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Fidel Castro has died

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Re: Fidel Castro has died

#711

Post by ianamartin »

jknoepfler wrote: post #119

I would encourage the commenters in this thread who see Fidel's legacy as a black-and-white matter of an "evil dictator who did bad things and was wrong about economics" to step back, bear witness to the objective facts about Fidel Castro's life ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro ), think sincerely about what could lead a highly intelligent and charismatic person to become or follow Fidel Castro (as many ha…

I'm really glad that this post is at the top. This is the kind of intelligent and nuanced discourse that keeps me coming back to HN. Thank you for bringing some sanity to this discussion, good sir.

In addition to what I wrote below about the nature of the Good/Evil abstraction, I want to put this here.

I think there's a level at which this all boils down to beliefs. Not which ones you (generally you, not you as an individual) have, but rather if you believe anything at all.

Beliefs--like believing in good and evil, but there are many--are fundamentally a scary proposition. And I can't understand how people maintain them.

Belief, by definition, is accepting something as true while knowing there is insufficient evidence for that thing to be true.

This is not substantively different from a definition of insanity: a case where a person accepts something as true that isn't supported by a reasonable body of evidence.

This is kind of a bold statement, but I stand by it. People who believe things are not really different from people who are insane. There's a lack of reason common to both categories of people.

The Good/Evil dichotomy is only one projection of belief. But it may well be the most important one. Because fundamentally, assertions of good and evil are really just high-level abstractions for the beliefs.

Good vs. Evil is a shortcut to feeling good about yourself. It's a shortcut for saying, "I believe x about y and I have no reasonable proof for any of that, but it makes me feel good about myself."

We should do away with beliefs. We're smarter and better than that. And getting rid of beliefs would have the nice effect of tossing the good/evil garbage out as well.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#712

Post by laura2013 »

mrleinad wrote: post #679
evbots wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism in Cuba has at least remained true to its roots, imposing, for more than half a century, a juvenile notion of egalitarianism on the masses. Rather than uplifting them, this has reinforced the lowest common denominator: Everyone is poor. Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426334/cuba-working-cl...

The country itself is poor, because of the blockade. If the US would let private companies trade with them and with the cubans freely, they wouldn't be poor.

Don't let Communist propaganda blind you. The blockade did not stop Spanish hotels from settling on the island (taxed at 50% by the state), or dealings with Russia or the Chinese, or gas trades with Venezuela. Do you know where all the wealth from those dealings ended up? The top ranking officials and their families.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#713

Post by duncanawoods »

raverbashing wrote: post #321
duncanawoods wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> My impression was then when America tried to force other countries to participate in the embargo they told them to shove it. Your impression is wrong. An example knock-on effect relevant to HN is that as a UK company, we couldn't sell windows software to Cuba because things like windows run-time libraries would be covered by the US export embargo. In theory, they wouldn't even have a legal copy of any US operating…

This is naive As even you said, Cuba was not supposed to have Windows copies, but I'm sure they had Iran theoretically couldn't have access to Boeing parts (and this was a stricter embargo), but they had There's always a way of solving things. Most of Cuban problems were caused by themselves, not the embargo.

>> This is naive

What? This was the real world, a matter of first hand experience. We could not consider jeopardising sales to our biggest market (the US) by breaking US embargo for a barely significant market.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#714

Post by varjag »

ommunist wrote: post #692
varjag wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that people can overthrow the government of the United States every 4 years? They actually did a couple weeks ago, and noone had to die or go to prison.

They cannot. The US is not a direct democracy Swiss style

They did, and the world is steel reeling from announcement. There is now a huge change in political course following the election results, no matter how one tires to explain that away with nitpicking.

On Cuba, even suggesting change of leadership is enough to put you in prison.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#715

Post by pif »

sooheon wrote: post #636
nl wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your position on Singapore?

Interesting lack of response. I suspect your parent simply isn't familiar with the legacies of people like Lee Kuan Yew or Park Chung Hee, because they haven't been depicted as much in western pop culture and propaganda.

