CDR: Re: would it be so much to ask..

[Jim Choate]

On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, Ken Brown wrote:

> I think you hit the nail on the head here. For most USAns these days the
> word "socialism" doesn't really mean anything specific, it is just a
> generalised insult (much the same as the way people on the left
> sometimes use "Nazi" or "Fascist").
> 
> There were a few big rants on this topic a couple of years back...
> <pause for thought while Ken pays a visit to Alta Vista...>
> 
> Yep,
> http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.98.10.12-98.10.18/msg00019.html
> has a rant about Rosa Luxemburg and various people redefining the word
> "socialism" so that it included only ideas they didn't like & excluded
> ones they did. It was a sort of reply to a thread started by Jim Choate: 

Since I was mentioned in passing, socialism (at least the way I use it) is
the central management of resources and people without private ownership.
Facism is the central management of resources and people with private
ownership (of course if you don't manage it the way they want they do take
it away - so it does have a 're-definition' of ownership).

When I call anarcho-capitalist, libertarians, and even Tim a socialist, I
mean it in the context of they want to manage the resources to some model
they feel is 'reasonable' and if you disagee too damn bad. The fact it
isn't THEIR private property they want to manage doesn't seem to impinge
into their reptillian psyche not at all. In effect they believe in angels
among men, and as a consequence they must be the angels.

The view in effect reduces my right to decide as an individual and that is
realy what makes it 'socialist'.

The REAL litmus test should be "Does that behaviour interfere with the
expresson of my beliefs?". If the answer is no then it isn't any of the
other parties business and the behavior should have no further regulation
or limitation (unless at a later time it does cross the 3rd party
expression test).

Oh well, another of those COTUS half-baked rants...

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