52nd State

[downquark1]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

I merely called it an obscenity (but evil will do as well) because it was directly responsible for 100 million deaths in the last century and continues to kill as we speak.
Capitalism does not set out to kill people (even though that might occur, cristianity does not set out to kill people even though that happened in the past) communism does.

Where in Marx theory does he set out to kill people?

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Graham

No, they just had, for instance, the Spanish Inquisition which was an attempt to destroy a complete group of people ie "heretics" to further its own ends.

But, of course, that's *entirely* different...!

Ok thats one example, now supply us with further examples, one from each continent will do, preferably from the last century (ie. recent history) and if you can do that then the numbers will still not nearly approach 100 million.
Communism is in a different league to religion.

[downquark1]

What if rather than being murdered, he was evicted?
No longer had control over the hi-fi system, so no longer could keep others awake with his loud music at night?

Yes, and I would rather have had UN weapon inspecters remove the weapons from iraq rather than a war. So the pro-war opinion is that it doesn't matter how it's done as long as it is.

For the record I don't have a noisey neighbour that was just an example.

Originally Posted by towny

Do you miss the fact that mass murderers no longer run Iraq?

I've seen this one so many times from people who supported the war and it always says to me "The ends justify the means". It doesn't matter what we did or how we did it, because we've got rid of Saddam that is a Good Thing (tm) and anything else is secondary to that.

Unfortunately I do *not* agree with that sort of "logic" because it simply justifies illegal behaviour.

You yourself admitted that there are some truths in this Times article, albeit serving to make lies more palatable. However what you have not done is to say which you think is which.

Ok, let's look at some of the author's claims:

1) I would like first to ask everyone at these rallies if they are happy attending events organised by apologists for tyranny.

As I've already mentioned in a message above, this implies that by attending the rally the people who do agree with and support *other* beliefs of the organisers. This is nonsese. Also it shows that the author has a clear agenda to denigrate the organisers by describing (or should that be mis-representing) their beliefs as being "apologists for tyranny".

2) The guys organising next weekâ₠¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s anti-Bush rally are not really against war, they just think it is a pity that the free world won the Cold War.

This is equally non-sensical and, again, just shows the author's colours.

3) do you miss the fact that mass murderers no longer run Iraq?

Addressed already. The ends do not justify the means.

4) If George Bush were to stop his war now, as Andy, George and all their friends want, the consequences would be unthinkable. Iraq would be left, as it was tragically before in 1991, to the tender mercies of gangsters and fanatics.

But the war *IS* over! Bush said so when he stopped a US Aircraft Carrier off the coast of the States so he could fly in and stand there with a big banner behind him saying "Mission Accomplished"!

Unfortunately nobody seems to have bothered to have worked out an "exit strategy" which means that there are US soldiers who have no idea when they're going home and, in fact, more are being called up. Don't they remember Vietnam??

5) The history of the past 80 years teaches us that it is when democracies are weak and slow to assert themselves that conflicts begin and innocents die.

Ah, the concept of the pre-emptive strike. Let's not bother with diplomacy or trying to solve problems via the UN, let's just go in there and kick seven bells out of them. A tactic that used to be known as "Gunboat Diplomacy".

6) We are safer in Britain today than we were 27 months ago, thanks to him.

ROFL!

7) I respect freedom too much to enjoy seeing it abused by those whose first instinct is to insult anyone who actually bothers to fight for it.

Ah, "Freedom of speech" means "Freedom to say things which *I* approve of...!"

there is precious little willingness to debate the substantive issues.

You mean like the heroic person who anonymously send me a reputation message answering the entirity of one of my longer messages in this thread with the single word "idiot"??

(NB, to whoever sent that, if you don't have the courage of your convictions to put your name to it, then I have nothing but contempt for you.)

I say again, the 'facts' quoted in the article are either true or they are false. You called this 'nonsense' but then in your very next sentence you agreed with me:

When someone mix facts with supposition, falsehood, innuendo and hearsay, to draw false conclusions that support their position because it is difficult for the reader to tell them apart, you are into the realms of propaganda of the type used by the regimes that that author so despises. There's a word for that...!

[philip.j.fry]

Originally Posted by towny

Do you miss the fact that mass murderers no longer run Iraq?

To answer this, no of course not. It's unfair of the reporter to draw the conclusion that all attending the demonstration next week believe this. It is also unfair to say that because the organisers are 'fans of totalinarism' all of those in the crowd must also be 'fans...'. That's like saying that because you are friends with someone who might have certain beliefs you must also share those beliefs by assosciation, it's just plain untrue.

Everybody in that crowd next week will have their own indivdual reasons for being there. If I were to go, it would be my belief that that war was mishandled due in part to G. Bush's obvious ignorance and lack of respect for any opinions other than his own. Also not only the war, but the way he conducts himself in other matters such as regulating pollution. Now that the war has occured though it needs to be seen through, retreating from Iraq now would only cause worse problems.

I'm not sure if I've got my points across properly or not :/

Originally Posted by towny

Christianity was instituted by Jesus of Nazareth, and a small group of his closest friends, a little under 2,000 years ago. What they said Christianity is, is what Christianity is.

The actions of a politically-motivated elite (namely the Roman church) over 1,000 years later do not demonstrate that Christianity advocates violence in pursuit of its aims. The Roman church has always been led by a Pope who claims to be God's mouthpiece on Earth and therefore what he says, is what the Christian God wants, thereby sidestepping the Bible's clear message on this point.

So you're saying that it is the implimentation of Christianity that caused the problem not Christianity itself.

