[quote]ChuckyT wrote:
Go live in an Amish commune and see how they deal with your personal freedoms.[/quote]
You see? It’s called personal choice. Amish people have a choice–as do other commune societies. Self rule means that people have a collective right to decide how they will be governed and the Amish could choose to do what ever they wanted in that regard.
I have never once stated that I wish to live in this fashion because it is impractical to me. I am just trying to point out the fallicy of calling communism “evil” when in all actuality it is people who make it evil by trying to enforce self-interest.
Everyone has a right to live how they wish. In a pure democratic society we have to respect the right of the individual to decide this for his or her self. Communism works for some people.
I disagree. Fascism and communism aren’t even closely related.
Sure they are.
Both are left wing collecivist ideologies, communism rules trough a party, fascism through a strong man at the top.
It was the left with it`s desire to blurr the lines between national and internaional socialism that began to call people fascist that never claimed to be fascist themselves.
Pinochet for example was not a fascist.
Google “fasci siciliani” and Mussolinis career.
Fascism is not an economic principle of sharing resources. It is a governing ideology that ensures only the strong survive. That makes them completely different. A fascists would be like your typical American cosa nostra mobster. They control with force and scare tactics. The economic principles of communism cannot work that way. But they do work if and when people of democratic means can put them in place for themselves. [/quote]
that is what you want fascism to be.
In reality it was socialism enforced by a strong dictator.
[quote]ChuckyT wrote:
How are you going to get around the fact that the “economic principles” of communism still require you to send the sweat of your brow to some guy in an office building far away, and hope that he doesn’t abuse his power to share those resources equitably?[/quote]
From purely hypothetical standpoint since that is all we can debate, are not small communities that choose to live in this fashion communistic? Do they not all work for the common good? Do they have to “send the sweat of their brow” to some guy in an office building? Why would that even be necessary?
They can still operate under the principle of self rule. No one is forced to do anything he or she does not want to. If one doesn’t like it they always have the option to leave the commune. Its a personal choice.
The crux of communism is that one must give up their “individuality” for the greater good of the group. If it is done willingly without force how can it be evil?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Communism has to be enforced via authoritarianism because under the theory, the “people with power” won’t give it up peacefully, and humans have to be trained to appreciate the wonders of communism by their Enlightened betters.
People who live in a “commune” would disagree with you. You know, Mennonites, Amish, some groups of Mormons…that is communism that works. Prove me wrong.
[/quote]
Nice dodge trying to equate voluntary communal living with Comminusm forced on people by the government.
Go live in a commune if you want and let me practice capitalism.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
ChuckyT wrote:
The government had all the resources, all the fruits of everyone’s labor, and therefore the functionaries running the government had all the power.
See above. An inanimate object is incabable of killing on its own. Prove me wrong.
[/quote]
Technically, nothing is inanimate. See “String Theory.” Energy in flux is by definition animate. I know, semantics… but you asked to be proven wrong.
[quote]lixy wrote:
ChuckyT wrote:
In case anyone missed it, the system was a disaster because it concentrated the management of all the resources in the hands of a few people
That statement applies to the current system just as much. It’s just that the few are corporations.
[/quote]
Yet to be proven a disaster. Or did you miss that, lixy?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
A rational society would have little need of force. The only time it would be necessary was when someone went off the rails and became irrational, or when the society was attacked.
The measure of a society should be: how much force the government has to use to get citizens to cooperate with each other. If we need a Gestapo or NKVD or even an IRS, that means something is wrong.[/quote]
Calm, collected and concise. HH, are you feeling well today?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
ChuckyT wrote:
Go live in an Amish commune and see how they deal with your personal freedoms.
You see? It’s called personal choice. Amish people have a choice–as do other commune societies. Self rule means that people have a collective right to decide how they will be governed and the Amish could choose to do what ever they wanted in that regard.[/quote]
This is where you fall short. The Amish, mostly, do not know of the freedoms out in the big bad world today. They are secluded. Sure, they see cars and tv when they go shopping. They even have a ritual where teenagers “live it up” before they are required to decide to live the only life they’ve ever known or the one “outside.” Psychological scare tactics. That’s not freedom of choice.
[quote]kroby wrote:
Technically, nothing is inanimate. See “String Theory.” Energy in flux is by definition animate. I know, semantics… but you asked to be proven wrong.[/quote]
Huh? You need to bring up string theory to show that there are vibrations in matter? Do you know anything at all about physical chemistry?
Leaving that aside, the first Google hit on inamimate could prove informative for you: “An inanimate noun refers to things that are not alive. An animate noun refers to living things such as people and animals.”
AFAICT, Liftus used the word correctly. It’s you who got the semantics mixed up.
[quote]kroby wrote:
Technically, nothing is inanimate. See “String Theory.” Energy in flux is by definition animate. I know, semantics… but you asked to be proven wrong.[/quote]
Ideas are inanimate. Ideas require action to be of any value. Without action no ideas are put to use and therefore are merely theory.
I will redefine inanimate to mean those objects incapable of acting out of free will. This encompasses humans in a vegetative state, for example.
[quote]kroby wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
ChuckyT wrote:
Go live in an Amish commune and see how they deal with your personal freedoms.
You see? It’s called personal choice. Amish people have a choice–as do other commune societies. Self rule means that people have a collective right to decide how they will be governed and the Amish could choose to do what ever they wanted in that regard.
