Castro isn’t a communist, he’s a dictator. Cuba is a mess. If that’s a model for communism then you can have it. The people suffer and Castro and his buddies get everything. There is no social safety net. If you are of no value to Castro you have no value. I’ve been there, legally. There is a very ugly underbelly.
I have no love for the Miami Cubans. They are a huge part of the problem so don’t think I’m in that camp. If Castro really cared about the Cuban people he would have done things a whole lot differently.
In a perfect Communist system, it isn’t ‘stealing’. Citizens contribute to society, and in return society provides benefits to the citizens. In our system, are taxes ‘stealing’?
Human nature being what it is, Communism can’t work on a large scale. But in theory it is equitable.
You make too many unwarranted assumptions, my friend.
Firstly, I must state that I know this area very well, having dedicated the first portion of my higher education to the study of socialist nations. You may, of course, choose not to believe this, but that is your problem rather than mine. You will get absolutely nowhere arguing that I am “naive” or “lack Knowledge” in this field.
Secondly, yes, I think there is a world of difference between comrade Mao and the traitor Stalin. Mao was a flawed visionary; he freed the Chinese people from the grips of backward feudalism, turned his nation into a super-power, and handed his people the keys to a glorious future. Sure, he made some poor judgment calls as an administrator, but these minor setbacks are insignificant in comparison to his countless accomplishments. Stalin, on the other hand, did nothing for my people (full disclosure: I was born and raised in the Soviet Union). He usurped power, terrorized the people, nearly made us lose to Germany, and directly laid the groundwork for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Having said that, I really doubt that he killed “millions,” as you allege.
Finally, I stand by my statement that Stalin’s true mindset is unknowable. We cannot know why he did the things that he did. It could have been paranoia, or perhaps true insanity, or maybe a poor reading of Marxist-Leninist philosophy. We simply cannot know. The fact that you claim otherwise… You think pretty highly of yourself, don’t you?
By “true communism,” do you mean the utopian ideal of a peaceful, prosperous populace without a government? If so, then of course not. I see that as an aspirational guiding principle rather than an actual realistic end state; it is something we should strive for in the knowledge that it is unachievable.
No, my take on a perfect communist system is very close to what the glorious People’s Republic has now achieved. I dream of a system in which people are truly free, in which they are unshackled by wants and deprivations, in which a strong single party carefully manages a centralized economy while allowing private entrepreneurs to fill in some of the blanks.
You are a little too early. The dangers of Capitalism are coming to the fore now. The unreasoning greed and grasp for wealth and power are accelerating.The damage to the world and the middle class here is starting to bloom. In a short time, you will find converts a lot easier to get. Many will say what the hell happened? How could things go so wrong?
The rich and powerful are not our friends. They are not interested in making America a better place with better opportunities. They just want more and more to themselves. History has shown you have to overpower them and put them back in their spot every now and then. Your kids will be faced with an ugly task.
I voted for Obama. Even though the Democratic Party is a right-wing entity, it is at least somewhat less right-wing than the Republican Party. Lesser of two evils, and all that.
Can’t say I’m impressed by his performance so far… I understand that breaking promises is a popular past-time among US politicians, but Obama takes it to a new extreme. I can’t help but notice that the torture camps are still operating at full steam, the illegal occupation of Afghanistan is actually escalating, and we still don’t have a meaningful healthcare system.
I never said that i wasn’t going to talk to you. I said that i was going to refrain from engaging in rational debate with you, because i believed that you were incapable of participating in such debates. My thinking on that matter has not changed.
Given the horrendous number of murders and other, needless deaths caused by the Stalinist and Mao regimes, I would submit that if you have the knowledge you say you do, “naive” or “lack of knowledge” would be the kindest assessment of your mindset. The alternative would be that it’s fine with you to arbitrarily murder tens of millions of your own people and starve tens of millions more in the name of your ideology and accomplished through absolute and unanswerable power.
It appears Commissar has swallowed wholeheartedly this '50s era propaganda image of life in Mao’s communist China. The caption reads “Chairman Mao gives us happy lives”. Yet this same article goes on to state:
All in all, it has been conservatively estimated that Mao’s rule was responsible for at least 20 million deaths attributable either to murder or starvation, with other estimates ranging as high as high as 70 million. “Happy lives” were far from the norm in Mao Zedong’s China.
Now, having said all that, I’m afraid that I’m rather belatedly coming to the conclusion that the OP is a whoosh. Either that or the first part of his “higher education” in socialist nations was itself learned inside one of those socialist nations. No one studying communism at a higher level anywhere in the free world could possibly be so naive and ignorant of the harsh realities of life under those regimes.
Commissar, are you quite young, perhaps early college-age? You seem to have a relatively poor grasp of history and geopolitics.
Asked before, but do you think that communism is a practical philosophy for entities larger than a small town? Do you have faith in the innate goodness of all people?
Yeah, Commissar, I’m gonna have to resubmit that one again as well. The first part of your answer, fair enough. The second part OTOH… I’m gonna need some clarification on this “perfect communist system” you’re referring to. You realize what they’re operating over there is not “communism” in anything other than name, right? Exactly what part of the current Chinese “system” is representative of Marxist-Leninist communism?
