Lies they teach you in HIstory class

[Rigs83]

Few communist states are actual communist states but really police states (China and Soviet era Russia, some may say it still is) or run by a cult of personality (China under Mao, North Korea and to lesser extant Cuba) so mankind has no actually seen a true workers' states.

Stalin was never a friend of the Jewish people and was more than happy to imprison the Bolsheviks, many of which was Jewish, in gulags in Siberia. One lesser evil is still an evil.

As for inflation, governments can't control the stupidity of very smart people playing with other peoples' money or thieves who have no soul. Plus every once in a while nations' like to kill of some of it's people in giant dick waving contests called war.

Arguably mankind has not seen the ideal of any government, after all we're not perfect. The presence of a veto in the american system throws democracy right out the window for example. A cult of personality does rock the equality boat a bit though.
Yes it's still an evil but in a question of comparing evils I think we should go with the lesser one. Also my point was that although some people he imprisoned were jewish they were not imprisoned because they were Jewish but for other reasons, such as alleged conspiracies. I know there is some evidence he was anti-semitic but I don't think it ever influenced his actions to any great degree.
And since I didn't comment on 3 I'll assume that last bit is a general comment (correct me if I'm wrong).

The last bit is a general comment but it just reminded my what Douglas Adams' wrote:
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."

 

[Dancingman]

Lie #1
Communism and Fascism are opposites. The truth is they are both totalitarian governments run by dictators who oppose individuality. In fact the Nazis were the National Socialist German Worker'S Party.

True, the Nazi system was a socialist one, the Soviets claimed to be socialist, but completely threw out the mixed economy of traditional socialism, Nazi Germany did do many things similar to Soviet Russia, such as having many businesses run by the government. However, they also did continue private property ownership (The USSR did this under NEP, but not under Stalin). However, since I'm a tad uncertain if you're talking about the philosophies themselves, or the countries that practiced these ideologies. True Marxist communism is vastly different from fascism, Leninist communism (especially the NEP) IMO shares the most with Fascism, Stalinism puts basically everything in control of the government.

Lie #2
Europe was better under Stalin than Hitler. The fact is Stalin was responsible for more deaths in Europe than Hitler was.

This is somewhat biased, more of an author opinion than hard facts. Death figures under Stalin are hard to get and to confirm, much harder than the meticulously-kept records of the Nazis. The fact of the matter is, a good deal of supposed-Stalin death figures are too big to make sense, the highest ones to disproportionately gigantic percentages of ALL deaths in Europe in various years. Also, the Holomdor (a massive famine in Ukraine, killed very many and accounted for a lot of deaths attributed to Stalin) which is said to have been engineered by Stalin to punish those who resisted collectivization, may have been a part of a series of famines that hit the Soviet Union at the time. Several other areas in the USSR that didn't rebel against collectivization on a large scale like Ukraine did also suffered severe famines, this could well have been due to mere incompetence, which parts of the USSR government had in spades. The fact of the matter is, Stalin did kill a good deal of people, however, we have to keep it in proportion with the USSR population at the time (which was in the hundred millions), and the fact that the Soviet Union did have some spectacularly poor harvests under Lenin, to the point where a mainly agrarian nation actually had to import its grain, these famines continued to occur in different places during the reign of Stalin that probably caused a lot of the deaths that are attributed to him. Also, death figures for the gulags are difficult to estimate, records kept by Soviet officials were intentionally destroyed as the Soviet Union collapsed. Soviet estimates, repeat, estimates put death figures at 10 million, whereas Western sources put it somewhere between 15 and 30 million; I usually find it useful to distrust extremely high death figures, but I'm not sure I feel much better trusting figures from those who did it themselves, as the Soviets tended to downplay tragedies and exaggerate victories to keep morale high. The gulags are a conundrum to me and many historians vastly more qualified than I am. I dunno, as for whether Stalin was better than Hitler, that's really more of an opinion question that I don't feel is very productive.

Lie #3
Inflation is a natural process of the Economy. The truth is inflation can be avoided or at the very least minimized if the Government didn't continue to over mint money and if we actually had money that was backed by something.

Agreed mostly, but all economies have a natural ebb and flow (Econ 101, hee hee) and minting more money is not always the sole contributor to inflation.


Lie #4
The civil war was fought primarily over slavery. The fact is, although slavery was on issue,the main one was state's rights vs. Federal power. If the main focus was slavery than states like Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri would have joined the South, they had slaves and were Northern states, and additionally the Emancipation Proclamation didn't apply to them.

I disagree, slavery was a huge issue during the Civil War. It just wasn't the ONLY issue at hand, if it wasn't slavery, it would've been something else, when it started, it was all states' rights, and expanded into the larger purpose of abolishing slavery.

 

[stabnex]

ugh, don't get riled up over this, I'm just relaying this, but in my public school both God and Jesus Christ have their own chapters in our actual history books. And yes, I failed both those chapters because I was too busy being disgusted at them. These aren't necessarily lies, but *truth and lies all depend on ones point of view. So depending on what aglne you look at tehse **facts, they could be interpreted as lies.

*truth [trooth]
?noun, plural truths [troothz, trooths] Conformity to fact or actuality
**fact [fakt]
?noun a truth known by actual experience or observation

 

[Cody211282]

Lie #3
Inflation is a natural process of the Economy. The truth is inflation can be avoided or at the very least minimized if the Government didn't continue to over mint money and if we actually had money that was backed by something.

I know this one is incorrect, Inflation happens automatically when the cost of living goes up, economic growth, changes in supply, and so on, there is too many conditions that causes it and it almost inevitable.

What he is trying to say is lets say on a gold or silver standard were we dont print money like we have been if there is only so much money and that stays the same then prices wont go up as much because people wont be able to afford it

 

[MagicShroom]

Lie #3
Inflation is a natural process of the Economy. The truth is inflation can be avoided or at the very least minimized if the Government didn't continue to over mint money and if we actually had money that was backed by something.

I know this one is incorrect, Inflation happens automatically when the cost of living goes up, economic growth, changes in supply, and so on, there is too many conditions that causes it and it almost inevitable.

What he is trying to say is lets say on a gold or silver standard were we dont print money like we have been if there is only so much money and that stays the same then prices wont go up as much because people wont be able to afford it

Regardless, you'll still have inflation as long as we deal with money. The only way to not have an inflation, is to not have currency what so ever.

 

[TaborMallory]

Christopher Columbus didn't fucking discover North America. He thought he was in the Indies south of Asia. The first people from Europe to discover North America were the Vikings.

Nope! Irish monks. or so they claim. Theres a monument in an Irish town (if a metal boat roughly the size of a canoe with a couple metal monks in it counts as a monument) saying they came over about 100 years prior.

Disregarding the fact that you can't be the first person to discover a place when people live there already all together.

You're the fifth.

 

[leviathanmisha]

Japans sneak attack at pearl harbour, the US govt had already cracked the Japanese embassies code, and new what the ambassador was going to deliver a declaration of war, on the day of an attack, so Roosevelt had him stood up in the waiting room out side his office for 6 hours!! until confirmation of the attack came thru, he then railled against their cowardly undeclared attack.

The US government aint the only one that with heald information either, Churchill kept what he knew under his big round hat.

Also, all of these 'lies' are made clear in an AP US History course, which everyone should be forced to take.

In the US I'm assuming lol, tbh it really shouldnt be required since people should learn to research it themselves, rather than being hand fed it.

Agreed, I look this shit up myself, why can't everyone else...and not everyone has the brains to take AP US History...hence it being a AP CLASS!!!

 

[Guma]

I see alot about world war 2 not happening till America said it did well our text books usually talk about U.S involvement as a main and then you other guys as a sub topic. Most Americans know the war technically started in 1939 but it wasnt a world war till us and japan got seriously involved also the war of 1812 they do teach that my military history class spent a week on that so yea..

 

[Cody211282]

Lie #3
Inflation is a natural process of the Economy. The truth is inflation can be avoided or at the very least minimized if the Government didn't continue to over mint money and if we actually had money that was backed by something.

I know this one is incorrect, Inflation happens automatically when the cost of living goes up, economic growth, changes in supply, and so on, there is too many conditions that causes it and it almost inevitable.

What he is trying to say is lets say on a gold or silver standard were we dont print money like we have been if there is only so much money and that stays the same then prices wont go up as much because people wont be able to afford it

Regardless, you'll still have inflation as long as we deal with money. The only way to not have an inflation, is to not have currency what so ever.

No lets say between you and your 4 friends you have 40 shells if you do something for a friend he pays you so many shells and same if he does something for you, you end up with still 40 of them, now just take that and apply it to money instead of shells and you might get the idea

 

[Unreliable]

How about this, to add something to the discussion rather than just ragging on the OP:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
(Narrated by Viggo Mortenson!)

 

[frank220]

William Wallace was NOT 7 foot tall, could NOT shoot fire out of his eyes, and could NOT fire lightning out of his ass.

 

[nicholaxxx]

I'm not sure if they explain WHY the white house is white, in the war of 1812, Britan set the ***** on fire

 

[massaffect123]

That Plymouth Plantation was the first colony. Even if we ignore Jamestown, there is still St. Augustine (1565). But it belonged to the Spanish, so it deserves no mention at all.

That the seige of Stalingrad was done for tactical reasons. Hitler just didn't like the fact that it had "Stalin" in its name, and therefore it needed to be purged.

General Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground. Actually, Confederate soldiers started most of the fires.

 

[Blanks]

i never learned any of this in my history class, it's good to be canadian

 

[JC175]

Lie #3
Inflation is a natural process of the Economy. The truth is inflation can be avoided or at the very least minimized if the Government didn't continue to over mint money and if we actually had money that was backed by something.

There are several different sources of inflation, that's not entirely true.

For example, say an resource needed to produce a certain good becomes rarer - it becomes more expensive, making the final good more expensive.

Another example is if a major company decides to increase its prices to increase its own profit margins - other companies will naturally follow the price rise.

There are literally hundreds of different sources of inflation, and most of them have nothing to do with the value of money at all, rather they are to do with the price of things money is used for.

 

[Undeadpope]

Hitler wasnt a vegetarian,he loved his stuffed pigeons.

People seem to think thats a reasonable agruement to vegetarianism,generally if anyone is that stupid to bring up that point,I walk away because I just won by default.

 

[petrolinus]

Why is everyone trying to compare the crimes committed by the Nazi and the Soviet regimes? To say that one of the two was better than the other sounds a lot like supporting the former. How are you going to do the comparison, anyway - the number of people killed in the respective concentration camps? Or the number of soldiers killed in wars?
About 11 to 17 million people were killed in the Holocaust (Wikipedia). The Soviet Union might have similar numbers for the Gulags and its casualties in the second World War.
I can't even understand the meaning of these numbers. This is the equivalent of a country like Greece or the Netherlands - wiped out.
In the end, what does it matter who was worse? The victims are dead now, just as most of the people who killed them.
All we can do now is try and not forget what happened, so it never happens again. If the German population had not allowed Hitler to seize power, World War two would never have started.
Which is why the present-day Germans (such as me) are really, REALLY cautious about any political "swings to the right". Whenever there are fifty or so people from the extreme right demonstrating, there'll always be a counterdemonstration with several hundreds or thousands participants.

 

[pirateninj4]

Here's one for you. Japan had been trying to surrender for months before the US dropped the A-bomb on them. It's believed that it was a power play to show Stalin that the US was the big boy in the yard.