[mountainclmbr]

I, unfortunately, have to spend time in Boulder, CO. A coworker shared a conversation overheard in a restaraunt. It is similar to my experiences. A Texan raised his voice and said that he was leaving Boulder for TX and that he was considering using his last $100 to get a sign that said "F***** Boulder and all the Communists, I am out of here". A "Boulder" woman" at another table said "communism was working well until people got lazy". My friend kept to himsself and said to his children " After over 100 million killed by communist governments, how many more will it take until it will be considered bad?"


My final thought....how do you deal with avowed communists living among us? These people truly believe that they should be provided for by the government. But, the Democrats they vote for want to be provided for by their constituents....or people that did not vote for them, like ME! MAYBE I SHOULD MOVE TO TEXAS TOO!

[Barbara]

Ha! At this rate, I'm asking why so many Republicans do. :)

[Barbara]

As far as how to deal with them? I live in what may well be the most conservative rural county in Michigan and we have a nifty little group of honest to goodness communists who run the local used book store and stage the occasional peace protest in front of the court house (today's had two protestors, for instance.) We mostly just tolerate them and use them as a tourist attraction. Sometimes the newspaper consults them if they want an "alternative" outlook, since here, the Democrats run pro-life and pro-2A.

Hmm..even the commies are pro-gun here now, that I think about it. Gosh, I love this place. :)

[Mark Tyson]

Many Democrats? How many Democrats do you know, and how many of them really like communists? I don't think it's as many as the question implies, unless you stretch the meaning of the term communist to mean anyone who believes the government should have any role in the economy.

There's extremists in every camp. There's Republicans who want to turn the country into a religious theoccracy, or repeal the 4th amendment to fight the drug war, or impose some manner of censorship.

[Lone_Gunman]

Its not just Democrats. Republicans are good at passing out social welfare also, just look at what the Congress did two weeks ago with the Medicare drug bill. And our "compassionate conservative" president is going to sign it into law.

The Republican party is at least as liberal today as the Democratic Party was in 1965.

[bvmjethead]

You should read Ann Coulter's new book "Treason".

She's great.

[bfason]

Ann Coulter's books are filled with errors, straw-man arguments, and ad hominem attacks. Go aead and read Coulter for sheer yuck value, but then go read _Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them_ by Al Franken.

[Barbara]

Gack. Better yet, ignore them all. They're performers.

[Standing Wolf]

How do I tell the Republicrats from the Democans?

[Barbara]

Why, the Republicans are the ones supporting the Greens! The Dems support the Communists!

Unfortunately, no one is supporting the Constitution. :(

[Hkmp5sd]

Ann Coulter's books are filled with errors

I think Ann Coulter's books are pretty good. Yes, she has reached some conclusions I consider in error, but she provides references for most of her statements. Treason blasts the media's lynching of Joseph McCarthy.

As for Al Franken, he is nothing more than a clone of Michael Moore, with the exception he has a voice that rivals fingernails on a blackboard as one of the most annoying sounds in the world. He is a walking/talking reason to make retroactive abortions legal.

[bfason]

See Brendan Nyhan, "Screed: With Treason, Ann Coulter once again defines a new low in America's political debate,"
June 30, 2003
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20030630.html

Also, check out the review of Coulter's book by Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal. (http://www.opinionjournal.com/medialog/?id=110003713)

Here's just problem I have with Coulter. She attributes statements to The New York Times editorial page which actually were statements made by various news figures which ran in news articles in The Times. Do you see how such a practice is dishonest? It would be like taking the stupidest thing ever written by anyone here at The High Road, and then posting somewhere that "according to thehighroad.org..." Coulter does exactly that.

Books by Franken and Coulter are just political fluff, anyway. Franken knows that he is writing comedy while Coulter thinks that she is writing serious political works.

[mrapathy2000]

doh

[Monkeyleg]

You know, it's funny reading threads about Democrats vs. Republicans, because you cannot lump one individual into either category, nor can you make assumptions about them.

The friend I've known the longest is one I met in 6th grade in 1963. His parents were both Democrat Party activists, and their activisim showed in the family life: the regular dinner for the three kids and the folks was hot dogs. I'm not saying that there weren't Republican activist parents who fed their kids the same way, it's just that I didn't know any.

Unlike my full-time mom, his mom was gone all the time, dividing her time between party activism and her full-time job being a school psychologist. Occasionally she would use one of the kids as a test for something she'd read in some Ken Kesey book. One of the weirdest moments I recall was when my friend and his brother exchanged punches. His mom's punishment was to order my friend to walk down to the end of the hallway and back three times. To this day I don't understand what that hall walk was supposed to accomplish. Under similar circumstances, my dad would have--by words or deeds or both--made sure that the event never happened again.

All I know is that, by 1968, my friend was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. And, by 1970, he'd decided that the Communist Party was too "moderate," and joined a group similar to the Weather Underground. When I went to visit him, I saw all sorts of handguns, rifles and shotguns around his "community house." He and his brethren were afraid of the government. At that point, at least, he wanted the 2nd Amendment.

Today, my old friend is a typical dyed-in-the-wool Democrat who's employed by one of those small community groups that get their monies from state and federal grants. He doesn't work too hard, doesn't have to worry too much about job security, and really doesn't worry about much of anything. He's got his credentials with the local Democrat party and establishment pretty well solidified.

But, today, he doesn't like the idea of citizens owning guns. That's for the police, he says.

[cloudkiller]

First, lets assume that you aren't calling all liberals communists as some on the board do when they make sweeping statements for effect.