This is where you fall short. The Amish, mostly, do not know of the freedoms out in the big bad world today. They are secluded. Sure, they see cars and tv when they go shopping. They even have a ritual where teenagers “live it up” before they are required to decide to live the only life they’ve ever known or the one “outside.” Psychological scare tactics. That’s not freedom of choice.
[/quote]
True, but it is still a communistic ideology that works.
Watch the movie “Devil’s Playground”. It centers around Rumspringa–where teenagers get to “live it up”. Its kind of tragic but it does highlight the lives of some of the individuals that “get away”. Perhaps this wasn’t a perfect example–I was just using it to illustrate that the economic principles of communism can be applied outside of a massive enforcing government.
People confuse Soviet Socialism with communism which misleadingly took the title “The Communist Party of the Soviet Union” to enforce its policy. Anything enforced by a single party is destined to failure.
People confuse Soviet Socialism with communism which misleadingly took the title “The Communist Party of the Soviet Union” to enforce its policy. Anything enforced by a single party is destined to failure.[/quote]
There was nothing misleading about the Soviets using the term. They wanted communism, and large groups of people don’t - damn that human nature - but after enforcing communism through force and bloodshed, its previous detractors would “see the light” of the “ultimate truth” and beging to take on communism via free will.
A little “re-education” and wholesale slaughter is no big deal when you are a zealot in sole possession of the ultimate truth and all your opponents are evil and standing in the way of Progress - ask either the Nazis or the communists.
[quote]lixy wrote:
kroby wrote:
Technically, nothing is inanimate. See “String Theory.” Energy in flux is by definition animate. I know, semantics… but you asked to be proven wrong.
Huh? You need to bring up string theory to show that there are vibrations in matter? Do you know anything at all about physical chemistry?[/quote]
What, like electrons rotating around protons and neutrons? I wanted to go lower… subatomic. Quarks. Don’t begin to lecture me about chemistry, you’re way over your head.
[quote]Leaving that aside, the first Google hit on inamimate could prove informative for you: “An inanimate noun refers to things that are not alive. An animate noun refers to living things such as people and animals.”
AFAICT, Liftus used the word correctly. It’s you who got the semantics mixed up.[/quote]
He said object, lixy. Inanimate OBJECT. What is everything of substance made out of (of which all OBJECTS are made)? Hm? Why, yes, elements found on the Periodic Table. And what, pray tell, does each element consist of? Hm? Why, yes, electrons and at least one proton. Sure, others have neutrons and all in a variety of combinations.
But you get the picture. Open your chemistry book instead of google and learn something. I am using the definition and terminology accurately. If Lifticus wanted to talk of inanimate ideas (like communism)… well, that’s a whole different story. But he said O B J E C T. Like a rock or a person or the floor or the moon.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I will redefine inanimate to mean those objects incapable of acting out of free will. This encompasses humans in a vegetative state, for example.
[/quote]
You mean like a solar flare? It’s incapable of acting out of it’s own free will. Ah, but it’s actually traveling; hardly inanimate.
Stick with your inanimate ideas. That works for your argument.
As for that, your ideas are acted out by humans. Therein lies the chink in the grand plan. The seed for destruction, as it were.
People confuse Soviet Socialism with communism which misleadingly took the title “The Communist Party of the Soviet Union” to enforce its policy. Anything enforced by a single party is destined to failure.
There was nothing misleading about the Soviets using the term. They wanted communism, and large groups of people don’t - damn that human nature - but after enforcing communism through force and bloodshed, its previous detractors would “see the light” of the “ultimate truth” and beging to take on communism via free will.
[/quote]
I don’t think the Soviets actually understood communism. It cannot be forced. The “communal spirit” requires brotherhood and a sense of belonging which is hard to feel at the point of a gun.
I understand how communism is viewed by most people, what I am trying to do is “reeducate” people what the communist ideal is and restore it back to it’s original intent–which isn’t control of a welfare State but rather a means of escaping an ownership and competition society.
Are there no conditions under which a communistic society could thrive?
My conditions would be thus:
It must be small.
It must be democratic.
All citizens must willingly participate.
It must adhere to conventional forms of lawmaking and not be done in an ad hoc manner.
It must have de facto decision making ability in its own affairs–e.g., be separate from the federal government.
Communism means to live for the benefit of the ‘community’. Since this is manifestly impossible, humans resort to violence to attempt to achieve the impossible. An irrational society can only exist for long by using brute force.
Eventually that society dissolves into warring gangs fighting over who gets possession of the government. Look at our political arena today.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
It must be small.
It must be democratic.
All citizens must willingly participate.
It must adhere to conventional forms of lawmaking and not be done in an ad hoc manner.
It must have de facto decision making ability in its own affairs–e.g., be separate from the federal government.[/quote]
One of the problems with “Real Socialism” as it existed in the Soviet Union, etc, was that classical Marxism, a product of the Enlightenment, did not believe in innate human nature. Human nature, according to the theory, is socially determined, a product of the particular phase of class society.
Of course that is partially but not totally true. By denying human nature, the marxists left themselves open to be
dominated by the worst sides of human nature. Actually Marx and Bakunin (the anarchist) had debates over this very issue. Bakunin understand that in a revolutionary society there had to be provisions to prevent the power-hungry from usurping the State for their own benefit.
Of course, when the Bolsheviks came to power, not believing that such evil could originate from within their own ranks, it was only a matter of time before a Stalin would arise.