View Single Post
Old 05-28-2005, 11:37 PM   #8
Mike
Member
 

Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 489
Mike is on a distinguished road
Send a message via AIM to Mike
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plain Old Jane
(on communism: USSR couldnt even feed its own people much less present a political rival, the problem with it is that its economic system was based on the fact that it MIGHT have been better then America, that is to everyone else, people who lived there KNEW it was shitty. Which kind of rings true now, theres lots of dissidents in America and a lot of other countries think we're great, and thats the basis for our entire economic system.)
Uhh. No.

The economic system of the USSR, say Soviet Communism was not even remotely 'based' on the pressumption (not fact) that it was "better" than America's economic system because the United States, in February and October, was not a world power. Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Norway, and Russia were more involved in international economics than the United States... and the United States did not stand at the forefront of Capitalism. If you were to think of THE capitalist country in the 1870s and 1880s, the US would be behind at least a half dozen other countries... And this is roughly the same in 1917, with the US succeeding Belgium and one or two other countries.

Even if you fast-forward to the American war in South East Asia ... it wasn't a choice between the economic models of Soviet Communism and American capitalism. Rarely in revolting countries was the battle over economics.

The idea that the United States is anywhere even comparable to the situation in Soviet Russia is absolutely ridiculous... In that there are dissidents in the US and there were dissidents in the USSR. The dissidence in the USSR was shut down... because those who were against the system were arrested and imprisoned... Politicians, commoners, workers, anybody. If you were starving in Soviet Russia, you were arrested. Why? Because you were starving. If you were not sick in Soviet Russia, you were arrested. Why? Because you must be hoarding food to avoid starvation. If you fought on the front lines in World War II, were captured and were a prisoner of war ... when you returned to Soviet Russia, you were arrested. Dissidence in America is celebrated... people make careers out of it. I know that your analogy was not to say that the American judicial system and Soviet judicial system are the same, but you were drawing a comparison between people within the Soviet Union who knew that the situation was aweful, and people outside of the Soviet Union who were attracted to Communism; and then, those who live in the US who complain, and those who are attracted to Capitalism outside of the US. This is erroneous at bottom ... for many reasons... most of which I'd expect you to argue (the idea that Soviet Communism does not equal Communism as a whole... half of the Communist apologetic movement).

Iraq, also, is not Vietnam. People like to draw comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, trying to argue that like Vietnam... the US is getting into the middle of a civil war that we should not be involved in. However, calling the Iraqi pre-2003 situation a civil war is like saying that the Nazis and Jews fought a civil war between 1941 and 1945. Not quite.

Last edited by Mike : 05-28-2005 at 11:43 PM.
Mike is offline   Reply With Quote