Socialism is...

[Kennedy 0]

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What is socialism? We miss the boat if we say it's the agenda of left-wingers and Democrats. According to Marxist doctrine, socialism is a stage of society between capitalism and communism where private ownership and control over property are eliminated. The essence of socialism is the attenuation and ultimate abolition of private property rights. Attacks on private property include, but are not limited to, confiscating the rightful property of one person and giving it to another to whom it doesn't belong. When this is done privately, we call it theft. When it's done collectively, we use euphemisms: income transfers or redistribution. It's not just left-wingers and Democrats who call for and admire socialism but right-wingers and Republicans as well.

Republicans and right-wingers support taking the earnings of one American and giving them to farmers, banks, airlines and other failing businesses. Democrats and left-wingers support taking the earnings of one American and giving them to poor people, cities and artists. Both agree on taking one American's earnings to give to another; they simply differ on the recipients. This kind of congressional activity constitutes at least two-thirds of the federal budget.

Regardless of the purpose, such behavior is immoral. It's a reduced form of slavery. After all, what is the essence of slavery? It's the forceful use of one person to serve the purposes of another person. When Congress, through the tax code, takes the earnings of one person and turns around to give it to another person in the forms of prescription drugs, Social Security, food stamps, farm subsidies or airline bailouts, it is forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another.

The moral question stands out in starker relief when we acknowledge that those spending programs coming out of Congress do not represent lawmakers reaching into their own pockets and sending out the money. Moreover, there's no tooth fairy or Santa Claus giving them the money. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces us to acknowledge that the only way government can give one American a dollar is to first -- through intimidation, threats and coercion -- take that dollar from some other American.

Some might rejoin that all of this is a result of a democratic process and it's legal. Legality alone is no guide for a moral people. There are many things in this world that have been, or are, legal but clearly immoral. Slavery was legal. Did that make it moral? South Africa's apartheid, Nazi persecution of Jews, and Stalinist and Maoist purges were all legal, but did that make them moral?

Can a moral case be made for taking the rightful property of one American and giving it to another to whom it does not belong? I think not. That's why socialism is evil. It uses evil means (coercion) to achieve what are seen as good ends (helping people). We might also note that an act that is inherently evil does not become moral simply because there's a majority consensus.

An argument against legalized theft should not be construed as an argument against helping one's fellow man in need. Charity is a noble instinct; theft, legal or illegal, is despicable. Or, put another way: Reaching into one's own pocket to assist his fellow man is noble and worthy of praise. Reaching into another person's pocket to assist one's fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.

For the Christians among us, socialism and the welfare state must be seen as sinful. When God gave Moses the commandment "Thou shalt not steal," I'm sure He didn't mean thou shalt not steal unless there's a majority vote. And I'm sure that if you asked God if it's OK just being a recipient of stolen property, He would deem that a sin as well.

Found here
Author's bio

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[rehmwa 2]

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The fact that government has no resources of its very own

Your left and right wing socialists disagree with this premise. They believe all resources ultimately DO belong to the government. That's the whole basis for their rationalization.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[lawrocket 3]

Walter Williams is one of my very favorite columnists and thinkers. I had the pleasure of seeing him speak over ten years ago.

Walter Williams is actually one of the most vocal advocates of a secession movement for individual states to secede from the US and form their own government free of federal interference. I don't agree with him all the time, but he certainly is a good writer and thinker.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[kallend 2,148]

Thank you for being honest enough to give the source of your article.

I'm getting really fed up with seeing all the unattributed, cutesy "Bush Bio"s or "Kerry's Schedule"s plagiarized from other internet sources.

The first time or two were funny, the tenth was mildly amusing, but the 100th time is just plain old boring.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[turtlespeed 226]

you sound bitter John.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[kallend 2,148]

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you sound bitter John.

no, just cynical. Both sides are equally bad. Why can't "none of the above" be an option?

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[turtlespeed 226]

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you sound bitter John.

no, just cynical. Both sides are equally bad. Why can't "none of the above" be an option?

That would be Anarchy.

POSSIBLY prefferable to todays world - but No, I like our system - I think it works pretty well. Better than anywhere else in the world. So - I'll vote to keep it going.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[airdweller 0]

.no, just cynical. Both sides are equally bad. Why can't "none of the above" be an option?

