Bill Lear writes: >> Gee, I thought we were comparing actually existing freedoms under >> actually existing systems, led by actually existing people. I could >> care less about Friedman. He's a dead right-wing ideologue whose >> brazen dishonesty helped support at least one mass murderer. His >> arguments are specious, one-sided, sloppy, and full of holes. To >> repeat them on this list with no hint of awareness of their >> baselessness deserves rebuke. >> >> So, instead of comparing Chavez to Pinochet --- where there is no >> comparison, evidently --- Chavez, and by extension "socialism", is >> accused of something the US government has done in the past, in >> glorious spades. They make his supposed crimes seem like child's >> play. Read McChesney and for that matter Tocqueville or Zinn if you >> don't believe me.
I have to apologize in advance. The air conditioning is not working in my building so I am really cranky and that partially explains the tenor of my posts. Obviously, typing slowly didn't help. But I have not yet given up hope that you will understand the point. On this list, there is a constant criticism of "capitalism" and countries that are allegedly "capitalist." Many of the criticisms are quite cogent. However, agreeing that a criticism of capitalism is correct does not mean, ipso facto, that "socialism" is the answer. One does not follow from the other. Similarly, if you point out an insitutional problem common to capitalist countries, and I were to point out an example of a socialist country that suffered the same ill, that does not mean your argument is invalidated. You really seem to be confused about this. Do you really think the fact you can point to an example of a capitalist country that killed citizens and repressed freedom of speech negates a hypothesis that there is something inherent in revolutionary socialist institutions that results in the repression of freedom of speech? Is that the best you can do-- everybody does it, so what's the problem? And you have to criticize poor dead Milton. If I thought you had read the pages of Capitalism and Freedom that I referenced, let alone understood them, I would ask you to explain the flaw in Milton's argument. But since I don't think you have any idea what his argument was, I won't bother. David Shemano
