Current Events > being on the left is hard

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Balrog0 posted...

whats the total count for both? what are you counting as deaths by communism vs deaths by the USA?

the highs I've seem from communist mass killings are in the range of 100 million, not just kids but everyone you can attribute to communism in the 20th century

I'm sure you could easily tabulate a similar level of deaths attributable to the united states

of course this is all based on you moving the goal posts from 'cuba' to 'all communist regimes ever' for reasons of making your argument seem more plausible and stronger than it actually is

that depends on what you count as "deaths by communism" and where those numbers are coming from

a lot of the information surrounding that stuff was essentially made up
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Ryuko_Chan posted...

youre a teacher? how is that? Was thinking of going into teaching

I'm not a school teacher, though some of my students are school-aged
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Except economics apparently
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averagejoel posted...

Ryuko_Chan posted...

youre a teacher? how is that? Was thinking of going into teaching

I'm not a school teacher, though some of my students are school-aged

what do you do then
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Ryuko_Chan posted...

averagejoel posted...

Ryuko_Chan posted...

youre a teacher? how is that? Was thinking of going into teaching

I'm not a school teacher, though some of my students are school-aged

what do you do then

I teach music. mostly 1-on-1 private lessons, but also some group lessons
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averagejoel posted...

it takes like 20 seconds to say something stupid and like 20+ minutes to disprove it

averagejoel posted...

centrists are just spineless conservatives

love when people prove their own point instantly

oh cool. I used to play the tuba. And I have a guitar I will get around to learning some day.
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averagejoel posted...

you have to like, actually research stuff

right wingers can just say shit

Dude google has been programmed to find the most leftwing *verified* information sources filled with the same slogans and dogwhistles needed to counter every common conservative argument by low information voters. You dont have to work at all anymore!

If you are debating educated conservatives, yeah you have to dig, because theres very little evidence supporting the transformative political claims of modern progressives.

They have to dig too because google has been burying conservative leaning search reaults.

Nothing illegal about any of it btw. Private companies can do whatever they want even if they do things the government of their host country isnt allowed to do to its citizens, unless its a hate crime as defined by the politicians lobbied by google
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Balrog0 posted...

whats the total count for both? what are you counting as deaths by communism vs deaths by the USA?

the highs I've seem from communist mass killings are in the range of 100 million, not just kids but everyone you can attribute to communism in the 20th century

I'm sure you could easily tabulate a similar level of deaths attributable to the united states

of course this is all based on you moving the goal posts from 'cuba' to 'all communist regimes ever' for reasons of making your argument seem more plausible and stronger than it actually is

I didn't move goalposts. YOU said 'communist utopia.'. Then YOU said Cuba.
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darkjedilink posted...

I didn't move goalposts. YOU said 'communist utopia.'. Then YOU said Cuba.

yeah because its a good example of a communist regime that lasted for a while after the cold war, then you mentioned che guevera murdering kids and then I implied that the USA probably killed more babies than he did and then you said its indisputable communism has killed more people without ever trying to prove it

now using similar methods to folks like the black book of communism, which said that communism killed about 100 million people, you can attribute about 20-30 million deaths to the US just since 9/11

https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051

like I said it would probably be easy enough to blame the US for another 70 million in the prior 100 years, what are you basing your numbers on?
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Balrog0 posted...

darkjedilink posted...

I didn't move goalposts. YOU said 'communist utopia.'. Then YOU said Cuba.

yeah because its a good example of a communist regime that lasted for a while after the cold war, then you mentioned che guevera murdering kids and then I implied that the USA probably killed more babies than he did and then you said its indisputable communism has killed more people without ever trying to prove it

now using similar methods to folks like the black book of communism, which said that communism killed about 100 million people, you can attribute about 20-30 million deaths to the US just since 9/11

https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051

like I said it would probably be easy enough to blame the US for another 70 million in the prior 100 years, what are you basing your numbers on?

