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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (1059052)	3/8/2018 9:40:56 AM
From: James Seagrove	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Respond to of 1572099

For more than fifty years, the West’s liberal intellectuals have proclaimed their love for mankind, while being bored by the rivers of blood pouring out of the Soviet Union. Professing their compassion for human suffering, they have none for the victims in Russia. Unable or unwilling to give up their faith in collectivism, they evade the existence of Soviet atrocities, of terror, secret police and concentration camps—and publish glowing tributes to Soviet technology, production and art. Posturing as humanitarians, they man the barricades to fight the “injustice,” “exploitation,” “repression,” and “persecution” they claim to find in America; as to the full reality of such things in Russia, they keep silent. Susan Ludel, “Review of Anatoly Marchenko’s My Testimony,” The Objectivist, July 1970, 1

To: koan who wrote (1059052)	3/8/2018 9:41:19 AM
From: James Seagrove	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Respond to of 1572099

The majority of those who are loosely identified by the term “liberals” are afraid to let themselves discover that what they advocate is statism. They do not want to accept the full meaning of their goal; they want to keep all the advantages and effects of capitalism, while destroying the cause, and they want to establish statism without its necessary effects. They do not want to know or to admit that they are the champions of dictatorship and slavery. “Conservatism: An Obituary,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 194

To: koan who wrote (1059052)	3/8/2018 9:41:52 AM
From: James Seagrove	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Respond to of 1572099

In the 1930’s, the “liberals” had a program of broad social reforms and a crusading spirit, they advocated a planned society, they talked in terms of abstract principles, they propounded theories of a predominantly socialistic nature—and most of them were touchy about the accusation that they were enlarging the government’s power; most of them were assuring their opponents that government power was only a temporary means to an end—a “noble end,” the liberation of the individual from his bondage to material needs. Today, nobody talks of a planned society in the “liberal” camp; long-range programs, theories, principles, abstractions, and “noble ends” are not fashionable any longer. Modern “liberals” deride any political concern with such large-scale matters as an entire society or an economy as a whole; they concern themselves with single, concrete-bound, range-of-the-moment projects and demands, without regard to cost, context, or consequences. “Pragmatic”—not “idealistic”—is their favorite adjective when they are called upon to justify their “stance,” as they call it, not “stand.” They are militantly opposed to political philosophy; they denounce political concepts as “tags,” “labels,” “myths,” “illusions”—and resist any attempt to “label”—i.e., to identify—their own views. They are belligerently anti-theoretical and—with a faded mantle of intellectuality still clinging to their shoulders—they are anti-intellectual. The only remnant of their former “idealism” is a tired, cynical, ritualistic quoting of shopworn “humanitarian” slogans, when the occasion demands it. Cynicism, uncertainty, and fear are the insignia of the culture which they are still dominating by default. And the only thing that has not rusted in their ideological equipment, but has grown savagely brighter and clearer through the years, is their lust for power—for an autocratic, statist, totalitarian government power. It is not a crusading brightness, it is not the lust of a fanatic with a mission—it is more like the glassy-eyed brightness of a somnambulist whose stuporous despair has long since swallowed the memory of his purpose, but who still clings to his mystic weapon in the stubborn belief that “there ought to be a law,” that everything will be all right if only somebody will pass a law, that every problem can be solved by the magic power of brute force. “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus,”

To: koan who wrote (1059052)	3/8/2018 9:42:19 AM
From: James Seagrove	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Respond to of 1572099

The most timid, frightened, conservative defenders of the status quo—of the intellectual status quo—are today’s liberals (the leaders of the conservatives never ventured into the realm of the intellect). What they dread to discover is the fact that the intellectual status quo they inherited is bankrupt, that they have no ideological base to stand on and no capacity to construct one. Brought up on the philosophy of Pragmatism, they have been taught that principles are unprovable, impractical or non-existent—which has destroyed their ability to integrate ideas, to deal with abstractions, and to see beyond the range of the immediate moment. Abstractions, they claim, are “simplistic” (another anti-concept); myopia is sophisticated. “Don’t polarize!” and “Don’t rock the boat!” are expressions of the same kind of panic.

To: koan who wrote (1059052)	3/8/2018 9:43:36 AM
From: James Seagrove	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Respond to of 1572099

The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism. For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded, and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of “conservatism” and “liberalism” which had lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men. The goal of the “liberals”—as it emerges from the record of the past decades—was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot—by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli. (The goal of the “conservatives” was only to retard that process.) “‘Extremism,’ or the Art of Smearing

To: koan who wrote (1059052)	3/8/2018 12:21:16 PM
From: RetiredNow	1 Recommendation Recommended By arno Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572099

First off, you say that Democracy is a form of government and Capitalism is an economic system. I agree with that. However, the same cannot be said for Socialism and Communism. Both of those are politico-economic systems. The political structure of socialism is indispensable to implementing socialism's economic policies. That is why you will find that people who have lived in Socialist or Communist countries make no distinction between the economic system and the system of government. The thing that is different about Capitalism, is that you can have a very limited government structure, because the decisions on free trade between individuals and groups of people are left to the people, with minimal government interference, except to enforce property rights and contracts, provide a justice system to redress grievances, and provide for military and law enforcement protections. In socialism and communism, trade is not freely decided on between people. Instead, onerous government controls are put in place to manage the economy centrally and tax extraction methods become very invasive to asset strip those with capital to redistribute to those without capital. One giant mistake you are making is thinking that Socialism, Communism, and Capitalism are on a linear spectrum. What is true in reality is that Capitalism is on top of the hill and is something to aspire to in its enablement of prosperity and freedom. Capitalism and Democracy have an unmatched record for lifting more people out of poverty and providing more freedom and human rights than any other system. Socialism is further down the hill, with Communism further down, and Dictatorship at the bottom of the hill. You see, this is a slippery slope. Once a group of free people engaged in Capitalism with a Democratic government start to become enthralled with all the free shit they can vote themselves, they start sliding down the hill. Every vote for free shit means enabling the government to grow bigger and more invasive in order to enable the redistribution. This continues until Communism, price setting, and control becomes overwhelming. Ultimately, it always leads to Putin, Maduro, Kim Jong Un, and others. You say Democrats love Capitalism, but that's utter poppycock. There is no one screaming louder about the benefits of Socialism in almost every conversation than Democrats and liberals right now. Bernie was very, very popular with Millennials. Most surveys of this incredibly large group of people show that they are VERY liberal and the majority believe in Socialism/Communism. In fact, a recent poll showed 58% of Millennials believe in Socialism/Communism/Fascism. That is alarming because Millennials are the future Democratic party faithful. So you are wrong to say your party believes in Capitalism. They do not now and they will not in the future. That's the sad fact. Poll: Majority of Democrats say socialism has 'positive impact' Senator Sanders declared: “These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger.” The Democrats have become socialists Hey Bernie, I left Venezuela's socialism behind for a reason: Voices As an immigrant from Latin America, I have found the current presidential election to be both depressing and terrifying — but not for the obvious reason. The negativity in rhetoric concerns me, of course. Yet it pales in comparison to the growing acceptance of socialism, which I thought I left behind in my formerly rich homeland, Venezuela.