So, apparently the perfect socialism is one in which Capitalism is running rampant, destroying the environment and monopolizing the proletariat, but the central government is strong in theory but corrupt in execution?
Because that’s China. Do a search for the threads of even sven who spent time there teaching, or our own China Guy, who has also lived there.
They are far more familiar with China then you, and in even sven’s case, she’s practically a socialist as it is, so you have very little political beef with her.
Also, since hindsight works for you, slavery, the native american “genocide” and issues of that nature, in hindsight, were bad ideas. We have expended a great deal of money and other resources trying to fix it.
There’s your problem right there. You’re not up on even incredibly recent history, let alone history from a decade or more ago. You answered nothing. All you did was blather.
We can only hope.
I’m still curious how the intentional decision made by the East German government, not the Soviet Union government, to actually murder its own citizens for trying to cross into West Berlin was necessary. You have failed to explain that. All you have done is assert that the decision was necessary.
As to a cheap solution, one would think that education would be a cheaper solution than killing a human being.
Here’s another problem for you. The Soviets and the East German government erected the Berlin Wall without benefit of hindsight. You, with benefit of hindsight, have already asserted that the Berlin was necessary.
Except, as noted upthread, to those poor souls who were murdered. And yet the questions still remain for you, someone with the benefit of hindsight on this issue: Why was the Berlin Wall necessary? Why was it necessary to murder those crossing the Berlin Wall?
Actually, I’m nowhere near Iraq or Afghanistan. If you’re asserting that I’m guilty simply by association as a citizen of the United States of America, then you share that guilt also.
Another fact you’re conveniently ignoring is that the US Armed Forces are trying and punishing those members who are illegally killing civilians in the two countries you mention.
I strongly suspect that’s because you limit your diet of “news” to your favorite propaganda sites. Expand your horizons a bit and you’ll easily find more than a little hand-wringing on those two conflicts.
But I forgot: you consider it acceptable, nay, necessary to murder someone who “falls prey to propaganda from the West.”
According to anybody with intelligence. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a hard-line Stalinist Communist state. You can’t get a more communist state than that one. All the other communist countries have either passed, as the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics has, or have adopted quite a bit of capitalism, as both the People’s Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam have.
I most certainly have noticed that my personal appraisal of this issue is based on fact. Yours, on the other hand, is based on what you wish were true. Perhaps if you weren’t so afraid of your fellow travelers killing you, as was the case with the Berlin Wall mentioned above, you would actually glean some real knowledge instead of catchphrases from a failed political ideology.
Who said anything about viable? As it is, though, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is still a socialist state, whereas the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics no longer exists.
And the improvement chosen by the leaders of the Communist Party of China have selected capitalism as the means of change in their country. Kind of odd, isn’t it, that you tout such an action as the perfection of communism?
Each posting of yours demonstrates your ignorance of what you espouse. I have it on reliable authority that this site exists to fight ignorance. If you wish to fight that, I strongly suggest you expand your horizons (after all, neither the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics nor the German Democratic Republic exists today, so you really need no longer fear being murdered for checking out some of that "Western propaganda) and read a bit more than whatever old books on socialism you’ve dredged up. It’ll do you some good, in my humble opinion.
Either you’re not reading what I’m writing, or I’m somehow failing to get my point across.
I am NOT asserting that the Wall was necessary. Quoting myself:
"The Soviet government made the judgment call that the Wall was a cheap and effective way of countering Western propaganda directed at the socialist Germans from the capitalist bastion of West Berlin.
Necessary in hindsight? Maybe not."
In other words, we know what the decision was, and we know that it did not work as well as planned. Thus, the construction of the Wall may not have been necessary.
I think that what you want is a more forceful statement; you want me to condemn the Wall and the decision to build it. I will not do that. The Wall was a good idea at the time, and it was a rational decision to make. Rational people make mistakes - I will not turn on them simply for being human.
Ideally, I would have preferred a wall-less Berlin. I would have also preferred an entirely socialist Berlin, so that the Wall would have been superfluous in the first place.
Wait a minute… You’re an Imperial that supports the Empire, but you’re not responsible for what the Empire does in Afghanistan because you’re not the one actually doing it… Got it.
Why, then, are you haranguing me about the Berlin Wall? I did not build it, I did not guard it, and I certainly didn’t kill anyone climbing it.
Really, now? That’s great news. How many thousands of perpetrators have you punished at this point? You must have several super-max prisons chock-full of American war criminals by now, given the sheer number of war crimes committed. And all this time, I was under the impression that you were protecting the murderers while punishing a couple low-level operatives for publicity value.
You’re making too many assumptions; your argument depends entirely on identifying Stalinism with “true” communism, whatever that is. I disagree. Stalinism is a strain of socialism, but it is a dead-end strain that has no place in our glorious future. Stalin was mistaken, as is the North Korean leadership.
It is very presumptuous and illogical of you to tell a socialist which nations he must accept as socialist ideals.
The world is not as black and white as you would apparently like to believe, my friend.
