Communism vs. firearms

[Titan6]

If history has shown us anything communism not only does not work but is literally impossible to implement on a national level. Someone always takes over and turns it into an authortarian state.

Even on a local level it is a failure as to get it up and running requires bringing in outside resources and relying on state provided resources to maintain the system. And then the same thing happens anyway.

 

[Lucky]

Wooderson how do you reconcile communism with human rights and freedoms?

You can have a society of rights, or a society of needs.

Take your pick.

 

[Justin]

Like that. God forbid someone treat political ideology they don't support (nb: I'm not, politically, a Marxist, nor a communist, nor etc.) as anything but an easy punchline or a bogeyman.

Marxism is inherently the punchline of what would be a truly funny joke (loser blows inherited fortune, then hallucinates up a completely unworkable view of economic theory to justify it) if not for all the deaths that have resulted from it.

Regardless, the refrain of so many who adhere to socialist ideals is that "nononono...RussiaRomaniaCubaNorthKoreaEastGermanyEtc. weren't truly examples of my ideology which requires that the means of production cannot be privately ownedblahblahblah."

On its very face this is an example of the "No True Scotsman" logical fallacy.

That it is so easy to execute a headshot on the zombie that is centralized-state thinking isn't my fault.

Would it make you feel better if I were to couch my criticisms of Marxism/Communism/Socialism/Etc. in language imbued with the utmost gravitas?

 

[wooderson]

Wooderson how do you reconcile communism with human rights and freedoms?

I'm not a communist. I thought I made that pretty clear.

Now, how would a 'communist' reconcile these things? By saying that 'communism' (which, again, you're going to need to be specific - Leninist, Trotskyite, Stalinist, Maoist or perhaps even a throwback honest to god unadulterated 'Marxist') reconciles the needs of the many with the needs of the few. Inequality is theft, putting everyone on the same plane ensures an equal amount of freedom for all, etc..

It's the same way that a Rand acolyte argues that the greatest net freedom is found in allowing the few to 'excel' as much as they can even if others are left behind.

You can have a society of rights, or a society of needs.

That means absolutely nothing.

 

[Titan6]

Inequality is theft, putting everyone on the same plane ensures an equal amount of freedom for all

How would that look?

The world Today:

:banghead:


The world on communism:

 

[wooderson]

Marxism is inherently the punchline of what would be a truly funny joke (loser blows inherited fortune, then hallucinates up a completely unworkable view of economic theory to justify it) if not for all the deaths that have resulted from it.

This is absurd, akin to blaming the Bible for millions of deaths or the Qu'ran... or guns. Theory is inanimate - it is only what is made of it.

The only way you can blame theory is if you can find explicit and undeniable exhortation to commit the deeds in question. This does not exist in pre-Leninist theory any more than the Peter, Paul, Matthew, John (and Ringo) justified the Spanish Inquisition. And for those who don't subscribe to Lenin's theories (or those who came after), it doesn't apply at all. (And really, talking theory, it would only apply to Mao. Stalin was notably devoid of theorizing, Lenin never called for murder even if you want argue he participated in it.)

Regardless, the refrain of so many who adhere to socialist ideals is that "nononono...RussiaRomaniaCubaNorthKoreaEastGermanyEtc. weren't truly examples of my ideology which requires that the means of production cannot be privately ownedblahblahblah."

On its very face this is an example of the "No True Scotsman" logical fallacy.

I know you just discovered a new term and everything, but you might actually look into what that fallacy is and how it relates to accepted and contested definitions.

You might even look into the site where you learned the phrase. Particularly the final paragraph.

Now, if you can find evidence of some form of hidden groupthink, or that what I've said about divisions among 'socialist' ideologies and histories to be untrue, you've got the start of a case.

But you can't, because everything I said is fact.

Would it make you feel better if I were to couch my criticisms of Marxism/Communism/Socialism/Etc. in language imbued with the utmost gravitas?

I'd settle for a lack of willful ignorance.

You don't seem to feel that one can voice valid and reasonable arguments against 'communism' (or socialism or individual ideologies) without simply denying oneself the chance to understand them.

Sometimes I wonder if the desire to understand or the indifference to the same lies in the underlying software of our brains. It's not a left-right issue - I've known lefties who get pissy when you start to question the sources of racism and on the right it seemed that if you had any desire to rebuild the long chain of events that led to 9/11, you were a terrorist symp. Racists are just born wrong or raised wrong, there's no rationale to their feelings. And terrorists are just born evil, out to destroy us all, nothing rational factors into their decisions. I find that viewpoint distressingly simplistic.

