Comments on: Our Center-Socialist nation

By: TGGP

TGGP — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 05:57:37 +0000

Jeffrey Friedman already said it here:
http://www.the-dissident.com/friedman.shtml

By: persimmon

persimmon — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:03:23 +0000

It’s not correct to define socialism as redistribution of wealth. Redistribution of wealth has deep roots in Christian tradition, using church wealth to help the poor and infirm, and in the notion of “general welfare” in our Constitution. Helping the less fortunate is simply part of the American character.

It’s also a practical matter. It is often cheaper to offer basic aid like food stamps, vocational training and government housing than it is to deal with the crime and disease that result from a neglected underclass.

Socialism is defined by ownership. We have a socialist highway system and socialist dams, and for good reason. Some needs can not be met by a free market because competition is impractical or impossible. In those circumstances, treating the commodities as public goods is simply the rational alternative. Only when public ownership starts to creep into competitive industries and markets does it really make sense to call the government socialist.

By: daddysteve

daddysteve — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:39:17 +0000

Interesting perspective.

By: Indya

Indya — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:43:59 +0000

“wholesale acceptance of Marxism” – take a few deep breaths and get a grip.

By: Kirk Mcquest

Kirk Mcquest — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:34:38 +0000

I object to the authors description of ‘Conservatism’. He speaks of ‘real Conservatives’ and ‘right Socialist Conservatives’, hoping that the party will go back down a ‘traditional conservative’ course. Guess what? Socialism IS the traditional conservative course. A little historical research will remind us that conservatives existed traditionally within the Democratic party. We all know the term ‘old southern democrat’ and some of us remember when the majority of conservatives existed in the Democratic fold. Now we use the terms ‘Conservative’ and ‘Republican’ interchangeably. But in the not-so-distant past this simply was not so.
There were, and still are, many who identify themselves as ‘Conservative Democrats’. I’m sure there are even a few ‘Liberal Republicans’ out there. It was during the sixties, seventies, and even eighties that the Republican party sought to recruit these Conservatives away from the Democratic party. This required the Republican party to alter their message significantly.
Instead of being the free-market, anti-union party espousing personal responsibility and self-reliance; They became the ‘family values’ party espousing shared responsibility in a profoundly moral message. The old labor disputes being dead, the Conservative Democrats saw no value in the Democratic Party which was becoming the home of the modern ‘Liberal’.
The old Republicans ( not conservatives) who believed firmly in limited government ( even regarding moral conundrums) were left with three choices; Compromise some of your principles for the perceived ‘greater good’ of the party ( this is what the majority did do ), start your own party ( this is what Murray Rothbard did in the sixties/seventies, its called the Libertarian party), or remain to fight the good fight and become increasingly marginalized.
What we are witnessing today is the culmination of a party that sold its principles fifty years ago ( to the conservatives!). Hence, the modern Conservative. He is as socialist now as he was fifty/sixty years ago, wearing the guise of a Republican who he has been strangling since the day he strode into the party.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:42:52 +0000

46% of the electorate voted against Obama. A nation with socialist tendencies? Ok, yes. A nation that agrees with Obama’s wholesale acceptance of Marxism? No. I would argue that a larger percentage of Obama’s voters are very much opposed to what Obama will do to this country but they voted for Obama because they are ignorant.
http://rightklik.blogspot.com/

By: McCann

McCann — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:37:10 +0000

I think in the very least, reforming themselves into a Right-Socialist party along the lines of Bismarck, would be preferable to what we have now.
Honest, that is, outright socialism, at least holds certain implicit responsibilities. If you are going to openly talk of expanding the Federal Government, you will be held accountable to see that “something gets done”. If the republic party under Bush had run on the platform of the largest increase in the federal government in history, there would at least be the expectation to provide something on the scale that Roosevelt, or Eisenhower did with the Interstate highway system, or in the very least, what Kennedy/Johnson provided with NASA. While not preferable to a non-interventionist policy, these candidates all had one thing in common. They openly advocated an expanded role for the government, and for better or worse, saw that that role was fulfilled in an acceptable manner.
Instead, by arguing for lowered government, while actually expanding it, the Bush administration succeeded in an interesting political feat.
It got its chance to spread the wealth around to key constituencies, while at the same time, lowering peoples expectations for what the government should do for them. For his massive increase in the size of government, has Bush given anything as lasting as Eisenhower, NASA or even the New Deal? Bush succeeded in “Breaking the Brand” of Republican Small Government, but would he not have equally “Broken the Brand” of Right Socialism?

