Democratic Socialism

On this day:
987
Hugh Capet is crowned King of France, the first of the Capetian dynasty that would rule France until the French Revolution in 1792.
1754
French and Indian War: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces.
1775
American Revolutionary War: George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1778
American Revolutionary War: British forces kill 360 people in the Wyoming Valley massacre.
1863
American Civil War: The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates with Pickett’s Charge.
1898
Spanish-American War: The Spanish fleet, led by Pascual Cervera y Topete, is destroyed by the U.S. Navy in Santiago, Cuba.
1913
Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913 reenact Pickett’s Charge; upon reaching the high-water mark of the Confederacy, they are met by the outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors.
1940
World War II: the French fleet of the Atlantic, based at Mers el Kébir, is bombarded by the British fleet from Gibraltar, resulting in the loss of three battleships: Dunkerque, Provence, and Bretagne. One thousand two hundred sailors perish.

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Hilary Clinton, in discussing her loss to Trump, offered this incomprehensible mixed religious/biologic non sequitur: "Certainly, misogyny played a role; I mean that just has to be admitted. The things that come out of some of these men's mouths, like why do we have to cover maternity care? Oh, I don't know, maybe you were dropped by immaculate conception?"

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Three men have been found not guilty of the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in Derry in 2019.

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We have become obsessed with the outlier.
A gift from Critical Theory: an individual cannot escape or transcend his group. Strange and outrageous behavior by one individual has become generalized to represent a larger group. So one lunatic cop is representative of all cops. And those cops are representative of all society.
The wide generalization from small experiences to large populations is a virtual definition of bigotry.

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Darializa Avila Chevalier is 32 years old and has never not been in school, including more than 14 years of post-secondary education.

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Democratic Socialism

The phrase "democratic socialism" mixes two entities, a governing system and an economic one. But the freedom of the vote in no way bleeds any freedom into the economic system. Democracy is the process by which the hierarchy--for good or ill--is chosen. Socialism is the very unfree government ownership and management of formerly public assets, a state usually requiring force to achieve and maintain.

"Democratic socialism" is, at best, a misunderstanding, and, at worst, malicious marketing.

So voting for socialism displaces a lot of the decision-making, by definition. It's not necessarily an oxymoron; the vote always creates a new reality. But individual freedom stops at the ballot box. The power to rule is transferred to another. The "representative." That happens in spades in democracies in wartime. The outrage over the internment of the Japanese in WW11 misunderstands this fundamental change. The vote allows citizens to choose their tyrant. Once the tribe votes for the war chief, individual decision-making is over.

"Democracy" implies "virtue" to our arrogant minds. It is not. It is a simple way of deciding. In the American example, it is ingenious--but only because of the limits created by its founders. The potential for tyranny is constrained by the Constitution. But this structure is not a characteristic of democracy; it is unique. Russia votes. Hitler was elected.

In democratic socialism, the citizens vote to surrender the national assets to a third party and accept the consequences.