Thats a less deadly per capita/death over time ratio than literally every communist regime ever.
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bulbinking posted...

Thats a less deadly per capita/death over time ratio than literally every communist regime ever.

that's mathematically impossible unless you're saying borderline propagandistic books like the black book of communism have undercounted communist deaths by an order of magnitude
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Being on the left means outrage first and then research comes much later on when someone throw facts at them.
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Balrog0 posted...

bulbinking posted...

Thats a less deadly per capita/death over time ratio than literally every communist regime ever.

that's mathematically impossible unless you're saying borderline propagandistic books like the black book of communism have undercounted communist deaths by an order of magnitude

20 million divided by populations of the 37 victim countries, divided by 60+ years since WW2

Compared to stalin who managed to kill at least as many, of his OWN countrymen, in a decade or so.

Are you seriously trolling right now?
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bulbinking posted...

Balrog0 posted...

bulbinking posted...

Thats a less deadly per capita/death over time ratio than literally every communist regime ever.

that's mathematically impossible unless you're saying borderline propagandistic books like the black book of communism have undercounted communist deaths by an order of magnitude

20 million divided by populations of the 37 victim countries, divided by 60+ years since WW2

Compared to stalin who managed to kill at least as many, of his OWN countrymen, in a decade or so.

Are you seriously trolling right now?

where are you getting those numbers for Stalin? I'd like to see them
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bulbinking posted...

20 million divided by populations of the 37 victim countries, divided by 60+ years since WW2

its only since 9/11
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Balrog0 posted...

darkjedilink posted...

I didn't move goalposts. YOU said 'communist utopia.'. Then YOU said Cuba.

yeah because its a good example of a communist regime that lasted for a while after the cold war, then you mentioned che guevera murdering kids and then I implied that the USA probably killed more babies than he did and then you said its indisputable communism has killed more people without ever trying to prove it

now using similar methods to folks like the black book of communism, which said that communism killed about 100 million people, you can attribute about 20-30 million deaths to the US just since 9/11

https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051

like I said it would probably be easy enough to blame the US for another 70 million in the prior 100 years, what are you basing your numbers on?

If you're going to claim that the entire US government has killed more children than Che Guevara did by himself to support the idea that Communism as a whole is good for children, you don't have an argument.
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Balrog0 posted...

bulbinking posted...

20 million divided by populations of the 37 victim countries, divided by 60+ years since WW2

its only since 9/11

Oh you are one of those.

In that case the blame goes to isreal not the us

averagejoel posted...

where are you getting those numbers for Stalin? I'd like to see them

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/04/world/major-soviet-paper-says-20-million-died-as-victims-of-stalin.html

There you go kiddo looks like us grownups didnt do very well educating you on the dangers of communism.
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bulbinking posted...

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/04/world/major-soviet-paper-says-20-million-died-as-victims-of-stalin.html

There you go kiddo looks like us grownups didnt do very well educating you on the dangers of communism.

from the article

about 20 million died in labor camps,

the mortality rate in the gulags was comparable to that of prisons in other countries at the time, and the per capita rate of imprisonment, at its highest (during WW2), was comparable to that of the US today.

forced collectivization,

collectivization does not cause death

famine

famine =/= stalinism

and executions.

most of the executed people were trying to dissolve the state. such an offense is called treason, and most countries at the time had comparable laws against it.

from Roy Medvedev's account at the end:

* One million imprisoned or exiled from 1927 to 1929, falsely accused of being saboteurs or members of opposition parties.

imprisonment or exile =/= death

* Nine million to 11 million of the more prosperous peasants driven from their lands and another two million to three million arrested or exiled in the early 1930's campaign of forced farm collectivization. Many of these were believed to have been killed.

arrest and exile =/= death

(continued in next post because gamefaqs has a limit on the number of quote blocks you can have for some reason?)
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* Six million to seven million killed in the punitive famine inflicted on peasants in 1932 and 1933.

the famine was, in fact, caused by the "more prosperous peasants" from the previous point burning their grain in the midst of a drought. certainly not punitive on Stalin's part.