By: Sean Scallon

Sean Scallon — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:03:37 +0000

Rawshark, if you believe I am simply making up terms I suggest you read up about the splits in European socialism when the first World War broke (who’s ending we are celebrating today) out and creation of a new kind of socialism that was based on the celebration and defense of the nation state and its people rather than the brotherhood of man and celebration of war as a means of national and spirtual renewal. True conservatives in places like Italy and Germany and Austria (the Dolfuss-Schussnigg party) could only stand by helplessly as the Fascists took over either naively believing they could control them or simply believeing the Fascists were the only popular force capable of beating back the Communists.

The one thing that many democracies in Europe have in common is that they do not have Constitutions that enshire freedom of speech or association or preventions on unlawful searches and seizures. Tradition and law, like that of habeous corpus, can easily be discareded, even in Great Britain, if the state feels under threat. Look at the way Canada cracked down on Quebec after terrorist activity from the FLQ during the early 1970s. Canada’s a social-democracy yet it is also state you do not want to provoke.

By: The Trail of Smears § Unqualified Offerings

The Trail of Smears § Unqualified Offerings — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:32:00 +0000

[...] Scallon is mostly correct in his diagnosis of What Happened: The conservative tradition of Burke expounded on by people like Russell Kirk or Richard Weaver [...]

By: Tommaso Sciortino

Tommaso Sciortino — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:28:18 +0000

“And of course, in order to defend the state that does all these things, the right-socialists established police powers that are common in nearly all socialist countries that limit the right to dissent and allows the government to spy on potential enemies, real or not.”

The right has been predicting that Government involvement in markets leads to a police state since Hayek was ranting about in 1950. It simply isn’t so. Europe features many democracies with heavy handed intervention in the market (more than I would like really) without any slide into totalitarianism. Instead of trying to scare us with bogeymen it would be much better if you simply argued that the interventions themselves were bad – not the police state the supposedly lead.

By: rawshark

rawshark — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:45:15 +0000

Right socialism, liberal fascism, do you guys ever tire of destroying the meaning of words? There is no right socialism, you’re not on the right if you’re a socialist. Just as you are not on the left if you’re a fascist.

Is this just some kind of weird way of saying that conservatism is fine and dandy and not the clusterfuck we’ve witnessed these past few years? Are you playing the ‘communism didn’t fail, the Soviet Union failed’ game? Are you going there? Many on the left predicted that would happen when the inevitable supply side shell game collapsed but I really thought they were wrong.
The reason conservatism failed is because it doesn’t exist. Its an economic policy dressed up in populist sounding rhetoric. All those things you call right socialism is just how they sell the economic policy to people who get hurt by it. It’s not socialism, it’s pandering.

By: Politeuma · Already Socialists

Politeuma · Already Socialists — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:56:06 +0000

[...] ~ Sean Scallon [...]

By: Corie

Corie — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:01:22 +0000

I honestly wonder what’s going to happen … I keep hoping that true conservatives WON’T vote for the GOP if they don’t rid themselves of socialism … yet at the same time, so many conservative leaning individuals (whether or not they’re really*conservative* in this magazine’s understanding of it) will still vote for the lesser of two evils in fear of the Kingdom of Obama … Take Newt Gingrich for example – he’s on the better side of the GOP as it stands, yet at CPAC last year, he still said it was necessary to vote for the Republican nominee.

There’s just a lot of internal confusion right now. I simply hope that the party will keep being punished electorally if it doesn’t get its act together. That however, may be wishful thinking.