Now that's a man of the people!

Usual story; no mask.

I love this picture. Any suggestions for a caption?

 "There's a great future in Socialism. Think about it. Will you think about it, Paul?"

"Just Like That"

"Just Like That"

Nice! After he makes old people "disappear." 

I knew there was a reason I don't invite you to my parties!

I love this picture. Any suggestions for a caption?

The composition is slightly different, but still the first thing that comes to my mind is “The anatomy lesson of Dr Tulp”.

I suspect that there's a lot of voters' remorse out there. Isn't there siupposed to be a new-government honeymoon period. But if you voted for them then you have to ask whether your poor judgement and people-reading skills are causing problems in other walks of life.

Does socialism attract the corrupt or make them corrupt? Nature v nurture? I think Starmer was dodgy before becoming PM. I can’t believe he learned this in just a few weeks, he’s clearly not very smart.

I'm not at all up to date with the political situation in the United Kingdom; sadly, my concern with international affairs, given how screwed up domestic affairs are in my country, is basically limited to situations where both of the following can be answered affirmatively: Is your country committing genocide? Is my country materially supporting that genocide?

That said, there are echoes of my country's malfunction in Paul's comment. I'm naturally drawn to the position that Paul's Tory Sensibilities Disorder (PTSD) explain a lot of it, but again I'm not aware enough of the UK situation to have any certainty of that.

Anyway, I think the crux of it all is, "What is socialism?" And, "Given that definition, is it a bad thing?"

Socialism is generally defined as "control of the means of production by the community," but of course that last bit demands a little clarification, and it ends up that "the community" invariably means "the state."

And this is a bad thing: it ultimately requires central control of the economy, and that just doesn't work very well regardless of how much good intent is in the effort.

Is is what Starmer is pushing? I don't know.

We're very skewed in America; Kamala Harris is called a Marxist and a communist. We don't have universal health care. Our economic safety net is a cruel joke. Etc.

On the other hand, we have people insisting that healthcare is a human right, which seems stupid to me: if healthcare is a human right, you can accost a physician and insist that he treat your lumbago, e.g.

I subscribe to an American understanding of what rights are: they exist a priori to government or any mechanism to defend them; and they are inalienable. This might disagree with what the rest of the world understands them to be.

And I make that clarification to clear the way for stating that widely used labels -- like "socialism" -- don't seem to move any discussion forward.

In the Western World, we have a social contract (... hopefully that's not so widely used a label that it means many different things to different people) that was inherited from a period of profound injustice (... hopefully that' s not, etc.). Peasants had essentially no rights that were respected at all; on up to a monarch who wasn't required to respect any laws at all. Yes, there have been many modifications since those times, but that's where it started.

One thing that remains very much intact from that period of profound injustice, at least in America, is the protection of property "rights" (upside down commas used because "property" -- I mean the ownership of it -- does not exist a priori of a mechanism to enforce it). We are expected, under the existing social contract, to respect property "rights" under penalty, ultimately, of physical enforcement.

And what do we get in exchange for this, as our benefit from the "contract?" If we have property, we get to have our control of it protected; if we don't have property, we get ... nothing at all.

So why should someone with no property respect the property "rights" of others? Practically, it is because of the enforcement of these "rights" by the state; morally, there is no direct reason at all.

The notion of property serves a lot of good in a society; immediately, it tends to avoid the "tragedy of the commons." And probably just about every other benefit the notion of property provides stems from that. Property, it should be noted is a purely negative thing: your property "rights" don't give you, directly, any more ability to do anything with the object of your ownership than you had in the absence of those "rights;" what is changed is your ability to forbid anyone else from actions involving your property.

Anyway, I don't dispute the usefulness of the concept of property; I just dispute the method of its allocation and enforcement. What we have now is that, in exchange for respecting other people's property "rights," ultimately you are not imprisoned or worse. But if you have an inalienable right not to be imprisoned ... how is being "granted" that in exchange for respecting others' property rights a reasonable deal for you -- ?

So rather than using terms that have been overused to the point of meaninglessness, I think it makes more sense to address the social contract and whether whatever it is best serves the interests of ... the general population? Me? Paul?

As noted above, I think the idea of a "right" -- under the American understanding of that term -- to healthcare is idiocy, but I think it does make sense to hold that if you abide by the laws, there will be a system for providing healthcare that you will have access to. This is apparently what the civilized world does, without necessarily saying so directly, and I don't think it would be a bad idea for my country to do the same.

So what is this "socialism" that Starmer is ushering in?

As noted above, I think the idea of a "right" -- under the American understanding of that term -- to healthcare is idiocy, but I think it does make sense to hold that if you abide by the laws, there will be a system for providing healthcare that you will have access to. This is apparently what the civilized world does, without necessarily saying so directly, and I don't think it would be a bad idea for my country to do the same.

The public healthcare makes sense in countries where it is only a medical and not a legal issue. It is difficult to sue a doctor and get high compensation in Europe, what makes the healthcare much cheaper - without legal risk insurance.

I'm not at all up to date with the political situation in the United Kingdom

I'll try to keep you updated! But I can't maintain this level of interest for much longer. Boris had the decency to spread his controversies over several years. Starmer has packed in just as many in not even 100 days!

You are NOT (rich and privately educated and intelligent).
So why do you vote NOT (Socialist)?

hint: apply De Morgan's laws

// being privately educated is neither necessary nor sufficient to be rich. "Intelligence" is a separate topic.

Labour now want to stop knife crime in the UK. It’s taken them a while to join the dots, as usual, but they’ve realised that those NOT (rich and privately educated and intelligent) youths stabbing each other would probably be Labour voters if they weren’t all dead.