I do believe that that was the point I was trying to make. Thank you.

Originally Posted by graham

<snipsnipsnip>

While I support the general principle of the rep system being anonymous, I don't think it's fair to use it as a substute for PM or replying ion open forum, just to be able to say things to people from behind a blanket of anonymity.

Thank you for your point-by-point on the Times article, I really do think this whole Iraq War debate (speaking as widely as possible, not just on this forum) has been clouded with agendas rather than issues so it's good to get a handle on what some of the genuine points of contention are.

To pick you up on point (4) tho' ... I don't think you actually answered the charge. Pointing out that the war IS over is picking at semantics, the substantive charge levelled by the Times article was not whether the 'war' has finished, it was, what do you think will happen if the Coalition leaves Iraq now?

What do you think?

[philip.j.fry]

Originally Posted by towny

levelled by the Times article was not whether the 'war' has finished, it was, what do you think will happen if the Coalition leaves Iraq now?

What do you think?

Civil war I expect

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Ok thats one example, now supply us with further examples, one from each continent will do, preferably from the last century (ie. recent history) and if you can do that then the numbers will still not nearly approach 100 million. Communism is in a different league to religion.

Irrelevant. You said "Cristianity dosn't advocate destroying a complete class system to further it's own ends." so I gave an example of them wishing to destroy a complete "class" of people who didn't fit in with their mindset.

I am not playing the "numbers" game that "A killed X million, but B only killed Y million, so A is worse than B". The point is that the deaths *resulted* from someone's idea of how to implement a philosophy/ religion/ whatever.

Originally Posted by Graham

So you're saying that it is the implimentation of Christianity that caused the problem not Christianity itself.

I do believe that that was the point I was trying to make. Thank you.

I don't accept that the 'implementation' argumet translates from Christianity to Communism or vice versa.

Communism attempts to employ flawed humans to addres flawed humans. It must necessarily therefore accept the use of force to achieve peace, and is therefore fundamentally flawed because the practicalities of implementing the theory must have been abundantly clear to those who proposed it.

Christianity attempts to employ flawed humans strengthened by perfect divine power to address flawed humans. The Bible makes clear how to spot the character traits, habits and nature of those that rely on God for their strength and those that do not. By answering the problem of human nature through the introduction of an external factor - divine influence -the Bible is able to separate theory and implementation in a way that it is not possible to do with Communism.

[downquark1]

Originally Posted by towny

I don't accept that the 'implementation' argumet translates from Christianity to Communism or vice versa.

Communism attempts to employ flawed humans to addres flawed humans. It must necessarily therefore accept the use of force to achieve peace, and is therefore fundamentally flawed because the practicalities of implementing the theory must have been abundantly clear to those who proposed it.

Christianity attempts to employ flawed humans strengthened by perfect divine power to address flawed humans. The Bible makes clear how to spot the character traits, habits and nature of those that rely on God for their strength and those that do not. By answering the problem of human nature through the introduction of an external factor - divine influence -the Bible is able to separate theory and implementation in a way that it is not possible to do with Communism.

Towny you've hit the nail on the head - we need a big computer to run communist countries. One incapable of corruption or selfishness - so nothing running microsoft's programs

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by downquark1

Where in Marx theory does he set out to kill people?

I am not au-fait enough with Marx to comment. (and I can't be bothered to look it up as I don't want to be depressed)
I don't think that the crimes of communism can be in any way equated with the crimes of religion. Religion has had it's 'blips' and will continue to have them. They have been spread over millenia.
Communism on the other hand has been an unmitigated disaster on both a human and an economic basis worldwide, almost without exeption.
It is possible to to take the origional cristian teachings and subvert/pervert them to dubious or genocidal goals but on the whole cristianity (and indeed all religions) has stayed true to it's origional beliefs (imo)
Communism has just taken it's origional beliefs and implimented them again and again with the same tragic results, it is built on graves.

Originally Posted by towny

To pick you up on point (4) tho' ... I don't think you actually answered the charge. Pointing out that the war IS over is picking at semantics, the substantive charge levelled by the Times article was not whether the 'war' has finished, it was, what do you think will happen if the Coalition leaves Iraq now?

What do you think?

I think it's astonishing to think that the US is still so pig-headed that they appeared to think that they could just stroll in there, kick over Saddam's regime and then expect everyone to go "Hooray, let's have a Western Democracy!"

There are so many examples from recent history that demonstrate that this sort of thing just *doesn't* happen and *doesn't* work, yet still the US is guilty of over-weaning arrogance that military might solves everything.

The fact is that they, and we, went into Iraq with no clear "exit strategy". The US thought they could do it all themselves, they didn't need the UN, they didn't need to worry about what would happen next because once they'd got rid of Saddam everything would be hugs and puppies.

Of course anyone who bothered to *think* about the situation would realise how wrong this conclusion is and the response would be "thanks for getting rid of Saddam, now get out of here and let us run our own country", but it seems that that sort of thought was not part of Dubya and friends' plan.

[basa]

OK .. questions to all who think Bush / Blair were wrong in attacking Afghanistan and Iraq.

What would you do or have done to prevent (further) terrorist attacks on the West ??

How would you proceed to stabilise those countries ??

Originally Posted by towny

I don't accept that the 'implementation' argumet translates from Christianity to Communism or vice versa.

Communism attempts to employ flawed humans to addres flawed humans.

Christianity attempts to employ flawed humans strengthened by perfect divine power to address flawed humans.

Sorry, Towny, but remember what someone was saying about Dogma and Agendas?!