socialism

This has been a nice, long debate. I'm all set to see how the results turn out. Hoo boy, here we go. Just two more rounds. Lemme think. Vietnam was not a part of the Soviet Union. A country is not Soviet just because it is communist. Vietnam wanted to be communist and we wanted to fight them because of the Truman doctrine. Vietnam did not pose any danger towards us. They were across the Pacific Ocean. We were scared and ignorant and we dispatched millions of troops over there to die. And they did die. Hippies were the only ones with an ounce of brain power. Don't lie to yourself. The United States was just as authoritarian during the Cold War. Here's a fun piece of propaganda. I do not like dictators. I hate nazis. But I do like Stalin and Castro, because they were willing to try out Karl Marx's idea. They might have tried it out wrong, but they at least had the guts to try and make it happen. I also like Stalin because, as I said, he helped us win World War two. It does not matter if he had made an anti-violence pact with Hitler beforehand. The point is that Stalin got some troops out there and showed Hitler some big guns. Stalin might have been a jerk, but he was less of a rat than Hitler, and he didn't break the pact like Hitler did. That shows that at least he's honest. If Stalin had sided with Hitler, we would have lost, so be thankful that Stalin could tell that Hitler was a jerk. The Soviets really helped us win. During World War two, we praised China and Russia, then after the war, we turned against them. And that's wrong. War is stupid. War is never necessary unless the fate of the entire human race is at stake. We had to kill Hitler, but the Cold War was just a way for us to be stubborn and never declare peace between communism and capitalism. We had fifty years of mutually assured destruction. I'd rather live in a world with some communists than live in a world where my kids are taught how to hide under desks in the case of an atomic bomb. You should read more history and learn that history is a complex process, and cannot be boiled down to good versus evil. In most wars, I'd say that the United States was on the right side. But for the Cold War, I have some real doubts. Do you like war? That's not a good thing to support. Peace is the best condition a world can be in, and the Cold War was a time when fighting against the communists was asking for death. Times were scary back then. I think that the communism we hear about was more Fascist than truly Communist. I do not want to see the Soviet Union brought back to life, but I would like seeing a pure communist country. Here's how it could be accomplished. Take 20 or so people to a plot of land, preferably unclaimed, like Bir Tawil or some spot in Antarctica. Start growing crops, give each person a house, have them weave some textiles, and be pals. That might not sound like a communist country, but it is. There's no money, no government, no class structure, and no markets of any kind. That's all Karl Marx wanted when he wrote his manifesto. Communism gets a bad rap, it's a good system when it's implemented correctly. You say communism is a failure. Consider: 1. Russia might have gone back to democracy and capitalism, but the impression that communism left on the region is large. Most people remember being alive when the Soviet Union was still up. Living there is a lot nicer now. 2. Cuba is still communist, and it's only a few miles from the shore of Florida. They have a rich culture now, and Cuban cab drivers earn more money than doctors. Transportation is a big business there. You can still see cars from the fifties when you visit, which is neat. 3. China has money now, so it's not purely communist, but now they have a democracy and you can go there and take a trip without worrying. Mao is dead, they've learned to be a bit more moderate in their belief systems. They're still almost as successful as the United States, and their economy is pretty swell too. 4. Vietnam has museums now where ignorant people like you can go and learn about the horrors of the Vietnam War. They say they're still communist. I don't think communism has failed. The amount of communist countries might have dropped, but they've learned that communism is only an economic system, not a political system, and they've learned that democracy is the best political system. Today, communism and capitalism live in harmony. And they can live in harmony. It all depends on which you prefer: a place where you can earn money, or a place where you get rewarded for your hard work by products like fruit and toilet paper. It's that simple. Nothing is wrong with communism, but we're still suffering from the lies that Joe McCarthy and others like him implanted within our brains. Communism is gravely misunderstood. You say that free speech didn't exist in the Soviet Union, but it existed here in the United States. Do you think that free speech existed here in the United States? You couldn't say you were a communist. You couldn't even say that communism was a good idea in theory. You couldn't say that capitalism had some flaws, or that the United States had some problems. I'd call that a deprivation of free speech. Take E.C. comics as an example. They made stories about gangsters and vampires, and those stories were all fun. But they got shut down by the capitalist, just because they had a unique point of view. They were accused of being communist by people who didn't know what communism was. The case of E.C. comics is a clear cut case of how free speech was restricted in the fifties. They said there was free speech, but there wasn't. E.C. comics never said they were PRO communist, but they did badmouth the American government. They made comics about lynch mobs in the South and they made comics about spectators in a parade beating a blind man to death because he didn't take off his hat for the flag even though he couldn't see the flag. They dared to question their leaders, and they paid the price. They went bankrupt. https://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.nytimes.com... You say that using a draft to recruit soldiers is OK, but what the Soviets did wasn't. Your brain is so wrong. Both countries used their citizens as property, and both types of citizens mindlessly went into battle. If you were drafted, you could not object. There was no way to escape the draft. That's why people burned their draft cards. The only purpose that the Cold War really served was to show people in one country that they had the right to object to being used as tools of the state. That's what democracy is all about, the right to express your own views and beliefs. In the old days, if you said you were a communist, you went into prison. Is that any different from the gulags of Soviet Russia? No, it's not. You have too much faith in what you perceive to be correct. You are a mindless tool. The next time a war erupts, and they begin the lottery again, the box with the balls inside it, and they pick your name, I'll have burned my draft card, but you'll have to leave and get killed- as a toy of your own government. You must learn to question your surroundings. Here's a picture of a Japanese concentration- uh, "Internment" camp. Is it different from a concentration camp? No. The Japanese people get tortured in them, come alive in one end and come out dead from the other end. It's not foolish to point out flaws in your own government. That's how progress happens. Look at this picture and tell me that the United States is always correct. Tell me that our politicians are infallible deities and not corrupt human beings. You can say that, but you'd be wrong. http://i.imgur.com... https://farm8.staticflickr.com... I think that invading Japan would have killed less people. We could have killed less civilians and killed more people who actually supported Emperor Hirohito. You say it was nice to drop that weapon of mass destruction. Japan was already weakened. both Germany and Japan were down, they couldn't have held on for more than a few months at the most. We just had to express our dominance, and kill those city dwellers in a cloud of death, tear them limb from limb. We're pigs. Japan might have forced its own civilians to commit suicide. They might have. Nothing is certain when discussing alternate history. They COULD have forced them to kill themselves. The point, sir, is that we DID kill them without warning. We did not try any alternatives. We were not willing to put in any effort. We wanted to get it over with, so we opened the bay doors and turned our heads, deaf to their screams. Do you like your government now? The Industrial revolution was horrible in capitalist countries. We used women and children in those factories. There was no such thing as maternity leave or a raise. American Factory Owners thrived just as much in their palaces as Russian dictators thrived in their palaces. Most politicians are somewhat wealthy, but all politicians must attain some wealth to be able to run for office. Bernie Sanders grew up poor, so if he had won he would have lowered taxes. You cannot say something is wrong without giving a reason, or you are committing the logical fallacy of petitio principii. Give me one quote from the Communist manifesto where Karl Marx says that a communist country needs dictatorship. I say that the Soviet Union forced those countries to become communist because it shows how most communist countries out of those 27 were not a fair test, since they did not willingly become communist. I believe that a country should have the choice to become communist or capitalist. If a citizen in a communist country gets some seeds and has a well stocked garden, he can sustain himself.