But....why do many support communism? I think it is because they see the dicatatorships that killed millions (Stalin, Mao, etc...) as being "incorrect application" of an ideal that they consider good. So they are probably supporters of Marxist ideals, rather than the socialist dictatorships that we have seen. Many "academic communists" would argue that China and Russia under Stalin and on weren't really communism at all. I love that argument. It is like a devoted member of a religion saying "well, when those people were doing evil things in the name of our God they really weren't a christian/moslem/jew/buddhist. -- We hear that line of reasoning a lot today here in the US.

That being said, like all naive ideologues they have to piece together bits and pieces of history to show any evidence of things working. They are hardly alone in doing so though. Just write history books that leave out the details like the death of 10% of your population and voila! Selective history at its best. -- More mainstream Americans do the same thing when they basically say "revolutionary America represented the pinnacle of moral government, freedom and the respect of individual rights and responsibilities. Just ignore slavery, the disenfrancisement of women and that little tiff with the Indians"

Or better yet "Western propaganda is behind the claims that Mao killed millions". Sure if you believe that everything that contradicts your view is propaganda you have no credibility. It is similar to those who say "if my political party did something it was for noble patriotic reasons. if yours did it it was for some corrupt ulterior motive that dooms our nation".

I also think that if you asked these leftists (particularly isolated academics) about the makeup of the American population many would paint a picture of a much browner, poorer, and more economically disadvantaged and socially immobile group than truly exists. If that is the view you have of the country, then you believe that the most "basic" needs of the bulk of the population are not met. For example food, basic health and shelter. Therefore you might believe that resources need to be redistributed. The problem with this vision in the case of the United States is that it is TOTALLY FALSE. They are simply detached from reality.

[roscoe]

If you poll the millions of registered Democrats and Republicans, you will probably get the same percentage of communist Democrats as you would white supremacist Republicans. So somehow the communists are representative of the Democrats, but the white supremacists are not of Republicans?

[Bill Hook]

Where's that "you might be a democrat" list? The one that has the line "you might be a democrat if you think the reason communism failed is that the right people weren't in charge."

[clubsoda22]

communism works in small doses. Look at the kibbutz system in israel. They work perfectly. An entire town working just fine under a communist system.

Personally, i'm more of a semi-socialist for some issues, like healthcare and education, but i can't see either working under our vurrent government.

BTW, real communists and socialists are pro gun. Actually, real liberals are pro gun too. Gun control is something outside of politics, every basic political belief, outside of athoritarianism, should, by its nature, be pro gun.

Look at communism at its core, not the corrupted governments who claim it as their own. Imagine what people would think of democracy if we told them to look at the United States today.

[JPM70535]

While Communism in its purest form might sound like the ideal form of Government, it, like any other, cannot exist except in the minds of the deluded. The idea that everything is owned by everyone,that all citizens are equal and that society is classless is a pipe dream.

In Civics class many years ago my teacher made the statement that if all the wealth in the country were divided equally among all the citizens of any country, within one generation, or two at the most, things would look exactlly as they do now. 5% of the people would own 95% of the wealth.
At the time I thought he was full of s***. Now I see he was a very astute individual.

Human nature being what it is, there will always be those who are sheep, and those wo are wolves. Predator and prey, leaders and followers, and nothing can ever change that.

In the great USA there are those who see the role of government as all encompassing, providing everything, and knowing all. They see the world through rose colored glasses, believing that there are no such things as bad kids, or evil people, and that crime is a result of the failure of Government to do enough for them. They believe that the solution to violent crime is to ban the "EVIL GUNS" not the criminal, and IMO also believe in the tooth fairy. We call them liberals or Democrats. In other societies they are called COMMUNISTS!

[Langenator]

clubsoda has a good point, to which I'd like to add a caveat: Communism can work on a small scale, such a kibbutz, when everyone involved wants to be involved. The Israeli kibbutzim want to be on those farms. The inhabitants of Soviet collective farms would have rather been working their own land.

The communist ideal of their perfect society is all well and good, except that it ignores human nature-that there are people who are greedy, lazy, and evil. Heck, I'll plead to being lazy-if I got paid no matter how little work I did, I'd do as little as I could get away with too.

Big L Liberals, and the true believer communists, believe in the perfectability of man. Small l liberalesm (aka classic liberalism) acknowledges the imperfect nature of man and tries to maximize human freedom while minimizing the damages caused by the imperfections.

That's about as much sense as I can make this early in the morning.

And now I'm going to have to and @#%^# Marx and Engels to my reading list.

[Glock Glockler]

How do you deal with avowed communists living among us?

1 - Pray that a listeneing and vengeful God strikes them down and takes them out of our misery.

2 - Convince them to live their dream and lead by example. Tell them they should go out and start their own Kibbutz, but of course, they'll need to be well armed in case those evil people sent by Bush come to wipe them out;)

Communism works in small doses. Look at the kibbutz system in israel. They work perfectly. An entire town working just fine under a communist system.

Is that Kibbutz system voluntary? If not, then it's not workable. Is any type of govt forcing me to pay for things I neither want nor need at gunpoint? If not, then it's not communism.

[mountainclmbr]

Notice that I did not say "all" Democrats support Communism. I said "many". I did not even say "most". If you investigate the Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party you will find Communism.

As a Libertarian, I also have problems with the Republican Party. But, not as many problems as I have with the Dems. The Democrat "Progressives" run the party, so even if you vote for a moderate Democrat, you are giving power to the Progressives.

I was a registered Democrat for about 24 years until I got so disgusted that I switched to the Libertarian party. I sometimes hold my nose and vote for Republicans, but I have not voted for a single Democrat in the last two elections.

[bfason]

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence." -George Washington

There is no evidence that George Washington ever said or wrote such words. It has been exposed as a bogus quote.
http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndbog.html

[Mike Irwin]

Communism is, in theory, a wonderful form of government.

In practice it's a freaking nightmare because it can't erase man's natural desire to seize power in a way to benefit himself or his group at the expense of others.

