Reflections of a stormy petrel

This would read better if it was broken into paragraphs.

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I want the impact of a long rant. It's not meant to be an enjoyable read - it's an and ANOTHER thing...-type experience.

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Well by that logic you should include some of those seizure-inducing pictures with it.

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It's not a big deal to me, just that every time I try to read past the first sentence my mind wanders. I think I get the idea. You're mad at American conservatives who call Obama a socialist?

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On the contrary. Obama is a social democrat with a social democratic political project, and ought to be able to push it without all the idiots in creation talking as if he is going to open the gulags. He wants Americans to have similar services to Europeans and Japanese and does not see why that should be regarded a sin. I am suggesting that the American right should start becoming acquainted with the rest of the universe, instead of looking for votes among the declining fanaticism of creationism.

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cette-vie.livejournal.com

Yes. Yes, basically, yes.

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"Socialism" just means something different in America. We had the Cold War and shit.

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You were not alive when it was around. I lived in a country that had a border with a Communist country and served in an army that was intended to stop that border in case of Communist invasion. I also lived through a period of intense Communist terrorism. Finally, Italy had and still has a vast law-abiding Communist movement (as distinct from underground Communist terrorists). That is how I know I know the difference between Communists - even personally nice Communists - and Social Democrats. And when American bloggers speak as though Zapatero or Segolene Royale or the Swedish Socialists were one and the same as the creatures who ran the Soviet Union, I am disgusted at the ignorance.

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Europe also had the Cold War. NATO, Berlin Wall, split Germany, forcibly neutral Austria, tactical nukes deployed on the ground, tanks over some borders, Eastern Europe being under Soviet control. Those Soviet nukes weren't all pointed at the US.

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As I said - I served in the Italian army when the Italian army was part of NATO and staring down the barrel of a lot of Soviet guns. In case of war, we would have had to hold the mountains and plains of north-eastern Italy and possibly advance into Yugoslavia and Austria if the Warsaw Pact violated the neutrality of those countries - which was taken practically for granted. And I lived through the long period of Communist terrorism in my country, which has not even now altogether died out. Don't tell me about the Cold War; I was there. And I happen to know that almost every Social Democrat in Europe was a sworn enemy of Russian Communism.

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Way I'd put it: either 'socialism' is Soviet-bad, in which case Obama is not a socialist and neither is any European government, or Obama is a 'socialist' a la Europe in which case socialism is not that bad, let alone Soviet-bad. Because whatever moral qualms conservatives might have about Eurosocialism, the statistical picture is pretty good, with income/capita, life expectancy, life expectancy/$health, social mobility, and innovation comparable or superior to the stats of the US.

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I made that point to

johncwright, who is not even as bad as some. His answer? That statistics mean nothing (until he has had the opportunity to "interpret" and "revise" them to his heart's content.)

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baduin.livejournal.com

It is always fun to see a Liberarian and a Socialist fighting.

I once had to take care of a cat; she loved fighting with that second cat hiding in the mirror. But she, mirabile dictu, were never able to win, because the mirror-cat was mirroring each her movement.

Similarly, libertarians are unable to notice that that second cat in the mirror is themselves. The social disruption caused by the free-market economy makes the welfare state necessary.

On the other hand, you CAN have socialism without free market. This is the option of having only the mirror-cat. But such a smoke-and-mirrors economy is utterly unable to provide any products on our side of the looking glass.

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So I'm a socialist. Explain it to the guys who wrote in my Wiki entry that I was one of the best-known conservatives in HP fandom. Really, have you never heard of what ASS-U-ME makes?

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baduin.livejournal.com

And why a conservative shouldn't be a socialist? (In the same meaning as that in your entry.) I do not see any contradiction there. There are countries where the conservative party is socialist, and liberals support free market.

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I think I'd missed that.

True Reason is not shackled by the inconvenience of mere evidence! I'm tempted to make snarky comments about Aristotleians and Platonists, but that might be rude.

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baduin.livejournal.com

I have discovered recently a new hobby, made possible by the Internet: collecting remnants of old utopias. Because utopias do not disappear completely. Each receding wave leaves puddles and tide pools, filled with strange sea creatures - very often with strangely distorted shapes.

The religious utopias, which survive usually in America, the great natural preserve of Protestantism, are longest-lived, but also most changeable. For example the murderous Anabaptists of the XVI century live on today in the shape of the innocuous and quaint Mennonites and Amish. Instead of the desire for future utopia, they live still in the XIX century.

That strange change of progress into regress into the past is not uncommon also in more secular movements. For example the French monarchists: in XVI century the most progressive force in the world, now still repeat Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi! and support various pretenders to the throne.

