Reflections on the Prague Spring and Socialism

 

I had a terrific time on the flagship podcast this week—thanks to Peter, Rob, James, and the Blue Yeti for having me on. Here are some further thoughts I had hoped to articulate on the podcast as well as others prompted by the podcast.

First, an important addition to the lesson of the Prague Spring. The program of the Prague Spring reformers, “socialism with a human face,” was saddled with a central contradiction. On the one hand they wanted to grant more autonomy and freedom to societal groups and managers; on the other, they had no intention of giving up the “leading role of the party.” So the allowance for the use of prices and profits would always be subordinated to the central Plan of the party and societal groups would also remain subject to the judgment and ultimate control of the party. But most reformers thought it would be good enough to end censorship, allow social groups to form, and allow opinion to operate freely. Then the party could allow a resuscitated society to feed it knowledge and thus prod it to respond with better policies. But either the Communist Party has a special knowledge of history’s logic and direction and thus deserves its leading role or it doesn’t. Václav Havel, in an essay published in April of 1968, saw the problem quite clearly. He argued that communist error must no longer count more than noncommunist truth. “If this is not done,” he wrote, “it means that communists are a special breed of superhumans who are…right even when they are wrong, while noncomunists are…wrong even when they are right…If communists have a guaranteed right to be wrong on occasion, then noncommunists must have a guaranteed right to be right; everything else is pointless.”

If the reformers were more lucid, they would have seen that they were planting the seeds of revolution. But they convinced themselves that they were merely reforming the system and hoped Moscow would see it this way too. In this case the Soviets were more clear-eyed about the likely outcome. But they would get their own Dubček in the form of Gorbachev soon enough.

Second, how does one explain the persistence of the appeal of socialism? It’s not surprising, in a way, that socialism seems to have regained some of its luster despite 1989 and 1991. For now it is untethered from its anchor in history—it can make a partial return to being merely the promise of a better society. And as its failure fades from memory, and young generations have simply no knowledge of its failure, the idea of this utopian call for another society will gain traction.

Socialism’s appeal is rooted in certain political passions that seems coextensive with the rise of modern liberal democracy. As Tocqueville noted long ago, “I think that democratic peoples have a natural taste for freedom…but for equality that have an ardent, insatiable, eternal, invincible passion; they want equality in freedom, and, if they cannot get it, they still want it in slavery.” And as he also noted, the passion for equality is not negated or moderated by decreases in actual inequality or the increase of the well-being of the poor. Rather, lingering inequalities will be felt more acutely as modern democracy becomes more secure and is eventually taken for granted. For lingering inequalities then seem more and more unjust.

One doesn’t have to fully endorse Aristotle’s view that we are political animals to appreciate that feelings of isolation, detachment, and loneliness will fuel longings for a politics that purports to banish those ills from the world. Various stripes of socialism are united in their view that the restoration of equality will restore a unity of belonging, or bring an end to alienation in Marxist terms. A liberal democratic politics that doesn’t speak a language of citizenship and a common good will cede the ground to illiberal appeals for belonging.

Finally, the anxiety and uncertainties of the bourgeois citizen yields a self-doubt or self-hatred that seeks an alternative—some solution that can bring a firm and final fulfillment of the promises of modern democracy. The French historian François Furet sees this resulting in something likely unique in human history: “The infinite capacity to produce offspring who detest the social and political regime into which they were born—hating the very air they breathe, though they cannot survive without it and have known no other.”

Along with these passions, certainly intellectual errors enable socialism’s continued appeal. With the French Revolution was born the constructivist conceit—that society as a whole could be refabricated in the abstract and then put in place following the destruction of the old order. This radically voluntarist conception of politics has been normalized to a shocking degree in the minds of our contemporaries. Second, we assume that “capitalism” and “socialism” are symmetrical terms. Even conservatives fall into this trap. But as Martin Malia once pointed out, these terms “designate the really existing (and of course messy) present order and a fantasy…future alternative. Yet for almost two centuries now, and especially in the twentieth century, we have talked as if capitalism and socialism were equally real historical formations which society could choose.” In this case the way we speak and use these supposedly related ISMs has corrupted our thinking.

