Why Ann Coulter is great.

[billc]

Ken, the local wiccans are not bad people, the budhists are not bad people. The hard core socialists do not believe in religion. Shinto in japan is not evil, but the soldiers of imperial Japan were probably shintoists. It has more to do with a mixture of atheism and paganism with socialism. I mean, how would you explain it. Let's for a second focus on the communists. They murdered about 100 million people around the world, if not more. Communists are atheists. Marx, as has been oft repeated said that religion was the opiate of the masses. Nazis were atheists or that silly SS religion. They killed how many people? How do you explain the killing, since these groups are not religous?

 

[billc]

I believe all these socialist movements claimed to be based in science and reason over religion. True, organized groups that have massive power with no checks and balances eventually do bad things. My whole point to the response, "religion has killed more people" was to show that the mass murder of the 20th century was done by atheists. That's all. Can you deny that these murderers were atheists?

 

[billc]

From a readers review of the new book, "America Amnesia: How the U.S. Congress forced the surrenders of South Vietnam and Cambodia"

"During that entire year, sometimes no more than 7 miles from the DMZ where combat was raging, the hamlets were peaceful and friendly. The elders were very polite and often fed us; the children adored us. Not once were we ever harassed or injured. We had great opportunities to talk with the Vietnamese. They feared the communists. Some who were Christians or Buddhists had left North Vietnam as Ho Chi Minh was killing people of faith after they defeated the French. The people in the hamlets were grateful that we were there and they feared that we would leave."

Even the Vietnamese communists were murdering religous people.

 

[granfire]

From a readers review of the new book, "America Amnesia: How the U.S. Congress forced the surrenders of South Vietnam and Cambodia"

"During that entire year, sometimes no more than 7 miles from the DMZ where combat was raging, the hamlets were peaceful and friendly. The elders were very polite and often fed us; the children adored us. Not once were we ever harassed or injured. We had great opportunities to talk with the Vietnamese. They feared the communists. Some who were Christians or Buddhists had left North Vietnam as Ho Chi Minh was killing people of faith after they defeated the French. The people in the hamlets were grateful that we were there and they feared that we would leave."

Even the Vietnamese communists were murdering religous people.

yes, love. It was a war....

 

[CanuckMA]

When you're talking about dictatorship, don't put too much stock at what they call themsekves. Hint, what was the official name of East Germany? What is the official name of North Korea?

Pay more attention as to what the economic model of countries is called, especially by others. And look at which countries are socialist now.

 

[billc]

We aren't talking about people killed in the confusion of combat, but the intentional targeting of civilians for murder simply because they were religous believers.

 

[Ramirez]

We aren't talking about people killed in the confusion of combat, but the intentional targeting of civilians for murder simply because they were religous believers.

you mean like Jews by Catholics during the inquisition or Bosnian Muslims by Christian Serbs?

 

[Ken Morgan]

:headbangin:

 

[Tez3]

If 'socialists' hate religion etc how come we have Christian Socialist parties in Europe? there are plenty of Christian communists too. Even Wiki has a page on Christian communists!
http://particracy.wikia.com/wiki/Christian_Communist_Party

http://www.thecsm.org.uk/

http://thechristiansocialist.blogspot.com/


The Nazis attitude towards religion was far more complicated than you present. In fact most things you present us with are far more complicated than you seem to think. the Catholic church had a strange reltionship with the Nazis, and bearing in mind that Germany was and is a basically Protestant country (whereas Austria where Hitler was born is a Catholic one) it brings even more complications with the subject of the Nazis and religion. Hitler cited Martin Luther in his justification for the Holcaust, and generally the Lutherans were comfortable with the Nazi's anti semitism, many of course were not. In 1934 the Lutheran bishops pledged their overwelming support for Hitler and his party with all that means.

