That's just because today mentioning them in public doesn't have much (if any) effect.
Back in the day when there were powerful alternative fractions for the power (e.g. socialists, communists in Europe etc), mentioning such staff in public against the established powers brought support to them, and advanced their cause.
Now people know all about them and still elect e.g. Bush Jr. a second term, Obama 2 terms, now Trump etc. It's not like there's any credible threat to anything.
And when there's not, freedom of speech is free, because it's almost worthless.
TL;DR; Modern-day unchecked power can permit criticism just fine: when the waters due to media pollution are so muddle that the signal is lost in the noise, and/or when few people care about it anyway.
That's orthogonal to what I said, which is that freedom of speech can be easily permitted if speech doesn't really have any consequences, e.g. if there aren't actually any popular movements that speech could stir up.
That's so whether those movements are against some right wing regime or some left wing regime (or generally left/right government establishment).
That said, I do believe that socialism is better than liberalism.
At least the former is an actual form of government, with a legacy and original thinkers going back to centuries, and practiced e.g. in Sweden, Denmark, Switcherland, Canada etc. for half a century or so (and with policies adopted all over the world in some form or another).
The latter is just some abstract doctrines based on protestant ideas that time after time lead to bad results (corporatism, every man for himself, broken social contracts, etc.) where it's overly practiced. Even U.S. itself in fact has been much more socialist than liberal for the most part.
Except if you mean "really existing socialism" a la Eastern Bloc, which where mostly post-war "colonies" of USSR.
>The latter is just some abstract doctrines based on protestant ideas that time after time lead to bad results (corporatism, every man for himself, broken social contracts, etc.) where it's overly practiced. Even U.S. itself in fact has been much more socialist than liberal for the most part.
Boy, I have never heard the US described as more socialist than liberal. Normally it is taken as the model of a liberal country. Could you describe any nation in the world today that is mainly liberal, as you are using the term?
First, the idea that freedom of speech is completely suppressed whenever it has a chance to stir up a popular movement, that is simply nonsense. For instance, the UK Labour party was voted into power after WWII and nationalized much of the economy. You seem to be taking the Marxist position that real change is possible only through the violent overthrow of the government.
Secondly, you seem to be for social democracy, a political philosophy for which I have some positive feelings, and which I wish Americans knew more about. But I think you can be more effective in arguing for it if you avoid labelng it as "socialism." That is because the term has no standard meaning, and different groups have different meanings for it.
In fact, even self-identified socialists can't agree. Social democrats call themselves socialists, but orthodox marxists say it is not socialism, but a form of capitalism. And Soviet communists called themselves socialists, but many social democrats said it wasn't socialism because it wasn't democratic and was for the benefit of a small, powerful elite.
I think it is much better as a persuasion technique to stick with the term social democracy, because everyone agrees on it, and focus on describing how it works, what are its benefits, and so on.
But coldtea confirmed I was right that he is a socialist.
The reason I was able to correctly infer he is a socialist is he was following a familiar socialist-marxist position. This is that democracy in capitalist countries is a shame, everything that happens is decided in secret by the rich people, who control the media to trick the population to go along. According to this view, true freedom of speech and democracy are possible only under socialism.
Let me add that you seem to be taking the standard marxist position that fascism is capitalism taken to its logical conclusion, so every non-socialist country is fascist or on its way there.
I inferred it from what he said. But I re-read the comment, and he did say the US is more socialist than liberal (a very strange set of meanings for the two terms), so maybe I am wrong. Perhaps coldtea could say if I was right or wrong.
Back in the day when there were powerful alternative fractions for the power (e.g. socialists, communists in Europe etc), mentioning such staff in public against the established powers brought support to them, and advanced their cause.
Now people know all about them and still elect e.g. Bush Jr. a second term, Obama 2 terms, now Trump etc. It's not like there's any credible threat to anything.
And when there's not, freedom of speech is free, because it's almost worthless.
TL;DR; Modern-day unchecked power can permit criticism just fine: when the waters due to media pollution are so muddle that the signal is lost in the noise, and/or when few people care about it anyway.