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    I haven't condemned socialism, Aragorn.

    That wasn't even my point.

    My point was that it's a boogeyman that people can see wherever they choose.

    I have posted here about forms of socialism that not only make sense but have worked historically, such as in Catalonia(at 10 min).

    This was meant to show the foolishness of peoples' fear of socialism.

    I will put "horrible evil" in quotes.


    Here's the video:

    Last edited by Dreamtimer, 5th October 2018 at 13:37. Reason: I started with Caledonia, lol

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    Oh look! There's a third side (in America) which is increasing in numbers. Oh wait, it's not a side. It's a bunch of people of all stripes. Of course.


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    Sigh... I hate to bang on about this, but I wish people wouldn't confuse socialism and social democracy. They are in fact almost the exact opposites of each other. Look, it's simple.

    - Hitler - national socialist
    - Mao - socialist
    - Stalin - socialist
    - Fidel Castro - socialist
    - Pol Pot - socialist
    - Kim Jon Il, Un and Kim Ir Sen - socialist
    Number of victims: Hundreds of Millions

    - all the social democracies in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, etc... - not socialist.
    Number of victims: practically none

    I get it that people like Bill Maher and Bernie Sanders want to make socialism cool again, thinking that Social Democracies are socialist, but they couldn't be more wrong. In fact, the Prime Minister of Denmark took exception to Bernie Sanders calling his country socialist and strongly rebuked him. Believe me, if Denmark was socialist, it would look more like North Korea or Venezuela and wouldn't be as prosperous and happy as it is. Social Democracy is the best form of government we currently know of. Socialism (whether in its national or international iterations) is the worst.

    This whole confusion actually reminds me of those very irresponsible and deeply biased British politicians and journalists who compare the European Union to the Soviet Union, or even worse, refer to it as the Fourth Reich. They completely miss the point that the EU's role is to create more freedom, not less, by applying the principles of its four freedoms (freedom of movement of goods, people, services and capital) within all EU and EEA (Norway, Iceland and Switzerland) member states. That enhanced freedom, which has created much prosperity across the continent is what Britain is turning its back on with Brexit. Don't even get me started on Brexit as I have been agonising about that clusterfuck for weeks now and who knows what's going to happen, but the whole thing is deeply sad and will be hugely damaging to the UK and Ireland, two countries I love deeply and consider my second home.

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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    Oh look! There's a third side (in America) which is increasing in numbers. Oh wait, it's not a side. It's a bunch of people of all stripes. Of course.

    Saying independent voters are a third side (a bunch of people of all stripes if you will), is like saying people have three knees: A left kee, a right knee, and a Hei nie. .

    Independent voters are such free thinkers, that they will vote for Democrats, OR Republicans...

    That's showing them! LOL
    The unexamined life is not worth living.

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    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    Sigh... I hate to bang on about this, but I wish people wouldn't confuse socialism and social democracy. They are in fact almost the exact opposites of each other. Look, it's simple.
    Did you watch the video, Chris? It addresses many examples of historic socialism that were not social democracies.

    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    Hitler - national socialist
    I'm sorry, Chris, but national-socialism — note the hyphen, because it's important — was not, is not, and never will be socialism, regardless of how many times you are going to keep on repeating your claim that it would be.

    National-socialism was a form of fascism, initially inspired by Benito Mussolini's fascism in Italy and (to a limited extent also) by Francisco Franco's fascism in Spain, and it was sold to the public as "a different kind of socialism" — which it wasn't — so as to allow Hitler and his NSDAP to seize control of Germany's resources.

    I've already explained all of this to you, and I've even explained to you that the SS wasn't even an official military but a private militia. The existence of a private organization — not to mention a heavily armed and legally approved militia — is directly juxtaposed to the very principles of socialism. Even Mussolini himself initially claimed that he was a socialist, even though his regime had nothing to do with socialism either. It was merely a populist slogan.

    It was also only later that Hitler started blending ethnic purification into his agenda — it had already been part of the plan all along, but Hitler needed to win the confidence of the German public first before going ahead with the next step, and then finally with the military expansion of his fascist empire. Which is exactly what it was: a fascist empire.

    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    - Mao - socialist
    - Stalin - socialist
    - Fidel Castro - socialist
    - Pol Pot - socialist
    - Kim Jon Il, Un and Kim Ir Sen - socialist
    Number of victims: Hundreds of Millions
    I'm sorry, but those are all proto-socialist regimes, not actual socialist societies. You are merely parroting an age-old knee-jerk and you are throwing populist labels around without understanding why those labels don't even apply to the regimes you are listing.

