lord of flies

Okay, here's another suggestion: make your Desert Eagle equivalent be called "the Beagle."

With respect to West Germany/East Germany: East Germany was a state created as a punishment to its citizens. For the rest of the communist bloc, honestly? I don't know. I'd assume security reasons; don't want people running to the Westerners and explaining all the awesome communist technical successes. There's also an ideological/emotional reason, in that nobody likes a traitor, and socialism attempts to build a political ideology with some very strong anti-betrayal undercurrents. The fact is that it's not like most of the people in these countries are going to leave anyway, so why not get rid of most of the trouble makers by letting them leave?

The reason the human species "races" are really just broad, meaningless subtypes with little differentiation beyond some visible physical traits in terms of skin tone and skull shape, is because we have a radically small amount of genetic versatility in comparison to dogs (or many other species).

The reason calling women "fat" is bad is because it perpetuates an unhealthy self-image problem endemic to western patriarchal society that causes serious psychological and physical damage to women, not because the word is evil in and of itself.

What do you mean "didn't fall apart"? No loss of territory, or just political survival with Turkey and part of Arabia? Avoiding a collapse of the Ottomans in the latter sense is pretty easy; just avoid Ottoman entry into the Great War, and they could probably ride out the 20th century intact.

That's ridiculous. If Franz Ferdinand doesn't die, WW1 will just start a couple years later. Everybody was building up for The Big One from 1908 onward. The only way to avoid the Great War is to prevent the series of alliances that birthed it, perhaps by avoiding German unification or the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. Furthermore, the probability that Britain would ever attempt to mount a invasion of the United States is absurdly low. Additionally, without the political destabilization of the Great War, fascism would probably be strangled in its cradle. History is a complex tapestry and you're ****ting all over it with your absurdities. A much better, more plausible timeline is one that's not done yet, titled "Reds: A Revolutionary Timeline," where McKinley isn't assassinated, the Progressive movement doesn't succeed in the two big parties, the Socialists absorb the Progressives and maintain control over northern class conflict, the left wing of the Socialists maintains control over party leadership and the Great War seriously radicalizes a good chunk of American soldiers due to earlier entry. It all culminates when the now mainstream Worker's Party (a rebranded Socialist Party and member of the Comintern) succeeds at overthrowing the United States government with the Red Army (a rebranded Bonus Army) under Patton.

Since you're naming the guns silly fictional things, I'd like to request that you call one of the guns the "Kronstadt." If you need a number, make it the Kronstadt-21 or something along those lines. Come on, it's a few lines in the text files. What's a few lines between friends, Obsidian? Eh? Haven't I kept people posting on this forum?

That's actually happened a couple of times, the trick is to just roll with it. In my gigantic threads, one guy posting something vaguely similar to my normal posts isn't really notable. Basically, what I'm saying is that my posts are indistinguishable garbage. I've yet to post any Bolsheviki bull**** on my alt, however, so don't bother trying to find it.

Massacre also renders the enemy incapable of fighting. It's interesting that this is still the logic used, considering "massacre is easier than battle" was one of the main reasons for the Native American genocide.

Maybe this wouldn't happen if you weren't actually my alt? Just a little... how do we say... food for thought.

The difference is that a murder (or any other crime) is something physical and known. We know that murders exist, even if we do not know that a particular murder has occurred, we can take a close look at a body that was murdered, we can look at criminals who have murdered people, we can examine murder weapons, et cetera. We have a framework, established by physical evidence, for understanding murders. The same is not true for the divine. We don't have any physically available gods to theorize about ones that aren't available. We don't have any reliable miracles to theorize about unreliable ones. We don't have any consistently answered prayers (that is, we cannot demonstrate that prayer actually helps anything via testing) to theorize about inconsistently answered ones. We do not have any established framework for understanding the transcendent, the divine. The two situations are very different.

History has shown army defections as far more vital to revolutions against unjust governments than poorly trained paramilitary ****heads.

