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Old 12-27-2008, 01:43 AM
 
Location: toronto, Canada
773 posts, read 1,212,906 times
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My quick response to the question posed.
It would depend on the communist.
Communism in itself isn't evil, however its a utopian concept based on ideas that have been refuted by human behavior and ignores the individual will.
Any decent form of government respects the need and rights of subjective choice for its citizens and should do its best to protect the liberties of man.
Governments for the people must protect the right to allow not restrict events.
In communism you have a paradox whereas while the aim was a classless, stateless society. The labor theory of value required by communism is eternal class struggle between a bourgeoisie and worker otherwise known as permanent revolution aka proletarian internationalism.
Yes I'm aware there are other schools of communism however Leninism, Stalinism and Maoism b.st.rdize Marxist theory.
I find it interesting as a libertarian and opposed to communism, I share some similar philosophies of individualist anarchism with Karl Marx. However our means to an end are different.
We both share a support for voluntary co-operative ideas, in my case Amish communities; the one place I break from Ayn Rand and the Objectivists.
However unlike Marx I still believe the forceful coercive hand of government remains the biggest threat to individual desires and values.
Where Marx and I have nothing in common is economic theory. Marx based his theories on the thoughts of Aristotle, Rousseau, Hegel whereas libertarians look towards Bastiat, Rothbard, John Stewart Mills, and Ludwig von Mises.
Long story short communists are collectivists, libertarians are individualists.
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Old 12-27-2008, 08:41 AM
 
Location: Michigan
12,711 posts, read 13,441,805 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by msconnie73 View Post
That's just it. For a communistic society to work, dissent needs to be silenced and oppressed. This is contrary to a democracy. Why would people voluntarily choose to give government all of that power and control over allotting resources as our politicians have proven time and time again that they cannot balance a budget?
That's true--and the irony is that people who traded liberty for communism, didn't really get communism either. They got an omnipotent bureaucratic state instead. Communists used to excuse their actions by saying "you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs", but one wit pointed out that while everyone saw the broken eggs, nobody had ever tasted the omelet.
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Old 12-27-2008, 08:46 AM
 
2,223 posts, read 2,208,665 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hhe1982 View Post
I don't understand, I think it is only about tyranny government or democratic government. Not communist or capitalist things/
I don't necessarily believe "communist is evil".

But I do believe that communism is a form of economics & governance that does not work.

You cannot "bring up the bottom" by destroying the top. You only lower both.
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Old 12-27-2008, 09:50 AM
 
1,175 posts, read 1,781,176 times
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Communism is a political and economic pseudo-philosophy based entirely on VENGEANCE and is therefore TOTALLY evil.
Communism is a political and economic method to strip "wealthy/rich" people and redistribute what is theirs BY FORCE.....revolution.....What does wealthy mean? What ever the revolutionary forces define it as......peasant Ukrainian farmers....middle class intellectuals.....engineers......whom ever...
Every place that has had a communist government (criminal mafia) has suffered horribly....many tens of millions of people killed, murdered....mass executions, deportations, show-trials, torture, forced confessions, government sponsored starvation, concentration camps, labor camps and DEATH.....
Anyone who denies the murderous history of communism is NO DIFFERENT than those that deny the murderous history of fascism in Nazi Germany......
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Old 12-27-2008, 10:02 AM
 
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The more;as a society; we advance and remove walls in between us that divide us like famine and low world wide unemployment...etc. The more likely something like communism or socialism could be successful. Not until sharing everything changes from world wide starvation and famine to one where those problems no longer exist will we become the Utopia that is Start Trek.
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Old 12-27-2008, 11:06 AM
 
Location: NE Ohio
30,421 posts, read 20,218,996 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NCN View Post
You are right, you don't understand. Freedom is a wonderful thing and communism takes that freedom away. It is better to live with little in a democracy than live with much in a communist nation.
Except that in a communist nation, people don't have much. Ever talk to someone who has lived under communism? I have. They are oppressed, and life is always a struggle. They trust their government less than we trust ours (I don't know about you, but I don't trust our government, and I trust it less now that Obama is about to take office). Communism doesn't work. Period.
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Old 12-27-2008, 11:17 AM
 
Location: Tennessee
37,754 posts, read 40,844,087 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigJon3475 View Post
A few quotes that say more about than anyone could really convey through careful thought out replies on here. Communism from it's poppa from one of it's most staunch supporters. You may recognize some of the same propaganda still in use today and I have you revert to the very first quote.

Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.

Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.

If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.

It is true that liberty is precious - so precious that it must be rationed.

No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses.

One man with a gun can control 100 without one.

Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.

The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.

The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.

To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities; that is not to be taken seriously in politics.
An then there's the ever popular: No one is swimming to Cuba.
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Old 12-27-2008, 11:21 AM
 
29,939 posts, read 39,368,104 times
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LOL...How could I forget.
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Old 12-27-2008, 02:21 PM
 
709 posts, read 1,494,737 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by djacques View Post
[...] I only disagree with the statement to the extent that while democracy may lead to communism (or its cousin fascism), in practice those systems usually kick aside the democratic element as excess baggage. [...]
Democracy doesn't necessarily mean freedom of speech and other civil liberties: Athenians forced Socrates to drink hemlock, remember? And many dictatorships do have elections, and sometimes they're even fair. Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Pol Pot, etc were all genuinely popular with the vast majority of the people.


Quote:
Originally Posted by djacques View Post
[...] But they still usually retain popular support from the swinish masses, right up to the point that the country is falling down around them.
Often even after the country goes to pieces, all a dictator needs is a good excuse of an external threat. You can find some North Korean TV clips and even cartoons online: they think America is ready to invade them at any moment. "I will starve before I let the imperialists rape me", they shout. The point is: you can't defeat government with government. It's South Korean corporations and nongovernmental charities that are making the most progress in pressuring NK to open up. The Americans would hate to see ol Kim go, he's their excuse for keeping so many troops in the region!
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Old 12-27-2008, 03:51 PM
 
Location: Michigan
12,711 posts, read 13,441,805 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex Libman View Post
Democracy doesn't necessarily mean freedom of speech and other civil liberties: Athenians forced Socrates to drink hemlock, remember? And many dictatorships do have elections, and sometimes they're even fair. Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Pol Pot, etc were all genuinely popular with the vast majority of the people.
Yes, I certainly agree that democracy is not a synonym for freedom or liberalism. And I also agree that many dictators are popular. (Popular with the vast majority many not be true in all the above cases. Polls were hard to come by in Democratic Kampuchea, for instance.) But un-rigged elections are still the exception, not the rule, in those sort of societies.

Quote:
Often even after the country goes to pieces, all a dictator needs is a good excuse of an external threat. You can find some North Korean TV clips and even cartoons online: they think America is ready to invade them at any moment. "I will starve before I let the imperialists rape me", they shout. The point is: you can't defeat government with government. It's South Korean corporations and nongovernmental charities that are making the most progress in pressuring NK to open up. The Americans would hate to see ol Kim go, he's their excuse for keeping so many troops in the region!
That's certainly true. If Bush could convince Americans that Saddam Hussein is a threat, you could pretty much convince anyone of anything.
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