    Just because someone proclaims themselves to be a socialist doesn't mean that they are.


    • Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky were both the ideological descendents of Vladimir Lenin, but Trotsky was more moderate than Stalin. He was then forced to leave the country in exile, and then Stalin had him murdered in Mexico.

    • Fidel Castro initially had the right idea, but he was a man with great flaws, and then he teamed up with Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who had just as many flaws and was also just as fanatic. They were willing to shed blood — lots of it — to further their ideals, not even realizing that their actions and their ideals were diametrically opposed. They liberated Cuba from the CIA-backed fascist dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and his death squads, but what they put in place wasn't all that much better. And like so many other proto-socialist revolutionaries, Fidel just didn't know where to take it from there, leaving Cuba stuck in the 1950s.

    • Pol Pot and the various Kims of North Korea were/are madmen — literally. They've taken communism to such an extreme that it isn't even communism anymore. So don't go and call it that. It's a military dictatorship, and it's even worse than the Soviet Union ever was, or than the People's Republic of China is today.


    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    This whole confusion actually reminds me of those very irresponsible and deeply biased British politicians and journalists who compare the European Union to the Soviet Union, or even worse, refer to it as the Fourth Reich. They completely miss the point that the EU's role is to create more freedom, not less, by applying the principles of its four freedoms (freedom of movement of goods, people, services and capital) within all EU and EEA (Norway, Iceland and Switzerland) member states.
    I guess you must be living in an entirely different European Union then from the one I'm living in, because the only ones who are actually enjoying more freedom are the corporations, and even more specifically, the bankers. For the rest of us mere mortals, the European Union has been doing nothing but restrict our freedom — and a little bit more so with every passing day.

    What the European Union is, is an oligarchic bureaucracy of overpaid and incredibly wasteful career politicians who are first and foremost serving themselves, and who are knowingly or unknowingly serving the IMF second. And I hope you realize full-well what the IMF is.

    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    That enhanced freedom, which has created much prosperity across the continent is what Britain is turning its back on with Brexit. Don't even get me started on Brexit as I have been agonising about that clusterfuck for weeks now and who knows what's going to happen, but the whole thing is deeply sad and will be hugely damaging to the UK and Ireland, two countries I love deeply and consider my second home.
    Brexit is a whole different matter. The United Kingdom had never sincerely been part of the European Union. It only paid half of the contributions to the EU per capita that the other EU member states are paying, and it also never adopted the Euro as its currency. But when it came to policy-making, oh yes, then the British government was all in on the game. It was a dishonest deal from the get-go.

    Of course, the reasons why the UK left the EU are convoluted and based upon manipulation of the British public opinion by Britain's far right. Much of Nigel Farage's criticism of the European Union was certainly legitimate, but he was being a hypocrite. As an ultra-nationalist, Farage had his own reasons for wanting out of the EU, and so he conned the British people into voting for Brexit. And now that the British government has a conservative and moderately nationalist prime minister, it wants to be consequential with the decision made, even though many people in the UK are now having second thoughts about Brexit.

    For the European Union itself, Brexit is a welcome form of entertainment. They are hoping to humiliate and pester the UK with sanctions and all kinds of bureaucratic measures once Brexit will have been completed, so as to make an example out of the UK that there's a price to pay for leaving the club.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    The wings are deflating. The Independents are not a third block. They are people who are sick of the two wings. Last time I checked, people still matter.

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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    The wings are deflating. The Independents are not a third block. They are people who are sick of the two wings.
    I'm sorry DT, but the numbers and the polling data categories simply do not support these strong assertions. They may have grumblings about their party of choice, which is why it's liberating to call themselves Independents, but when the game is on the line they tend to come flocking home in droves.
    http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...-independents/

    There IS a small percentage that will truly go either way, and this time they were the ones who gave us the Republican.

    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    Young progressives are calling establishment Democrats "The Assistance". How astute.

    They are the New Wave.
    Now then, have you forgotten that just a few days ago, it was the young Progressives who were riding in to save the day? Progressives are hard Left in this country, just as Conservatives are hard Right. Now it's the people who are (supposedly) sick of BOTH wings riding in to save the day. Which is it?

    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    Last time I checked, people still matter.
    That's not very nice. I hope you aren't insinuating I've ever said anything to the contrary.
    Last edited by Fred Steeves, 5th October 2018 at 21:36.
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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    Oh look! There's a third side (in America) which is increasing in numbers. Oh wait, it's not a side. It's a bunch of people of all stripes. Of course.

