When is a socialist not a socialist?
When he’s Bernie Sanders, and he’s the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president.
[NOTE: By the way, the title I gave this post reminds me of a joke I hated in my youth: “When is a door not a door? When it’s ajar.”
I first heard that joke when I was so small that I didn’t yet know the word “ajar.” I thought they were saying “when it’s a jar.” The joke is completely unfunny even when you understand it, but when you think the person is saying “when it’s a jar,” then it becomes a sort of dada-ish comment on meaninglessness.]
Ahh, come on Neo! It’s the perfect “Dad” joke! I miss inflicting such on my daughters now that they no longer are at home, but I do try to make up for lost time when we are together.
If one classifies ideologies/governments by the extent to which they are authoritarian, collectivist and tribalist, the distinctions between socialist, fascist, communist and liberal become minor. If one can go to jail in Austria for calling Mohammed a pedophile and go to jail in China for opposing the one party state, you’re still in jail.
I find it amusing that Bernie keeps emphasizing he’s a democratic socialist. Democracy is just a way of deciding who’s in power. If a democratic government sets up concentration camps, as one of Bernie’s field organizers was taped advocating, the important thing is that there are concentration camps, not that the government that set them up was the result of an election.
Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, where “democratic” serves the function of rouge on the cheeks of an aged hag. She thinks she’s sexually attractive. Isn’t?
A socialist is not a socialist when he or she is a communist. Or a liar.
Bill M,
And leftist democrat Presidents have a precedent for setting up concentration camps in California. American Citizens of Japanese descent were physically thrown into concentration camps by uniformed goons acting on the orders of democrat President Franklin Roosevelt.
It was ‘for their own good’ of course.
Color me corrected. I always thought he was a Communist. Silly me.
The joke version I heard was, “When is a room not a room? When it’s a mushroom.” My mom’s favorite joke when I was a child was, “Why do Eskimos wash their clothes in Tide?”
“Because it’s too told outtide.”
Sorry, about that.
I think Joe Biden is still telling that joke…
“How do get down off an elephant?”
“You don’t. You get down off a duck.”
I was a teenager before I ever knew that pillows could have feather-stuff inside.
We only had the modern synthetic ones, because they were cheaper.
As several commentators have pointed out today, if Sanders has been calling himself a socialist for decades, perhaps we should believe him.
We can expect much more of the “Bernie is not a socialist” line if he becomes the nominee. The media gatekeepers are very good at circling the wagons.
I didn’t get “what’s black and white and read all over?” That is until my friend told me the real answer was a skunk that just farted.
I thought it was some kind of a zen question.
A socialist is not a socialist when socialism polls poorly.
https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2020-02-11/poll-americans-wont-vote-for-a-socialist-presidential-candidate
Black and white and red all over? The NY Times.
“The media gatekeepers are very good at circling the wagons.”
Except this time they’re going to be getting shot at from inside the circle. I can almost imaging corporate America talking themselves into supporting Warren…but Sanders? No freakin’ way. Every notice who advertises on news shows or news channels? A lot of the businesses who would be directly impacted by a President Sanders.
Mike
I see on twitter people are already trying to twist what socialism is. It will get worse if Bernie wins the nomination.
I’ve seen this: https://twitter.com/susanengel14/status/1228358116896538624
a few times already. They list the Secret Service, Census Bureau, CIA, police, snow removal, jails and other stuff as socialism.
When I was a kid of 7 or so, I was told a knock knock joke:
Knock Knock
Who’s there
Madam
Madam who
Madam foot’s caught in the door.
I used it here and there like kids do, then one day, went to the neighbor’s who were having a party of adults. Repeated the joke to a guy at the door who burst out laughing for real. Because of the way he laughed at it, I wondered why, then I finally got it.
We once had a car that occasionally spoke. If you left a door open, it would say, “A door is ajar”. The kids loved it.
“They list the Secret Service, Census Bureau, CIA, police, snow removal, jails and other stuff as socialism.”
Big eye-roll. I have a friend who does this: the library, the fire department, on and on. It’s irritating but I feel just a little bit sorry for him, making such a stupid argument as if it’s some great triumph.
Bernie Sanders is a communist and a traitor, when the USA and the free world stood against the communist terror, he sided with the enemies. And Joe Biden is a worst kind of a human being, betrayed his allies, the Republic of Vietnam, and stabbed the weakest, the Vietnamese refugees fleeing the communist terror regime. Sadly, that is how our world has become, ignorant and heartless!
