Right, but the problem with that argument is that there was no disruption in aid services (or rather, the war served to reverse the disruption in aid services caused by the Taliban seizing aid shipments), and had Chomsky done any research at all, he would have known this (honestly, I would argue he did know this, but it didn't suit his argument).
Even in the first weeks of the bombing, before the Taliban began to lose control on the ground, more aid was getting to Afghanistan then had at any point since the Taliban grabbed power. Once Kabul fell, opening the roads from the north, the amount of aid reaching the Afghan countryside skyrocketed again, yet Chomsky continued to make his absurd claim.
OK, let's look at what you're saying here. If we can agree that while communism may be great in theory, in real life it will always result in the same type of tyranny and misery that resulted every other time it was tried, then we're more or less in agreement.
Now you say that, but the fact remains that every attempt to create communism here on earth has resulted in tyranny and misery. How many more tens of millions of people have to die before we acknowledge that that's what happens when communism is tried? I mean, it's not like we're short on examples, and it's not like any such attempt has ever resulted in anything else...
Which is all very well, but most of these countries don't hold up even when compared to the poorer segments of American society. To pick an example, were Sweden, often described as a social paradise by liberals here, to become part of America, not only would it's citizens be poorer than the citizens of any other state, but Swedes as an ethnic group would be poorer than any other ethnic group in the US. See
here for details.
This reflects a general trend, which is that taken at any level of society, Americans are better off than their peers in other nations.
And that is something no communist system has ever provided, while ours provides it to every citizen. But the point is that communism doesn't even live up to its own claims of providing for the worker...
Kind of like the U.S. Supreme court, isn't it. There are safeguards in place to keep the courts from having overreaching jurisdiction in both cases.
Right, except that the Supreme court of the US is appointed by an elected representative of the people with the approval of other elected representatives of the people. Partly as a result of not having such accountability, nor of having an analog of the Bill of Rights to be bound to interpretation of, the ECJ has already made rulings which would never occur here -- and that doesn't even get into such things as the European Treaty on Extradition, which allows nations to force extradition without hearing for citizens of other EU nations even for actions committed in nations where those actions are not legal.
It wouldn't be "no voice at all", it would be a very small voice proportionate to the respective populations. Which is really what democracy is...
Except that it would indeed be no voice at all any time the larger states acted en bloc, which is why as in so many other areas of the Constitution, a limit was placed on how the majority may restrict the rights of the minority...
Likewise, should I assume that, in typical liberal style, you don't actually have an argument against these points, and are thus resorting to quips such as this one?
Which is all very well, except for one thing: communism, every single time it was tried, not only led to greedy and corrupt leaders, but gave them absolute power, while Capitalism, even in the face of greedy participants (some would say especially given greedy participants) produces prosperity for all levels of society.
You speak of disparities between the top and bottom of society, but is this relevant? If (as it has) capitalism has produced so much wealth that even the bottom 20% of society in 1990 lived better than the middle 20% did in 1950, while communism bankrupted even economies which had been thriving before communism was tried (such as Russia), are such relative comparisons really the issue?
Which is better for the poor to have? A proportionally smaller slice of a much bigger pie, or an `equal' slice of a smaller pie?
Well, I've already replied to the same report in another post, but to summarize: the report does not consider liberty, does not consider democracy, and considers prosperity only as a minor factor (all of the five nations which scored above the US are poorer per capita and in average pre-tax salary than we are, some of them signfigicantly so). So how does this relate to our discussion?
And as long as we're discussing that report, how much credibility are we supposed to give a report which ranked Canada as the best nation to live in for each of the several years before the report cited? Remember that twice as many Canadians move to the US per year as vice versa, according to the CBC (and that even though the US population is 9 times the size of Canada's)...
Um yeah, OK. Just what am I supposed to make of the UN report you point to? That the UN thinks Norway is neato-keen?
I note that the report says nothing about liberty or democracy, and considers prosperity a minor matter (all of the highly ranked nations are behind the US in this area), so I guess I don't see what the report is intended to show.
Besides, how much can it mean to be ranked a good place to live on that report if Canada was number one for the last several years?:-P
Our Founding Fathers thought that the average American was too stupid to make an informed decision and run their own government. The point of the electoral college was that you would vote for people smarterthan you who would elect the President of the United States of America for you.
While I would argue that this is not a fair representation of the Founders' intent, it is at any rate seperate from the current discussion. We are not discussing the independence of electors (which no longer exists in practice), but rather the method of determining the number of electors each state is allowed to appoint, which was done for the reasons discussed, and was at the heart of GI's complaint (above).
That said. America is the worst country in the world, except for all the others
If we can agree on that, I'm happy for the time being.:-)
As much as I respect snopes.com, it can hardly cover every misquote, now can it?:-)
The problem with your comparison of quotes is that the Gore quote in question got much, much more coverage, exactly because it was made on the record, while your George H. W. Bush quote appears to have no source except reports from a pro-atheism activist.
So, I guess I'm going to have to see a better source for that quote, especially as it is so out of line with anything else Mr. Bush has ever said...
That's LBJ's third state of the union address in which he clearly states "Yet, slowly, painfully, on the edge of victory, has come the knowledge that shared prosperity is not enough. In the midst of abundance modern man walks oppressed by forces which menace and confine the quality of his life, and which individual abundance alone will not overcome."
Um, okay, what is your point exactly? That LBJ said that some people were oppressed in 1966? Were you even born then? Were many of the other people you claim are oppressed?
Here's a nice little piece by Noam Chomsky
Ah yes, Noam Chomsky. Whether it's
holocaust denial or just general nutty anti-American raving (also here), Mr. Chomsky can always be counted on to come out with something inane. Do you have a reputable source for your claims? Remember that Mr. Chomsky isn't even taken seriously on the left anymore.
Has Communism ever been tried? Not Stalinism or Maoism or Leninism; Communism. It's an honest question, most 'communist' governments in world history are thinly veiled dictatorships. It's generally acknowledged that a dictatorship is only as 'good' as the dictator -- and I would argue that Communism has led directly to dictatorship in every place it has been tried. How many more tens of millions would have to die before you would acknowledge that this is the norm, not the exception? Put differently: if I were to claim to you that Capitalism in theory, not as practiced now leads to heaven on earth, you would say `yes, but look at it in practice'. So I say the same: it is only fair to compare systems as they actually exist, not as some claim the could exist in theory. And compared as they actually exist, capitalism results in the most liberty and prosperity for the most people of any system.
Waco, Ruby Ridge (your inclusion of Columbine and 9/11 is nonsense) -- yes, these are terrible abuses. And unlike the massacres in communist systems, they are common knowledge, and are known as outrages (I would add Elian Gonzalez to the list, by the way, but I guess you'd disagree). `Most free' does not mean `perfectly free', nor does it mean that we do not need to be eternally vigilant. It does mean `Most free'.
First; the U.S. is not a democracy. It's a republic. Huge difference. -- the US is indeed not a direct democracy, it is a democratic republic. This doesn't change the fact that it is more democratic than systems such as the EU, where decisions are made solely by faceless bureaucrats who are, in effect, appointed for life. And that is what I said.
We have laws governing what we are permitted to do inside our own homes. -- surely, it is not the `inside our own homes' part which you are objecting to (we're not allowed to commit murder inside our own homes either, remember), it's the types of things which are banned (I assume you mean drug use) which you are objecting to. Now this is fine, and we are probably in some degree of agreement here, but you should look at laws in other countries if you think we're worse off.
There are areas we aren't allowed to research. -- care to name one?
There are subjects we aren't allowed to discuss. -- again, care to name one?
That is your "most free, most democratic" government in world history? -- yup. That it is. Though I welcome you to provide an example of anywhere you consider to be better...
How many socialist countries place fewer restrictions upon their citizens? Your claim seems to be that the answer is 0. -- yes, that would be my exact answer. Care to provide a counterexample?
Do you have the balls to try and back that up? -- I would argue that brains have much more place in this discussion than balls. Do you disagree?
Right, when a gun is used lawfully to kill someone, which generally means in self defense, it is being used within its intended range of uses, just as a car is being used for its intended purpose when it is driven lawfully, not when it is used as a weapon.
It remains the case that a.) most intended uses of guns are both lawful and have much more to do with preventing people from being hurt than with hurting people, and that b.) attempts to claim that guns are intended to be used for unlawful purposes, as the original poster in this thread implied, are hogwash
Cute -- twice in one thread anti-American slander is left unmodded, and any response is modded down.
Let it never be argued that the/. community doesn't use moderation to push a particular political line.
There's slashdot for you -- the original post, with its flamebait sig linked to a page of racist, anti-American, anti-Israeli claptrap is unmodded, but a response is `offtopic'.
`victimless' crimes -- while I'm sure we have some agreement here (don't forget that just about the only mainstream arguments for legalization of, eg, Marijuana are coming from conservative publications like National Review and the Wall Street Journal), I said `most free', not `perfectly free'. The nations of Europe, with their prior restraint on the press, lack of protections for free speech, and tendency to murder those with unpopular opinions certainly don't make the grade.
most democratic -- certainly Europe, where more and more power is delegated to faceless beaurocrats in Brussels, and court decisions by the established, limited judicial systems of member nations can be struck down by a super-powerful European Court with no democratic mechanism of selection doesn't make the grade here either.
