Internet is a series of tubes

[Infernus]

Democracy is a big word that American children shouldn't be allowed to play with.


Even the Framer's didn't like using the word Democracy. They much more prefered Constitutional Republic to pure democracy.


Democracy is one of the things that people like to yell about and say "We're more free then nation x because we're a democracy", why do you think so many Stalinist (read: not communist) like to call themselves democracies.


Communism is a big word too, basically any single 'form' of government has so many different and often competing underlying theories its impossible to say "THIS IS BETTER FOR REASON X!!1!!!"

Marxist communism kicks democracy's ass up and down the globe.


EDIT: And even though pure Stalinism in all of its entirety is pretty scary, I find it very interesting that through a series of three 5 year plans that Stalin instituted are theorized to have been the period of fastest economic and industrial growth ever acheived. The effects of which were pretty much destructive on Russia due to just how backwards the country truely was, however, if such a socialist policy were to be adopted by a government in a nation such as america it would be relatively sustainable and the grand ideal of a "global revolution" would be relatively obtainable.

The underlying problem with communism is effectively where it took hold. It couldn't take hold in America because the standard of living was high after World War I. The only reason it took hold in Russia is because Lenin was able to make a rather random and senseless mob follow his orders but the nation was so industrially backwards it didn't work. Marx called for communism in a highly industrialized nation, in 1928 only 20% of the Russian population was considered to be workers.

Stalinism effectively ruined communism, no matter what Kruschev tried to do. Stalism is, by the Trotskyist but very accurate definition, a non-capitalist state in which exploitation is controlled by a ruling caste which, while it did not own the means of production and was not a social class in its own right, accrued benefits and privileges at the expense of the working class.

[TX3RN0BILL]

Democracy has the tendency to turn into predictable rotativism, which means that the entire political class of a society living in democracy turns into a mafia - because in each election either party "A" or party "B" wins. Even the lines between "left" and "right" are nowadays becoming less and less apart, and the politicians in power are only concerned with personal gain - ranging from the immediate or future material wealth, or the necessity of having one's name written down in history with any degree of importance - be it good or bad. As an example, thinking of Bush, who used the US Military Machine for a personal vendetta affair in Iraq, just for the sake of implanting democracy there - well, I think they're worse off now than they were with Saddam, at least back then they knew more or less what they could count on...

Therefore, monarchies and dictatorships actually do have a reason to exist. They provide stability because you know who's in charge and what to expect. And, having one person whose lifetime job is to run a country, well sooner or later one can expect that the person in charge may think that he's responsible for the well-being of the whole country and, believing in man being more good than evil, doing more things right than wrong. Because that's that person's life - to run a country. In Democracy, that's not the case - one has to be a politician, therefore rise in ranks and then serve one or two terms max, and that's it - and of course, being the s.o.b. one has to be to be a good politician, it is only natural to be expected of such a person in office to do more wrong than right.

Ah, I just remembered the perfect definition of a politician, from the movie "The Hunt for Red October": "I'm a politician, which means I'm a cheater and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollypops. But, it also means that I keep my options open." - there you go, politicians are, in general, nothing more than rotten opportunists. Of course there are exceptions and those cases are the ones we'd like to have in office forever, like kings, but hey - democarcy itself prevents that by saying that even the good guys can't stay forever... although there have been cases where the rules have been changed...

[Hamma]

FYI at the bottom of the paeg there is an audio link to his "speech"

Originally Posted by Rbstr

Anyway in regard to the internet, there is no way in hell we're going to get good legislation out of our current congress.

They are too old to understand. It won't be untill newer generations get into office when we'll get the internet's proper rights sorted out.

Indeed.

[Rbstr]

I'd liek to say, I agree with infernus on the Marxism.

Marxism might work here.

[Infernus]

The Marxist theory if instituted in America, would kick total ass seeing as America can actually support the revolution without the use of brutal force.

If you want to know why Soviet Communism failed, look at everything Stalin did, and then read Kruschev's Secret Speach to find out why they were bad for communism.

And basically it never recovered.