Student debt and an uncompetitive medical system is making socialists at an ever increasing rate.
We now have three parties, the Uni-Party Swampians, the Trumpians, and the Socialists.
Will the Swampians claw back the remains of the Democratic Party? Will Little Mike save the day?
I still say Hillary at the Convention, probably with Mayor Pete as VP.
It’s simple… A Socialist is a Communist without a gun.
Remember how the MSM either buried or brushed off all of the Communist influences in Obama’s upbringing and experience–Frank Marshal Davis, Alinski, the Rev. Wright, and all that?
Well, here’s an interesting and detailed article/analysis out today, laying out the case for Buttigiege being a true “red-diaper baby.”
How come we’ve never heard before that Buttigiege’s Marxist father Joseph was the world’s foremost expert on Antonio Gramsci, and was Founder of the International Gramsci Society?
Or that the then younger Pete was of substantial help to his father, a Professor at, of all places, Notre Dame, as he edited and produced the authoritative edition of Gramsci’s “Prison Notebooks,” the plan that has guided the Left’s very subversive, destructive, and successful “Long march” through our institutions and culture?
Or any of the other very relevant facts about and influences on Pete Buttigiege pointed out in this article that all voters should know about and be aware of?
See https://spectator.org/mayor-pete-red-diaper-baby/
If set out to make a “long march” then rather than “of all places” Notre Dame is precisely of the sort the commies would aim to infiltrate, no? So it can’t be a surprise — again, if given foreknowledge of the plan.
And ha ha, now it seems they’ve got themselves a Pope, to boot.
It’s sad that so few Americans know that Hitler was a socialist, too.
A National Socialist.
Wanting his Germanic tribe to have superiority over the Jewish and other tribes.
Socialism is always tribalist. Putting humans into groups.
The opposite of the socialist is the individualist.
I support individualism, while recognizing the duties all persons have to others, to “society” — by not committing crimes.
If you are an employer you can always figure out ways to get your employees to vote for you: offer more pay; offer a great health plan; offer child care or more vacation; offer to put your division in charge of another division; offer to not move to Cleveland, offer early retirement and better pension….
Socialistic governments are always big employers.
Socialistic governments can always affect the voting so that democracy is abrogated.
There is no such thing as democratic socialism.
QED
Diner to waiter: Do you serve crabs here?
Waiter: Madam, we serve everyone.
It took me a while to get it, alas.
Dnaxy:
If the Founders could have known how large government at all levels would become, they would have restricted the franchise to those who were not government employees. As it was, they restricted the franchise to freeholders, i.e., only those who had skin in the game could vote.
The recent takeover of Virginia’s state government by Democrats, via the voters in northern Virginia (the wealthy Washington DC suburbs) and Mike Bloomberg’s anti-gun money, has brought on the ensuing onslaught of “progressive” legislation, and stands as a dire warning of what can happen.
pro-pro- Trump Don Surber notes the knitting story of a few months ago:
https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2020/02/knitters-get-last-laugh.html#more
Funny how good stories can get recycled months later, and remind folk that they were quite good.
And how so many socialists are …
mean.
Mean-spirited, looking for reasons to dislike the Other.
And, like all prejudiced folk, finding “reasons”.
Fake News is especially strong with those who are prejudiced.
Dems prior prejudice against Blacks has been replaced with a prejudice against Reps.
Dems are still crazy prejudiced folk.
GK Galloway on February 15, 2020 at 7:48 am said:
It’s simple… A Socialist is a Communist without a gun.
* * *
..until they win an election that includes a police force (and there are a lot of guns among our Agencies that you wouldn’t think needed them).
On government as employer: the way public unions and bureaucrats collude to fleece the voters is part of the same mindset as socialism.
Bernie is a self-labeled “Socialist” – but one should always remember that a Socialist is just a Communist that hasn’t managed to finagle a majority vote – yet.
To paraphrase the old saying, you can vote yourself into Socialism, but you’ll end up shooting your way out of Communism.
Tom Grey said,
“Socialism is always tribalist. Putting humans into groups.
The opposite of the socialist is the individualist.”
Very well said.
It is worse than the established fact that, as an economic system, Socialism does not work.
The worst part of it is that, in the guise if egalitarianism, it places the elites of the society in positions of unchecked power, and runs roughshod over the rights of the citizens… all in the name of “the people”.