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If Socialism Is Such A Looney Concept...


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HOLA441

Socialism is the system they have in Cuba, and Europe and now the U.S. Where the government enslaves the people and steals most of their money.
But what is freedom? For some people it's the freedom to drive a car that uses 3 times as much fuel as it needs to, and to drive it at a speed of their choice, and then to post puce-faced moustache-puffing apoplectic messages on motoring forums when they get caught by a speed camera!!! Edited by blankster
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HOLA444
Illusory.
In our lives we have brief moments of freedom between committing ourselves to choices we have made. How many people are free in their jobs, for instance?

If we have unfettered freedom, there will always be some people who regard it as their freedom to spoil other peoples' freedom. There's always the kid who wants to kick down other kids' sandcastles rather than make one of their own.

Edited by blankster
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HOLA445
Here is a quote from Winston Churchill, which pretty much sums up my feeling about socialism:

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.â€

Yes. Unfortunately everything Churchill said which wasn't related to saving the world from the Nazis was not too bright. Outside of WW2 he was by common consent (even within his own party) a very poor philosophical thinker and completely out of touch on economics, hence his immediate ejection from power once he'd done the job of ridding the world of Hitler.

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HOLA446
But what is freedom? For some people it's the freedom to drive a car that uses 3 times as much fuel as it needs to, and to drive it at a speed of their choice, and then to post puce-faced moustache-puffing apoplectic messages on motoring forums when they get caught by a speed camera!!!

Yes, I think you've got it.

The government monitoring everyone with cameras and taking their money are definitely signs of slavery/socialism.

Anarchy might be the way to go, it doesn't have to be as disorganised as everyone thinks, as God says, "look to the ant thou sluggard".

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HOLA447
daily mail ******.

How can you have very strong individualism and very strong communism at the same time? Bit like being a strict jewish muslim.

And if the scandinavians have such a strong work ethic how come they work far fewer hours a week and have much, much longer holidays compared to us brits?!

Just another blame the immigrant ******** post.

I'm just explaining what I learnt about Scandinavia about living their with my then girlfriend for 6 months last year, and learning about their culture, and talking to other Scandinavians about it.

Of course, I could have imagined it.

It is remarkable that they have a culture of individualism and communal responsibility at the same time, but is true nonetheless. Everyone is supposed to do the best to look after themselves, but also be prepared to help others in the community when necessary. A simple set of moral values.

But I think that a great many Scandinavians do blame the immigrants, to be quite honest.

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HOLA448
In our lives we have brief moments of freedom between committing ourselves to choices we have made. How many people are free in their jobs, for instance?

If we have unfettered freedom, there will always be some people who regard it as their freedom to spoil other peoples' freedom. There's always the kid who wants to kick down other kids' sandcastles rather than make one of their own.

I am free to walk out any time I chose, I would suffer consequencs of course but that's just part of the nature of life i'm not free to jump off tall buildings and survive either, it is a non-starter as a moral argument for the justification of violence by the state.

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HOLA449
In our lives we have brief moments of freedom between committing ourselves to choices we have made. How many people are free in their jobs, for instance?

how come this thread is riddled with people citing statist failings in America and Europe and then blaming capitalism?

I'd hardly call GW Bush a socialist, but he WAS a high spending interventionist statist, and favoured his big business pals at that, so was not a proponent of true capitalism, tho it is a shame that such loons attach themselves to that flag.

'Free in our jobs' - only if debt free. Unfortunately our socialist govt cited (mortgage) debt as freedom and wealth, and so many fell for it.

Edited by Si1
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HOLA4410
If we have unfettered freedom, there will always be some people who regard it as their freedom to spoil other peoples' freedom. There's always the kid who wants to kick down other kids' sandcastles rather than make one of their own.

And to respond to your edit all of this becomes ok if we give them a piece of paper / uniform / title / to denote state backed authority?

There is either freedom or not freedom there can be no shades of grey, the dog on a long lease is not free even if he never reaches its boundaries, this is a binary scenario.

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HOLA4411

I wouldn't bother mentioning socialism here.

