I suspect you wouldn’t buy it if someone told you that “pure” National Socialist doctrine would not have led to the Holocaust. Similarly, I am immensely skeptical and rather exasperated when someone claims that Marxist ideology did not lead to scores of millions of deaths in Eurasia in the twentieth century. However pure or impure the ideologies of Stalin and Pol Pot may have been, they called themselves Communists and sincerely believed themselves to be Communists. It would appear that every attempt by the Communist movement (which supposedly embodies the ideology of Communism) to get their ideology off the drawing board and out into the real world ends in mass ive bloodshed and impoverished, repressive societies. How often and how badly would the movement have to fail before you concede that the ideology just doesn’t work?
Capitalism ran the slave trade for how many years? And imperialism for longer? The extermination of the Tasmanians? Any of this ring a bell?
And yet people blithely say they’re capitalists and proud.
Also, as I think I alluded to upthread, it was Vietnamese Commies who ousted Pol Pot. The USA allied with him.
[QUOTE=foolsguinea]
Capitalism ran the slave trade for how many years? And imperialism for longer? The extermination of the Tasmanians? Any of this ring a bell?
[/QUOTE]
In the thousands of years of history of slavery for the human race? What, 200 years, depending on your flexible definition of history? What’s that? 5%? 
Probably because it’s the worst system out there…except for all the others. Or something like that.
Not like the Vietnamese Commies have exactly a perfect record, humanitarian-wise either, ehe? As for the USA…we were allied to the Khmer Rouge? Formally? Or are you being hyperbolic here, and what you really meant is that we covertly supported their guerrilla movement after they were out of power as a counterbalance to the Vietnamese, while holding our nose? Even if we fully out and out supported Pol Pot (which, afaik, we didn’t), it’s still a matter of friend of my enemy type geo-politics. It’s not exactly a glowing endorsement for the US, but it’s a bit worse a reflection on communism, wouldn’t you say?
No matter how you slice it, bad as the US is, you have to be in serious denial to think that Communism is better on any level. Either that, or you have to go with the NTS approach (No True Scotsman).
-XT
:dubious: You can have my mayo when you pry it from my cold, dead, turkey sandwich!
'Cause a live turkey sandwich is just mean, man. It’s mean!
Missing the point.
Horrible, horrible things have been done in the name of Communism. So we are told that to be a Communist of any stripe is necessarily horrible, because Pol Pot was a “Communist.” Even though it was Communists who deposed him.
Horrible, horrible things have been done in the name of America & Americanism.
Horrible, horrible things have been done in the name of Christianity.
Horrible, horrible things have been done in the name of mercantilism.
Horrible, horrible things have been done in the name of capitalism.
Horrible, horrible things have been done in the name of progress.
Horrible, horrible things have been done in the name of conservatism.
Horrible, horrible things have been done in the name of Islam.
Horrible, horrible things have been done in the name of rationalism.
Should we deplore all Americans and Americanists? Should we deplore all mercantilists? Sure, you may say, why not? Bunch of jingoistic nationalists, the lot of them. But that’s not exactly because some nationalist once killed a bunch of people in a conquered country; that’s an objection to their principles.
Should we deplore Christians, all of them? Muslims, all of them? Sure, says a pagan. Stinking exclusivist religions!
Should we then deplore capitalists, all of them? Progressives, rationalists, conservatives, all of all of them, for the sins of some?
The one real effect of that is to make people afraid of any label.
I’m a communist just like you’re a capitalist. To condemn me for the Killing Fields is to condemn yourself for killing union organizers, for the presently ongoing destruction of the Appalachians, for the expansion of intellectual property holdings by investors, for everything that’s hurt people or the environment in the name of capital.
And at least the Killing Fields were recognizably a betrayal of Marxist populist principles and an aberration. Were the things I mentioned either a betrayal of capitalist principles, or an aberration?