in the line to get medical treatment. I’ll bet you want to BUY your way to the front of the line. Criminal! CRIMINAL!!! Off to the re-education camp with you and your SELFish urges.
Kenji, I had that discussion with some one recently. She is quite smart, very good looking, well off, and a widower. Prize catch for some one. But she is a lefty, and argued against 2 tier medicine, as NOT FAIR. Well I educated her real quick, as we are considered 29th by WHO on the world scale, and every one above us has 2 tier health. I also pointed out that we already have 2 tier, as in Buffalo health care, were I was recently going to go if local was swamped. Better broke a healthy , than richest in the grave yard:-)))
A couple points of disagreement Steve,
Of what use are garbage trucks in Venezuela? The people are hungry enough that they eat the garbage rather than throw it out for the trucks to pick up.
China has an ideologically socialist ruling class, but after experiencing 40 years of the blessings of socialism, they allowed capitalism to flourish, and with no government anti-poverty programs whatsoever, capitalism has been pulling the people of China out of poverty at the rate of 1 million per month.
“Of course, Republicans are using the word as a term of opprobrium, hoping to conjure up images of radicalism, Marxism and Soviet-style gulags.”
I stopped right there – where any hope of objectivity died. Of course.
When I hear “continue to build” come out of Juthtin’s pie-hole at every stop on his re-election campaign (brought to you by the Canadian tax slaves) I know exactly what he’s building.
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ” Orwell.
“continue to build” means “continue to spend”.
no.
not spend.
SQUANDER.
tax and squander is the new phrase @ liberal hqts.
The only people who prosper in socialism is government and their friends. They do NOT give a shit about …. ‘the people’. Fortunately for them, the people who vote for them are already compliant slaves whose lives are about to take a turn for the worse if they are successful. But you already know all that. They will lose weight while waiting for all the free stuff.
Socialism means
repression,
poverty,
frustration,
anxiety,
waste,
envy,
ignorance,
weakness.
Agreed, no matter their intentions, imho most often nefarious, they are forced behind the barricades of the power paradigm.
The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen, especially when the state runs out of the citizens’ money.
Socialism atomizes individuals to reference only the state, seeded in conflict rather than harmonious individual commerce.
If unchecked by populism, it always becomes totalitarian as the compulsory transactions of decline destroy wealth formation
Socialism is being subservient to a man-king…man’s systems. The minutia of the various systems is beside the point. And it’s a lot more than 10% now…
1 Samuel 8:7-9
(7) And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
(8) According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee.
(9) Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.
1 Samuel 8:10-18
(10) And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king.
(11) And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
(12) And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
(13) And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
(14) And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
(15) And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.
(16) And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
(17) He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
(18) And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.
I asked my 15 year old son what socialism meant and he said “it’s basically a system where the government owns everything and splits up all resources equally, so there is no point in working hard because it doesn’t get you anything”
Pretty accurate.
furthermore, the long history of socialism provides superb proof that, sadly, with some things, when broken they can NEVER be fixed.
the long slide from the utopian das kapital kommunist manifesto, to what we see of socialism today, right now,
th march 7 2019 8:04 pm local time:
pick an example. or 2. mine are real close together on the map and ideology:
castrostan and whatthefcukhappenedzeaula.
Many great comments above.
I particularly prefer the quote attributed to Winston Churchill (I presume) ” the chief virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery”, that Don Morris referenced.
This is followed by Shamrock’s comment at 12:30 pm, about being defined by class and punished accordingly.
As most of you here know, most of my extended family experienced the socialist utopia in the Soviet Union for seventy years. And, it appears that my family, those of us that live in Canada, might well have to experience this again. Only this time it is coming in slowly, like the Frankfurt School now prefers, through by subterfuge and infiltration of the media and educational systems rather than in a chaotic murderous six month time frame like in 1917.
Karl Marx used the words ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ interchangeably in his writing.
I saw this on another comment board somewhere. I will paraphrase:
Socialism defined:
It is the practice of denying your neighbours anything to envy.
ah yes, but if your neighbor is a party elite sure as shyt THEY will have ‘stuff’ for YOU to envy.