Discussion and Debate Community Thread

[PointOfViewGun]

I think this whole tangent demonstrates the sad lack of a negative stigma towards Communism, the same ideology that has allowed a genocide to happen right now in China.

Should we have a stigma for capitalism for how in pursuit of its exploration we saw many people die for basic goods? How did the idea that property is owned by the community and that people receive and contribute according to their needs and abilities allowed a genocide anywhere in the world?

Saying that won't change the facts. Both ideologies are functionally equal, only difference is fascism is based on ruthless practicality, while communism is based on ruthless utopianism, but implementation is still the same. So you are either biased in favoring of one of those ideologies or your post sis simply dishonest.

There is an other option; you're making up. In fact, its a material fact that you are.

[Abdülmecid I]

I think this whole tangent demonstrates the sad lack of a negative stigma towards Communism, the same ideology that has allowed a genocide to happen right now in China.

What does Communism has to do with the Uyghurs? That's like blaming capitalism for the Tutsi, Herero or Indonesian genocides or almost any other mass-killing that has happened in modern history outside the Soviet Union. It looks to me like an arbitrary politisation of history that has no place outside partisan and polarised narratives.

[Heathen Hammer]

What does National-Socialism has to do with the Jews? That's like blaming capitalism for the Tutsi, Herero or Indonesian genocides or almost any other mass-killing that has happened in modern history outside the Reich. It looks to me like an arbitrary politisation of history that has no place outside partisan and polarised narratives.

Fixed it for you, no need to thank me.

There is an other option; you're making up. In fact, its a material fact that you are.

Gainsaying isn't an argument. You are yet to prove any functional difference between fascism and communism other then superficial ideological caviats.

[PointOfViewGun]

Gainsaying isn't an argument. You are yet to prove any functional difference between fascism and communism other then superficial ideological caviats.

Indeed, it's not. Yet, I don't really have to identify the differences between fascism and communism.

[Abdülmecid I]

Fixed it for you, no need to thank me.

Well, the difference is that Antisemitism and racial superiority are one of the core doctrines of Mein Kampf, but Marxism does not preach forced assimilation and ethnic cleansing. This is one of the primary reasons for which so many peoples rallied to the Bolsheviks, who were then capable of annihilating the Whites, despite the massive foreign support in funds, weapons and men the latter received.

[Heathen Hammer]

Well, the difference is that Antisemitism and racial superiority are one of the core doctrines of Mein Kampf, but Marxism does not preach forced assimilation and ethnic cleansing. This is one of the primary reasons for which so many peoples rallied to the Bolsheviks, who were then capable of annihilating the Whites, despite the massive foreign support in funds, weapons and men the latter received.

Marx actually had long rants about Slavs and Jews, your argument kinda falls flat on that.
Bolsheviks also lost the elections in provisional government (proving they didn't have popular support), hence why they had to ignite civil war and rely on mercenaries and foreign funding to install their totalitarian dictatorship against the will of Russian people(that Whites represented) via terror and famine, pretty much doing same thing Hitler did a few decades later.
Anyways, you kinda are proving the point about communism and fascism being functionally similar and the only ones who say this isn't the case are, well, fascists and communists.

Indeed, it's not. Yet, I don't really have to identify the differences between fascism and communism.

So you concede and admit that communism and fascism are functionally similar then. Good.

[PointOfViewGun]

So you concede and admit that communism and fascism are functionally similar then. Good.

I'm merely pointing out that it is asinine to suggest they are. I love how you moved from equal to similar. Are they functionally similar or equal?

[Abdülmecid I]

Marx disparaging Jews is not the same as calling for extermination, like Hitler, though. In the elections the Bolsheviks lost, the Socialist Revolutionaries were the first party with 37%, which were actually part of a common coalition with the Bolsheviks (23%). The strongest right-wing party were the Cadets with 4%... The Bolsheviks never used mercenaries, actually, all the soldiers came from the former Russian Empire, from the Russian conscripts to the Latvian fusiliers that executed the Czar for treason and mass-murder. On the other hand, the Russians relied on the Czechoslovak Legion and on British, Japanese, Greek and French expeditonary forces. Given all the vast resources the Whites possessed, in combination with the terrible situation the Soviets faced in the home front, you can imagine how much the royal regime was despised by the peasants and even the Cossacks. It's very similar to the Spanish Civil War, when the fascists relied militarily almost exclusively on the Regulares, Moroccan professional soldiers, and on the mercenaries of the Foreign Legion.

