From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Mon Oct 28 2002 - 09:24:51 MST
On Mon, Oct 28, 2002 at 10:12:05AM -0500, Dehede011@aol.com wrote:
> That is exactly the point you have been trying to wiggle away from all
> through this discussion and you have no answer for it.
> The whole point about socialists is that they cannot face up to their
> dark side or to their failures.
You're pointing to a "dark side" and "failures" that I don't believe
have anything to do with socialism.
It's a bit like ... (hmm, hunts for a suitable metaphor) ... blaming
the US government for the failure of economic reforms in Argentina.
> Still all those countries you love to deny were socialist. Hitler was
> out to show the other socialist how socialism should really work. Mussolini
> was a communist that split with his party over a matter of political tactics
> not over theory.
I think you're being deliberately obtuse and/or mendacious here; neither
Hitler or Mussolini were remotely interested in socialism. (Industrial
feudalism would be a closer hit.)
> ... Heck, England got so bad they had to go get
> Mrs. Thatcher to pull their parsnips out of the fire.
Yeah, right. That explains the way she was kicked out -- in the end --
after three quarters of a million people marched on parliament, and the
way she needs a police bodyguard to this day, and the massive electoral
popularity of the conservatives to this day.
(Or don't you hear about that side of things, in your country?)
> If you wish to be taken seriously as a respectable political system
> instead of an ancient variation of totalitarianism I suggest you do two
> things. Embrace your errors, claim them, own up to your having committed
> them and tell us how you intend to guarantee they don't happen again. I
> don't think you have a clue -- prove me wrong.
"Embrace your errors" is libertarian code for "kindly fall on your sword
and expire", isn't it?
Speaking as a liberal -- the old-fashioned liberal democrat kind -- I
don't feel any need to satisfy you. In fact, the onus is on libertarians
and objectivists to prove that they can do better. So far, the only
libertarian states I can think of didn't stay that way for long --
the electorate decided that regulated markets were better, and I'm
sure you'd agree that if a country is to be run for its citizens benefit,
then they are the people best suited to decide how it ought to be run,
aren't they?
I'm fairly sure that doctrinaire enforcement of libertarian policies
would give rise to horrors at least as bad as anything to have come out
of the socialist sphere. *Any* ideology can only be an imperfect reflection
of the complexity of the human condition, and attempts to make human beings
conform to the behaviour required by doctrine are going to end in tears.
-- Charlie
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