 

[wooderson]

How would that look?

The world Today:

If you were to reduce it to pictographs, given the situation of Russia in 1917, the Bolshevik would go with the percentages:



etc..

 

[Dravur]

Sorry....

Human nature alert... Human nature alert...

There never EVER, ever, EVER will be a true communist state, or stateless area. It aint gonna happen. There will ALWAYS be people who can do more, and are worth more than others. Sorry, Is a heart surgeon worth more than a guy who digs ditches. Of course. Is it fair? yep. The skill sets are different. They are worth differing amounts. They are worth whatever someone is willing to pay them.

There is a clearing price for jobs in an country. Since there are few people who can be heart surgeons and they are in high demand, they are paid more. Simple as that. and they should be. A guy who pumps gas at the local Stop and Rob itakes the job he is suited for. He has a clearing price for his job. If he does not take that job, the Stop and Rob can hire another for that same money. If they cannot, they must raise their offer. The gas pumper does not have a skill that makes him a desirable commodity.

There is nothing in the constitution or the DOI that guarantees the outcome for someone's life. They do guarantee the ability to pursue happiness. However you like. You may not get it, but you are allowed to pursue it.

So, to the purists who believe that yes, Tabitha, there is a Communist Santa Claus, tough toenails! It simply will never work and happily is dying a death around the world.

Just remember, when the walls go up on socialist and communist countries, which way do the climbers come from?

 

[Titan6]

Yep and in 1951 behind the Iron Curtain we had:



X X X X X X X :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: (Hungary)

 

[wooderson]

Yep and in 1951 behind the Iron Curtain we had:

Undoubtedly. (But Hungary was '56.)

 

[Art Eatman]

Dravur's pretty much said my view of the reality vs. the "on paper".

Thre will always be those who are slackers, and those who just seem to be the "Gotta work!" type. Some are going to try to glom on to what somebody else produced. Etc, etc. Thre is just no way that the idea of "everybody's equal" will work.

Sure, you can try to legislate equality of opportunity, but in the true on-paper Communist state there's no legislature. And nobody can do zippedy-doo-dah about equality of results, no matter what laws are passed in a Statist-run state.

I don't really see why there's any real argument about socio-political systems. All ya gotta do is look at your daily newsrag about what events are happening around the world. Stop and look at GDP, governmental structure and the way of ruling, and then do some comparing. It's pretty obvious that those with the most freedom for Joe Sixpack to do business and bootstrap himself upward is the most physically comfortable and generally safest country.

Art

 

[Gordon Fink]

I haven’t read most of this thread, but I will assume that it contains a few brilliant gems lost in the usual steaming pile of ignorance on this subject—which means most of you are wrong.

In a true communist society, I would simply retrieve any firearm I needed from the communal armory, if I weren’t too busy goofing off in some other fashion that is. In any case, I certainly wouldn’t be working very hard most of the time.

~G. Fink

 

[Justin]

The only way you can blame theory is if you can find explicit and undeniable exhortation to commit the deeds in question. This does not exist in pre-Leninist theory any more than the Peter, Paul, Matthew, John (and Ringo) justified the Spanish Inquisition.

So, I'm mistaken in my belief that Marx pointed out that the workers were to have a revolution in which they would seize the means of production?

I know you just discovered a new term and everything, but you might actually look into what that fallacy is and how it relates to accepted and contested definitions.

You might even look into the site where you learned the phrase. Particularly the final paragraph.

Ah, yes, since I don't agree with you, any sort of terminology I use must be something I dug up on Google just this morning.

You rock.

Now, if you can find evidence of some form of hidden groupthink, or that what I've said about divisions among 'socialist' ideologies and histories to be untrue, you've got the start of a case.

But you can't, because everything I said is fact.

Well, only insofar as this statement:

It's a fact that at no point in history have 'socialists' in general supported Bolshevism, Stalinism, Maoism et al. and before those there was never a consensus in favor of Marxism. Or even a consensus about what Marxism was. And once you get past individual ideologies to the catch-all 'Marxist' you've got sociological Marxists who aren't political Marxists and vice versa.

