Say NO to commie chic

[evan price]

Kentak:

sanjuro--

Are you still fed up? I'm not.

Ah, looking at that poster, I am reminded, of my Karl Marx: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

Me needs her...abilities!

 

[Byron Quick]

Gordon,

When I meet one of the party faithful, I simply ask one question: Please name one, just one communist regime that did not murder its own citizens not just for opposition or dissent but citizens who might be totally loyal and it was simply the expedient course.

Socialism is nothing but the precursor to communism which is a precursor to the gulag-the pragmatic communists choice, why devote resources to gassing your citizens when you can work them to death at a profit?

 

[DRZinn]

Words are defined by common usage. What a word meant long ago is irrelevant.

Like, for example, "regulated?"

OK, what a word meant long ago is irrelevant when the word is used now. What a word in a document means is, of course, what it meant to the people who wrote the document.

how shall we discuss these political and economic subjects? Must I always say “community-property anarchy” or “centralized planning of state-owned industries”?

Obviously, if you're discussing the issue with someone who's aware of the distinction, you can use the separate terms. Just be aware that this does not include most people.

 

[Gordon Fink]

Hence my attempts at educating my would-be allies in the RKBA struggle. Every time one of us screams about the “commies” wanting to take our guns, we betray our collective political ignorance.

Back on topic, I think this last batch of “commie gear” is pretty cool.

~G. Fink

 

[dev_null]

how shall we discuss these political and economic subjects?

Context, set and setting, environment, audience... all those things that are also a part of communication.

When my friend Mark says, "that was BAD!" it means something quite different from when I tell the dog "that was BAD!" If we were in an academic setting and discussing economic philosophies, it would be appropriate to be formalist about the use of the term "Communist." On this forum, in this context, and among these participants, it's pedantic.

Oh, and I got a kick out of the shirt as well.

 

[Gordon Fink]

Agree on the shirt but not the pedantry.

Few, if any, understand me whenever I make this point, so I’m not surprised. Their fear and hatred of [centralized planning of state-owned industries] is apparently too strong. Of course, if they did understand, we probably wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with, which is why I struggle on.

~G. Fink

 

[Justin]

Their fear and hatred of [centralized planning of state-owned industries] is apparently too strong.

You can't possibly have centrally-planned, state-owned industries without first confiscating them from someone at gunpoint.

 

[Gordon Fink]

Not usually, which is why we should oppose revolutionary socialism. Unfortunately, gun-control legislation is one method of doing so.

~G. Fink

 

[texascarl]

http://che-mart.com/

Say what you want about Marx and his derivatives (Karl AND Groucho) and how some animals are more equal than others. But nobody can deny that Che sells a lot of teeshirts.

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

Gordon,

When I meet one of the party faithful, I simply ask one question: Please name one, just one communist regime that did not murder its own citizens not just for opposition or dissent but citizens who might be totally loyal and it was simply the expedient course.

He didn't answer you, did he Byron?

 

[Gordon Fink]

But nobody can deny that Che sells a lot of teeshirts.

That’s a good one.

~G. Fink

 

[gopguy]

To the would-be communist, your hateful condemnation of Stalinism comes off as fear and ignorance.

To me and anyone who has looked at history the would be communist is a thing of ignorance....... I mean how stupid can you be to assume you have the right to take someone elses property......good way to get yourself shot. Those advocating communism or wearing a Che T shirt or any of this commie crap needs to be ridiculed for the dangerous fools they are.

Hence my attempts at educating my would-be allies in the RKBA struggle. Every time one of us screams about the “commies” wanting to take our guns, we betray our collective political ignorance.

I am sorry but I hear Charles Schumer,Hillary Clinton,Teddy Kennedy, Joe Biden, etc.....spouting marxist class warfare BS.......and they want to take my guns. Collective ignorance is gun owners who vote democratic and are surprised when you see an avalanche of anti gun legislation pour down up us.... .

Liberalism, like its failed older sibling communism, needs to be pitched upon the ash heap of history.

 

[Gordon Fink]

He didn’t answer you, did he Byron?

Because, as I’ve made abundantly clear, I’m not “one of the party faithful.”

Communist Parties (when in power, anyway) have killed millions. Sometimes it was intentional—Stalin was notorious for this—and sometimes it was an accident of bad policy (Mao’s “Great Leap Forward,” for example).

But that returns me to my point. You keep decrying these misapplications of “Marxist” theory while usually failing to discuss the inherent problems of correctly applied socialism or communism. Not even our Schumers and Clintons want to bring back Stalinism.

~G. Fink

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

You keep decrying these misapplications of “Marxist” theory while usually failing to discuss the inherent problems of correctly applied socialism or communism.

Let me see... and I repeat....

100 Million People dead

Add the 10 million or so the Nazis killed, since they were Socialists, as well...

Hmm.

What a brave experiment ...

and none of these regimes "correctly" applied the wonders of Socialism and Communism? They had over 100 years to do it.

What would the correct application of these wondrous systems buy us? 200 million dead? 300 million dead?

