Are Americans practicing COMMUNISM?!?

[Modem Butterfly]

Click here to find out!

http://www.libertyzone.com/Communist-Manifesto-Planks.html

From the website:

"Read the 10 Planks of The Communist Manifesto to discover the truth and learn how to know your enemy...

Karl Marx describes in his communist manifesto, the ten steps necessary to destroy a free enterprise system and replace it with a system of omnipotent government power, so as to effect a communist socialist state. Those ten steps are known as the Ten Planks of The Communist Manifesto… The following brief presents the original ten planks within the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx in 1848, along with the American adopted counterpart for each of the planks. From comparison it's clear MOST Americans have by myths, fraud and deception under the color of law by their own politicians in both the Republican and Democratic and parties, been transformed into Communists.

Another thing to remember, Karl Marx in creating the Communist Manifesto designed these planks AS A TEST to determine whether a society has become communist or not. If they are all in effect and in force, then the people ARE practicing communists.

Communism, by any other name is still communism, and is VERY VERY destructive to the individual and to the society!!"

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Smells more like fascism to me....

[Guy Fawkes]

2. Allow me to disagree.

You say "Communism, by any other name is still communism, and is VERY VERY destructive to the individual and to the society," but I don't agree. I would have to say that totalitarianism is destructive, not communism. Communism is a system of economics before it is a system of government. We practiced communism in the 30's and 40's (to some extent) with no major problems!

[Modem Butterfly]

3. I quoted from the website

Take it up with the nuts over there.

[bigtree]

6. I don't see how communism can sustain itself in the face of individual

free will without a heavy hand of totalitarianism to make it the rule of the land. Democracy allows for precepts and aspects of communism in its functions, but by choice, not imposition. Government is but a singular aspect in our daily life. The sole reliance on government for sustenance and life mission, as communism proscribes, causes government to become the essential focus of our activity and contribution and stifles individual ambition by siphoning off resources and centralizing them, creating a pyramid of benefit and influence.

No society that has free will and initiative would long tolerate such a heavy hand without subsequent force and coercion.

[cssmall]

4. *gasp* Damn those pinkos and centralized power.

You wouldn't want your child to have a fair and equitable education? You would want them to go through life uneducated. Communism is a great ideal and you're thinking only about the Soviet and China systems which I hate to tell you aren't communist.

Marx's work protects the laborer, protects the individual and protects the government by supporting all with education, governmental support, food, shelter, and other necessities of life. You wouldn't support universal health care? That is a socialist/communist idea.

What they are talking about and spinning at that website is this: facism. And, that is currently what we are practicing here in the US and in 1930s Germany.

Marx wrote in his Communist Manifesto that the workers will rise up and destroy the upper class; however, he did not account for a new class to arise out of the ashes and bastardize his work and his manifesto. Marx is to be admired for his STRONG faith and his work. If Marx had always been an atheist, then why would he have held such a vehement rage against the church? If he had not supported the imperalistic and captialistic systems, why would he hold so much rage against them. Because unlike his ideals, they were expliotive systems that went against the worker and the nation. Communism inherently supports the workers and their children.

Edit: Then take this as a guideline for fighting idiots that think Marx is Satan's right hand. ;D Misunderstood the quotes.

[rogerashton]

5. That's bullstuff.

This misrepresents both Marxism and the Manifesto. The "planks" are a mixed bag of ideas, some of which were Communist (i.e. particular to the League of Communists, a German exile group who commissioned Marx to write the Manifesto for their group) and some of which were common to pretty nearly every progressive around, and were there in the spirit of "oh, of course, we are for that too!!" Moreover, the page you reference is tendentious and untruthful, for example in equating "minimum wage" with "slavery." Think about that a minute! And having thought, please do not waste our time with the demonization of those you dislike, which is the first step on the road to terrorism.

[Modem Butterfly]

7. No, YOU'RE THE TERRORIST!

YOU AND EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH ME! HA!

Just kidding. Actually, the quote in my original post is from the website that was linked.

[Cats Against Frist]

8. People are mixed up from all sides

The fact that these loonies decide that any governance at all, is "communism," is telling -- since, from what I understand, true communism is the lack of a government body. These people are talking about a combination of state socialism and fascism, in their list of points.

I happen to agree that some of these things are bad for America -- the federal reserve, property taxes, etc., and, when some social institutions are administered by a top-down bureucratic system, they can turn into a mess of inefficiency and waste.

The people who wrote the website are really stupid, IMHO, but:

At the same time, I laugh my ass off when I see some supposed "anarchist," or leftist, dressed in black with a CCCP shirt, or a hammer and sickle -- or those god damn bowling shoes that the kids from the suburbs wore in the 1990s, while listening to Phish and braiding hemp necklaces. There is nothing pretty about the state socialist systems of Mao and Stalin -- and to laud those things, without any irony, whatsoever just makes people on the left look like fucking idiots. I used to be that dumb kid.

Now, I'm a libertarian minarchist socialist -- who also, however, advocates for other libertarian systems -- anarcho-capitalism, etc., within society. I think people should be able to choose how they wish to live. It's a lot better than blanketly condemning some collective actions, because they've been misapplied by a wasteful bureaucratic entity, or supporting democide and oppression, out of ignorance.

I also happen to believe that some of Marxist philosophy stands squarely against some of the philosophies of the Enlightenment -- and my hero, Thomas Jefferson. The worst thing that ever happened to the idea of the "collective" was Karl Marx and his subsequent devotees, in my opinion.