re: #860 Dark_Falcon

Those seem fairly reasonable points to me. Not necessarily correct, but not unreasonable either.

I’d like to think Goldberg acts in good faith here, but it’s hard to give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m pretty convinced he employs the usual 2-step method:

1- You use the “socialist” epithet fully knowing the effect the word produces in your audience, namely associations with central planning, nationalized industries, collectivization of production, etc.

2- When you are confronted, you just say “Oh, I didn’t mean THAT” and then offer a very weak definition of socialism - sometimes so weak that makes every other President we had effectively a socialist (seat belt laws, increasing the upper bracket of the income tax).

The thing is, even if Goldberg is convinced that his definition is more “correct”, why use if he knows it will mislead his readership?