The truest examples of Communistic societies we've ever had were probably the religious orders -- the Shakers, Harmony and New Harmony, for example -- and the other utopian societies that sprang up in England and the United States. Amana, the apliance manufacturer, started out as a utopian society.

Even in those communities, which were purely voluntary, there were serious power struggles and other internal problems that eventually led to most of them disintegrating.

Anyway, the history lesson aside, I really think Democrats like what they see of the Communist ideal because it represents the State ordering and dictating, to a high degree, the lives of the citizens, and there are far too many Democrats who believe, either secretly or otherwise, that the best form of Government is one that provides a cradle-to-grave ordination for the individual's life -- you're born into and cared for by a socialized medical system, you attend state schools and universities where you're indoctrinated with the mantra of the Democratic ideal, you work in a job that is either part of the stateocracy, or one that is highly regulated by the state, etc.

Those who see the "practical benefits" instead of the intangible benefits, see only a way of controlling people. That's what's so appealing to the Democrats.

[jdege]

There's a difference between living in a commune and espousing communism.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with living communally - getting together with a group of like-minded people, pooling your resources, and owning what you have in common.

But that's not communism. Communism is the political ideology that it is right and just to force communal living on other people, regardless of what they might think.

As such, it's pure, unmitigated evil.

[7.62FullMetalJacket]

Democrats are not all communists, but many of the "thinkers" driving the party, and the "angry left," are. The Republicans today are very similar to the JFKites of 1960. SInce the right swung left, the left had nowhere to go, but further left ;) .

Of course, they could have edged center-right a bit. But they did not. For the past 2 decades, the D party has been the party for the gimme generation. Serving so many special interests that they sometimes conflict. Think environmentalist and a union shop getting shut down for environmental reasons.

And there in lies one of the rubs. The blue-collar base has been leaving the D party for a while, but nobody left a memo with the elitists. Anybody that works, earns decent money, and has guns ( and morals) has a real dilemma voting for the socilaist democrat party.

The D party is the party of what, these days?

gun control :fire:
thought control (hate crimes)
Welfare
More welfare in different forms
Civil rights (oh yeah, the party that is fillibustering minorities and women:rolleyes:, uh huh, it is about civil rights, alright )
xxortion on demand
Environmental issues
Anything PC

Against:
business
the american way
US constitution
Individualism

++++++++

Something strange happened after Reagan made Gorbie tear down that wall. All of the world workers party members, communists and socialists no longer had any shining cities on the hill, save Cuba, North Korea, and China.

Not ready to lose the fight, they decided to latch on to an organized and well-funded cause that would put the stake through Capitalism once and for all. The Environmental Movement. We see examples of this every day. And they have their Communist Manifesto, stike that, Environmental Manifesto, which strangely assumes that man is bad, and that all things man does is bad. But for man, the earth would be perfect.

The power plant issue is one great example, where EPA made a common sense adjustment to regulation where no net increase in pollution will occur, and older powerplants can complete repairs and replacements without running the legal gauntlet AND still having to REDUCE emissions. This keeps the lights on for all of us, folks. Remember, NO NET INCREASE in emissions. Listening to the Environmental wackos, you would think that the power plants would be allowed to burn coal in open pits!!!!!!

Same thing with the arsenic standards in drinking water. The level was X for years with no issue. CLinton's EPA lowered it to 0.X just before he left office. No scientific reason, no mass poisonings, just another non-scientific bureaucratic "feel good" measure. EPA removed the new burden of the lower standard and returned it to the old standard pending review, particularly on locations that HAVE NEVER experienced a problem with arsenic. Listening to the environmental wackos, you would think GWB is poisoning middle america!!!!!!

++++++

The D party has achieved everything they have set out to do for the past 70 years. Socialized ponzi scheme, medicare (now new and improved), SSI, welfare, unemployment, disability, War on Poverty, unconstitutional gun control, cheese handouts, more and more "wilderness", equal opportunity for all, etc..............Now what do you do when you won all your bets? Do you call it a day and head home?

OH, NO, No, if Americans like one shoe up their a$$, then they will really like two!!!!! So as far left they have gone, they see more success to the further left. Now, they did not get there alone.. The R party has been racing to the left to catch them to "expand the tent." SInce the R party holds the left-center ground now, where do the aspiring socialists go? Farther to the left. Then we get nutcases like Gore, Kucinich, Dean......

END OF RANT

:fire: :banghead: :cuss: :what:

[Mark Tyson]

I think the Democratic party is insufficiently radical enough for most real communists or socialists. Most of the hard core will go to the Green party.

There are also real communist and socialist parties in the US, though they're of utterly no political significance. Some espouse utopian, communal type communism. The SPUSA is one. These guys make Ralph Nader look like Adam Smith. They are goofy but harmless. Others are hard core anti-American radicals who openly call for a violent revolution. They support Stalinist totalitarianism, the bloody Maoist insurgency in Nepal, and other atrocities. The Revolutionary Communist Party is one such group. They're worth keeping an eye on.

[Monkeyleg]

To add to Mike Irwin's point about liberals wanting the government to control everyones' lives: every liberal I know believes in that control because they're concerned that someone--maybe not them, but someone--won't do the right thing. For example, mention privatizing social security and they go nuts, lamenting the fact that some person might put all of his money into a stock like Enron.

Well, so what? It's his money and his future.

They use the same argument when it comes to guns. They may say, "oh, I know you won't misuse one, but what about Joe Hothead down the street?"

Also, to correct what 7.62FullMetalJacket said about Clinton's chaning the arsenic standards: it wasn't some whacky environmental move. It was a coldly calculated political ploy designed to put Bush in a tough spot with the environmentalists as soon as GW took office. The technology to reduce arsenic levels to Clinton's proposed point would have put a huge and sometimes impossible burden on many municipalities nationwide. GW had no choice but to take the heat and put the original standards back in place, just as Clinton knew he would.

