Lets talk socialism for a change

[tomdemaine]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Is it all right for me to simply say that nietreznor is awesome? Although I don't agree with his views I seriously enjoy and benefit from his posts. I've never seen anyone express the beliefs he has expressed here, a true nonconformist, yet he is able to express them in an intelligent and kind manner.

[/ QUOTE ]


moorobot,

ty for the kind words

i enjoy your posts as well

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to turn this into a wierd lovefest or anything but i agree. Non-trollish posters that are prepared to see things from anothers point of view even if they don't agree with it are few and far between on any politics forum.

[Riddick]

[ QUOTE ]
The double standard is so obvious that I won't give any weight to your arguments until you attack capitalism on account of capitalist monstrosities, the same way you attack socialism on a account of a "socialist" monstrosity.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is an attack on statism, of which socialism is a supreme form.

And they are not my attacks. They are the attacks of Freidrich Hayek, nobel laureate and economic genius.

If you aren't going to bother spending 15 minutes reading irrefutable evidence explaining Hitler's socialism, I suppose I could never expect you to read The Road to Serfdom (which, of course, is paved with good intentions)

[Riddick]

[ QUOTE ]
States, strictly speaking, cannot do anything, nor do they have 'desires'. They aren't living entities. This is reification.

Only the human beings which compose, create and recreate states can do anything so horrible; states, without human beings, are nothing and can do nothing, they don't even exist. Very, very sad but true that it was humans causing the holocaust; a warning for all of us about toning down the intensity of belief in our own ideals.


[/ QUOTE ]

So, I take it then, the countless millions of deaths for which 20th century statism is responsible taught us one important lesson: make extra sure we don't elect bad people.

Whew.

[morphball]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Riddick's point is that Europe needs another holocaust (by all means, correct me if I am wrong).

[/ QUOTE ]

Only a State could desire and carry out Holocaust.

[/ QUOTE ]

Umm...the Russians had pogroms which weren't organized by the state.

[Riddick]

[ QUOTE ]
First, even if we play make believe and say Hitler was a socialist, the rest of the Nazis were not, and he couldn't have performed all of his evil without the help of the others.


[/ QUOTE ]

Hence Hitler and the Nazis were a socialist party operating a socialist government.

[ QUOTE ]
Second, still playing make believe, one normative example proves absolutely nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

The dispute resolved by my post was not over whether or not every socialist government turns into Nazi Germany. Some turn into Stalinist Russia. Some turn into Mussolini's fascist paradise. Some turn into Kim Jong Il's North Korea. It is a people's surrender of their free will to a supreme state to deliver them all the equality that it promises that begins these statist nightmares.

But it was chiefly Hayek who made the strongest argument IMO that all supreme statist socialism leads to abject hell. I'd welcome a demonstration of how he was completely utterly wrong.

[ QUOTE ]
3. Hitler was absolutely a diabolical genius.

[/ QUOTE ]

Read Hayek's chapter in The Road entitled "How the Worst Get On Top".

[ QUOTE ]
Most importantly, Hitler did not act on or believe in socialist or communist principles

[/ QUOTE ]

Completely and utterly false. Spend 10 minutes and read above or continue on in ignorant bliss.

[ QUOTE ]
People do bad things in the name of all ideals: Christianity, capitalism, communism

[/ QUOTE ]

People can only do bad things, on par with killing millions upon millions of people, while at the reigns of the supreme state and its all encompassing power.

[Riddick]

[ QUOTE ]
Umm...the Russians had pogroms which weren't organized by the state.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm yes, a couple thousand killed in mob riots instigated by the State vs millions upon millions killed systematically by the State.

Great analogy.

[tehox]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Another example is China. EXTREMELY nationalistic.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hong Kong is nationalistic, too. What happens to that nationalism when the supreme, centralized state of China consumes Hong Kong?

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably nothing. However recent history is filled with examples (all of Eastern Europe and the Asian republics of the USSR) of how strong these nationalistic feelings are.

[morphball]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Umm...the Russians had pogroms which weren't organized by the state.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm yes, a couple thousand killed in mob riots instigated by the State vs millions upon millions killed systematically by the State.

Great analogy.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are right, that analogy sucked. Are the genocides in Africa state sponsored? Just wondering, not trying to rip into you.

[Daysleeper]

Hitler may have been socialist(I think it's ludicrous) but lets assume that he was, doesn't this however dissaprove point two in the article? My understanding was that Germany had a very strong albeit twisted sense of nationalism during WW2

Also I think that saying that "socialism killed all the jews"(which I completly dissagre with) is kinda akin to saying capitalism killed all the native americans

[Riddick]

[ QUOTE ]
You are right, that analogy sucked. Are the genocides in Africa state sponsored? Just wondering, not trying to rip into you.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know anything about Africa so I'll have to lazily defer to Wikipedia on this one. Take it for what its worth.

[ QUOTE ]
Many Rwandans claim that there was little inter-ethnic rivalry until it was deliberately encouraged by the Juvénal Habyarimana government as a ploy to counter Paul Kagame and the Rwandese Patriotic Front's (RPF) largely Tutsi invasion on October 1, 1990.



[/ QUOTE ]