Autonemesis

In the history of the world, there has never been any person to leave confines of the Earth's atmosphere.

That is to say, there never was any such person in history until it was done in the 1960's.

Do you understand that moon's position is one that advocates progress, by which I mean the accomplishment of something not yet realized. So if a socialist or communist program succeeds, that would bring about a new state of affairs where there was no state, no classes, no nations.

You're argument seems to be nothing more than "It has never been done, therefore it cannot ever be done."

August Spies

especially when most socilists base their theories on a view of progress.

Autonemesis

That's a very good point. There's a large disconnect between capitalism fans and socialism fans concerning what each one means by "progress." So far, the idea of progress I get from the capitalism fans is that as long as the state of affairs and the political structure that exists in their favored national economy spreads to the rest of the world, progress is being made.

Autonemesis

I notice you didn't try at all to attack the idea that the capitalist is stealing from the workers. Instead, you headed straight for the nearest non-sequitur and began complaining about who started it.

Way. To. Go. :notworthy

emphryio

Grad School Humanist,
I don't defend dictatorships. I didn't mean to appear to be doing so by pointing out Cuba is in poverty thanks to a 40 years embargo. What I'm primarily getting at is there is no DEMOCRATIC socialist governments because the US will not let it happen.

Some other leftists wish to point out the good within these communist dictatorships and people jump to all sorts of misunderstandings as a result.

Grad Student Humanist

I appreciate your honesty and your civility in this discussion, but as I said before, the good which has come out of the Cuban revolution does not outweigh the bad. The Scandinavian countries are very progressive and have wonderful social programs including free health care, but they don't resort to totalitarianism and the trampling of human rights.

August Spies

GSH I fail to see how you can say that. A new system only needs to be better than a previous system. Id say Castro's system is better than the previous one in about every way.

Cuba is of course still a third world country with a dictatorship, but you can't measure its "good" or "bad" compared to Sweden.

Rusting Car Bumper

I am not a capitalist per say but communism and socialism suffers primarily from the defect that it cannot be implemented and maintained without force.

DC

Grad Student Humanist

Whether or not Cuba's current dictatorship is better than the previous one is a debatable point. Castro is every bit as cruel and tyrannical as Batista was; some would say he is even worse. But that's not the point. It makes little difference to Cubans living on the island now (the majority having been born since 1959) whether or not Castro's tyranny is better than Batista's tyranny. They still have to put up with the long list of human rights abuses I've listed. And this idea that everyone is so happy with the current regime is also ridiculous. How many thousands of Cubans do you think would leave if Castro allowed them to?

If the best argument in defense of Cuba's regime is "Well, it's better than Batista's regime" then there is very little to recommend it. One thing is not in doubt, though. More people have been killed or imprisoned by Castro's regime than all of the previous governments combined (except perhaps the Spanish colonial government) and he's showing no signs of slowing down. If Batista had been as cruel and merciless as Castro when it comes to crushing political dissent then there would have been no Cuban Revolution. Castro's first attempt at revolution was a failure and he was captured and jailed, not executed (even though several Cuban soldiers were killed during his assault on the Moncada army barracks). Batista later released him and Castro fled the country to continue plotting Batista's overthrow. If anyone today were to attempt a violent overthrow of the Castro regime they would be executed on the spot.

gcameron

But isn't some force needed to implement capitalism too, even if only the enforcement (via police etc.) of private property rights? (Of course you could argue that *more* force is required to maintain communism, etc.)