I'd highly recommend you do that, to make sure you understand how wrong it is. One nice thing about the slashdot comment system is comments are permanent, so that comment will forever be as wrong as it was when its owner first hit "submit". In fact, that comment could have hardly been a less accurate description of socialism had that been its authors aim.

Really? You must be looking at pretty long time scales, then. The Nordic states have been the best examples of Socialism anywhere and have not approached anything resembling authoritative regimes. They are over 50 years in to Socialism at this point, and they would likely be pretty surprised to learn that they either have or are about to undergo that transformation.

Thank you for clarifying where your mistake was. Socialism does not require there be no private ownership of means of production. Socialism does not seek to make everything state owned, rather it seeks to ensure that opportunity for the individual is not hampered by their inability to obtain capital. In fact the most significant European examples of socialism are also countries with significant privately-owned industries - think of Volvo and Saab from Sweden, Nokia from Finland, the list goes on. The government never controlled those companies.

Communism, on the other hand, does seek to take control of the means of production. The two are not interchangeable.

That statement only makes sense given your false statement about socialism that you made earlier. A command economy is absolutely not required for socialism.

Again, look at the products of actual socialist countries and you will see how wrong you are with that statement.

While the states that called themselves "communists" ended up that way, it is not the result of Communism itself. Rather it is because in a large state, you will almost without fail end up with someone rising up in the power vacuum created by the pursuit of Communism who will attempt to concentrate power. At that point the "communist" state collapses into Fascism, only without the name. This is no different from the fate that the US would face under many of the "libertarian" dream states that have been sold to us on TV and youtube in recent years.

BZZT! Sorry, wrong answer. You meant to say Fascism, not socialism. Fascism is the excessive concentration of power. In terms of power concentration socialism is closer to anarchy than it is to fascism. Crony capitalism (which is a better description of the American political system) is much closer to fascism in terms of concentration of power than is socialism.

While socialism is not perfect, it is most definitely not intent on concentration of power.

Which is exactly what happens in the libertarian dream state. What happens when education, infrastructure development and upkeep, all phases of law and order (everything from citations to trials to executions), lawmaking, and even war are all functions of corporations? You end up stuck with extreme power concentration, held by people who can never be removed from power - which is of course fascism.

Maybe in some other country the libertarians want to keep the powers of corporations and governments separate. Here they want them together more than anything.

Fascism is simply the extreme concentration of power. There hasn't been a candidate so openly campaigning for that as Ron Paul in a very, very long time. He has openly campaigned for principles that are well beyond the balances established by the constitution, in the interest of concentrating insane amounts of power in the hands of very few. He just puts a veneer of "freedom" on it to give it a happy face while oppressing far more people than he is "liberating". If the policies he has worked so hard to push ever came to fruition, more people would suddenly find themselves far less free and far less mobile than ever before.

Thankfully, that is. A lot of people - particular those who seem to think that a certain candidate in this race is some sort of anarchist alternative - don't realize how close we are to electing a fascist leader (or how much they might be helping that person to be elected). We have seen fascism get a lot of positive free press here on slashdot before when being paraded about as something other than what it really is. Thankfully fascist regimes always get toppled in the end, there just is no guarantee who will be around long enough to see that end.

Indeed roman's fascism would embrace killing or enslaving a large portion of the population. He is tragically too shortsighted though to realize that in so doing he will dramatically reduce demand for his own work, and end up begging for scraps as well. His religion has told him that, beyond all reason and logic, he will some how be able to avoid this fate simply by virtue of his faith.

While Rand Paul is proud to inherit the cult so lovingly built by his father, he doesn't seem to feel entirely obligated to actually stray far from the party message. Rand Paul is well aware of who butters his bread, and takes actions to make sure they are taken care of. In other words, he is making the choices he needs to make to see that his policies bring more power for the powerful, and facsism for the people.

Let me apply some facts to your bit so what you spewed out reflects reality instead of religious fantasy:

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Amazingly that statement needs no adjustments. You just described the ambitions of your fascist cult for us in great clarity.

Precisely. I could hardly image a less moral system than the one you have been advocating endlessly here. Being as you are one of the system's top cheerleaders I don't see how you could possibly be able to help bring about the rise of any moral people, though.

I would be shocked if it drove people to stop giving up private information for free to facebook.