The materialist interpretation of history in the strong Marxist sense upon which the rise of socialism is predicated is false. So a radical voluntarist conception is the only way socialism (meaning public ownership of the means of production) could now be realized. And the great promise of socialism in this strong sense is some kind of equality of participation and an end to alienation. Can this be accomplished through peaceful, democratic means? I don’t think so. Or do self-described socialists merely want some tweaks to our political economy such that some minor adjustments to the welfare state would suffice. If this is the case, socialism in this weak sense loses its revolutionary appeal. Its adherents might then join another ordinary political party operating within our messy, market oriented present. Or do self-described democratic socialists retain the maximalist goals of the revolutionary socialists but only differ on the means of transformation with a willingness to play a very long political game? We ought to be sure the socialists operating today provide answers to such questions.

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  1. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Flagg Taylor: But either the Communist Party has a special knowledge of history’s logic and direction and thus deserves its leading role or it doesn’t. Václav Havel, in an essay published in April of 1968, saw the problem quite clearly. He argued that communist error must no longer count more than noncommunist truth. “If this is not done,” he wrote, “it means that communists are a special breed of superhumans who are…right even when they are wrong, while noncomunists are…wrong even when they are right…If communists have a guaranteed right to be wrong on occasion, then noncommunists must have a guaranteed right to be right; everything else is pointless.”

    Flagg,

    This is exactly the problem we are facing from the deconstructionist post-modern left at the moment. They have pre-judged every situation and simply ignore entirely all facts that don’t fit their narrative. Either their narrative has a special truth value over and above any factual data or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t then everything that they trumpet is never anything but propaganda. Reality never enters into it.

    There can be no common ground with these kinds of ideologues. They rightly see the truth as their enemy that would destroy them. We must give them all of the truth that they can’t handle.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #1
  2. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    Nice piece.  Enjoyed it.  #MRGA

    • #2
  3. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Really important points.  The error of the Prague spring is the same error  progressives make from the other side, there is no and cannot be a technocratic elite with the knowledge, technical capacity and moral integrity to run a political economic system.   It’s just not possible. 

    Another point I want to make in this context. Ayn Rand said that Christianity is the kindergarten for socialism.  Hayek said a similar thing about in group tribal loyalties and group morality and the requirement, once outside the extended family, to move from group morality and values to a morality of individualism.   Goldberg and other identity politics  critics say we’re moving back to tribalism.  I think they have it a little wrong, but the point here is that these sentiments were part of small tribe survival strategies for millions of years which we had to move beyond to grow into advanced civilizations.  (which is where Ayn Rand is wrong, Christianity was part of that move to wider loyalties but it has been misunderstood.  It was a framework for expanding individual freedom beyond the tribe, not a new collective.) The need to join, sacrifice for the group,  are part of our DNA and it is not enough to call them dangerous anachronisms.   We need to belong and as Church, civic clubs, bowling clubs etc vanish people are left with needs we must somehow fill.  Now pardon what may be an unfamiliar abstraction from Mancur Olsen,  as technology, economic growth, demographic change sweeps old organizations, civic groups, unions, guilds, civic morality away, until a new economy and culture emerges the young are left out, what Marx wrongly called alienation but they are ready to join mass movements, gangs, cults, and as their parents and the home play less of a role in their lives they will join them.    Burke’s platoons are sadly disappearing and the left exacerbates the dissolution of civilization’s glues– that’s what the left does, it has always been a Marxist strategy because Marx understood some of this dynamic.  We have to become serious about these matters or the west will have to wait another couple of centuries or so to rediscover the secrets of freedom and the prosperity it brings.

     

    • #3
  4. BalticSnowTiger Member
    BalticSnowTiger
    @BalticSnowTiger

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Really important points. The error of the Prague spring is the same error progressives make from the other side, there is no and cannot be a technocratic elite with the knowledge, technical capacity and moral integrity to run a political economic system. It’s just not possible.

