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Old 12-28-2003, 11:58 AM   #70 (permalink)
Strange Famous
follower of the child's crusade?
 
It is quite disturbing when people think that someone who is a communist must be a troll... surely you know these ideals are not dead, they are held by many people. I really do see two America's...

The political compass thing was another example, someone believed my score was a joke or I had tried to score the furthest left I could, the fact is there were very questions I even had to consider how I felt on, my responses were automatic.

I posted the same link on another site (not a political site, the site of a pop singer I used to like) and everyone that took the test was scoring around -5, -5... This is one America.

Your America, with your wish to take arms against people if they try to make you contribute all of your wages to a social fund and then take from that fund what you need, is the other. To me, to anyone, that would be a wonderful way to organise society. You genuinely seem to be willing to fight and die to oppose a system that seems so clearly more fair to me.

Freedom from persecution is important. I support the freedom for people to take narcotics (as long as they are fully educated about all of the effects), and people should be able to have any sexual relations they want as long as they are conducted by adults with informed consent.

But these are not the most vital freedoms. The freedoms that really matter are these:

Freedom from fear, freedom from poverty, freedom for persecution on the grounds of race, ability, gender, religion, age... freedom from the violence of invisible hands.

The freedom to make more money than you really need, the freedom to accumulate enough so that you can begin to exploit the labour of others rather than have your own labour exploited, the freedom to arm yourself with lethal weaponary, these are false freedoms... these are freedoms that make people unfree.

Communism is about freedom from the market, and about a society that uses its economic power for democratically decided ends... what is the freedom to compete worth? Why do you wish to have the freedom to do better than other people? This is a false freedom... the freedom that is needed is the freedom from genuine want, from persecution, from exploitation.

In a communist society, the general population will NOT be armed, and will not be permitted to bare arms. There is little argument I find convincing for bearing arms today, there will be none in the future. In a communist society, there will not be the freedom to exploit, there will not be the freedom to take more than your share just because you work harder or are more talented - these freedoms we know are not needed.

The freedom you will have is the freedom from the market, from economic power, from war and from far and from crime and from pollutuion.

You do not take what you produce now, the capitalist alienates the common person from a portion of the value of their labour. What communism means is this exploitation ceasing, and the value of all labour to be placed into a social fund and then be distributed democratically, not just to the most powerful or the strongest or the most capable.
__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas
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