Tag: socialism

Commentary: The Endurance of an Ideological Paradox

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Karl Marx / "How do you do, Fellow Kids" meme

I have written about the death and rebirth of socialism periodically over the years.  But as André Gide said in another context, “Toutes choses sont dites déjà, mais comme personne n’écoute, il faut toujours recommencer”: everything has already been said, but since no one was listening, it is necessary to say it again.

Really, the socialist impulse is a hardy perennial.  How could something so frequently and thoroughly discredited persist in the hearts of men?  Some think it has something to do with the gullibility of the human animal, some (but I repeat myself) with the persistence of the utopian dream.  I suspect there are many explanations, of which the raw desire for power plays an unedifying but also underrated role.  I also favor the explanatory power of original sin, which has profound psychological as well as theological application to many of the more farcical aspects of human experience and what is more farcical than socialism?

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Commentary: Five More Stupid Things the Left Demands You Believe

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

It wasn’t the last column in this space — that one took a detour because somebody had to address the manifest awfulness of Nikki Haley — but the one before that introduced you, dear reader, to what might become an ongoing series.

Because the Left in America is now built on the failed proposition that magical thinking, the imagination of a human race that acts nothing like the current one does, can reflect reality if only enough time, money, and effort (and blood, because it always comes down to blood) are poured into the mix.

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Outsider Libertarian Javier Milei Advances to Run-Off Presidential Election in Argentina

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Argentina’s right-wing populist presidential candidate Javier Milei will head to a run-off after failing to win the first round of the presidential election on Sunday.

Milei and former security minister Sergio Massa will face off again in November in a runoff vote, according to the New York Times. The election has become a high point of contention as Milei has said he seeks to rid the country of leftist policies while his opponent, Massa, hopes to keep the left-wing administration that has held power since 2019, according to The Associated Press.

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Commentary: Six Ways Socialism Is Anti-Social

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

by Lawrence W. Reed   Here’s a question for a PhD dissertation: How did something so radically anti-social ever get the name, social-ism? I leave that vexing matter to whoever wants to write it up. Meantime, I can assist the project by offering some of the reasons why socialism is a self-evidently anti-social contrivance. First,…

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REVIEW: ‘You Say You Want a Revolution?’ Is a Comprehensive Assessment of the Groups and Ideologies Destroying America

Admin

Our great nation and its traditions, values, and institutions continue to be attacked from within. We live in a perilous time. A revolution isn’t coming – it’s already here. The all-out assault by the progressive elites has shattered major parts of American culture – chief among them, the rule of law. We are in the midst of a life and death struggle.

While the radical Left has captured virtually all major institutions, the final outcome is still in doubt. It is imperative that we have clear insights into the true nature of the conflict and identities, tactics, and ideologies of the organized groups and forces that mean to destroy America. James Pastor’s book helps provide these insights with a comprehensive summary and analysis of the current crisis.

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Bill Clinton Warns Democrats Not to Let ‘Defund the Police and Socialism’ Hurt Them This Election

Just the News

Former President Bill Clinton warned the Democratic Party that it shouldn’t let “defund the police and socialism” damage their chances of winning the Nov. 8 election.

Clinton was asked how the U.S. should handle existing threats to its democracy.

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Here Come the Bad Old Days

Admin

There is no end of history. Instead, civilization is a constant fight to embrace what has worked for the common good through the ages – and to reject what in the past has failed abysmally.

Bad and bankrupt ideas, protocols, and ideologies – like McCarthyism, communism, various cults, or fascism – resurface not because of their intrinsic or lasting value or record of success, but because civilizations become less vigilant and allow human vanities, ignorance, arrogance, and evil to reassert themselves.

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Russell Brand Tells His Growing Audience to Question What They’re Told

Admin
Russell Brand London Revolution Protest

Russell Brand sounds like Joe Rogan these days, or even Tucker Carlson.

The British comic came to fame stateside as the scene-stealing rocker in 2008’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Brand embraced a quasi-pundit status in the process, extolling socialism and smiting the West in books, documentaries and podcasts.

These days, his booming YouTube channel finds him questioning COVID-19 narratives, eviscerating the mainstream media and warning his 5 million-plus flock to question what they’re told. Always.

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Socialist Pennsylvania House Members Propose Tax Increase

Bradley Vasoli

Socialist members of the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives on Friday proposed a tax increase on net profits, dividends, rental income, copyrights and patents as well as gambling and lottery winnings.

Currently, Pennsylvania’s income-tax rate is 3.07 percent. The plan would raise it to 6.5 percent on the aforementioned items.

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Commentary: America Might Be Heading for a Systems Collapse

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

In modern times, as in ancient Rome, several nations have suffered a “systems collapse.” The term describes the sudden inability of once prosperous populations to continue with what had ensured the good life as they knew it. 

Abruptly, the population cannot buy, or even find, once plentiful necessities. They feel their streets are unsafe. Laws go unenforced or are enforced inequitably. Everyday things stop working. The government turns from reliable to capricious if not hostile. 

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Amid U.S. Nuclear Talks, Iran Provokes by Firing Missiles, Inviting Venezuelan Leader for Visit

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
missile firing into the sky

Iran fired missiles in a provocation toward Israel and invited Venezuela’s socialist leader for a visit as it continued to antagonize the West in the midst of slow-moving negotiations to stop Tehran’s nuclear program.

The official IRNA news agency reported the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired 16 surface-to-surface missiles Friday at the end of five days of military drills in the desert, airing footage of the missile launches and suggesting it was a warning to Israel.

“These exercises were designed to respond to threats made in recent days by the Zionist regime,” Major General Mohammad Bagheri told the state television network.

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Study Shows 40 Percent of Latinos Are Concerned Democrats Are Embracing Socialism

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

A new study from Equis Research, a firm dedicated to better understanding the American Latino electorate, found over 40% of Latinos think Democrats are embracing socialist policies.

The study findings that indicate challenges for Democrats in upcoming elections considering Latinos, who accounts for roughly 1 in 8 eligible U.S. voters, are a significant part of the party’s voter base and include many who came to the U.S. to try to escape the socialist governments of their former countries.

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Commentary: When the Regular Joes Shrugged

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Until recently, conservatives were the party of business. They defended the business world not as a necessary evil or because of its efficiencies, but because they thought it exemplified an enterprising, individualist morality. It respected rights of contract, served as an arena for creativity, and allowed socially useful competition. Even now, Republicans condemn the Left’s programs as creeping socialism, seemingly forgetful of the last decade in which corporations became the vanguard of the cultural revolution.

Part of American conservatives’ embrace of capitalism comes from its historically central place in American life. Americans had tamed the wilderness and become an industrial powerhouse by the middle of the 20th century. Most of this activity was rooted neither in the pursuit of glory nor religious conviction—as, perhaps, with Spanish colonialism—but by ordinary economic self-interest, the spirit of Yankee ingenuity.

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