Fidel Castro (Capitalist Democracy vs Socialism)

[Moonlapse]

Heres a question for everyone...

 

Which do you desire more?

 

A government as a means to a societal end, or self goverment as an end in itself?

 

As far as Libya is concerned, I have always admired the tent dwelling master of that desert outpost of glory. Why, I have always wanted to wrap a rag around my head and visit the author of the jolly Green Book and pay homage to the that author of mayhem and the innocent defiler of Italian war graves. qadaffy is my hero.

Kadaffi is truly a ruthless SOB, but have you really looked at the system of government there?

[Antiochus of Seleucia]

the current 4th ammendment issues on searches excepted

In times of war and uncertainty the government always becomes mildly oppressive.

 

Kadaffi is truly a ruthless SOB, but have you really looked at the system of government there? ohmy.gif

Let's all look at Somolia. That's messed up. When the 'government' there kills U.N. peacekeepers to steal the food aid to become stronger, you know there are problems.

[Gaius Octavius]

It is evident that an English translator of the stature of Mark Twain is required at this juncture. It is well known that conclusions drawn from syllogisms without a middle are of the most valid and useful variety. Criticism created by mental (pardon the term) gymnastics (to put it elegantly) are the most contributory elements of intellectual argumentation. Inserting ones own fantasies into another's argumentation is always of great assistance to a contra parties quaint, if not absurd, propaganda.

In this vein, I plead: guilty.

 

Heres a question for everyone...

 

Which do you desire more?

 

A government as a means to a societal end, or self goverment as an end in itself?

 

As far as Libya is concerned, I have always admired the tent dwelling master of that desert outpost of glory. Why, I have always wanted to wrap a rag around my head and visit the author of the jolly Green Book and pay homage to the that author of mayhem and the innocent defiler of Italian war graves. qadaffy is my hero.

Kadaffi is truly a ruthless SOB, but have you really looked at the system of government there?

Government, by definition, is a societal end.

Edited August 7, 2006 by Gaius Octavius

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Well let me put it this way, since that question is not articulate enough. Government is an end only if it is not used to violate rights or to create an affect on behaviours that do not violate rights. Then it becomes a means.

 

Which do you desire more?

 

A government with the authority to make and enforce laws designed to supervise the behaviour and belief of the populace, or a government with the authority to make and enforce laws designed to protect individual rights.

 

Do you want a policeman who is there to protect you, or do you want a policeman who is there to arrest you for violating a law you never agreed to, for a crime with no real victim?

[Moonlapse]

Am I correct to assume that there is some support here for Castro, but not for Kadaffi?

 

Re: Somalia. There's oil and natural gas under the ground there, waiting to be taken... Who will get it? They'd better pump it out so we can buy it. Too bad the Conoco, Phillips, Amoco and Chevron concessions haven't been able to go through yet due to fighting.... right? Crap, we need to find some backup oil, where can we get that? The middle East? South America? Damnit, now the Japanese are selling more fuel efficient cars... lets outsource our vehicle manufacturing to China. Uh oh...

 

I need to stay away from these threads, I have other things to do!!!

[Antiochus of Seleucia]

arrest you for violating a law you never agreed to

That's why we don't pay our Mexican War taxes Henry David Thoreau style.

Edited August 8, 2006 by Antiochus of Seleucia

[Gaius Octavius]

Well let me put it this way, since that question is not articulate enough. Government is an end only if it is not used to violate rights or to create an affect on behaviours that do not violate rights. Then it becomes a means.

 

Which do you desire more?

 

A government with the authority to make and enforce laws designed to supervise the behaviour and belief of the populace, or a government with the authority to make and enforce laws designed to protect individual rights.

 

Do you want a policeman who is there to protect you, or do you want a policeman who is there to arrest you for violating a law you never agreed to, for a crime with no real victim?

I don't believe that we are, in reality, on different pages. If by belief, one means religion, then certainly of course not. That is one reason why I pointed out the fact that the U.S. government divided Cuba into seven Protestant districts. I am certainly against government giving tax payer money to 'faith based' organizations. Government has no business supporting or suppressing (save those that are contrary to legitimate laws, duly enacted) any religion. No person may pick and choose the legitimate and duly enacted laws that he will observe. I may not decide that as I do not agree with the traffic laws, that I may disregard them - at your peril. Then there is the matter of having to comply with the myriad of laws and rules that no one has ever heard of. But that is another discussion. Excuse me for reducing the 'education' matter to an absurdity as I only do it as an example. No US person may withhold elementary education from his charges and send them off to the mines at age six.

 

Theoretically, we elect our legislators because they represent, in general, our considered views. They are thus charged with representing us and the nation as a whole. Recently one of these 'exalteds' voted with 'his' president on the matter of stem cell research but informed the opposition that he would vote against the legislation (which he really disagreed with) in future because he had done 'his duty to his president'. At this point, the child of perfidy should have been excised from life.

 

A 'crime' with 'no victim', is in reality, a contradiction. If one uses prostitution as an example, it may be said that there is no victim. Some would hold that the prositute and/or the customer are victims. HIV and the break-up of families along with the degrading of the prostitute who may be practicing the trade willfully or perforce.

Edited August 8, 2006 by Gaius Octavius

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The belief system I'm worried about is the one that considers people to be bits of machinery that fit into the big plan, who need to be tweaked just a bit to make them more efficient for their intended purpose.

 

Regarding traffic laws... piloting a 3,000+ pound vehicle at high speed in public roads is not an individual right. I think this is properly handled as a privilege that can be revoked for consistently doing things that will endanger others, on public roads. I won't get into the inefficiency and costs, though. Private roads and property are a different matter.

 

As far as education goes, its taken over 100 years to get schooling to this point and it may take another 100 to adjust it back to something more intellectual than behavioral. I don't have a problem with keeping school compulsory right now, as long as the government does not have a monopoly. Vouchers look like a good start to me.

 

Prostitution... drugs... these things are far more destructive when prohibited than when they are legalized and monitored for safety. You are right, it is a contradiction. Much much more harm is done to someone by sending them to jail for growing and smoking pot, than to just let them peacefully do so.

[Gaius Octavius]

Am I correct to assume that there is some support here for Castro, but not for Kadaffi?

 

Re: Somalia. There's oil and natural gas under the ground there, waiting to be taken... Who will get it? They'd better pump it out so we can buy it. Too bad the Conoco, Phillips, Amoco and Chevron concessions haven't been able to go through yet due to fighting.... right? Crap, we need to find some backup oil, where can we get that? The middle East? South America? Damnit, now the Japanese are selling more fuel efficient cars... lets outsource our vehicle manufacturing to China. Uh oh...

 

I need to stay away from these threads, I have other things to do!!!

I am not sure that it is support, but rather explanation. Were it not for the likes of Batistas, Nicholas II's and Idrises, there would be no need for Castros, Lenins or Cadaffy's. I don't know much about Qdaffy save that he was allegedly involved in killing innocents and defiling Italian war graves. But he is a 'good' lad now. Oil.

 

As far as Somalia is concerned, our 'super patriots' and common idiots, prevented the situation there from being amended a decade ago. But the crud will get to the business now. No Clinton. Oil.

 

Let me try to get you back here. Have you noticed that Tom Paine has been cast into the dust bin of history?

In my opinion, Mr. Paine is the philosopher of freedom and liberty - without peer. He is given an honorable mention in schools - but nothing more. No statues (that I am aware of); no memorials. His body was allowed to moulder hither and dither. I wonder why? Not really, I know why. His philosophy might open the somnolent minds that suffer the dreaded Intra Cranial Feculosis Syndrome.

 

Now I really do digress. How, in the bloody blue blazes do I get a picture up into My Album? I have been diddling with that confounded thing for days and the only result is pain. I've a shot of myself and one of Viggen addressing the Legatii to put up for the edification of the Forum.

[Antiochus of Seleucia]

As far as Somalia is concerned, our 'super patriots' and common idiots, prevented the situation there from being amended a decade ago. But the crud will get to the business now. No Clinton. Oil.

 

Now the khat chewers in Somolia are being run by Islamist Extremists. I don't know which one is worse, but buying oil from them is paying out for suicide. Perhaps if Clinton didn't have brains of jello Somalia would be a better place right now. A lot better. Even a lot of the soldiers hate him for pulling out.

[Gaius Octavius]

As far as Somalia is concerned, our 'super patriots' and common idiots, prevented the situation there from being amended a decade ago. But the crud will get to the business now. No Clinton. Oil.

 

Now the khat chewers in Somolia are being run by Islamist Extremists. I don't know which one is worse, but buying oil from them is paying out for suicide. Perhaps if Clinton didn't have brains of jello Somalia would be a better place right now. A lot better. Even a lot of the soldiers hate him for pulling out.

My good fellowe, forgive me if I err, yet was it not the assorted media trash talkers and the repulsive party that forced him out of the situation busche the very first instituted?

With regard to the 'jello' factor, please advise if you think that the Intra Cranial Feculence of the present pretender is preferred to peppermint jello?

Edited August 8, 2006 by Gaius Octavius

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Well, its been a very interesting discussion. Question everything and stay away from the television. I think I'm done here.

[Kosmo]

Sorry, I did not get to read all the posts in this topic as I became very angry, but I have some things to say.

First- Cuban comunism was always an economic disaster. During the existence of the Soviet Union and the Warshaw pact the countries of east Europe payed up to 7 times more for sugar then the world market prices and sold oil, industrial and military equipment at ridicoulosly low prices. For example Cuba was buying from Romania glass at a price so low that they only wanted the wooden boxes that kept the glass safe during trip, but it was cheaper to buy the boxes with the glass inside from Romania then to buy just the timber from other areas.

Not to mention loanes at no interest, direct financing, scholarships, advisors etc.

From Castro rise to power until the early 90's Cuba was living from other people money.

As to communist statistics they were always made up. Romania was in '89 a major world producer of sunflower oil and sugar, but this were on rations for the romanians. In statictics east germans lived better then west germans, but this was far from true.

After East Europe stop paying for Cuba the economy crushed. They use now ox carts and other animal driven vehicules while all the factories build by soviets, romanians etc are good for scrap. People are starving there and prostitution it's rampant. It's a disaster.

Anyone remembers when Castro was sending his army in Angola or when he was leading the nonalligned movement despite being a soviet allie?

I wish he dies like Ceausescu did and the people of Cuba have a chance for a decent life. If not for communists Cuba could have been a great country now with a large turist industry as it was the most developed country in the islands and it was very close economically and politically from the US. It could have became a Las Vegas of the Caraibeean as it started.

 

PS I lived in a dictatorship and it was really bad. I've seen other countries like Egipt that still have it and it was not bad for a tourist. Now staying at my desk I can admire a dictator in a distant corner of the earth. But living again in a dictatorship...never.

[Gaius Octavius]

Kosmo:

 

Rather than going around in circles, I will try to address some of the points in your post. Aid to Cuba? Had there been free trade, without price supports, Cuba might have prospered. Castro might not have been forced to be a 'filthy communist'. At least Castro didn't steal every penny Cuba got as Chaing Kai Sheck and Sighman Rhee did. Calls to mind my father's and my taxes going to western Europe, Japan, Korea,Taiwan, etc., after WWII. Bread off of my table and into the cavernous mouths of the corporations that got the contracts. I have always resented the fact that Americans supplied the provender and liquor for the tables' of those nations elites.

 

It was Castro who did away with the then necessary occupation of prostitution. You would prefer that Cuba be a mecca for gambling? How about human - animal sex shows? That always drew a crowd of tourists and perverts. Castro addressed the problem of HIV-AIDS - unlike a certain fourth rate, super-moralistic, ill-literate actor in the U.S. Children are not given up for adoption. Women are not auctioned off for the sex trade or the foriegn marriage market. Remind you of any nations? With the fall of the USSR, one-quarter of the Earth's economic assets were allowed to be stolen from its peoples by the current 'democrats'. Was Rumania not a bastion of freedom and poverty under King Caroll(?)? Bulgaria? Albania? Cuba was not simply close to the U.S., it was owned by U.S. interests - and that is the reason for its present isolation. The colonialism of the USSR? Have you ever heard of the likes of Guatemala?, Nicaragua?, El Salvador?, Bolivia?

 

The Bobble Head of Washington and the Mad Madam of London had little, if any, influence in bringing down the Iron Curtain. They merely astronomically increased their nation's national debts. It was the BRAVE people of Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the Papacy who brought the Curtain down. Not to mention the jeans, TV, print media and rock bands contributions. And that chap with the map of Albania on his head - Gorbachev.

 

Angola was not the only arena of Cold War conflict to which Castro supplied troops and doctors. Do you know that Castro was the FIRST to offer assistance to the U.S. after the World Trade Center attack?

 

Why aren't the brave cowards of Miami in the Sierra Maiestra?

 

I am against ANY nation forcibly exporting its form of government and economics. When these nations are ready, their own Tom Paines, Geo. Washingtons and Jeffersons will arise. Otherwise, its none of my business - "Keep your head in your own plate!" - a very Wise Man once told me.

 

Oppression rears its ugly head in many ways.

 

Another member of the great patriotic 'uninformed' cookie cutter crowd, has deigned to nominate me a 'Stalinist'. To clear matters up, I earned my keep practicing 'Capitalism' with my own gold - without ANY government give aways - to the point of the clothes on my back and the tools of my profession - a pen and pencil.

[Zeke]

(Whistles...what have I started?)

 

I am sorry everyone. I am not a Communist or anything but I got to take Gaius's side in this case.

 

I don't support Capitalism but I think its nessissary to some extent to promote economic prosperity.

 

Capitalism takes it too far when it uses slave labour in China to make stuff. Have Americans become so lazy that they can't make their own clothes? Nothing is American anymore. Everything is from the Third World.

 

I bet you in Cuba they make some of their own stuff. They do "honorable" jobs like cutting sugar cane and making cigars. What do Americans do...half of us work as retailers and in service occupations.

I feel sorry for Ursus...he has to work in that customor service job if I remember it corretly he doesn't like it very much.

 

America has walked away from our agricultural princeples, once a society moves to far away from its farming past then it begins to crumble. Look at Rome for an example.

 

In my opinion...Agriculture, small bussinesses, and University oriented positions such as Lawyers, Doctors, and Proffesors are the way to go.

 

Corporations, huge retailer stores, mass production factories which pollute Earth's fragile environment...these are all the ways of Capitalism and slavery.

 

If Rome has stayed with its strong agricultural base then it would have survived longer. Yet it sold out to the Latifundas, which made everyone poor and beggining for food in the cities. It sold out to the immigrants who eventually corrupted its empire. All in the name of more soliders, and capitalism. Maybe my theory is wrong...in fact I don't think many of you will agree with me. But the United States and other Capitalist nations are heading down the path of destruction.

I will have to work out that idea...and present an essay.

 

-sorry about spelling,

Cheers, Zeke

Edited August 17, 2006 by Zeke