Dumbing down is the culprit. Whilst 100s of millions of people know about the work of Marx, sadly owing to the myriad failures of the capitalist education system (factory drones only) most people here will base their commentary on things they have picked up from the Daily Mail and American films.

Essentially you are putting yourself up before Senator McCarthy.

There are problems with Marxism and socialism of course, just none that any of the idiots here will be capable of understanding.

Injin, for example, tells me he has never read Capital nor will he ever: because Karl Marx was a bad man who treated his wife badly.

Thats what you are up against, so give up.

Edited by Cogs
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HOLA4413
I wouldn't bother mentioning socialism here.

Dumbing down is the culprit. Whilst 100s of millions of people know about the work of Marx, sadly owing to the myriad failures of the capitalist education system (factory drones only) most people here will base their commentary on things they have picked up from the Daily Mail and American films.

Essentially you are putting yourself up before Senator McCarthy.

There are problems with Marxism and socialism of course, just none that any of the idiots here will be capable of understanding.

Injin, for example, tells me he has never read Capital nor will he ever: because Karl Marx was a bad man who treated his wife badly.

Thats what you are up against, so give up.

I would be more interested in hearing what you think than what you think of why other people don't think the same as you.

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HOLA4414
I would be more interested in hearing what you think than what you think of why other people don't think the same as you.

I've told you what I think dozens of times.

I get told that socialism is evil and murders billions of people.

So I'm not going to bother.

Edit: Ok, seriously? I'm not really a socialist at all but the level of discussion about here is frequently ridiculous.

It makes it impossible to discuss properly. Lets try this the other way round, lets assume an alternate reality where the USSR won the cold war or something.

HPC Poster: Capitalism is about stealing. Capitalism is evil and sick.

Reader of the Austrian school: No it isn't.

HPC Posters (x100): You're just evil and sick for saying that.

Its really pointless.

Edited by Cogs
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HOLA4415
I wouldn't bother mentioning socialism here.

Dumbing down is the culprit. Whilst 100s of millions of people know about the work of Marx, sadly owing to the myriad failures of the capitalist education system (factory drones only) most people here will base their commentary on things they have picked up from the Daily Mail and American films.

Essentially you are putting yourself up before Senator McCarthy.

There are problems with Marxism and socialism of course, just none that any of the idiots here will be capable of understanding.

Injin, for example, tells me he has never read Capital nor will he ever: because Karl Marx was a bad man who treated his wife badly.

Thats what you are up against, so give up.

problem is - Marx was a hippocrite who could not possibly have existed within the system he espoused

whether it was his family-moral hypocrisy, his politico-economic hypocrisy, or his personal-fiscal hypocrisy, the fact that his ideals and writings hinged on an internal moral human principal that he manifestly broke every day himself, mean that all he wrote was fiction. So what's the point reading it. A (good) biography was enough to start turning my young foolish mind away from socialism.

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HOLA4416
Guest BoomBoomCrash
arguably socialism is the next stage of the worlds historical development.

eventually in the future, maybe not in our generation but in future generations, money etc wont be such an important driver in life, and people look beyond it.

its got nothing to do with restricting activity or trying to pull people down but instead setting out a different set of priorities in life.

ive no doubt that in 100's of years from now people will look back at how we are now, and say; how could people live contently in luxury whilst 100's of millions of people on the planet were starving?

its because of the capitalist, look out for number 1 system we have, but in future a better system will evolve.

its just that the world is not ready and not at that stage of social development yet.

it will probably take the discovery of other living planets and realisation that we are not alone in the universe to prompt that change.

That extraterrestrial intelligences have been visiting this planet is pretty old news.

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HOLA4417

I am free to walk out any time I chose, I would suffer consequencs of course but that's just part of the nature
By that argument, people were free to disobey Stalin - they suffered the consequences but that's just part of the nature. So clearly people in 'socialist' countries were free too. I'm sure Stalin would have said so!!! But then Stalin's USSR was only socialist because HE said so! Edited by blankster
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HOLA4418
problem is - Marx was a hippocrite who could not possibly have existed within the system he espoused

whether it was his family-moral hypocrisy, his politico-economic hypocrisy, or his personal-fiscal hypocrisy, the fact that his ideals and writings hinged on an internal moral human principal that he manifestly broke every day himself, mean that all he wrote was fiction. So what's the point reading it. A (good) biography was enough to start turning my young foolish mind away from socialism.