[Jonesy9]

you guys are on crack LOL! please name all the Dem thinkers and party ,members who are communists, you're just making ???? up as you go along. what experience or data are you drawing on? years of listening to Rush and reading Coulter books?

I'm in Mass. and have never met a communist in my life, from the way some of you guys talk, I'd think they'd be all over the place here LOL!

newsflash- it ain't the Dems driving all the socialist and commie initiatives the gov has been putting out lately. farm bill, tariff protections, new entitlements etc etc etc are nothing more than pursuit of power driving policy.

The need to be re-electable and further their power so the ruling class of repubs can continue to line their own pockets is the only thing driving our foreign and domestic policy and that's far worse for the country in the long run than fanatsies of marxists under the bed.

[fallingblock]

"you guys are on crack "
************************************************************

Are you speaking from personal experience?:D

[Stetson_CO]

Jonsey9 said

I'm in Mass. and have never met a communist in my life, from the way some of you guys talk, I'd think they'd be all over the place here LOL!

I spent 6 months there and met ALLLLL kinds pf people that believe Communism is the best thing for America. Then again, I was working a cash pay job(gentling 2 former racehorses for kids) and didn't need to watch what I said so maybe I brought them out.


c):{

[Jonesy9]

suuure you did Stetson. LOL!

[Mark Tyson]

I was a member of a certain nameless political forum that was utterly filled with communists. Most of them lived in the US or Western Europe. There were people who would defend Kim Jong Il and Stalin as nice guys, and say that the Soviet purges were a capitalist fabrication. These guys are no different than holocast deniers and Nazis in my book.

[Bill Hook]

Did this nameless forum start with a "D" and have a "U" thrown in somewhere?

[jdege]

please name all the Dem thinkers and party, members who are communists

You might start with the Congressional Progessive Caucus:

http://bernie.house.gov/pc/members.asp

Eni Faleomavaega - AMERICAN SAMOA
Ed Pastor - ARIZONA-02
Raul Grijalva - ARIZONA-07
Lynn Woolsey - CALIFORNIA-06
George Miller - CALIFORNIA-07
Nancy Pelosi - CALIFORNIA-08
Barbara Lee - CALIFORNIA-09
Tom Lantos - CALIFORNIA-12
Pete Stark - CALIFORNIA-13
Sam Farr - CALIFORNIA-17
Henry Waxman - CALIFORNIA-29
Xavier Becerra - CALIFORNIA-30
Hilda Solis - CALIFORNIA-31
Diane Watson - CALIFORNIA-32
Maxine Waters - CALIFORNIA-35
Bob Filner - CALIFORNIA-50
Rosa DeLauro - CONNECTICUT-03
Eleanor Holmes Norton - D.C.
Corrine Brown - FLORIDA-03
John Lewis - GEORGIA-05
Neil Abercrombie - HAWAII-01
Bobby Rush - ILLINOIS-01
Jesse Jackson, Jr - ILLINOIS-02
Luis Gutierrez - ILLINOIS-04
Danny Davis - ILLINOIS-07
Jan Schakowsky - ILLINOIS-09
Lane Evans - ILLINOIS-17
Julia Carson - INDIANA-10
John Olver - MASSACHUSETTS-01
James P. McGovern - MASSACHUSETTS-03
Barney Frank - MASSACHUSETTS-04
John Tierney - MASSACHUSETTS-06
Michael Capuano - MASSACHUSETTS-08
John Conyers - MICHIGAN-14
Bennie Thompson - MISSISSIPPI-02
William "Lacy" Clay - MISSOURI-01
Donald Payne - NEW JERSEY-10
Tom Udall - NEW MEXICO-03
Jerry Nadler - NEW YORK-08
Major Owens - NEW YORK-11
Nydia Velazquez - NEW YORK-12
Jose Serrano - NEW YORK-16
Maurice Hinchey - NEW YORK-26
Mel Watt - NORTH CAROLINA-12
Marcy Kaptur - OHIO-09
Dennis Kucinich - OHIO-10
Stephanie Tubbs Jones - OHIO-11
Sherrod Brown - OHIO-13
Peter DeFazio - OREGON-04
Chaka Fattah - PENNSYLVANIA-02
Sheila Jackson-Lee - TEXAS-18
Bernie Sanders - VERMONT
Jim McDermott - WASHINGTON-07
Tammy Baldwin - WISCONSIN-02

[7.62FullMetalJacket]

I would agree that the Congresiional Progressive Caucus would be a membership test for the Communist Party. The CPC has taken the social democrats to the far left.

[DRC]

Democrat v. Republican is completely seperate and apart from Liberal v. Conservative. Also people tend to misunderstand what Socialism and Communism are when attaching it to a political group or venue.

Democrat v. Republican are political ideologies which have actually reversed themselves over the years and seem to be reverting back currently. Originally the Democratic party was for industry where the Republican party was for the people of the Republic (through largess but early on in a limited fashion, not like todays expansion of government)

Liberal v. Conservative is a belief ideology. Your core belief about right and wrong based on your understanding of the subjects at hand. Who's right and who's wrong? Depends on who you ask, but I can and will say that Conservatives spend a lot of time presenting supportive documentation for their case because they have been forced over the years to prove their assertions by those that can make things up on the spot without proof and deem it a reality.