Honestly, I feel like the Soviet Union had a mistaken basis (Leninism) and had major flaws which lead to a serious loss in the possible victories of revolutionary socialism. Perhaps the world would be a better place without Lenin - not because there would be no USSR, but because the "USSR" that would form would be more open, more communal, and more democratic. A USSR that was truly built on the soviets, rather than using them as a stepping stone to Bolshevik authoritarianism, would have been a guiding light for the world. I have said on this forum that I believe in bottoms-up democracy, and I do not believe in parliamentarianism. I defend the Soviet Union because it was not some barbaric monstrosity, but a state with good sides and bad sides that must be respected rather than demonized. I call myself a communist because I believe in revolutionary socialism, rather than social democracy, and even as a write that I feel a desire to put it in quotes because of the absurdity of social democracy, of its constant historical failures. Where radicals are willing to seize the reins of the state, that is where legitimate change can be made, and the Bolsheviks did seize the reins of the state, and they did legitimately change their country, right down to its core. What's more, they did so for the better. I do not agree with the birth of the Cheka or the use of the KGB as secret police, but I understand them as a small part of a greater whole, with legitimate justifications in terms of the necessity of security and protection from reactionaries.

Um, no, it wasn't at its start, actually. Learn About Reality.

The next time the KGB kills me for not agreeing with the government, I'll let you know. The USSR was not Stalinist for its entire existence. Learn About Reality.

I have three really freaking big letters for you. Ready? Good. NSA

So can the government in the United States? There was a study done of (IIRC) 10,014 reported cases of police abuse, where only 10 or so had significant punishment (significant punishment being one week's suspension without pay or worse). If a police officer shot and killed you, it is extraordinarily likely that he or she could get away with it. As to "robbing you at a whim," have you ever heard of a little thing called imminent domain? Edit: Also, even during the Stalinist purges, there were actually trials (by the troikas), even if they were "show trials." That's fundamentally different from "at a whim."

True, true. But as you said, "if we had a valid passport." Some people in the Soviet Union could leave the country. Others couldn't. They just had different rules on who could. Who is to say those rules are inherently wrong? I appreciate the compliment, but "yet"? I am smarter than anyone else in this thread, ergo I am a Soviet Union apologist and hardcore communist. Don't assume that communism is absurd or ridiculous just because that's what you've been told. Make your own decision. The trick to always seeming more reasonable than your opponents is always being more reasonable than your opponents. While I haven't managed a perfect track record, I do try to keep posting relevant responses to the same-old, same-old questions. When your opponent keeps asking the same questions that you've already answered, it makes you look patient and learned, and makes him look like a dullard.

There were no internal travel restrictions in the Soviet Union. You could take a vacation and go to just about any part of the country (except for certain restricted zones). You could go down to the local store and purchase food, clothes, et cetera, with your money. If you couldn't buy something, it's probably because it wasn't available due to poor trade relations with the United States or low supply. Both of which (sanctions, lack of supply) are perfectly possible without a communist government, and can be seen in other governments.

Your country's immigration laws are ridiculous. They don't deserve respect. Immigrants are not invaders, they are human beings seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Maybe if you say it enough, it will become true. You really ought to realize by now that China is not, in fact, communist.

"Their freedom" to be brutally oppressed in a one-way economic system? Their freedom to be brutally oppressed? I recognize no such thing, which is something I would presume you could have figured out by now. Of course. This makes perfect sense. I love brutality, since I have opinions. Hurf a durf. Yes, that's because slavery and capitalism are both outdated, brutalistic and backwards economic systems. You're a wonderful human being, did you know that?

Why wouldn't I? A century and a half ago, certain states tried it because they were caught in a social era of savage barbarism, against a tide of left-wing thought. They would be put down just as thoroughly. It has been established for nearly fifteen decades that states cannot secede.

COINTELPRO, Operation Ajax, Operation PBSUCCESS, Kent State shootings... the list goes on and on. Communist governments have reformed, actually (e.g. Socialism with Chinese characteristics, New Economic Policy, Perestroika). Perhaps there are two sides to this story?

Yes. Just as I would if a theocratic government was lawfully elected. Secular capitalism is pretty much where I want to be at and it is the only way to secure the freedoms and rights we have today, and the only way to expand those freedoms and rights in the future. ...no. No, it is not. Secular capitalism is not actually good at ensuring civil rights; direct political action is. Women's suffrage? Civil rights movement? Do think that the status quo (that is, secular capitalism) was responsible for these things? For ending child labor or slavery?

How sure of that are you? Honestly, people who post on the internet hardly remind me of the sort who would fight and die for their beliefs. Would you rebel against the US government, if there was a lawfully elected socialist or communist government?