Hello, indeed I'm not familiar with those examples, but it doesn't matter. As long as a government doesn't let his people run truly free elections regularly, that's bad. Emperors were considered normal at Romans' times; slaves were, too. Luckily, we have learned better since a long time. Left- or right-wing doesn't matter: dictatorship is an act of violence.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#716

Post by bewaretheirs »

formula1 wrote: post #394
jeswin wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority in the US hold an unfavorable view of Castro, but that's not the case worldwide. Even in Canada for instance, the more people think Castro was good for Cuba than not [1]. Asia generally holds him in high regard, and Europe has mixed feelings. For some objectivity, we could look at some stats. PPP adjusted GDP per capita is much lower than the US, but way better than China. Education is excellent [2] beca…

Why are cubans in miami celebrating his death? Are they misguided minorities that should follow the example of armchair politicians in privledged countries?

For many of them it's due to direct experience with the arbitrary and capricious nature of the Castro regime:

"... all three of us — papi, mami and me — got visas to leave. It took five years to get those visas and my folks were immediately fired from their jobs when they applied.

"On that July 1967 day when we were scheduled to go, the three of us made it to the boarding ladder of the Eastern Airlines Freedom Flight bound for America. But a Castro soldier stopped us before we boarded and demanded to see the family’s papers. I remember this as if it was yesterday. That bearded guerrilla in green and carrying a rifle confirmed all three of us were cleared to leave Cuba.

"But, he added, that only two of us could leave because that’s what he personally was deciding. He then told my father to pick who goes and who stays. What ensued next is hazy to me. I know there were tears. I know there was drama. But suffice to say only my mother and I got on that plane.

"My dad stayed behind, and for three years he was unable to reunite with us. Other family members never were able to reunite with us."

Armando Salguero, Miami Herald sportswriter, in: http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/armando-...

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#717

Post by 67726e »

NetStrikeForce wrote: post #598
67726e wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing terrorists does not put you on the same level as Castro.

No, it doesn't. However, you seem to be fairly convinced those people are all terrorists and not just political opponents that are under our drones' crosshairs. I guess the people massacred at that MSF hospital were terrorists, too.

> I guess the people massacred at that MSF hospital were terrorists, too.

That wasn't a drone strike. That was an accidental attack by an AC-130 gunship.

I'm sure folks in Yemen or Afghanistan are a political threat to Obama. Right.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#718

Post by 67726e »

sooheon wrote: post #622
67726e wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing terrorists does not put you on the same level as Castro.

Droning doesn't kill only terrorists. There's plenty of collateral deaths (what do you think the ratio is, 1:10 intended targets to unintended when explosives are involved in civilian settings?) not to mention the labeling of who is and isn't a terrorist is hardly infallible. Of course those giving the go ahead are so far removed from the consequences that it must become easier and easier to order drone strikes when…

Again, Castro went about killing or jailing all those who opposed him. My original statement was that no US president has done so.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#719

Post by [deleted] »

sooheon wrote: post #622
67726e wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing terrorists does not put you on the same level as Castro.

Droning doesn't kill only terrorists. There's plenty of collateral deaths (what do you think the ratio is, 1:10 intended targets to unintended when explosives are involved in civilian settings?) not to mention the labeling of who is and isn't a terrorist is hardly infallible. Of course those giving the go ahead are so far removed from the consequences that it must become easier and easier to order drone strikes when…

[deleted]

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#720

Post by sctb »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #212
enraged_camel wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it can. Cuba is an island nation and relies on trade to acquire the vast majority of the goods those of us in the West take for granted. Block that trade and you basically stifle all economic growth. From wikipedia: >>Cuba produces sugarcane, tobacco, citrus, coffee, rice, potatoes, beans and livestock.[2] As of 2015 Cuba imported about 70-80% of its food.[51] and 80-84% of the food it rations to the public…

And of course the Communist economic system -- the one that has led to immiseration and collapse everywhere it has been tried, all over the world -- has nothing to do with this. Must be the embargo!

Hacker News is not the place for fighting political battles, which this account has been doing much of. We have to ban accounts that post primarily this way, so please stop.
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