The Trotskyite tradition is surviving still in the English Science Fiction. The Romantic Nationalism found refuge in the Republican Party: George W. Bush was perhaps the last Romantic Nationalist, ending the long line of such fighters for freedom as Byron, Garibaldi, Kossuth, or Dombrowski.

Classic XIX-century style libertarian are easy to find; they even managed to generate the radical wing of Anarcho-Capitalists. The communists are lying low in the West, but in Nepal they quite recently managed to overthrow the king.

I have however one problem: how to classify you, Mr. Barbieri. Your indubitable enthusiasm, visible for example here, and also when discussing racial and colonial matters, would seem to suggest you belong to one of those groups. But to which? Your socialism, to be honest, seems rather moderate and not at all utopian. You are both socialist and Catholic. This would suggest some variant of corporatism - but you seem to dislike President Salazar.

If I were not afraid of offending you, I would classify you as an anti-Fascist. But obviously, no intelligent man can support a merely negative doctrine - in addition, opposing an utterly defeated and eliminated world-view. Therefore I must confess myself baffled.

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Call me a Catholic. And being an anti-Fascist is something more than a passive passion in Italian political tradition: it means standing in the tradition of the Founding Fathers of our republic. But this item was not about asserting anything except a demand for intellectual honesty. For the record, I dislike most of what Obama is trying to do. However, it is perfectly within the range of democratic politics around the world, and to say otherwise will only make American Conservatives look ridiculous in the eyes even of people who should be their natural allies.

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mentalguy.livejournal.com

I think you are attempting an impossible project.

In the years since I have become a Catholic, I have noticed my own political views transforming from the recognizable (in my own case, I was once essentially a Libertarian) into something which is really hard to classify in conventional terms. It may not be a universal experience, but I have noticed something similar happening to my mother after her own conversion, and in a number of other cases besides. That isn't to say that there is a particular "Catholic" politics which we have all aligned ourselves with: it is more that Catholic teaching has a peculiar tendency to run contrary to the central dichotomies assumed in political labels.

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In fact, contrary to popular belief, Catholic teaching tends to result in a fantastic range of individual views. It was GK Chesterton who said - and he was not the only one - that a Catholic party as such is impossible, because Catholics agree about the Church and Sacraments, but not about anything else. With each of them, the Catholic philosophy is a reagent which, dropped into the elements of inherited or acquired political views, produces the most extraordinary results. Even in theology, Catholicism amounts to a vast number of schools - Thomists, Jesuits, Rosminians, Augustinians, Byzantines, etc etc etc - each of which is quite distinct and often in strong disagreement with all others. People talk of Scholatiscism as if it were something united, but Scholaticism included both the realism of Thomas Aquinas and the nominalism of William of Ockham - two incompatible philosophies. And in our times, the formation of Christian Democrat parties in Europe has resulted, not in unified wholes, but in one of two things. Either, as in the Netherlands or in Germany, the party took a definite line, in which case it quickly ceased to be Christian except in name. Or, as in Italy, it strove to represent the whole arch of democratic Catholics from left to right, in which case it became not a party, but an unwieldy coalition of individual groups. Before their collapse, the Christian Democrats of Italy had the incredible institution of "currents" or mini-parties, at least a dozen of them IIRC, with their own party conferences and leaderships!

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eliskimo.livejournal.com

Having moved in a few American conservative circles at different times, I might amend that to read "To all American conservative media" or "To all American evangelical conservatives."

Not all American conservatives share the views or rhetoric you are lambasting, but they do tend to be louder than the others and give the entire group a bad name.

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Yes, but the trouble is that those who are are those who, through the National Review, Townhall.com, and talk radio, determine the image of the conservative movement abroad and lay a heavy claim on its future direction. Imagine an European Catholic or conservative who were to speak with an American counterpart. How would the American explain the repeated statements in American columns to the effect that European economies are a "mess" because of "socialism" consisting in unemployment insurance and national health coverage, that the European Union (a Catholic project founded by three devoutly Catholic politicians) is the "Eurosoviet Union" and a Communist Trojan Horse, and that, in general, the foundations of our societies, which we have built and fought for as free men, are totalitarian and villainous? In Europe, every shade of opinion, from the Italian Northern League to the hard left, is in agreement about these things; Americans treating them as poisonous, alien and inimical would not be doing anything except cutting themselves out - reducing themselves to a provincial grouping in one country. And at a time when there are serious issues to do with the family, abortion, traditional or otherwise morality, and the predominance of non-elected institutions, that the defenders of these things should be alienated from each other is worse than a misfortune, it is a downright tragedy. As ever, the power of Lord Voldemort lies in his ability to sow distrust, mutual contempt and conflict.

