Quote Originally Posted by Behold the Void
And more will replace them. There are two ways to keep people in line in this day and age. A) Brainwashing. Easily done, and if you wanted to attempt to install an anarchic or socialist system, you would HAVE to brainwash people into acting as you dictate. There is no way around it. B) Control of force and weaponry. Also easily done. If you don't manage to brainwash the populace, if you control all the weapons, you can MAKE someone do what you want fairly easily. A man with a gun can kill dozens of people without even getting scratched. If you control all of the guns, you control everybody.
Not really, braindwashing isnt an option, I wouldnt call it that, it's a change in the culture, thats all. By your statement, we're all braindwashed.

By the way--there was a revolution against Saddam, shortly following the Persian Gulf war. By both the Kurds and the Shi'ites, I believe. It was brutally crushed, and hundreds of thousands were slaughtered.
That is completelly true. Bush had promessed them that he would help. Have you seen the movie "Three Kings" ? It's exactly about that issue. These people would have won the revolution if everything had gone as planed, and if Bush had done what he had been telling them, Bush's son wouldnt have had to deal with the problem afterwards. But when the new Bush delt with the problem, he did it wroung, becouse the people of Iraq didnt join in, they were held in theyr possition. He should have joined a revolution that the Iraqi's had started. Annyone in Iraq, really, just not America.

"Dear Saddam.
I would be really happy if you stopped using nerve gas and blistering agents on your own people. It would be really nice of you to stop letting women be raped by dozens of your soldiers while thier husbands look on, and to shut down the vats of acid and chipper-shredder machines that you put innocent civilians through. All of this would make me very happy. Just wanted you to know.
Love, America."
That, but without the rape point. Rape is still as frequent, must you know.
Leters like that is what Amnesty International usually send. Such a letter would wake other people upp. The lether should be sent publically, not written.

What about if I want to keep the money I earned for myself?
You mean like, you dont want to give the poor people a chance to get cured in a normal hospita, and you wouldnt like other people to have a good time becouse they earn less, or becouse they want to give what they have to other people?
Well, then you're a narcasist, and should have nothing to say about society and big groups of people. Really.
But you forgot one thing: Cash is un-existent in communism, you're mixing it with socialism.
And we're discussing cops and cop-power.

hat if I felt the only thing I owed another human being was that same right - that I'd never take from what another earned?
You're not taking what another person has earned, that cash goes to everyone, and not to you as a single induvidual. Free health for everyone is an issue that is worth more then that little cash you give away to that issue alone. As the entire state gives for it, it's all good.

I meant, you must see that communism functions under a banner that proclaims "Shut up and obey the collective," which is why I said that.
I never siad that. I never said Shut Up, I'm not a facistic kind of communist, I'm an anarco communist. You're mixing me with facism, please, don't do so.
I'm saying that we're gradually moving toward that field of the political specter. I'm opposed to dictatorship, but sometimes it's ok, deppends on the dictator.
I never said "Hey! Let's have communism tomorrow!" This thing takes time. You can get fairly close with a nice revolution, but you still need time afterwards to althern people culture to be more gracefull for what they have and what they gives, for humanity, for enviroment, for the beauty of different foods and different people, and less gracefull for economy, cars that drive fast but pollute a bit, violent solutions and well, that kind of stuff.

Likewise, if I lived in a communist country (or even a socialistic one) and I was sick and had my health care paid for, free of charge, I'd hate to think what kind of hell I put a man through so he could pay off my bills.
Well, that's only if you didnt work for that before. You're not putting one man or woman trought this hell. All, or most of that cash goes to the state, what means that all that cash collected by the entire state gets mixed. Really, they'd all collect cash so that eveyrone could have a good time. Bills? what bills? they would all had been taken care of by the state. That man or woman in your example have no bills to pay herself or himself, so what difference does it make?

No, I don't think that physical violence is the ONLY answer, nor is it even the BEST answer... but I think that the citizens of Troy, or of Hiroshima, would disagree with anyone who says it's an ineffective solution.
Not all, might I ad. What difference would it make if the cityzen of Hiroshima attacked the US after that bomb? These people were allreddy dead, and the war was finished shortly after.
Troy? Might be, but that was many years ago, people have or should have learned allot since.
If I had a doughter and she was raped, raped again, killed, then raped, I would protest if the pedophile murderer was charged for death penality.
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth would make the world blind, young sir.

Oh, and Ghandi or Reverend King were effective only because the public outcry became greater than the resistance.
Dissagree. Of course these cases were world famous, Gandhi had to deal with the famous England, King had to deal with the evil racism in the US.
It's all a mather of where the enemy was. Of course, the fact that manny people knew about didnt harm.

Hell, in Ghandi's case, there was fear of his believers starting a revolution, actually. (that fear was probably not justified, but that makes it no less real to those who felt it).
Not likelly, hes believers loved him becouse he'd never use violence. They'd never use violence ether.
A peacefull revolution? Nice. But I dont see why this should spread much fear.

As for King... well... I already explained boycotts, and sit-ins are even more forceful... as for marches, those are a show of force... Rome loved using THAT method, and no informed person would consider them peaceable.
You're mixing King with Malcolm X. King didn't like Violence in protests at all. Just paecable marches, where they walked, or they satt, and did nothing to harm anyone.
Boycotts? who's bleeding? what's burning? There is no form for violence in a normal boycott.

All were, and are, methods to compell others to obey YOUR will, instead of their own.
What? Boycotts? yes indeed. But it's YOUR chose wether to accept the request or not.
None's forcing you to say yes.

Racists were forced to at least pretend not to be racist. That is violence.
They were not, youngster!
They became even more racist after Martin Luther King, but atleast the black people got theyr rights. Martin Luther King, as he had some agreers on the white side, had some people that was negative to hes words on the Black side.
What he did cant be considdered egoistic. He didnt force anyone to obey him, the state just decided to agree, but society? That's another mather.

Armies were broken by the mere threat of public reaction. Again, violence.
Please, reform this. I'm not born in an English talking nation, please understant.
No matter how you slice it, these were methods of violence, even if they lacked the physical signs.
They were not, none has ever been forced to do anything in these examples you mentioned.

Call it mental violence... which, much like emotional abuse, is quite possibly more powerful.
It isnt called mental violence, it's called pacifism. You're not forcing anyone, people feel guilty, society changes, you putt youreself on play, you never use your fists or guns. There is no violence involved.

whereas a merely implied threat remains forever cloaked in the most terrifying thing humans have yet to encounter: the unknown.
Yes...
And that's why forcing the children with racist parents to collaborate with children of other nations is a great way to deal with racism.