 

[Gordon Fink]

I’m not sure how many deaths would result from a correct application of socialism. I suspect there would mostly just be a lot of poverty, from our perspective.

Incidentally, the Nazis may have been “National Socialists,” but they were essentially fascists. In fact, Nazi Germany was anti-communist, hence the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936. The state was supreme, but private property still existed.

~G. Fink

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

Yes, they were anti-communists, because early on the Communists were in competition with them for power in Germany. They still were Socialists.

Capitalists and Christian religious leaders weren't exactly their favorites, either.

 

[Gordon Fink]

Which private firms did Nazi Germany take over?

~G. Fink

 

[Art Eatman]

gordon, if individual sovereignty is of no importance, then socialism/communism looks good on paper. The big problem is that "people" includes the lazy and irresponsible as well as the ambitious sort. "People" includes those of authoritative bent, or who have a strong desire to be bosses--and some percentage of bosses abuse their power.

Human nature just flat-out doesn't fit socialism/communism. We got enough trouble with the much freer system of capitalism.

A lazy guy ain't gonna produce as much as a hard-working guy. That's the end of "From each, according to his abilities." But, a lazy guy eats just as much as the hard worker, which chaps the hard worker when he thinks of "To each, according to his needs."

And so the hard worker sez to hell with it and goes lazy.

Any socioeconomic system that doesn't let a hardworking guy get ahead of the drones is, sooner or later, gonna fail. All ya gottas do is look at the USSR. And Cuber. Ya ain't goin' nowhere with a country full of drones.

Art

 

[KINGMAX]

I say the Bolivian Special Forces did a good job

I don't know what was so great about a murderer that would run across a border, kill a few men and run back into hiding. Sorta sounds like the same stuff going on today. The call it 'Revolution - Guerrilla Milita style'

If the CIA gives you a ROLEX watch w/ a serial # on it, give it away.

Lyndon B. Johnson knew all about that one. Anyone know about the contents of a cigar box that was delievered to LBJ in the middle of October 1967.

 

[Gordon Fink]

[G]ordon, if individual sovereignty is of no importance, then socialism/communism looks good on paper. The big problem is that “people” includes the lazy and irresponsible as well as the ambitious sort. “People” includes those of authoritative bent, or who have a strong desire to be bosses—and some percentage of bosses abuse their power.

I’m not so sure about that first bit, but you’re definitely on target with the rest. Now, the Marxist will argue that a period of socialism or even socialist dictatorship will condition the people to be responsible and productive within a communist system. In fact, per Marx, the people will come to accept communism so completely that the state and government as we understand it will fade away altogether, leaving a community of material plenty and individual freedom.

How does an authoritarian socialist state transform itself into a libertarian communist anarchy? If, like me, you can’t answer this question, then I think you’ve recognized the fundamental flaw in Marxism, regardless of whether or not communism is possible as a working socio-economic system.

~G. Fink

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

How about IG Farben?

ever heard of Zyklon B?

If the folks at IG weren't government stooges, why were they tried by the Allies?

Gordon, it seems from your posts you feel that Communism/Marxism is:

A. a valid economic system

and/or

B. another form of government which may be accepted as such

and/or

C. a philosophy worth studying and improving upon so it will work better.

I, on the other hand, believe that Communism is pure evil, not just from my upbringing and education, but from discussions with those who have lived under the system.

I will not comment further on this thread, but I leave saying that there were a lot more than the Rosenbergs who should have been sought out and executed in this Nation. Oh, and if you doubt their guilt read the Verona Files.

 

[American By Blood]

Gordon Fink-

Your analysis of Marx's utopian end of history gets us into a hotly debated point of Marxist ideology (as I'm sure you're well aware). As you stated, some Marxists believe that the authoritarian state will wither away and leave behind a self-managing collective of free men prepared to simultaneously accept their place within the whole and exercize almost unlimited personal freedom.

Other Marxists, however, read Marx's theory of historical evolution (especially the movement from industrial capitalism to the dictatorship of the proletariat and finally to true communism) as being a conditioning process whereby man transcends freedom and individuality. These communists agree that the state will indeed die naturally, but it will leave behind a self-managing collective of people who are seamlessly integrated into the whole and for whom individual liberty is of no concern. (See Eugene Zamiatin's "We" for an excellent critique of that proposed scenario)

Looking at historical trends it's hard to disagree with the latter camp. Increased industrialization, urbanization, communication, travel, and the greater interdependence they require/create have through the ages eroded every aspect of personal sovereignty and if society continues to move in its present direction some form of mass colectivism seems almost inevitable. Marx would agree. However, if that process becomes centrally managed and enforced it's difficult to see how it would prepare men to take full control over their own lives. If some of a set of conditions has made us the pathetic whelps we are today, why would even more of it turn us into Übermenschen?

It's also worth noting that the main passage cited by Marxists of the first camp to support their ideas is the "...hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner..." discussion from "The German Ideology". Being that this was an almost entirely polemical work with a major goal of drawing people away from individualism (Max Stirner's "The Ego and Its Own" was published the previous year and was generating much discussion) it's difficult not to wonder whether this portrayal of the end of history was disingenuous.