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because Richard Prior and John Candy are not involved

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"From the mightiest pharaoh to the lowliest peasant,
who doesn't enjoy a good sit?" C. Montgomery Burns

[Guest]

Collectivization is an utter failure, because it completely ignores the concept of enlightened self-interest.

I read an anectdotal example of a collective farm - "Who will take care of the sick calf at 2am? Not me - isn't mine."

mh

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"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[livendive 8]

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Collectivization is an utter failure, because it completely ignores the concept of enlightened self-interest.

I read an anectdotal example of a collective farm - "Who will take care of the sick calf at 2am? Not me - isn't mine."

In "Thinking for Yourself", Marlys Mayfield relates a story from the author Jean Liedloff.

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Liedloff spent two-and-a-half years living with a Stone Age tribe, the Yequana Indians of the rain forests of Brazil. One thing that puzzled her was that the tribe did not have a word for work, nor did members distinguish work from other ways of spending time. She observed the women thoroughly enjoying the task of going down to a stream for water several times a day, even though they had to descend a steep bank with gourds on their heads and babies on their backs. Gradually the author came to realize that the idea that work is hard and leisure is fun is only a Western value assumption. She had to consider that this idea was not necessarily a truth about life, but a cultural attitude.

Similarly, (from Liedloff herself on this page.)

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Leisure in Action: work as play

In her book "The Continuum Concept" Jean Liedloff describes her experience of living with Stone Age Indians in the South American jungle for two and a half years. (Most of her time was spent with the Yequana.) She found these people to be the happiest she had seen anywhere. What stuck most in my mind on reading this incredible book was the Indians' attitude towards "work," or rather their experience of all activity as play; they made no distinction between work and play ...

"There appeared to be no Yequana concept of work similar to ours. There were words for each activity that might have been included, but no generic term."

Jean initially visits the jungle with two young Italian explorers on a diamond hunting expedition. Soon after her arrival she is presented with a powerful example of the Indians' radically different approach to life ...


"Some small illuminations did get through to my civilization-blinded mind: for example, some concerning the concept of work. We had traded our slightly too small aluminum canoe for a much too big dugout. In this vessel, carved from a single tree, seventeen Indians at one time travelled with us. With all their baggage added to ours and everyone aboard, the vast canoe still looked rather empty. Portaging it, this time with only four or five Indians to help, over half a mile of boulders beside a large waterfall, was depressing to contemplate. It meant placing logs across the path of the canoe, and hauling it, inch by inch in the merciless sun, slipping inevitably into the crevices between the boulders whenever the canoe pivoted out of control, and scraping one's shins, ankles and whatever else one landed on, against the granite. We had done the portage before with the small canoe and the two Italians and I, knowing what lay ahead, spent several days anticipating the hard work and pain. On the day we arrived at Arepuchi Falls we were primed to suffer and started off, grim-faced and hating every moment, to drag the thing over the rocks.
When it swung sideways, so heavy was the rogue pirogue, it several times pinned one of us to the burning rock until the others could move it off. A quarter of the way across all ankles were bleeding. Partly by way of begging off for a minute, I jumped up on a high rock to photograph the scene. From my vantage point and momentary disinvolvement, I noticed a most interesting fact. Here before me were several men engaged in a single task. Two, the Italians, were tense, frowning, losing their tempers at everything, and cursing non-stop in the distinctive manner of the Tuscan. The rest, Indians, were having a fine time. They were laughing at the unwieldiness of the canoe, making a game of the battle, relaxed between pushes, laughing at their own scrapes and especially amused when the canoe, as it wobbled forward, pinned one, then another, underneath it. The fellow held bare-backed against the scorching granite, when he could breathe again, invariably laughed the loudest.

All were doing the same work, all were experiencing strain and pain. There was no difference in our situations except that we had been conditioned by our culture to believe that such a combination of circumstances constituted an unquestionable low on the scale of well-being, and were quite unaware we had any option in the matter.

The Indians, on the other hand, equally unconscious of making a choice, were in a particularly merry state of mind, enjoying the camaraderie; and of course they had had no long build-up of dread to mar the preceding days. Each forward move was for them a little victory, enjoyed to the full."

