socialism

Let's talk about the Vietnam war. In most wars, the United States can be classified as the good guys. In The American Revolution, we were the good guys. In The Civil War, we were the good guys. In world wars one and two, we were the good guys. In the present war, we're the good guys. In the cold war, we were arguably the good guys. In the Vietnam War, though, we were the bad guys. And we lost, because we were ignorant toward the concept of communism and we were overly cautious of countries which could potentially become communist. Vietnam did not pose any threat to us, we declared war on them for no reason. They had no bombs or weapons, they were halfway around the world. We shot them because we were scared of something we didn't understand. The hippies in the Vietnam war were the real heroes. They realized that conscription was a bad method of gathering an army. Only loyal fools went abroad to battle with people they did not understand. And they died for no reason. And in the end, it was for no reason. North Vietnam won and we were laughed at for decades on. We acted out of blind fear and a fractured psyche. In the Cold War, we and the Soviets were equally bad, just in opposite directions. Joe McCarthy was insane, and he accused normal people of being communist. Don't act as if America is a perfect place. We've had our share of flaws, from Jim Crow to the Japanese internment camps to the atomic bombs being dropped on two civilian cities. Nobody is perfect, and capitalism has just as many inherent flaws as communism. Maybe more. Capitalism is not a Ponzi scheme or a chain letter. It is a new idea, which will undoubtedly take a few decades to get used to, but it will eventually win out. It has a very simple logic behind it. The only people who support capitalism are those with excessive amounts of wealth. The people in capitalism who do not have wealth do not support capitalism, but are powerless to end it because capitalism grants more power to those with excessive amounts of wealth, and those with excessive amounts of wealth do not wish to end capitalism. It's a kind of catch-22, but the loop must be slayed and we must begin awakening to the fact that capitalism is simply an impractical way of life. You claim that communism "always fails" in the end. But how do you know? There have only been a handful of communist countries in the entire history of mankind. That small handful is not an accurate test, mainly because the people who ran the countries had a twisted sense of how to implement communism in a large-scale sense. Communist countries do not have to be tyrannical or morbid. It all depends on the nature of the government and just how well the country follows the views of Karl Marx. You cannot declare something as a failure just because it has failed. That is not how a philosophical experiment works. If somebody made a country which was actually communist and less fascist, with relative equality for all citizens and a good supply of resources, then it would be better than a capitalist country where the rich have an unfair advantage over the poor. That's the real problem with capitalism. There is inequality no matter what, and the system is so stiff that no other systems are likely to be tested. Communism is not based on faulty principles. It is based on teamwork and opportunity. You say it is not consistent with basic human principles. If humans are greedy pigs by nature, and cannot stand to share with people who are less fortunate, then I do not like people. People might be like that, but other people are altruistic, and those people would like living in a communist country. You're pretty pessimistic, saying that greed is an absolute truth and it will stay forever. We can progress past greed. You say that capitalism succeeds because of incentives. By incentives, I suppose you mean currency. I can name one incentive to living in a capitalist country. No inequality. That's a nice incentive. Just some people who grow some crops and talk things over. Market prices and accounting and private property rights might be fun for rich people. For poor people who don't get to wheel and deal on the stock market or own a house, those incentives are useless and depressing. Also, I don't see why people can't own their own private homes in communism. The only thing that's different is that everybody gets to own a house, regardless of how much income they make. You're still confusing real communism with the totalitarian lie normally called communism. Here's how I think I could make a communist country quick and easy. I could go to a place that's unclaimed, like maybe Bir Tawil, and invite 20 people over. We each get some wood and build houses, or maybe build some houses out of the sand. We each get some land, and grow crops on the land. Plants, after all, are reliable and free, and have nothing to do with currency. We water the plants, eat them, make some textiles and furniture, and sit back and chat about things. It's that easy. It takes no effort. Point out some flaw in that. There is none. You can give me some sob stories about people leaving Cuba on rafts or trying to flee over the Berlin Wall. I don't care. Those people could try and change something about their country, maybe overthrow the dictator and do some better communism. To flee is to be a coward. By leaving, they are only abandoning their own freedom and preventing communism from gaining a positive look. If I lived in Berlin during the Communist era, I'd escape over it the OTHER way. Capitalism is not a system that thrives on freedom, it is a bureaucratic system where class dictates the way in which a person can live their life. It hinders freedom, and the fact that class exists in a modern capitalist society is undeniable, whether the class system gives you an advantage over others or not. Leave your bourgeois shady tree suburb and head down to the inner city, where people live in shopping carts. Try and deny their existence. They are not poor because they don't work hard enough. They are poor because you have all the money. Capitalism is a never ending struggle to the top, where those who lose are hit hard and those who win win big. We do not need this sort of system. We'd be much better off without it. In addition, sir, to bolster my argument, I'd like to note the Chilean Coup D'etat of 1973. Salvador Allende wasn't trying to be a ruthless dictator, he was elected by the people and had the right to his presidency. But look what us American pigs did! We sent troops over there to murder him and replace him with ruthless, bloodthirsty Pinochet, all in the name of killing communism. Was Pinochet any better than Allende? No, he was far worse. But we supported him because he was a capitalist. We are in no way supportive of freedom or liberty. We simply want to see communism dead. This is not as one-sided as you think. Allende was the first Marxist president after years of rigged elections designed to keep the wealthy in power, and he succeeded, and the peasants thought that they could eat for once. But the wealthy revolted, and we supported the wealthy, and the Chilean government was overthrown and turned into a totalitarian Hellhole. You might call Stalin a hypocrite for fighting against Hitler when he was evil. I'd call Americans hypocrites for fighting Hitler but completely supporting Pinochet. They were both demons. I'd suggest you take some history. I make the bad jockey argument. I do. Communist Russia was a bad place to be in, I'm sure. But it helped us win World war two, they survived the great depression, and they survived for as long as they could. Some Russians even look back at those times with nostalgia. Vladimir Putin, for instance: https://www.washingtonpost.com... I am not a troll. I think that with a more charismatic, compassionate leader, the Soviet Union might have done a little better. I do not think that communism is a bad idea because it failed, I think that we, as a nation, purposefully caused it to fail, and we can see whether it has its merits. That's the scientific method. Good scientists don't take a few measurements and then abandon their experiment. To draw successful conclusions, a scientist has to take many measurements, weigh their flaws and benefits, then draw a conclusion. Communism failed because the other countries were capitalist and did not support it. Of course communism would fail in an environment like this. We should make a communist country, and see how that communist country does. You say that social classes have existed since the dawn of civilization and are necessary for the functionality of a state. By saying this, you're committing the "appeal to tradition" fallacy... insisting that something is better just because it's older. Communism is a new system compared to capitalism, and I say it's a way of progress. Ancient Rome was capitalist. It doesn't meant that Ancient Rome was a good civilization. Also, communism is not a political system, only an economic one. A country can be democratic, the United States is right for doing that. We just need to become communist. The politics are right. The economic part isn't. Nazi Germany, I'd argue, started when Hitler became chancellor in 1934, but the exact length of Nazi Germany is a bit fuzzy. I doubt you ever read the Communist Manifesto. I did not mean that the American revolution was over before it began, it was a long hard fight. I simply mean that by the time it began, many Americans didn't consider themselves British anymore. The Soviet Union fought harder in World War two than we did because their soldiers were more loyal to their country. They might have been brainwashed, but that brainwashing was advantageous. Also, Soviet workers did get pay, in the form of free housing. There is no currency with communism. Historical ignorance.