From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Dec 13 2002 - 09:08:20 MST
Jeff Davis wrote:
>--- Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> wrote:
>
>
> ...
>
>Time to get real, Lee. Anti-communism in its
>fudamentalist forms is a sickness, a pathology of
>ruthlessness as monstrous (more monstrous if you
>consider the record of crimes committed) than the
>worst that socialist totalitarianism could ever offer
>up.
>
Sorry, but here I remember that Pot Pol was officially a "socialist
totalitarian". I may not believe that they actually were socialist, but
they did bear the label. And noone that I consider a true socialist
would be in favor of any totalitarian government, so for the only
meaning of "totalitarian socialist" that I can envision, they qualify.
And they were much worse than Stalin, on a percentage basis. I heard,
but still don't believe, that the Pot Pol routinely killed about 90% of
the people living in the areas that they conquerored. Nobody elsewhere
that I am familiar with since the Mongols has been quite that devastating.
> ...
>
>It is as ridiculous as anything the Taliban or Thuggee
>could come up with.
>
>Try freedom instead. Let people make their choices
>and live with their mistakes.
>
This is a difficult one. Internal freedom in a weak country surrounded
(well, boardered) by a powerful advocate of one system, who, as it
happens, are also your traditional enemies. Aieee! I can't see the
election as having been free without considerable promisses dependably
made by outside guarantors. Whee! And they'd just kicked out the
French, the Germans had just been beaten in war, ditto for Japan (even
if there were considered less of a problem...they weren't).
That election couldn't have been free. No way! But it could have been
a lot better than what developed. If the US had guaranteed to stand
behind the victor (assuming that their poll watchers validated the
election), then it would have had a chance. Instead we refused to allow
it, because everyone knew that Ho Chi Minh would have won any fair
election. And, though he was quite willing to ally with the US (see
above for reasons), the US wasn't willing to have a communist ally.
(That's the same attitude that later drove Castro into the Russian
camp.) If they had been allies, the US could, had it choosen,
ameliorated the worst of the excesses. Well, that's assuming that those
were the real goals of the US govt. I haven't seen any convincing
evidence that those were the purposes of the US govt. even then, when we
were newly come to "MAJOR POWER" status. Since then, of course, the
purposes of those in power have either become more obvious, or even more
corrupt.
>>Now then, it can be truthfully stated that takeovers
>>by *any* dictator, e.g. a right-wing one, are pretty
>>serious affairs too. Indeed, all opposition leaders
>>are rounded up and imprisoned or shot. But there is
>>
This was the habit of military conquerors as far back as Alexander.
Sometimes they supported the prior government, if they were certain that
they could control them as satraps, but more often they just killed
them, to avoid loyalist insurrections. Still, there's a big difference
between killing the leaders and killing a major fraction of the populace.
>>a huge difference between the totalitarianism of the
>>left and the autocracy of the right, but it would
>>take a long time to explain to you why the concept
>>"totalitarian" exists.
>>
Totalitarianism is totalitarianism. Once you get a totalitarian state,
any philosophical justifications are quickly dropped. "The goal of
power is power." I don't remember who I'm quoting, but it seems apt.
>>What are you thinking about here? The U.S. or the
>>party it supported in Vietnam killing as many people
>>as the Communists did? That didn't happen, as you
>>should know.
>>
>>
>
>I disagree. And not respecfully. You've had a
>lifetime as long as mine to get at The Truth. You've
>been shown where to find it. Yet you still deny the
>holocaust. Why should you be respected any more than
>those other holocaust deniers? Read the documents,
>Lee.
>
He may be remembering some reports of Pot Pol. If so, then he's not
exaggerating at all. He may be understating his case. But projecting
the atrocities of Pot Pol onto any other government is like suggesting
that all elected governments are like the Nazi's. Yes, the Nazis won a
reasonably fair election (fairer than the most recent US one). But that
doesn't make all elected governments mass murderers.
> ...
>
>Read the documents.
>
>Best, Jeff Davis
>
>"While it is not true that all conservatives are
>stupid people, it is nevertheless undeniable that
>practically all stupid people are conservative."
> John Stuart Mill
>
While John Stuart Mill is correct, it's useful to consider the reasons
why this might be their most reasonable course of action.
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