    For the most part independents (I have always believed) are conservatives that are afraid to just admit it or they are totally disgusted with what they know is the nature of the 'Republican' party, yet, they have the same urges and drives as any authoritarian. Case in point...I work in a very authoritarian environment currently, one of the managers is black and calls himself an 'independent'. When I called him on it he admitted that he leans right....No real surprise to me...

    Quote Originally posted by Fred Steeves View Post
    I'm sorry DT, but the numbers and the polling data categories simply do not support these strong assertions. They may have grumblings about their party of choice, which is why it's liberating to call themselves Independents, but when the game is on the line they tend to come flocking home in droves.
    http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...-independents/

    There IS a small percentage that will truly go either way, and this time they were the ones who gave us the Republican.



    Now then, have you forgotten that just a few days ago, it was the young Progressives who were riding in to save the day? Progressives are hard Left in this country, just as Conservatives are hard Right. Now it's the people who are (supposedly) sick of BOTH wings riding in to save the day. Which is it?



    That's not very nice. I hope you aren't insinuating I've ever said anything to the contrary.
    many more Obama voters went right with Trump...A very much smaller pct of Romney voters went left to scurry away from Trump.

    It's neither Fred...and I'm betting DT knows it...she was just trying to be polite...
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    Sigh... I hate to bang on about this, but I wish people wouldn't confuse socialism and social democracy. They are in fact almost the exact opposites of each other. Look, it's simple.

    - Hitler - national socialist
    - Mao - socialist
    - Stalin - socialist
    - Fidel Castro - socialist
    - Pol Pot - socialist
    - Kim Jon Il, Un and Kim Ir Sen - socialist
    Number of victims: Hundreds of Millions

    - all the social democracies in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, etc... - not socialist.
    Number of victims: practically none

    I get it that people like Bill Maher and Bernie Sanders want to make socialism cool again, thinking that Social Democracies are socialist, but they couldn't be more wrong. In fact, the Prime Minister of Denmark took exception to Bernie Sanders calling his country socialist and strongly rebuked him. Believe me, if Denmark was socialist, it would look more like North Korea or Venezuela and wouldn't be as prosperous and happy as it is. Social Democracy is the best form of government we currently know of. Socialism (whether in its national or international iterations) is the worst.

    This whole confusion actually reminds me of those very irresponsible and deeply biased British politicians and journalists who compare the European Union to the Soviet Union, or even worse, refer to it as the Fourth Reich. They completely miss the point that the EU's role is to create more freedom, not less, by applying the principles of its four freedoms (freedom of movement of goods, people, services and capital) within all EU and EEA (Norway, Iceland and Switzerland) member states. That enhanced freedom, which has created much prosperity across the continent is what Britain is turning its back on with Brexit. Don't even get me started on Brexit as I have been agonising about that clusterfuck for weeks now and who knows what's going to happen, but the whole thing is deeply sad and will be hugely damaging to the UK and Ireland, two countries I love deeply and consider my second home.
    I don't think Bernie Sanders confuses socialism with social democracy/social welfare states
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    For the most part independents (I have always believed) are conservatives that are afraid to just admit it or they are totally disgusted with what they know is the nature of the 'Republican' party, yet, they have the same urges and drives as any authoritarian.
    Your "beliefs" are hereby acknowledged, but same as in religious beliefs, they do not match evidence on the ground.
    Last edited by Fred Steeves, 6th October 2018 at 01:55.
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    Quote Originally posted by Fred Steeves View Post
    Your "beliefs" are hereby acknowledged, but same as in religious beliefs, they do not match evidence on the ground.
    well, here's one I might almost agree with you...my 'perception' seems to be on shaky ground but I'm going with it anyway...
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    I wasn't implying anything directly towards you, Fred.

    It's a point that needs to be made on a regular basis because people can't get out from under the labels and the team mentality.

    As I've said ad nauseum, we're all human, in this country we're all American, and divided we will fall.

    It's not time for Civil War or Revolution or KWP or any of the rest. It's time to unite again before we get boofed by the rest of the world.

    I have yet to say that anyone is going to ride in to save the day. I've never had a savior mentality. Why is that so hard to understand?

    No one group is going to save anyone. That's why it's so ridiculous to hang the labels and be tribal. We have to save ourselves by working together, period.

    I don't walk away in a huff when I get told I'm brainwashed, I keep on trying. Some people will never listen but some will and that's what matters. Some will come out of their tribal delusions and begin to work towards something better for everyone.

    As far as the youth go, the Young Republicans were very active and made a big difference. That's just one example. I wish they hadn't ended up being so tribal. My parents were inclusive and open-minded and were not happy with the direction their 'team' went in.

