Oldham West and Royston by-election. Corbyn's big test.

[foxy lady]

Yes there is getting away from it because it's not correct. However much you want to think socialism and social democracy are the same thing they quite simply aren't. In the modern world they are totally separate. The only way you could make the argument kind of work is if you try and distil it down to a simplistic binary argument that posits that you are either on one side or the other of a political divide. But that would be idiocy.

 

Having seen the Corbyn "rent-a-mob" on the streets threatening MPs over the Syria vote it seemed that we were witnessing scenes reminiscent of the brown shirts in Germany during the 1930s. Perhaps we could include National Socialism in the mix as well.

[unbeliever]

Yes there is getting away from it because it's not correct. However much you want to think socialism and social democracy are the same thing they quite simply aren't. In the modern world they are totally separate. The only way you could make the argument kind of work is if you try and distil it down to a simplistic binary argument that posits that you are either on one side or the other of a political divide. But that would be idiocy.

 

No. That's not what I'm saying. Politics is not simplistic and binary, not by a long way.

The modern meaning of the word "socialist" includes social democrats who argue for more tax and spending. And in fact the modern meaning of the word "capitalist" includes technical social democrats who argue for less tax and spending. That would be me. You don't see me complaining about being called a capitalist because I believe in progressive taxation.

 

This reason I prefer this terminology to the alternative terms "left" and "right" is that they're more accurate.

The far left is full on traditional socialists. The far right is also full on traditional socialists, who happen to also be bigots. This makes the left and right terminology meaningless. With socialist and capitalist it's a whole lot clearer, as these things tell you whether a person is in favour of more government or less government.

 

I'll make you a proposal. If you get the left to stop referring to bigoted socialists as "far right", I'll stop calling social democrats socialists and start referring to traditional socialists and social democrats collectively as the "left" in spite of what the dictionary says. Until then, I'm sticking with my current language backed up as it is by the oxford english dictionary.

[I1L2T3]

Having seen the Corbyn "rent-a-mob" on the streets threatening MPs over the Syria vote it seemed that we were witnessing scenes reminiscent of the brown shirts in Germany during the 1930s. Perhaps we could include National Socialism in the mix as well.

 

Truly bizarre post. The brown shirts were a murderous uniformed private army. But you knew that.

 

---------- Post added 06-12-2015 at 19:01 ----------

 

No. That's not what I'm saying. Politics is not simplistic and binary, not by a long way.

The modern meaning of the word "socialist" includes social democrats who argue for more tax and spending. And in fact the modern meaning of the word "capitalist" includes technical social democrats who argue for less tax and spending. That would be me. You don't see me complaining about being called a capitalist because I believe in progressive taxation.

 

This reason I prefer this terminology to the alternative terms "left" and "right" is that they're more accurate.

The far left is full on traditional socialists. The far right is also full on traditional socialists, who happen to also be bigots. This makes the left and right terminology meaningless. With socialist and capitalist it's a whole lot clearer, as these things tell you whether a person is in favour of more government or less government.

 

I'll make you a proposal. If you get the left to stop referring to bigoted socialists as "far right", I'll stop calling social democrats socialists and start referring to traditional socialists and social democrats collectively as the "left" in spite of what the dictionary says. Until then, I'm sticking with my current language backed up as it is by the oxford english dictionary.

 

No serious modern historian or political scientist is going to class socialsts and social democrats together. The fundamental basis of their beliefs is utterly different. A dictionary cannot begin to explain this in a single sentence. Hence, the blogs that Oxford dictionaries run that explain some words in greater detail. I gave you a link and you ignored the entire thing.