It appears that officials will not allow free range chickens to roam on election day in Nevada. Republican Senate candidate Sue Lowden has been ridiculed for her comment about how people used to barter for medical care. Critics have suggested that she was looking back fondly on the way “our grandparents would bring a chicken to the doctor.” Now, officials have banned chicken suits at polling places to stop critics from ridiculing Lowden.
Various activists have been campaigning against Lowden under the banner “Chickens for Checkups” and followed her with people in chicken outfits.
Washoe County Registrar of Voters Dan Burk banned the outfits as “inappropriate and obvious” advocacy in polling places. In fairness, most states do not allow open campaigning in polling places, though large chicken costumes have not been a common problem.
For the full story, click here.
Byron,
Let’s not forget how this started, you implied that socialism required government coercion.
You can claim that it is true, but only if you use particular use of the term, one that is different from the original use in this discussion. Switching from one definition of a word to another in mid debate because it aides your point is Equivocation.
You’re faced with two choices, you can ignore the logical fallacy, or you can simply say “I meant socialism in a different way then Mike A. did.” Either way, this discussion is getting more than a little boring, so I’m going to call it quits.
Gyges:
I said there was nothing wrong with free associations, a group of individuals comprising a home owners association is a collective of sorts.
If I am a member of a commune the commune owns the means of production. The commune sets the rules and so therefor could be called a “government”. If the agreement is entered into freely and all own an equal share of the commune then I would not call it socialism per se but some sort of co-op. Where a group of individuals join forces to be able to multiply their individual efforts.
I would say that 1, 2a and 2b are for all practical purposes equivalent. So I don’t see how I am creating any logical fallacy.
A shade of gray is still gray. and a Rhode Island Red and a White Leghorn are still chickens even though one may lay brown eggs and one lay white.
They are socialists operating within a free market, they are not free market socialists. The term free market socialist is what I would call an anti-cocept.
“Observe the technique involved . . . . It consists of creating an artificial, unnecessary, and (rationally) unusable term, designed to replace and obliterate some legitimate concepts—a term which sounds like a concept, but stands for a “package-deal” of disparate, incongruous, contradictory elements taken out of any logical conceptual order or context, a “package-deal” whose (approximately) defining characteristic is always a non-essential. This last is the essence of the trick.
Let me remind you that the purpose of a definition is to distinguish the things subsumed under a single concept from all other things in existence; and, therefore, their defining characteristic must always be that essential characteristic which distinguishes them from everything else.
So long as men use language, that is the way they will use it. There is no other way to communicate. And if a man accepts a term with a definition by non-essentials, his mind will substitute for it the essential characteristic of the objects he is trying to designate . . . . Thus the real meaning of the term will automatically replace the alleged meaning.”
Byron,
I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to do this, but your definition of socialism, while accurate, is not the complete story. So here’s the rest of the story (as told by Mr. Webster):
Main entry socialism:
Function: noun
Date: 1837
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
Now nobody was using 3 and 2b is basically your limited definition of Socialism. But let’s look at 2a.
We’re given just one requirement for a system to be called socialism, it has to involve no private property. That means we could accurately call any number of religious communes socialist, none of which involve the government forcing people into them. Free Association. Now, that doesn’t cover Free Market Socialism, because such communes try and be as self sufficient as possible.
But what about The first definition? I’ll draw your attention to the first, and tenth words. “Any” means, that if the conditions set forth are met, the system is socialism. Easy enough. Now, here’s where it get’s interesting, “or.” Now if the sentence had been written “theories advocating collective, or governmental, ownership and administration” we’d have a clarification that in this case, collective ownership meant governmental ownership. Absent those two important commas, we’re offered a choice between two choices, if either of which is met, the system is socialism. Since one of those choices in governmental ownership and control, it stands to reason that the other choice MUST involve ownership and control by something other than the government. So, there are socialist systems that don’t involve the government, thus you could have something that is ‘collectively owned and operated’ that the members of the collective are freely associating, and sell the product on a free market. They’d be free market socialists.
It all depends on which definition you use. Mike, Mespo, and myself are using 1, you were using 2b. Everyone was right, but by trying to switch which use of the word was being discussed to better support your argument, you were committing the logical fallacy of Equivication.
Gyges,
If that’s your yardstick, you can proudly call me a Marxist. Otherwise? I’d never belong to a club that would have me as a member.
It’s chocolate.
It’s peanut butter.
It’s two great tastes that go great together.
Seriously, a blended economy. You know it’s not all “free markets or nothing”. Only market segments critical to the survival of civilization need be socialized – like health care. Everything else can operate by free market mechanisms, B.
Gyges:
there was no secret word in that episode 🙂
Gyges/Mespo/Buddha:
How is it socialism if it is free market? I was just being ironic above when I said “free market socialism”.
Byron,
You just said the secret word.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCMte5W5OBU&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]
Byron:
“I am all for workers owning the means of production, but I don’t call that socialism I call it capitalism.”
***********************
Actually you are describing Free Market Socialism. It was the brain child of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who developed it under his philosophy of mutualism. Here’s more info about him:
http://www.ohio.edu/chastain/ip/proudhon.htm
Gyges:
I don’t see how I am wrong. If the workers own a factory and share equally in the profits or at some predetermined scale based on whatever they think is fair that is their right to do so. If the government makes them do it I would be against it. If they choose to do it that is their right under freedom of association.
I am all for workers owning a factory as long as they come by it fairly and have not knocked off the previous owner as Marx suggests. Or having a government nationalize the factory and give it to the workers. That is wrong. Private property is private property.
So call me a free market socialist. 🙂
Byron,
O.k. so then you’re just wrong. Demonstrably.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
You’re for some types of socialism; it’s o.k. most people are. They just don’t like calling it socialism because of the success of certain propagandists in the U.S. culture. That’s fine, there’s lots of different words in the English language that overlap. It’s part of what makes the language so great.
I just want you to understand that various legitimate uses of “socialism” exist.
Gyges:
I am all for workers owning the means of production, but I don’t call that socialism I call it capitalism.
If the workers own the means of production they are by definition capitalists.
If the government compels workers to unite and own a factory and then helps them run it that is something else again.
I am all for free associations of people to unite in a common cause to take care of a neighborhood problem or even a national problem as long as it is not under compulsion of government. I don’t see how I am being equivocal.
You aren’t sort of pregnant and you have a fever or you don’t. There are degrees of fever but it is still a fever.
Buddha:
you all get me at one point or another, I am just a simple engineer and words are not my natural tools.
He’s got you there, B.
As a follow up, Horace Silver:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fO1McBRF1A&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]