: :: SDF: Interestingly enough. I've already disqualified Gideon Hallett's argument here against Stuart Gort. Pointing fingers at the other guy is no excuse for mass murder. The question we should be asking is whether the choice between state-capitalist imperialism (Stalin, Malenkov, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko) and corporate-capitalist imperialism (Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton) is the only choice we have. : But my point is always missed in these discussions. I'm not trying to set up a pro-capitalist - anti-commusist argument. That is just the luck of the draw on this topic. I want that you don't think me to be a glad to kill commies, rabid pro-capistalist, BD freak. I want that you don't characterize every U.S. military effort in reaction to Soviet imperialism as a capitalistic knee-jerk. I truly respect a man or woman who puts life at risk for my sake.
SDF: The war against Yugoslavia, the ethnic cleansing, the bombing of embassies, the pollution of the Danube, the spreading of depleted uranium, etc., could have been prevented had the US actually negotiated with Milosevic before the war instead of trying to impose Appendix B of Rambouillet upon him and his country. Did the men and women who bombed Belgrade do so "for Stuart Gort's sake"? Supporting the troops does not mean supporting the foreign policy which directs their orders. But I am repeating myself here, as is Gort.
: These were real live atrocities being committed by soulless men who had to be stopped.
SDF: Stuart Gort, usurping the role of his god, has seen inside the souls of others, and judged them to be truly "soullless," so as to wrap what is basically an issue of US foreign policy in theological side-debates. I have no desire to participate in such side-debates, nor need I do so in order to criticize US foreign policy, as I did here.
: I wish to hear you one day acknowledge that it had to be done. I fear that you can't do this because if there is any justification at all for the U.S. to exist, in your mind the ideology you admire begins to crumble.
SDF: I'd like to know more about the ideology I admire. What are its tenets?
: As long as the U.S. is evil, it becomes irrelevent how well capitalism serves the general citizen.
SDF: Capitalism doesn't serve the general citizen. It does serve these people, however. Democracy does serve the people, however.
: I believe it is demonstrably better than communism by comparison, of course, but that doesn't translate to be rabid support or unquestioning trust of men to rule other men. I know there is nothing perfect about either ideology.
SDF: Hoarding is not better than sharing -- democracy is better than dictatorship.
: I want to but still do not understand what motivates you to so adamantly support an ideology that comes from a man.
SDF: Libertarians support an ideology that comes from a man, Adam Smith. Or was it Ludwig von Mises? What motivates them so?
: Marx, who was certainly a genius, had flaws as we all do. Even if he was perfect, his ideology must be administered by men - who have always failed to administer anything perfectly.
SDF: Marx called for the "withering away of the state," and a transition from the governing of people to the administration of things. The main criticism I would have of "Marxist administration" would be, given the above truths about Marx, that it hasn't happened yet, and that it may never happen. For a genuine criticism, one that doesn't misquote Marx, please read the chapter on Marx in volume 2 of Jurgen Habermas' THEORY OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTION.
