[deleted]
Fidel Castro has died
541–550 of 842 posts
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#542Earlier quoted context omitted.
You see world in black and white only. There is no black and white, there are only shades of gray. You think that those people were psychopaths from the beginning? Then you are wrong. A lot of dictators were idealists, they would do everything for their country, sometimes too much. They were loving fathers and sons. Some of them truly believed in equality for all and wanted to make their country better, life of their…
People are "programmed" by culture. It wasn't so many generations ago when people with similar genes as me (a Scandinavian) did organized clan warfare with slavery, murder, plunder and everything else we see as bad in today's Western world. But the people then were "loving fathers and sons" too, of course. Attitudes to things you/we deplore are trivially cultural. Your argument as a whole was a bit funny... You use p…
Your argument doesn't prove violence is cultural. Maybe Scandinavia is peaceful now because most of the people with violent genes left. You're descended from the guys who stayed, not from the ones who left to colonize Iceland, Greenland, Britain, Normandy, etc.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#543Earlier quoted context omitted.
> is not OK Why not? We kill plenty of other living things. Why not people?
Because you have to draw the line somewhere. Morale/ethics do change over time, but not killing people has been shown throughout history to be the bare minimum for a decent society, and an accepted standard today. We can discuss and expand on adding more species, kingdoms and domains, but humans are not up for discussion.
> to be the bare minimum
> for a decent society
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#544Earlier quoted context omitted.
Best case where Godwin becomes a non-antiargument because you are talking about a socialist totalitarian in both cases right?
"First they came for the Socialists..." Hitler was right-wing.
Hitler wasn't left-wing or right-wing. He mixed elements of both.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#545Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The US government has been the primary proponent of progress, spreading free markets and democracy around the globe Who would have guessed? The Iraquis, libyans, Chileans (after 1972), maybe the people of Zaire under Mobutu,or the oppressed blacks in apartheid South Africa , heck forget that look at the blacks in America!, and the native American Indians!!, how great their lot is; the list of people who have 'enjoy…
Interesting how you did not address his/her first point...
The issues are complex.
Castro lived in the shadow of US aggression for 50 years.
But in summary, not in all cases does freedom of speech, free elections,'free market' etc favor national stability.
Singapore did very well under Lee kwan Yew in what was essentially a one party state. So did Libya so is modern Rwanda. Not every country will blossom under western democratic prescriptions. A friend of mine whom I had a conversation with a few years ago, pointed out that universal suffrage and free elections if adopted in China would be the fastest way to destroy the country.
There's a lot of room for debate here.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#546Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now you're being rude. You asked if I would, not if I will. If I had the chance to do so I would, but I'm currently committed to do other things first. Or do you believe that if someone wanted to go to Cuba that must be their sole and only motivation from that point on? You should't simplify people like that. It's rude.
You just said you would. Clearly, if you aren't going to do it you wouldn't. Now you have your entire life to prove me wrong.
I said I would, that is correct.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#547Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the contrary, it's dangerous not to call out evil for what it is. Of course it might be wise to try to analyze what genetic/family/social/economic/political factors shape people like Castro, Gaddafi, Franco etc. — but if you think you're dealing with people like you and me you fail to grasp the phenomenon. Dictators that prosecute and murder their opponents, like Castro did, share a very predictable set of psychop…
Dictators that prosecute and murder their opponents, like Castro did,... The US govt has done that too, so US presidents are no different from people like Castro, Franco, etc. We have just been brainwashed that our leaders are the good guys and the other guys are the bad guys.
Do tell, when is the last time a sitting US president has murdered his political opponents?
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#548Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> "On the contrary, it's dangerous not to call out evil for what it is." Judging on the comments on this thread most people (I'm not specifically referring to you) are making statements based on what they've heard, not by what they've personally researched, and unfortunately a lot of that information is biased or propaganda. I'm not coming down one way or the other but something I found very interesting was comparin…
Fidel Castro leaves behind a nation awash with tears and blood from thousands of executions, tens of thousands of political prisoners, concentration camps for gay men, labor camps for those who thought differently, listened to jazz, or even just had long hair. These are facts I learned only after doing more research, after listening to friends who are gay and who did years of research. So we all need to be careful no…
Yes, Cuba was a shitty place for gay people before 1981. Then the government declared that homosexuality was a valid variation of human sexuality and that previous attitudes towards it were unacceptable.
Keep in mind during the same period that Cuba was repressing homosexuality, so was the United States. Cuba did not ignore the AIDS epidemic that killed literally an entire generation of gay people. The Cuban government did not laugh and call it the gay plague.
I don't like Cuba. I'm not a state socialist. But I find it disconcerting that everyone is so passionately piling up their attacks on the Cuban government but would never scrutinize the US government in such detail. There are people in this thread who are bringing up actions the US have taken that would be considered objectionable by the same standards, but they aren't being addressed; they are being brushed aside as irrelevant or incomparable.
Imagine being that drunk on propaganda. As if the United States did not forcibly dismantle political parties it deemed dangerous in the United States. As if the United States did not repress its LGBT minorities. As if the United States doesn't bully the entire world in order to get its economic benefits. As if the United States doesn't torture and murder civilians. As if the United States and capitalism are completely blameless for the extreme poverty in Detroit or Flint.
It's really sickening to watch people deny or downplay the violence inherent in the perpetuation of their favorite system of government. Ironic, I guess.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#549Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are no clean hands on either side, I reject the notion that Apartheid South Africa were the good guys, after all it birthed its own own private military corporation (Executive Outcomes), supplied a lot of mercenaries throughout global hotspots and had a nuclear program they only dismantled after it became clear that black people would be allowed to vote. The intersection of African Liberation politics and Cold…
> I reject the notion that Apartheid South Africa That's a blatant false dilemma. The atrocities committed by Fidel Castro aren't whitewashed just because you can pick other nasty regimes. Stalin isn't suddenly fabulous because he fought the Nazis. Fidel Castro imposed a totalitarian regime on Cuba and extensively used violence and political assassinations to preserve his stranglehold on Cuba. Fidel Castro also proje…
Excellent strawmen you've got there: how about you address the points I stated after the half-sentence you've selectively quoted? You consider it a dilemma because you refuse to admit your 'team' were not squeaky-clean angels and the opposition were not cartoon villains.
I clearly stated that there are no clean hands: you are the one who is pretending like nothing bad was done by the west or their colonial allies/puppets by playing the communism card.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#550Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both are true though. Many humans have butchered fellow humans. Hitler wasn't uniquely evil in human history, but a part of a long-running tradition
I don't care how human anybody is, killing fellow humans, except to prevent the crime of others (police and military interventions in very specific cases) is not OK. That line cannot be crossed. That includes death penalty and political revolutions.
I never claimed it was okay. I just said it was human.