Socialism and Communism are life ideologies where one works for the betterment of your fellow man or social society thereof. On paper these things look great but the problem is that these ideologies will only work if EVERYONE thinks and lives the same way. Guess what? It won't ever happen because those that have many talents will have to work hard to pick up the slack for those with few talents only to recieve the same rewards at the end of the day. No incentive to do more; only the incentive to do the minimum required so no advancements will ever be made. For these ideologies to work effectively (on paper or in reality) you can't have a governing body in place because order has to come from within each person (same thinking, same perceptions of right and wrong)

Socialism and Communism have been given new definitions to mean those that want the government to provide everything. Actually when the government provides for all the government controls all and is called a totalitarian regime which can easily become a dictatorship (as history has shown).

So are Democrats Communists? No, although some self proclaimed Socialists and Communists vote Democrat as well as Republican (which is proof, in my opinion, that they have no real clue as to what their ideology is all about)

Are Communists and Socialist liberal or Conservative? That's kind of like saying "Is Blue and green red or yellow?" BUT liberal ideology does tend to fall in line with some Communist ideology in a very loose sense of the definition. The best antitheistic anacronym was the USSR. It wasn't United, Socialist or a Republic but was a totalitarian regime that enslaved the majority of its people to fund and work for the expansion of the government power base, but it's where the existing definition (for many) of Communism came from.

Being a Conservative I consider liberals misguided as well as many being "Communist" (read dictatorship) simpathisers but I cannot blanket all Democrats in that vain simply because many don't understand the core of their political party belief or what a liberal actually is. Some current Republicans are more liberal than some staunch liberals I know. In some cases I have friends that vote Democrat that are as Conservative in their thinking as I am. I wonder why they vote Democrat and they wonder why I vote Republican (I actually vote for the most Conservative choice over political party though, but am not moderate enough to be Libertarian ;)

Anyway I just thought I would theow that into the mix (and yes I paraphrased it to keep from getting any wordier :)

DRC

[7.62FullMetalJacket]

Consider this: Has there ever been a free communist country? Have not all communist countries been run as a totalitarian regime? Can communism exist without the totalitarian regime?

Yes, we do confuse D and R with conservative versus liberal. Example, Lowell Weicker (liberal R) versus Zell Miller (conservative D). And I think that is where some on THR get rubbed the wrong way. Good point. :D

[Mark Tyson]

Did this nameless forum start with a "D" and have a "U" thrown in somewhere?

No actually it wasn't DU. It caters to a much more diverse crowd. You think the guys on DU are bad? Ha! They're positive moderates. You haven't met a real communist until you've been called an "imperialist butcher" for defending Finland's resistence against the Soviets in the Winter War.

[7.62FullMetalJacket]

Mr. Tyson,

I hope you are wearing protection when you "interface" with these foreign bodies.

[cloudkiller]

I think that calling Democrats communists is about as accurate as calling conservative Christians like Jesse Helms and John Ashcrof Nazi-sympathizing Fascists. It is an overstatement that extends some of their political beliefs to an extreme they would never support


Here is a similar argument to the one stated originally: A conservative Christian who believes that the government should advance this religious purpose or value system as part of God's plan (as many "christian nationalists" believe) has the following in common with Nazi doctrine:

A belief that the nation has inherent value in an of itself, independent and greater than the value of its citizens (key part of fascist doctrine, slightly different from communist legitimation though ultimately applied to the same effect)

A belief that national destiny is contingent on attaining moral and cultural purity, as determined by promoters of this view.

A belief that the protection of this value system supercedes other guarantees provided to the populace

A belief that a person's value and merit of legal protection is contingent on their ideological, political, social or moral positions.

Ultimately the left will take away your guns and promote the thought police, the "socially conservative" right will take away your right to behave as you will in private and will promote a different thought police.

Woohoo! big difference

[MeekandMild]

IMHO the Democratic party is much more Fascist oriented than Communist oriented. Fascism and Nazism have as their core principle the partnership of government and private industry so that the leaders of the industry can grow wealthy. This is opposed to the Communist State ownership of industry.

Somehow the Democratic propagandists never seem to mention how much money the likes of Warren Buffet and George Soros earn in their relationship with the government. Nor do they mention the vast personal wealth of their politicians.

On the social front several notable Nazi principles are supported by the Dems, the GCA of 1968, the Roe v Wade decision, and politics of affirmative action come to mind.

[Art Eatman]

For me, the word "statist" serves better to separate political thought between types of people. There are those who don't want or need some Big Nanny to provide for them or control them (or others), and there are those who believe that government should do all manner of Good Deeds via the taxpayer's money.

I think this reasonably neutral word allows reasonable breakdown into subsets of beliefs, or for varying degrees, without getting into the emotionalism of the various other "isms".

It also seems a reasonable word for both "liberal" and "conservative" politcal activists or politicians when looking at those who promote ever more government.

Art

[bfason]

Nazi support for the the Roe v Wade decision? The Nazis were not pro-choice.

Abortion was declared an act against the state; the death penalty was introduced in 1943. Under the Weimar Republic, birth control information had been widely disseminated. In 1933 with the election of Hitler, birth control centers were closed and the advertising of contraceptives stopped.

[cracked butt]

Abortion was declared an act against the state; the death penalty was introduced in 1943. Under the Weimar Republic, birth control information had been widely disseminated. In 1933 with the election of Hitler, birth control centers were closed and the advertising of contraceptives stopped

Of course it depends on who you talk to. Hitler of course didn't want future members of his 'master race' to be aborted. On the other hand, it was no big deal to force pregnant Jewish women to have abortions if not have them shot outright.

In America, its liberal middle aged women who are past their child bearing years that haven't had abortions themselves that tend to be the backbone of the pro-abortion contigent, who welcome abortions for poor and minority women.

[7.62FullMetalJacket]

:what:

[Bill Hook]

You haven't met a real communist until you've been called an "imperialist butcher" for defending Finland's resistence against the Soviets in the Winter War.

Obviously these folks have no sense of irony, or much of any other kind, to call defending your country against foreign invasion "imperialism." Heck, I thought foreign invasion to subjugate and colonize another nation WAS imperialism.

