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It's not exactly sociopathic to point out the hypocrisy of the US standing on some kind of moral high ground while blowing up whole countries and killing millio

It's not exactly sociopathic to point out the hypocrisy of the US standing on some kind of moral high ground while blowing up whole countries and killing millions of people directly or indirectly.

_bxg1 7y ago
Sure. This is the part I was referring to: > Moralising is a habit of those who lack the strength and/or will to get what they desire through other means. America isn't a very good world citizen in 2019. I honestly wouldn't take issue with a different world power taking the lead if its ruling party weren't even worse. But rest assured, the people in charge of China right now are indeed worse. And my own country's problems don't change the atrocities that they commit.
- classicsnoot 7y ago
  Democratic Socialism is socialism, and socialism always finds a way to murder people and increase poverty in the name of equality. Socialism is a deeply religious belief. It has its priests (professors, journalists, entertainers), its churches (campuses, museums, protests and benefit rallies as outdoor/big tent revival analog), its core beliefs predicated on faith that unite the fervent and ostracize the skeptical (diversity is always beneficial, climate change is the fault of the successful, racism is original sin, privilege creates winners and losers in spite of actual value, religions of the oppressed are blameless, etc.), and its intangible and perpetually just beyond The horizon utopia. In every important way, socialism is a religion. It has a general hate for "gods" which functions as a smoke screen for the incorporation of American Protestantism into its modern day Progressive skin suit. You can see the energy of the faithful when technical questions are provided emotional responses, when differing opinions about generalities are met with personal assertions regarding psychological well being ('burn the hetetic' transmogrified into 'you need medical attention because you have (x)-pathy), and, always everpresent in Leftward arguments,appeals to authority that the one appealing doesn't recognize.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Democratic Socialism is socialism US-style “democratic socialism” isn't consistently, except perhaps from a cladistic viewpoint; a lot of it is substantively social democracy which is more of an ideological commitment to the modern mixed economy then an actual socialism. > and socialism always finds a way to murder people and increase poverty in the name of equality. I think (assuming you are arguing in good faith) you are falsely generalizing from Leninism and it's descendants with socialism. While at least cladistically a subset of socialism, Leninism and it's offshoots is a narrower and particular subset from which generalizations about the broader set cannot validly be drawn. > Socialism is a deeply religious belief No more or less than capitalism is.
    - classicsnoot 7y ago
      Thank you for the well worded responses. I was responding in good faith, and herein also. >isn't consistently This is the beautiful thing about socialism. It need not be perfect, or even dominant. It just needs a foothold. From there, it is purely a game of time. Put another way, socialists wait for other viewpoints to come around to theirs (Christianity, Academe, Business) or disappear. They do not become Less Left. >cladistic Ah. See you too are a person of depth. Yarvin's work on the neo-Protestant clade is exceptional but not for the faint of heart. I recommend Spandrell's Bioleninism piece. >falsely generalizing A salient point. Where are the gulags of the social democrats? Where are the legions of thought police? Where are the desperate informers turning in their neighbors? I know this will be an ugly statement, but I believe the mass murder inclination of socialists is more than saitiated by rampant abortion. It fulfills the same methods and motivations of Holdomer and any other incident of mass death from Lenin or Stalin or Pot or Mao; the greater good. People often forget that the motivations behind the mass death perpetrated by these men and, more importantly, their regimes always had a logical source, for some definition of logic. Socialism doesn't cause mass murder; it justifies it. And to the socialist society, the justification is always good. >socialist religiosity So what? Capitalism is faith in the selfishness of man. Socialism is faith in the rightness of good. Cargo Cults use the same parts of their brains for reasoning as Catholics. The question, for me, is not the How, but the What. More directly, To What End and For What Purpose. Objectively, the merit of capitalism vs. the merits of socialism a matter of historical record. Put another way, the same god concept that causes a genocide can also cause, quite literally, science. Equivocation has its value, but in the frame of your chosen context it is relatively valueless. I point out the religiosity of socialism not to say it is singular, rather to demonstrate that it is typical.