    Today's youth aren't young Republicans. They probably would have been had that part of our system not gone so loony. So they're identifying as democratic socialists who still favor capitalism.

    Considering they've all grown up in a capitalist system, what they will be is capitalists who actually care about our social programs and don't scapegoat them for military welfare (i.e. jobs programs for weapons the Pentagon doesn't want).

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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    Did you watch the video, Chris? It addresses many examples of historic socialism that were not social democracies.



    I'm sorry, Chris, but national-socialism — note the hyphen, because it's important — was not, is not, and never will be socialism, regardless of how many times you are going to keep on repeating your claim that it would be.

    National-socialism was a form of fascism, initially inspired by Benito Mussolini's fascism in Italy and (to a limited extent also) by Francisco Franco's fascism in Spain, and it was sold to the public as "a different kind of socialism" — which it wasn't — so as to allow Hitler and his NSDAP to seize control of Germany's resources.

    I've already explained all of this to you, and I've even explained to you that the SS wasn't even an official military but a private militia. The existence of a private organization — not to mention a heavily armed and legally approved militia — is directly juxtaposed to the very principles of socialism. Even Mussolini himself initially claimed that he was a socialist, even though his regime had nothing to do with socialism either. It was merely a populist slogan.

    It was also only later that Hitler started blending ethnic purification into his agenda — it had already been part of the plan all along, but Hitler needed to win the confidence of the German public first before going ahead with the next step, and then finally with the military expansion of his fascist empire. Which is exactly what it was: a fascist empire.



    I'm sorry, but those are all proto-socialist regimes, not actual socialist societies. You are merely parroting an age-old knee-jerk and you are throwing populist labels around without understanding why those labels don't even apply to the regimes you are listing.

    Just because someone proclaims themselves to be a socialist doesn't mean that they are.


    • Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky were both the ideological descendents of Vladimir Lenin, but Trotsky was more moderate than Stalin. He was then forced to leave the country in exile, and then Stalin had him murdered in Mexico.

    • Fidel Castro initially had the right idea, but he was a man with great flaws, and then he teamed up with Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who had just as many flaws and was also just as fanatic. They were willing to shed blood — lots of it — to further their ideals, not even realizing that their actions and their ideals were diametrically opposed. They liberated Cuba from the CIA-backed fascist dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and his death squads, but what they put in place wasn't all that much better. And like so many other proto-socialist revolutionaries, Fidel just didn't know where to take it from there, leaving Cuba stuck in the 1950s.

    • Pol Pot and the various Kims of North Korea were/are madmen — literally. They've taken communism to such an extreme that it isn't even communism anymore. So don't go and call it that. It's a military dictatorship, and it's even worse than the Soviet Union ever was, or than the People's Republic of China is today.
    I don't entirely disagree with you, but I am talking from a Hungarian perspective here, where Fascism and Communism followed each other in quick succession and it was mostly the exact same people who were wearing the jackboots. What I am trying to express here is that in the big picture, when it comes to the extremes, the left and the right actually go full circle and become indistinguishable from each other in their totalitarianism. Most of us reject the notion that the far Left is somehow not as bad as the far Right, that the far Right is the expression of ultimate evil, whereas the far left is made up of well-meaning, but perhaps slightly misguided ideologues. Our experience tells us that both the far Left and far Right are equally misguided and frankly, evil. But I am starting to think that someone who has never lived under a far-left dictatorship will never really appreciate this.


    I guess you must be living in an entirely different European Union then from the one I'm living in, because the only ones who are actually enjoying more freedom are the corporations, and even more specifically, the bankers. For the rest of us mere mortals, the European Union has been doing nothing but restrict our freedom — and a little bit more so with every passing day.

    What the European Union is, is an oligarchic bureaucracy of overpaid and incredibly wasteful career politicians who are first and foremost serving themselves, and who are knowingly or unknowingly serving the IMF second. And I hope you realize full-well what the IMF is.
    Apparently I do live in a different EU, because to the places I've lived in, Hungary, Poland, Ireland and London (which, let's face it, is pretty much a country to its own), the EU has been overwhelmingly positive, with only a few negatives I can think of. This would be a very long discussion that ties in with Brexit, but I do believe the EU has played a major role in keeping peace and prosperity on the continent and extending it to highly troubled places such as Ireland and Central Europe. The transformation of these countries since they joined the EU has been nothing short of astonishing. Perhaps the effect on Belgium was different, I don't know, because I've never lived there.


    Brexit is a whole different matter. The United Kingdom had never sincerely been part of the European Union. It only paid half of the contributions to the EU per capita that the other EU member states are paying, and it also never adopted the Euro as its currency. But when it came to policy-making, oh yes, then the British government was all in on the game. It was a dishonest deal from the get-go.

