![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I've spent most of the day screaming inside my head at a perfect stranger because of something they said on Facebook.
Which you may think is ridiculous, but come on--to read this post and others like them, to know just a tiny fraction of what's really going on, and then to see someone on FB fatuously intoning (and you can hear the portentous Walter Cronkite tones) "The world has seen no greater evil than socialism"--wouldn't you be screaming?
The root of all evil is unbridled self-interest, and that's all there is to it. Socialism is one of many attempts throughout history to place legal limits on the self-interest of the rich and powerful, all of which have in their time been subverted and turned to evil ends by those same rich and powerful. As a force for good, it may have been a dismal failure, and it may have caused much suffering, but compared to runaway capitalistic greed, bigotry and oppression, homophobia and transphobia, racism and sexism, fanaticism of all kinds, and totalitarian intolerance of dissent--in the evil stakes of evil, socialism doesn't come close.
I stand by my belief that people are not really stupid...but this one is tragically mistaken. As was the lady who beseeched the Lord to come and "take care of all these crooked people taking advantage of us" and genuinely thought she was talking about Obama. They don't need to be screamed at, or ridiculed, or ignored, or attacked. They need to be enlightened. Preferably soon. And I'm really not interested in hearing that it can't be done.
Which you may think is ridiculous, but come on--to read this post and others like them, to know just a tiny fraction of what's really going on, and then to see someone on FB fatuously intoning (and you can hear the portentous Walter Cronkite tones) "The world has seen no greater evil than socialism"--wouldn't you be screaming?
The root of all evil is unbridled self-interest, and that's all there is to it. Socialism is one of many attempts throughout history to place legal limits on the self-interest of the rich and powerful, all of which have in their time been subverted and turned to evil ends by those same rich and powerful. As a force for good, it may have been a dismal failure, and it may have caused much suffering, but compared to runaway capitalistic greed, bigotry and oppression, homophobia and transphobia, racism and sexism, fanaticism of all kinds, and totalitarian intolerance of dissent--in the evil stakes of evil, socialism doesn't come close.
I stand by my belief that people are not really stupid...but this one is tragically mistaken. As was the lady who beseeched the Lord to come and "take care of all these crooked people taking advantage of us" and genuinely thought she was talking about Obama. They don't need to be screamed at, or ridiculed, or ignored, or attacked. They need to be enlightened. Preferably soon. And I'm really not interested in hearing that it can't be done.