Geez, this has turned into a nice discussion.
Cacto: Good to see you again, you Aussie Michael Corleone, you!
I wasn't being ironic; yes, there is much wrong with this country (as with all countries, actually), but not the system it runs under.
You have to admit that, for all its shortcomings, capitalism is still the most practical and workable economic system man has ever come up with.
How else do you explain the rapid advancement, culturally, technologically and economically, of the Western (and Westernized) world, than to credit capitalism and its inherent freedoms? Virtually all the high-technology the USSR and China had/have, they acquired from somewhere in the Capitalist West.
So many Third World nations have attempted to base their systems on some form of Socialism and have failed as countries, that I'd hardly think it a coincindence. Even many nations that are ostensibly "socialist" have some form of capitalism as their main economic policy.
Say what you want, but the system that gave us the Carnegies, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers is the winner, and is here to stay.
| I don't know how many living families you know that do not employ communism internally. But I know none. |
---Leauki
A family is different from a state. Responsible, caring mothers and fathers know that they brought their children into the world, and they love and want the best for them. They are RESPONSIBLE for their very lives and existence.
How many people that you don't know do you care enough about to give up everything you have and earn to care for their needs and wants?
That's the problem with your argument, in my mind.
The State doesn't KNOW you. It doesn't really care about its charges, the way good parents do, as your analogy would seem to state.
Whether by accident or design, for all its big talk about a classless society and sharing of the wealth, the Communist State comes down to existing simply for the benefit of itself. The people it governs are simply there either to feed into that or to hinder that. That's not a family.
DrGuy...thanks for the comments.
Very well said.
Another thing I'm getting out of reading this book is a chuckle about how easily duped the Left was, even back then.
As most of you probably remember, while Reagan was building up our military and nulcear arsenal, huge peace demonstrations, rallying against him and his policies, were breaking out all over the world, including here in the USA. It seems that most, if not all, of the groups and/or organizers were either Soviet or East German spies, Communist Party front groups or were being funded or otherwise backed by the USSR and/or its allies.
Sad thing is, the peaceniks today are still falling for it. So many of their "spontaneous" demonstrations and the groups behind them are organized and/or funded by anti-American organizations. Hell, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to hear that Al-Quaeda itself funnels laundered cash to Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore and Jane Fonda.
Here's my question, though: all those people that were angrily taking to the streets and shouting anti-American and anti-Reagan slogans, burning him in effigy for being a militaristic, insane warmonger....where were they in 60s and 70s, when the Soviets were in the midst of the THEIR military buildup? The one that created the biggest war machine in history to that point, including WW2?
How come they weren't out there demonstrating and marching in front of the SOVIET Embassies, burning Kruschev and Breznhev (spelling?) in effigy?
Why do the totalitarians always seem to get a pass for their faults, but not us? That last was a rhetorical question; it's gone back and forth on here some many times that I really don't think it needs rehashed.
But, if you're feelin' Froggy, LEAP!
