Posted on 04/30/2013 9:33:40 AM PDT by servo1969
I don’t think the word collectivism means what you think it means.
Islam lived by plunder, taking other people’s stuff away from them. Much as the Roman Republic and Empire did. And the robber barons of the Middle Ages, etc.
That’s a very different concept from collectivism.
Noun
The practice or principle of giving a group priority over each individual in it.
The theory and practice of the ownership of land and the means of production by the people or the state.
Islam is about establishing Muslims as a ruling class over the rest of us, not about collective ownership by all.
A scholar! :) I was stretching the definition I suppose to apply it in the fashion that Ayn Rand would. Rand would have called it the use of force to loot the productive work of others. But I recognize your correction. My main point is that Islam created a class culture based on bigotry, whereby non-Moslems represented an underclass. This held true in the Soviet Union, but the underclass in that case were the farmers, who were expected to feed the working class. There is the definition of collectivism, but in practice the “people” never really benefit.
That's also called taxation. :)
Rand and her followers considered any such use of force to be illegitimate, and that is a defensible position, in theory.
Back here in the real world, reasonable people recognize that (some) taxation is needed by any people who wish to protect themselves against internal and external threats.
Which is not to say that any given level of taxation is reasonable or appropriate, only that sufficient taxation and internal cohesion is necessary if the society is to survive.
For an example of a society that committed suicide by insisting on its own "Golden Freedom," I refer you to the Poles. Their refusal to give up any of their freedoms ensure that they wound up losing them all.
With the Polish, are you referring to the fact they insisted on a weak King, which made them vulnerable to being swallowed up by Germany, Austria and Russia?
More than that.
Look up “liberum veto.” Every member of the Sejm could not only absolutely veto any measure, he could dissolve the assembly at his will! Which invalidated any measures already passed!
This allowed the aforementioned German, Austrian and Russian Empires (and others) to meddle drastically simply by suborning or bribing a single member of the assembly.
A spectacularly effective recipe for destroying your country, at least if it’s surrounded by rapacious neighbors, as every country in Europe was.
The astonishing thing is how long the Poles managed to struggle along with the incredible handicap.
“Definitely by design to impugn and make Christians easily smeared as crazies and insane.”
That is what Muslims say about modern Jihadists — agent provocateurs created to defame Islam.
I completely agree, Linda!
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