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[Caan]

To the Toms,
    The reason that you have such a bad taste for communism and Marxist ideas is that in the past these ideals have been badly implemented. Also, most Americans are unaware of the different kinds of inequality that plague their daily lives.  Knowledge of inequality is often conveyed in stories about the gender gap in society, or the homeless, or the number of Americans living below the poverty line.  But what about the social arrangements that produce inequality?  A pervasive form of inequality cuts age, race, ethnicity, gender, and sex to confer priveleges on a minority of Americans while relegating the rest to varying degrees of insecurity, need or despair.  This is class inequality, a structured system of unequal rewards that provides enormous advantages to the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower classes.  This structured class inequality is both the cause and the consequence of the ability to control important resources such as, money, education, votes, and information.  For this system to remain, the majority of disadvantaged Americans must be persuaded to believe that the way things work out for people is fair and deserved.  In a capitalist society the corporate owned media and our bought and sold government don't want to push an ideology of equality and community because it gets in the way of profits.  Each day we buy into this hegemony.  Unless either of you are extremely wealthy, you should be watching out for your own class interests by promoting a new ideology and reexamining what you believe, and not let yourselves be duped into thinking capitalism saves all.  

[Arthur]

To the Toms,
    The reason that you have such a bad taste for communism and Marxist ideas is that in the past these ideals have been badly implemented. Also, most Americans are unaware of the different kinds of inequality that plague their daily lives.  Knowledge of inequality is often conveyed in stories about the gender gap in society, or the homeless, or the number of Americans living below the poverty line.  But what about the social arrangements that produce inequality?  A pervasive form of inequality cuts age, race, ethnicity, gender, and sex to confer priveleges on a minority of Americans while relegating the rest to varying degrees of insecurity, need or despair.  This is class inequality, a structured system of unequal rewards that provides enormous advantages to the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower classes.  This structured class inequality is both the cause and the consequence of the ability to control important resources such as, money, education, votes, and information.  For this system to remain, the majority of disadvantaged Americans must be persuaded to believe that the way things work out for people is fair and deserved.  In a capitalist society the corporate owned media and our bought and sold government don't want to push an ideology of equality and community because it gets in the way of profits.  Each day we buy into this hegemony.  Unless either of you are extremely wealthy, you should be watching out for your own class interests by promoting a new ideology and reexamining what you believe, and not let yourselves be duped into thinking capitalism saves all.  

Do my eyes decieve me or is someone attempting to defend the virtues of communism?

The problem is not in the implementation of communism, but in the very idea itself.  Consider the 10 planks of communism and tell me it doesn't violate a man's liberty.  

Interesting to note that what is set forth as an ideal state in the Bible is that every man would have his own vine and his own fig tree.
And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon. I Kings 4:25 (also Zec 3:10)

Thomas and Stephen thank you for your posts. Well said.


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1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rent to public purpose.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
 
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the State.

7. Extention of factories and instruments of production owned by the State, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal liablity of all to labor. Establishment of Industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
 
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
 
10. Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. etc.

[Oscar]

Caan,

You wrote,

"The reason that you have such a bad taste for communism and Marxist ideas is that in the past these ideals have been badly implemented".

Your ability to read my mind is somewhat lacking.  You don't have a clue why I despise Communism.

I was a public school teacher for 33 years.  I have had ample opportunity to be presented with these ideas many times by colleagues who thought much as you do.

I noticed that many of their beliefs apparently had never been subjected to careful analysis.  This comment on Marxism/Communism is typical.

You stated that the real problem is poor implimentation of these "ideals".  Here are a couple of questions for you:

1. What actual evidence can you offer that Marxist theory works?  Can you cite examples of successful outcomes?  Can you name a country where Marxism has produced prosperity for its people?

2. Exactly how can a "dictatorship of the proletariat" be WELL implimented?  Dictatorship involves the denial of fundamental rights to people.   This is good?

Actually Caan, Marxism is fundamentally flawed in many of its basic assumptions.  Things like economic determinism, philisophical materialism, its view of human nature and morality.  

If you read 19th Century Utopian Novels, such as "Looking Backward" and "Erewhon" it is easy to see the roots of Marx's ideas.  He was in touch with the ideas of social critics and idealist philosopers, but he knew virtually nothing about science or economics.

In computer programming circles there is an acronym, GIGO.

It means "garbage in, garbage out". If bad programming is entered, junk comes out.  That is why Marxism/Communism has never worked, and never will.

