Poll: My friend is a Communist

[DoPo]

Communism isn't that bad. West Europe and America just make Communism sound like the political party of Satan.

Tell that to someone whose country was under communist rule for 50 years. Like me.
Just go ahead.
I know US propaganda was "communism=evil", but the system really was completely fucking shit in just about every way and even the positive parts were thoroughly undermined by its inefficiency.

FFS, people are you just parroting that or are you truly clueless? That wasn't communism. In fact it was closer to 1984 than Communism. In fact, speaking of that title, just go ahead and read Animal Farm which deals with exactly that.

So saying "Ugh, Communism didn't work before, therefore is bad" has the same weight as saying "Well, we had utopia before but we moved on". We didn't. There was just the illusion of Communism and the concept exploited as a mask. Can you guess why it didn't work, then?

Oh, yes, and by the way, I am from a country that was under "Communist" rule, both branches from my family (father's and mother's) have suffered due to this. I won't go into details. But I will keep insisting, Communism isn't the incarnation of ultimate evil.

 

[GundamSentinel]

I find the idea of being "A democrat" or "A republican" more ridiculous to be honest. (Obviously this doesn't apply to actual members of those political parties.)

Well, the most left-wing American politician would be just about the most right-wing politician where I live. Just depends on your point of view I suppose. It doesn't seem very difficult to be labled a communist in the US.

 

[Wintermoot]

yes,
I personally considered myself a communist to until I realized that in a communistic government some people consider themselves more equal then others.

 

[orangeban]

Eh, I'm a communist and I think it's perfectly valid to be one in a capitalist regime. Though I'm not plotting revolution, I'm plotting for a gradual shift towards socialism courtesy of democracy.

 

[crop52]

She decorates her attire and living space with propaganda items and icons, but beyond that she mostly gets together with her friends to hate the system and do part time, unpaid work as a Cuban travel and tourism advocate.

I find that very silly. Anyways...

com·mu·nist
noun
1.a member of the Communist party or movement.
2.an advocate of communism.
3.a person who is regarded as supporting politically leftist or subversive causes.
4.a Communard.

So yeah, I guess you could say that your friend's a commie.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Picking sides, the best way to ignore peoples personal beliefs since... forever.

Look I understand a whole lot of countries made the word communist a synonym for different/evil/bad/heretic or some such, but if you are considering this person a friend then might I suggest you actually consider what they are saying.

 

[manic_depressive13]

I don't understand how people can argue that communism can't possibly work because it didn't work in Russia (or China but that's a different can of beans, as are many of the other "communist" nations). Communism has never been given a proper chance in the post-industrial world. Each time it has been tried there have been hundreds of external factors and extremely unfortunate circumstances that prevented it from working. No one argues that democracy can't possibly work because it hasn't worked so far in Sudan, the Congo or Iraq. No one seems to care that some of the worst wars and massacres in history have occured under capitalism and were perpetrated for capital gain. Apparently the constant repetition of finincial crises, class division and lack of mobility, and crippling poverty is no argument against capitalism. So why do we have to accept the argument "Communism can never work because Stalin"?

 

[cerebus23]

give us a few years we are halfway to communism, lest if the government gets its way. we sure as hell are not free or brave anymore.

oh and communism does not work because people are not equal, it is inbred into us to be individuals and have some sort of self worth, we are not ants. also never works because the people in power never buy into communism other than to keep people enslaved underneath them while they live high on the hog.

also tell your cops and military they are the exact same as the guy pics up the garbage.

communism will never work with human beings period. bs on it never being tried humans make the communist ideal impossible unless we going to use brainwashing on everyone to strip that whole "i" out of the self of every individual.

communist russia tried it with the kgb, saddam ran the same sort of thing, just keep people terrorfied and never knowing who they can trust, disappear a few neighbors now and again and lest that way you can scrape along for a good long while.

 

[ace_of_something]

In my experience 95% of self-identified communists under the age of 26 under tare usually more aptly called an attention seeking [a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrarian]Contrarian[/a]

Of course you can. However i prefer the term socialist.

Except that they are two different things...

 

[Sovereignty]

Aside from Communism not working ever. Like seriously ever. Like unless the whole world was perfect...

She's just ignorant. It's so easy to say you support/want a lifestyle that you truly cannot.

I'd love to live on Mars. In fact, I think Mars should be the only location we should live in. I don't have to consider the hardships we'd have to go through for such. Or how miserable it might be. Or the fact that we'd all die if they just dumped us on Mars right now unprotected. It's just an ignorant statement by a person who will never be held accountable for it.


Go ask a Chinese laborer how much they love Communism. I'm sure they'll offer to trade places with your friend.

 

[Sovereignty]

-snip-

Communism can't work because it would require a completely pure system to hold it in place. No corruption, no bias, and most certainly no emotion. The idea that wealth can be equally distributed is also pretty impractical. You can tell me that I get the same as anyone else, but so long as we're creatures with the freedom to think (Even communism is hard pressed to completely remove that.) we'll always want more.

 

[Agow95]

She believes in a communism so yeah she's a communist.

 

[manic_depressive13]

-snip-

Communism can't work because it would require a completely pure system to hold it in place. No corruption, no bias, and most certainly no emotion. The idea that wealth can be equally distributed is also pretty impractical. You can tell me that I get the same as anyone else, but so long as we're creatures with the freedom to think (Even communism is hard pressed to completely remove that.) we'll always want more.

I don't think that's true. I think that education plays a huge role and as long as we are taught to be competetive and raised in callous institutions we will always want more, because that is how we are taught to behave. Human nature isn't something which is set in stone. Greed isn't something inherent to humanity any more than violence or the desire to rape is. It's been demonstrated that countries with smaller wealth gaps between the rich and the poor have lower rates of crime and the people report themselves to be "happier". I believe communism is an ideal to be strived towards, just like democracy. Yes, I can point to plenty of democratic countries which have corrupt governments, but that doesn't mean we should just give up on democracy. We have to strive towards the ideal.

 

[Something Amyss]

I pointed out as politely as I could that the chance of sparking a revolution in a system where almost all citizens have vested interest, from property to social security (and more) would be implausibly low. But I digress...

Funny you should mention social security in that...

But basically?

She pretty much means that she is in favour of that system and if she could pick one then that would be the one she would like to live under.

Thread just seems to be a bit pedantic.

What he said.

 

[Something Amyss]

Communism can't work because it would require a completely pure system to hold it in place. No corruption, no bias, and most certainly no emotion. The idea that wealth can be equally distributed is also pretty impractical. You can tell me that I get the same as anyone else, but so long as we're creatures with the freedom to think (Even communism is hard pressed to completely remove that.) we'll always want more.

Of course, that would be true of all systems. So basically, no system will ever work.

 

[Waaghpowa]

I always find it hilarious when people automatically view communism as some horrible evil dictatorship. Fact of the matter is, all those countries claiming to be communist and did all those horrible things were not in fact communist at all.

Communism actually isn't bad in theory. In theory it's actually pretty good. What mostly ruins it is people. We as a species are mostly the reason why communism hasn't existed yet. You can say the same of all systems. The greed and selfishness of individuals corrupts even democratic values.

"true" communist has never really existed, for a number of reasons. North Korea or Cuba, communist? Hardly. Maybe the USSR kind of communist, but again, the USSR was hardly communist.

This guy gets it. People need to actually do some of their own research rather than listen to others.

 

[Frission]

Nope, not really.

Revolution is for the anarchists. She just tries to "look cool".

 

[Ledan]

You can be a liberal in a tyrannical regime, so you can be a communist in a democratic regime. BTW: Communism=/= dictatorship. It's just a political view, that has never been put into practice. All countries, with perhaps the exception of Yugoslavia, that declared themselves "Communist" where not Karl Marx's form of communism. The key tell is that they had until-death leaders.