# I Pit the Empire **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 5, 2010, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559 "2010-11-05T08:14:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/181 "2010-11-06T04:20:45Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Capitalism, on the other hand, would insist that he do something useful first. Or be born to rich parents. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/182 "2010-11-06T06:09:31Z")
IIRC, didn’t Marx once say that communism would never actually work in Russia? ---
**Author:** ![Commissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/183 "2010-11-06T06:28:18Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > What is your best and most productive ability? Does the capitalist system recognize that as your best and most productive ability, and pay you accordingly? Though it is obviously a highly subjective issue, I find that my best and most productive ability is what I am currently doing now, which is a direct result of my graduate-level education. No, I do not wish to be less vague than that. Yes, I am paid well enough by your system. That is nice, but is not the point. I am well off because I am intelligent, and because my parents were both intelligent and economically stable enough to see that I received a proper education. Were I, say, an offspring of poor American ghetto denizens, I could never have achieved my current status. In other words: I would be well off under either system, but this isn’t about me. This is about my brethren that were not given my personal advantages in life. A proper system must take care of everyone, not just the ones that won the birth lottery. And, no, neither of my parents were wealthy in the US sense of the world. We never starved, but we were never rich, either. I am not particularly rich, either, though my life is a comfortable one. ---
**Author:** ![Commissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/184 "2010-11-06T06:38:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You have to give the OP this. He’s formed an attachment to the ideology that is best suited for him. Marxism will theoretically provide for his needs just because he exists. Capitalism, on the other hand, would insist that he do something useful first. As I just stated, I can work for what I need in either system, thank you very much. However, I DO think that a person should be entitled to material freedoms simply by virtue of being human. Do you disagree? Let me tell you a story. I have an old childhood friend back in Belarus, easily one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known. While pursuing his degree in chemistry, he was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of multiple sclerosis. He was never able to finish the university, much less to work. He is very sick now, but alive. He is also receiving absolutely the best treatments available, absolutely free of charge. I do not doubt that this is what has kept him alive to this day. He is being taken care of by the very same nation that he was never really able to contribute to. Tell me, is Belarus wrong to care for him? Should it have used the US model, instead, and told him to go fuck himself? Should my friend be dead now, because that is apparently the better system according to heartless cretins such as yourself? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/185 "2010-11-06T07:14:35Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > 😃 > > I earmbeorhtnesse éow græf ánweald, … 😉 Through the magic of online old english dictionaries, I have determined that a modern english translation of this phrase would be something close to, “I pity to you a writing method of domination.” ---
**Author:** ![Commissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/186 "2010-11-06T07:29:00Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > But we weren’t speaking globally, were we? I think we must. If you are to defend the Empire, you must do so in a global context. Picking a single category in which you beat Russia is intellectually lazy. For example, I notice that you did not choose to compare the per capita university degrees. Why’s that? Oh, yes - it’s because we kick your, as well as pretty much everyone else’s, ass in that category. > [@](#): > > That’s not accurate, at all. > > [http://economie.moldova.org/news/corruption-keeping-russian-highways-among-worst-in-the-world-206976-eng.html](http://economie.moldova.org/news/corruption-keeping-russian-highways-among-worst-in-the-world-206976-eng.html) > > [Russian road · Russia Travel Blog](http://russiatrek.org/blog/tag/russian-road/) > > And especially this one: [Russian Roads 4 - English Russia](http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2006/09/21/russian-roads-4/) Well, the second one doesn’t work for me right now, but I think I get the gist of your argument. Problem is, Link #1 uses unknown methodology, and Link #3 seems to depict driving in a mudslide, which is hardly typical for us, you know. In rebuttal, I offer my own anecdotal evidence. When I drive in Belarus, the roads are fucking awesome. Straight, flat, pristine (let’s leave out the dirt field roads, since I can avoid those if I choose to do so). When I drive to work in the Empire, on the other hand, I have to do 3 lane changes