    Another point I want to make in this context. Ayn Rand said that Christianity is the kindergarten for socialism. Hayek said a similar thing about in group tribal loyalties and group morality and the requirement, once outside the extended family, to move from group morality and values to a morality of individualism. Goldberg and other identity politics critics say we’re moving back to tribalism. I think they have it a little wrong, but the point here is that these sentiments were part of small tribe survival strategies for millions of years which we had to move beyond to grow into advanced civilizations. (which is where Ayn Rand is wrong, Christianity was part of that move to wider loyalties but it has been misunderstood. It was a framework for expanding individual freedom beyond the tribe, not a new collective.) The need to join, sacrifice for the group, are part of our DNA and it is not enough to call them dangerous anachronisms. We need to belong and as Church, civic clubs, bowling clubs etc vanish people are left with needs we must somehow fill. Now pardon what may be an unfamiliar abstraction from Mancur Olsen, as technology, economic growth, demographic change sweeps old organizations, civic groups, unions, guilds, civic morality away, until a new economy and culture emerges the young are left out, what Marx wrongly called alienation but they are ready to join mass movements, gangs, cults, and as their parents and the home play less of a role in their lives they will join them. Burke’s platoons are sadly disappearing and the left exacerbates the dissolution of civilization’s glues– that’s what the left does, it has always been a Marxist strategy because Marx understood some of this dynamic. We have to become serious about these matters or the west will have to wait another couple of centuries or so to rediscover the secrets of freedom and the prosperity it brings.

    ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ as a theme is quite resounding. The existing technocratic elite is fighting us.

    • #4
  5. Could Be Anyone Inactive
    Could Be Anyone
    @CouldBeAnyone

    Spin (View Comment):

    Nice piece. Enjoyed it. #MRGA

    I second this.

    On a seperate note your ending point that socialists need to fully explain their policy proposals is quite poignant, it is something that rarely happens.  As you mention in the beginning with the Prague Spring central planning requires totality and a single vision. How would a free press, the family, or religion exist in a totally socialist nation?  The likely truth is that most socialists in the modern day do not want that, they prefer the weaker and less revolutionary welfare-state socialism sold by Sanders.

    • #5
  6. Flagg Taylor Member
    Flagg Taylor
    @FlaggTaylor

    Could Be Anyone (View Comment):

    Spin (View Comment):

    Nice piece. Enjoyed it. #MRGA

    I second this.

    On a seperate note your ending point that socialists need to fully explain their policy proposals is quite poignant, it is something that rarely happens. As you mention in the beginning with the Prague Spring central planning requires totality and a single vision. How would a free press, the family, or religion exist in a totally socialist nation? The likely truth is that most socialists in the modern day do not want that, they prefer the weaker and less revolutionary welfare-state socialism sold by Sanders.

    I meant to suggest something slightly different.  Socialists should be asked to explain in what sense they are embracing socialism. Maximalist socialism–full public ownership of things? Gradual maximalism? Non-revolutionary, tweeking of welfare state not really socialism? If they answer that, then we can move on to specific policy debates. My general sense is the argument at the level of ISM is mostly useless unless they are candid about this.

    • #6
  7. Could Be Anyone Inactive
    Could Be Anyone
    @CouldBeAnyone

    Flagg Taylor (View Comment):
    I meant to suggest something slightly different. Socialists should be asked to explain in what sense they are embracing socialism. Maximalist socialism–full public ownership of things? Gradual maximalism? Non-revolutionary, tweeking of welfare state not really socialism? If they answer that, then we can move on to specific policy debates. My general sense is the argument at the level of ISM is mostly useless unless they are candid about this.

    I see that you place primary concern on the end goal.

    I would still hold that most people arguing for “socialism” are arguing in favor of the weak and not revolutionary “social democracy” option (tweaking welfare-state) as the end goal.  It is not only familiar due to existing “examples”, the often cited Nordic nations, but is also practical, compared to the complextity needed to orchestrate a violent revolution and plan out all industries in such an advanced nation.

    Socialism will continue to be used vaguely in the vernacular because that suits the uses of its critics and its sympathizers.

    • #7
  8. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Well done, Flagg! I think you’re right that we need to learn from Tocqueville, a champion of a new liberalism & enemy in both politics & thinking of socialism. Democracy will either work well or ill, but what it will not do is obey a transcendent authority, be it God or nature.