A very real problem with M/C is that it is a form of state atheism.  State atheism is the most dangerous philosophy in the history of humanity.  In its various European and Asian forms it has killed more people than all the wars and tyrants that lived prior to the 20th Century.

Caan, people have prattled leftist ideas at me for years.  I remain unimpressed. Much of what you have written is nothing more than conspiricy theories, and belongs on the same list with the Black Helicopter folks.

Thomas Maddux

[M2]

To the Toms,
    The reason that you have such a bad taste for communism and Marxist ideas is that in the past these ideals have been badly implemented. Also, most Americans are unaware of the different kinds of inequality that plague their daily lives.  Knowledge of inequality is often conveyed in stories about the gender gap in society, or the homeless, or the number of Americans living below the poverty line.  But what about the social arrangements that produce inequality?  A pervasive form of inequality cuts age, race, ethnicity, gender, and sex to confer priveleges on a minority of Americans while relegating the rest to varying degrees of insecurity, need or despair.  This is class inequality, a structured system of unequal rewards that provides enormous advantages to the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower classes.  This structured class inequality is both the cause and the consequence of the ability to control important resources such as, money, education, votes, and information.  For this system to remain, the majority of disadvantaged Americans must be persuaded to believe that the way things work out for people is fair and deserved.  In a capitalist society the corporate owned media and our bought and sold government don't want to push an ideology of equality and community because it gets in the way of profits.  Each day we buy into this hegemony.  Unless either of you are extremely wealthy, you should be watching out for your own class interests by promoting a new ideology and reexamining what you believe, and not let yourselves be duped into thinking capitalism saves all.  

You could 'assemblysize' this and it would be very familiar to us. The problem seems to be 'the natural' man without Christ. Most, if not all, assemblyites were saved but not operating under the leading of the Spirit of Christ. The solution for the assembly is Christ not Marx, hence I would conclude that it is the same solution for society in general.

Lord bless,
Marcia

[editor]

    The reason that you have such a bad taste for communism and Marxist ideas is that in the past these ideals have been badly implemented..........  


 and not let yourselves be duped into thinking capitalism saves all.  

I maintain that it is impossible to "implement" the seizing of private property, nationalize business, and limit peoples' freedom in any other manner than "badly."  The very idea of communism is a bad idea.

Capitalism, unlike communism, has really yet to be tried.  What we have now is a mixture of socialism and capitalism.  However, even if capitalism were to be "implemented" properly, you are right in saying that it doesn't save all.

As for me, I want to work hard at my profession, keep the money that I earn, and spend it in the manner I see fit.  I want to own my own place, sail my own ship, and give it all to whomever I wish, whenever I wish.  I reserve the right to bless my friends and defend myself against my enemies.  I want to buy low and sell high.  I want to profit as much as possible from my own intellect, luck and hardwork.  I want to worship freely, and educate my children the way I see fit.

In short, I want control over my own life.  Given a choice between capitalism or communism, as defined in a dictionary, I would choose capitalism everytime.

Communism is the only system where the people own everything, but don't control anything.  While capitalism suffers from an unequal distribution of wealth, which means that not everyone will share its blessings,  communism guarantees that everyone will share its miseries in equal doses, except those who are "implementing" the government.

Brent

[Caan]

Brent,
    I am not surprised that you are not a proponent of communism.  In fact, I wouldn't expect you to be.  You obviously make good money and aren't hasseled by the daily battles that someone in poverty might be(such as making rent, finding a job, or knowing where your next meal will come from).  It makes perfect sense that you want to keep the money that you earn from the job that you spend long hours at and the expensive education that you invested in.  However, you are not the only one.  Because of the large profit margin needed to stay competitive in a capitalist market, corporations are frequently forced to make decisions  that exploit workers.  The workers are paid salaries far below what their work is worth in the marketplace.  They may not have health benefits and be forced to work two low paying jobs to make ends meet.  This type of work is growing exponentially as U.S, middle class jobs are farmed outside the U.S. in spatially de-centered firms for lower  worker wages and bigger profits for the corporation.  While wages for lawyers and doctors remain somewhat unaffected by these changes, in time, they will see the decay of neighborhoods around them, stale housing markets, and worst of all(for doctors) more people on medicaid and medicare,
; straining an already semi-unstable insurance racket.  I know what you are saying-The Virtue of Selfishness-right?  I am also credentialed and probably do not have to worry about my financial future, but I see a need for it in an increasingly globalizing world.  Capitalism breeds oppression under the guise of "Freedom".  You are free to keep the profits you earn, but not everyone is free to earn the money they are actually worth.  
                                     
P.S.  These comments in no way undermine how grateful I am for the time and energy you spent in the destruction of a useless cult.