[Infidel144]

The Soviet Army committed more rapes - understandable if you look at the war crimes of Germany in the UdSSR - , but there are more than one eye witness reports that many soviet officers killed rapists immediately among their soldiers.

In what other circumstances is rape "understandable"?

This sentence is ridiculous if you compare the soviet blood toll with the US blood toll during the liberation of Europe from Germany's Nazi Terror.

What was the Soviet liberation of part of Europe from "Germany's Nazi Terror" followed by?

[Cope]

What does Communism has to do with the Uyghurs? That's like blaming capitalism for the Tutsi, Herero or Indonesian genocides or almost any other mass-killing that has happened in modern history outside the Soviet Union. It looks to me like an arbitrary politisation of history that has no place outside partisan and polarised narratives.

The insistence on identity conformism is typical within communist societies. Communal/group expressions which threaten the class narrative and/or centralized state power have a tendency to be systematically supressed if not eradicated. As is evidenced by the activities, methodologies and authoritarianism of the CCP (the world's most dominant communist organization), the claim that there is often little functional difference between fascists and communists has a clear basis in fact. This is unsurprising to those of us willing to acknowledge that revolutionary Marxism is the intellectual origin of both ideologies. For these reasons, the suggestion that the CCP's genocidal tendencies are merely happenstance or "not real communism" can be dismissed as irrational.

[Heathen Hammer]

Marx disparaging Jews is not the same as calling for extermination, like Hitler, though. In the elections the Bolsheviks lost, the Socialist Revolutionaries were the first party with 37%, which were actually part of a common coalition with the Bolsheviks (23%). The strongest right-wing party were the Cadets with 4%... The Bolsheviks never used mercenaries, actually, all the soldiers came from the former Russian Empire, from the Russian conscripts to the Latvian fusiliers that executed the Czar for treason and mass-murder. On the other hand, the Russians relied on the Czechoslovak Legion and on British, Japanese, Greek and French expeditonary forces. Given all the vast resources the Whites possessed, in combination with the terrible situation the Soviets faced in the home front, you can imagine how much the royal regime was despised by the peasants and even the Cossacks. It's very similar to the Spanish Civil War, when the fascists relied militarily almost exclusively on the Regulares, Moroccan professional soldiers, and on the mercenaries of the Foreign Legion.

That's a pretty good summary of communist historical revisionism (ignoring that lenin and the gang were funded from abroad and had to rely on terror since population did not support them as well as ignoring the fact that communist side of Spanish civil war relied on foreigners to a much further extent then Franco's side, or going into even more ridiculous length at trying to justify murder of Romanov family for made-up "crimes"). We get it, you are a communist or a communist sympathizer(judging by the content your posts). That has always been allowed. But you are just further proving that the only people who don't acknowledge the fact that fascism and communism are functionally same are fascists and communists.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Again, nice projection dude. You accused me of concern trolling. An accusation without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. It was hilarious though that you made that accusation right after making a big speech about the American man's burden to "far flung people he can't even point to on the map". So yeah, technically speaking I didn't refute it, you did.
Your claim that the US is acting out of unselfish reasons is one flaw in this; your claim to be able to read the future has no foundation either another; but likely the biggest flaw in your accusation is that for you this is obviously an either/or black/white game. You love projecting this accusation on to me, but I have never played this game that you do. A sane man's attitude would be: I can continue doing good things, I should just stop doing the bad things. Apart from dismissing this plethora unbroken string of incessant war crimes across the world as "contrarian", communist, anti-Americanism (you're much more of an anti-American if you genuinely believe this to be an integral part of the American identity), your only defense is to imply that supporting democratic countries in the far east can only be done by war criming across Latin America and the middle east, among many other countries?

Final sidenote: Both South Korea and Taiwan were dictatorships until the early 90s. I'm sure that's the Communists fault as well, right? No wait.

