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“Socialism Was Good in Theory” That sentence assumes the theory was never seriously challenged. It was. Long before the Soviet Union existed, before Lenin seized power, and before socialism had been tested on a national scale, major thinkers were already attacking its foundations—from very different directions. Five of them stand out. Tocqueville: Equality Can Become Servitude In 1848, Alexis de Tocqueville drew a sharp distinction between democracy and socialism. Both spoke about equality. But Tocqueville believed they pursued it in fundamentally different ways. Democracy, in his view, sought equality while preserving individual freedom. Socialism risked achieving equality by expanding the power of the state over the individual. His warning was essentially this: equality is not automatically liberty. A society can pursue equality so aggressively that it begins sacrificing the independence that makes political freedom meaningful. Bastiat: Follow Where Redistribution Leads Two years later, Frédéric Bastiat attacked socialism from a different direction. His question was deceptively simple: What happens when the state acquires the authority to take from some people and give to others in the name of justice? Bastiat called this “legal plunder.” His concern was not merely that redistribution might be expensive. It was that once government becomes the instrument through which competing groups obtain benefits from one another, politics can turn into a permanent struggle over who controls the machinery of redistribution. The problem, therefore, wasn’t simply how much the state redistributed. It was the principle that made redistribution legitimate in the first place. (bastiat.org⁠) Nietzsche: Equality Can Become Resentment Nietzsche approached socialism neither as an economist nor as a constitutional theorist. He attacked its psychology. He saw modern egalitarian movements as part of a much older moral impulse: resentment toward exceptional individuals and suspicion of strength, ambition and hierarchy. For Nietzsche, the danger was not simply that everyone might become economically equal. It was that a culture could begin treating excellence itself as something morally suspect. The goal would cease to be lifting people upward. It would become bringing the exceptional downward. Böhm-Bawerk: Challenge the Economics Then came Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. In 1896, he turned his attention specifically toward Marx’s economic system. His criticism was not primarily moral or political. It was technical. Böhm-Bawerk argued that Marx’s theory of value did not adequately explain how the labor values developed in Capital could be reconciled with the actual prices Marx subsequently needed to explain. In other words, he attacked socialism where it claimed to possess a scientific economic foundation. The argument became one of the central criticisms of Marxian economics and helped launch a debate that would continue for generations. Mises: The Calculation Problem Then, in 1920, Ludwig von Mises attacked an even more fundamental question: Even if socialism is morally desirable, how would a socialist economy actually know what to produce? A functioning economy has millions of competing uses for scarce resources. Build a bridge or a hospital? Use steel here or there? Produce more machinery or more consumer goods? Under private ownership and markets, prices for capital goods provide information about relative scarcity and opportunity costs. Mises argued that abolishing private ownership of the means of production also removes the genuine market prices necessary for rational economic calculation. The problem wasn’t simply that socialist planners might make bad decisions. It was that the system deprived them of the very economic signals required to systematically compare those decisions. (Mises Institute⁠) And that was the sequence. Tocqueville challenged the political premise. Bastiat challenged the moral and legal mechanism of redistribution. Nietzsche challenged the psychology behind egalitarianism. Böhm-Bawerk challenged Marx’s economic theory. Mises challenged the possibility of rational central economic calculation. Five different thinkers. Five different objections. And all of them came before the Soviet Union had demonstrated what large-scale socialist government would actually look like. So “socialism was good in theory, but bad in practice” is not an argument. It is a historical claim that requires you to explain why these theoretical objections were wrong. The interesting question isn’t whether socialism had critics. It did. The interesting question is whether socialism ever adequately answered them” - ChatGPT

This is the right topic to discuss from @sikorskiradek : collective countermeasures. In the face of Russia's aggressive attacks against 🇪🇺nothing else will do, just words will only embolden Putin. There is plenty of items to pursue, incl. visa and other restrictions for 🇷🇺👇 #Countermeasures #Russia #EU #EU #RU

Russia got a seat at the G20 table, but not a place in the family photo. Yet it can still use the room to its advantage. History shows that “taming” dictators through engagement rarely changes their goals—it gives them another platform to pursue them. #G20 #Russia #Dictatorship #RU

🚨Trump ORDERS 'Voter Fraud Blitz' in Nine States -Washington -Wisconsin -Missouri -Georgia -California -Pennsylvania -Nevada -New York -Connecticut ICE’s investigative arm, HSI, will pursue leads, conduct field interviews, and support prosecutions through mid-October. This comes after Secretary Mullin previously stated 250,000+ noncitizens were found on voter rolls in four states. This is what I voted for. https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/2094542785802023205

They are a policy tool and this policy tool was extensively used by fascist and communist governments. But they are not like taxation because they are not necessary to raise revenue, they are a choice pursued by those who don't like market outcomes, often with disastrous effects #PolicyTool #Fascism #Communism #Nospecificcountrycodesarepresentinthetweet.

