Posted on 12/11/2011 5:35:03 PM PST by NeinNeinNein
OK, this is not a flame thread. I'm genuinely curious why conservatives think Communism is so evil.
I am a Communist. I am also a God-fearing Christian, a tax-paying and loyal American, and a generally nice guy. Communism was perverted by third world despots and was never implemented fully in its true form.
Communism is about cooperation and good will. And it's important to note that economic success and cooperation are not mutally exclusive. In fact, I would argue greater cooperation among individuals leads to more prosperity and more overall happiness.
In the broadest terms, is the end of society to be a state of knowledge in which the individual is able to understand the possible consequences of his behavior and is then free to choose according to his own desires and goals, the general state of society then an amalgam of informed individual choices? Or is the end to be a state of being in which the individual’s choices are limited by others to a range calculated by them most likely to result in that state of being, the general state of society then an expression of coerced individual actions?
The latter end is characteristic of family (both nuclear and extended), of tribalism (the mythologized extended family), of socialism (re-mythologized tribalism in a suit), and of totalitarianism (demythologized socialism with guns). All consist in the individual being forced by others using various means into behavior that will be1) for his own good later in life (the family),While this is universally seen as appropriate within the child/family relationship for developmental reasons, its application to society at large by some group within that society, or by one society to another, has been the cause of most social ferment throughout history.
2) for society’s good (tribalism/socialism), or
3) for the good of the individuals in control of the society (totalitarianism).
The track record of authoritarianism has been excellent in terms of its persistence throughout history and across cultures but has been abysmal in terms of knowledge (Lysenko and Soviet genetics, German anthropology and the Nazi state, environmentalism including the global warming hoax), in terms of human rights (the Inquisition, the Holocaust and other pogroms, China and family planning, most post-colonial African dictatorships) and in terms of technological inventiveness (the miserable record of Soviet-style five year plans, Mao’s fixation on steel production and its disruption of the flow of goods and services, the extreme environmental damage left behind in the former Eastern bloc as a direct result of centralized control of capital, labor, and resources).
The reason for this is that authoritarianism or statism doesn’t allow the freedom for the wide range of viewpoints necessary for generating and testing hypotheses, let alone the ad hoc experimentation and innovation by individuals for their own reasons that form the basis of a developing, knowledge-based, technological society. Discovery is not allowed to take one where it will--it must be restricted to the party line (witness the vitiating of the ideal of the university by notions of political correctness).
Given the complexity of life, the narrow range of understanding possessed by any particular group is guaranteed to fall short at some point. Given the concentration of power exercised under a centralized system, the failures are guaranteed to have widespread and crippling effects. By contrast, the multiplicity of successes and failures over a wide range of scale that appear so chaotic in a state of liberty have the benefit of limiting the damage and of spreading throughout society successes which can be emulated and modified to fit local conditions.
This dipstick trolls over on Big Government under the handle of NineNineNine. Different name...Same old Sh*t.
Altruism can only come voluntarily, from the individual. All else is coercion, and coercion is slavery. Every individual is unique, and entitled to freedom and self-determination. In a free society people are free to give away all that they have, and to eschew their own property. Nothing is stopping you from living a life without personal property, and from sharing what you have with everyone. You have no right, however, to demand that others live their lives the way that you think they should.
I have never met a socialist, or communist who wasn’t a hypocrite.
This is a country founded under His word and we shall live under His guidance.
Your communism is about what man MUST give to man. Where is He in that equation?
The Messiah shall return...where will those force others to give all to others, versus all to God stand when the Hosanna in neigh???
There’s no such thing as a system where a few people at the top don’t get rich but Capitalism is the only system that allows a whole range of economic levels with freedom to move up or down the scale.
The problem today isn’t that the rich are undertaxed (that doesn’t affect anything) its that taxpayers are overtaxed across the board and its strangling capitalism.
Dear God, WTF is wrong w you?
As most people have pointed out... at this point we judge it by its fruits which were so bad, that it’s hardly worth dignifying the question with an answer.
But I guess it would be interesting to imagine that Communism never existed, had no fruits good or bad, and that you Herr NeinNeinNein were presenting it for the very first time.
It obvioulsy had an allure even among good people. Plus one must imagine the early Capitalists working children at the mills 18 hours a day and paying them with rocks.
It’s late and I’m bushed, so I’ll just say that oftentimes it’s quite easy to say what wrong is... but extremely hard to say what right is.
The early Communists pointed to a lot of wrongs, but as soon as the ends justify the means... and worldy utopias are offered... you’ve undermined your mines and opened the gates of hell.
This is true of any ideology or system.
