Ron Johnson wrote: > On 09/11/08 12:19, Jeff Soules wrote: >> Dismissing most of this because it's little more than an expression of >> the author's prejudice, but... >> >>> We don't like the EU because >>> of their complete disregard for individual rights. It was conceived >>> of and >>> implemented by socialists. It's that simple. >> >> Socialists? >> You mean the kind of people who would devote massive amounts of their >> free time, with no expectation of compensation, to building and >> distributing a totally free operating system, purely because they >> believe it would be beneficial to society? And who put in place legal >> safeguards to ensure that it would protect the rights of its >> contributors by remaining forever free, and the rights of its users by >> remaining forever modifiable? > > Except... that's not what a Socialist (one who follows/believes in > Socialism) is. > > Modern Socialism has more to do with heavy state involvement in the > economy, protection of local industry and wealth transfer from the Haves > to the Have Nots.
I understand that state-sponsored social programs in the US get the label "Socialism", but "Modern" is not a very good adjective for distinguishing socialist ideas. I identify strongly as a Socialist, but my socialism is the libertian socialism of projects like Debian (as Jeff described it). The Anarchist FAQ tends to explain Libertarian Socialism well: http://www.infoshop.org/faq/index.html - Chris Burkhardt -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]