Nice strawman. I did not say that the US is as bad as the third Reich, but you're welcome to find a quote where I do. The principle nevertheless stands. The citizens of a country are responsible for its actions. Most responsible of them are the bhakts, the devotees who place factionalism above morality and rationality.

Nice try: First of all, your red scare accusations preceded the statements that you chose to strawman that way, and secondly, yup, it's just strawmen.

mhm.

Please. Let’s not pretend you’re interested in discussing the nuances of foreign policy and history just because you’ve elected to scribble sins in the dirt for the last couple pages in response to “I believe America has important and unfinished work to do in the world.” Turning around and crying strawman umpteen times doesn’t work when you double and triple down at the same time. You chose to engage this black and white moralistic paradigm of yours, like your explicit and snide conflation of American foreign policy to the moral burden of Nazism in post war Germany, or related moral dilemmas you constructed all on your own. The onus is on you to establish that paradigm if you expect it to be taken seriously, not me.

It’s not possible for me to “project” accusations of concern trolling onto you when the self evident nature of your concern trolling arises directly from the myriad of “what about this” topics you brought up unprompted, and by which you yourself have defined American policy ethos. Pretending now that I made all that up when you’re the one who mentioned it in the first place speaks for itself. Your own dichotomy, “What about the ME/SK/Taiwan dictatorship,” intended to complicate your own premise about moral selflessness and repentance as it relates to foreign policy, has no bearing on my observations. Your premise in this discussion is that American foreign policy amounts to morally fraudulent warmongering - warmongering being your specific word choice. Your related tangents directly pertain to American military presence abroad. My queries about your alternatives to American military support for Korea or Taiwan were raised in direct response to your false accusation of concern trolling about your premise.

The US is not an empire, nor is a democratic republic necessarily well suited to such a system - hence why we’re not proving to be very good at maintaining absolute hegemony compared to the longevity and durability of an actual empire like Britain or Rome. I’ve never argued that the US is inherently superior to any other country, because that’s not how US hegemony operates. All the US has is a system - of ideas, of products, of politics - which is advanced in our national interests abroad, just as all large and powerful countries do. The last 80 years of world history has seen not imperial domination, but a coalition of the willing, against the Nazis, against the Soviets, against Islamic terror, against authoritarian expansionism, etc.

The plain fact is, world leaders are comfortable with the US taking the lead, and if anything, are aghast and annoyed whenever we drop the ball, as evidenced by the boilerplate backseat driving seen in this thread. If the naysayers get their wish, I can only hope for their sake they’ll be just as free to argue the moral inconsistencies of international hegemony in Russian or Chinese. Won’t be me suffering from a humbled and castigated America without the moral “superiority complex” that might otherwise compel us to fight and die on behalf of far flung people and countries most Americans can’t locate on a map. If we’re no fun anymore, our international partners are free to shop around. Some will, most aren’t.

I will explain the comparison for you: the 'evil' communistic UdSSR, which lost at least 14.000.000 civilians in WW II by bloody german hands did a better job in persecuting and punishing their soldiers for rapes, while the US the bringer of the light of liberty, rule of law and prosperty to the world, failed miserable because no one was actual punished for the same sort of crime (rape), because "the units are already disbanded", "the soldiers are sent back home"? It makes your hymn on your country shallow.

The other parts i won't comment as its too much self-congratulation, overly national pathos and too less self reflection for my taste.

Ah ok. I wasn’t aware the morality of a government or political system is determined by how many soldiers or civilians die in a war. If you want to debate the relative merits of Soviet vs American post war occupation, or which justice system did a better job at prosecuting specific war crimes committed in WW2 by their soldiers, I’m sure there are others of your countrymen or Eastern European neighbors who might be interested in a “who did more bad stuff” contest on that topic. It’s unrelated to what I’ve said beyond its rhetorical utility as a whataboutist deflection. I can understand why you’re unwilling to address what I’ve actually said, as it falls outside the reductive moralistic paradigm you’ve set up.