Is true. But it ultimately amounts to nothing more than semantic goalpost moving so far as I can tell.

But more to the point of the thread, no one here has presented evidence that gun ownership would be more liberal under a Communist form of government (other than some mythological ideal that is, perpetually five years away.)

 

[Lucky]

Wooderson, I realize that you are simply playing Devil's advocate, but I'm projecting my own deficiencies on you. When I was in college it was very socialist, it was sort of a running joke that Socialism was not successful, but in the background there was always the implied suggestion that it was the best way. It wasn't for a couple years after finishing my time that I realized that I was wrong to accept such a notion.

Honest to God, this is what at least half of the professors believed; as one put it: "There's equality of rights, and equality of opportunity. Bill Gates and a homeless person have the same rights, and neither has the right to sleep on a park-bench, but it doesn't affect Bill Gates the same way it affects the homeless."

Now I know that it's wrong to even allow such statements to be made and go unchallenged. What that statement says is that the person with the most need has the most 'rights'. Your rights are no longer inalienable.

It really is a zero-sum game, rights versus needs.

 

[ctdonath]

Except that there are logical and historical reasons for the differentiation ... . Socialism is no more a uniform ideology than 'capitalism.'

Socialism and capitalism both have basic principles which are identifiable and compatible with reality. They may not be uniform ideologies, yet they have definitions which help us identify & label working systems. You know what those are ... so stop trying to dilute & obfuscate the discussion that way. Defending communism by un-defining socialism and capitalism is a cop-out.

The upshot is there IS a basic premise/ideology/definition to communism - and it doesn't work in reality.
Capitalism happens. At minimum, there will always be black markets.
Socialism happens. People like telling others what to do.
Communism DOESN'T happen. Proponents always fall back on "but it has never really been tried"; well that's because it is unworkable despite innumerable attempts.
BTW: Anarchism doesn't work either. It happens, but only due to social breakdown; people invariably seek the order needed to facilitate capitalism, and invariably try to control others via socialism. Order happens.

 

[Gordon Fink]

Oh, socialism works all right. It’s just miserably inefficient and expensive. Communism, on the other hand, is more like wishful thinking.

~G. Fink

 

[ctdonath]

...and because "true communism" is wishful thinking, those who want to enact it find that to do so requires acquiring weapons to enforce it, and disarming the subjects to ensure they can't say "no", and punishing unto death anyone who tries to get out - which looks an awful lot like the "failed attempts" supporters try to excuse.

 

[Gordon Fink]

Yep. It makes much more sense that communism could evolve from libertarian capitalism than from socialist dictatorship. In either case, though, it would seem to require an impossibly high level of economic efficiency.

Otherwise, that communal armory will be mostly empty.

~G. Fink

 

[Chui]

If you'd read Marx in the French (or purchase the book titled World Revolution by Nesta Webster) you'd see that what we've been given to know about "Communism" and "Socialism" is FALSE.

Communism is the mechanism by which there could be a "One World Gov't" ( a New World Order, if you will). In the French (for whatever reasons) letters from Marx, etc. do exist.

The results of Communism (a misnomer, btw) that we've witnessed are EXACTLY AS PLANNED. The dupes are to believe that "true communism is a worthy goal" and "socialism is noble", but in the French Marx speaks horribly of the petit bourgeois - he derogatorily calls them "petty shop owners" and allies himself with... THE ELITE.

Communism seeks a WORLD REVOLUTION in which the Elite (as defined by the Communists, of course) will own everything since THEY & THEY ONLY are "the State".

 

[wooderson]

Defending communism by un-defining socialism and capitalism is a cop-out.

Economic 'communism' (which, again, is a remarkably vague and often useless term in and of itself) is a subset of 19th-century 'socialism' - both in definition and in history, just as anarcho-syndicalism or social democracy are (though the latter has, since the end of WWII, strayed enough that it would make both socialists and social Democrats uncomfortable to point to common ancestry).

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Software

I write software.

I also write firmware.

Some of you will appreciate the difference.

Some of you run Windows, others run Unix/Linux, others run MacOS.

Now, for people who write firmware, the actual hardware matters a great deal. There are things you can do on (X) that just will not work on (Y). There are things you can do on small hardware that just plain will not scale to work on big hardware. And vice versa.

People who write software are once-removed (usually) from the hardware, and get to write to a "hardware abstraction" and have more freedom to ignore the shortcomings of their hardware.

