Quote of the Day
Communism through (my) ages:
1) When I was 15, a teacher told me “It isn’t as bad as they say, and makes a lot of sense.”
2) At about 19, college friends, “Socialism isn’t communism.”
3) At 20, on meeting my grandfather-in-law, “They are evil. We escaped in 1949.”
4) At 30, “China is a wonderful developing Democracy”
5) At 35, I was sent to communist China on business. It was a crowded, smelly, dirty, factory of despair and hopelessness. This I saw with my own eyes.
6) At 36, “China doesn’t count. Successful socialism is in northern Europe.”
7) I moved to northern Europe when I was 40. It was much nicer than China, but also felt like I was living in the past. I had to wait 6 months for a hernia operation.
8) When I was about 45, the migrant crisis began. The socialist/globalist/pacifist allowed them entry into every country, regardless how many crimes they committed along the way. Just 20 minutes from my house, in Calais, I was shocked to see migrants jumping onto trucks, breaking open the doors, scattering the contents across the highway, then climbing in. They went through the Chunnel and got out in England.
9) At 52, the soft socialism around me had transformed into globalism. I was told I had to call people by their preferred pronouns, though it was a lie, and even if I didn’t know what the preferences were. I quit.
10) I returned to the US, and am now 60. “Socialism” is no longer a dirty word here. People openly espouse the virtues of it. Politicians run as socialists and win.Socialism has taken many forms, from the Bolshevism of Russia, to the CCP in China, the Nazis in Germany, Fascists in Italy, and the many forms of it found in Latin America. It is one of the two most destructive ideologies on earth. It is designed to deprive, despirit, and murder everything that comes in contact with it.
Socialism is a great lie at every level. It helps no one, not even those who benefit the most. This is because the cost is the imposition of one’s will on everyone else, and that destroys the soul of the usurper and the life of the oppressed.
Socialism always fails on its own, but only after destroying almost everything in its train. It can also be conquered. Those are the options.
Art @ZarkFiles
Posted on X, June 24, 2026
I’ll take option two, please. But I’m still working on that underground bunker in Idaho, just in case.
We can argue over what the implementers “real” goal was / is, but you cannot argue that the reality is that it’s destroying western civilization. Europe either gets radical on expelling the invaders, NOW, one way or another, or the European people and countries as we know them will disappear.
https://m3.gab.com/media_attachments/8b/0d/d5/8b0dd54cf73088b51553a880ddb6c265.jpg?width=568
But hey, because communists claim all people are fungible, undifferentiated, interchangeable, replaceable , then nothing will really change, right? To want to preserve one’s heritage is racist, the worst possible sin. Of course, the locus fleeing the collapse will never manage to cross the Atlantic, or invade north through Mexico, or south from Canada, looking for better places where the plumbing still works, right?
So far the elites have either not noticed or haven’t admitted that the people they have imported to destroy Western Civilization are there precisely because they want to expand and preserve their culture and heritage. My money is on them not admitting this yet, because they are hoping that after everything collapses under the impact of the culture war, they will remain and become the new rulers of a society where the rich make all the money and all the rules. This didn’t work in the Soviet model,as the stories of people writing Comrade Stalin from the gulags explaining that there must be some mistake made that resulted in them being there attest.
Winner take all capitalism, or government take all socialism…those are the only two options? Are we sure about that?
I call myself, somewhat oxymoronically, a “social libertarian,” because I think there’s a form of libertarianism possible that prioritizes personal liberty and at the same time acknowledges the reality of human-on-human predation (both historically and currently). We need a government strong enough to enforce rules for the benefit of the masses and prevent predators from acting out their worst impulses, and at the same time weak enough that private organizations are necessary to accomplish most large social projects.
And I think many folks here are probably similar, but don’t describe themselves as such because they define the predators differently. And because anything with the word “social” in it makes them twitchy thanks to its misuse by the “socialists.”
One of the biggest lies that far too many people fall for is that what we call Capitalism today is the real deal. That is far from the truth. When the power of the gov’t is used by business to control the outcomes of & protect companies against competition or bad results of what should just be business decisions then what we have is actually Fascism. Here are a couple of X posts that show the differences pretty well. One is, unfortunately, a relatively small study that needs wider implementation but it is very illustrative. The trouble, however, is that it would undoubtedly be compromised by those wishing for control (I admit to being a bit pessimistic in this case) if it were to be widely tested. The other is a sarcastic 1st person description of how “nonprofit health care” has been allowed by gov’t regulation to abuse both patients & the process & still be labeled as “Capitalism”.
https://x.com/i/status/2071244644466205147
https://x.com/i/status/2071368084540059690
The unfortunate & inconvenient truth is that there will always be people, lusting for power, that will seek to dominate others. The only effective antidote to that is unfettered education that enables people to critically analyze offers & arguments & then have a willingness to fight as hard as necessary to keep such people & ideas from gaining control.