From: Jadwiga Biskupska (Cornell University), "Hitler & Triumph of the Will: A Nazi Religion in the Catholic Style" in Undergraduate Quarterly, September/November 2004, page 147 (URL: http://www.undergradquarterly.com/EJournal/2004Q2/Biskupska.pdf):

"Catholicism and Nazism have a more complicated relationship than some might think. Hitler both despised and admired various aspects of the Roman Catholic Church. Though the Nazi movement was superficially areligious, even anti-religious, the Nazi's greatest piece of propaganda and self-aggrandizement, Leni Riefenstahl's 1934 film about the Nuremberg Party Rally, Triumph of the Will, is in many ways profoundly religious. The [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]film[/COLOR][/COLOR] both makes use of Catholic religious imagery and draws on the Catholic sacramental tradition to give dignity and legitimacy to its construction of Adolf Hitler as the "god" of the Nazi movement... Since the beginning, Catholicism and Nazism had an uncomfortable coexistence. They jarred long before Riefenstahl began filming Hitler's rally in the summer of 1934... The Concordat, along with many other more famous agreements and treaties signed by the Fuehrer, was quickly violated, and the Church was ineffective in protecting Catholics from all manner of religious and cultural harassment. Alfred Rosenberg, the closest Nazism as an ideology ever came to having a philosopher, was consistently and virulently anti-Catholic... Hitler himself was not purely or simply anti-Catholic or anti-Church, and certainly not so before his rise to power. He was a baptized Catholic, as was his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, and a number of other prominent members of his administration. Interestingly, though both men rejected their Catholic faith and recognized that they had excommunicated themselves, neither ever formally left the Church and dutifully continued to pay church taxes until their respective deaths. Hitler's own mother, to whom he was very close, was a devoted Catholic, and Hitler received Catholic schooling during his childhood in Austria... In his extensive, often contradictory writings and "table-talk," Hitler reveals an ambivalent attitude toward the Catholic Church. As an institution on German soil, he is very much opposed to it, and he ridicules the teachings of Church fathers and the practice of the Catholic faith... he detested the doctrines, of the Roman Church... Institutionalized religion, in Hitler's view, was a waning phenomenon... "​

 

[billc]

I never said all socialists hate religion, just that the socialists who committed the mass murders in Germany, Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and so on did.

 

[Empty Hands]

So rather then refute his assertion, you just dismiss it out of hand with no 'evidence' to back it up.

Bill has had evidence put in front of him several times. He has yet to engage or even acknowledge any of it. I'm not sure why anyone else should feel compelled to engage in a task of futility yet again. He shares that characteristic with others on the board and in society at large. If you don't even acknowledge the points and evidence put against you, then you are acting in bad faith and no one should pay any attention to you.

So, in order to enlighten us, tell us the differences between facism and socialism that purport to show that they are not even remotely similar.

The difference between the conservative tendency and the liberal tendency is in the attitude to social change, the place of the past and the future, and the role of social institutions. Conservatism is fundamentally resistant to change, emphasizes the superiority of the past to the present, and seeks to preserve social institutions and mores. Liberalism/leftism promotes change, looks to the future and future change as a source of social stability, and generally wishes to alter social institutions and mores of the past to bring them into line with current and future values. These definitions are universal across contexts (a Belgian conservative and a Saudi conservative have very different beliefs but a common tendency for their context) and are independent of any particular views. Any particular conservative belief today may not be conservative tomorrow, and the same goes for liberal beliefs.

So, as to fascism. Fascism was a fundamentally reactionary movement. Fascism looked to the glories of the past, particularly the glories of a particular race, as a model for the future. Fascism promoted the unit of the Nation and the People and the Leader above all others. Fascism promoted traditional values of the past, such as the domestic role of women and the superiority of working the land to working in a factory (pastoralism). Fascism co-opted traditional social institutions and promoted them for their own use (esp. business - another name for Mussolini's fascism is "corporatism".). Fascism was supported by and supported the traditional conservative institutions of society (business, military) and repressed institutions committed to social change (trade unions especially). The NSDAP in particular used socialism as a cosmetic shield - none of the socialist party planks such as land redistribution were ever acted upon.

Socialism generally and communism in particular, while totalitarian, had opposite impulses. Their view was to the future, in nearly every way, and was committed to altering or abolishing traditional roles, mores and institutions.

None of this is acts as a value judgment. Totalitarian reaction is just as bad as totalitarian revolution. Neither extreme is to be desired. The thing is what the thing is however, and you can't twist history to suit your own ends and your parochial political goals.

As I also said, all of this evidence has been presented before, and none of it has ever been reacted to or even acknowledged. Thus, the ones making the arguments are acting in bad faith IMO. They are obviously not interested in anything approaching "debate."

 

[Tez3]

I never said all socialists hate religion, just that the socialists who committed the mass murders in Germany, Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and so on did.

No, you are still not there, the Nazis may have had socialist in their title but they were RIGHT WING FASCISTS.
And Russia (it wasn't Russia then btw) China, Vietnam and Cambodia were communist not socialists.
Please, do look up your history properly.