The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. He is the man who has lost everything except his reason. Chesterton, Gilbert K
Communism is wrong on several levels, from the moral to the practical.
On a moral/ethical level, how can you justify confiscating the fruits of a man’s labors to give to another?
Communism steals from the individual many of their rightful choices. For example, if the state builds cars, it’s inefficient to build too many different models, so the “consumer” ends up having his free will confiscated, nay STOLEN because the auto maker isn’t beholden to the customers. Since the state makes the cars, and you can’t sue the state under communism, there’s no incentive to make the cars safe or of good quality, so they don’t. If the state decides they want tractors this year instead of cars, tough titsky, you don’t get a car! (In reality, even the US auto industry is far too centrally planned with too much intrusion by people who aren’t buying the cars — which is ANY.)
As a practical matter, if practiced honestly Communism mostly evens out the differences between individual outcomes (in practice, there’s always a privileged elite). If everyone is going to get the same outcome, how do you motivate 90% of them to do anything?
Communism, again if practiced according to the theory, applies the system that prevails in a small household to large groups of people, most of whom will never meet each other. This is both immoral and unworkable, and that’s even before considering how the idea works in practice as opposed to theory.
“This dipstick trolls over on Big Government under the handle of NineNineNine. Different name...Same old Sh*t.”
___________________________________________________
Maybe he is Barky Obumber in drag.
Well, maybe communism isn’t great for all the reasons stated in this thread,
And maybe it isn’t great because most people aren’t willing to work their fannies off to support their neighbor who sits in the backyard drinking beer all day. And most people really don’t like government intervention into their lives.
If you are doing a term paper, please feel free to quote me.
Well, maybe communism isn’t great for all the reasons stated in this thread,
And maybe it isn’t great because most people aren’t willing to work their fannies off to support their neighbor who sits in the backyard drinking beer all day. And most people really don’t like government intervention into their lives.
If you are doing a term paper, please feel free to quote me.
Why do I know Communist are evil?
In their quest to modernize China, the Communist caused the greatest famine known to man. During this “Great Leap Forward” at least seven members of my family starved to death.
In their quest to create a classless society, my grandfather died from the beatings he received from the Red Guard. He crime was being the village school teacher.
In their quest to create a Godless society, Father Anthony, a family friend, was sent to a concentration camp for refusing to renounce God and his church. He was finally released after more than 30 years of imprisonment.
Anyone who proclaims himself to be a Communist or even sympathetic to Communism is either a fool or a psychopath.
Give the boy credit for this tired old line, that the likes of Obama, Axelrod and Ayers would prolly use on ya as well. This has been the apologists' excuse since Stalin's long known crimes were uncovered officially in the mid 50s by then communist pope Comrade Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, himself a willing participant in them. The Western apologists and fellow travelers could not hide anymore, although the likes of the despicable Pete Seeger continued to do so until the current century, while others kept changing their heroes, like teenage girls change pop idols, to Lumumba, Castro, then Ho Chi Minh, then Pol Pot, then Minnie Mandela, Saint Mugabe, Arafat, Chavez, as the next messiahs who'd implement the real, REAL Communism as imagined by the jesus of Communism Karl Marx and his saint peter Engelbert Engels. Now, even our Chairman Bob Avakian is changing his song of revolution to a version Communism where all voices pro and against will be heard and tolerated. I for one can't wait! Go, Chairman Bob!
Communism places the good of the collective above the good of the individual. This makes people who live under it slaves to the good of the collective and removes their natural rights to life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For example, if you are a threat to those in power, and your death would benefit the state , Communism dictatres that you must be killed, as many were in China, Russia, and Cuba. Don’t you think it is evil to kill people to advance a political agenda?
Having lived in a former communist country, I can attest to its horror and futility. Sure, communist leaders murder, but in my opinion it does something even worse. Communism destroys a man’s intrinsic value of other human beings.
Communism discourages a man from producing anything in its most efficient, effective, and beneficial form. Instead, it encourages a man to only produce that which will keep him from drawing attention to himself...as a matter of survival for him and his family.
Communism robs a man of his spirit-that spirit which naturally drives him to excel in his endeavors. Men, under communism, become slothful and indolent, building an insatiable expectation that someone else will provide for his welfare.
On a daily basis, around 50 percent of my interactions are with communists (both American and immigrants). These interactions continually make it clear that their ideology teaches them to view people as nothing more than a tool whose value depreciates to dirt when they can no longer use the tool to get their way.
You cannot murder everyone in your society, but you can kill their will to excel. This ideology does not die with the generation who experiences its ills, but also poisons the generations that follow.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.