Has there ever been a free communist country? Have not all communist countries been run as a totalitarian regime?

Yugoslavia was probably the closest, for whatever that is worth.

[fallingblock]

"Ultimately the left will take away your guns and promote the thought police, the "socially conservative" right will take away your right to behave as you will in private and will promote a different thought police."
************************************************************

That we'd be better off retaining the guns with which to resist the thought police, and that means not supporting the left's agenda as described.:D

[jdege]

I think that calling Democrats communists is about as accurate as calling conservative Christians like Jesse Helms and John Ashcrof Nazi-sympathizing Fascists.


We didn't call Democrats communists - we called the Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus communists. Not all Democrats are communists, but many are.

[MeekandMild]

bfason,

Begging to differ but Hitler swiped most of his ideas on the master race directly from the American eugenics movement. Direct discussion of Roe v Wade is best avoided on this board for obvious reasons. Rather I would redirect you study to the obvious interest in social engineering as expressed by the American "Progressives" and their historical correlates with National Socialism.

Although a hardbound reference such as Robert Jay Lifton's "Nazi Doctors" is more appropriate I pulled a set of web references chosen more or less at random from google which may help illustrate the historical basis of my assertions. http://www.geocities.com/MadisonAvenue/Boardroom/4278/eugenics.htm
http://www.yale.edu/opa/v28.n21/story10.html
http://hnn.us/articles/1796.html

Interesting that this bunch of (progressive) hooligans in Congress would dredge up a word which was so linked to Nazism 60 years ago. :rolleyes:

[jdege]

Socialists, Communists, Progressives, whatever.

They all share the same fundamentally evil idea.

[bfason]

Begging to differ but Hitler swiped most of his ideas on the master race directly from the American eugenics movement.

I understand. There's quite a it bout Margaret Sanger that you will never ever hear about from Planned Parenthood. The full truth about her embrace of eugenics deserves a full hearing by anyone anyone interested.

Nonetheless, it doesn't contradict my point. The Nazis were in fact anti-choice in the area of reproductive freedom - as they were in *all* areas of human freedom. (Please note that with this post I am not taking a position either way on the abortion issue.) They opposed abortion and they shut down sex education and contraceptive clinics. That's all I was saying.

BTW, let me just say that while I have had my arguments with some of the posters to thehighroad.org, those are fraternal disputes with people whose opinion and basic outlook I respect. I hope that one day I actually meet all of you, even - or rather, especially - the members who I have so strongly disagreed with on this board.

[Bob Locke]

Communism can work, but, as was stated before, it has to be voluntary in nature. (Look at the book of Acts in the Bible.)

In reality, there aren't any "communist" governments. Communism is an economic system, not a form of government. "Totalitarian" would be a better term for Stalin's government, as well as many others. And it is this ideal, the supremacy of the state over the sovereignty of the individual, that the Democrats (and the vast majority of the Republcians) support.

[MeekandMild]

bfason the point was already made that the Nazis had different rules for the overlords and the under races. Read Lifton.

Bob, would you agree with the assessment that Communism is state capitalism, where the state owns the means of production? If so, I can't find many instances of this in the US.

Considering more examples of Fascist-like partnership between the State and private industry I recollect the highway paving industry, Medicare, Amtrac, the airlines and the television industry as being examples.

[Bob Locke]

Bob, would you agree with the assessment that Communism is state capitalism, where the state owns the means of production? If so, I can't find many instances of this in the US.
Communism as "capitalism for the benefit of the state". Gonna have to chew on that one for a bit, but I would pretty much agree off the top of my head. And I would be of the opinion that any state that has a prison industry in operation is such an instance.

And you bring up the whole "public-private" cooperative that has been all the rage in the last decade or so. Scary, scary stuff, that. Eisenhower talked about the military industrial complex, and he wasn't a big fan. But most folks these days don't seem to have too big a problem with fleecing the taxpayers for private profits, which are then used to support the politicians who award the contracts in the first place.

Public needs to be public, and private needs to be private, and the more they co-mingle the worse off we're all gonna be.

[MeekandMild]

And I would be of the opinion that any state that has a prison industry in operation is such an instance. I don't believe that is the case. If you read the thirtennth amendment you will find that there is a specific exception for government sanctioned slavery. This preceeded the writings of Karl Marx and Adolph Hitler by a number of years. Slavery has been a human institution for maybe 6000 years, as has been state slavery. Commies and Nazis and Democrats just figured out some new words.

(Amendment XIII

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.)


And you bring up the whole "public-private" cooperative that has been all the rage in the last decade or so. Scary, scary stuff, that.
I didn't bring it up. Mussolini and Hitler brought it up. I just remembered who thunk it. :what:


I hope that one day I actually meet all of you, even - or rather, especially - the members who I have so strongly disagreed with on this board. Dusty streets, sun glaring down, music in the background playing "Do Not forsake Me, Oh my Darling"...nah, I'll pass. :D

[publius]

Communism can work, but, as was stated before, it has to be voluntary in nature.

"From each according to ability, to each according to need."

That's a maxim which is guaranteed to make people conceal their abilities and exaggerate their needs. Unless, of course, the productive people are such saints that they don't mind working as much for everyone else as for themselves. You'd also need the least productive citizens to be a sort who don't mind mooching off those who are more capable, who will work as hard as they are able, and who will not exaggerate their own needs.

It's been tried (http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/1999/Nov-25-Thu-1999/opinion/12426992.html) here. It didn't work (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/797298/posts).

[w4rma]

I don't support communism as I don't think that a democratic-republic communistic governmental system can stay a democratic-republic. IMHO, there needs to be a balance of private power to offset power that a government, no longer acting in the public's interests, could conglomerate and vise versa (in the case of a conglomeration of private power that refuses to work within the public's interest). In fact a government no longer acting in the public's interest could be considered a private power, and that is partially where the "capitalism for the benefit of the state" explanation of communism derives from, IMHO.

