Bush's Shrinking Safety Zone

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

This is not well thought out. What is here instead is an expression of prejudice -- your unjustified belief that conservatives must somehow never be intellectuals. Commentary, The World Jewish Review, and National Review all demonstrate just how unjustified that view is, monthly or quarterly.

I didn't make any claims about intelligence, just about open-mindedness. There are perfectly rational intellectuals who believe that the world is less than 6000 years old.

[BigV]

Happy Monkey:

To speak for oneself, it is necessary to first think for oneself.

This is why your excellent suggestion will go unheeded.

[Ibby]

Not catching on, Bruce, I've been 'cought on' for a while.

[Skunks]

What's wrong with being a communist?

I concede that communism is flawed, most notably in that it in practice fails; but it seems as though you're saying 'communism' instead of 'wrong' or 'doesn't agree with me.' It seems silly to dismiss a person's ideas because they are a communist; or for any other reason, really, except perhaps a historical tendency to have bad ideas. It seems that to dismiss an idea for any reason which doesn't directly pertain to the idea in question is a failure of discourse & debate. The 'communist' lable seems to be another knot on a long string of failed communication that, of late, has tangled itself around this forum.

To quote a coffeeshop friend of mine, meaning is hard. It takes work. I see a lot of people working very hard for cheap thrills: cheap shots & a warm fuzzy feeling for 'being right.' I have come to believe that too many vocal characters hereabouts care more about their opinion than in changing it; and to my mind that is fundamentally the wrong perspective from which to debate. It is the right opinion for a talkshow, a soapbox, a yelling match, or masturbation. But if you are interacting with someone else, someone with whom you do not agree, and are from the beginning convinced that you are more correct than they, then you are wasting your time & theirs & mine for reading it. It sets the tone of lecturing, condesension, & closemindedness, from which meaning & understanding rarely come.

[Ibby]

This is a communist I'm kicking ass on, remember? A communist who has no more notion of history than he does of writing. A communist who can neither spell nor edit his way out of a wet paper bag.

I'd appreciate a little more decent anticommunism and anti-idiocy and a little less "fashionable" leftism, okay?

So declaring someone a communist gives you free right to say or do what you like to them? Likewise, anti-anybody is decent? That seems to be your logic...

I'm probably the biggest communist sympathiser here, INCLUDING tw. I think Karl Marx has a downright BIRLLIANT idea, the only problem with which is that nobody has ever actually executed it without changing it enough to make themselves supreme ultimate dictator, free to do whatever the hell they want. THAT is the problem with Communism. Nobody's ever done it.

Leftism's going out of fashion these days, and good riddance.

...I'm not even gonna comment.

Guys who aren't pro-gun (thus antigenocide in the real way) generally aren't blessed with wisdom.

A.) What does that have to do with the fact that richlevy is obviously more mature than you, mature enough to not sink to petty attacks like you are? Nothing. As with most things you say (TW IS A COMUNST!!!one!!eleven) (LOLZ U R FAT AND STOOPD), it has no bearing on the argument at hand.

B.) How is being anti-gun a bad thing, pray tell? Your, uh, 'explaination' wasn't very clear, to say the least. If nobody has a gun, nobody gets shot. Pretty simple.

I speak for myself, and for everyone here who is more emotionally mature, less neurotic, and less outright communist than tw.

Lets have a show of hands, how many people think richlevy was the 'superior one' in that argument?

[tw]

From the NY Times of 1 Jun 2006:

Bush's Realization on Iran: No Good Choice Left Except Talks
After 27 years in which the United States has refused substantive talks with Iran, President Bush reversed course on Wednesday because it was made clear to him — by his allies, by the Russians, by the Chinese, and eventually by some of his advisers — that he no longer had a choice.
During the past month, according to European officials and some current and former members of the Bush administration, it became obvious to Mr. Bush that he could not hope to hold together a fractious coalition of nations to enforce sanctions — or consider military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites — unless he first showed a willingness to engage Iran's leadership directly over its nuclear program and exhaust every nonmilitary option.

Good news, Foreign allies, Russians, and Chinese have conspired to stop the invasion of Iran. Have conspired to save American soldier lives from the evil 'do gooder' George Jr.

And while the Europeans and the Japanese said they were elated by Mr. Bush's turnaround, some participants in the drawn-out nuclear drama questioned whether this was an offer intended to fail, devised to show the extent of Iran's intransigence.

That they are asking suggests they now understand who the George Jr administration really is. That they are asking says it will be difficult to unilaterally attack Iran only because god told George Jr to do so.

In the end, said one former official who has kept close tabs on the debate, "it came down to convincing Cheney and others that if we are going to confront Iran, we first have to check off the box" of trying talks.

Got to remember who really makes the decisions. George Jr still does not read his PDBs which was one of Potter Goss's big complaints. A complaint that helped get him fired. Reality is not always appreciated in this White House.

[Ibby]

Whoa, I just realized that Skunks posted while I was typing... Great minds, huh?

[Griff]

Don't support Communism just because UG says he opposes it. In this case the stopped clock is correct. It is the single most murderous philosophy ever developed by man. The Neo-Con body count will never approach it, although it does have great potential for slaughter.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Griff

Don't support Communism just because UG says he opposes it.

