Do you know any Communists?

WilyCoyote · 20-02-2014 02:32AM

Only J H Christ.

I've stopped trying to explain the difference between communism and socialism out here. Anything that is remotely related to government aid in Europe is communism to the Fox News fed Yank.

The_Valeyard · 20-02-2014 02:34AM

WilyCoyote wrote: »

Only J H Christ.

I've stopped trying to explain the difference between communism and socialism out here. Anything that is remotely related to government aid in Europe is communism to the Fox News fed Yank.

I will not have anything bad said about Fox News in this thread!! That is the best form of entertainment and make believe out there!!!

MadsL · 20-02-2014 02:40AM

RonnieRocket wrote: »

Would Joe Higgins therefore be refused entry to America?

Hopefully.

J_E · 20-02-2014 02:44AM

https://evisaforms.state.gov/ds156.asp

Not seeing any such question here, am I missing something?

Edit: ah, it's on the immigrant ver, DS-230;
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/81807.pdf

An alien who seeks to enter the United States to engage in espionage, sabotage, export control violations, terrorist activities, the overthrow of the Government of the United States or other unlawful activity; who is a member of or affiliated with the Communist or other totalitarian party; who participated in Nazi persecutions or genocide; who has engaged in genocide; or who is a member or representative of a terrorist organization as currently designated by the U.S. Secretary of State.

Not exactly a surprising question to ask - more surprising if someone were to actually say "Yes". Not exactly "Are you a Communist"

Foxhound38 · 20-02-2014 02:48AM

Knew a few Trotsky-following types in college. Most of them either eventually sold out and joined Labour or Sinn Fein or went completely over to Cloud Cuckoo land and grew even more extreme in their views to the extent that they currently exist in this odd alternative reality where "the revolution" is just around the corner despite having no popular support whatsoever...

biko · 20-02-2014 03:39AM

RonnieRocket wrote: »

Are you joking or being serious? If it's the latter, I'd be interested in hearing what made you change your mind? Are you embarrassed by your teenage beliefs? (some people never grow out of this immature, ignorant mindset sadly)

Can you explain what you mean by immature and ignorant mindset?

The core in communism is that all men and women are equal, low and high, and share the owning and responsibility for everything.
The opposite is capitalism where a few owns the means of production and doesn't have to work because the workers below create extra wealth - it's kinda like you owning a house and live upstairs while you have tenants downstairs that pay enough rent to cover your whole mortgage so you live free. A dream for some but fair, not so much.
Somewhere in between is socialism.

For me I suppose I kinda got tired of communism being used as an excuse for states to oppress and kill their own people and the despair that even with the best intentions, as soon as someone rise to power they don't distribute it but hold on to it.
I think communism works well on a small scale but terrible on a grand scale. Capitalism on any scale is pretty ****.

Iwasfrozen · 20-02-2014 04:39AM

biko wrote: »

Can you explain what you mean by immature and ignorant mindset?

The core in communism is that all men and women are equal, low and high, and share the owning and responsibility for everything.
The opposite is capitalism where a few owns the means of production and doesn't have to work because the workers below create extra wealth - it's kinda like you owning a house and live upstairs while you have tenants downstairs that pay enough rent to cover your whole mortgage so you live free. A dream for some but fair, not so much.
Somewhere in between is socialism.

You're right about Communism but your comments on Capitalism are way off. All men and women are equal at the basic level under capitalism. Differentiated only by the amount of money they earn which is determined by how valuable/specific their work or contribution to society is.

On another note. You mention in capitalism a few owns the means of production but this isn't true. The means of production in Capitalist countries are generally held by large private limited countries who's shares are freely bought and sold on the market. An energy company in America for example may have thousands of small owners. Compare this to a communist country where the government controls the entire electricity industry and every other industry as well.

biko wrote: »

For me I suppose I kinda got tired of communism being used as an excuse for states to oppress and kill their own people and the despair that even with the best intentions, as soon as someone rise to power they don't distribute it but hold on to it.
I think communism works well on a small scale but terrible on a grand scale. Capitalism on any scale is pretty ****.

Good to see you've seen sense in your old age Biko.

Agent Smith · 20-02-2014 04:40AM

I Like Ike!

sin_city · 20-02-2014 05:03AM

biko wrote: »

Can you explain what you mean by immature and ignorant mindset?