Here's my counter-question:
Why do many Republicans support fascism and corporatism?

“Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” -- Benito Mussolini

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.” -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

[MeekandMild]

Here's my counter-question: Why do many Republicans support fascism and corporatism? Republicans? We're talking about Democrats here, particularly the Progressive movement, named after the American fascist/socialist movement of the 1920's. Sure there are Republicans who do some of the same thing but I don't believe they are ideologues espousing fascist principles, rather are opportunists. Perhaps this will help you, taken from a popular "Progressive" webpage.

Those corporate contributors--whose names fill the lists of givers to the DLC and a closely linked political arm, the New Democrat Network--include Bank One, Citigroup, Dow Chemical, DuPont, General Electric, the Health Insurance Corporation of America, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, Occidental Petroleum, Raytheon, and much of the rest of the Fortune 500. http://www.progressive.org/nich1000.htm

[Solinvictus70]

If the neo-conservative mantra is freedom, then why are Republicans consistently for handing power to multi-national corporations? I've recently started eating as organic as I can. Why? Because the entire conflict over genetically modified organisms and farming is about corporate control over our food supply and the individual farmer's livelihood. At this point, a farmer using GMO seeds is agreeing to a limited license to grow the plant for sale. Farms can be litigated into bankruptcy over "unauthorized" use of GMO seed, including holding over to an unpurchased season of planting. Monsanto, the agrichemical giant, produces a GMO potato that is resistant to its Roundup pesticide, so resistant that it contains the chemical itself. The FDA requires the potato to be listed dually as food AND as a pesticide ! What's wrong here? I favor individual freedoms, but the Republicans have allowed corporations to subvert our republic with every action.

[Bob Locke]

I don't believe that is the case. If you read the thirtennth amendment you will find that there is a specific exception for government sanctioned slavery.
I'm not arguing that it's against the Constitution. My point is that putting people to work for the benefit of the state would likely fall under the definition of "communism".

publius,

For that system to work, you would have to have a group of people who totally trusted one another to always do the right thing. And I agree that it isn't gonna happen. But that's not to say that it couldn't, because I believe that, under the right circumstances, it could. But it would have to be on a pretty small scale.

Also, if you think about it, if capitalism were ever stretched to its ultimate end, then one person would own everything! :D

(But because we're all frail human's it's the best system available to us.)

[BigG]

Demos (generally) believe the state is more important than the individual and the masses (Useful Idiots, per Lenin) are willing to give up rights to get state granted benefits. The blokes in power (or would be in power) are truly evil and seek destruction of the US as we know it. We are the world, and all that... :barf:

[dustind]

Communism is the next step after democratic ideas. The only difference between a few "saftey nets" and communism is the amount of money taken by force.

[MeekandMild]

All you boys and girls who like to track campaign contributions might like to visit http://www.opensecrets.org/ I thought about spinning Monsanto's contributions to Gore, Gephardt et cetera but the truth is they maybe have been spending more on Republicans than Democrats recently.

It occurs to me though that talking about ideology and expediency is talking about 2 different things...

Bob Locke, that is a good point. Now for the next question, is Communism a subset of slavery or is slavery a subset of Communism or are they the same or are they not related? My conjecture is Communism is just one subset within the universe of slavery. Fascism is another subset, chattel slavery another and wage slavery yet another.

[Bob Locke]

"Slavery", to me, indicates a total lack of choice on the part of the indentured person. I have a tough time equating that with most of the ideas you connected it with.

An ideal communist society (which, as I said before, I don't think can exist due to human frailties) would essentially be the same as a capitalist one without the exchange medium of a hard currency. Each person would place equal value on the contributions of other people, and would render service to them in kind.

But, as was mentioned before, it's a real recipe for people to underachieve. Where's the incentive for someone to attend medical or dental school when they can be a street sweeper and reap similar benefits from the society?

[Glock Glockler]

...wage slavery

Contradiction in terms, mon ami. One cannot be a slave and at the same time earm a wage, as wages are only the product of voluntary exchange between two parties.

[MeekandMild]

I will admit to borrowing concepts from the Left (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincolns/nation/es_wages.html) when I mention Wage Slavery (http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery). But despite the questionable origin of the word and the arguable concept I think that coercion plays a greater role than we would espect in the world of labor and finance.

Concerning the concept of total lack of control, I would ask you to consider the old Roman system of slavery. Slaves were captured in Gaul and brought involuntarily to rome. Their wills were broken but once they were actually in subjugation there were many who stayed of their "own free will" rather than running away. Freedom faded for them and they preferred to stay in Rome as slaves to going back to the provinces. The idea of the Stockholm Syndrome comes to mind by way of explanation why a person would not continue to fight against his enslavers.

Where's the incentive for someone to attend medical or dental school when they can be a street sweeper and reap similar benefits from the society? Appears others have this idea in this age of socialized medical care, which is why you seldom find a doctor who can speak English.

[grampster]

Bob Locke,

Your earlier remarks about "capitalism for the benefit of the state" and
..."public-private cooperatives..." and ..."fleecing the taxpayers for private profits..." sort of reminds me of the "Charter School" phenomenon or the "Privatization" of many govenment duties argument but forth by many conservatives.

Oddly, most of my observations regarding charter schools and the privatization of nominal government responsibilities seems to show that activity working better than having those chores remaining institutionalized by the government as they have been. Seems like sort of an irony that for-profit companies are able to be more efficient and cost effective, yet the taxpayer supports the activities. Maybe this is nothing more than a hybrid of tax shelter or tax credit scheme put forth by the government in the past under a new name?!