on a 2-lane street just to avoid potholes the size of a grown man. Not cool, as the kids may or may not say these days. > [@](#): > > Not really. I was speaking only to our conventional forces. Superior Navy, superior Air Force, superior Army. You act like we go around nuking everyone in sight. Yes, because our respective air forces combat each other every other day… Look, neither one of us knows how a real showdown would end. You probably have better airplanes. We probably have better ground-to-air missile technology. Until we fight, we won’t know. And if we do fight, we’ll all wake up under a mushroom cloud, so we still won’t know. So quit masturbating to your own delusions of grandeur - we’re both strong enough to not care who’s technically stronger. > [@](#): > > :rolleyes: > Yeah, its _all_ mindless entertainment. Hollywood has never produced good movies that are thought-provoking, heart-wrenching or in any innumerable way relevant to the human experience. Oh, and I forgot, sports! We kick your ass in sports! No, some of it has been quite good. I particularly like Pulp Fiction, for instance. Overall, however, you tend to produce mindless refuse that wouldn’t pose an intellectual challenge to a 4-year old. > [@](#): > > It does not depend in its entirety on illegal labor. Point taken on illegals vis a vis our internal debate over what to do with them. Every civilized nation has issues with illegal immigrants, refugees and the like. I’d say we’re actually pretty nice to them. Many other nations would just shoot them. Really? Which ones “would just shoot them?” > [@](#): > > The Civil War was bad, yes, but comparing 700,000 deaths in an actual war to the 23 million that died not being at war under Stalin’s regime alone (not counting before or after, the gulags, etc) and suddenly that casualty figure for the American Civil War seems pretty paltry by comparison, doesn’t it? First of all, quit pulling numbers out of Solzhenitsin’s filthy ass. You want to claim 23M, I want to see 23M names. Secondly, murder isn’t a math game; you don’t wash your hands of your guilt by proving that somebody, at some point, killed more people than you did. > [@](#): > > That’s because we’re badasses when we want to be, Mr I Condone Murderous Regimes. Highly ironic from a man dismissing 700,000 dead humans as “paltry.” Next, you’ll be claiming that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were harmless pranks. > [@](#): > > If you can use the Civil War as an example of our savagery against our own people, then its fine for me to bring up Stalin (and the two situations aren’t really comparable at all as I stated above), but he wasn’t the only murderer amongst the ranks of Soviet rulers. Once again, I call your bluff. Give me other names, along with people killed. And please spare me sob stories about the Imperial family, if at all possible. > [@](#): > > Our Constitution, as it was the first of its kind in human history. No nation in the world was governed prior to that with separated and divided powers providing checks and balances on the exercise of authority by those who were governed. Depends on your definitions. I would argue, for example, that the Greeks had a system of checks and balances that preceded you by three millenia. Also, let’s avoid worshiping your silly little Constitution. Don’t forget that it codified slavery, for example. Oops. > [@](#): > > We have more of all of these things than Russia, especially food and shelter. Do you claim that both are rights recognized by your government, then? If so, I must deliver this wonderful news to the homeless encampment permanently erected not 100 meters from my apartment complex. They must have missed the memo. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/187 "2010-11-06T07:58:04Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > IIRC, didn’t Marx once say that communism would never actually work in Russia? I think so. The Russian revolution ironically undercut Marxist theory from the beginning. The supposedly predictable path of cultural development was supposed to go feudalism-capitalism-communism, not skip a step. Communism was supposed to take over in the most advanced, most prosperous, most capitalistic countries _first_. ---
**Author:** ![Commissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/188 "2010-11-06T08:09:50Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I think so. The Russian revolution ironically undercut Marxist theory from the beginning. The supposedly predictable path of cultural development was supposed to go feudalism-capitalism-communism, not skip a step. Communism was supposed to take over in the most advanced, most prosperous, most capitalistic countries _first_. I strongly disagree with that analysis, my friend. You see, Marxism is NOT a religious tract. If we tweak it, angels will not descend down upon us and have wanton intercourse with our anal orifices, or whatnot. Basically, Marx wrote good stuff, but he was no politician. Lenin read his theory, adapted it to the real world, implemented it, and THEN we were off and running. Remember, all human knowledge belongs to us humans. We may change it when need be. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/189 "2010-11-06T08:26:13Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > You see, Marxism is NOT a religious tract. Oh, but Marxism/Communism _is_ a religion; it just doesn’t _call_ itself one. It is a faith based worldview and a set of faith based rules for how society should run; that’s religion. It’s opposed to other religions for the same reason Christianity is; it hates competition. They really are quite similar belief systems in many ways. ---
**Author:** ![Commissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/190 "2010-11-06T08:34:41Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Oh, but Marxism/Communism _is_ a religion; it just doesn’t _call_ itself one. It is a faith based worldview and a set of faith based rules for how society should run; that’s religion. It’s opposed to other religions for the same reason Christianity is; it hates competition. They really are quite similar belief systems in many ways. No, my silly little friend, no. I am afraid that religion is not part of our ideology. We reject Judeo-Christian thinking because it is stupid. Nothing more, nothing less. Ourselves, we reject religion. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/191 "2010-11-06T08:35:43Z")
It is one election and the people who got the most votes won the offices they got the most votes for. That is the way that it works, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I would have voted differently in some races and not others and I don’t care for some of the politicians elected. That’s what happens in democracy.Work harder to get more people registered and out to vote next time if you want a different outcome. That’s what I will do. ---
**Author:** ![Commissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/192 "2010-11-06T08:51:27Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > It is one election and the people who got the most votes won the offices they got the most votes for. That is the way that it works, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I would have voted differently in some races and not others and I don’t care for some of the politicians elected. That’s what happens in democracy.Work harder to get more people registered and out to vote next time if you want a different outcome. That’s what I will do. Just out of curiosity, why are you so confident in the integrity of the Imperials? Is this something that you have drilled into you at an early age? In other words, the Empire is peefect? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/193 "2010-11-06T09:12:51Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > No, my silly little friend, no. I am afraid that religion is not part of our ideology. We reject Judeo-Christian thinking because it is stupid. Nothing more, nothing less. Ourselves, we reject religion. Just like the Christians do; they repudiate other religions and recognize them as stupid. The difference is that they call what they believe a religion, and you don’t. But that doesn’t make it any less of one; it doesn’t make it any more rational or any more based on reality. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/194 "2010-11-06T10:17:51Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > Just out of curiosity, why are you so confident in the integrity of the Imperials? Is this something that you have drilled into you at an early age? In other words, the Empire is peefect? No, the US isn’t perfect however I did not spend my early sexy 20s trying to lure a man to marry me and import me to a new country as a wife. And while I am at it: > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Commissar View Post > You’re absolutely right; in order to be fair, I guess we must really look at the totality of the Empire’s accomplishments. So, let’s start adding to my list: > > Imperial Accomplishments: > > (1) One of the most effective genocides in the history of humanity, directed against its own aboriginal population. As opposed to the Sumgait Pogrom, Kirovograd Pogrom, Ah hell - Koreans, Finns, Germans, Kalmyks, Karachays, Chechens and Ingush, Balkars. North Caucasians, Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Meskhetian Turks, Kurds, and Khemshils > (2) Bloody wars of aggression against its neighbors. Ah, so Afghanistan was just a reconaissance in force that forgot the welcome wagons > (3) The last bastion of Christian fundamentalism in the world. Not really, there are christians all over the world of all flavors. > (4) Witch hunts - 300 years after the rest of the world had grown the fuck up. Now this is puzzling. Only witch hunt in the US was back in the 1600, pretty much when everybody else was also doing it.Britain technically had the last european witch trial in 1944 > (5) Illegal and completely unjustified INVASION and ANNEXATION of Hawaii, which apparently committed the criminal offense of wanting to be free and independent. Go, you wonderful freedom lovers, you. Ah, so when the USSR visited Hungary in 1956 they just wanted to borrow a cup of sugar and got overenthusiastic > (6) “Opening” up of Japan at gunpoint, because it apparently committed the criminal offense of not wanting your worthless shit. So now you need to bully people into trading with you? Very nice; go capitalism. And your point is? At that time you were sending out little groups of horsemen to say hello to various ethnics, hey - isnt the word POGROM russian? > (7) One of the last