Some of us in the software business actually take pains to accommodate what we know to be the limitations of the hardware, even though the OS (Windows) should allow us to ignore that stuff.

When we pay attention to the limitations of the hardware and don't just arrogantly write to some "ideal" (virtual) machine, we get software that performs well and does productive things.

When we pretend that there is infinite speed or that there are infinite memory and storage resources, we wind up with stuff that crashes, hangs, grinds, loses data (kinda like Windows).

Relevance?

Socialism is a set of meta-instructions for programming a society. It makes certain assumptions about the "hardware" on which it will be running, and these assumptions are flawed enough that there is pretty much no real environment where it will successfully execute.

Likewise communism.

Likewise anarchism.

Some of this stuff works only on a small scale. It simply won't scale up, given the "hardware" considerations.

Some of it looks great on the board, but the moment you try to implement it at the "machine" level, it breaks.

And so, you get the academic argument that "if we just had the right machine (hardware) this thing would run." Accompanied by assertions that "it's a resource problem; once we have enough memory/disk/CPU we'll have a killer application."

I don't care how great the theory is and how well it works in simulation.

When you have to implement it in the real world, you can't ignore the hardware, the environment, the inputs, the outputs, the heat, power fluctuations, and so on.

You have to implement for the real world.

Socialism and communism and anarchism simply don't run on the available hardware in the real world.

And the real world isn't interested in being turned into a "simulator" just to prove such a system can run.

And trying to coerce the world into that mode won't work: the hardware has ideas of its own.

You can only run software that the hardware will accept.

Or it will fight back.

Unless you disarm it.

 

[Art Eatman]

Sorta feel sorry for pore ol' Marx. For all his sincerity, his unawareness of the real world outside his cubbyhole meant that all his ideas were hooey.

He had the Malthusian view of population and food supply, just as the industrial revolution was getting seriously underway. He had no clue as to the benefits of mass production and interchangeable parts. And, of course, his whole deal really fell apart when independent, entrepreneurial capitalists came up with cars and plastics and airplanes and computers.

To throw a little spirituality into it: In order that there be progress, the spirit of man must be free to pursue numerous wrong paths as well as correct ones. Communism and Socialism and most all the other isms stultify the spirit of man.

Ya gotta be free to go broke as well as get rich. Heck, "Macy's" was that man's seventh effort, after six "went brokes".

Personally, IMO, anybody who's a firm believer in any "ism" and strongly argues for it is mostly doing mental masturbation. Nothing wrong in dreaming it up and thinking about it, but life's too short to fall in love with uglies.

Art

 

[freakazoid]

The results of Communism (a misnomer, btw) that we've witnessed are EXACTLY AS PLANNED. The dupes are to believe that "true communism is a worthy goal" and "socialism is noble", but in the French Marx speaks horribly of the petit bourgeois - he derogatorily calls them "petty shop owners" and allies himself with... THE ELITE.

Not all communists are Marxists, not all communists are Leninists, not all communists are Marxists-Leninists, not all communists are Trots, etc. etc.

Communism seeks a WORLD REVOLUTION in which the Elite (as defined by the Communists, of course) will own everything since THEY & THEY ONLY are "the State".

How many times do I have to say it. Communism is STATELESS. There is no "Elite"

 

[Kaylee]

Oh you can say it as much as you like, it just doesn't change the fact that it never works out that way.

If any kind of collectivist system truly worked, we'd still have loads of communes still around this country left over from the 60's and 70's. In the real world, people got disenchanted and left when they realized the whole "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" just didn't work out to well. Some folks were lazy and didn't do anything. Others saw they were being leeched off of. So the folks with a work ethic up and left, and the communes died when the layabouts outnumbered the workers.

The only way to prevent any communist society from dying* is to stop people from leaving. And that's when you get an elite, and enforcers, and all the other hallmarks of those other attempts that apparently just weren't the "right" kind of communism.

Saying collectivism would really truly work this time if only it's done the "right" way is like saying that a rock would fly if you just paint it the right color.

-K


* with real people I mean, not some mythical "New Man."

 

[Titan6]

This is the strangest thread I have seen in a long time. Years ago I quit watching Bill Oreilly after he had William Bennett on to debate the merits of gay marriage. It was really funny. While I don't have much of an opin on the subject it was quite clear that they both hated the idea and the debate was a farce.