Socialism creates poverty and misery and corruption.

....which is basically why Statists prefer free markets.

Venezuelans re-discover the basic truth of Socialism:

//Venezuelans were appalled not only by the poverty that socialism caused, but also by the corruption that accompanied the Chavez/Maduro regime. This is no surprise: as Glenn Reynolds has said many times, leftists hate free market policies because, while they enrich the ordinary citizen, they provide insufficient opportunities for graft among the political elite.//

"Socialism is a rich man's game."

Roger Simon writes about the development of a "new class" on the Left:

Socialism is a rich man’s game.

Oh, sure, random overheated (sometimes impoverished) Occupiers agitate for their version of economic equality, possibly gumming up the works at the Lincoln Tunnel, but the real financial justice action comes from the wealthy – or so it would seem.

And I’m not just talking about Hollywood, where George Clooney is full steam ahead on a putative record-breaking ten million dollar fundraiser for Barack Obama, or the laughably meretricious theatrics of the “Buffett Tax” that no one would pay anyway, but across the nation.

According to a book about to be released, The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, Obama has held more fundraisers than all presidents since Nixon combined.

What does this have to do with socialism? A lot, really, because what Obama promises – especially in his second term — is a socialism of permanent elites, a kind of new, very American, version of the old Soviet-style nomenklatura. And those who are in it will get to stay in it (via government support) as social mobility, aka the American Dream, diminishes or disappears.

This was what socialism ultimately was all about, indeed is all about, the preservation of nomenklaturas, whether of Hollywood, the media, union, and bureaucratic leadership or what remains of selected industry. Keep hoi polloi out.

All those fundraisers and bundlers, from Clooney to the considerably more anonymous, know this on one level or another. It’s certainly not subtle and those too clueless to understand were reminded by the recent quasi-blacklisting of potential Romney supporters. A warning shot was fired. No elite status for them.

Being part of this new nomenklatura is particularly crucial in hard times and even more so in hard times that look to be long-lasting and possibly permanent.

Don't think it's happening? Check out the video on this Gawker post about how the reliably leftist Atlantic magazine put on a cocktail party that put the VIP on a stage so that mere readers could gaze at them from the "cheap seats."

Another scientific study proves that water is wet. First it was atheists tend toward autism and now...

...people who tend to be utilitarian in solving moral dilemmas tend toward anti-social personalities.

These results (which recently appeared in the journal Cognition) raise questions for psychological theories of moral judgment that equate utilitarian responses with optimal morality, and treat non-utilitarian responses as moral "mistakes". The issue, for these theories, is that these results would lead to the counterintuitive conclusion that those who are "optimal" moral decision makers (i.e., who are likely to favor utilitarian solutions) are also those who possess a set of traits that many would consider prototypically immoral (e.g., the emotional callousness and manipulative nature of psychopathy and Machiavellianism).

Jeepers, who would have thought that people who decide the answer to moral questions based on a cold-hearted analysis of the best outcome could possibly be cold-hearted people who analyze everything in terms of outcomes?

Score another one for Aristotle and his idea that actions shape habits and habits shape personality and personality shapes destiny.

Newsflash!  Lawrence O'Donnell is a Socialist!

According to the Daily Caller:

Lawrence O’Donnell is a socialist.


At least, that’s what the MSNBC commentator himself told Glenn Greenwald when they duked it out on the air Friday on “Morning Joe.”

“I am a socialist,” O’Donnell said. “I live to the extreme left.”

And:

Glenn Greenwald, a columnist for Salon.com, ran a column on Wednesday that attacked the election coverage by the news networks — criticizing O’Donnell’s commentary in particular.


“Ten minutes was the absolute maximum I could endure of any one television news outlet last night without having to switch channels in the futile search for something more bearable,” Greenwald wrote, “but almost every time I had MNSBC on, there was Lawrence O’Donnell trying to blame “the Left” and “liberalism” for the Democrats’ political woes.”

Greenwald said, “this ‘analysis’ is false,” citing the massive losses of seats by Blue Dog Democrats in the House.

The column didn’t go over well with O’Donnell, and the two went at it to such a degree that MSNBC altered its normal schedule to extend the segment.

“Glenn, Glenn, Glenn, Glenn, Glenn,” O’Donnell tut-tutted, as Greenwald began making the same argument as in his column, that “it wasn’t the liberals who lost,” but rather the more conservative Blue Dogs, “that’s the silliest thing you can say.”

“Why weren’t you on television pointing to the loss and saying that conservative Democrats cannot get re-elected when 50 percent of the Blue Dog caucus disappeared overnight?” Greenwald shot back. “Why were you pointing to the handful of liberals that lost as proof that liberalism failed?”

O’Donnell attacked Greenwald for misrepresenting what he had said, saying, “I asked questions, Glenn. Every single thing that you accused me of saying, I did not say.”

The argument went on to focus on labels, as both O’Donnell and Greenwald tried to affix a tag not only each other, but define just what political grouping it was that lost this election and what the Democrats should do in the aftermath.

The loss of so many Blue Dog seats, Greenwald insisted, meant that this election was not an attack on liberalism, but O’Donnell was unconvinced.

“Blue Dog dominance passed the most liberal health-care bill!” O’Donnell retorted.

O’Donnell attacked Greenwald for being a “progressive,” a label he had accepted earlier in the show.

“Unlike you, Glenn, I am not a progressive,” O’Donnell said somewhat condescendingly, “I’m not a liberal who is so afraid of the word that I had to change my name to progressive.”

O'Donnell is the former producer of the West Wing about a "progressive" president, and is the major asshat who went "incredible Hulk" on the late Kathy Siepp and melted down calling John O'Neill a "filthy Liar."