The insistence on identity conformism is typical within communist societies. Communal/group expressions which threaten the class narrative and/or centralized state power have a tendency to be systematically supressed if not eradicated. As is evidenced by the activities, methodologies and authoritarianism of the CCP (the world's most dominant communist organization), the claim that there is often little functional difference between fascists and communists has a clear basis in fact. This is unsurprising to those of us willing to acknowledge that revolutionary Marxism is the intellectual origin of both ideologies. For these reasons, the suggestion that the CCP's genocidal tendencies are merely happenstance or "not real communism" can be dismissed as irrational.

Moreover, the capacity of non-communist regimes to commit atrocities in no way counters Aex’s observation. This article gives a good summary of how the nature of Chinese communism warrants more recognition for what it is than is currently fashionable in a time when condemnation of communism is frequently met with “Actually..............”

Remembering the biggest mass murder in the history of the world

Mao thought that he could catapult his country past its competitors by herding villagers across the country into giant people’s communes. In pursuit of a utopian paradise, everything was collectivised. People had their work, homes, land, belongings and livelihoods taken from them. In collective canteens, food, distributed by the spoonful according to merit, became a weapon used to force people to follow the party’s every dictate. As incentives to work were removed, coercion and violence were used instead to compel famished farmers to perform labour on poorly planned irrigation projects while fields were neglected.

A catastrophe of gargantuan proportions ensued. Extrapolating from published population statistics, historians have speculated that tens of millions of people died of starvation. But the true dimensions of what happened are only now coming to light thanks to the meticulous reports the party itself compiled during the famine….

What comes out of this massive and detailed dossier is a tale of horror in which Mao emerges as one of the greatest mass murderers in history, responsible for the deaths of at least 45 million people between 1958 and 1962. It is not merely the extent of the catastrophe that dwarfs earlier estimates, but also the manner in which many people died: between two and three million victims were tortured to death or summarily killed, often for the slightest infraction. When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, local boss Xiong Dechang forced his father to bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days later. The case of Wang Ziyou was reported to the central leadership: one of his ears was chopped off, his legs were tied with iron wire, a ten kilogram stone was dropped on his back and then he was branded with a sizzling tool – punishment for digging up a potato.

The fact that Mao’s atrocities resulted in many more deaths than those of Hitler does not necessarily mean he was the more evil of the two. The greater death toll is partly the result of the fact that Mao ruled over a much larger population for a much longer time. I lost several relatives in the Holocaust myself, and have no wish to diminish its significance. But the vast scale of Chinese communist atrocities puts them in the same general ballpark. At the very least, they deserve far more recognition than they currently receive.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...derer-his-due/

The governmental philosophy behind these atrocities is alive and well today. The Chinese Politburo is today actively committed to the same systemic elimination of political and racial undesirables on a scale rivaling any of the 20th century.

[Cookiegod]

Marx disparaging Jews is not the same as calling for extermination, like Hitler, though. In the elections the Bolsheviks lost, the Socialist Revolutionaries were the first party with 37%, which were actually part of a common coalition with the Bolsheviks (23%). The strongest right-wing party were the Cadets with 4%... The Bolsheviks never used mercenaries, actually, all the soldiers came from the former Russian Empire, from the Russian conscripts to the Latvian fusiliers that executed the Czar for treason and mass-murder. On the other hand, the Russians relied on the Czechoslovak Legion and on British, Japanese, Greek and French expeditonary forces. Given all the vast resources the Whites possessed, in combination with the terrible situation the Soviets faced in the home front, you can imagine how much the royal regime was despised by the peasants and even the Cossacks. It's very similar to the Spanish Civil War, when the fascists relied militarily almost exclusively on the Regulares, Moroccan professional soldiers, and on the mercenaries of the Foreign Legion.

Sorry, but no. The whites didn't use mercenaries, neither the expeditionary forces, nor the Czechoslovak legion classify as such. The Czechoslovaks were there to fight the Austrians and stranded when the Bolshevik coup happened, and would not have fought the Bolsheviks if the Bolsheviks hadn't tried to doublecross them, with Trotsky demanding their arrest. The expeditionary forces likewise remained very passive throughout the civil war, all retreating before much could happen. The success of the Bolsheviks doesn't prove a hatred for the regime, it was a coup plain and simple. Having seized the European heartland very early on, before a White counter-movement even could form, there was very little the Whites could do. The Reds then not only had all the industrial centres, but also the advantage of the inner lines. All talk of vast resources of the impromptu White movement is baseless and wrong.