I told my children and anyone else who will listen: If you aren’t tempted by the promises of socialism, you don’t understand them. It promises everything anybody could possibly want. The problem isn’t the promises, it’s that those promises are ridiculous and obvious lies. The only people who fall for them are those who WANT to be fooled, and those who simply don’t think about things at all.
Wizards’ First Rule: People will believe any lie, either because they want it to be true, or are afraid it might be true. — Terry Goodkind
There’s no counter-rule. The only safety is to apply reason and critical thinking to any claim, determine the truth versus the lies and falsities, and choose/act accordingly.
Socialism, for those of us with a functioning B.S.-O-Meter, always rings the “Too good to be true” alarms. It’s a basic truth that when someone gets something for nothing, someone else gets nothing for something; so how does socialism provide everyone with a decent living and equality (as promised) when it also eliminates the tax base and the wealthy and productive who fund it (as also promised)?
It cannot do both without collapsing under its own weight. Therefore, “too good to be true.”
Nevertheless, people still believe it because they desperately WANT it to be true.
“so how does socialism provide everyone with a decent living and equality (as promised) when it also eliminates the tax base and the wealthy and productive who fund it (as also promised)”
Is that the only option? Again, this monolithic view of the problem is…part of the problem. Most of the folks I talk to on the left have no interest in government ownership of the means of production. What they want is relief from predatory capitalism.
So maybe that’s a better way of framing the question the “socialists” are trying to answer: How do we get away from the current form of predatory capitalism?
Most of what you are calling “predatory capitalism” is done with the help of the government. More government is hardly the answer to that problem.
Of course, call it whatever you like, it’s still better than socialism, even the parts of your complaint that are fully legitimate and accurate (and there are such things, certainly).
“Most of what you are calling “predatory capitalism” is done with the help of the government”
True in our current set of rules. But the rules can be changed to fix that without altering the basic system. Although I agree the government is waaaaaay too big and needs shrinking, there are areas of it (the teeth the SEC possesses, for example) that should be fully funded and effective.
The current rules have the government playing in the game (on both sides), when it should just be the referee.
Good illustration of why people complaining about “socialism” need to define their terms. What the Mamdani set are generally asking for is much like New Deal capitalism, and nothing like Soviet socialism.
https://x.com/rojawi/status/2071213019900563660/photo/1
“Unregulated Capitalism” will equal “Ethical Capitalism” when the practitioners are moral & ethical individuals. “Unregulated Capitalism” when the practitioners are immoral & unethical moves into a criminal realm or Fascism or Socialism or even Communism or Anarchy depending on who has been co-opted to bend the laws intended to assure Freedom & Liberty & how far those are bent or how badly those laws are broken. John Adams is famously quoted as saying, ‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’ He was not wrong then & that statement is not wrong now. When we as a people choose to apply or accept modifiers that hide ours or others intent to make choices that are immoral & then dodge accountability or seek to minimize consequences, we are turning our backs on Ethical Capitalism & embracing something altogether different. We cannot sooth our consciences or shift blame by simply saying it is “Predatory Capitalism”. How can we claim it was Capitalism that brought us the Covid 19 debacle? None of that could have happened without gov’t bending & breaking laws. That is Fascism. How can we claim that our military industries are Capitalists when they routinely petition the gov’t for monopolistic contracts that draw out the fielding of systems by tens of years, all the while drawing on more & more taxpayer money? How can we call the Agricultural Industry capitalistic when it continually uses government resources to stifle & shut down smaller but efficient producers through gov’t regulation, litigation & taxation? It would be a difficult proposition to find any industry today that is not significantly controlled by or “partnered” with gov’t to the financial detriment of the taxpayer. This has been going on long before FDR proposed to solve all our financial problems with deficit gov’t spending. Thank the Southern Democrats (the KKK) & New York politicians for our first gun control laws. Thank Woodrow Wilson for our modern race problems & loss of states autonomy through popular election of Senators. Thank the temperance movement for the income tax. Thank the Treasury & the IRS for our current health insurance morass. There are a great many more examples & NO, I am not wearing a tin foil hat. If we really want to obtain the freedoms & respect we claim to be in need of, then we, as individuals, need to stop looking to others to take responsibility for us in exchange for votes. There is no end to the “GOOD” that can be done with “OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY”. And calling a rattlesnake a fish will not keep it from killing you. Calling the gov’t Democratic Socialism or Predatory Capitalism or Communism will not keep it from taking more of your money & freedom. Some will just take it faster than others. The only solution is to aggressively & continuously limit government power & spending. Being distracted by arguments over names is simply a distraction to keep from getting to the root cause.
