Judging by the people I know, surprisingly few would turn their phone off because they can be tracked. Security somehow does not concern them too much.
> It is insulting to talk about Iraqis lacking the will
I meant the Bush administration, not the Iraqi people.
> If you guys just HATE the US, fine.
just because I disagree with what was done in Iraq does not mean I hate the US. If you read my post again, you'll notice I specified "the US" to the current government.
> We didn't go into Iraq to get Europe to love us.
It seems to me, American soldiers weren't really sent into Iraq for the Iraqis, either. Because it is a fact that american soldiers stood by while looting was going on in the cities after the war, most renown was the looting of museums with ancient pieces of Iraqi culture, while protecting the ministry of oil...
However, Marx' theory was already flawed. I don't mean that the way other people are suggesting, saying it is inherently totalitarian, but Marx reduced the multifaceted, complex and colorful human society into two simplistic classes, the workers (owning only their work) and the kapitalists (owning the machines) (or something like it, I don't know the English terms). According to Marx, a high-end manager earning millions a year is a worker, who is unfairly abused by, say, Bill Gates, his superior. So communism as Marx saw it is not feasible because it's premises are flawed, and may the powers that be forbid that we actually ever evolve into a society that is structured simple enough for comminism to evolve (it would be terribly boring, wouldn't it?)
> but regardless, the people of Iraq ARE better off
No, the people in Iraq are worse off at the moment, because the US (or should I say the Bush administration) bombed what little there was left of, say power plants, radio stations, water supply, and other parts of the infrastructure to weaken the regime, which had been beaten anyways. And now they lack the will to rebuild it.
They may be free, but they're starving unessecarily now.
A problem I can see here is that for religious groups, there is still a "them", namely all the people that do not belong to that religion. I assume that a country that is made up only by such comunities would again split into different groups, emphasising tiny differences in behavior, or if even that fails, simply geographical difference. Humans in general need something to rival with, or they'll make it up.
It was a socialist country, communism as defined by Marx is a society in which no government is needed because everyone helps each other, and no one wants to be better than the rest. (IIRC)
So, nobody can really tell what living in a communist society is like (except maybe at a very small scale, a little group of people).
What your girlfriend can tell you is what it's like to grow up in a socialist oligarchy, or dictatorship, or whatever it actually was, that claimed to be communist.
"Intelligence" has no bearing to morals whatsoever, except maybe that an intelligent man can choose the morals that suit him best better than a stupid one. Of course, he is only justified by the outcome. (Or maybe better 'justified by history', since to me that phrase seems to encompass a broader view of the results a decision causes.)
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Judging by the people I know, surprisingly few would turn their phone off because they can be tracked. Security somehow does not concern them too much.
> It is insulting to talk about Iraqis lacking the will
I meant the Bush administration, not the Iraqi people.
> If you guys just HATE the US, fine.
just because I disagree with what was done in Iraq does not mean I hate the US. If you read my post again, you'll notice I specified "the US" to the current government.
> We didn't go into Iraq to get Europe to love us.
It seems to me, American soldiers weren't really sent into Iraq for the Iraqis, either. Because it is a fact that american soldiers stood by while looting was going on in the cities after the war, most renown was the looting of museums with ancient pieces of Iraqi culture, while protecting the ministry of oil...
However, Marx' theory was already flawed. I don't mean that the way other people are suggesting, saying it is inherently totalitarian, but Marx reduced the multifaceted, complex and colorful human society into two simplistic classes, the workers (owning only their work) and the kapitalists (owning the machines) (or something like it, I don't know the English terms). According to Marx, a high-end manager earning millions a year is a worker, who is unfairly abused by, say, Bill Gates, his superior. So communism as Marx saw it is not feasible because it's premises are flawed, and may the powers that be forbid that we actually ever evolve into a society that is structured simple enough for comminism to evolve (it would be terribly boring, wouldn't it?)
> but regardless, the people of Iraq ARE better off
No, the people in Iraq are worse off at the moment, because the US (or should I say the Bush administration) bombed what little there was left of, say power plants, radio stations, water supply, and other parts of the infrastructure to weaken the regime, which had been beaten anyways.
And now they lack the will to rebuild it.
They may be free, but they're starving unessecarily now.
A problem I can see here is that for religious groups, there is still a "them", namely all the people that do not belong to that religion. I assume that a country that is made up only by such comunities would again split into different groups, emphasising tiny differences in behavior, or if even that fails, simply geographical difference. Humans in general need something to rival with, or they'll make it up.
It was a socialist country, communism as defined by Marx is a society in which no government is needed because everyone helps each other, and no one wants to be better than the rest. (IIRC)
So, nobody can really tell what living in a communist society is like (except maybe at a very small scale, a little group of people).
What your girlfriend can tell you is what it's like to grow up in a socialist oligarchy, or dictatorship, or whatever it actually was, that claimed to be communist.
"Intelligence" has no bearing to morals whatsoever, except maybe that an intelligent man can choose the morals that suit him best better than a stupid one. Of course, he is only justified by the outcome. (Or maybe better 'justified by history', since to me that phrase seems to encompass a broader view of the results a decision causes.)