The core in communism is that all men and women are equal, low and high, and share the owning and responsibility for everything.

The opposite is capitalism where a few owns the means of production and doesn't have to work because the workers below create extra wealth - it's kinda like you owning a house and live upstairs while you have tenants downstairs that pay enough rent to cover your whole mortgage so you live free. A dream for some but fair, not so much.
Somewhere in between is socialism.

For me I suppose I kinda got tired of communism being used as an excuse for states to oppress and kill their own people and the despair that even with the best intentions, as soon as someone rise to power they don't distribute it but hold on to it.
I think communism works well on a small scale but terrible on a grand scale. Capitalism on any scale is pretty ****.

But we're not all equal....are we? Some of us are lazier, some of us are more corrupt(like all politicians - Fidel Castro and Bertie Ahern for example).

You don't really understand capitalism mate....you are confusing it with something else.

Capitalism is freedom to work without someone else taxing you.
Freedom to start a business from scratch.
Capitalism is competition to bring prices down and ease of entry into an industry.
Capitalism is more or less dead compared to what it used to be...destroyed by socialism.

What do you think is taking people out of poverty in India and China? Socialism? Timing?

Communism and Socialism are both a form of theft via taxes...giving money to a government who then wastes it...then gets bigger... and then like humans do becomes more and more corrupt.

You should read some history.

Capitalism is the best system humans have ever had....it is freedom to work.

If you think a company is making too much money...buy shares in the company and earn profits....freedom to buy or not to buy

America is more socialist in many ways than China is....Don't just look at what it says on the tin.

biko wrote: »

I think communism works well on a small scale but terrible on a grand scale. Capitalism on any scale is pretty ****.

I think the millions that died would say it is bad on any scale....

If Capitalism is so bad then go to Cuba...its a small country that would suit you.

KyussBishop · 20-02-2014 08:06AM

sin_city wrote: »

But we're not all equal....are we? Some of us are lazier, some of us are more corrupt(like all politicians - Fidel Castro and Bertie Ahern for example).

You don't really understand capitalism mate....you are confusing it with something else.

Capitalism is freedom to work without someone else taxing you.
...

Ok, hold on - you are immediately mixing up an impossible fantasy-utopia capitalism, with how it actually works in reality.

It is a practical impossibility for capitalism to exist without taxes, because without taxes you have no state, and without a state you have no public legal system, and without a public legal system you have no workable way to actually define or allocate private property - a core part of capitalism (for various reasons, private legal systems are also practically impossible - any idiot can setup their own private legal system, and lay claim to other peoples property).

How To Debunk Libertarianism/Anarcho-Capitalism In One Sentence[latex].^{TM}[/latex]

c_man · 20-02-2014 08:27AM

Yeah I know a few. "The workers should own the means of production!" - Yeah but mine is a free, open source compiler... No-one owns it man.

Lyaiera · 20-02-2014 08:28AM

"I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America."

****ing evil incarnate.

gramar · 20-02-2014 08:38AM

Capitalism - you have the freedom to buy what you want or the freedom not to sell what you have. In communism you can't buy anything and have nothing to sell.

PG4000 · 20-02-2014 08:43AM

I am not a communist. I may be a liar, a pig, an idiot, a communist, but I am *not* a porn star.

biko · 20-02-2014 10:49AM

The problem with communism is that everyone looks at Russia which was essentially a coup d'état - replacing one ruling class with another.
It doesn't help that Stalin was a major nutjob that killed many more people than the nazis (I think Russian and Chinese communist doctrine have killed more people than any other). Then again, to gauge how many has been killed because of capitalism is impossible to calculate. At least capitalists haven't sent people to the gas chambers or the gulag.

The main issue I have with capitalism is that it's not intended for the whole society. It's intended to create rulers/owners that can then get rich off the backs of the masses that have no other choice but to take menial jobs. Certainly, you can succeed in capitalist society as well as in communist society.

In communist utopia it's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
I don't even know what capitalist utopia would be.

sin_city · 20-02-2014 11:12AM

I guess when it comes to Communism and Capitalism people just refuse to acknowledge history.

