Sanders: I'll Decide On Presidential Run By March

[merrily]

63. Dictionaries reflect common usage and common usage includings using

words the way we have been brainwashed to use them. People like Lunz have gotten rich on figuring out which words to use and avoid and how to re-define everything.

If the definition of socialism had remained confined to government ownership of the means of production, you would have had a much easier time convincing your co-worker that Bernie has never advocated either communism or socialism. But, since common usage broadened the definition and made it much vaguer, you have a harder time.

Fire Departments and Police Departments do constitute government ownership of the means of production of those two things. Medicare constitutes government ownership of a type of health insurance (though not of health care). The Post Office constitutes government ownership of one mail delivery service (which is why it's been a target of the right and the center right for a long time).

so·cial·ism
noun \ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm\

: a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies
Full Definition of SOCIALISM
1
: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2
a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3
: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism


Ask yourself: who does a definition of socialism that is "truthier" than the above serve more, the right or the left?