Not only was I struck by the Yequana's playful attitude to all activity, but also by their complete freedom from the moral judgment, resentment and guilt that is so often, and so unecessarily, attached to such concepts as "working hard" or "being lazy" in western "civilised" society ...


"Another hint about human nature and work came later.
Two Indian families lived in a hut overlooking a magnificent white beach, a lagoon in a wide crescent of rocks, the Caroni and Arepuchi Falls beyond. One paterfamilias was called Pepe, the other, Cesar. It was Pepe who told the story.

It seems that Cesar had been 'adopted' by Venezuelans when very young and had gone to live with them in a small town. He was sent to school, learned to read and write and was reared as a Venezuelan. When he was grown, he came, like many of the men of those Guianese towns, to the Upper Caroni to try his luck at diamond hunting. He was working with a group of Venezuelans when he was recognized by Mundo, chief of the Tauripans at Guayparu.

'Were you not taken to live with Jose Grande?' Mundo asked.

'I was brought up by Jose Grande,' said Cesar, according to the story.

'Then you have come back to your own people. You are a Tauripan,' said Mundo.

Whereupon Cesar, after a great deal of thought, decided that he would be better off living as an Indian than as a Venezuelan and came to Arepuchi where Pepe lived.

For five years Cesar lived with Pepe's family, marrying a pretty Tauripan woman and becoming the father of a little girl. As Cesar did not like to work, he and his wife and daughter ate the food grown in Pepe's plantation. Cesar was delighted to find that Pepe did not expect him to clear a garden of his own or even help with the work in his. Pepe enjoyed working and since Cesar did not, the arrangement suited everyone.

Cesar's wife liked joining the other women and girls in cutting and preparing the cassava to eat, but all Cesar liked was hunting tapir and occasionally other game. After a couple of years he developed a taste for fishing and added his catches to those of Pepe and his two sons, who always liked to fish and who had supplied his family as generously as their own.

Just before we arrived, Cesar decided to clear a garden of his own, and Pepe had helped with every detail, from choosing the site to felling and burning the trees. Pepe enjoyed it all the more because he and his friend talked and joked the whole time.

Cesar, after five years' assurance, felt that no one was pushing him into the project and was as free to enjoy working as Pepe, or any other Indian.

Everyone at Arepuchi was glad, Pepe told us, because Cesar had been growing discontented and irritable. 'He wanted to make a garden of his own,' Pepe laughed, 'but he didn't know it himself!' Pepe thought it hilarious that anyone should not know that he wanted to work."

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[MarkM 0]

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Attacks on private property include, but are not limited to, confiscating the rightful property of one person and giving it to another to whom it doesn't belong.

First the guy needs to define "rightful property" before he goes all off on "legalized theft". I mean, if he wants to swim out to an island where no one else lives, no government rules and carve out all by himself a house, roads, build vehicles, etc and defend it from attackers then by all means he truly owns all of that.

But since we all live in a society that depends on one another for everything in our lives, I'd hardly call taxes to support that society "legalized theft".

[Kennedy 0]

OK, so when you work your ass off to earn something, and someone else sits around watching oprah and springer, you think it's ok for someone to come in and take your things to give it to the other guy.

All right. In that case, you might want to campaign with these guys this election season.

Good luck.

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Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[sundevil777 102]

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Regardless of the purpose, such behavior is immoral.

Collecting taxes to pay for the National defense should at least be allowed, don't you think. It is one of the few duties given the Federal Govt.

Do you think there is an important distinction between income/property taxes and other types, such as sales taxes? If you were self sufficient, then you would have to pay no taxes.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[MarkM 0]

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OK, so when you work your ass off to earn something, and someone else sits around watching oprah and springer, you think it's ok for someone to come in and take your things to give it to the other guy.

I look at things in terms of my own best interests. I don't support welfare programs that pay people to sit around and watch oprah, because it's not in my best interest. I do support programs that work with people on a short term with the goal of getting them jobs or assisting them while they have sub-minimal living standard jobs.

Homeless people sitting on a street corner begging dollars is an eye soar and those people don't pay taxes and never will. So yeah, if there's a program to prevent that, I support it.