You claim that the People’s Republic is embracing capitalism by allowing private enterprise. Very well. By that same logic, your beloved Empire is now socialist. Why? Because you have embraced socialist ideas: social security, maximum working hours, minimum wage, nationalized financial systems, you name it. You now have my permission to proudly fly the hammer and sickle over the White House. :rolleyes:
As usual, you presume too much. Notice that, no matter how much I disagree with you, I do not lash out at you by calling you ignorant, stupid, uneducated, or whatnot. I treat you in a civil manner, and I would ask that you do likewise. In my experience, ad hominem attacks do more to diminish the position of the perpetrator than that of the target.
I have answered this question before, and the answer has yet to change. No, I have not yet been to the glorious People’s Republic, may the non-existent angels sing its praises in perpetuity.
To preempt your inevitable banal “Aha!” moment: I have also never been saved from a fire, nor have I saved anyone from a fire. I still think that firefighters are pretty damn useful to have around. Do you understand?
Actually, no. The “as perfect as possible” socialist nation is one in which the state dominates the economy, yet allows private individuals to fill in the blanks with their laudable entrepreneurial spirit. It is a nation in which human nature is understood, and no games with democracy are allowed to occur. It is an authoritarian state that gets things done, yet never forgets that it exists for no other reason than to improve the lives of its citizens. It is a nation that is great, yet never stops striving for even greater greatness. It is a nation confident in its might, a nation that sees no reason to flaunt its power by oppressing foreigners halfway around the globe. It is a nation in which a benevolent handful of wise masters guide the proletariats down a path of patriotism, prosperity, and enlightenment. It is a nation that makes mistakes, yet seeks to rectify them rather than to embrace them.
This nation exists. It is the glorious People’s Republic of China.
Let me ask you this, my friend… You know how much I hate the Empire, and you know that I have resided in the Empire for some years.
Now, let me assure you that a vocal minority of Bellorussians have either a neutral or a positive view of the US. The vast majority of them have never been to the US, though.
Here is my question: when I go back to Belarus, are those pro-Imperials required by logic to listen to and absorb my condemnation of the Empire? After all, I’ve got them beat on actual first-hand experience. Is that the end of th inquiry? Or do you recognize the fact that all opinions are biased, and thus may never be simply accepted hook, line, and sinker?
That would work, but there’s a minor problem here: the excuse of hindsight requires an actual demonstration of learning the lesson.
The Wall was a bad idea, and we know it. As you may or may not realize, we are not currently building any walls in any foreign nations. Because we know that it is a bad idea. Lesson LEARNED!
The Empire, on the other hand… Well, you stopped enslaving the blacks and slaughtering the “reds.” That’s nice, I suppose. On the other hand, you took all that racism and genocidal tendencies and simply shifted it into a perpetual crusade against Muslims. Er… lesson totally NOT LEARNED! Cretins.
So then why did you condescendingly ask someone above if they’d ever been to Belarus? Perhaps he doesn’t have an accurate picture of your country of birth because he’s never been there, but then you’ve never been to China and, thus, don’t have a leg to stand on, either.
The “someone above” attempted to lecture me concerning the freedom of press in Belarus. This is a political detail, and one that I am personally acquainted with. I go to Belarus regularly, I like wide access to news, and I have always been able to access said news in Belarus. My interlocutor, who has never been to Belarus, tried to claim that I was incorrect in my recollections.
Please note that I make no “personal” allegations concerning China. I dearly love the country, and I also dearly love freedom of the press. I have NEVER claimed that the PRC does not censor the Internet. Assuming that it does, I will still support it, for I strongly believe that positive rights always trump negative ones.
The point is that it’s a stupid idea for you to pull rank with the “have you ever been to XXX country?” card when you yourself haven’t even set foot in the other place you keep gassing off about. Maybe you should change your tactics, huh? Also might be a good idea not to say that someone (what was it?) “live[s] on a pile of corpses and drink[s] the blood of innocent people” without knowing where exactly they live.
FWIW, I’m probably the most consistently pro-China poster on this board, not to mention a sincere lover of the PRC, my adopted country and home, and I still think you’re a tool. Keep on the road you’re currently on and you’ll have less friends around here than I do!
I’ve been to China. Summer before last. I hired a private tour guide for a day - he was around 50, loved China, lived in and around Beijing his whole life. I asked him, simply, “so is China more capitalist or communist?” He responded, without the slightest pause, “Oh, capitalist, definitely.”
What lesson pray tell did the glorious workers paradise learn from Afghanistan? They only left Afghanistan in 1989 because their own country was falling apart, and dissolved to the scrap heap of history two years later. Rather late in a country’s life for growing pains, no comrade?
No, no. You just have to understand that everything America has done wrong is escalating proof of our arrogant imperial disregard for all that is good and decent in the world, while everything that communist countries have done wrong is just growing pains as they have imperfectly striven to achieve socialist paradise for the fine workers of the world. There’s a huge difference.
sigh Just because you keep saying this doesn’t make it true. I’ll note that you still haven’t offered any evidence to counter my claim that Belarus suppresses information to its citizens. But since you didn’t like the BBC cite, here’s a few more for you.
Of course this is all just a tangent from my original point, the also unaddressed statement that Belarus is a shithole when it comes to how it treats its own citizens. I’m sure you’ll point out that until I visit the place I can’t make that judgement, but fortunately for me I don’t have to. The UN Commision on Human Rights did, and here’s what they thought of the place: