Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

It's worth pointing out that this is a trick the Alt-Right uses all the time. "We can't be Nazis, we're capitalists. Nazi was short for National Socialism, so if anything that would make them Leftists." Which was true, to a point: the Nazi Party was originally formed by socialists seeking to bring socialism to Germany and it remained true until the Night of Long Knives, wherein Hitler's faction straight up murdered the socialist faction of the party so he could consolidate power. After that, it turned into a crony capitalist nightmare where the only guarantee of a job you had was in the military and by that I mean you were guaranteed to be in the military if you didn't want your family to starve/be murdered by the SS. Unless you were rich... funny how that always works.
I mean literally Nazis and the KPD - German Communist Party - were fighting in the streets in the early 1930s and by the end of 1933, more than 130,000 German communists were in concentration camps, so yeah, Nazis definitely weren't socialists.
 
Quite. Fascism can be partly defined as a form of government that is totally opposed to socialists, Communists, and "leftists" in general.
 
*cough*Uighurs*cough* So both systems do it. Wait for that story in about 5-10 years. If China hasn't gone to war with the world by then, maybe we'll stop hearing about that ethnic group. Because they're "re-educated" (ie: dead).
See, your problem is that you seem to think they're doing that because they're communists, and not because they're a totalitarian regime.

The whole point is that, unlike Nazism, genocide isn't supposed to be part of the core tenets of communism.

Because it's impossible that they went from decades (centuries arguably) of bad systems, and fell into another bad system.
Yes, yes...

Capitalism didn't change their system...

And that means...

C'mon, you can do it.


I can't believe I'm, once again, defending nazi's, but the end goal of nazism isn't genocide.
Sure, sure, the end goal was freeing the workers from the evil rich jews by killing them... and the slavs, and all the other untermensch.

Seriously, genociding the "lesser races" was a fucking key part of Hitler's plans.

Ask around in countries that suffered under both, like Hungary, Bulgaria, even Poland, and you'll find most people ended up resenting communist oppression more than nazi dictatorship.
Heh... yeah, sure...

The problem here is deciding when promoting public welfare crosses the line into communism (and not socialism, or humanitarianism, or some other -ism.) Does providing education for children count as communism? Does instituting a minimum wage, or raising that minimum count as communism? Does ensuring that all people get to vote count as communism? What about providing monetary assistance to the elderly? Does giving tax breaks to small businesses count as communism? Do higher taxes for the 1% count as communism? What about anti-monopoly laws? Net Neutrality? OSHA? Environmental laws? State parks? Where do you draw the line?
How about you use the actual definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_society

Which is why none of the "commnist" countries you're thinking of said they achieved communism, but that they're on their way to it.

The actual issues y'all are about are a result of the marxist idea of requiring a Dictatorship of the Proletariat to force the necessary changes to implement the stateless, classes, moneyless society that communism is. The problem, is that, as Bakunin pointed out, you give anyone the powers of a dictator, they're not going to let them go...

Quite. Fascism can be partly defined as a form of government that is totally opposed to socialists, Communists, and "leftists" in general.
It's like it some sort of right wing ideology...

Nah, that can't be it, that's just what them historians want you to think.

Tehy're really leftists, which is why in Charlottesville they where with the counter-protesters, and not the "Unite the Right" side.
 
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figmentPez

Staff member
How about you use the actual definition:
The "actual" definition doesn't matter, because we're talking about McCarthyism. It doesn't matter what the philosophical definition of "communism" is because that definition did not come into play when deciding who should be persecuted as a "communist".

It's like a whole bunch of people sitting around debating the definition of "nut". Culinary vs botanical; drupes, angiosperms, and gymnosperms; on and on and on. "You said you had a nut allergy. Walnuts aren't true nuts, so obviously I saw no reason to mention that they're in the cookies you ate." Sometimes you've got to look at how a word is being used in practice, and not at just a single entry in it's dictionary definition.
 

Dave

Staff member
So how, exactly, is it mansplaining? You think they are speaking any differently depending on gender? Sometimes it’s just EXplaining. No bullshit labels needed.
 
So how, exactly, is it mansplaining? You think they are speaking any differently depending on gender? Sometimes it’s just EXplaining. No bullshit labels needed.
Once the "well, actuallys" started flying around... It was supposed to be a joke.
 
Dave doesn't understand jokes, give him a break.
It's normal for people not to understand societal invention that came about after they've grown to adulthood - like I don't get Snapchat, for instance. For Dave ,that just applies t oa few more things. Like jokes. And language. And society. And a day-night-cycle. And gravitational force.
 
Mind your elders, owl child.

McCarthyism is attacking a perceived evil, mostly out of desire for power or political gain. (See also "witch hunt".)
 
I think it should be a licensed profession though, which requires at least yearly medical exams to renew. And of course, a legal minimum age.
 
I think it should be a licensed profession though, which requires at least yearly medical exams to renew. And of course, a legal minimum age.
I was about to agree, but those required medical exams gives me pause. I started thinking about the US Olympic Committee supporting their abusive doctor and, up here in Canada, RCMP officers getting abused during their required exams. If Olympians and police officers aren't safe, the hookers don't stand a chance of being treated respectfully.

Whatever licensing and oversight goes into this business, the watchmen really need careful watching.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I was about to agree, but those required medical exams gives me pause. I started thinking about the US Olympic Committee supporting their abusive doctor and, up here in Canada, RCMP officers getting abused during their required exams. If Olympians and police officers aren't safe, the hookers don't stand a chance of being treated respectfully.

Whatever licensing and oversight goes into this business, the watchmen really need careful watching.
It could be like a sports physical, any doctor could do it, they just have to certify you and you present the certification to the licensing bureau. That way, the worker could stick with a doctor he or she is comfortable with.
 
I was about to agree, but those required medical exams gives me pause. I started thinking about the US Olympic Committee supporting their abusive doctor and, up here in Canada, RCMP officers getting abused during their required exams. If Olympians and police officers aren't safe, the hookers don't stand a chance of being treated respectfully.

Whatever licensing and oversight goes into this business, the watchmen really need careful watching.
Besides the obvious diseases, it's a good way to keep track of attempts to hide sexual abuse.
 
Besides the obvious diseases, it's a good way to keep track of attempts to hide sexual abuse.
Aye. I see the good reasons for it.

I just also see how it could backfire horribly. There's gotta be ways to make it work, and Gas suggested one piece, but I don't trust government to implement it safely . . . oh dear, I think I'm undergoing sublimation.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
It could be like a sports physical, any doctor could do it, they just have to certify you and you present the certification to the licensing bureau. That way, the worker could stick with a doctor he or she is comfortable with.
Well, it could be that way, but it is one of those areas where prurient lawmakers will definitely try to make things more difficult. They could make it so that any doctor can do the exam... but they have to register themselves as doing it, and go on a publicly available list so that they can be easily found and picketed by religious groups. Or any doctor could do it, but the clean results have to go up in a publicly searchable database complete with the home address of the sex worker. (And if that sounds far fetched, remember that in at least one state they effectivley made fully nude stripping illegal by making it so that any fully nude dancer had to wear an ID badge on her ankle with her real identity on it.)
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Well, it could be that way, but it is one of those areas where prurient lawmakers will definitely try to make things more difficult. They could make it so that any doctor can do the exam... but they have to register themselves as doing it, and go on a publicly available list so that they can be easily found and picketed by religious groups. Or any doctor could do it, but the clean results have to go up in a publicly searchable database complete with the home address of the sex worker. (And if that sounds far fetched, remember that in at least one state they effectivley made fully nude stripping illegal by making it so that any fully nude dancer had to wear an ID badge on her ankle with her real identity on it.)
It'll definitely take time to get things to where they should be (probably by waiting for old guard to die off), but it'd be a good idea to start moving in the right direction at the federal level.
 
"Warren, pointing to the antitrust battle over Microsoft in the 1990s, said the companies must be broken up to stimulate competition in a monopolistic market. "
She made quite the splash at SXSW today.
in order for things to change, someone will have to lose or sacrifice something. For Warren's plan to work, he thus posed, who stands to lose? "The monopolists," the senator re[p]lied. "The monopolists will make less monopoly money, boo hoo."
—Patrick
 
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