* One million exiled from Moscow and Leningrad in 1935 for belonging to families of former nobility, merchants, capitalists and officials.

exile =/= death

* About one million executed in the ''great terror'' of 1937-38, and another four million to six million sent to forced labor camps from which most, including Mr. Medvedev's father, did not return.

this is the closest thing in the article to a concrete number of deaths, and again, the people executed had largely committed treason. but sure, one million deaths.

* Two million to three million sent to camps for violating absurdly strict labor laws imposed in 1940.

imprisonment =/= death

* At least 10 million to 12 million ''repressed'' in World War II, including millions of Soviet-Germans and other ethnic minorities forcibly relocated.

not sure what they're trying to accomplish by putting "repressed" in quotation marks here, but it is not the same thing as a death.

* More than one million arrested on political grounds from 1946 to Stalin's death in 1953.

arrest =/= death
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Collectization does cause death because they take food from people that are already starving.
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Ryuko_Chan posted...

Collectization does cause death because they take food from people that are already starving.

please read a book (preferably one that doesn't cite Robert Conquest or the Black Book of Communism) and learn what collectivization is before trying to make a point here
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It's amazing how often these topics turn into comparing death counts.

WhinyZach posted...

playing saxaphone in front of a kid once a week doesn't make you a teacher jeez.

how did you get the idea that that's what I was doing?

sual dribble in this topic from one of the most toxic minds on this board. Everyone gets it by now, your vision is perfect and everything else is shit. You think no one should own a business, or a home. You think if someone owned a business you should be allowed to break into it and shit on the floor.

those are certainly all words.
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WhinyZach posted...

lmfao @ joel being a teacher

playing saxaphone in front of a kid once a week doesn't make you a teacher jeez.

Usual dribble in this topic from one of the most toxic minds on this board. Everyone gets it by now, your vision is perfect and everything else is shit. You think no one should own a business, or a home. You think if someone owned a business you should be allowed to break into it and shit on the floor.

I don't know how anyone still takes you seriously.

leave him alone quit with the personal attacks
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averagejoel posted...

Ryuko_Chan posted...

Collectization does cause death because they take food from people that are already starving.

please read a book (preferably one that doesn't cite Robert Conquest or the Black Book of Communism) and learn what collectivization is before trying to make a point here

any suggestions
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Ryuko_Chan posted...

averagejoel posted...

Ryuko_Chan posted...

Collectization does cause death because they take food from people that are already starving.

please read a book (preferably one that doesn't cite Robert Conquest or the Black Book of Communism) and learn what collectivization is before trying to make a point here

any suggestions

Fraud, Famine and Fascism by Douglas Tottle is the first one that comes to mind
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WhinyZach posted...

telling an impressionable kid to read a book about conspiracy theories that a known genocide didn't happen, while being a stalin apologist.

jeez.

it's not a conspiracy theory, it was objectively not a genocide, and acknowledging facts does not make me an apologist
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Guy claims he isn't a Stalin apologist and recommends book by Stalin apologist considered to be propagandist by actual historians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Tottle
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ssjevot posted...

Guy claims he isn't a Stalin apologist and recommends book by Stalin apologist considered to be propagandist by actual historians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Tottle

there was a famine at the time.

it was not a genocide, and labeling it as such is disingenuous.
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The Black Book of Communism is not propaganda and even if you are much more conservative in the bodycount estimates you get to 85 to 90 million.

Of course, someone who never read it but identifies as a communist would discount it because it threatens their chosen worldview.

And before TC lies about the main author making up the numbers and being "discredited" by the other authors, the other authors believed the 100 milljon bodycount was exaggerated and that it was closer to 90 million.

Still a catastrophic number for such a short time from an ideology that was supposedly going to usher in utopia.

averagejoel posted...

ssjevot posted...

