Moving Towards Communism???

Personally, I agree.

The problem with all forms of government is that they look really good on paper, but when it's actually implemented, there's too much to contend with. People are naturally distrusting and competetive with their fellow human being. When someone comes along and says "OK, this is how it's going to be run!" some may agree, and some will not.

That's why trial and error is the way the governments of every nation of the world are going to be run until the end of time.

The founding fathers would roll over in their sleep at the sould of this conversation supporting communism.

Have any of you read Ronald Reagans speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Ill quote parts of it for you.

Quote:In West Germany and here in Berlin, there took place an economic miracle, the Wirtschaftswunder. Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood the practical importance of liberty--that just as truth can flourish only when the journalist is given freedom of speech, so prosperity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom. The German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free trade, lowered taxes. From 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of living in West Germany and Berlin doubled.

Quote:In Europe, only one nation and those it controls refuse to join the community of freedom. Yet in this age of redoubled economic growth, of information and innovation, the Soviet Union faces a choice: It must make fundamental changes, or it will become obsolete.

Quote: In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind--too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.

Quote:Where four decades ago there was rubble, today in West Berlin there is the greatest industrial output of any city in Germany--busy office blocks, fine homes and apartments, proud avenues, and the spreading lawns of parkland. Where a city's culture seemed to have been destroyed, today there are two great universities, orchestras and an opera, countless theaters, and museums. Where there was want, today there's abundance--food, clothing, automobiles--the wonderful goods of the Ku'damm. From devastation, from utter ruin, you Berliners have, in freedom, rebuilt a city that once again ranks as one of the greatest on earth. The Soviets may have had other plans. But my friends, there were a few things the Soviets didn't count on--Berliner Herz, Berliner Humor, ja, und Berliner Schnauze. [Berliner heart, Berliner humor, yes, and a Berliner Schnauze.]

Quote:There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

Quote: In the Philippines, in South and Central America, democracy has been given a rebirth. Throughout the Pacific, free markets are working miracle after miracle of economic growth. In the industrialized nations, a technological revolution is taking place--a revolution marked by rapid, dramatic advances in computers and telecommunications.

Quote:And I would like, before I close, to say one word. I have read, and I have been questioned since I've been here about certain demonstrations against my coming. And I would like to say just one thing, and to those who demonstrate so. I wonder if they have ever asked themselves that if they should have the kind of government they apparently seek, no one would ever be able to do what they're doing again.

shortkid1101 wrote:The founding fathers would roll over in their sleep at the sould of this conversation supporting communism.

Actually I think they would support the exercising of free speech. But maybe I'm crazy.

By Richard W. Rahn
Published March 21, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If someone advocates an ideology that has contempt for the individual and has caused untold economic misery and the deaths of hundreds of millions at the hands of their governments, what would you think of that person?

The ideology I refer to is, of course, socialism and its numerous variations, including the utopian socialists, the Fabian socialists, the National Socialists, and, naturally, the communists. Socialism is simply an economic system where the government (or collective) owns and controls the means of production. Given that the two centuries of socialists' experiments, whether by utopians, Marxists, or Fabians, always ended in economic failure and a loss of personal liberty, why are people around the globe still proudly proclaiming themselves socialists? Socialist parties are still popular in parts of Europe, Latin American, and in much of Africa. Socialist parties have been elected to power in both Spain and Portugal in recent months. Many college professors and students on U.S. campuses claim to be socialists.

The "national socialists" caused the death of tens of millions of people. The communists in Russia, China, Cambodia and elsewhere caused the collective deaths of more than 100 million people and impoverished billions of others. (I happened to be at the Kremlin in Moscow in August 1992, when the Russia demographers announced they had determined there were 63 million "excess deaths" in the Soviet Union during Josef Stalin's reign -- 1923-53.)

The Third World socialists have kept their countries unnecessarily mired in poverty for a half-century. The democratic socialists gained control in England in 1945 under Clement Attlee. As a result, the British economy was run into the ground. Hence the British people voted to reprivatize their economy under Margaret Thatcher beginning in 1979.

Other democratic socialist economies had the same types of failure, so by the 1980s privatization became the vogue as it was obviously necessary to re-ignite economic growth.

Yet, the socialists keep coming back. They deny or ignore previous failures and say the next time "we will do it right." Socialism only fails and will continue to fail because its theory is as flawed as its practice.

Back in the 1920s, the eminent economist Ludwig von Mises showed socialism it could not work because it could not provide a functional alternative to the price system to properly allocate resources. The Nobel Prize-winning economist, F.A. Hayek, provided the definitive proof of why socialism could not work in his last book, "The Fatal Conceit." The argument in essence is that if the whole world were socialist there would be no objective way to determine prices, thus no way to allocate resources efficiently.