Here is just one example of Aontú questioning the government as to why they won't provide training to Garda to pursue e scooters, scramblers and joyriders. The government has done nothing to empower Garfaí to do their job and save lives. https://t.co/u1SYKpjCQr #Aontú #Garda #RoadSafety #IE

Taoiseach says there can be 'no tolerance' for reckless driving after recent motorway crashes NOT true. I have raised in the Dáil numerous times that Gardaí are not trained to pursue and the nothing has been done about it. https://t.co/vTLIuFrg6L #RecklessDriving #Gardaí #RoadSafety #IE

US government has detained dozens of parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops as it rolls back immigration protections for military families to pursue its mass deportation agenda. Some have been deported, some are jailed in US concentration camps https://t.co/3D1M8obZm1 #MilitaryFamilies #ImmigrationReform #HumanRights #US

🔥 ENOUGH OF THE LIES. 🔥 Blaming President Trump for the chaos unleashed by the Iranian regime is not just wrong—it's an insult to history. For nearly half a century, Iran has exported terror, chanted "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," armed proxies, and pursued nuclear https://t.co/dv6pyrxIPJ #Iran #Trump #Terrorism #IR #US #IL

My Name Is on a File On a case I was never summoned to, and a price I do not pay alone By Adham Hasanin Egyptian journalist and political writer, based in the Netherlands | July 2026 In 2024, I learned that my name had been entered into a case. Case number 1282. Listed as a "defendant." I was never summoned, and no one called to tell me the exact charge. I found out the way anyone in my position finds out — from a colleague, from a quick search of my own name, from another journalist who called to ask: "Did you know your name is on file?" I do not want to overdramatise the story. No cinematic manhunt, no car tailing me down a European street. What happened is simpler and crueller than that: a state thousands of kilometres away opened a file bearing my name, without my knowledge, without any way for me to defend myself within it, without even anyone standing before me to answer. The charge is not based on any act I committed. The charge is that I wrote. An article, an opinion, a tweet — it makes no difference. What matters is that the words were read, and someone decided they were dangerous enough to become a case number. I. How Do You Know You Are Accused? This question seems like a technicality, but it is in fact the heart of the whole matter. I received no official letter. No lawyer knocked on my door carrying documents. No one from an embassy or consulate called to inform me. The knowledge itself arrived by accident — a passing search, or a message from a friend asking: "Where did you see your name?" This small detail reveals something far larger than a mere administrative oversight. When you are not formally notified that you are accused, you do not even have a clear starting point from which to act. You do not know exactly when the file was opened. You do not know who decided to include your name. You do not know whether a hearing was held, a decision was made, or even whether an investigation took place at all. You simply discover, one day, that you have become "accused" within a legal system that never gave you the chance to know its rules. This ambiguity is not a flaw in the procedure; it is the procedure itself. A case opened without a clear announcement, with no trial date set, performs its full function even while suspended indefinitely. It does not need a conviction to frighten; it is enough that it simply exists. II. The Charge That Needs No Crime In conventional legal systems, a case begins with an act: theft, assault, fraud — something material that can be proven or disproven. But my case, like many others, began with a word. I stole nothing. I assaulted no one. I incited no violence, called for no chaos. I wrote an opinion. I analysed a policy. I criticised a decision. That is the entirety of it. And yet this simple act — writing — became the basis for a legal file bearing a number and classified under a security heading. The paradox is that this kind of charge requires no fixed standard. What counts as "dangerous" today may not be tomorrow, and vice versa. There is no published list of forbidden words, no clear criterion distinguishing incitement from opinion. This deliberate ambiguity — or perhaps unintentional, but effective regardless — leaves every writer living in a state of permanent unease: will this sentence be the one that opens a file bearing my name? III. The Real Danger Is Not to Me Many ask me: "Can they reach you in the Netherlands?" The honest answer: no, not directly. I am here, in a country governed by the rule of law, physically protected by Dutch police, and no one can arrest me on the basis of a case in another country absent a valid extradition treaty and supporting facts. This is not my first concern. My real concern is that this case does not target me alone. It targets those around me. My family in Egypt. People walking down the street, opening their front door, with no connection to politics whatsoever — and suddenly someone is asking about them because I wrote a word from here. This is not a threat spoken aloud. No one calls to say: "If you continue, we will do such-and-such." The message arrives without anyone saying it — through the kind of questions asked of my family, through their timing, through the silence that meets me when I try to learn the details. Sometimes it is a "routine" phone call from some office, asking about my place of residence, my activities, or people I am in contact with. None of it is an explicit threat, but the timing alone is enough to deliver the message. This is precisely the mechanism by which this kind of pursuit operates: it does not need to touch me physically to affect me. It is enough to make me know that the people I love are exposed to harm because of what I write. IV. I Am Not an Exception It would be easy for an article like this to turn into a personal complaint, and I am careful that it should not. Case 1282 is not an isolated incident, and if I stay silent about it I become complicit — unintentionally — in concealing a pattern that genuinely exists. There are others like me — far more than me — whose names sit in similar files, some of whom have no platform to speak from as I do. Journalists, activists, even ordinary people who never practised journalism but shared a post or left a comment. Case 1282 is not an exception; it is a method of operation. Someone writes from abroad, someone else decides they are "dangerous," and the matter shifts from opinion to legal file, without a real trial, without even a clear official announcement that a charge exists at all. More dangerously, this pattern is not confined to Egyptians alone, nor to any single country. It is a recurring tactic used by several regimes seeking to pursue voices beyond their borders without bearing the burden of actual proof or a transparent legal process. The open, unannounced file serves the same purpose everywhere: it frightens without convicting, and keeps the writer in a permanent state of tension without ever offering him the chance to defend himself. V. What Has Actually Changed in Me I will not say this made me stronger. The phrase is worn out, usually deployed to prettify a painful experience, and I refuse to do that. What actually happened is simpler and more honest: I began writing more slowly. Not less candidly — I still say what I believe, still criticise what deserves criticism. But I have become more aware that every sentence I write from here may carry a price I am not the only one paying. This awareness slows the writing, not because I am censoring myself out of fear for my own safety, but because I am thinking about who might pay the price on my behalf. And this is precisely the point of such a case, whether intended or a by-product of a broader mechanism. Actual arrest is not required for censorship to function. No summons is required, no trial, not even a clear charge. It is enough to know your name is written on a piece of paper somewhere, to make you think twice before writing the next time. VI. Why I Continue Regardless A reader might ask: if the price is this clear, why keep writing? Would silence not be safer, for you and for your family? The answer is not as heroic as it might sound, but it is honest: because silence does not solve the problem, it postpones and expands it. If I stopped, and others like me stopped, the mechanism that produced Case 1282 would keep operating with no voice to expose it. Files would keep opening, names would keep being entered, families would keep being questioned, with no one outside the circle of direct victims ever knowing this was happening at all. Writing about this experience, for all its risks, is the only way I have to make this pattern visible. When an article like this is published, the file no longer remains a secret between a government body and an isolated writer; it becomes part of a public record that other journalists, human rights organisations, and even international institutions can follow and document. Conclusion: A Price Not Paid Once I am still writing. More slowly than before, but still writing. And Case 1282 remains open, suspended, with no set date for a hearing or a verdict, exactly as it began. This very ambiguity is the message. An authority that opens a file and never closes it, never tries its subject, never even clearly states what the charge is — is not pursuing justice. It is pursuing something else entirely: that everyone who thinks of writing knows the price is possible, even if not certain. And that everyone who has already written carries that price with them wherever they go, however far they travel from the source of the case. This is the true price of a single word: not one arrest at one moment, but a continuous state of uncertainty that lives with you every time you open a blank page to write. Adham Hasanin is an Egyptian journalist and political writer based in the Netherlands.

