Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
I weep for our future.
As I continue to rant “not only do they vote, they reproduce”. Of course, here I’m not sure that “adults under 30″ can clearly articulate the differences between capitalism and socialism. Now they probably WOULD understand if you used the example of MS stock during its first 20 years. OK- you can either invest $5000 in a capitalistic stock and adjusted for splits and reinvest those capitalistic dividends you’d now have $935, 000 or you could invest $5000 in a socialist MS stock, in which case you’d have $2500″.
SC’s weeping will become a banshee wailing.
how so…we knew the difference when we where under 30 when Ike was president.
dwas/
How true! When I was eight during the 52 election, the ditty chanted around the sand-box went:
“Eisenhower in the White House, ready to be elected; Stevenson in the trash-can ready to be collected.”
And this was by the sons and daughters of faculty members in univ. housing on a college campus in Stevenson’s home State of Illinois! How times have changed. Thanks to You Tube, we all know how similar youth of today feel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdPSqL9_mfM&feature=related
Watch and Weep.
Yes, indeed, it is the poison fruit o the Gramscian March through our entire educational system. It is a result of the deliberate attempt to subvert our cultural identity.
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/6362-Gramsci-Week-Antonio-Gramsci-and-the-long-march-through-the-culture.html
This has absolutely nothing to do with the left bias of academic institutions.
And neither does the disdainful laughter of the Harvard audience when Barney Frank brushed off the questions of a student not of the leftist-ilk.
All perspectives are welcome in America’s classrooms and all are equally valued for their contribution to the intellectual rigor that is the cornerstone of the gold standard of American higher education.
If only I believed all this. How much easier life would be if I just drank the kool-aid.
Yes, VQ, now just be a good little boy and pronounce after me: “Every thing every day in every way is getting better and better…”
The sad thing is: Although the bias is most-definitely there, I’d be willing to bet that a vast majority of those who say socialism is better (the non-radicalized/activist types) are not educated well enough to define it. I think their definition would begin and end with, “That’s where everyone shares everything, right?”
To add to my comment above. These days, the uneducated definition might actually expand to, “That’s where everyone gets taken care of–health care, jobs, etc. Everyone’s equal.”
I just realized I totally screwed up that comment. What I meant was that the majority of people who say socialism is better (those other than the radicals/activists) are not educated well enough to define it.
So the question I had was, is there any part of the survey that requires the person to demonstrate they know what capitalism is versus socialism? I suspect the percentage who didn’t know which was better may have been the most honest of the respondents.
Frankly, if one just listened to the pundits from each side of the political spectrum and the way they sling these words as insults, I can see how the average undereducated, left behind American, might be confused (you see, its hard to test political theory in a multiple choice format–and social studies is not one of the testing priorities–incidentally, either is science. Don’t blame the teachers if they are being told what they have to teach and it doesn’t include this material).
So, let us consider this from the perspective of our average American who gets their political education from media sound bites: If Barrack Obama is a socialist, as many on the right allege, THEN, there is a certain number of Barrack supporters who will undoubtedly think that socialism must be a good thing. Likewise on the right…if Capitalism is evil as professed by the ranting left, there is no need to question that it is good.
The survey seems to be the artifact of what happens when superficial understandings of the world derived from particular genres of talk radio etc. become the basis of understanding political philosophies.
Laurie/
The savage irony here is that those in the educational system who foresaw the very problem this survey/poll reveals are the very ones accused of being out-dated relics of the cold war–as being anti-deluvian knuckle-draggers living in the 50s. When a grad Assist. getting my MA in Poli-Sci
at th Univ. of SW Louisiana, Lafayette, La., in the 70s I taught a required 1-hr course entitled: “Democracy and Communism” which had been installed
by an admittedly conservative governing board anticipating just such trends in an attempt to forestall the results so obviously now in evidence. But even this modicum of attempts at academic “enlightenment” was savagely attacked by many in in the faculty even THAT conservative institution in THAT day as nothing but “indroctrination/propaganda” totally lacking in academic merit.