    So the problem is how to dignify equality by making it workable in real human lives. This means making technology serve people & at the same time teaching people that the way they live together can & shall be worthwhile. To put that in your terms, capitalism is how we live–but few really believe in it. It’s not clear that it’s sane to believe in it. & it’s not clear how we can retain human dignity if we make “life’s not fair” into a principle of government. We are democrats first, capitalists second. How can democracy survive tech-based neo-feudalism? But socialism, as a the criticism of capitalist injustice, doesn’t seem to be practical–doesn’t grasp the human face, really, which is a combination of justice & moderation that continuously eludes us. We have to have laws & to mind our own business. That’s tricky, not to say contradictory–since someone has to mind the public business, too! (You could say capitalism denies politics is real by denying public service is real; socialism denies it by denying that there is anything but…)

    P.S. Mrs. Bruenig has Tocqueville’s blessing when she says, we gotta somehow get rid of the rich people! Tocqueville pointed out that opulent wealth & the luxury of its influence & power will corrupt democratic mores. But we need a serious conversation about this. All hail to the Ricochet podcast, but the student of political philosophy in me has more practical questions: How do we take most of Bezos’s wealth away? Does America live without Amazon? What’s the game plan here. The moralism surrounding socialism somehow prevents that line of thinking: Instead we’re forever going back to socialism–is the word dirty or not? Is it a tolerable thought or not? Can you look at European polities or must you always look to the Soviets? These are of course important questions & somehow our dignity depends on getting them right. But they don’t seem to be connected directly or obviously to political action…

    • #8
  9. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Also, you were really good on the Ricochet podcast &, of course, our benevolent overlords made themselves look foolish, since they didn’t even know you were a member. Finally, one of our own rises to the rarefied atmospheres of the influential & blessed–only to learn they’re out of touch.

    I had a good laugh & I enjoyed even more your righteous indignation: Of course I’m a member! This is the kind of populism our elites need to listen to–we’re in this together, but you people don’t seem to know that, & you should, & you should begin to respect the fact. Loyalty & self-respect put together. One day, you’ll be in the books about how to be a citizen in the age of digital technology, Flagg!

    • #9
  10. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Titus Techera (View Comment):
    P.S. Mrs. Bruenig has Tocqueville’s blessing when she says, we gotta somehow get rid of the rich people! Tocqueville pointed out that opulent wealth & the luxury of its influence & power will corrupt democratic mores.

    The only thing that has proved more corrupting to democratic mores than opulent wealth has been socialistic nitwittery. To cope with the demands of the latter day Levelers, the government has grown by leaps and bounds.

    Someone should ask Ms Bruenig: what percentage of her current income is she prepared to forgo in order to achieve equality of outcome?

    • #10
  11. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Could Be Anyone (View Comment):

    Spin (View Comment):

    Nice piece. Enjoyed it. #MRGA

    I second this.

    ” they prefer the weaker and less revolutionary welfare-state socialism sold by Sanders”

    Yes that’s what’s in many of their minds and  can actually work in tiny homogenous already developed countries like the Nordics, but in giant heterogenous US, it leads to the same place.  We must be market based or drift toward an ever expanding central government, stagnation and, after  a  period of increasing totalitarian floundering, death. 

     

    • #11
  12. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Percival (View Comment):

    Titus Techera (View Comment):
    P.S. Mrs. Bruenig has Tocqueville’s blessing when she says, we gotta somehow get rid of the rich people! Tocqueville pointed out that opulent wealth & the luxury of its influence & power will corrupt democratic mores.

    The only thing that has proved more corrupting to democratic mores than opulent wealth has been socialistic nitwittery. To cope with the demands of the latter day Levelers, the government has grown by leaps and bounds.

    Someone should ask Ms Bruenig: what percentage of her current income is she prepared to forgo in order to achieve equality of outcome?

    Yeah, she’s a sweet, reasonable, gentle woman. But someone should ask her, how do we take 95% of Jeff Bezos’s wealth, you know, to make him merely obscenely rich, not inconceivably rich…

    As for democratic mores–you’re much mistaken about this. First of all, there are many other countries where there is far more government than in America & it hasn’t corrupted the people. But those peoples are also far less movable than Americans & far less obsessed with quick & easy success in youth.

    Tocqueville was thinking about this: What happens to a nation where you show most of the people that a few of them live like Greek gods? Broadcast it again & again–& in a nation where money obsesses people so much, it’s going to have terrifying effects. People know all-too-well with their all-American rationalism that money buys a lot of stuff. That they could have what they want, what it seems that everybody wants, since everybody more & more wants the same things–which, by all-American majority-wins rules, also makes unpopular opinions marginal & ignored. People love opulence so much that they don’t like to simply stare at the opulent–they’re paying for an entire industry of industries–from social media to advertising to, well, just everyday life–that delivers images of opulence to soothe the soul & at the same time lash it into activity or despair.

