111–120 of 842 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>with a superpower fixated on killing you (and ruining you economy) next door Look at how awful the quality of life in Cuba is today. Look at its people's lack of basic freedoms. Look at its awful economy. The US tried to save Cuba from itself.
Like how US saved Haiti and Libya and Iraq, right?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> basic Cuban freedoms (like supporting parties other than the one in power) To be fair in the US there are also attacks for supporting political parties. Yes it's a different degree of extremism entirely. For example the terrorist/riot/civil activist group (whatever you want to call them) By Any Means Necessary violently attacked white nationalist parties (they claim they're not white nationalists, but media says th…
Claiming Cuba and the US are comparable in the respect is absurd. Castro killed thousands of his own civilians to stay in power. Here in the US, you can literally disavow the president (c.f. #NotMyPresident) without any consequence. >To be fair in the US there are also attacks for supporting political parties. There is a HUGE difference between your government killing you for your political beliefs and a member of th…
Even if it's only a minority that is being oppressed, and even if both you and I don't agree with their awful politics, it doesn't make it any less wrong to attack them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's possible to comment civilly on difficult topics. It just requires that you choose to. HN is a place to gratify one's intellectual curiosity. Part of the fabric of the community is that we engage in a civil, substantive way. There are various topics that don't always make that easy, but it's important that we try.
I just have to ask, at what point does praise becomes uncivil? Is it when you praise Fidel who has stifled freedom of speech and condemned his people to a life of economic stagnation? What about Chavez who has condemned his people to starvation? Or is it praising Kim Jong Un? Or is it praising Hitler? Or is it praising Stalin? Or is it praising the KKK? There is only 1 ideology responsible for killing more than 100 m…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a possible starting point: It's crucial to remember that Castro silenced all who disagreed with him. He condemned an entire nation to poverty! His most notable achievement with regards to Africa was sending soldiers to extend the life of wars. It's stripped of the insults to those that disagree with you and complaints of down voting. In my experience users on HN will down vote tone more often than they will do…
> He condemned an entire nation to poverty! That's more because of the embargo than anything Cubans did. And even given that, they do way better than most latin american "free" nations. > His most notable achievement with regards to Africa was sending soldiers to extend the life of wars. Let's not go into which country, besides Germany and USSR, started more wars, meddled in more places, held more peopls down by inst…
.
I agree. It's absolutely insane to side with Castro. Even if you agree with his political philosophy, there is overwhelming objective evidence of how awful it is: - Cuban economy - Cuban quality of life - basic Cuban freedoms (like supporting parties other than the one in power)
>> -Cuban economy
>> -Cuban quality of life
I'm not arguing Castro was a saint, far from it. But you cannot lay blame of the suffering of Cuba at the feet of Castro only.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> However, the man has committed grievous crimes Way less crimes than those who accuse him. Never sprayed Vietnamese with Agent Orange or napalms for one, never dropped nuclear bombs on civilians, never supported Pinochet et co, doesn't have 25% of the world's incarcerated in just 4% of the global population, and lots of other things besides. > keeps 'his people' in abject poverty A 40+ years embargo has something to…
do you see anyone defending those responsible for the crimes you listed?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a disturbing position. I don't doubt that his doctors may have helped you. However, the man has committed grievous crimes, keeps 'his people' in abject poverty, on an 'island prison'. More than 85% of the economy is in the control of the military - his private Army. "Up until today, Cuba still sends significant numbers of doctors to remote African areas and provide expensive medical procedures for free." This…
> However, the man has committed grievous crimes Way less crimes than those who accuse him. Never sprayed Vietnamese with Agent Orange or napalms for one, never dropped nuclear bombs on civilians, never supported Pinochet et co, doesn't have 25% of the world's incarcerated in just 4% of the global population, and lots of other things besides. > keeps 'his people' in abject poverty A 40+ years embargo has something to…
That's a logical fallacy. You can't say that Castro's crimes against humanity are okay because the US has committed worse ones.
>A 40+ years embargo has something to do with that too...
Only a US embargo. That leaves more than 80% of the world GDP to interact with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. It's absolutely insane to side with Castro. Even if you agree with his political philosophy, there is overwhelming objective evidence of how awful it is: - Cuban economy - Cuban quality of life - basic Cuban freedoms (like supporting parties other than the one in power)
Per capita GDP for Cuba is $6,789 Mexico $9,909 Guatamala $3,666 Honduras $2,495 I'd say Cuba is in the mix GDP-wise. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD
I am not a fan of Fidel Castro - quite the opposite - but humans are cut from a common cloth. When we see revolutions turn into dictatorships, and idealism deteriorate into a cynical fight to survive, it is foolish and dangerous to dismiss the dictators and revolutionaries as "evil" or "idiots" or some similarly otherizing term. It is dangerous because it means we are refusing to learn from history, and to apply the lessons of other lives to our own. Fidel Castro's mistakes are our mistakes to repeat, or to learn from.
If you hold yourself holier than Fidel Castro, and think that celebrating the death of someone you perceive as "evil" is prudent, take a deep long moment and try to learn something non-trivial from his life. "Fidel Castro" in the particular was not some kind of unique demon who plagued humanity. He was a charismatic revolutionary who occupied a very complex time. His life's trajectory was in many respects one of tragic failure. He may have, in reality, occupied a very dark corner of history, but that is for us to learn and judge, not to assume.
If you think you're better, then do better. Be better. Don't refuse to acknowledge the humanity of another person because you believe you can totalize their entire life under a cheap tagline.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When you buy a beer for your friends at a bar and maybe next week they buy a round, that's communism. Communism is a central part of western society. Communism is when you and your friends go to a bar and there is no beer, because there was not enough grain produced on command of the central planning committee 4 years ago. Now you and your friends are upset and complain about it, so you get arrested and locked up w…
This is a good joke, but unfortunately, is not an accurate description of communism. As the parent comment suggests, there were no real communism nation on earth ever. """ In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis, "common, universal")[1][2] is a social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic orde…
If there are people who call themselves communists and they create societies, then "communism" should be judged on that.