And finally a note on the electoral college -- you consider this anti-democratic, but it is there for a reason: in their wisdom, our Founding Fathers recognized that without such a mechanism, a few large states would govern the outcome of elections, and smaller states would have no voice at all. Doesn't sound very democratic, does it?
Systems of government don't kill people. Starvation is caused by lack of food, not the reds -- which is why everywhere Communism has been tried it has resulted in shortages, starvation, and misery? Remember that at the start of the twentieth century, Russia was known as the `breadbasket of europe' due to its grain exports, yet within a generation of the revolution, it was forced to import massive amounts of wheat just to survive.
But realize that systems of government only change the who and the how of systematic slaughter -- nope. No one is being `slaughtered' in America today. No one is oppressed in America today. In China, tens of millions are dead or in prison or in the laogai (forced labor camps for political dissidents) for practicing their own religion, or for wanting democracy, or for any number of other failures to be model Communist citizens.
You can condemn communism -- I certainly can, and I do. If the deaths of tens or hundreds of millions in the last century is not enough to make you condemn communism too, what would?
and you'll be one of the first to go when the revolution comes -- cute. And you want us to believe that you're pushing a system which is not murderous?
History teaches us many lessons, one of which is that governments don't last. The U.S. is a powerhouse not unlike Rome and it's not easy to imagine its decline... -- great. You sit at home and wait for that, but don't forget that Rome lasted for 600 years. Also keep in mind that change is not always for the bettter. Here in the US we have the most free, the most democratic, and the most prosperous system in the world's history. If you want us to believe that it should be replaced, the onus is on you to say why.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, but the problem with that argument is that there was no disruption in aid services (or rather, the war served to reverse the disruption in aid services caused by the Taliban seizing aid shipments), and had Chomsky done any research at all, he would have known this (honestly, I would argue he did know this, but it didn't suit his argument).
Even in the first weeks of the bombing, before the Taliban began to lose control on the ground, more aid was getting to Afghanistan then had at any point since the Taliban grabbed power. Once Kabul fell, opening the roads from the north, the amount of aid reaching the Afghan countryside skyrocketed again, yet Chomsky continued to make his absurd claim.
For more on this, see here.
OK, let's look at what you're saying here. If we can agree that while communism may be great in theory, in real life it will always result in the same type of tyranny and misery that resulted every other time it was tried, then we're more or less in agreement.
Now you say that, but the fact remains that every attempt to create communism here on earth has resulted in tyranny and misery. How many more tens of millions of people have to die before we acknowledge that that's what happens when communism is tried? I mean, it's not like we're short on examples, and it's not like any such attempt has ever resulted in anything else...
This reflects a general trend, which is that taken at any level of society, Americans are better off than their peers in other nations.
Or, in other words, `yes'. Thanks for clearing that up...
So, again, do you actually have a single rational point, or are you just shooting your mouth off?
And that is something no communist system has ever provided, while ours provides it to every citizen. But the point is that communism doesn't even live up to its own claims of providing for the worker...
Kind of like the U.S. Supreme court, isn't it. There are safeguards in place to keep the courts from having overreaching jurisdiction in both cases.
Right, except that the Supreme court of the US is appointed by an elected representative of the people with the approval of other elected representatives of the people. Partly as a result of not having such accountability, nor of having an analog of the Bill of Rights to be bound to interpretation of, the ECJ has already made rulings which would never occur here -- and that doesn't even get into such things as the European Treaty on Extradition, which allows nations to force extradition without hearing for citizens of other EU nations even for actions committed in nations where those actions are not legal.
It wouldn't be "no voice at all", it would be a very small voice proportionate to the respective populations. Which is really what democracy is...
Except that it would indeed be no voice at all any time the larger states acted en bloc, which is why as in so many other areas of the Constitution, a limit was placed on how the majority may restrict the rights of the minority...
Likewise, should I assume that, in typical liberal style, you don't actually have an argument against these points, and are thus resorting to quips such as this one?
Can I assume from your response that you don't actually have any rational objections to my post, so you are resorting to insults?
And while we're on the subject, you say
but as far as I can tell this just isn't happening -- most people have more financial and personal liberty than at any time in the past.So maybe you can explain that bit?
Which is all very well, except for one thing: communism, every single time it was tried, not only led to greedy and corrupt leaders, but gave them absolute power, while Capitalism, even in the face of greedy participants (some would say especially given greedy participants) produces prosperity for all levels of society.
You speak of disparities between the top and bottom of society, but is this relevant? If (as it has) capitalism has produced so much wealth that even the bottom 20% of society in 1990 lived better than the middle 20% did in 1950, while communism bankrupted even economies which had been thriving before communism was tried (such as Russia), are such relative comparisons really the issue?