 

[billc]

Ramirez, remember, the statement was that religion has killed more people than any thing else. I looked up some quick stats on the inquisition and historians put their murder total at around 31,000 to 130,000, with a lot of the deaths ocurring from medieval prison conditions.
THe atheists of the various socialist movements racked up a murder rate of over 100 million people, around the globe, not just in Europe.
Also, the inquisition was in the way distant past when everyone was less civilized and people were violent and cruel as a common practice. Just watch any one of the cable shows, Rome, The tudors, and so on to get a taste of what it was like back then.(I know, they are television, but they show the cruelty of the times)
The communists, nazis and fascists, were just 70 years ago and they were modern nations, not medieval barely literate populations living in horrible conditions. The past religous persecutions do not compare with the modern socialist murders of the 20th century.

 

[billc]

As 5-0 kenpo pointed out, please define Right-wing fascist vs. a communist/socialist. Remember, socialism is the intermediate step to true communism. The defenders of communism always say that these murderers were not true communists but socialists.

 

[Tez3]

Ramirez, remember, the statement was that religion has killed more people than any thing else. I looked up some quick stats on the inquisition and historians put their murder total at around 31,000 to 130,000, with a lot of the deaths ocurring from medieval prison conditions.
THe atheists of the various socialist movements racked up a murder rate of over 100 million people, around the globe, not just in Europe.
Also, the inquisition was in the way distant past when everyone was less civilized and people were violent and cruel as a common practice. Just watch any one of the cable shows, Rome, The tudors, and so on to get a taste of what it was like back then.(I know, they are television, but they show the cruelty of the times)
The communists, nazis and fascists, were just 70 years ago and they were modern nations, not medieval barely literate populations living in horrible conditions. The past religous persecutions do not compare with the modern socialist murders of the 20th century.

Watch cable shows to learn history? You got to be kidding surely?

I have rarely found any television show to present anything other than soundbites and what they think will sell their programmes.

Clearly though rather than argue from a knowledgable point of view we are expected to swap television programmes.

 

[Tez3]

As 5-0 kenpo pointed out, please define Right-wing fascist vs. a communist/socialist. Remember, socialism is the intermediate step to true communism. The defenders of communism always say that these murderers were not true communists but socialists.

Says who?

I think you actually make things up as you go along.

 

[Empty Hands]

Says who?

I think you actually make things up as you go along.

Says Thomas Sowell. Or Rush Limbaugh. Or Mark Levin.

Every single argument I've seen Bill make on this board I've seen first elsewhere coming from the conservative echo chamber. He's just doing his part to spread the confusion around. It's not even original.

 

[billc]

Yes, I have heard that the "Fascists" looked to the past and the communists looked to the future, but that is a superfiicial difference. As I have stated before, there are many flavors of ice cream, vanilla, choclolate and strawberry, but they are all still ice cream. Socialism puts the government in control of the means of production, the extent varies on the needs of the socialists at the time. Jonah Goldberg in his book Liberal Fascism points out that Hitler needed the business community to supply his war machine. Mussolini had to contend with the Catholic Church as did Franco, but they were still big government in charge of everything movements.

American conservatives, believe in strict checks and balances on the government, a small government and the rights of the individual. These are the opposite of what the various types of socialists believe.

The funny part is when people say Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh are Nazis. They have nothing in common with nazis, yet the term nazi is used to smear them. You notice they don't call Coulter and Limbaugh communists, the group that actually had the same beliefs as the nazis.

Another funny thing, communists, wether you believe they are the same as national socialists or not, killed over 100 million people, and yet, you have people today who still walk around claiming they are communists. How can they do that?

 

[billc]

I believe Marx talked about the intermediary step towards communism when the workers would rise up and sieze the means of production. And after a brief period they would move on to the ideal of non-ownership of property, that whole "from each according to their ability,to each according to their needs.

I mention these television shows because they like to show the more gruesome parts of the time periods that they cover. The gladiators, the murders, the rack, the hot pokers. It is a quick walk through the horrors of more primitive times, and some pretty attractive actresses as well.

 

[billc]

Tez, this is not my original source for Marx, but it was easily found in wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

For orthodox Marxists, socialism is the lower stage of communism based on the principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution" while upper stage communism is based on the principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need"; the upper stage becoming possible only after the socialist stage further develops economic efficiency and the automation of production has led to a superabundance of goods and services.[39