Donnie Darko and US Political Ideology
" He's saying it's scary that there is no left in the US. This sentence doesn't require explanation if you know what a left is and think its beneficial to democracy. You replied asking why it was scary that there was no 'communism' in the US, beacuse you have experience of living in communism - this implies that you think there should be nothing scary about living in a country which has communist factions. But then you ask again, what is scary about that? Meaning you asked what is scary about there being no communist factions. Again, the sentence "it's scary that there's no left in the US' does not need clarification - it's an 'obvious' - unless you don't know what a 'left' is. But you do... So, what are you asking him? |
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" What a clusterfuck. I am asking him what he meant with his post because to me (english is not even my second language) it looks like he implies that the lack of left side including it's extremities is a bad thing. " I don't want to get removed by admin so I'll try to respond with a question - do you honestly think that someone raised in the former soviet union which brought nothing but hunger, poverty and despair would seriously fucking imply that? What planet are you from? Didn't you people have history lessons in the UK schools? I have an anti-communism hatred embedded in my genes but I try not to jump into conclusions when reading something that MIGHT mean that a person sees a lack of (amonghst others) communism as a bad thing. Which spawned my original question. A question which was not adressed to you so I have no idea why the hell am I even talking to you now. Be ready. You're not paranoid, you're PREPARED.
I quit this game every few months and so should you to continue playing it in the future. The device is believed to have been dropped |
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" Socialism = 'Every person in the state is 'entitled' to a 'minimum' standard of living if they are willing members of the state' (policies towards this agenda) A distinct difference to communism in that in socialism capital gain is required in order to finance the various taxation requirements necessary for ensuring safety for those that are willing but unable. With socialism the level of minimum is based of the sustainability of the income. Socialism is like nationalised insurance. Communism is just total state control. Liberalism is about individual choice as to what insurances a person should choose in their life. The communist elements of the left wing promote the nationalisation of industries where as the socialists just require a functioning welfare system. If the industrialists/capitalists refuse to play ball with the socialists then the socialist may consider taking over that sector, but they have no agenda to nationalise the entire country. So a socialist is only interested in nationalising such things as relate to universal citizen well being in a 'minimum standard for all' perspective, such as health, pensions, postal service, dentistry, education, electricity etc etcand that, even then, socialists are happy for people to ply such trades privately alongside the national equivalent. Communists nationalise anything they use to manipulate national wealth and have no intention of letting private companies compete with their national infrastructure. That's a very basic few key points to act as an intro. |
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" Well, again, this goes back to my original question: Why do you deny communism an existence solely because you had a bad experience with it? To which you've now explained. You had a 'Soviet Russia' communist experience. Which is not a pure communist experience, just a Russian version of it. I feel sure they must have taught you in school that there's a huge difference between firstly, Lenin communism and Stalin communism, and, secondly, specific state communism and general principle communism. Someone might say to you "communism is great", and you'd say "yeah but no but yeah but no but" because you've had a bad experience with it. But if someone said to someone who's had a bad experience with pure capitalism "isn't capitalism great", then that person would say "yeah but no but yeah but no but". If you were just hoping for an argument about communism with gl5h, then, whoops, sorry for interrupting your objective, but if you want to know why it's bad that there's no left in the US I'd be glad to fill you in. |
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I don't feel like going on probation, but I guess other people might be willing to explain.
"Bad experience with communism" wow. Next on the list - bad experience with rape, featuring lines like "in theory it was good because she wanted/deserved it!" I'm out of this thread, bye. Be ready. You're not paranoid, you're PREPARED.
I quit this game every few months and so should you to continue playing it in the future. The device is believed to have been dropped |
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" O....k.... So what were you going to 'debate' with gl5h that I supposedly interrupted? You wanted to give him this speech rather than me? |
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Edit: This in response to Cronk and his explanation of Socialism.