Marcia,
    Your argument is flawed and nonsensical.  I'll go ahead and assume that you are not a lawyer.

[editor]

Hi Caan

Thanks for the comment at the end of your last post.  I appreciate it.

As for health benefits, I can barely afford them, so I have a totally catastrophic type policy.  We have never met our deductible.

Retirement?  I gotta pay for my own.

College? Paid for it myself.

Medicare/medicaid?  I'm a doctor, and have to hassle and fight with 85% of every claim I submit for payment.  I have to pay a very trained, persistant and honest person for the sole purpose of printing out forms on a computer(which is easy) and then following up on why each one was lost in the mail, denied, etc.

I didn't recieve my child tax credit, even though I have five kids.  I guess my kids don't count, because I make too much money.

In short, in spite of how bad things are,  I'll take freedom any day of the week.  If I'm going to be responsible for myself and my family, I don't want a bunch of sucking piglets hanging off of me!

Brent

[M2]

Marcia,
    Your argument is flawed and nonsensical.  I'll go ahead and assume that you are not a lawyer.

Caan,

You're probably right; possibly I did not read you post carefully, I'll have to re-read it carefully later.
You're wrong about the lawyer part though. I think that I am a pretty good lawyer, especially after having 2 teens in the house for the past 5+ years, I ought to be awarded an honorary lawyer's degree. My mind is on other things tonight so I will let Brent and Thomas and others respond to you on this topic.

Lord bless,
Marcia

[Oscar]

Caan,

You wrote,

" A pervasive form of inequality cuts age, race, ethnicity, gender, and sex to confer priveleges on a minority of Americans while relegating the rest to varying degrees of insecurity, need or despair."

Hogwash!  Period.

Let me tell you about being a member of the priveledged few Caan.

My father had to quit school at 13 to go to work to support his mother and three sisters.  He hired himself out to West Texas Farmers for a dollar a day plus room and board.  That was in 1918.

During his late teenage years he followed crops.  Do you know what that means Caan?  It means he was a migrant farm worker.  He travelled by hopping trains and hitchhiking.

later he found work as a printer's devil and learned a trade.  Not one government program helped him.

My mom was the child of an alcoholic, and had to pick cotton to buy school clothes before she dropped out of school in the 9th grade to work.

I was born in a little house of about 600 square feet in West Texas, and came to california in a '35 ford during WWII.

My first home in California was a 16 foot trailer in Compton.  Seven of us lived there, as the trailer belonged to an aunt and uncle.  

Our next home, for five years, was a one bedroom duplex in South LA.  My parents slept on a rollaway bed in the living room, while my brother and I shared the bedroom with my cousin and her child who my parents had taken in when her husband refused to support her.  We lived that way until I was in the third grade.

My first job was delivering papers when I was 10 years old.

Today, people like us are called the "working poor" and leftists shed tears for them, seeing them as victims.   What they don't understand is that it is not lack of money that keeps you poor.  It is lack of moral and spiritual values.

There was no booze in our house, and no drugs either.  Just love, faith, laughter and good adult examples.

My parents never whined, never complained.  They just dug in and did what they had to do to make a decent life for their kids, and to help some others along the way.  And I am proud to have been their son.  I honor their names and memories.

My folks didn't have a lot of money but they were rich where it really counted.

I was a latchkey kid.

I went to public schools in Los Angeles, the local community college, and the local State College.  Now its called CSUN.  I received exactly $0 dollars from my parents to pay for my education.

I saved money while I served my country in the United States Air Force, resisting folks who wanted to turn my country into a Communist paradise like Russia.  I paid for my car and first year's living expenses with that money during my first year of college.

After I married my wife worked, and I went to school and worked part time and summers.  I drove trucks, built carwash machines, sweated in factories, assembled motorcycles and did what I had to do to be able to finish my school.

After I graduated I worked in the Insurance industry and then went back to grad school to get my teaching credential.  

After I became a teacher in 1970 I hustled a summer job every summer for years to support my family in a decent manner, as a man should.

Today, after 33 years as a public school teacher, I'm doing ok.  What we have, my wife and I worked for. And  America gave me the opportunity.  The America leftist elitists despise as they spin their goofy social and economic theories.

Caan, that opportunity is there for everyone.  

I raised my kids to stand on their own two feet.  They do.  Two of them are college graduates, one is on the way.  I am glad that I could help them along, but they had to work for it too.

None of them are wellfare bums.