Let's talk about our health care system going social. I'm a healthy young adult male, why should I have to pay for another person's health care as a part of some HMO/PPO/medicare? If they're old and frail, fuck em right? Or if they break a leg and don't earn as much as me and can't afford a cast and x-rays, screw them too, right?

The problem with that though is that the rich people need the poor people to get crap done. So yeah, the taxes go downhill. What you're forgetting though is that earnings go uphill. The CEO that makes $500k ain't working 20 times as hard as his employee making $25k. In reality, the CEO is just smarter, more talented or knows how to work the business world. But he needs that $25k a year guy to get things done. So if that guy breaks a leg it's in the CEO's interests to have his tax money go towards fixing the guy up so he can get back on the job.

It's in his own best interest, my best interest and your best interest to have programs in place to support and help the low guy when he's down. The trick though is to have programs that make unproductive people productive and keep them there, instead of programs that reward people for staying unproductive.

I think the origional article's idealism just doesn't work in the real world.

[Balls 0]

Kennedy, read "The Law" by Fredrick Bassiat. Damn good book that goes on a lot of the same lines as your quote.

On another note, your avatar looks exactly like a friend of mine.

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....so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

[Kennedy 0]

Your quote (sig) sounds like the caricature of one of my friends, and your avatar looks like one of my favorite TV personalities.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[nacmacfeegle 0]

Socialism is.....
Much reviled in a capitalist society.
Not quite communism.
defined as....
"the set of beliefs which states that all people are equal and should share equally in the wealth of the country, or the political systems based on these beliefs"
As opposed to communism....
"the belief in a society without different classes in which the methods of production are owned and controlled by all its members and everyone works as much as they can and receives what they need"

I see socialism as a balance to capitalism, there must be balance, otherwise the capitalism will tend to fascism, just as unbalanced socialism will tend to communism in the absence of capitalism.

Society needs to embrace elements of socialism and capitalism to function, without reverting to extremism.

Thats an awful lot of 'isms' for one post though, fancy a beerism?

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[Kennedy 0]

All good points, but there's one thing you left out:

In both our countries, we tend so far towards socialism that if you package it in nice words, people and politicians will take it at face value, while if you talk about shrinking government or removing services, or allowing business the freedom to operate, we would be laughed out of our respective legislative halls.

(I'm talking UK as a whole, and the laws of London, I don't claim to understand the intricacies distinguishing Scottish versus English versus Welsh versus Irish parliamentary issues)

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[nacmacfeegle 0]

"In both our countries, we tend so far towards socialism that if you package it in nice words...etc "

Yes indeed, we are both probably best described as either socially minded capitalists, or business oriented socialists.

"I'm talking UK as a whole, and the laws of London, I don't claim to understand the intricacies distinguishing Scottish versus English versus Welsh versus Irish parliamentary issues"
I'm glad, as not even I understand what is going on there.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[Kennedy 0]

Well, the first round is still on me, but it's 4am and I have to work the first shift for the first time in a long time tomorrow. Wish me luck, and does anyone have a good cure for the headaches that come after massive caffeine infusions?

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[nacmacfeegle 0]

Good luck, try some mineral water for the head.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[Kennedy 0]

Is that the nice way to say scotch?

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[Guest]

All very interesting, but you're leaving several (perhaps even many) critical things out of the picture.

The first is abundance. It's likely that those natives live in a place where food is literally hanging from the trees. In other words, it doesn't take a lot of effort. Maslow's Heirarchy is in play here - they are having all their critical needs met.

Second, I don't live in a mud hut. I live in an industrialized, highly technological society. Men from my land walked on the moon...I leave it to your imagination to consider how far those natives have travelled outside their mud-hut village.

Third (and in reference to point one), their culture is their own, and is unique. You use their utopia to bludgeon Western civilization, yet I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anything like it elsewhere in the world.

Fourth (in ref to point three), comparitive anthropology is always sociological poison; e.g., "The beatings will continue until morale improves!", id est - one cannot legislate morality, or compel via external force to obtain a desired utopian model (please see the colossal failures of Soviet communism, Marx, Engels, et al).

mh

.

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."