    To a large extent, the massive new post-war federal government is itself part of the indulgences of opulence in America. It’s true that the Great Society helped corrupt the people, although it also does some good. But it’s truer & more important that the people were enthusiastically for the Great Society in the first place. That didn’t happen in darkness or conspiracy. Wildly popular stuff, with the people, with both parties–with America. LBJ, after all, wanted to make America great again!

    • #12
  13. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    I’m not talking about the people, Titus. I’m talking about the government. There were almost 700,000 emails on Weiner’s laptop. Comey gave Congress some cock-and-bull story about how “the wizardry of our technology” allowed duplicate messages to be discarded from the investigation. That was a flat-out lie. Only 3077 messages were reviewed, and even with that statistically laughable sample size they found a few previously unknown classified emails. And most of  the Fourth Estate don’t merely have their thumbs on the scale of fair coverage, they are sitting on the scale. (Their thumbs are either inserted in their mouths or some other orifice.)

    • #13
  14. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    So I agree about political corruption. But the massive state wasn’t created by these who benefit from it, against the public interest. It was created with the consent of the people instead. All I meant…

    • #14
  15. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Titus Techera (View Comment):
    But the massive state wasn’t created by these who benefit from it …

    Yeah, they fought it tooth and claw.

     

    • #15
  16. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    So I agree about political corruption. But the massive state wasn’t created by these who benefit from it, against the public interest. It was created with the consent of the people instead. All I meant…

    They consented to a pig in a poke.  Welfare started out with 6% eligible; now it’s 35%.  If they had been told 35% from the beginning, they would not have consented.

    • #16
  17. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    So I agree about political corruption. But the massive state wasn’t created by these who benefit from it, against the public interest. It was created with the consent of the people instead. All I meant…

    They consented to a pig in a poke. Welfare started out with 6% eligible; now it’s 35%. If they had been told 35% from the beginning, they would not have consented.

    Judge, Americans aren’t screaming hysterically against Obamacare. No national uproar against all the Medicare & Medicaid expansions & kids staying on their parents’ insurance until 26. The super tough Republicans of 2016, the super toughest Trump, biggest champion of them all–they cannot do anything about Obamacare. Conservatives true of heart apparently couldn’t do much in eight years of opposing Obama. All the elections & the FOX News since 2010 has not told Americans they should give the GOP majorities in Congress like they gave the Dems. Also, so far as I gather from my conservative acquaintance, they kinda revile the GOP anyway. What does that say about the popularity of true-blue conservatism? As Trump said, it’s not called the conservative party…

    So no, I don’t think there’s a vast majority of America in your corner. I think if you had nominated another Romney who talks about makers & takers, you would have lost in 2016, too. Trump didn’t talk about cutting entitlements, unlike the wonderboy Ryan.

    & even if it breaks your true-blue American heart–look around the world. Everywhere healthcare becomes the sign of the common good. It’s never gonna be an America where everyone believes in Zuckerberg & Bezos & a nation of entrepreneurs marches on the road to repealing every law of human nature! Whoever wants to get rid of the massive administrative state, as much as is possible, at least, & get rid of most of the welfare state should think about what plan could in a generation or two lead to a much better situation for the lower classes.

    I don’t think a lot of people care about the poor, however. Maybe conservatives are right that liberals don’t really care. But that just makes everyone the same in that respect…

    • #17
  18. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    So I agree about political corruption. But the massive state wasn’t created by these who benefit from it, against the public interest. It was created with the consent of the people instead. All I meant…

    They consented to a pig in a poke. Welfare started out with 6% eligible; now it’s 35%. If they had been told 35% from the beginning, they would not have consented.

    Judge, Americans aren’t screaming hysterically against Obamacare. No national uproar against all the Medicare & Medicaid expansions & kids staying on their parents’ insurance until 26. The super tough Republicans of 2016, the super toughest Trump, biggest champion of them all–they cannot do anything about Obamacare. Conservatives true of heart apparently couldn’t do much in eight years of opposing Obama. All the elections & the FOX News since 2010 has not told Americans they should give the GOP majorities in Congress like they gave the Dems. Also, so far as I gather from my conservative acquaintance, they kinda revile the GOP anyway. What does that say about the popularity of true-blue conservatism? As Trump said, it’s not called the conservative party…

    So no, I don’t think there’s a vast majority of America in your corner. I think if you had nominated another Romney who talks about makers & takers, you would have lost in 2016, too. Trump didn’t talk about cutting entitlements, unlike the wonderboy Ryan.

    & even if it breaks your true-blue American heart–look around the world. Everywhere healthcare becomes the sign of the common good. It’s never gonna be an America where everyone believes in Zuckerberg & Bezos & a nation of entrepreneurs marches on the road to repealing every law of human nature! Whoever wants to get rid of the massive administrative state, as much as is possible, at least, & get rid of most of the welfare state should think about what plan could in a generation or two lead to a much better situation for the lower classes.

    I don’t think a lot of people care about the poor, however. Maybe conservatives are right that liberals don’t really care. But that just makes everyone the same in that respect…

    You don’t seem to have paid any attention to what I wrote there.  I didn’t say Obamacare, I didn’t say 2016.  If you had told people in 1965 that a third of the country would be on welfare, the original program couldn’t have passed.

    • #18
  19. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Judge, that’s a meaningless statement, because it was not 35% then. Nobody could have known at the time! If you had told Americans about what would happen in Vietnam, would it have been so popular? How about Afghanistan & Iraq? But nobody could have predicted, when these things started, how they ended up. Now, the various welfare-healthcare-redistribution programs have been voted on again & again for 50 years. If Americans at any point woke up & said, wait, it’s not a few percent anymore, we gotta stop!, then I would take your argument seriously. But remember, nobody could have predicted the outcome, because the outcome wasn’t inevitable. It’s just what the people have wanted, again & again & again. It’s been 50 years & there’s no party for cutting these programs significantly.

    If you had told Americans that slavery ends up with a Civil War & the horrors it brought to America, nobody would have signed up for that at any point! But who knew? So don’t let’s argue from this kind of generational hindsight!

    • #19
  20. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    Judge, that’s a meaningless statement, because it was not 35% then. Nobody could have known at the time! If you had told Americans about what would happen in Vietnam, would it have been so popular? How about Afghanistan & Iraq? But nobody could have predicted, when these things started, how they ended up. Now, the various welfare-healthcare-redistribution programs have been voted on again & again for 50 years. If Americans at any point woke up & said, wait, it’s not a few percent anymore, we gotta stop!, then I would take your argument seriously. But remember, nobody could have predicted the outcome, because the outcome wasn’t inevitable. It’s just what the people have wanted, again & again & again. It’s been 50 years & there’s no party for cutting these programs significantly.

    If you had told Americans that slavery ends up with a Civil War & the horrors it brought to America, nobody would have signed up for that at any point! But who knew? So don’t let’s argue from this kind of generational hindsight!

    You keep talking about everything but what I actually said.  Once again, if people in 1968 had been told that 35% of people would get welfare, that 35% of the population just couldn’t make it on their own and that the other 65% must support them, it would not, it could not have passed.  Period.

    You can call that a meaningless statement if you like.  You’re entitled to your own opinion.

    • #20
  21. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Ok, Judge, you can live in a world where you can predict the future 50 years on & discuss policy on that basis. Call it the Captain Obvious party. It’s bound to win.

    • #21
  22. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    Ok, Judge, you can live in a world where you can predict the future 50 years on & discuss policy on that basis. Call it the Captain Obvious party. It’s bound to win.

    I can predict the future 50 years on.  In 2068, the United States will be a third world socialist hellhole.  Sometime, probably within the next 20 years, the maleducated young people will become a majority and vote socialists into power.  And once you start socialism, you don’t come back until your society is completely destroyed, so in 2068 they will still be in the midst of that ‘experiment’.  You might live long enough to see that I’m right.

    • #22
  23. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Judge–you’ve got 20 more years in you, since God has seen fit to provide for you in the most shocking moments. It won’t happen. & I’ll remember & mock your fears. As for 50 years from now–I hope to God I’ll end up as old as you & as leisured about fantasies of doom!

    • #23
  24. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    Judge–you’ve got 20 more years in you, since God has seen fit to provide for you in the most shocking moments. It won’t happen. & I’ll remember & mock your fears. As for 50 years from now–I hope to God I’ll end up as old as you & as leisured about fantasies of doom!