Big thanks to @bmeinl, Minister of Foreign Affairs, for hosting us today. Together we also discussed how Europe can further strengthen its strategic international partnerships in a tougher world and pursue its main priorities, from securing supply chains to addressing irregular https://t.co/VQf4BENAGz #ForeignAffairs #EUPartnerships #GlobalStrategicGoals #EU

Američko ministarstvo obrane objavilo je novi paket deklasificiranih dokumenata o neidentificiranim anomalnim pojavama, koji sadrži novije videosnimke i fotografije, uključujući slučajeve iz 1996. i 2021., uz napomenu da su ti fenomeni još uvijek nerazjašnjeni. #NLO-i #Pentagon #PURSUE

🚨⚠️The Russian threat to NATO does not stem from Putin’s personality, nor from his personal actions or intentions. The imperial nature of Russian policy arises from the nature of the Russian state itself and has a long historical tradition. For centuries, Russia has pursued https://t.co/3dwsWRKHUH #Russia #NATO #Geopolitics #RU

Look at the symbolism... it's becoming so obvious... the sequence is the signal... As Iran moves toward containment, Trump turns the lens inward... Hillary’s State Department sat inside the Uranium One approval architecture... Obama sent Iran $1.7 billion, including $400 reign cash... and now a former senior DEA financial official from that same era stands indicted for allegedly helping CJNG launder cartel money, move cocaine, and pursue weapons... Then Trump posts the Obama Library as a towering trash can... Iran... Hillary... Obama... Separate timelines converging into one accountability frame as the foreign board stabilizes and the operation turns toward the architecture within... Obama is now in Trump’s crosshairs... It's time to take out the trash... https://x.com/holonabove/status/2066113525232075059