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#101
09-28-2005, 05:39 AM
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Re: Foolish Choices
[ QUOTE ]
You believe in public law enforcement, forced taxation, or any of a variety of other measures that curtail freedom. [/ QUOTE ] Yes, I believe in public law enforcement. Dont you? I believe in small government and minimal taxes. You may want to revisit my posts. Curtail freedom, me??? You are kidding or perhaps just posting when drunk or multi=tabling -- two popular excuses amongst the posters of drivel. [ QUOTE ] If this is true, the Vietnamese never should have fought us. [/ QUOTE ] This is what imperialists, fascists and dictators think. Why are these people fighting us, we are a benovelent ruler with only the interests of these people. The vietnamese fought us for their freedom from oppression from an occupier. This is why some (many?) iraqi's are fighting us. This is why the South African's fought the Afrikaaner, the Indian fought the british, etc. Get this -- people do not want others telling them what is good for them. People want to make and live in freedom to do what they want to do as a society. And then understand they no society knows what is best for another society - period! 
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#102
09-28-2005, 07:12 PM
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Re: Foolish Choices
If you believe in those things then you think there are some instances where curtailment of freedom results in a greater good. The only one that could really deny such a claim is a crazy anarcho capitalist like pvn.
Acknowledging this was the point of the arguement. You had previously been arguing for complete and total freedom. People in Vietnam don't like the communists telling them what to do. Those dissidents that they jailed didn't like being told what they were allowed to say. The business owners that have thier possesions confiscated because they didn't bribe the right official don't like having thier rights violated. People in Vietnam can't vote, can't speak up. An oppressor with the same skin color as you is still an oppressor. The same is true in Iran. Do you see many people glad about the revolution? Do they worship the clerics like they once did or do they despise them? I bet if we look through history, people are more often oppressed by thier own kind rather then foriegners. If they had fought to establish a democracy then that would have represented the people and given then freedom and a voice. But if they were fighting for that, we wouldn't need to be there in the first place.
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#103
09-28-2005, 07:15 PM
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Re: Foolish Choices
It opens up in a very ad-hoc way. If you bribe the right people and cheat on your taxes you can operate a business. It would be impossible under the official laws.
The essence of communism was always about state control and one party dictatorship. The horrible economic system made it worse, but the nuts and bolts of oppression are still there.
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#104
09-28-2005, 10:14 PM
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Re: Foolish Choices
[ QUOTE ]
If you believe in those things then you think there are some instances where curtailment of freedom results in a greater good. [/ QUOTE ] Wrong, curtailment of freedom is never for the greater good. However, freedom cannot be imposed by outsiders. Cant you see that alleged freedom delivered at the point of a gun is not freedom. [ QUOTE ] People in Vietnam don't like the communists telling them what to do. [/ QUOTE ] Perhaps, but they like outsides meddling in their business even less. [ QUOTE ] The same is true in Iran. Do you see many people glad about the revolution? Do they worship the clerics like they once did or do they despise them [/ QUOTE ] Perhaps they dont worship the clerics -- they are not supposed to btw. Perhaps they dont even respect them. But you think they would welcome a liberating force. Most likely they would do it the same way that the Iraqi's welcome our liberation force. [ QUOTE ] If they had fought to establish a democracy then that would have represented the people and given then freedom and a voice. But if they were fighting for that, we wouldn't need to be there in the first place. [/ QUOTE ] They (the Viet Cong) were fighting to free the country (from the french and the US) of the outsider. That should be the first goal of any society. The fact that we in our wisdom, moved Ho Chi Minh etc away from the west into the arms of the communists was irrelavent to the average Vietnamese. Their first goal was to take back their country which they did in the 70's. Now they are free to build a society they want to. Perhaps someday soon, they will even overthrow the communists and have some sort of free elections -- who knows, it is their business in either case. Getting into comparing which type of oppression is better is pointless. Almost every country has a nationalist feeling which makes them want to be free from the outsider. This has been true for centuries. And yes, we should not have gone to Vietnam (and Iraq) in the first place.
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#106
09-30-2005, 10:15 PM
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Re: Foolish Choices
"Wrong, curtailment of freedom is never for the greater good."
You just said you support state sponsored police and forced taxation. Both of those curtail freedom. So I don't know where the above statement comes from. "However, freedom cannot be imposed by outsiders. Cant you see that alleged freedom delivered at the point of a gun is not freedom." It has been done before. If you don't know that you obviously haven't read history. We shouldn't have gone to Iraq or Vietnam because they won't cooperate, not because interference is inherintly wrong. The Japanese, Germans, Koreans, and others cooperated and they benefitted greatly. If the Vietnamese had done the same, things would be better for them now. Even you must not be stupid enough to see there are situations were international interference is warranted. Are you going to sit there and tell me that we shouldn't have gotten rid of Hitler in the mid-late 30s? I could think of other equally compelling examples.
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#107
10-01-2005, 03:45 AM
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Re: Foolish Choices
[ QUOTE ]
You just said you support state sponsored police and forced taxation. Both of those curtail freedom. So I don't know where the above statement comes from [/ QUOTE ] If you think that living in America is not living in a free society (we have police and we have taxation) then there is not much point in discussing this further. I define a free society as one that, generally, conforms to some version of our bill of rights (freedoms of speech, assembly etc). [ QUOTE ] The Japanese, Germans, Koreans, and others cooperated and they benefitted greatly. If the Vietnamese had done the same, things would be better for them now [/ QUOTE ] The Japanese and germans initiated the war and were beaten. There is a difference between that and our (mis-)adventures in Vietnam and Iraq (in Vietnam we fled with our tails between our legs and the smart money is that something similar is likely in Iraq). [ QUOTE ] Are you going to sit there and tell me that we shouldn't have gotten rid of Hitler in the mid-late 30s? [/ QUOTE ] Only in hindsight. Of course if in circa 1930 we had the foresight to see what was coming we could have solved the Hitler problem in many different ways. Incidentally, in hindsight, we will be saying the the world would have been a better place if Gore had won in 2000.
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#108
10-01-2005, 09:09 AM
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Re: Foolish Choices
"The essence of communism was always about state control and one party dictatorship."
They are arguably an inevitable consequence of its core ideology, but there are many other types of one party dictatorships and it's essentially an idea for the economic organisation of society. Without the economic aspect, a country may be run by something called the Communist Party but its not something most ideological communists would recognise as communism.
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#109
10-01-2005, 10:56 AM
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Re: Foolish Choices
"If you think that living in America is not living in a free society (we have police and we have taxation) then there is not much point in discussing this further. I define a free society as one that, generally, conforms to some version of our bill of rights (freedoms of speech, assembly etc)."
Total freedom exists somewhere in PVNs crazy world. No freedom exists in an authoritarian state. Everything in between in a mixed state in which some freedoms are curtailed for the greater good. We both endorse mixed systems and logically therefore admit the the curtailment of certain freedoms is sometimes beneficial. Thus rejecting your freedom is always the solution statement. "The Japanese and germans initiated the war and were beaten." Does is matter the circumstances under which the war was initiated? Not according to your statement about dealing with Hitler pre-war. Moreover, you haven't answered the question. If the Vietnamese or Iraqis simply cooperated would they be better of today? "Only in hindsight. Of course if in circa 1930 we had the foresight to see what was coming we could have solved the Hitler problem in many different ways." I really don't think it took a lot of foresight to see what Hitler intended to do. He wrote books about it and published them widely. Churchil figured it out pretty early. Different ways that involved using force against a democratically elected government of another country.
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