    Of course, the reasons why the UK left the EU are convoluted and based upon manipulation of the British public opinion by Britain's far right. Much of Nigel Farage's criticism of the European Union was certainly legitimate, but he was being a hypocrite. As an ultra-nationalist, Farage had his own reasons for wanting out of the EU, and so he conned the British people into voting for Brexit. And now that the British government has a conservative and moderately nationalist prime minister, it wants to be consequential with the decision made, even though many people in the UK are now having second thoughts about Brexit.

    For the European Union itself, Brexit is a welcome form of entertainment. They are hoping to humiliate and pester the UK with sanctions and all kinds of bureaucratic measures once Brexit will have been completed, so as to make an example out of the UK that there's a price to pay for leaving the club.
    I mostly agree, except for the last paragraph, I think it remains to be seen what form Brexit will take, I suspect it won't be as good, or as bad as either the Brexiteers or the Remainers think. It would be worth doing a separate thread on Brexit, but the subject is immensely boring and complicated, so I don't think most people would be interested. I have to keep myself informed on the subject because of my decade-long links to Ireland and the UK. Quite frankly, it is the utter disregard for the Irish question which troubles me the most, Brexiteers didn't give even one iota of thought to the people of Ireland despite the fact they will suffer the most from this.

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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    I don't think Bernie Sanders confuses socialism with social democracy/social welfare states
    This should clear it up:

    The Author below is actually making the same points about the misuse of the word "socialism" that I was trying to make here, but to no awail. In my case, I fully like Bernie, I wish he was the US president right now. I only wish he stopped using the word socialism, as it really is a slur in this part of the world and highly inappropriate to use, except when describing countries such as North Korea and Venezuela.

    "https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/denmark-tells-bernie-sanders-to-stop-calling-it-socialist/"

    Denmark Tells Bernie Sanders It's Had Enough Of His 'Socialist' Slurs

    The Danes apparently have grown weary of Sen. Bernie Sanders insulting their country. Denmark is not a socialist nation, says its prime minister. It has a "market economy."

    Sanders, the Democratic presidential candidate who calls himself a socialist, has used Denmark as the example of the socialist utopia he wants to create in America. During the Democrats' first debate last month, he said "we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people."

    While appearing in New Hampshire in September, Sanders said that he had "talked to a guy from Denmark" who told him that in Denmark, "it is very hard to become very, very rich, but it's pretty hard to be very, very poor."

    "And that makes a lot of sense to me."

    So because something makes sense to him, he has the right to force that system on people who don't want it? Isn't that what he's saying?

    But we digress. This is about Danes being offending by Sanders using the word "socialist" to describe their form of government. And who can blame them, especially when the free world has had enough of national socialists and Soviet socialists and North Korean socialists and Cuban socialists?

    While speaking at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, the center-right Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said he was aware "that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism."

    "Therefore," he said, "I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy."

    Rasmussen acknowledged that "the Nordic model is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security to its citizens," but he also noted that it is "a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish."

    To that we'll add that Sweden, another of Sanders' inspirations, has for decades quietly moved away from its cradle-to-grave form of government welfare. And the Swedes are better off for having done so, just as the Danes will continue to be better off as their government overhauls its welfare state.

    If Sanders is going to continue to use these nations to guide his governing philosophy, he should base his policy positions on what they really are, not what he thinks they are or wants them to be. These countries have learned a harsh lesson. They don't deserve to be Berned again.

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    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    I don't entirely disagree with you, but I am talking from a Hungarian perspective here, where Fascism and Communism followed each other in quick succession and it was mostly the exact same people who were wearing the jackboots. What I am trying to express here is that in the big picture, when it comes to the extremes, the left and the right actually go full circle and become indistinguishable from each other in their totalitarianism. Most of us reject the notion that the far Left is somehow not as bad as the far Right, that the far Right is the expression of ultimate evil, whereas the far left is made up of well-meaning, but perhaps slightly misguided ideologues. Our experience tells us that both the far Left and far Right are equally misguided and frankly, evil. But I am starting to think that someone who has never lived under a far-left dictatorship will never really appreciate this.
    Well, now we're getting to the core, and I've highlighted a few important things you say here. Indeed, when they go to the full extreme, they become neither left-wing nor right-wing, but merely totalitarian dictatorships. Because in the end, that's what the game was about all along: total control — the government holding the people hostage.

    And yes, it's usually the very same people, wearing a different uniform/color, because those are the very people who seek to rule over others, regardless of what the political system calls itself.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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