SEPT 23 1989 · 20-02-2014 11:14AM

My brother knows Karl Marx

Legs.Eleven · 20-02-2014 11:16AM

One of my old friends from my hometown and his boyfriend both used to work for the Communists within the Party of the European Left in Brussels and both consider themselves Communists. Very intelligent, total idealists but completely harmless.

iDave · 20-02-2014 11:17AM

I've heard of Sinn Fein

KyussBishop · 20-02-2014 12:02PM

The thing that's really sad about rabid anti-communism, is how the people who spout that on a regular basis, seem to deliberately blind themselves to the fact that many of the policies that make up communism, can stand on their own without being communist - yet you still get the reflexive rejection of them, just because of the mere association with communism.

Every single country in the western world, uses central planning, in their public services - and how do people think massive multinational corporations manage their production and supply lines? They are centrally managed within the technostructure of the multinational/corporation (with, for some of the particularly large corporations, their economies rivalling those of entire countries).

People caught out by that kind of crap, the black and white 'capitalist vs communist' thinking, need to cop on really, and realize that the entire narrative supporting free-market economics, is mostly propaganda designed to keep the population divided, arguing among themselves over public vs private bullshít, while simultaneously keeping the population ignorant about faults in economics - and how the way economies are managed today, puts enormous undemocratic power over the rest of society, in the hands of a few.

Sure, the idea of 'true' or 'pure' free-markets are an appealing ideal, and it'd be great if they could be made work in reality: They can't though - the idea doesn't even pass the most basic scrutiny at a theoretical level, because the very existence of the state makes them 'unpure'.

Ground your views in evidence, and apply skepticism to your own views - not just those you disasgree with, while having extremely lax standards of credibility for your own views; don't be useful idiots for those that deliberately proliferate propaganda, for their own gain (or the general gain of their 'class' of people - those who hold disproportionate/undemocratic power, through excessive, mostly undeserved wealth - nobody deserves an amount of wealth, that allows them to corrupt politics/business/economics).

It's not capitalism vs communism that matters - what matters is democracy, and how whenever you get to an extreme end of capitalism or communism, you basically get a small class of people eroding or destroying democracy, so that they can gain disproportionate influence over everyone else.

20-02-2014 12:05PM

RonnieRocket wrote: »

I was filling in a form for an American visa recently and they had the usual list of security questions e.g. Have you ever unlawfully distributed or sold a controlled substance? Have you ever participated in genocide etc. Most people don't waste time reading them and just tick "no" all the way down the list (as if a drug mule would actually confess on the form) but one question caught my eye: " are you a Communist?

I thought it was a strange question. The Cold War is over. Capitalism won and Communism is now broadly seen as the laughing stock ideology for the gullible and uneducated. Are Commies still seen as a threat? It's a bit totalitarian to ban a political ideology in my opinion. Do you know any Commies? Somebody out there is voting for Joe Higgins...

Communism is still prevalent in Cuba for one and id imagine there is probably a minority or so in the Eastern bloc who probably advocate a move back to it.

Its a broad term really. I mean i suppose the opposite idea of people having loads of wealth when others have nothing might sound daft to people too .

20-02-2014 12:09PM

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Sleep with one eye open.....

Gripping your pillow tight.....EXIT LIGHT....ENTER NIGHT!!!! TAKE MY HAND.....OFF TO NEVER NEVER LAND!!!!!!:D

Oink · 20-02-2014 12:13PM

Someone in my extended family nearly married a communist. That would have made for interesting dinner conversations:

Commie: Hey can you pass...
Me: Shut up.
C.: What? I j...
Me: You're an idiot. Shut up.
C.: Can anyone else pass the salt please?
Me: Now you got it.
C.: Yeah well that's not...
Me: Shut up.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 20-02-2014 12:15PM

sin_city wrote: »

But we're not all equal....are we? Some of us are lazier, some of us are more corrupt(like all politicians - Fidel Castro and Bertie Ahern for example).

You don't really understand capitalism mate....you are confusing it with something else.

Capitalism is freedom to work without someone else taxing you.
Freedom to start a business from scratch.
Capitalism is competition to bring prices down and ease of entry into an industry.
Capitalism is more or less dead compared to what it used to be...destroyed by socialism.

What do you think is taking people out of poverty in India and China? Socialism? Timing?

Communism and Socialism are both a form of theft via taxes...giving money to a government who then wastes it...then gets bigger... and then like humans do becomes more and more corrupt.

You should read some history.

Capitalism is the best system humans have ever had....it is freedom to work.

If you think a company is making too much money...buy shares in the company and earn profits....freedom to buy or not to buy

America is more socialist in many ways than China is....Don't just look at what it says on the tin.

