If I'm A "Socialist," We Are Doomed

I went back and found some old comments on a Facebook post I wrote last year at this time. I rather bluntly said that we shouldn't salute companies giving small raises and citing the tax cut, because if they had the means now, they had it before, in the absence of the law. (Which, to my mind, is utterly uncontroversial.) Wages are due in justice, not charity, and our first goal as citizens and policymakers is to make a just society, as best we can. To give every person what s/he is due. In practical terms, that means paying people working full time enough that public assistance isn't necessary.

Anyway, this guy named Ryan August said something like, "It's good to know there are socialist Catholics here to virtue signal," and I got mad, and deleted both of his year-old comments. As a side-note, there are plenty of people who won't make it across the Tiber, because they'll be d---ed if some pope tells them what to do with their money. Well, quite literally, it's your choice.

I thought socialism was, "A system whereby all the means of production are owned by the State, and the fruits of all labor is held in common, distributed to others, as needed." I'm not that. Here's the definition in the dictionary. I'm not that, either. But I can tell you, I'm not going to sit around in the face of obvious economic injustice, and say, "At least we're not socialist!" Or beg for a few scraps from our corporate overlords.

As long as we're being direct.