Israelis blow up Elderly quadriplegic leaving Mosque

[Nait]

Stalin as a liberal? Eh... I think I'll just... Pass on this one.


EDIT:

Ah, now I get it, it's the American terminology where libruls = leftists.

[LH]

Originally posted by War Angel
Communism is the farthest thing from liberalism, short of Nazism and Facism maybe. Liberalism is about the freedom of a person to do all he wants (almost anarchy) and pursue his dreams...

If we're talking liberalism in 2004 in America, the two are comparable at a very basic level. One of the main functions of communism was to regulate wealth and distrtibute it as seen fit. Liberalism, if taken to an absolute extreme, follows that path because concepts of wealth redistribution are some main points of liberalism. Aside from that, they're polar opposites, but it's a common thing for high school dropouts turned pseudo-intellectual like Sean Hannity to cash in on such a tiny similarity and use tremendous amounts of sensationalism to make the two seem equal. Name-calling, demonization, sensationalism all of these are weapons of Hannity, Limbaugh, or any other Neanderthal Republican political commentator to make liberalism resemble communism. But still, taken to a very far extreme, liberalism shares economic standards with communism.

And all the other focal points of communism - political oppression, one party leadership, silence of the oppostion, political imprisonment - these are all conservatism at its worst. John Ashcroft, anyone?

[Shadow Nexus]

Originally posted by War Angel
Communism is the farthest thing from liberalism, short of Nazism and Facism maybe. Liberalism is about the freedom of a person to do all he wants (almost anarchy) and pursue his dreams, while Communis limits the indvidual incredibly, and doesn't lethim do... well, nothing basically. Since money is the key to most things, a person cannot hope to become greater, wealthier, healthier, etc. He will remain as he is, where the goverment makes all the decisions for him. That's the anti-thesis for Liberalism.

You have not read Marx, have you?

[War Angel]

Ah, now I get it, it's the American terminology where libruls = leftists.

Actually, economically speaking... liberals are right, communists are left.

You have not read Marx, have you?

I don't need to read Marx's teachings to know the differences between Communism and Liberalism. I have stated those differences - in Communism, the country has control over all of the resources, and destributes them equally between everyone. In Liberalism, no-one is equal, and the country doesn't involve itself in anything. Everyone is free to do what they want, follow their dreams, etc. There is NO regulation. And to know that, I don't need to read Marx.

[Shadow Nexus]

Yes, you do need to read Marx.

in Communism, the country has control over all of the resources, and destributes them equally between everyone

There, three errors. It's not the country, it's the people, thats why it's called dictatorship of the proletariat (Wether such idea is taken into practice by the so called socialist leaders is another thing). It's not equally, it's "to give every person in function of his/her necessities", and people have different necesities.

And third, the two points stated above are not for communism, but for socialism ^_^

Communism is the supression of the state as we know it, closer to anarchism. Look at the names of the "communist" countries, you'll see none actually calls itself officially communist, but "socialist".

So yes, you do need to read Marx to know the differences between communism, socialism and liberalism.

So just go to a library and buy the Communist Manifesto so you can know what Marxism is before critizizing. I believe such book is preety short (My edition is 127 pages, and it has a large font) and can give you more or less a simple and brief idea of what communism is. Of course, the true thing is The Capital, but thats like twenty million pages, I have it at home, but I haven't read it completly. And well, not agreening with Marx is not a reason not to read him, I have in my house Hobbe's "Leviathan" and Machiavelli's "The Prince", among many others (I cannot agree with Descartes, Aristotle, Marsilio Ficino or Petrarca, but it's not about politics this time).

Oh, and as I said before, I am not a marixst. My ideas lean very far to the left, but I am very critical on every idea in the left. And Marx did commit a few errors.

[DocFrance]

Marx's biggest error was that communism just isn't compatible with human nature. Humans are inherently greedy, and communism requires a society that is free of greed. And that was exactly how Stalin came to power - by exploiting the weaknesses in the system in the USSR.

[Nait]

Marx starts to sound more and more like Jesus, every day.

[Shadow Nexus]

Originally posted by DocFrance
Marx's biggest error was that communism just isn't compatible with human nature. Humans are inherently greedy, and communism requires a society that is free of greed. And that was exactly how Stalin came to power - by exploiting the weaknesses in the system in the USSR.

I don't agree with greed being in human nature. I think Marx first error was to make a constructivist theory. From there, the rest of the critique can easily be done, since from that starting point you can determine the rest of the errors.

[Big D]

Greed isn't natural for every human, but it's a small step up from 'self interest', a very human quality. If everyone was fair and reasonable, both Communism and Anarchy would work fine. However, the moment one greedy person gains power and ambition, the systems start to unravel.

On another matter... Ariel Sharon has just announced more withdrawls of Israeli military and civilians from disputed regions - the entire Gaza Strip, and four settlements on the West Bank are to be evacuated. A good step forward, I think. He's going to seek US support for the proposal in Washington this week. It'd be good if this helps to get the peace process moving again, but Palestinian leaders say that nothing short of a complete withdrawl from the West Bank will be good enough... hopefully there'll be room for negotiation and compromise, on both sides.

[The Captain]

Hopefully, but not likely. I seem to recall hearing almost the exact same thing a year ago, when there was a supposed "peace" that lasted a few days before it fell back into the chaos that is going on as we speak. Still, I'll hold out hope.

Take care all.

Side note, how do I get rid of this "registered user"?

EDIT: Much obliged.

[ocean]

Though some of you are shocked by War Angel saying that criticism of Israel is alot of the time hidden antisemitism, some of you seem to hold Israeli life very cheap, as opposed to palestinian lives. Why shouldnt Israel take out terrorists with a rocket rather than a sniper if it saves a soldier's life. Also why should the fact that we have to kill innocents to get a terrorist, mean that we dont kill him before he gets our innocents.
shadow nexus: actually targeted killing does help because even though the terrorist is killed , the people who planned it live on to plan more. Also communal punishment is a useful deterent and isn't only out of spite.

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

Please don't revive year-old threads.