Of course, many will immediately jump to challange my views by pointing out that socialism is not communism and that my plaintive cries are baseless and my criticisms over-broad and mis-targeted. But while the connection between Socialism and Communism is not everything–it is not nothing either. And my major point here in this instance is that almost ANYTHING which attempts to spotlight the differences between democracy and capitalism on the one hand and alternate social constructs as a REQUIRED part of the academic cirriculum at ANY academic level in the educational system is met with savage attack by “progressives” charging brain-washing, etc. So no, I am not surprised by the results of the survey. But it is STRICTLY the left side of the political/sociocultural side of the spectrum which strenuously resists all efforts to inculcate the virtues of democracy/capitalism while simultaneously demonizing it to the hilt and shielding other forms of social organization from criticism at the same time. I believe that lv4931391@#7 speaks to that point with even more first-hand direct experience than that of mine.
And your point that the fact that admirers of Obama conflate his views with socialism and suggesting that they do so in a mistaken belief born of ignorance is true in a facile way on one analytical level, but the thrust of your point somehow misses the reality that Obama IS a socialist in the “a rose by any other name” sense of the word. And so his followers/admirers are not so wrong after all as the siren song of socialism is indeed powerful. It is only those on the left who shy from being labeled as socialist or as one of it’s admirers due to the dubious track-record of the more extreme forms of socialism and the fact that this country has never had a true socialist party as such ( the failure of socialism to attract a majority of Americans by the ministrations of people like Eugene V. Debs in the 20s being attributed to “the ready availability and low price of beef-steak” according to one historian) that deny that Obama is a socialist.
Therefore I would submit to you that what this survey reveals, while in many respects more a function of the particular wording of the questions (as are most surveys/polls) as David Foster suggests @#9, it also reflects not so much an “artifact of superficial understanding,” but the extent to
which Obama and significant numbers of the Democrats are really socialists at heart whether they are fooling themselves or not. And that despite attempts by Obama and his adherents to disguise this fact in a “he doth protest too much” fashion, their followers know the real goods when they see it. Obama’s supporters do not think socialism is a “good thing” because they are mistaken due to “mis-characterization” of Obama’s position by talk radio, rather, they are true believers whose views have been formed by half a Century of left-wing indoctrination in the schools and the media.
having taught and/or subbed in LAUSD since 1990 I’m amazed that the percent of young people that prefer socialism isn’t higher…it’s the rare social studies teacher (history, government, economics) that does’t have a copy of Howard Zinn’s book on their desk (and preach from it)…I’ve seen rooms dedicated to Che Guereva in middle school…it became evident very early in the last primary that the students without knowing a thing about the candidates would be voting for BHO…high school and middle school teachers that are not registered Democrats are scaricer than hen’s teeth
Thank a history teacher? I’m not so sure the issue is about “history”. This is more in the realm of an economics teacher and macro econ, or comparative economic systems, 101.
For the record, I am against pure Capitalism; likewise I am also against pure Socialism.
Regrettably too many binary-thinking people think it is an only, “either/or” proposition. Thankfully it is not. Most successful economies are “mixed” economies rather than capitalistic. They incorporate a mixture of varying degrees of both capitalism and socialism for their success. In fact, our US economy is not a purely capitalistic one, but is considered a mixed economy.
Pure, laissez-faire capitalism fails. Just witness the current world financial crisis and economic failure that was the direct result of our under-regulated, but still not freewheeling pure free market capitalism. (It would be much worse now if it were pure capitalism).
Conversely, pure socialism equally fails. Thus a certain combination of both capitalism and socialism, somewhere in the middle of the two extremes is the best economic answer. An Aristotelian, golden economic mean, if you will.
Regarding economics, few people really know what they are talking about, (including even some supposedly trained economists). That people in this survey – or on this blog – are unsure of the subject should not be too surprising to anyone.
But isn’t it wonderful that we really need not understand a complex issue in depth. Rather, we only need to pick a side. Then we can participate in that great sport of throwing stones at our educational, and/or MSM to our hearts content. What sport! What a country!
Hey, flit – register your complaint with Rasmussen. It was their poll, and their own fault that they didn’t ask about 21st century socialism, or socialism with a human face. Or whatever they’re calling it now.