Here we go. What does it matter. Lord Byron ******ed around and wrote beautiful poetry.

John Lennon wrote love songs the world still loves to death to this day and he cheated on his wife.

It doesn't matter that he was a hypocrite. Newton is the father of nearly all we hold dear in science... he also spent more than half of his life trying to read the Bible backwards to find hidden messages and turn straw and piss into gold. That doesn't undermine his science anymore than Marx's life undermines his philosophy. How about Engels then?

His writing do hinge on an "internal moral principle"... that seems pretty clear to me, I dunno if you want to follow up on that.

Look, here is an anecdote for you. I was taught about Marx by someone who advised Maggie on economic policy.

And then the public schoolboys in the room got a bit restless and started the kind of attacks I commonly read here.

What happened next was he gave them a bollocking for not doing the reading and said that Marx may have been wrong about a few things but he was neither stupid nor wicked.

Thats what I think as well.

Edited by Cogs
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HOLA4420
By that argument, people were free to disobey Stalin - they suffered the consequences but that's just part of the nature.

Not really.

By saying that you are saying that Stalin is a force of nature, rather then just some evil git acting badly of his own free will.

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HOLA4421
By that argument, people were free to disobey Stalin - they suffered the consequences but that's just part of the nature. So clearly people in 'socialist' countries were free too. I'm sure Stalin would have said so!!! But then Stalin's USSR was only socialist because HE said so!

Do you need to re-read that?

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HOLA4423
Here we go. What does it matter. Lord Byron ******ed around and wrote beautiful poetry.

John Lennon wrote love songs the world still loves to death to this day and he cheated on his wife.

It doesn't matter that he was a hypocrite. Newton is the father of nearly all we hold dear in science... he also spent more than half of his life trying to read the Bible backwards to find hidden messages and turn straw and piss into gold. That doesn't undermine his science anymore than Marx's life undermines his philosophy. How about Engels then?

His writing do hinge on an "internal moral principle"... that seems pretty clear to me, I dunno if you want to follow up on that.

Look, here is an anecdote for you. I was taught about Marx by someone who advised Maggie on economic policy.

And then the public schoolboys in the room got a bit restless and started the kind of attacks I commonly read here.

What happened next was he gave them a bollocking for not doing the reading and said that Marx may have been wrong about a few things but he was neither stupid nor wicked.

Thats what I think as well.

Byron and Lennon weren't making universal prescriptions about how people should live and organise, Marx was.

If Lennon was randomly hitting a piano with a hammer while screaming (oh wait that was Yoko) and saying that anyone who copied his behaviour would write good music, that would be like Marx.

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HOLA4424
I've told you what I think dozens of times.

I get told that socialism is evil and murders billions of people.

So I'm not going to bother.

Edit: Ok, seriously? I'm not really a socialist at all but the level of discussion about here is frequently ridiculous.

It makes it impossible to discuss properly. Lets try this the other way round, lets assume an alternate reality where the USSR won the cold war or something.

HPC Poster: Capitalism is about stealing. Capitalism is evil and sick.

Reader of the Austrian school: No it isn't.

HPC Posters (x100): You're just evil and sick for saying that.

Its really pointless.

If you think that socialism has some benefits then why don't you just argue your case? It would make HPC a more varied debaing forum. Thats why I like Duncan Weldon's column so much, although I disagree with everything he says its enjoyable just to read somebody with viewpoints that are in complete contrast to my own.

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HOLA4425
Do you need to re-read that?
I did and I couln't see any spelling mistakes.

My point was that although Stalin didn't create the socialist USSR, he subverted it into a totalitarian dictatorship beyond anything that Lenin had done. If Stalin had decided to rename the USSR the 'Great Russian Nationalist Empire', because he was so powerful, he could probably have done so. What I meant was that when Stalin called the USSR socialist, it wasn't something that the citizens were likely to openly dispute.

Edited by blankster
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