*snort* You think UG has any sway on me? I support the basic theory of communism, but I agree with both skunks and you, that it is the IMPLEMENTATION that is its downfall, and that, because it is always implemented horribly wrong, ENDS UP being the most murderous philosophy ever developed by man. Its core ideal isn't to kill people, it's to help. But Karl Marx himself said that it could never happen in this world unless every nation decided to implement it together (and, obviously, correctly), because... well, we've seen the outcome.

Just some food for thought: Cuba has a higher literacy rate and lower infant mortality rate than the US, but is dirt poor because of the US, mostly. Not that I'm defending Castro, he's about as evil as Mao or Pol Pot.

Originally Posted by Ibram

*snort* You think UG has any sway on me? I support the basic theory of communism, but I agree with both skunks and you, that it is the IMPLEMENTATION that is its downfall, and that, because it is always implemented horribly wrong, ENDS UP being the most murderous philosophy ever developed by man. Its core ideal isn't to kill people, it's to help. But Karl Marx himself said that it could never happen in this world unless every nation decided to implement it together (and, obviously, correctly), because... well, we've seen the outcome.

Just some food for thought: Cuba has a higher literacy rate and lower infant mortality rate than the US, but is dirt poor because of the US, mostly. Not that I'm defending Castro, he's about as evil as Mao or Pol Pot.

I love it when people say Cuba is poor because of the US. How many other nations could and do trade with Cuba? Well, not Cuba do they? Because you don't trade with anyone but Castro and his corrupt cronies do you?
That is why Cuba is poor and why no one wants to have anything to do with them.
The US is only one nation.
Castro stole land that US companies legitimately paid for, we don't want to do business with him, it is a no-brainer.

[tw]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

How many other nations could and do trade with Cuba? Well, not Cuba do they? Because you don't trade with anyone but Castro and his corrupt cronies do you?

Not exactly. Canada and Mexico (among others) trade with Cuba. It depends what is traded. If trading food, Castro (and his cronies) have little influence on that trade other than to permit it.

You work in a factory. Is that factory free market or communist? Well you break a drill bit. If a communist operation, then you must get a boss (and maybe his boss) to approve a new drill bit. Communism. In a free market operation, you make the decision to buy and order a new drill bit. The company automatically pays without question because you are now responsible.

That is the difference between a communist and non-communist operation. And yes, in onecustom design firm, any part that costs more than $5 (their costs) meant two managers must approve the request. A 2732 Eprom (that was obsolete technology) was still listed at more than $5. Since this was a communist operation, then almost one half hour was required to get appropriate signatures. So I demanded 3 - only needed one; just in case. Communism or cost control management - no difference. Both stifle innovation and productivity for same reasons.

[Undertoad]

The world-wide debate on Communism is over and the Communists lost.

Sure, they killed around 100,000,000 people, and that's kind of bad.

Worse than that, they encouraged the notion that central planning is a productive way to manage an economy. In doing so they guaranteed that the work and lives of 2,000,000,000 people would be less productive.

It's unlikely that all nations of the world could be as productive as the US, which is a pretty productive culture. But look at what the last fifty years have done for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong. Imagine what the world would be like today if the people of China and India saw a similar increase in productivity. Imagine if their ideas, their energy, their work was put into a productive system and not just wasted.

Yes, we'd have a lot more problems... but we'd also have a lot more solutions, a lot less hunger, a lot more medicine, a lot more culture, a lot more education, a lot less desperation.

About 20 years ago the Chinese leaders took notice that their economy had fallen so far behind the West that something had to be basically wrong with their approach, and since then they have introduced capitalistic reforms and the result is a booming China like nobody can believe.

And to make claims for Cuba today is to ignore the vital Cuba that was before Castro came along. The Cuba that wound up supported by the former USSR for decades, and the hundreds of thousands of people who survived being infants in the system long enough to desperately want to escape as adults.

[Happy Monkey]

Communism works in a commune, and it might work in a Star-Trek-like future where energy and production are all but free. On a large scale, with limited resources, it is not self-sustaining, and requires an increasingly autocratic central authority, which destroys the point of communism in the first place.

& we should extend the embargo to those companies & their products from Mexico and Canada that purchased the stolen land and property that is rightfully owned by US companies.

If they are having such success trading without the US they have nothing to complain about.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Okay, Ibram, I see you and I are going to be at loggerheads for a bit. Thought it might be coming.

The "basic theory of communism" is not supportable because it does not mesh with human nature. To mesh with human nature, you must harness the profit, or self-interest, motive. The basic theory is so systemically flawed that no implementation by any human agency can make it work beyond the farm kibbutz scale, and I have my doubts about even any agriculture so lightly collectivized as a kibbutz.

And since when is being anti the indecent itself indecent??? Is it not better to understand evil and to not merely oppose it but to prevail over it, in pursuit of its annihilation? Think, youngster, think! I've lived inside a totalitarian social order and I've seen communism. No one with experience of these has anything nice to say about Marx's prescription for genocide, waste, poverty, and ideologically driven idiocy. Exposure to these is what makes me a libertarian. Communism is a horror and nothing but. It can bait the naive in, and often as not directly slays them too, in service of the nightmare. Unlike you, I l never took that bait at any point in my life, and never will. It's not too late for you to reject it also.