[quote=@SleepingSilence] 1. There's a difference between saying 85 to 100 million deaths are hard to verify 100% vs "it's just propaganda!" which leads to the question. By who? The FBI? The hundreds of places that record those deaths? You can't tell someone to be careful, if we're diving head first into conspiracy theories with absolutely no evidence.[/quote] People who don't like communism? Propaganda doesn't mean "Evil conspiracy theory." Most beliefs have somebody out there producing propaganda for it. I'm not saying the numbers were made up whole-cloth btw, i'm saying they are being too liberal with how they calculate causation and it makes for oversimplified history. [quote]2. I feel this part of the conversation is off topic and an unimportant to the topic at hand. People can argue both were started for good intentions (in a way.) But it's clear history shows both lead to awful oppression. To be careful about history, you actually have to study that history so you don't repeat the same mistakes.[/quote] I'm on board with this. I also think we should be more nuanced with causation, because oversimplification means we failed to truly understand history and are susceptible to the same failures. [quote]Again you're talking about everything beside communism, now you're going into monarchies. (which actually seemed to be what the congo state was since it was controlled by a king, and had nothing to do with free market capitalism. Which you acknowledge in this post.) Even if they claimed as such, it clearly wasn't being practiced. [/quote] Communism is the primary topic of the conversation. I have made direct comparisons to several things that happened in communist countries. But I do need to draw from other systems if I am to make comparisons. [quote]You say that again, but propaganda from who? It's been recorded all around the world by many different people and organisations. Where is the evidence that those numbers are padded? You need to provide some kind of evidence to claims of intellectual dishonesty/lying. Well, what proof do you have of that lying? And once again, I will point that leaders have purposefully starved there populace. And that laws exist for willful ignorance. Even if you try to not blame the leaders that caused those famines...it could very well be the system in place that caused those in the first place. [/quote] I don't quite understand what evidence you need me to produce, because my argument is about methodology. I'm not saying they are inventing deaths that don't exist, I'm saying they are playing too fast and loose with causation. [quote]Which I'm sorry, but it WOULD be there fault. (Actually you could argue, it would be even worse if it wasn't the leaders doing it. Because then you have to ask, what did cause mass famine? Is it the system they inherited that lead them down that path?) In free market capitalism we have no bread lines or food shortages...the poor in this country are obese...there's a stark contrast to say the least.[/quote] I disagree; malicious effort is worse than inefficiency. [quote]But why is it too fuzzy too count if there isn't anyone else to blame? If no one. Then why nothing? If communism is a terrible system that caused food shortages, then yes it is to blame for that. A lot of the stuff your link provided is very more than likely gang related crime. If "racial segregation" doesn't immediately give that away.[/quote] Don't get me wrong, I'm against throwing gang statistics into a similar list, but that's exactly my point. It's oversimplifying things. [quote]No, my point was you brought up "democracy" and "capitalist" to make a point about the united states and how it could possibly be just as evil and violent as a communist regime because those things had an instance of violence in the past and why we aren't questioning our political system, when we are questioning communism? Then you provided two completely different systems that have nothing to do with how our system works. Just because people say we're a "democracy" a lot doesn't mean it's correct, and it's usually used for a political reason. (like when pointing out that democracy is evil.) So that's why I corrected it. [/quote] I don't recall, did I say the United States specifically? I'm out here making more general comparisons. I didn't pick democracy and capitalism because the US, I picked those because they are the status quo at the moment. [quote]If it was a harmless/off-topic assumption, I'd of left it alone but if you're going to make a statement that's basically. "The United states system could be just as bad as communism because look a french revolution happened, they're a democracy just like we are!" [b]I'm forced to correct that.[/b] There's a reason why we aren't a democracy and people need to also be more careful with the words they use. And if you aren't doing these things on purpose, I apologize. I'm not saying you're denying everything. But there is seemingly a lot of deflections going on. The only purpose I can think of bringing up every other system you can think of, when they weren't originally apart of the discussion. Is attempting to compare them...