[harpethriver]

Saw a book by Al Franken the other day. It was titled "True Stories I have Told". Didn't take long to read-opened it up and the pages were empty.

[MeekandMild]

Seems like sort of an irony that for-profit companies are able to be more efficient and cost effective, yet the taxpayer supports the activities. I think its a truism that taxpayers will always support more government benefits instead of private enterprise. This seems to be a valid observation for Rome during the Imperium, Spain in the 1500's, England in the 1700's as well as modern societies. Somehow they are under the mass delusion that each one of them can individually pay fewer taxes and get more benefits than his buddy.

The best way to have a less invasive government seems be to keep it poor.

[7.62FullMetalJacket]

MeeandMild wrote

under the mass delusion that each one of them can individually pay fewer taxes and get more benefits than his buddy

The only race you can win by losing, as in being less productive. :cuss:

Can we say Prescription Drug Benefit? And they did not even pay for that one!

[gburner]

What's the difference between Republicans and Democrats?........

Under the Democrats, the party uses some segments of society to hold others back.

Under the Republicans, it's just the opposite.:D

[mountainclmbr]

I happen to agree that there should be some sort of anti-trust laws to prevent monopolies in business.

But, with the government taking so much of my money for things I don't agree with. And with a majority of voters not having to pay for the things politicians promise, there is something wrong in the government that I don't see as much in business right now.

Frankly, I don't want to be controlled by a big business or by the government. I see the bigest threat to my personal liberties coming from the parts of our government that want to ignore the restrictions placed on it by the constitution. The Republicans are not blameless. The Democrats hold most of the blame though for trying to stack the judiciary with judges that will interpret away the limitations on government power and protection of personal rights. Totalitarian power is bad no matter if it is communism or fascism.

[HBK]

I agree with that, but it seems that Demorats, in genereal, lie more. They can tell the truth, that they want to kill unborn children, take more of our hard earned money for taxes, and gut our miltary. They would never get elected.

[mountainclmbr]

Sometimes I think that my only reason for being here is to toil for the government. I don't believe for a minute that it isn't slavery unless all of my money is taken. High taxes take away a lot of my freedom. The government even taxes me for keeping my own property...and if I can no longer afford to pay the taxes, the government will forcefully take my property.

To those who think that it is not slavery if the government does not take 100% of my income.... that it is not slavery if I am working voluntarily...I ask this: What is the threshold then? Is it not slavery if I am allowed to keep 1% and the government takes 99%? Is it not slavery if my property is seized the moment I can no longer afford to pay the taxes on it? Is my property more mine or more the governments? I could argue that under traditional slavery the work was also voluntary to a degree. The results of not working were more severe under traditional slavery, but it was a voluntary tradeoff just as it is now.

Right here I am declaring that I am 50% a slave. Toiling half time for da man.

[Hutch]

There is a belief among some authoritarian/leftists that individuals must be protected from Big Business by Big Government. For the life of me, I can't recall any group of MicroSoft employees kicking in doors and making Linux users "Cease and Desist" at gunpoint. Given the choice, I'll take my chances with having Big Business, any day.

[mountainclmbr]

HBK...I have to agree with you that Democrats seem to lie more. After all, they are the party of ambulance chasers and defense attorneys. They don't want to punish criminals, but want to go after the money of people who work for a living.

I got myself an education and I work hard. I have only had one new car in my life and that was in 1983...20 years ago. I have seen plenty of people in the grocery store that pay with food stamps and then load their groceries into brand new cars. What is wrong with this picture?

[BigG]

Mountainclmbr: What's wrong with this picture?

You are viewing the backbone of the dumocrat party who feel no shame to sell their (vote) soul for a bowl of pottage (grits). Wasn't there a story in the Bible sompin along those lines? :evil:

[mercedesrules]

Democracy is communism "lite" and will lead to the real thing.

[HBK]

That picture shows why we should abandon our welfare system. When people know they aren't going to get benefits for free, they are more likely to work for it. I can't stand the fact that I busted my ??? to earn an education and to make money and see free loaders getting food stamps and buying new cars. SO much of my tax money goes to the government that it does feel like I'm working for da man. It's worse elsewhere, though.

[MeekandMild]

What gburner said! :neener:

Right here I am declaring that I am 50% a slave. Toiling half time for da man. Mounty, you'd be shocked, totally shocked if you crunched the numbers for Antebellum cotton farming slavery in the deep south. IIRC the calculation involves the number of man-days for planting, cultivating and harvesting cotton, plus the shared labor for clearing fields, repairing roads, et cetera. Fieldhands worked about 35%-40% of their workdays for their owners and 60%-65% for themselves.

If we go a little further in Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine to the time of Medieval Lairds and Serfs we find the Serf had to give between 10% and 15% of his work time for shared tasks and 15%-25% of his harvest. :banghead:

So you'd be better off picking cotton or shoveling pig **** and letting the Master or Laird impregnate your daughters.

[whoisjohngalt]

As the Democratic and Republican parties continue to morph and each move toward the direction of collectivism, albeit at differing speeds and each with their own "rationale" for the moves, the basic premise of Communism/Socialism remains the same: that Man must exist for the sake of the State.

In large measure, it is the success of the "collectivist" class warfare message; that individual personal success is only achieved at the expense of others and that every successful person has achieved their success by hurting another.
The Statists/Communists/Collectivists use obedience, conformity, submission and intellectual laziness to achieve their ultimate goal of the destruction of our Independence. If they succeed, it will be by default.

[SIGarmed]

She attributes statements to The New York Times editorial page which actually were statements made by various news figures which ran in news articles in The Times.

You mean the Times doesn't have editors who control what goes in the paper? You said these statements ran in "news" articles. Editorials aren't news.

Did you make an error? If you didn't she did nothing wrong.