    I wish I was as optimistic as you, but I think the hundred year march through the institutions is going to bear its full fruit.

    And 20 years?  You’re dreaming.  My current goal is 60.

    • #24
  25. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    Judge–you’ve got 20 more years in you, since God has seen fit to provide for you in the most shocking moments. It won’t happen. & I’ll remember & mock your fears. As for 50 years from now–I hope to God I’ll end up as old as you & as leisured about fantasies of doom!

    I wish I was as optimistic as you, but I think the hundred year march through the institutions is going to bear its full fruit.

    And 20 years? You’re dreaming. My current goal is 60.

    It’s a good goal. Box clever. Bob & weave. We’ll drink your health…

    • #25
  26. GLDIII Reagan
    GLDIII
    @GLDIII

    Even this does not really do justice to the level of obtuseness observed by the current crop of world changers. At least in the 70’s when I use to hear this clap trap on campus they had understanding of the material sacrifice that “we” would all be required to endure for utopia.

    • #26
  27. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    I think radical leftism today would be diffused if America found a way to deal with college debt. It’s a very thorny problem, but a nation where 18-year-olds are told, Yeah!, you’re perfectly fit to deal with such debt after mom & dad shielded you from hardship all your kiddie life!, is corrupt morally in a way conservatives rarely dare acknowledge.

    • #27
  28. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    I think radical leftism today would be diffused if America found a way to deal with college debt. It’s a very thorny problem, but a nation where 18-year-olds are told, Yeah!, you’re perfectly fit to deal with such debt after mom & dad shielded you from hardship all your kiddie life!, is corrupt morally in a way conservatives rarely dare acknowledge.

    First step is that the government needs to stop guaranteeing loans.  Right now, pretty much everyone who asks for one gets it.  But it is far kinder to dash the hopes of an 18-year-old by telling them you won’t loan them $60k to get a degree in Feminist Theory, than to let them run up that debt for a degree that will never pay for itself.  And that’s what a private lender would do.

    • #28
  29. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    I think radical leftism today would be diffused if America found a way to deal with college debt. It’s a very thorny problem, but a nation where 18-year-olds are told, Yeah!, you’re perfectly fit to deal with such debt after mom & dad shielded you from hardship all your kiddie life!, is corrupt morally in a way conservatives rarely dare acknowledge.

    First step is that the government needs to stop guaranteeing loans. Right now, pretty much everyone who asks for one gets it. But it is far kinder to dash the hopes of an 18-year-old by telling them you won’t loan them $60k to get a degree in Feminist Theory, than to let them run up that debt for a degree that will never pay for itself. And that’s what a private lender would do.

    Yup. But that only works forward. What about the outstanding $1.4 trillion in debt? That’s going to cause a crisis. Republicans kinda hate the young–the feeling’s mututal–so no one’s gonna wanna help. Maybe liberals can make a massive Progress cause & win the youth for a generation, as with Vietnam protests, by wiping out the debt. Might be another generation of Republican idiocy leading to complete loss of Congress…

    • #29
  30. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Titus Techera (View Comment):

    I think radical leftism today would be diffused if America found a way to deal with college debt. It’s a very thorny problem, but a nation where 18-year-olds are told, Yeah!, you’re perfectly fit to deal with such debt after mom & dad shielded you from hardship all your kiddie life!, is corrupt morally in a way conservatives rarely dare acknowledge.

    First step is that the government needs to stop guaranteeing loans. Right now, pretty much everyone who asks for one gets it. But it is far kinder to dash the hopes of an 18-year-old by telling them you won’t loan them $60k to get a degree in Feminist Theory, than to let them run up that debt for a degree that will never pay for itself. And that’s what a private lender would do.

    Yup. But that only works forward. What about the outstanding $1.4 trillion in debt? That’s going to cause a crisis. Republicans kinda hate the young–the feeling’s mututal–so no one’s gonna wanna help. Maybe liberals can make a massive Progress cause & win the youth for a generation, as with Vietnam protests, by wiping out the debt. Might be another generation of Republican idiocy leading to complete loss of Congress…

    But you just can’t forgive it either; sends the worst possible message.  And we’ve had too many of those already.

    • #30
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