As you read articles written by me, you will see the word “socialism” and the phrase “modern liberal socialism.” Readers on the political left, and some students of political history, will likely take technical or semantic issue with those words as not accurately defining different items in my writings. Political ideologies seem purposefully confusing. Some people have suggested that socialism is the political left and fascism is the political right, with capitalism and its liberties not even part of the political equation. In reality, the left is about control and the right is about liberty. Socialism and fascism are both about control.
I have chosen to leave arguments about the minutia of different leftist ideologies to the philosophers, the professors, and the pretenders – all those who think in slippery shades of gray to hide the black and white of truth.
The political left needs a more useful, more broad definition and an explicit brand. Realizing perfection is beyond reach and aiming primarily for message clarity, I have chosen to seek simplification for the myriad of left-leaning political views.
The meaning of words can be fluid in the modern world, socialism being a word which means different things to different people, often moving far beyond its original meaning. I, like many others, view the process of controlling lives through taxation, followed by wealth redistribution into social programs, and the process of controlling companies through regulation, augmented by selectively choosing winners and losers via government bailouts and loans, as a modern version of socialism. Some might call it democratic socialism; to me, same thing.
Modern liberals, as opposed to the liberty-loving “classical liberals” of early America, have opted for a modern version of socialism, with elements of fascism mixed in. I have taken the liberty to give them a more demonstrative name. Modern liberal socialism is my catch-all phrase to mean governmental interference with human liberty and would include communism, socialism, fascism, liberalism in the modern world, and any similar “isms” I may have left out, including today’s and tomorrow’s new names for the left’s political designations as the old names lose favor. They are all different flavors of the same poison, often just rival gangs. Trying to philosophically separate them when attacking a strong argument for freedom is a popular ploy of the left. Whatever differences there may be is not important. Keeping up with what they call themselves today is a waste of time and energy. They are all leftists, statists, collectivists; they are all enemies of liberty, enemies of unfettered capitalism, enemies of the founder’s America; that is what’s important.
Ignore the confusing leftist labels of the past; in today’s world, they are all modern liberal socialists.
In this document and any other document or social media post I may author, I will use modern liberal socialism and socialism, as I have defined them, interchangeably. If my message is not clear, even with this explanation, that’s on me. If you purposefully choose to misunderstand, that’s on you.