So how do we get to this society of “moral and ethical individuals?” And is there a single standard of morality to which all can be held without conflict?
I think humans are messy and flawed and sometimes moral and sometimes not, and if the system you have in mind requires that they be good and perfect then that’s not a system for humans.
“if the system you have in mind requires that they be good and perfect then that’s not a system for humans.”
So, no systems at all then – they ALL work best by far with “good and perfect people”, and they all require such to avoid significant failures.
Considering that actual, true anarchy is bad for many reasons (the simplest of which is that it is almost instantly replaced with a de facto dictatorship of some kind), we must choose which system sucks the least.
I can’t say for sure which is best, but socialism is definitely the worst of any we’ve found so far.
“work best,” sure. Of course. But to say they don’t work at all and thus “no systems at all then” doesn’t make sense either. There’s a middle ground here, it’s not either/or.
As usual, I will simply ask for one set of rules, one standard of judgement.
With one standard of judgement, socialism fails. It fails worse in every category than even our current highly-corrupted (with too much government) system.
The suggestions to go to socialism because capitalism has failed is like saying there’s too much urine in the water, which is bad, so let’s just switch to drinking straight urine.
The suggestion for a middle ground is like saying that the current method has too much urine in the water, and switching to straight urine is obviously bad, so let’s go half water and half urine. That’s the “middle ground”.
I would like to second that. The moral and religious criteria can be technically satisfied by extremist Muslims forcing cliterictomies on all girls, hanging homosexuals, and stoning rape victims to death.
Even Catholics and some Protestant sects have violent conflicts.
“New Deal capitalism”
???!??!??!!?
The New Deal was a huge step towards socialism. Oddly enough, it turned out badly. Um, duh?
“turned out badly”
Really? You don’t like highways? Or bridges? Reforestation, flood control…the TVA brought electricity to a huge number of people who didn’t have it before. The FDIC to prevent people from going bankrupt in a bank failure? The SEC to prevent finance bros from raping and pillaging to their heart’s delight? Seems like a lot of the New Deal was pretty good. It wasn’t perfect, but if you’re demanding perfect out of government you’re barking up the wrong tree….
Calling anything that benefits the public “socialism” is both inaccurate and counterproductive to a rational discussion.
“Seems like a lot of the New Deal was pretty good.”
If you cherry pick hard enough and ignore all the downsides of the “good” things you pick, sure.
I mean, CLEARLY, no one would ever have built any roads or bridges without the New Deal, right? They never did before, after all…
The best system? We didn’t get into this dilemma overnight so let’s not think that we can get out of it overnight. That is the greatest flaw of Socialism & all of its affiliated versions. Allowing “someone” the power to play Robin Hood is attractive when you are the poor one or an OK idea if you are not very rich. And it seems to be something that promises a quick solution. Unfortunately, Socialism has always managed to make more poor people than it has made rich people. Socialism has also shown that money will never make a problem go away. Just look at all the money that went into the “Great Society” and yet we are spending billions of dollars annually on homelessness & even more on nutrition assistance. Look at all of the ethical business challenges that are also affecting millions of Americans & the increasing number of laws & programs or regulations that cannot make the problems go away. We are in an ever deepening hole & spending more money on more programs such that even if we take everything the rich people have, it will never get us back to being even & keep us there.
Because this is a very complex question as many writers here have pointedly stated, I would propose that those interested give some deep thought to what it would take to make the Golden Rule the cornerstone of our national culture. Additionally, give thought to how the Golden Rule could be used to make our laws more equitable & effective. The point is our current laws & culture remove incentive & also accountability. Our laws are, in general, punitive in nature. There needs to be a balance between them. There are some things that must be punished until the cultural evolution extinguishes their occurrence & effectively rewards the appropriate activity. There are gov’t actions presently being undertaken that are not illegal per se, but definitely work in opposition to the Golden Rule when individual or group dynamics are examined. These must also be addressed in a manner similar to activities that require punitive intervention until the cultural evolution makes them extinct as well. It seems intuitive that being guided by the Golden Rule will lead to developing a moral & religious people through incentive rather than coercion or punishment & does not demand obeisance to a particular organized religious viewpoint.