It's not exactly sociopathic to point out the hypocrisy of the US standing on some kind of moral high ground while blowing up whole countries and killing millions of people directly or indirectly.

_bxg1 7y ago

Sure. This is the part I was referring to: > Moralising is a habit of those who lack the strength and/or will to get what they desire through other means. America isn't a very good world citizen in 2019. I honestly wouldn't take issue with a different world power taking the lead if its ruling party weren't even worse. But rest assured, the people in charge of China right now are indeed worse. And my own country's problems don't change the atrocities that they commit.

classicsnoot 7y ago
Democratic Socialism is socialism, and socialism always finds a way to murder people and increase poverty in the name of equality. Socialism is a deeply religious belief. It has its priests (professors, journalists, entertainers), its churches (campuses, museums, protests and benefit rallies as outdoor/big tent revival analog), its core beliefs predicated on faith that unite the fervent and ostracize the skeptical (diversity is always beneficial, climate change is the fault of the successful, racism is original sin, privilege creates winners and losers in spite of actual value, religions of the oppressed are blameless, etc.), and its intangible and perpetually just beyond The horizon utopia. In every important way, socialism is a religion. It has a general hate for "gods" which functions as a smoke screen for the incorporation of American Protestantism into its modern day Progressive skin suit. You can see the energy of the faithful when technical questions are provided emotional responses, when differing opinions about generalities are met with personal assertions regarding psychological well being ('burn the hetetic' transmogrified into 'you need medical attention because you have (x)-pathy), and, always everpresent in Leftward arguments,appeals to authority that the one appealing doesn't recognize.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Democratic Socialism is socialism US-style “democratic socialism” isn't consistently, except perhaps from a cladistic viewpoint; a lot of it is substantively social democracy which is more of an ideological commitment to the modern mixed economy then an actual socialism. > and socialism always finds a way to murder people and increase poverty in the name of equality. I think (assuming you are arguing in good faith) you are falsely generalizing from Leninism and it's descendants with socialism. While at least cladistically a subset of socialism, Leninism and it's offshoots is a narrower and particular subset from which generalizations about the broader set cannot validly be drawn. > Socialism is a deeply religious belief No more or less than capitalism is.
  - classicsnoot 7y ago
    Thank you for the well worded responses. I was responding in good faith, and herein also. >isn't consistently This is the beautiful thing about socialism. It need not be perfect, or even dominant. It just needs a foothold. From there, it is purely a game of time. Put another way, socialists wait for other viewpoints to come around to theirs (Christianity, Academe, Business) or disappear. They do not become Less Left. >cladistic Ah. See you too are a person of depth. Yarvin's work on the neo-Protestant clade is exceptional but not for the faint of heart. I recommend Spandrell's Bioleninism piece. >falsely generalizing A salient point. Where are the gulags of the social democrats? Where are the legions of thought police? Where are the desperate informers turning in their neighbors? I know this will be an ugly statement, but I believe the mass murder inclination of socialists is more than saitiated by rampant abortion. It fulfills the same methods and motivations of Holdomer and any other incident of mass death from Lenin or Stalin or Pot or Mao; the greater good. People often forget that the motivations behind the mass death perpetrated by these men and, more importantly, their regimes always had a logical source, for some definition of logic. Socialism doesn't cause mass murder; it justifies it. And to the socialist society, the justification is always good. >socialist religiosity So what? Capitalism is faith in the selfishness of man. Socialism is faith in the rightness of good. Cargo Cults use the same parts of their brains for reasoning as Catholics. The question, for me, is not the How, but the What. More directly, To What End and For What Purpose. Objectively, the merit of capitalism vs. the merits of socialism a matter of historical record. Put another way, the same god concept that causes a genocide can also cause, quite literally, science. Equivocation has its value, but in the frame of your chosen context it is relatively valueless. I point out the religiosity of socialism not to say it is singular, rather to demonstrate that it is typical.