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Maggie's FarmWe are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for. |
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Thursday, July 10. 2025Thursday morning links Unwanted in the Business World All hail the end of TSA’s idiotic shoe rule — could toothpaste freedom be next? The Death of the Public Library. Tyler Cowen: Why Won’t Socialism Die? Obama Wants The Power To Define 'Facts' Grok Goes Full Hitler 10 Charged After Ambush at Texas ICE Detention Center Time for Kennedy to Kill the USPSTF - An obscure HHS task force is pushing faulty race and gender ideology on doctors. Miranda Devine: Susie Wiles brings calm to Trump admin—helping the president rack up wins Ketanji Jackson’s wacko dissent to a Supreme Court order allowing agency heads to plan to trim their departments The Loony Left Would Be Protesting Something Even if Kamala Had Won Commie Congresswoman and Harvard Prof Are Put on Blast for Holding Mob Boot Camp Democrats blew it. The most popular place in America today is Alligator Alcatraz. Britain's Crackdown on Speech Proves That We Were Right to Fight Trackbacks
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The death of the public library ...
One need look no further than the PLA goals, which have DEI as their first on the list. The American Library Association, which has DEI in their "advocacy work." Libraries have become leftist political pawns at the exact time that technology is making them superfluous and redundant. They cater to the current popular culture instead of protecting the literature classics and being a repository of real knowledge. The only thing that will save them is the collapse of our electronic-based civilization, making real books the only way to retrieve old knowledge. A better headline would read: All Hail the End of TSA! And take the Patriotic Act with it.
Re: Unwanted…
My current thought about the age old question of why does God allow so much bad to happen? We now have a very good example of possibilities of how it would work out if God did reach out for us at the tiniest pretense of trouble. Behold the latest generations of everyone gets a trophy. Obama, and progressives in general, have a problem with definitions which creates problems with 'facts.' It goes back decades in which they argued what the meaning of "is" is and continues to this day when progressives change the meaning of "vaccine". When progressives keep changing the meaning of words then facts become malleable. All that is left is narratives. The Russia, Russia, Russia narrative. The AGW narrative. The Covid narrative. The immigration narrative. The reality is that facts no longer have any meaning when words have no meaning. There is a reason the Catholic Church used Latin as it is a dead language and words maintain their meanings. Small wonder progressive clergy want to ban the Latin mass. And why progressive judges do not understand the meaning of 'shall not be infringed.'
Socialism won't die because it appeals to the lowest form of selfishness in human beings: The good fortune of receiving something for nothing. It's always presented as a net benefit, and it never addresses the problem of where the benefits come from, and how their cost is covered.
Socialism has different meanings, depending on context, so a poll question may conflate how different people understand the term. While socialism proper means that the government controls the means of production, it can also refer to aspects of mixed economic systems. As most modern developed economies are mixed systems, that means there will be continued support for "socialism" in this sense.
QUOTE: Merriam-Webster: Since the term socialism entered English around 1830, it has consistently referred to a system of social organization in which the ownership of property and the distribution of income are subject to social rather than private control. The conception of that control, however, has varied, and socialism has been interpreted in widely diverging ways, ranging from statist to libertarian, from Marxist to liberal. In the modern era, "pure" socialism has been seen only rarely and usually briefly in a few Communist regimes. Far more common are social democracies, such as Sweden and Denmark: democratically elected governments that employ some socialist practices but within a capitalist framework in the belief that extensive state regulation paired with limited state ownership produces a fair distribution of income without impairing economic growth. While in the past social democracy and democratic socialism both referred to movements seeking a fully socialist system, the two terms have diverged. Today's social democracies retain a capitalist system overall, while democratic socialism rejects capitalism fully, and seeks to establish a decentralized socialist economic system within a democratically run government. I would urge anyone to go to the link that Zach-GPT has provided to Merriam Webster and see for themselves if it is being disingenuous or not. It excepted the ancillary note at the bottom of the page without also providing any of the 3 ACTUAL DEFINITIONS that are at the top.
The part that Zach-GPT quotes comes from a section entitled: "Socialism vs. Social Democracy vs. Democratic Socialism: Usage Guide." So it was not talking about the word 'socialism' itself, but the differences between those terms. Don't take my word for it. Take a look and decide for yourselves. A change of topic to more congenial grounds has been noted before. Zachriel is cetainly no the only person in the world, or even here, who does it, but it pays to check whether he has reset or redefined the problem to some better spot for him before responding. I don't think he is trying to be difficult. I think this is automatic for him.
Assistant Village Idiot: Zachriel is cetainly no the only person in the world, or even here, who does it, but it pays to check whether he has reset or redefined the problem to some better spot for him before responding.
Our response was directly to the point, and the citation to Merriam-Webster directly supports that point. Z: Socialism has different meanings, depending on context … M-W: The conception of that control, however, has varied, and socialism has been interpreted in widely diverging ways … Z: While socialism proper means that the government controls the means of production … M-W: In the modern era, "pure" socialism has been seen only rarely … This relates back to the original point, which concerned support for socialism. But that support is multifarious, because people have different conceptions of what is meant by socialism, that is, socialism is “interpreted in widely diverging ways”. Some will think of socialism to be the same as Sovietism. Other people will say Sweden is socialist, even though they have a robust market sector.
#5.2.1.1.1
Zachriel
on
2025-07-13 20:44
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