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XKI Generation: The Great Quake Generation XKI NS Join Year: 139 - Monday, 8 November 2010 Historical XKI Political Party: MSPP - Mayor Shelter Political Party Ancient House of: Wordiness
Yeah, but if you get socialist, you probably won't be able to actually state your opinion.
Now, now, let us remember that socialism isn't fascism. You can have an opinion, you just have to share it with everyone else. And that can be seen as too much of a hassle so the party forbids you from saying your opinion.... to keep the pace.
Post by Free South Califas on May 27, 2012 15:20:17 GMT -5
Thanks for ignoring me and lumping me in with the authoritarian movement that my party has always stood against since its inception, and before most leftists caught on that there was a problem with Bolshevism in the first place. That's very democratic of you.
Edit: And it's really rich to hear about an authoritarian party silencing the inconvenient voices within their ranks, from Democrat-Republicans. I mean have you seen those parties in the last three decades or so?
It's unfortunate that authoritarian socialist regimes have dominated the Western public imagination outside of the regions where libertarian socialist experiments have quietly flourished (in a historical revolutionary way and in a current niche way).
I would not call fading into oblivion after the lack of political power in the Mexican Revolution of 1911 and the Russian Revolutions of the early twentieth century "quietly flourishing". Also, 1960's counterculture and the Occupy movement certainly are not/were not quiet. (Another issue: what subset of "libertarian socialist" do you fit under? You yourself made a jab at the "big tent" democrats when your own ideology seems to hold several very different allegiances itself.)
My neocon uncle mused the other day on how it was so tragic/bizarre/unreconcilable that socialist citizens, who espoused such bold sociopolitical vision and resolve, were willing to abide the abominable counterrevolutionary dictatorship of USSR. (I cannot bear to call them "Soviet Russia", the Soviets were so humble and well-meaning before being captured by the Bolsheviks--well, we all know what a National(ist) Socialist is, eh?) I had to remind him that the Bolsheviks killed or chased off the socialists in civil life and in government who opposed them.
Nothing to argue here.
I think the prospect of a revolutionary Socialist government--as paradoxical as it sounds at first blush--must consider not only the historical context of nominally Socialist counterrevolutionary governments of the past and present; but of the American system of checks and balances and the forceful, violent dedication to individual liberty that most Americans hold, taking the words of the candidates into account. WRT individual liberty, I refer here to the favored stock cliche in debates between people with different ideologies: "I don't agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it". That has not historically been true of anti-socialist dialogue in this country, but I have some hope.
Er... Are you making an argument here that a socialist government is feasible in the United States? Because I really didn't catch what you're trying to say in this paragraph. Technically, any type of government is feasible in the United States. But it's kinda hard to overcome the Big Two, and without any change to the electoral system, they'll continue to dominate, save for a cataclysmic political event like the collapse of the Whig Party (Which, in itself, was brought about by conflicts inside the party over the issue of slavery. No similar inner-party split is happening right now.)
Anyway, while Democrats imply the moon and the stars in their flowery Big Tent rhetoric, the presidential candidates' priorities can be heard when they get down to brass tacks; usually a selection of the most vaguely palatable right-wing political soundbites du jour, so they can issue a come-hither to moderate Republicans without selling out on so many principles that the people realize there's another dang tent to check out. 'Teacher accountability', a 'responsible' end to one or two of the wars the public is most aware of at the moment, forfeiting our rights in the name of national cultural homogeneity, aiding & abetting criminal businesses, expanding drone surveillance and violence, kangaroo courts for terror suspects and what-have-you.
Welcome to U.S. politics. The Single-Member District electoral system breeds two-party dominance, and those two parties don't flourish if they don't make their base wide, whatever they do when in office. The "other tents" don't get much publicity because, frankly, too small a minority of people subscribe to their ideologies to make them matter much in the political scene.
You could always turn the system in to a Proportional Representation one, but we need only look toward modern Russia to see how such a system works in a large nation. Even if single-party dominance did not arise, hyper-pluralism would have almost a similar effect that partisanship is having currently in the United States in terms of the effectiveness of the legislature.
In the interest of length, I'm gonna cut to the last bit...
Hope you don't take my counterattack personally, this is just a good opportunity to put my thoughts about the implications for libertarians into words.
Now here's where I can finally talk ideology. You, as a libertarian socialist, would believe in the public ownership of private property with the exclusion of personal property, yes? How do you expect to get anywhere with that sort of policy? Let me reference for a moment the nation of China. China is characterized by heavy industrialization and privatization in the Southeast, with the creation of Special Economic Zones and special code law for the protection of private property. The inverse to this policy is found in the North, where large industries are still owned directly by the government. These are often called the "dinosaur" industries because the only reason why they still exist is because the state heavily subsidizes their production. Where the Southeast is a hotbed of economic growth and democratization, the North remains chained to the state, floundering in poverty and inefficiency. Public or state ownership does not breed economic growth, as this example shows.
And another thing: How can libertarian socialists claim to want less government but public ownership of industry? In my studies, history seems to indicate that the opposite occurs - public ownership breeds higher government involvement (Max Weber's critiques on the fallacy of Marxism stated this). Look toward Mexico during the age of the PRI's rule or the USSR (however much you wish to dissociate your party from that state) before the age of perestroika and you will find this to be the case. How in the world can you expect the best of both worlds? It's one or the other; you can't have both. Not even with that Occupy hoopla where they guarantee that direct democracy will solve all our problems. But that's another argument.
What an excellently lazy way to argue. Allow me to express the same laziness by saying I'm not spending two hours of my time gleaning your argument from someone else's work.
Post by Free South Califas on May 28, 2012 23:42:31 GMT -5
I'm quite lazy during my period of recovery from surgery, yes. I didn't have the energy to correct all of the misconceptions of my beliefs which your post evidenced and then start expressing my argument having laid down that groundwork, but I thought you were clearly putting a lot of effort into engaging my argument in good faith and deserved to have your questions answered, so I found you something that seemed to cover the most issues raised possible. Figured you wanted to find out what I was on about, but maybe you just wanted something to shit on, I guess.
Well, I'm sorry that you're recovering from surgery, but it would be a little more helpful to post specific tidbits rather than an entire database with over sixty different pages and subheadings to look at. I'm interested, but not interested enough to neglect my real-life duties to sift through all that information. Frankly, I'd never heard of libertarian socialism before, so I didn't know where you were coming from, but the relationship you illuminated with anarchism has provided some information for me.