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Have you ever tried to nail Jell-O to the wall? It’s easier than getting a socialist to stand pat on what socialism is, which makes socialism an endlessly moving target.

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Socialists are so intellectually slippery that they could crawl through a barrel of pretzels without knocking the salt off. It’s socialism until it doesn’t work; then it was never socialism in the first place. It’s socialism until the wrong guys get in charge; then it’s everything but.

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Maybe the reason why socialists don’t like personal responsibility is that they don’t want to be held personally responsible.

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Even with a dictionary at hand to look up the word socialism, I still find myself scratching my head and asking, “What the hell is it, anyway?"

https://fee.org/resources/the-xyz-s-of-socialism/

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Discussion

tetricky 2y ago

You think that's slippery..... try to get a capitalist to explain when to let the market decide. :-)

[ARCHIVED] Jay 2y ago

I've never been able to pin down the points of debate between socialism and capitalism from people who talk about them today.

I am a simple man and I use Bastiat's framework of Socialism as legal plunder. I pin Capitalism on option 3: No Legal Plunder.

From 'The Law':

"This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it:

1. The few plunder the many.

2. Everybody plunders everybody.

3. Nobody plunders anybody.

We must make our choice among limited plunder, universal plunder, and no plunder. The law can follow only one of these three.

Limited legal plunder: This system prevailed when the right to vote was restricted. One would turn back to this system to prevent the invasion of socialism.

Universal legal plunder: We have been threatened with this system since the franchise was made universal. The newly enfranchised majority has decided to formulate law on the same principle of legal plunder that was used by their predecessors when the vote was limited.

No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs."