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Free Speech. Who needs it. Not Chavez!
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banjois

Joined: 14 Nov 2009

Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 9:18 pm Post subject:

Everything I ever needed to know about socialism I learned from Tommy Douglas.

blade

Joined: 30 Jun 2007

Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 9:58 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

Blade, nice, no one has played baiting games with me and then congratulated themselves for allegedly winning some childish contest here for a while. Congratulations.

Thanks for taking the bait.

Quote:

But all I see here are numerous press reports that confirm H. Chavez's position. You may be attempting to defend him through your "Chavez did not necessarily personally say this" line. But, given the man's absolute control over Venezuelan politics and especially the press, I find your position weak, untenable, and ridiculously apologetic

Who do you think he is? Joesph Stalin? Just because you say it does not make it true.

Quote:

-- like those who defended Imadinnerjacket's hostility toward Israel not so long ago.

What about Israels hostility towards Iran?

Quote:

In any case, the Chavez regime and the Chavez-controlled media have articulated this absurd, conspiracy-theory-style allegation.

It's not clear that Chavez has articulated any such thing through his so called media.

Quote:

Further, it conforms to its well-established behavior in world affairs. You seem to want to mitigate this and exonerate your man. And that is the predictable thing here. Shrug.

My man? Who said he was my man? I just don't agree with the misrepresentation of anybody just to advance my personal agenda buddy.

asylum seeker

Joined: 22 Jul 2007
Location: On your computer screen.

Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 11:59 pm Post subject:

Fox wrote:

Ya-ta Boy wrote:

There is a decree still extant from Augustus Caesar ordering the young Romans to get married and start having kids sooner plus a new tax on those who didn't jump to it. It's fine if you want to say the Romans were ahead of their time, but 2,000 years ahead?

It's pretty weak to say the Norwegians shouldn't choose a system that makes them happy and comfortable for several generations because...they'll be sorry someday.

Especially when the entire basis for them being sorry someday is predicated upon a population decline. You really can't win with anti-socialists. If populations go up, "The system is encouraging over-breeding. This is unsustainable!" If populations go down, "The system is encouraging under-breeding. This is unsustainable!"

In the pure-capitalism-no government-interference utopian lala land that many on this forum seem to believe in, this would all be solved because poor unintelligent people would not have any children and the rich elite would have ten children per family.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:47 am Post subject:

asylum seeker wrote:

Fox wrote:

Ya-ta Boy wrote:

That seems to be the implication. Back in reality, though, the wealthy and well educated generally aren't going to be having big families no matter what. So if we take away the ability of the poor to raise larger families by removing subsidization, we end in one of two situations:

1) The wealthy and the poor both not having large families, which will only make population problems in places all ready suffering from population problems worse.

2) The wealthy continuing to have smaller families and the poor continuing to have larger families, which without subsidization just means the children will simply have a lower standard of living. And remember, most of the taxes that pay for that subsidization come from upper class hands, so this isn't going to suddenly put more money into the pockets of the poor to pay for those children. It'll put it in the pockets of the wealthy, and trickle-down economics is a proven failure.

I don't see how either of these is more desirable than the status quo from the position of population growth, which is supposedly the complaint. There's nothing wrong with poor families having more children. Indeed, when population growth is needed, reproducing and parenting is a service to society. Parenting is a hard job; the poor shouldering more of this burden is a good way to compensate for the wealthy shouldering more of the economic burden.

Need more children? Enlist the poor, then educate their children. The hard workers will float up into the middle class.

ontheway

Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:03 am Post subject: Re: Free Speech. Who needs it. Not Chavez!

Street Magic wrote:

ontheway wrote:

Like many posters on Dave's, Hugo Chavez does not believe in freedom of speech. It's inconvenient to allow those who are opposed to your agenda to have the right to spread any message that detracts from your own fascist-socialist propaganda.

Huh. Too bad there aren't any widely liberal acclaimed organizations that defend civil liberties...

Sorry about all the oppression.

The ACLU is an admirable organization. They defend freedom of speech and association, and provide private, pro-bono representation to needy individuals and groups and worthy causes.

Some people object to the clients they represent from time to time and confuse that with the fact that everyone is entitled to representation, even if they're actually guilty of real criminal acts.

In addition, the ACLU is ideologically located at the left side of the Libertarian quadrant on the political map. It is filled with Libertarian Party members and has been headed at various local levels, and at the national level, by LP members, at various times.

ontheway

Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:20 am Post subject:

Fox wrote:

Kimbop wrote:

Fox wrote:

So the leftists in Norway provide a wonderful standard of living for their citizens without infringing upon freedoms, while running surplus rather than a deficit, and the leftists in Venezuela come down on free speech, and you feel the need to categorize the political left by Venezuela? Come on, douchebaggery is independent of political stance.

Sorry to hijack, but Norway is literally dying: while it subsidizes its lavish welfare system with oil and gas revenue, the population grows only because of thousands of third world immigrants, and its social problems increase. They'll soon have to make some very difficult choices as to how much they want to sacrifice in order to be a "socialist" utopia, which is a road to hell paved with good intentions.

Happy, well off people breed at a low rate. This is just a fact. If you're suggesting we need to avoid systems which make people too well off because it results in breeding problems, then I don't know what to tell you. It's an inevitable consequence of having a happy, healthy, intelligent, well educated citizen base. There's just no avoiding it.

What is your proposed solution? You complain about countries like Norway having population issues because people are too well off, and you complain about countries like Canada where the uneducated poor breed at a higher rate. What country's population growth model are you trying to argue in favor of here? The United States is just like Canada: the uneducated poor breed more than the educated well off. Every country works that way; it's mostly poor people breed at high rates the entire world over.

Norway and Venezuela under Chavez are far different situations.

Chavez is an evil fascist-socialist who is moving deeper and deeper into totalitarian socialism in order to maintain control. He shows what happens to a typical socialist country that lives beyond its means. It degenerates and becomes more and more evil, infringing on both economic liberties and personal liberties to survive. If they hesitate to become more evil and allow political protest, they can be overthrown electorally, and if they continue down the path of bigger and bigger government, the government will eventually collapse through revolution, military coup, total economic meltdown or total social chaos. Chavez is doomed. Venezuela can come back after he is dead.

Norway is peaceful and democratic. They have enough of a heritage of liberty to resist any movement into total government control. They have mild forms of socialism, less socialism than the US overall. Norway is able to have more of the humanistic forms of socialism because they have less corporate welfare and don't waste money trying to be a military power - two of the evil forms of US socialism.

Fiscally, being debt free and paying no interest for overspending is an essential component of a responsible government. Fiscal responsibility (neither a borrower nor lender be) will help any individual, government or institution survive. However, borrowing money by a government is a violation of the principles of liberty. No government should be allowed to borrow money. Any country that has no government debt is more libertarian and less socialistic in this area than a government that has a massive and unpayable debt, like the US.

Finally, Norway has been lucky. They found massive oil and gas deposits to fund their government spending. This allows them to fund their socialism for a number of years and be fiscally responsible. Their citizens would be better off if the oil and gas were privatized, with shares distributed to the citizens and the socialism abolished, but they can survive this mistake. What happens after will be the critical point. Will they then dismantle their insupportable socialism?

(Population - oh god, another thread, please.)

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 3:56 pm Post subject:

ontheway wrote:

Fox wrote:

Kimbop wrote:

Fox wrote:

In short, Norway has instituted what many people on the political left agitate for, while Venezuela has instituted a dictatorship which many leftists oppose, and should not be used as some sort of standing argument against the left.

(debt isn't Socialist, it's just debt)

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 4:28 pm Post subject:

Fox wrote:

This argument, an increasingly common one from the pro-Communist left (I have especially seen many post-Cold War variants disavowing the Soviet Union and others as "those who claimed to follow Marxism," in an effort to rehabilitate Marxism in the twenty-first century), does not fly.

For one thing, your "Venezuela has instituted a dictatorship which many leftists oppose" does not account at all for Noam Chomsky's supporting the Chavez dictatorship, not to mention professors all over the social sciences who, for example, all too eagerly appaluded and posted his antiBush speech at the United Nations all over their office doors, and, last but not least, H. Chavez's favorable coverage in leftist news media such as The Guardian and his favorable public receptions, presumably from the political left, all over western Europe.

Can you produce evidence of widespread and/or sustained leftist opposition (your word) to the Chavez regime, comparable, say, to leftist opposition to the W. Bush administration?

banjois

Joined: 14 Nov 2009

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 4:32 pm Post subject:

I think Chavez was a handy companion-in-arms for the left during the Bush years. There seems to be some wising up going on now.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 4:33 pm Post subject:

How did you arrive at that conclusion? How many antiChavez publicity campaigns or protests have leftists organized, for example? It seems to me that when they want to oppose something, they oppose it. Where is the antiChavez opposition in the left? These are the principled ones who hounded Augusto Pinochet relentlessly on human-rights ground but who seem to have had no concern whatsoever for Pol Pot, who lived a long life and died a natural death, no trial, no prison -- and no leftist protests, either.

Street Magic

Joined: 23 Sep 2009

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 4:38 pm Post subject: Re: Free Speech. Who needs it. Not Chavez!

ontheway wrote:

Street Magic wrote:

ontheway wrote:

Huh. Too bad there aren't any widely liberal acclaimed organizations that defend civil liberties...

Sorry about all the oppression.

Cool. The main reason I've ever identified as a "liberal" or left leaning type is that I've seen it as the opposition to the vindictive US conservative mentality, particularly regarding prosecution politics. The ACLU and the Innocence Project are two major organizations I support in this vein.

The latter organization is pretty self-explanatory and it baffles me how anyone could be against any efforts to further review the validity of cases borne from a system known to have allowed wrongful convictions all throughout its history. Sadly, many of these opponents are DAs and judges (See Martha Coakley (shot down an attempt to establish an innocence commission in MA because she claimed it would be "backward-looking instead of forward-looking") or Sharon Keller (called herself "pro-prosecution" and refused to keep her courtroom open past 5:00pm to allow for a last minute death sentence appeal necessitated by a new applicable precedent)).

The former organization impressed me at a young age when I found out they represented the Klan and neo-Nazis, which I realized was the strongest testament an advocate for civil rights could make to his/her/their commitment to justice (and I say this as a Jew). It may seem ridiculous to help the Klan secure the right to march around and offend minorities (offending minorities being more or less the entirety of their modern agenda in practice), but drawing the line there might mean that you draw the line later on when a man is wrongfully accused of some "hate crime" and prematurely sentenced in the public's minds merely because of the stigma of the accusation.

And good point about the ACLU being a private organization.

Last edited by Street Magic on Tue Jan 26, 2010 4:46 pm; edited 1 time in total

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 4:42 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

For one thing, your "Venezuela has instituted a dictatorship which many leftists oppose" does not account at all for Noam Chomsky's supporting the Chavez dictatorship, not to mention professors all over the social sciences who, for example, all too eagerly appaluded and posted his antiBush speech at the United Nations all over their office doors, and, last but not least, H. Chavez's favorable coverage in leftist news media such as The Guardian and his favorable public receptions, presumably from the political left, all over western Europe.

How can I or others who support reasonable, moderate political leftism be expected to answer for the words of particular individuals like Chomsky or other academics? They're free to say whatever they want, but they no more characterize the political left than racist, ignorant farmers who hate immigrants and blacks and want to hole up on their property with guns and food characterize the political right.

If most left-leaning individuals were asked, "Which would you prefer, Norway or Venezuela," what percentage do you really think would say Venezuela?

Gopher wrote:

Can you produce evidence of widespread and/or sustained leftist opposition (your word) to the Chavez regime, comparable, say, to leftist opposition to the W. Bush administration?

Not much, unfortunately. Just like yourself, most politically inclined individuals get sucked into a team sport mentality. Even if they wouldn't support a Chavez-style regime in the United States, leftists often aren't willing to criticize him. And I consider that a problem. Chavez is taking Venezuela to a bad place.

Somehow, I doubt that this admission of the inadequacies of other left-leaning individuals will win me any points, though. I'll still be classifed as part of the "Democrat team" and treated accordingly.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 6:02 pm Post subject:

Fox wrote:

...Venezuela has instituted a dictatorship which many leftists oppose.

Gopher wrote:

Can you produce evidence of widespread and/or sustained leftist opposition (your word) to the Chavez regime, comparable, say, to leftist opposition to the W. Bush administration?

Fox wrote:

Not much, unfortunately. Just like yourself...

Fox, must everything become so personal and sneering with you? Please play the ball here, if you can.

I asked you to explain yourself and you did: not much, you said. Very well. Please modify your first claim or justify it with evidence -- any evidence at all would be welcome at this point. Personally, I think you improvise half the things you say here, and you usually do so defensively and preachingly, as a bona fide guardian of the leftist faith...

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 6:30 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

Fox wrote:

...Venezuela has instituted a dictatorship which many leftists oppose.

Gopher wrote:

Can you produce evidence of widespread and/or sustained leftist opposition (your word) to the Chavez regime, comparable, say, to leftist opposition to the W. Bush administration?

Fox wrote:

Not much, unfortunately. Just like yourself...

I'm not modifying anything. There's a decided difference between being opposed to X, and voicing opposition to X.

You can either admit many leftists oppose dictatorship, or you can claim that the overwhelming majority of leftists are pro-dictatorship. Which of these is your position, Gopher? Do you really think most of the American left is pro-dictatorship? Is that your stance? Or are you just playing more of your bullshit team-sport politics? The fact that you'd even bring up the Bush administration strongly implies you are; voicing opposition to one's own government's policies, and voicing opposition to the policies of the country of a sovereign government are two totally different things, a fact I'm sure you'd take into account if it somehow helped your case.

If you're going to respond, please answer that very simple question. Do the overwhelming majority of people on the American left support dictatorship? Yes or no? If your answer is, "Yes," then you've got some proving to do. If your answer is, "No," then clearly many people in the left oppose dictatorship. But somehow I suspect you're rather stick to your vagueries without actually taking a position, whining about Noam Chomsky while not actually saying anything yourself.

If your response doesn't include a yes or no answer -- with as much explanation as you care to add, so long as a definitive stance is taken -- I'll just be asking the question again until you answer it. Please bear that in mind if you choose to respond.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 6:57 pm Post subject:

You are squirming and, predictably, reaching out to seize the initiative and establish as much control as possible -- "you must answer yes or no or else!" You claimed "many leftists oppose" the Chavez regime. And that is the claim under discussion here. How do you know this? If you cannot simply explain this, and more substantially than by blabbering some weak, improvised theory about those who oppose X do not necessarily need to articulate it, then what are you doing? Recklessly arguing from a baseless, nay invented, position, as so many here do, apparently.

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