[Arlo] > Well now you're arguing my point. Equating "socialism" with "Hitler" No, I’m pointing out the problem with your point. Once you define ‘socialism’ as any government program/action/regulation, then to be consistent, you have to say Hitler was the all-time model of a socialist, right down to regulating the color of the Star of David patch he regulated you to wear if he deemed you sufficiently Jewish. In general my complaint is against the following kind of reasoning: Step 1) Take a concept like freedom (or meaning). Step 2) Define it in an EXTREME way. ‘Freedom’ is TOTAL absence of regulation or oversight. (‘Literal meaning’ is TOTALLY without any metaphorical component). Step 3) Draw the absurd conclusion. Free markets don’t exist. (All meaning is metaphorical.) In contrast to this “strawman” mode of reasoning, consider concepts on a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, markets can be highly regulated, with government owning the means of production, setting wages & prices, as in socialism proper. Or at the other end, government can just establish the structure of the market, without competing in it or dictating economic exchanges, as in free markets. (You can literally have a monkey on your back if you’re playing with your pet macaque or metaphorically if you have a drug problem. But drugs are not monkeys.) [X Acto, from “ Think like a baby”]
> valuing individuals other than YOURSELF is socialism you know. No, nobody knows this because it isn’t true. It is one of Marsha’s 38 fallacies. Craig Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