Guy claims he isn't a Stalin apologist and recommends book by Stalin apologist considered to be propagandist by actual historians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Tottle

there was a famine at the time.

it was not a genocide, and labeling it as such is disingenuous.

The famine was literally caused by Communism, and you advocate murdering children to secure the Communist ideal.
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Reality has a liberal bias.
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Also it is rather telling how toxic and evil TC's worldview is when his response to millions being imprisoned and forced into labor camps and gulags is to say, effectively, that they weren't killed as if that absolves the communist regimes.

He's the type of person who reads The Gulag Archipelago and takes from that a lesson on what should be done rather than what we should never repeat again.

averagejoel posted...

ssjevot posted...

Guy claims he isn't a Stalin apologist and recommends book by Stalin apologist considered to be propagandist by actual historians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Tottle

there was a famine at the time.

it was not a genocide, and labeling it as such is disingenuous.

The only people who think that are Soviet apologists. Ukraine and many international organizations and countries recognize it as a genocide. Kind of like how the only people who think the Holocaust wasn't real hate Jews. It's really not hard to figure out why someone who is an apologist for a murderous regime would want to spread conspiracy theories to make them seem not that bad.
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ssjevot posted...

averagejoel posted...

ssjevot posted...

Guy claims he isn't a Stalin apologist and recommends book by Stalin apologist considered to be propagandist by actual historians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Tottle

there was a famine at the time.

it was not a genocide, and labeling it as such is disingenuous.

The only people who think that are Soviet apologists. Ukraine and many international organizations and countries recognize it as a genocide. Kind of like how the only people who think the Holocaust wasn't real hate Jews. It's really not hard to figure out why someone who is an apologist for a murderous regime would want to spread conspiracy theories to make them seem not that bad.

Indeed.

ssjevot posted...

Ukraine and many international organizations and countries recognize it as a genocide.

what an awful way to measure the legitimacy of a claim
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averagejoel posted...

ssjevot posted...

Ukraine and many international organizations and countries recognize it as a genocide.

what an awful way to measure the legitimacy of a claim

Yet you think relying on what the communist apologists say is a great way to measure the legitimacy of a claim.

here in Canada the Holodomor is considered a genoicde
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Wow I didnt know you were a literal communist sympathizer.
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No you don't, you just read the headlines of Jezebel articles and get outraged.

bulbinking posted...

Wow I didnt know you were a literal communist sympathizer.

The guy has justified murdering children during a communist revolution. He's an absolute psychopath.
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averagejoel posted...

MrPeppers posted...

averagejoel posted...

MrPeppers posted...

What do people with neutral politics do?

nothing. neutral politics don't exist

That kind of implies an all or nothing mentality though, doesnt it? That seems a little scary to me...

no

humans have biases. society also has biases that get imprinted on everyone who lives in it.

if you think you are neutral, it means you're so deeply entrenched in your own ideology that you don't even recognize it as such.

Im not sanctimonious or naive enough to think that Im neutral or to not acknowledge implicit bias; but clearly there are varying degrees of reasoning and fervor when it comes to ideologies. Additionally, its neither hypocritical nor impossible to adopt viewpoints from varying ideologies.

Its just interesting that your viewpoint was intentionally constructed for division. It seems like youre saying that if youre not identifiably leftist then you are an enemy without exception.
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CornBarn posted...

The Black Book of Communism is not propaganda and even if you are much more conservative in the bodycount estimates you get to 85 to 90 million.

Of course, someone who never read it but identifies as a communist would discount it because it threatens their chosen worldview.

And before TC lies about the main author making up the numbers and being "discredited" by the other authors, the other authors believed the 100 milljon bodycount was exaggerated and that it was closer to 90 million.

Still a catastrophic number for such a short time from an ideology that was supposedly going to usher in utopia.

The two highest count come from
Marxist lennist states under I believe Stalin and Mao. The Text includes deaths by man made famines, which is interesting to say the least.
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