Joe was Right

Intellectual Conservative ^ | 12/2/2006 | Do the Dhue

[do the dhue]

Didn't Venona identify some of those that McCarthy identified?

[bannie]

Much more appropriate when you consider the treasonous bastard whom we impeached.

:-)

[Porterville]

Socialist? Never. Individualist? Always.

[norton]

(Sorry if I'm just restating the obvious here, but...)

The socialism becomes capitalist / capitalism becomes socialist circle goes way farther back than '84. I heard the same thing in '62.

The basis is/was that neither system can operate in pure form.

Capitalism itself does not address what we know as humanitarian issues - so some form of socialism gets grafted into the mix to accommodate those who cannot compete. Then there are public works, disasters, and wars to be fought and paid for. Eventually the guilds and crafts associations metastasize into unions...
Socialist ideals might work fine for a tribe of about a dozen people, early Christians and the Puritans tried it. Eventually it fails, in part because no one is motivated except those who direct and manage the 'equality'. Orwell did that part. It also fails because of the need to generate assets within the group and from without.
(In the most socialist of societies there will always be capitalists at work selling any excess they can produce - and hide - for whatever extras another capitalist has to sell.)
Eventually - some form of capitalism gets grafted into the mix and suddenly China wants to sell cars in the USA.

Socialism, unlike Capitalism, does pretend to have an answer for both governmental and personal needs, from each according to...etc.
That makes it comforting to many people on the bottom.
And, because they don't truly believe that it will apply to them, it also appeals to self defined intellectuals and people who are or think they are the elite.
A lot of people over the last century (+) thought it was a good idea until they found themselves living with it.

The lesson was that pure ideology on either end won't work.

Generally omitted from that lesson has been the fact that your professor probably held himself to be one of those elites who would somehow be 'more equal than other animals' within a socialist system.

[do the dhue]

Excellent example and I truly understand.

But out of all this, why does a child's right to sing a Christmas Carol matter to the Socialist? Why is it important to remove a Manger scene from public view? Why do gays have to come into my God's House and commit an act that my God says is wrong (gay marriage)? I have never gone to San Fran and pist on their little parades. Why is my culture at war?

Why are the commies trying to change all that is good about America?

[norton]

same reason they rooted up temples and cemetaries in China: remove the competing ideologies and leave only the state intact to 'support the masses'.

[do the dhue]

yep

[Thumper1960]

Facts that emerged after the Moscow Spring, in opened KGB files, revealed to some extent the infiltration of US organizations and government by Moscow. Of course, the CPUSA was funded by Moscow. Everyone knew that. The elite, however, chose to sugar coat the despicable Stalinist regime and gloss over the atrocities perpetrated on the peoples of Asia and Eastern Europe. A system as entrenched as Communism is in Russia does not die "overnight". It took a nap. It's awakening.