Which is better for the poor to have? A proportionally smaller slice of a much bigger pie, or an `equal' slice of a smaller pie?
Chomsky doesn't mention that he also wrote the foreward to Mr. Faurisson's book...
Well, I've already replied to the same report in another post, but to summarize: the report does not consider liberty, does not consider democracy, and considers prosperity only as a minor factor (all of the five nations which scored above the US are poorer per capita and in average pre-tax salary than we are, some of them signfigicantly so). So how does this relate to our discussion?
And as long as we're discussing that report, how much credibility are we supposed to give a report which ranked Canada as the best nation to live in for each of the several years before the report cited? Remember that twice as many Canadians move to the US per year as vice versa, according to the CBC (and that even though the US population is 9 times the size of Canada's)...
I note that the report says nothing about liberty or democracy, and considers prosperity a minor matter (all of the highly ranked nations are behind the US in this area), so I guess I don't see what the report is intended to show.
Besides, how much can it mean to be ranked a good place to live on that report if Canada was number one for the last several years? :-P
Our Founding Fathers thought that the average American was too stupid to make an informed decision and run their own government. The point of the electoral college was that you would vote for people smarterthan you who would elect the President of the United States of America for you.
While I would argue that this is not a fair representation of the Founders' intent, it is at any rate seperate from the current discussion. We are not discussing the independence of electors (which no longer exists in practice), but rather the method of determining the number of electors each state is allowed to appoint, which was done for the reasons discussed, and was at the heart of GI's complaint (above).
That said. America is the worst country in the world, except for all the others
If we can agree on that, I'm happy for the time being. :-)
As much as I respect snopes.com, it can hardly cover every misquote, now can it? :-)
The problem with your comparison of quotes is that the Gore quote in question got much, much more coverage, exactly because it was made on the record, while your George H. W. Bush quote appears to have no source except reports from a pro-atheism activist.
So, I guess I'm going to have to see a better source for that quote, especially as it is so out of line with anything else Mr. Bush has ever said...
That's LBJ's third state of the union address in which he clearly states "Yet, slowly, painfully, on the edge of victory, has come the knowledge that shared prosperity is not enough. In the midst of abundance modern man walks oppressed by forces which menace and confine the quality of his life, and which individual abundance alone will not overcome."
Um, okay, what is your point exactly? That LBJ said that some people were oppressed in 1966? Were you even born then? Were many of the other people you claim are oppressed?
Here's a nice little piece by Noam Chomsky
Ah yes, Noam Chomsky. Whether it's holocaust denial or just general nutty anti-American raving (also here), Mr. Chomsky can always be counted on to come out with something inane. Do you have a reputable source for your claims? Remember that Mr. Chomsky isn't even taken seriously on the left anymore.
To respond to a few points:
unless you're female, black, middle-eastern, an ex-convict, muslim or mexican.
Nope, even if. Care to provide evidence to contest that (not hysterical claims ripped from the pages of The Nation)?
Right, when a gun is used lawfully to kill someone, which generally means in self defense, it is being used within its intended range of uses, just as a car is being used for its intended purpose when it is driven lawfully, not when it is used as a weapon.
It remains the case that a.) most intended uses of guns are both lawful and have much more to do with preventing people from being hurt than with hurting people, and that b.) attempts to claim that guns are intended to be used for unlawful purposes, as the original poster in this thread implied, are hogwash
Cute -- twice in one thread anti-American slander is left unmodded, and any response is modded down. Let it never be argued that the /. community doesn't use moderation to push a particular political line.
There's slashdot for you -- the original post, with its flamebait sig linked to a page of racist, anti-American, anti-Israeli claptrap is unmodded, but a response is `offtopic'.
Let's look at those two points:
`victimless' crimes -- while I'm sure we have some agreement here (don't forget that just about the only mainstream arguments for legalization of, eg, Marijuana are coming from conservative publications like National Review and the Wall Street Journal), I said `most free', not `perfectly free'. The nations of Europe, with their prior restraint on the press, lack of protections for free speech, and tendency to murder those with unpopular opinions certainly don't make the grade.
most democratic -- certainly Europe, where more and more power is delegated to faceless beaurocrats in Brussels, and court decisions by the established, limited judicial systems of member nations can be struck down by a super-powerful European Court with no democratic mechanism of selection doesn't make the grade here either.
And finally a note on the electoral college -- you consider this anti-democratic, but it is there for a reason: in their wisdom, our Founding Fathers recognized that without such a mechanism, a few large states would govern the outcome of elections, and smaller states would have no voice at all. Doesn't sound very democratic, does it?
OK, let's go through your claims: