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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
You do...which? Wanna distance yourself from Kid, or refute his claim....or both? |
I distance myself from Kid. I don't know his system perfectly, given that I skipped throngs of CapCom threads, but he seems to advocate strict egalitarianism, which I oppose.
I don't remind what "claim" you were speaking of in that quote. I believe I remember, however, that you asked Agathon whether Kid was arguing for the one real Communist ideal or not (or something to that efffect).
I just wish to tell you that communist societies can be varied just like capitalist societies. Welfare's Sweden, dictatorial Chile under Pinochet, or highly free-market USA, all are capitalist. These societies may be extremely different wrt their behaviour toward the poor, toward the dissenters, toward worker rights etc., they all share the same premise of private ownership on the means of production. Hence they are capitalist..
I wouldn't know precisely what "Communism" is. To me, the word only describes the ideal of society envisioned by Marx once the Socialist transition was done, and nothing else. In Marx's Communism, there would be no State, and thus Kidicious' idea of a planned economy isn't "Communist" in the original sense of the word.
I imagine the word "Socialism", however, is more open to interpretation. The basic premise of Socialism is that the means of production can't be privately owned. On this very board, we have Odin, who wants an open market made of co-ops; we have myself, who advocates a system similar to welfare countries, only with worker-ownership* of most companies; we have Azazel, who supports a fully planned economy, etc... Most of us also strongly support democracy, although we can have different understandings of "democracy".
*more accurately, worker-management, as the concept "private property of means of production" is meaningless in my system
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:35
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BTW, I read this thread both out of boredom and curiosity. I normally stay clear of Cap/Com threads, and I wanted to pinpoint why.
And I'm afraid to say, Vel, that your behaviour is the reason that makes these threads such a pain to follow.
Unlike most posters coming in the OT, you don't aim at sharing your opinions, nor do you aim at learning something new. You aim at winning debates. Pretty much everytime I read one of your posts, I feel you barely avoided writing "HA! I WIN!" in it.
This here thread didn't start as a genuine discussion thread on Kid's utopia. It directly started with you exposing Kid's contradictory quotes. It directly started with you poking Kid with his own contradictions. This thread is blatantly not intended at understanding Kid's utopia, but it is intended at ridiculing him by exploiting the gaps in his utopia.
Pretty much everytime Kid answers one of your questions, you immediately throw one of his previous quotes -a contradictory one, at least out of context, which is how you show them. It is not out of genuine curiosity, like asking which one has got more reflection, which one actually reflects Kid's vision, but out of making fun of him for being inconsistent.
Your behaviour is completely unlike, say, Anneshm's, because Anneshm showed real curiosity, and not a mere willingness to prove the system to be bad by asking questions.
In the same vein, I remember the only fruitful debate I ever had in a Cap/Com thread: where Kuciwalker and myself exposed and confronted our own political utopias. The questions we asked each other were not "let's see if I can make him look dumb with this weak spot", but it was motivated with the genuine willingness to understadn each other's system. It didn't change our minds (duh), but it greatly contributed to our mutual understanding and respect.
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:35
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Yep...I readily admit that I'm VERY quick to point out contradictory statements. Quite true.
But I could care less about "winning the debate" because in truth, the debate is not won or lost here...but out in the world, where it is practiced.
In that light, Capitalism has very definitely "won" the debate, and what remains is mostly idle "what if" discussions.
I'll also readily admit that I'm probably one of the "hardest sells" Kid will ever run across, because I reject the greater portion of his vision for the Utopia.
Having had numerous discussions in this same vein, most of my exploratory curiosity was long ago exhausted, because like Anneshm, I began genuinely curious to see what the other side's views were.
Having satisfied that curiosity for the most part, I now want to know what the big improvement is with the newly proposed system, and what it would mean for me personally, having to live beneath its weight, and I think that's a fair question.
If there's a sense of hostility involved in the asking, I would say that it is there for a good reason.
I tend to balk at ideologies that begin with phrases like "after the swift and final blow rids us of all the counter-revolutionaries, then we'll...."
This....makes me more than a shade uneasy, and I think you will agree, with good reason.
So yeah, there's some hostility out the gate. No doubt.
Wouldn't YOU be a bit hostile if you knew at the outset that you're one of the people upon whom aforementioned "swift and final blow" was going to fall?
And that's something else....such a beautifully impersonal phrasing, you know?
Makes it easier to forget that there are faces and names behind each and every recipient OF those swift, final blows, and I'm probably one of them.
Does that make it harder to convince me?
D@mn right it does.
Wouldn't it you?
-=Vel=-
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:35
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I was beginning to reply to the post you made right after Kidicious', but I saw the following reply while in the "post reply" screen.
This is precisely the kind of posts that irk me.
You use your undeniable writing talent to make your points through style and emotion. And through simplicism. You just transformed the "when the counter-revolution is beaten" to "when Vel, Walker, Berzerker, Flubber et al are killed".
You just represented Kid as some monster who will kill many of the people we know online, and I bet you'd tell he'd kill my capitalist family members and friends if you knew their names.
A counter-revolution is the corollary to a revolution. A revolution destroys an old order through force, and it imposes a new order. The old order tries to defend itself, through force as well, and this is called the "counter revolution".
For the matter, I oppose a revolutionary rise to power, precisely because I oppose the spilling of blood. I am completely at odds with Kid in this regard.
However, it is normal for a revolutionary to want to crush the counter-revolution. Just like it is normal for an army at war to want to crush the opposing army.
Not all capitalist sympathizers are necessarily "counter-revolutionaries". Those who'll take up arms for capitalism, yes. Those who'll actively support the capitalist counter-revolution, probably. The others, probably not (unless the revolutionary is especially paranoid).
Revolutions are variable in their treatment of dissenters: compare the Cambodian and the Cuban revolution in this regard. Pol Pot genocided a quarter of his population in 4 years, for plenty of paranoid reasons, while Castro barely touched the civilian population.
I remembered you supported the war in Iraq before it started (I don't know if you changed your mind since then). Had we had Iraqi posters here, I'm sure you would have considered it a really insightful debating technique if they told you:
"You're a monster
You want to spill my blood
[some poster we all like]'s blood
[some poster we don't necessarily like, but who is our boy nonetheless]'s blood
etc."
I'm sure you would have loved it if the potential victims reduced all your pro-war arguments to mindless bloodlust. Especially with your knowledge that their chance of being hurt by colateral damage, being civilians, is very small.
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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:35
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quote:
Sure, if I felt like slogging through ten thousand threads in the busted-search-feature archives. IF they're even still IN the archive. |
If you're going to accuse him of eating babies, the least you could do is to back up your statements.
quote:
Let's see....we got a guy dreaming of the revoltuion, mentioning swift and final blows (banter context or not, that was still the phrase that sprang to mind when asked about dealing with dissent...not jail time, not fines....swift and final blows...what does that phrase suggest to you? A big hug and a pat on the butt?). |
It suggests a quick victory. You're reading a bunch of nonsense into it.
quote:
If there ARE to be counter-revolutionaries, then that means, almost by default a "revolutionary rise to power" which IS a violent rise.
Not might be...IS
Or, do you have a historic example of a non-violent revolutionary rise to power? |
Are you telling me that the Eastern European revolutions that ended communism were associated with slaughtering dissidents?
Anyways, why don't you genuinely ask him what he means by revolution instead of reading a bunch of Stalinist nonsense into the term?
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:35
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Just read about the Velvet Revolution. Yep. That qualifies. Good show, and I stand corrected.
It IS possible, at least in the context of stepping *away from* a communist regieme, which is the opposite direction we're headed in, but still a case in point.
And Ramo....I'm not accusing anyone of eating babies....simply stating that his Utopia is openly hostile toward the kind of person I represent. The "Capitalist-Pig-Dog". The exploiter of the downtrodden of the world. The "Elitist."
Such people are menaces TO the new world order proposed. Further, there is no ROOM in the New Utopia for people who fit that mold, and SINCE there is no room, there's really only two solutions.
Forced "re-education" or death.
Not the case when moving away from the communistic dictatorships of eastern europe and to a more open society, by the way....the more open society embraces those folks (even if somewhat grudgingly).
But were Kid's vision to spring to full fruition tomorrow, we Capitalists would rapidly try to reinvent the old (and now banned) system, and we would be dealt with.
Swiftly and with finality.
That does not suggest a slap on the wrist to me.
Does it to you?
-=Vel=-
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23-08-2004 01:34
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