Socialism and Kreplach
You don't really mean to call me stupid, or do you?
I wish I could say this louder and clearer. What some of you call Socialism is not the system of government that we see in socialist-democratic countries in the world today and is certainly not what people like me and the Democratic Party in the United States advocates.
A famous minister, counseling a young women who had confessed her failure to believe in God, asked her to describe the God she didn’t believe in. She described the vengeful long beard in the sky idea of God. Consoling and in a kindly manner, he replied that he also didn’t believe in THAT God .
Let’s stop assuming that “democratic socialists” are stupid and believe in things that are obviously unworkable, a crazy utopian mishmash of ideas. They also don’t believe in THAT stuff.
I could quote Daniel Alpert, a well know international banker and financier and basically, as he insists, a conservative:
“…modern constitutional governments evolved, among other reasons, to have the capacity to ensure stability and tranquility via collective action, if necessary…and specifically at times in which private interests are unable to work things out on their own. Yes, America’s founding fathers were rebelling against an autocrat, but they certainly understood that a government of, by, and for the people would at times need to lead and muster collective responses to both internal and external challenges.”
(The Age of Oversupply, p. 224)
Such a sensible way forward should be marching orders across the political divide, and indeed across what remains of the ideological divide.
In pursing solutions to a very serious set of global economic problems, there is a role for collective action, i.e. government, and it isn’t anything like what many people keep calling “socialism.”
Why is this so hard to understand? Does the very word inspire disgust? People can’t get past the label?
There is the story of a little Jewish boy who claimed he didn’t like Kreplach (a Jewish delicacy, small dough covered packages of meat and spices). His mother was aghast and wanted to know why.
“Here,” she said, “this is a flat rectangle of dough. Do you like.”
“Yes.”
“And this is a spoonful of meat and spices. Do you like?”
“Yes.”
“And now I fold the upper left corner over to the center. Do you like.”
“Yes.”
“And now I fold the upper right corner over the center. Do you like?”
“Yes.”
“And now I fold the lower left corner over the center. Do you like?”
“Yes.”
“And now I fold the lower left corner over the center. Do you like?“
“Augh, Kreplach.”