I think the millions that died would say it is bad on any scale....

If Capitalism is so bad then go to Cuba...its a small country that would suit you.

I could apply this same line to most capitalist societies (you're not really going to convince me Bertis was a socialist, are you

?)

The problem, pure and simple, is humanity. We are an insecure species and in any position of power will usually become corrupt. I'm firmly of the opinion that's why most people go into politics.

Capitalism and communism both work in theory, but have both failed in practice because of the human factor. Saying that either one "works" or "fails" because of historical examples is fallacy.

20-02-2014 12:28PM

Everyone being equal, sure. Pretending everyone has equal ability, motivation, and so on - no

Says I To Bridey · 20-02-2014 01:11PM

Charles Rocher wrote: »

If you'd call massive military spending, war related industrialisation, public funding of R&D, and the routine crushing of Leftist or Nationalist democratic movements that didn't toe-the-line as 'Capitalism' then yes 'Capitalism' won.

I suspect you're not interested in a real discussion though and are more interested in pushing some childish agenda.

Thats a bit extreme. I think the average citizen in any country where democracy has taken root over the system pushed by the USSR is better off than they would have been if the USSR had prevailed

sin_city · 20-02-2014 01:20PM

KyussBishop wrote: »

The thing that's really sad about rabid anti-communism, is how the people who spout that on a regular basis, seem to deliberately blind themselves to the fact that many of the policies that make up communism, can stand on their own without being communist - yet you still get the reflexive rejection of them, just because of the mere association with communism.

Every single country in the western world, uses central planning, in their public services - and how do people think massive multinational corporations manage their production and supply lines? They are centrally managed within the technostructure of the multinational/corporation (with, for some of the particularly large corporations, their economies rivalling those of entire countries).

People caught out by that kind of crap, the black and white 'capitalist vs communist' thinking, need to cop on really, and realize that the entire narrative supporting free-market economics, is mostly propaganda designed to keep the population divided, arguing among themselves over public vs private bullshít, while simultaneously keeping the population ignorant about faults in economics - and how the way economies are managed today, puts enormous undemocratic power over the rest of society, in the hands of a few.

Sure, the idea of 'true' or 'pure' free-markets are an appealing ideal, and it'd be great if they could be made work in reality: They can't though - the idea doesn't even pass the most basic scrutiny at a theoretical level, because the very existence of the state makes them 'unpure'.

Ground your views in evidence, and apply skepticism to your own views - not just those you disasgree with, while having extremely lax standards of credibility for your own views; don't be useful idiots for those that deliberately proliferate propaganda, for their own gain (or the general gain of their 'class' of people - those who hold disproportionate/undemocratic power, through excessive, mostly undeserved wealth - nobody deserves an amount of wealth, that allows them to corrupt politics/business/economics).

It's not capitalism vs communism that matters - what matters is democracy, and how whenever you get to an extreme end of capitalism or communism, you basically get a small class of people eroding or destroying democracy, so that they can gain disproportionate influence over everyone else.

Freedom and liberty matters, not democracy....I dont want mob rules....Democracy wasn't much good to the Catholics up north was it?

Why can't a person be left alone to do business with whoever they want without a central planner getting involved??

If I want to give to charity, that's my choice...central planners taking money through taxes is theft pure and simple.

A human being should be free to choose what to do with his or her money.

The USA is the 19th century was a free capitalist society....that's were people went in huge numbers.....I never saw anyone from West Berlin moving east.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 20-02-2014 01:21PM

Says I To Bridey wrote: »

Thats a bit extreme. I think the average citizen in any country where democracy has taken root over the system pushed by the USSR is better off than they would have been if the USSR had prevailed

Again, are you refering to communism as an ideology or the USSR as a country?

Paramite Pie · 20-02-2014 01:21PM

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

Was that question really on the form OP?

Yeah it's on the form. I've been to the US a few times. You have to fill the form online before you depart and then fill out the exact same form again when you arrive.

FTA69 · 20-02-2014 01:25PM

sin_city wrote: »

If I want to give to charity, that's my choice...central planners taking money through taxes is theft pure and simple.

Without taxes how is the state going to pay an army and police etc in order to defend the state and safeguard private property? Without a state structure your claim to private property would be impossible to uphold. Libertarian capitalism of the nature you're advocating is b*llocks for want of a better word.

Do you know any Communists?

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