As for demographics, the Communists were popular amongst the urban workers. Not just in Russia, but also there. The communists were decidedly unpopular amongst the rural population. Lenin himself had recognised this even before the revolution happened, that it would have to be carried out by the urban population, not the decidedly more conservative peasants. There were a large number of revolts, which all, given how the Bolshevik coup had happened as quite a surprise, were uncoordinated and failed. The Soviets had zero qualms to use chemical weapons against peasant uprisings. And finally, the Bolsheviks obtained power through extreme cruelty that is very hard to distinguish from what the Islamic State has been known for. The reds were simply more successful and able to write their own version of history, even though they perpetrated those crimes on a far larger scale. The Soviets were most definitely not liked by the peasants, as illustrated by the multitude of peasant uprisings, and if there's one thing the cossacks were always known for, it's their love for the tsar. Hence why cossacks faced persecution until the fall of the iron curtain.

What you're right at is that the Spanish civil war likewise featured a red terror that people like to pretend never happened. But the Republicans received lots and lots of support from overseas, be it volunteers such as Ernest Hemingway, or the Soviet equipment that saw Spain become the training ground for both the Red army and the German tank army. The Regulares too don't classify as mercenaries, as they were recruited in lands that were back then part of Spain, and the German Lufwaffe likewise didn't serve as mercenaries, but as allies.

[Aexodus]

If the CCP isn’t communist why are many western communists friendly towards it?

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

You can copy paste 1 billion times "Soviets did worse stuff than US" it didn't change the fact that Soviets did more against rape by their soldiers than US. There is nothing more to address as there is only pure nationalism.

[Cookiegod]

Please. Let’s not pretend you’re interested in discussing the nuances of foreign policy and history just because you’ve elected to scribble sins in the dirt for the last couple pages in response to “I believe America has important and unfinished work to do in the world.” Turning around and crying strawman umpteen times doesn’t work when you double and triple down at the same time. You chose to engage this black and white moralistic paradigm of yours, like your explicit and snide conflation of American foreign policy to the moral burden of Nazism in post war Germany, or related moral dilemmas you constructed all on your own. The onus is on you to establish that paradigm if you expect it to be taken seriously, not me.

It’s not possible for me to “project” accusations of concern trolling onto you when the self evident nature of your concern trolling arises directly from the myriad of “what about this” topics you brought up unprompted, and by which you yourself have defined American policy ethos. Pretending now that I made all that up when you’re the one who mentioned it in the first place speaks for itself. Your own dichotomy, “What about the ME/SK/Taiwan dictatorship,” intended to complicate your own premise about moral selflessness and repentance as it relates to foreign policy, has no bearing on my observations. Your premise in this discussion is that American foreign policy amounts to morally fraudulent warmongering - warmongering being your specific word choice. Your related tangents directly pertain to American military presence abroad. My queries about your alternatives to American military support for Korea or Taiwan were raised in direct response to your false accusation of concern trolling about your premise.

lmao. You have no counterargument, nothing except making up some sinister motive as if that has the same value: "I don't have to debate you because you're an evil meanie." Ok. That's an admission of defeat if I ever saw one. As for the rest what I responded last time to your also stellar arguing still stands.

[Abdülmecid I]

Sorry, but no. The whites didn't use mercenaries, neither the expeditionary forces, nor the Czechoslovak legion classify as such. The Czechoslovaks were there to fight the Austrians and stranded when the Bolshevik coup happened, and would not have fought the Bolsheviks if the Bolsheviks hadn't tried to doublecross them, with Trotsky demanding their arrest. The expeditionary forces likewise remained very passive throughout the civil war, all retreating before much could happen. The success of the Bolsheviks doesn't prove a hatred for the regime, it was a coup plain and simple. Having seized the European heartland very early on, before a White counter-movement even could form, there was very little the Whites could do. The Reds then not only had all the industrial centres, but also the advantage of the inner lines. All talk of vast resources of the impromptu White movement is baseless and wrong.

As for demographics, the Communists were popular amongst the urban workers. Not just in Russia, but also there. The communists were decidedly unpopular amongst the rural population. Lenin himself had recognised this even before the revolution happened, that it would have to be carried out by the urban population, not the decidedly more conservative peasants. There were a large number of revolts, which all, given how the Bolshevik coup had happened as quite a surprise, were uncoordinated and failed. The Soviets had zero qualms to use chemical weapons against peasant uprisings. And finally, the Bolsheviks obtained power through extreme cruelty that is very hard to distinguish from what the Islamic State has been known for. The reds were simply more successful and able to write their own version of history, even though they perpetrated those crimes on a far larger scale. The Soviets were most definitely not liked by the peasants, as illustrated by the multitude of peasant uprisings, and if there's one thing the cossacks were always known for, it's their love for the tsar. Hence why cossacks faced persecution until the fall of the iron curtain.

What you're right at is that the Spanish civil war likewise featured a red terror that people like to pretend never happened. But the Republicans received lots and lots of support from overseas, be it volunteers such as Ernest Hemingway, or the Soviet equipment that saw Spain become the training ground for both the Red army and the German tank army. The Regulares too don't classify as mercenaries, as they were recruited in lands that were back then part of Spain, and the German Lufwaffe likewise didn't serve as mercenaries, but as allies.

I used the term mercenaries in the sense that Heathen Hammer did, who was referring to the executioners of the Czar. Cossacks were traditionally loyal to the Czar, but not in 1917. When the February Revolution occurred, Cossacks, together with guard regiments, joined the protestors and together they attacked the police. Peasant uprisings occurred all over Russia, White-dominated regions included. Peasants did not actually support the Whites, as Heathen Hammer baselessly claimed, but the Socialist Revolutionaries, part of which had closely allied with the Bolsheviks. Farmers are usually a conservative group, but in 1917 they had massively joined the leftists, because of their promise to end the war, to redistribute the huge properties of the nobility and to dispose of any relics they had remained since feudalism. The crucial difference between Revolutionary Socialists and Bolsheviks was that the former supported the property rights of smallholders.

About the Red Terrors, I doubt anyone disputes them, although Heathen Hammer's point is sabotaged by the fact that the Whites committed atrocities of an equal scale (more estimates agree that their numbers were probably double of those of the Soviets). Regarding Spain, Franco's White Terror was actually double that of Lenin's and the Republic's combined, but the major difference is that it was state-sponsored. The extrajudicial executions that happened in loyalist Spain were perpetrated by the enraged masses and were never endorsed by the authorities, which actually tried to stop the reprisals.

[Lord Thesaurian]

lmao. You have no counterargument, nothing except making up some sinister motive as if that has the same value: "I don't have to debate you because you're an evil meanie." Ok. That's an admission of defeat if I ever saw one. As for the rest what I responded last time to your also stellar arguing still stands.

Let’s not shift the goalposts just because you got bored Cookie. I made a series of observations. You began the discussion in an attempt to counter those observations with snide comments like this:

My bias is that I am an explicit advocate for the success of the American Republic at home and abroad. Always have been and always will be. That much is immediately clear to anyone who reads my posts. I too am old school in a very different way: I believe America has an important and unfinished work to do in the world in pursuit of progress and prosperity for those people who, like us, value Life, Liberty and Property. I’m perfectly happy to discuss ideology in good faith with those who are honest and forthright about their epistemological premises, but that doesn’t mean a willingness to afford political power nor public recognition to those whose goals are fundamentally opposed to the success of my country and its mission, communists and fascists included. If that puts me in the losing camp, I’ll have to go down with the ship.

Native Americans didn't value properties and thus had to go. Pinochet, Pol Pot & Co. valued life and liberty apparently. Liberty meaning the US gets to dictate everything.

I guess we can consider your declaration of victory in a counterargument you never made to be a concession that you have nothing to put forth apart from more gainsaying of the above variety. I don’t consider your snide comments mean so much as tedious and juvenile. You chose to confirm that consideration all on your own. Repeatedly.