nations in the world to end slavery. Apparently, an issue that had been decided in the rest of the world hundreds of years earlier was so difficult for your feeble brains that you had to go to war and kill each other over it.Hm 1861 in the US, more full timeline [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline) - many places continued with slavery after 1861 that aren’t the US. > (8) And then you still kept the blacks in quasi-slavery until the 1950s. Well, you got us there. But then again, they could have freely moved out of the US without having to get shot at climbing a fence, and they could freely move around inside the US borders without having to get permits and internal visas > (9) Sat back on your fat lazy asses and watched both WWI and WWII unfold, entering them only when you figured you wanted a piece of the bounty. Lafayette Escadrille, Flying Tigers. Not all of us. And the US was actually at war in the pacific before Germany declared war on us. And isn’t it sort of the oddest thing calling us warmongering, yet when we try to stay out of a war we are cowards? > (10) Illegal imperial wars against Cuba, Panama, Vietnam, Korea, China, Afghanistan, Iraq, and pretty much everyone else in the world.We blockaded Cuba, not declare war. Vietnam we went in because of a treaty with another country being called into effect - otherwise we would not have bothered going. We went into Korea because of a treaty being called into effect. We have never actually declared war on China - the closest thing we ever had with China was back in the Boxer Rebellion- we ran the Yangze Riverboats to keep trade open more than anything. The whole China/Korea deal and China/Vietnam deal was as a result of treaties being called into effect. Soviet Union kicked in stuff on the other side also thanks to treaties being called into effect. > (11) I notice that you still don’t have universal health coverage, which I find to be a good indication of your civilization, or lack thereof.OK, well you got us there - I would like UHC, and I regularly sign petitions, and let my reps know that I would like them to vote in such a direction, but I don’t have the physical ability to actually run for office myself and take direct action. Unfortunately my health is somewhat fragile. I will thank my husband for spending 20 years oppressing foreigners to get me lifetime military medical care ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/195 "2010-11-06T13:23:49Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > I don’t think you could make a worthwhile donation to a sperm bank. And after all his practice. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/196 "2010-11-06T13:51:40Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > No, my silly little friend, no. I am afraid that religion is not part of our ideology. We reject Judeo-Christian thinking because it is stupid. Nothing more, nothing less. Ourselves, we reject religion. Even a numbnut finds a squirrel every once in awhile. It is pretty silly for people to claim that Communism is a religion and then attack self-proclaimed Communists for not faithfully following their religion! Talk about strawmen. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/197 "2010-11-06T14:23:37Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > I have an old childhood friend back in Belarus, easily one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known. While pursuing his degree in chemistry, he was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of multiple sclerosis. He was never able to finish the university, much less to work. > > He is very sick now, but alive. He is also receiving absolutely the best treatments available, absolutely free of charge. I do not doubt that this is what has kept him alive to this day. He is being taken care of by the very same nation that he was never really able to contribute to. > > Tell me, is Belarus wrong to care for him? Should it have used the US model, instead, and told him to go fuck himself? Should my friend be dead now, because that is apparently the better system according to heartless cretins such as yourself? And what does any of that have to do with the wonders of Communism? Has Lukashenko decided he’s a Marxist this month? ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/198 "2010-11-06T16:16:23Z")
Hey Comissar… again I ask… Why would 171 people risk their lives to escape a perfect society? _171 people were killed or died attempting to escape at the Berlin Wall between August 13, 1961 and November 9, 1989._ > **[Escape attempts to the West - History of Berlin Wall](https://dailysoft.com/berlinwall/history/escape.htm)** > > Berlin Wall History: Escape attempts to the West So, is trial by AK-47/74 really better than the jury system? ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/199 "2010-11-06T16:44:31Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > Let me tell you a story. I was really hoping it was going to be about a man named Jed. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559/200 "2010-11-06T17:39:01Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > I was really hoping it was going to be about a man named Jed. He was a commie who barely kept his family fed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-empire/559559.md?page=11)