Pure, laissez-faire capitalism fails. Just witness the current world financial crisis and economic failure that was the direct result of our under-regulated, but still not freewheeling pure free market capitalism. (It would be much worse now if it were pure capitalism).
Flit,
Given that the current crisis was largely caused by the housing crisis, and THAT crisis was directly attributable to the government skewing the availability of credit via GSEs, your argument against capitalism, and for more government interaction with the economy is coming up a little short…
Note, though, that in a survey in December of last year, 70% of the people said they preferred a “free market economy” to one “managed by the government.”
Have opinions changed that quickly, or is the difference just the terminology of “free market” versus “capitalism”?
I believe the term “capitalism” was actually invented by Karl Marx, and hence had perjorative implications from its introductions. Strange as it may seem, the word that *used* to be used to describe free-market economics, combined with political freedom, was “liberalism.”
Noticed that also David, and wondered about wording difference. I know several folks who would emphatically speak about the difference between capitalism and a free market.
#8.2 Xbrad -
Many things caused the meltdown. But to blame the government is to miss the fundamental economic point.
For the past few decades, both Democratic and Republican Administrations backed off on governmental market regulations and reduced them – regulations that were put in place in the ’30s to preclude another Great Depression. So take away those restraints, and wa-la – another near depression. Go figure? Just like taking local government cops off the street = resulting chaos!
IOW, it was less government rather than “more government” regulation that caused this crisis. That and powerful lobbyists and international corporations that skew if not rob our democracy from the people.
Most real economists agree on the causes, regardless of their political persuasion. It is the pundits, economically ignorant politicians, Faux News, and bloggers with a personal axe to grind who look for other causes to make them feel good, while they wallow in their economic ignorance.
(Sorry if that offends the thin-skinned, but I sincerely believe it to be true.)
I’m sorry, but YOU miss the fundamental effect that Fannie and Freddie had on the market. That intrusion on the market had the effect of guaranteeing bad business decisions made by banks. That distorted the market. I’m not making a point of Dems/Repubs. Just the existence of GSEs proves that it was not laissez-faire capitalism, in any way shape or form. The government in effect ran the whole housing market.
If the government had not been in that position, would the market have failed? Maybe, maybe not. More likely, we would have seen some failures, but not a systemic failure.
Most economists – left and right – would, and indeed have disagreed with your extreme and narrow position on the cause. Yours is a mostly skewed and subjective, political, rather than an economic argument. It is a blog-influenced, rather than an economic influenced opinion.
While Fannie and Freddie must shoulder some small blame, to focus only on them is mostly a planned political diversion, and ignores the many major causes of our current economic dilemma.
Please read some economic blogs (from all perspectives), rather than ignorant political rants from those who know nothing of macro-economics.
I work in finance. My understanding of the causes of the economic problems is not from reading blogs, but working in finance. Perhaps if you’d spend less time leaping to conclusions about my reading habits, you’d notice that my argument was the ANY government intervention in a market will have consequences. And like most consequences, we can’t always foresee what they will be. GSEs skewed the market because they were in a position that they were either in direct competition with lenders, or they co-opted the lenders.
I’m not so naive as to think we will ever see a true free-market economy. We will always have some level of government regulation. And to the extent that it provides transparency to the market, that can be good. But that isn’t the case here, and hasn’t been for decades.
In virtually any economic crisis since the South Sea scandal, I can point to you where the government influenced the market, usually in the interest of generating greater prosperity. And it almost never works. On the other hand, I can also show historic times where the government has stepped back and allowed free enterprise to bloom, prosperity to spread (though not evenly) and usually, to the benefit of the coffers of the government in power.
Yes XBrad, when the govt. sets the size and shape (i.e., rules & regs) of the arena within which economic “play” takes place in a neutral manner without attempts to influence outcomes–or at least with minimal interference–things usually go tolerably well. It’s only when Govt steps INTO the arena itself with both feet that the laws of unintended consequences come savagely into play and the phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” comes into usage with full force and appropriateness.
What Fliterman said at #8.
I’ve been trying to say that for awhile.
All I know is that I paid my mortgage off and I don’t think I or anybody else should have to take a hit for other’s mistakes.