If people knew the real history of all the socialist experiments and its flawed theory, very few (other than the delusional or mean-spirited) would be socialists. People do not know the history of socialist disasters because the educational establishment and much of the news media have engaged in a massive cover-up. The large majority of teachers throughout the world are government employees or depend on government grants. All too many are thus understandably hostile to the idea government enterprises do not work as advertised and, hence, reluctant to both teach and allow materials in the classroom that show the socialist model neither works in practice or theory. Surveys in the U.S. and elsewhere show the overwhelming majority of professors and public school teachers are on the left side of the political spectrum, so one should not be shocked they hesitate to teach history and theory that show their self-interested ideology is a failure.

Much of the electronic media in the world are either owned or controlled by governments. In the U.S., National Public Radio (NPR) provides a steady diet of the alleged failures of those in the private sector, with scant mention of the endless failures of socialist undertakings, let alone the reasons. Many NPR stations are now airing the BBC in part to further propagandize Americans in the socialist way of thinking. (Most Americans do not realize the government-owned BBC is increasingly monopolizing the broadcast media in Britain and, particularly, news to the benefit of the left.)

The employees of these socialist media are disinclined to bite the hand that feeds them, and many do not know any better. The situation is not much improved in the print media. Most reporters have been fed a steady diet of leftist and socialist propaganda from both their schools and from government agencies, and too few are willing to do the independent study and research to discover and, in turn, report the truth.

Perhaps the Internet will be our salvation, because it enables good people of conscience to get out the facts about the human misery caused by 200 years of socialist experimentation, without first being filtered by left-leaning information controllers.

Yes we as Americans have the right to abolish destructive government and institute a new government upon whatever principles they so choose.

But the founding fathers would be disappointed if we choose a government as distructive as a socialist one.

shortkid1101 wrote:Yes we as Americans have the right to abolish destructive government and institute a new government upon whatever principles they so choose.

But the founding fathers would be disappointed if we choose a government as distructive as a socialist one.

I didn't say anything about changing the government. You said:

Quote:The founding fathers would roll over in their sleep at the sould of this conversation supporting communism.

And I said the founding fathers would have no problem with us talking about it.

And please don't just post what other people have said, especially without any sort of commentary on them. Otherwise, you really aren't making an opinion for yourself, just regurgitating...

pianogirl2422 wrote:Okay, I'm confused. Could you clarify this sentence? And what is you're meaning of successful?
Keeps the country alive for +100 years without having to change the government system; and people, though they may disagree with lots of ideas from the President, still are willing to stay with the government.

MattJobs wrote:Fine AP_Work_R i'll be more clear. Would you like me to say two pregnancies. My point is that we have to find some way to keep the population down. Since the U.S. nor any other country is going to try and find/make another place for us to go when we overpopulate the planet, what else should we do? And you just keep saying that it won't work but you never give a solid reason why. And how you were talking about how human rights would be thrown out the window in a communist gov't. Well, what about the U.S. gov't doesn't it also infringe on human rights. I don't want to go into another issue but what about the U.S. and Gay Marriage and Abortion. Aren't we starting to go into human rights there?
...I DID give more than one solid reasons WHY Communism fails. You haven't read my response clearly...refer back to my post. The one with where Communism is gov't without social class, but there is a social class so...and so on...

The issues you mentioned aren't the types of human rights I'm talking about (well, maybe abortion). The human rights communism violates is, from your example, removing (most likely killing) children to a limit of two per household. And like I said, what happens if the parents have twins/triplets after their first child? Do they have to kill the extra child or what?

shortkid1101 wrote:The founding fathers would roll over in their sleep at the sould of this conversation supporting communism.

Actually I think they'd first question what communism was. I generally want to know what something is before I get all emotional about it, but that's just me...

And I agree with erikvarho. You should only quote when it supports a point that you stated and defended.

AP_Work_R wrote:I hope read my response thorougly (but apparently, it doesn't seem so :(). I did say that communism hadn't succeeeded, BUT have I ever stated that democracy succeeded?

How did you get such idea? I never said democracy was perfect nor successful. I only implied that it was more ideal and worked. Refer back to my argument; I clearly wrote that there was no form of government being "perfect." So, then, how was democracy before the Founding Fathers established, successful - I haven't even wrote such argument!

Next time, could you read thoroughly before responding? Thanks ;). That way, there wouldn't be so much misunderstandings :D.

All right, now that I understand that sentence, let me say that I read your post clearly and understood. Maybe I just didn't make myself as clear as I had hoped.

MY point was that democracy before the founding fathers was not successful, yet they thought of a way to make it so. Why then, is it impossible to find a way of communism that worked?

I'm not saying that I think it will happen, and especially not anytime soon, but I am stating that there is a possibility.

This is getting intense! lol. I think only one person here avidly supports communism. The rest of us are just commenting on it. And I agree. Actually post opinion, not someone else's. It makes you look dumb. Anyhoo.... I still stand by what I said. EVERYTHING looks good on paper, but once it's actually implemented, it begins to not work as good, if at all. So I say, lets just all be friends and deal with whatever gov't we have.