Post # 395  PERENNIAL BUGBEARS (Redux)

Those who are regular readers of this blogpost, may be familiar with our personal fascination with words; especially, those that are seldom used in modernity, and are legitimate antiques of past forensic expression. Many are colorful, nostalgic and, when relevant, irresistible; especially when they have the attributes to be forensically expressive. One such valuable antique is the word, “bugbear” which some lexicographers would attribute, as meaning “a source of obsessive fear and loathing.” This note is another attempted swipe at the purported epithet of the word “socialism,” often used by ignorant, or, tactical politicians and citizens, as a veritable “bugbear” in an attempt to denigrate certain Democratic aspirants for the Presidential candidacy.

“Socialism,” simply is a politico-economic theory, which favors the belief in governmental ownership of all of the Nation’s industry and commerce. It is believed by many to be an offshoot of Communism, or Marxism, which goes further and eliminates the need for government. We would, confidently defy, any, tactically cynical or ignorant, user of the term, to identify any Democratic candidate who believes in governmental ownership and control of all industry and commerce as a better alternative to capitalism, the private ownership of industry and business by citizen entrepreneurs.

It is an empirical fact that all responsible, moral and empathic government programs, to aid the needy, assist the disabled, furnish retirement benefits, afford unemployment and disability relief, furnish health services, conduct an efficient mail system, protect the health of citizens regarding clean water, food and safe medicine, provide disaster relief, civil safety, and innumerable other such salubrious programs, are all Congressionally approved, governmental programs. The intended conceit, and political terminology, for the foregoing is, “compassionate capitalism.” The extension of relief programs by the American Government, is evidence of the empathically moral side of Capitalism, and a major reason why it continues to flourish and have adherents. Society, in the absence such assistance and services, would be a reprise of the cruel exercise of the laissez-faire (natural law) philosophical policies of early English industrial revolution of free enterprise (Adam Smith) leading to human squalor and tragedy, existing in Victorian London’s East Side, as brilliantly and shockingly revealed in the novels of Charles Dickens.

There is not a hint of ownership in America’s governmental programs, and the suggestion of “socialism” is tactical, false and pernicious propaganda.

It is an undisputable, and publically evident fact, that all those who use the word “socialist” as a tactical bugbear, “dog whistle” epithet, or who aspire to be aficionados of that political-economic theory, are all nonetheless, willing and grateful participants in, and recipients of, benefits of, many all of the foregoing programs. The recently promised extension of such assistance, to the area of college tuition or health insurance, for the further economic relief of many of our citizens, are suitable to, and well within, the tenets of compassionate capitalism.

Candidates who (perhaps, naively) self- identify as Democratic-Socialists, thereby proclaiming their moral intention, to further ease the plight of our society’s lower economic class, and to champion a fairer distribution of wealth, are, admirably, seeking a more just and equitable Nation, and certainly not one, that is opposed to the Free Enterprise System. [The cynical manipulation of the poorly educated, flat- earth, people is, discernably again, in full swing.]

-p.