Of course, I can't find the site where I read about this earlier today, but the Sandinistas are making a comeback in Nicaragua.

As I said, Communists are part of coalition governments in Europe. Socialists are in power in Europe. Let's not forget monarchies, constitutional and otherwise. As for defending Communism, I don't defend it as much as clarify overly simplistic (dumbed down) labels. I personally do not believe that pure Communism is any more viable than pure Capitalism. Both systems require that you let people starve to death if their level of contribution falls below their level of need. This kind of system is not only immoral it is unstable.

I think you are confusing crying :cry: or insulting :wstupid: with debating in a calm and rational manner. You will notice that I did not once, ever refer to you as a boneheaded slack-jawed inbred pig-chasing cousin-loving redneck idiot. I would distinctly remember if I had ever sunk to such a low and despicable level. :D

Rich, don't be all backpedaling now. Your original premise was that communism didn't kill 100M people. Now you want to discuss nuances of different kinds of Communism. And put it on some sort of sliding scale with Communism on one end and Capitalism on the other. I find that to be kind of ignorant. What kind of nuanced Communism worked in each of these different approaches to it?

http://cellar.org/2004/COM.TAB1.GIF

explanation of terms, table

The notion that Capitalism and Communism are in contention for being able to provide for the citizens sorta died in the late 80s/early 90s when we learned that all the worst right-wing rumors about the U.S.S.R. were in fact true. The notion that we kids had when we were in college, that the U.S.S.R. was just a misunderstood grand experiment/hidden utopia? All that shit was wrong. Maybe you haven't been paying attention since college?

The war is over, Capitalism won. In fact the current controversy isn't whether it can provide enough for its people to live on, but whether it actually provides too much and becomes "unsustainable".

Am I really dumb, or does that chart actually say that a particular .106th of a person was killed by Communism?

I mean, if you want to talk about 'nuanced'...

The column header (000) says the column is in thousands, so 0.106 indicates 106 killed.

Meanwhile, I'm still seeking details on the Famine of the Great Depression. For some reason this horrible event was not detailed in our history books.

No, no one asked me to pool hop, they asked us to install HUGE Bush signs on their property.

Your version does sound funny, but no, that's not how it worked. This was not a prank for the property owners. It was by request. And the requests were many.

I didn't say that the total deaths by all Communist governments didn't total up to 100 million, I'm saying that not all Communist governments commit democides and not all democides are committed by Communists. The danger in believing that is that by bad things are always or always done by Communists is that this can cause one to assume that Capitalist societies are immune to abuses, that the freedom to buy a Big Mac means that all other freedoms are guaranteed. This kind of blindness is why Marx thought his revolution would occur in England and Jews assumed the worst persecution they would suffer in the 20th century would be in Russia, Poland and France.


http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.TAB1.4.GIF

Notice that while most of the table lists Communists dictators, almost half are not Communist. The ones who did not make the list, like Pinochet, are significant not for the number of indivduals murdered, but because of their ties to the US.

Yes Rich, and you have a sense of humor too. Fair enough ( Kerry still lost the election ) :biggrin:

No hard feelings. I personally get a little tired when a politician declares 'My good friend Senator Whistlewort......' before he pulls out the knives, but I do agree that it's possible to debate without getting really nasty ...unless Radars around. :eek:

Rich, you're backpedaling in your backpedaling. You called the 100M number an "interesting figure" and then casually failed to find evidence to support it. I produced evidence to support it. I'm not sure why the question doesn't end there, except that now we need to discuss the Famine of the Great Depression.

[troll]So do we total Bushes slaughter(s) under fascist or democratic?[/troll]

Hey Griff,

Seriously, do you have any credible stats on these "slaughters"? I keep hearing about them but is there a source?

Well, counting the military folks is easy, but counting the civilians is a bit difficult.

You know we're smart enough not to keep score any more. We learned one thing from Vietnam anyway.Johns Hopkins makes estimates however. Excluding information from Falluja, they estimate that 100,000 more Iraqis died than would have been expected had the invasion not occurred.
I obviously can't vouch for the reliability of their numbers.

I couldn't find evidence to support it, you did. According to your chart, about 110 million 'Communist' deaths and 59 million non-Communist. Considering that the two most populated areas of the world were the USSR and China, communist countries, then on a death per 1000 people chart, the non-Communist regimes might match the Communist.

Which brings me back to my point that noone who is shot cares about the politics behind the bullet.