[/quote] The Revolutionary government of France was a Republic too btw. If they aren't making the point I assume they're making, Then do they have a point to begin with? [quote]$35007.96 is the average median family income earner in the UK. (2016) $41,657 average median family household income in Alabama. (in the year 2000) which is the 42 highest...(meaning quite low.) I mean I don't "know" 100% if that's a true statement, but it kind of seems like it can be true... https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/08/25/britain-is-poorer-than-any-us-state-yes-even-mississippi/#45dc824435ef According to this, Britain IS poorer than ANY U.S state... https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states So is Sweden and Germany apparently... But I feel like this is getting into the weeds, when the whole question is..."Why communism over free market capitalism?" or even "Why communism over socialism?" And the whole question. "Ignore the bad communism, let's name one that was good instead...?"[/quote] What I am saying is those stats defy common sense. I've been to the south, and if Britain is doing as bad as that, they'd be a third world country. Which is why I severely doubt their methodology but don't have time to dig through it. [quote]I suppose it would highly depend on how karl marx behaved as an individual. Which no surprise, Marx was an asshole. http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/karl-marx-was-pretty-bad-person[/quote] Reading through that, he doesn't seem evil exactly. To quote... [quote]after studying for a time in Bonn, he transferred to the University of Berlin to work on a doctoral degree in philosophy. But he was generally a lazy and good-for-nothing student. The money that his father sent to him for tuition at the University was spent on food and drink, with many of his nights spent at coffee houses and taverns getting drunk and arguing about Hegelian philosophy with other students. [/quote] I mean, shit, who [i]didn't[/i] do exactly this in college? I never said he was a Saint. Imma bet you can write something like that about most historical figures tbh. Thomas Jefferson raped slaves and then enslaved the bastard children. FDR cheated on his cousin-wife from a wheelchair somehow. Reagan was possessed by Lucifer sent to earth to sow discord and terror. Clinton got head from an ugly chick. Nobody is perfect. Also, why on earth does the website you linked too have so many articles obsessed with "dressing up like a lady?" Seriously, there are several of those. How a website with a name like that going to sound so much like someone getting chewed out by old people? [quote]1. Revolution: Marx taught that a revolution to destroy Capitalism was both necessary and inevitable. He acknowledged the possibility that the revolution in England and the United States might be peaceful, but he believed that most revolutions would be violent. Lenin dismissed the possibility of peaceful revolution and declared that violence was essential. A debate on the question whether revolution must be violent is presently raging in the ranks of the Communists. Certain Communist parties, known as Euro-Communist, such as the parties of Italy and Spain, believe that the revolution may be peaceful while others ridicule the idea as reformist. All are agreed that violence is permissible. [/quote] Do we count revolutions though? Revolutions, in my eyes, go in the same category as wars, as something that is way too complicated to put at just one door step. Like, I would roll my eyes if someone put all the deaths in WW2 on a Fascism death toll. Or all the deaths in the American Revolution on a Democracy death toll for that matter. [quote]Forgive me, my back is killing me right now. So I might be reading things wrong today. So what I gathered from that is...it used to be monarchy in the 70's that was an American ally?...Then in the eighties it became a communist ruled nation and a giant famine happened?...That even today as a "Federal Republic" it hasn't recovered from? Is that the gist of it? Well...if you want to wonder if communism caused the famine in the first place, or it was just a coincidence. Compare them to other communism systems taken place? Did famine happened in all of those to? It's not like it happens out of nowhere...[/quote] Not quite. Ethiopia has had famines. The monarchy in the seventies had a major famine that ultimately caused its demise. The Communists had a major famine that is usually put on their death tolls. Ethiopia now has hunger crises all the time that are kept from spiraling into full famine by foreign aid. So yeh, all three have the essential problem. Communism couldn't retroactively cause a famine ten years prior to its implementation. But the second famine is put on Commie death tolls regardless of the extenuating circumstances. [quote]Which are we trying to argue here? That famine weren't part of communism, just the leaders and governments that enforced it? Like Stalin purposefully made the famines happen...Or famines can never be done purposefully and can't be influenced by the system making/distributing the food?[/quote] I'm not bringing up the Holodomor because I don't know enough about it to have a conversation about it. If Stalin is proven to have caused it on purpose, throw it on the death list. And don't worry about posting stuff here about it. I know what it is, I just haven't read any books that go into it in enough detail to make me feel comfortable.