[Heathen Hammer]

I used the term mercenaries in the sense that Heathen Hammer did, who was referring to the executioners of the Czar. Cossacks were traditionally loyal to the Czar, but not in 1917. When the February Revolution occurred, Cossacks, together with guard regiments, joined the protestors and together they attacked the police. Peasant uprisings occurred all over Russia, White-dominated regions included. Peasants did not actually support the Whites, as Heathen Hammer baselessly claimed, but the Socialist Revolutionaries, part of which had closely allied with the Bolsheviks. Farmers are usually a conservative group, but in 1917 they had massively joined the leftists, because of their promise to end the war, to redistribute the huge properties of the nobility and to dispose of any relics they had remained since feudalism. The crucial difference between Revolutionary Socialists and Bolsheviks was that the former supported the property rights of smallholders.

About the Red Terrors, I doubt anyone disputes them, although Heathen Hammer's point is sabotaged by the fact that the Whites committed atrocities of an equal scale (more estimates agree that their numbers were probably double of those of the Soviets). Regarding Spain, Franco's White Terror was actually double that of Lenin's and the Republic's combined, but the major difference is that it was state-sponsored. The extrajudicial executions that happened in loyalist Spain were perpetrated by the enraged masses and were never endorsed by the authorities, which actually tried to stop the reprisals.

You just nuked your own argument, fam. When you say that communism isn't identical to fascism, while going on a pro-Soviet revisionist tirade, you only further confirm the fact that the only groups that deny functional equity of communism and fascism are fascists and communists.

[Cookiegod]

Let’s not shift the goalposts just because you got bored Cookie. I made a series of observations. You began the discussion in an attempt to counter those observations with snide comments like this:

I guess we can consider your declaration of victory in a counterargument you never made to be a concession that you have nothing to put forth apart from more gainsaying of the above variety. I don’t consider your snide comments mean so much as tedious and juvenile. You chose to confirm that consideration all on your own. Repeatedly.

lol. First of all, your "observations" (rather: BS claims) do not replace actual arguments. Secondly, I wasn't the only one debating your gushing out your nationalist drivel, so your ad hominem mimimi goes nowhere. It just entertains me given the ultrahigh frequency of seeing you post along the lines of "lefties triggered" "cope" and all that stuff. You calling me and others "tankies" is also simply you grasping for straws. You know this to not be true, but you're desperate enough to pull a McCarthy anyway.

The point we all made is very simple. Your claim, that the US operates with the mission to make the world better, is complete BS, and always has been. Neither I, nor anyone else has to nitpick those examples. There are simply too many to list them all. You can always ask for more examples, and get them. So your implicit pretense (you didn't even dare make it explicit for that reason) that those were out of the norm just doesn't stand. Your explicit claim of me gainsaying is destroyed even by that snarky oneliner quote from me which you so kindly provided.

Then the only semblance of an argument I saw you try to make is bringing in Korea and Taiwan. Let's just for a second accept your premise, which I actually don't, but heck, let's just do it anyway, then it still doesn't change the fact that this is a false equivalency. Your reasoning: One has to take the bad with the good. To be able to help Taiwan and Korea, one has to help Pol Pot and Pinochet as well. Now normally I'd ask: Why?!

My definition of a patriot is someone who wants his country to be the best it can be. A patriot cares enough to criticise his country just like a parent cares enough to criticise their child. I have no issues with America itself. I'd have no issue if I were speaking to an actual patriot. But you're more of an enabler, taking in every single propagandistic talking point that makes your world view nice and easy. You got mad at my reference to the enablers of the third Reich, pretending that I compared the US to the third Reich. You even continued to claim that even after the clarification of what should've been bloody obvious the first time around. Moral principles are universal. The allies, with the US back then at the forefront of liberty, recognised that. They knew that the world doesn't end with the defeat of the Nazis. That one has to contend with human nature. You on the other hand bloody obviously don't. You still prefer factionalism over morality and rationality. You accuse me of black and white, yet it's obvious that I do not in the slightest play the same game as you do.

GG. Your next post will be ignored unless you actually learn to cope with your triggered feelings and present an argument.