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eliskimo.livejournal.com

"the image of the conservative movement abroad"

That's exactly my point - and appearances (images) can be deceiving. However, I am aware that the image exists and at one time spent considerable energy fighting it. However, that kind of thing can wear you out pretty quickly, especially when the person you are discussing it with already "knows" how "all Americans" think. I'll admit to giving up. These days about the only person I still discuss such things with is

quicktongue and he's Canadian.

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sanscouronne.livejournal.com

This is a timely post. Yesterday I tried in vain to explain to my mother that Obama is not a socialist, but more a social democrat, and that socialism is not quite descriptive of the current policy of the administration.

That being said, I disagree with your assertion that all/most conservatives conflate social democratic practices with socialism/communism. Unfortunately, the most vociferous opponents of the administration will often do this, and moreover, will gain the most media attention. There are, however, those who are economically liberal AND believe in evolution (etc.), and have a coherent argument against the institution of a European-style welfare state here in the U.S.

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As I said, I disapprove of most of what Obama is trying to do - except for the institution of a national health service, for which, if you remember, I have repeatedly argued. My point is not that he is a hero of freedom, but that what he is doing is perfectly within the range of democratic politics, the politics of free countries, and that it is mere demagoguery built on provincial ignorance to argue otherwise. As you very well know.

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rfachir.livejournal.com

I don't see the problem with calling Obama a socialist (but I live across the river from the People's Republic of Cambridge). I think you're listening to sloppy editorials. The talking heads I respect are saying the president is a "Communist" with all the ugly, dysfunctional overhead of the no-longer-USSR and Tiananmen Square. It has something to do with the creeps he's trying to appoint to cabinet positions - like Charles W. Freeman (the anti-semite who does business with the Bin Laden construction group and who thought the Chinese were too soft on the students when they finally rolled out the tanks). These appointments are really embarassing, as was the rudeness with the Brits.

It's not his 'taking care of people' policies that have everyone so upset. We don't appreciate Rahm Emanuel et al re-engineering the electorate. Last year, 38% of the country didn't pay taxes. This year, it will be over 50%. And we're spending more than ever on silly things. This new class warfare has more self-righteous people fighting than the Crusades. I just hope it's less bloody.

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stigandnasty919.livejournal.com

My main exposure to American Conservatives is through Fox News. (The recent addition of Glenn Beck to their lineup makes it less and less credible for then to claim to be 'fair and balanced', although they don't seem to use that term so much anymore.)

The logic I seem to see from Hannity and Beck is something along these lines, Obama wants socialised medicine(any measure they don't like can be substituted here). Socialists or communists want socialised medicine. Some socialists and communists have oppressed their people and removed freedoms therefore Obama will oppress his people and remove freedoms.

Whether this is a real or a willful misunderstanding of Obama's policies and the meaning of socialism is open to question. I believe that both Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity understand fully the point you are making but choose to ignore it for propaganda purposes.

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I don't know about Beck, but Hannity is a fool in several ways and has actually insulted and bullied a priest who disagreed with him, to the great disgust of considerable numbers of conservatives and Catholics. You have to remember that Fox is a Murdoch operation, and that means that it is tainted at the source. The man spotted a market gap for conservative-oriented news and programming, but being the hopeless vulgarian that he is, he could only see fit to fill it by the grossest material possible. His conservatism is as crass as everything else in his world, and it is no coincidence that this same broadcaster has become notorious for some of the most pornographic programs imaginable and for appalling fare such as FAMILY GUY.

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kgbman.livejournal.com

Is it accurate to call Europe socialist in any sense? I've always thought of the Western European economies as being severely restricted and regulated forms of capitalism.

In any case, I don't get nearly as worked up over extreme capitalism vs. extreme socialism as I used to. They both share the same fundamental error about the human person and only disagree in the details. For that matter, I don't think much of modern democracy. I would much rather live in a good polity with no right to vote than in a tyrannical, decadent polity with the right to vote.

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There I cannot possibly agree with you, for any one of a million reasons. Bear in mind that it is only thanks to "the vote" that you are allowed to have an opinion on the matter at all.

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kgbman.livejournal.com

Fair enough if you disagree. California is the closest thing to a pure democracy in the United States and it's been an unmitigated disaster. IMO, I think it's far more important to ensure the voting population is of good moral character than it is to expand the franchise as far as possible, and I'd support some form of moral screening before allowing anyone to vote. Testing directly for moral character would be a difficult business to be sure, but I've often thought restricting the franchise to the married-and-never-divorced heads of households with at least one legitimate child might be a reasonable proxy.

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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Switzerland is a lot closer to direct democracy than California is and works well. I think New England still has town meetings, I don't think California is much closer to direct democracy than other states are; initiatives and referenda are fairly common in the US. I've heard Oregon ballot budget measures have to come with an attached tax increase to pay for them.

As for your "moral" test... never mind.

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