That fits in what I have thought it was. Why it is viewed such a negative here in America, I don't get. I believe it mostly to be part of a P.R. campaign by big business. There are very few independent news outlets left. Most have been bought up by large multinational companies that covet profits over everything. That brings us back to the As long as I get mine argument that is at the heart of pure capitalism. And pure capitalism does nothing to help society. Not that I am against capitalism, but is in all things, there must be rules and punishment for breaking those rules. National Health Care? Hell yes! Number one reason for personal bankruptcy in America is health care cost. Worse is the Doctors now are expected to order more and more tests to help fund the profits of the parent company. (Our local Hospital was purchased by a large health care provider and now they want to close it to save money. Why? It was the competition.) National Security? Of course. I understand the need to have a military. That means the factories behind it. But I also know that it is one of the worst offenders when it comes to Corporate Welfare. I said before, I don't mind paying taxes. I just want them to be spent wisely. Investment in infrastructure? YES! This is the core of why we come together to form a society in the first place. Education? Too large a topic to compress down to a few words. But FUCK YES! What do all these have in common? Society coming together to be greater than the sum of the parts. As long as I get mine flies in the face of this and leads only to feudalism or worse. |
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" I agree, as you can read in my last sentence. Sorry for the bad structure of my post. Not used to it by now? :P " Well, you can stay happy about the fact that politicians governing security measure are utilitarians most the time. :D Last edited by Nightmare90 on Feb 5, 2014, 12:59:34 PM
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@MoonYu - precisely.
When Karl Marx wrote his famous book "controlling the means etc etc", he was just an academic writing one specific 'possibility'. During the 19th century there was a whole host of these 'possibilities' flying around, all trying to discover a way to incorporate 'modern society' (large, progressive populations) into something that wasn't also inherently chaotic and violent-revolution inducing (see The French Revolution and European Riots of the mid-19th Century). Many western nations were already advanced enough to start incorporating 'welfare' into the national framework. But they were doing it on a 'variety' of base texts, to which Marx was just one of many used for reference, not for complete following. However, Eastern Europe, and Russia in particular, were not at all as industrially symetrical as western europe, still having an economy heavily based around such things as serfdom and rurality generally. So, when their ruling elite (still a totalitarian monarchical system) tried to instill these kinds of taxes and welfare programmes it stirred up 'so much' confusion and chaos that - see Russian Revolution. (The reason the revolution succeeded being that all of the Russian military was away killing Germans - a result of both Germany and France and Great Britain being in the wonderful position of having such booming societies that the world simply wasn't big enough for the three of them - the victims of their own success type story) The Russian Revolution then sprouted a 'faction' as the new leader. That 'faction' was a faction who were 'followers' of one specific text - Karl Marx. So there was most of Europe, trying to impliment 'the best of both worlds' - but - woe, they'd achieved it so well they had all just killed each other in jubilation :( Leaving them now temporarily impoverished - and sandwiched between the two new superpowers of extreme communism and extreme capitalism - oh, double woe. Politicians from left and right now had to 'schmooze' hardcore capitalists and hardcore communists, creating this homogenius stalemate of the most appallingly retarded propaganda campaigns from both the USSR and the USA. Now that the USSR has collapsed, philosophically, left wing politicians have suddenly been denied all the 'schmooze' investment they had become lazily addicted to - but the right wing politicians are still thouroughly addicted the 'schmooze' money from the USA. ...putting in danger the whole concept of a 'balanced, thriving, modern industrial society' that felt so promising during the 20th Century because extreme capitalists, like any 'victor', are now able to extend their power in a 'mopping up the remnants of opposition' like manner. |
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" "I readily admit I know little, with the exception of familiarity with Marx's works (The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital); the assignment of the "European Leftism" label was based in trust of the validity of a previous post. Given one of the themes of the OP was lexical confusion, it was pretty foolish of me to dive right in like that; I apologize. "I am inclined to disagree (Adam Smith, etc). However, before jumping straight in: how do you define capitalism? Here's how I would: "The key word here is unregulated. Government interference to benefit a particular competitor is a form of regulation, positive regulation; not all regulation is negative, prohibiting competitors from certain behavior. I understand the unfairness of companies which, having money to purchase influence in government, attempt to do precisely that. I consider "crony capitalism" to be a contradiction in terms, and thus not representative of true laissez-faire capitalism at all; at best, like the Marxist who hides his ability and exaggerates his need, crony capitalism represents malicious users in the system, not the behavior of a legitimate user. Note: I'm not fully laissez-faire capitalist; I refuse to adhere to it as if a religion. Furthermore, I definitely see the need for checks and balances. However, my views do not stray far from it; I use it as a baseline. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB on Feb 5, 2014, 1:59:55 PM
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