Liberals or conservatives? Read this, then decide.

[Deja Q]

Poll question: Liberals or conservatives? Read this, then decide.

WHEN THE COMMUNISTS TOOK OVER a country, one of the first things that they did was to confiscate all the privately-held weapons, to deny the people the physical ability to resist tyranny. But even more insidious than the theft of the people's weapons was the theft of their history. Official Communist "historians" rewrote history to fit the current party line. In many countries, revered national heroes were excised from the history books, or their real deeds were distorted to fit Communist ideology, and Communist killers and criminals were converted into official "saints." Holidays were declared in honor of the beasts who murdered countless nations.

Source: http://www.martinlutherking.org/thebeast.html (an anti-MLK Jr site)

[bloom]

1. What's the question? ...eom

[ExclamationPoint]

2. Yes that's what I was wondering

at first I thought it was "Are you a liberal or a conservative?" but apparently it has something to do with communists...

[whistle]

3. So did the Nazis in Germany and Mussolini's fascist government

[ElsewheresDaughter]

4. ummm......i am the village idiot and need clarification....

i don't understand what you want me to vote on

[NoStinkinBadges]

7. Another "Villiage Idiot" here.

I don't know what the vote is.

[OrwellwasRight]

5. Not sure what you are asking, either.

And what path took you to that white supremacy site? It is pretty grotesque; I really am not intersted in seeint it again. It is too depressing.

[Poppyseedman]

6. The site is hosted by Stormfront

All I need to know. Put your boots and rain coats on. It's pretty ugly in there.

http://www.stormfront.org/

[bloom]

10. I'm not interested in going.

I guess nobody is going to post the question over here. :shrug:

[manic expression]

8. Communism is not liberal

It is authoritarian, it takes away power from the people, especially with a one-party government. This is not liberal at all. It is not even financially liberal in practice, because in Communist countries, there is very much an upper class which is richer than others. To say that Communism (the way it has been practiced in Russia and China and other countries) is liberal is wrong.
Real Socialism...that's another story.

[Cats Against Frist]

9. Bzzzz wrong

Communism and socialism can be liberal. STATE socialism and STATE communism are authoritarian and anti-liberal.

To confuse you further, a a right-wing, authoritarian fascist government can have a welfare state. And libertarianism is left-wing.


***edit -- I knee-jerked before I read your qualifiers...:) You're right -- "real socialism" IS another story.

[manic expression]

11. Agreed

But state socialism and state communism are what most people perceive as Communism (Russia, China, etc...), this is what I was addressing.

I guess the difference is liberal socialism/communism vs. right-wing socialism/communism (authoritarian).

Libertarianism is all about privatizing everything, so it is right-wing in this respect, while it also privatizes the rights of people, making it socially liberal.... If I am not mistaken.
Thanks for the clarification.

[OrwellwasRight]

12. I think the Soviet Bloc system is more appropriately called

state capitalism because it operates like capitalism in which there is only one stockholder, the state. Bonuses are doled out to state friends like salaries to CEOs, classes are manintained, and workers do not rule themselves. Instead, they are at the mercy of the KGB and the Stasi.

In Communism, workers actually own factories they work in and the products they produce (thus combatting the alienation of labor from its fruits). The Soviet system was not, in any real sense, Communist, state or otherwise.

And I don't even know what to call the bs that China has right now. I think it is called oppression of the countryside in order to create wealth in the cities. So much for Mao's peasant revolution.