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(...) Maybe you should have said that in the first place instead of Standard Anti US Diatribe # 8294, then. However it's not a statement that I agree with, except inasmuch as it's not possible to determine with certainty (from any real world (...) (23 years ago, 28-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Cuba
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Larry let me say that I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself, and believing in your own ideologies. To all the rest, why do you really care about Larry's opinions? Honestly, he's not going to change his mind, so why haven't all of you given (...) (23 years ago, 29-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Because, as wise spin doctors through the ages have said, the purpose of debate (and even .debate!) is *not* to persuade the other party--rather, it's to persuade the spectators, those who do not feel so strongly in X or Y direction and (...) (23 years ago, 29-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) I can't agree--it only makes the "moral call" that way if your personal values are based on individualism instead of the common good. Those values are nurtured in a capitalist system, so it's a self-replicating system, IMHO. (...) No more so (...) (23 years ago, 29-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Cuba
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(...) Quick self-correction: Afghanistan. Can't forget Afghanistan! (But again, that territory was not intended to be appended to the USSR, so even that may not count.) best LFB (23 years ago, 29-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) I'd like to see how you prove happier from someone who lives in the projects, or in South Central LA, in comparison to someone who lives in Cuba. (...) Perhaps you are mistaking the political and economic systems? A Democratic Communist (...) (23 years ago, 29-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) I would reword that as "if your personal values say that others do not have the right to dispose of you and your property as they see fit". Wouldn't you agree? (...) Did you or someone you are closely related to live in a communist bloc (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Sum of total happiness will be higher, per capita. There may be individual excursions from the mean. In fact there better be! (...) Communism can't be democratic, freemarket systems can't be dictatorial. (...) Unless it is moral to dispose of (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) But it isn't clear at the extremities whether your implication of morality is correct. For instance, during the recent discusion of the handling of Ender by the powers that be, you acknowledged that they were not clearly evil because of the (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) OK. Fair enough. If a system fails to live by its principles in extremis and acts in immoral ways, then it isn't perfect. But we can still quite easily judge it to be morally far superior to a system that systematically acts immorally. (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Slavery and theft indeed. How objective you are. Materialism in western society is the current norm. You should not feel that anything else is "immoral". It must be asked why the US victimises this country due to what you call "immoral" (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Not "as they see fit." That again imputes capitalist values and a hierarchical structure to the actions of communist leadership. "For the common good" is more accurate. Now, *in practice*, it has often *been* "as they see fit," true...but (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) That appears to be exactly what I did say. Put that way it's untrue and flat out wrong for me to have said it and I admit it without any prevarication, denial, or hiding behind "bad wording" defense. I am heads down on something (you can tell (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Thank you. (...) No idea what you're trying to say there. (...) Yes. The US is a mixed economy, not a libertarian one, or an anarcho capitalist one, or even a plain old capitalist one. Therefore its policy is not what you would see from any of (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Actually, what *do* you do for a living? I thought you just built boats... Dave! FUT OT.FUN (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Oh, no. Not you too! First my own mother and now Dave! (See? I can work your name in too, Dave! Hey! I did it again!) In all seriousness, I'm a historian, primarily of Britain and imperialism in 19th- and 20th-C. Africa. Because I teach and (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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(...) LOL! Cute, Larry! Dan (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Huge clarification to inflict on you-- it makes evidenced communism immoral and evidenced capitalism moral (by utilitarian standards). To judge any system using utilitarian morality, one needs evidence of the happiness/unhappiness of the (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) I know that we've been around this bend in the river before, but what exactly are your objections to those terms? Checking the dictionary and massaging the concepts just a little (really just a tiny little bit) (actually, not much at all) they (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) But I'm not using utilitarian morality (were there such a thing, which there isn't) here. My argument has several legs, each should be evaluated independently. The utilitarian argument (which makes no reference to morality) is entirely (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) I agree, but are you equating Communism-- that is to say the essential notion or theory of Communism/Socialism, not the current or former attempts at it-- with slavery? Slavery is the anti-thesis of Communism (and even Democracy) and therefore (...) (23 years ago, 30-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Silly Larry! Of course there is! The more happiness resulting from an action there is, the more moral that action is, and visa versa, says utilitarianism. Actually, I associate utilitarianism first and foremost with its view on ethics... (...) (...) (23 years ago, 31-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Look at it this way. You claim communism is "immoral" due to what you term "slavery and theft". Yet, my understanding of communism leads me to understand that it provides shelter, education and healthcare based on need. The system you favour (...) (23 years ago, 31-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Not to speak for Lar, but I think the association for him was insofar as in communist governments that have existed, there is always a central dictating body which applies "equality" to the citizens (theoretically themselves too, one could (...) (23 years ago, 31-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Moral or Immoral (was Re: Cuba)
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Larry Pieniazek <lpieniazek@mercator.com> wrote in message news:GIsxC4.C4A@lugnet.com... [snipped] (...) well (...) based (...) [snipped] I'm not just picking on Larry here, but I think this is a good time to ask: Moral or immoral according to who? (...) (23 years ago, 3-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) I assume, after reading you text below, this is a rhetorical question? (...) I try my best Chris. (...) Because is is a argumant which has no logic. (...) By helping force them to leave? (...) I am not "slamming" (or at least I do not mean to) (...) (23 years ago, 3-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Moral or Immoral (was Re: Cuba)
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(...) The speaker/writer. An action is moral to the extent that it satisfies one's sense of aesthetic about how the world should work. So charging interest on a loan is moral to the capitalist who believes that this fuels the economy making greater (...) (23 years ago, 3-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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I have been meaning to come back to this for some time (...) I am going to differ with you on this point. The Warsaw Pact nations, as far as I am concerned, during the period up until about 1989 or so, were so effectively under the control of the (...) (23 years ago, 14-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) You find it funny that someone can admit they are wrong about something without being repeatedly prodded? (23 years ago, 14-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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(...) Wow, has .o-t.debate become the busiest ng on LUGNET? I think it's very possible. (...) As it sort of answers your note, I'll make the very important point that not ONE serious historian (outside of those in the USSR and some of its satellites (...) (23 years ago, 15-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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