I know all about the poor Caan, I know all about poverty. Believe me I saw plenty of it during 33 years of the Los Angeles Public School system.

 Been there done that.  I just decided to avail myself of the limited opportunities available to me.

Those are the same ones that are available to every poor kid in every big city of America.

Caan, the USA is not a perfect society.  It won't be as long as you are I are in it.

But the USA has delivered more Freedom and more Prosperity to more people that any country in the history of the world.   And if someone isn't gettin' any, maybe they should stop wasting their lives whining and begging for government handouts and get up off  their butts and do something to change their lives.

Thomas Maddux

[Oscar]

Caan,

You wrote,

"The workers are paid salaries far below what their work is worth in the marketplace."

Caan, this shows just how much the professors who taught you this nonsense are filled with Marxist BS, (that's Bad Stuff, this is a Christian website).

All workers are paid exactly what their work is worth in the marketplace, or pretty close to it.

Why?  Because what sets the value on your work IS what someone will pay you for it.  Not some nutty "labor theory of value" dreamed up by some athiest "intellectual" who was being supported by a capitalist fortune belonging to the family of Fredreich Engels.

Don't believe me?  Take your lawnmower down the street and try to get a job mowing lawns for $100 dollars an hour.

Good luck.

Then, offer your services for $1.00.  See what happens.

The marketplace works on a large scale as an outcome of several factors:
1. need/desire for the product or service.
2. availablity of the product or service.
3. Cost of producing the product or service.

Over time, on a large societal scale, all prices are set by these factors, unless manipulated by government power.

Governments manipulate prices at their peril.

I suggest you find the PBS special called "The Higher Ground" and view it.

It describes how the leftist "intellectuals" put centralized Socialist economies in place in Europe and India after WWII.

It goes on to describe the utter failure of those economies to produce the hoped for prosperity and abundance. It tells how those countries divested theselves of the seized industries and reduced strangling regulation of their economies during the 70's and 80's in order to become competitive in the real world.

It also describes how people who told them the truth were heckled, threatened and even attacked on university campuses by the "compassionate" leftists.

But they believe them now.

Thomas Maddux

[Mark Kisla]

Today, people like us are called the "working poor" and leftists shed tears for them, seeing them as victims.   What they don't understand is that it is not lack of money that keeps you poor.  It is lack of moral and spiritual values.

There was no booze in our house, and no drugs either.  Just love, faith, laughter and good adult examples.

My parents never whined, never complained.  They just dug in and did what they had to do to make a decent life for their kids, and to help some others along the way.  And I am proud to have been their son.  I honor their names and memories.

My folks didn't have a lot of money but they were rich where it really counted.

I raised my kids to stand on their own two feet.  They do.  Two of them are college graduates, one is on the way.  I am glad that I could help them along, but they had to work for it too.

Caan, the USA is not a perfect society.  It won't be as long as you are I are in it.

But the USA has delivered more Freedom and more Prosperity to more people that any country in the history of the world.   And if someone isn't gettin' any, maybe they should stop wasting their lives whining and begging for government handouts and get up off  their butts and do something to change their lives.

Thomas Maddux

Tom,
I agree with you and commend you for honoring the example of your parents.
Why should we waste our time and energy coveting what someone else has  when we can thank God for what we  have and work to make the best of it. ?
Mark K

P.S.~ Hi my name is Sarah Kisla, I'm 17 years old, and I definately agree with your response Tom.  A communist system would encourage hard working people to settle for less!  There are people out there who put blood and sweat into providing for themselves and their families everyday, and there are other people who  could really care less and are satisfied with their lazy lifestyle!  Everyone has the oppertunity like you said to make a better life for themselves, its just up to them to take advantage of it!

[Oscar]

Sarah,

You wrote,
"P.S.~ Hi my name is Sarah Kisla, I'm 17 years old, and I definately agree with your response Tom.  A communist system would encourage hard working people to settle for less!  There are people out there who put blood and sweat into providing for themselves and their families everyday, and there are other people who  could really care less and are satisfied with their lazy lifestyle!  Everyone has the oppertunity like you said to make a better life for themselves, its just up to them to take advantage of it!"


That's called hitting the nail on the head.

God bless,

Thomas Maddux

[outdeep]

To the Toms,
    The reason that you have such a bad taste for communism and Marxist ideas is that in the past these ideals have been badly implemented.

North Korea is in the midst of a self-inflicted hunger crisis.
China is dabbling with Free enterprise.
Soviet Union imploded.
Florida shores continually receive boat people filled with "lovers of Castro".

Help me understand exactly where it has been implemented well?