lord of flies

Priceless Also true. From 1924 (with the complete consolidation of the USSR as a cohesive state including Central Asia, the Caucuses, Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia) to 1985, there was no major incidents of inter-ethnic violence. Look it up if you don't believe me. Over time, admittedly, there were some things put in place that were obviously intended to result in Russification - but these were things like "you have to take Russian, you don't have to take Belarusian" in schools - but the opposite also occurred, such as the Crimea becoming part of the Ukraine or the practice of putting leaders of the local ethnicity in the number one position of each ethnic republic (e.g. Kazakhs in the Kazakh SSR, Ukrainians in the Ukrainan SSR). Of course, when Captain Dumbass Liberal decided to run the country into the ground, he sparked huge ethnic violence, such as the Nagorno-Karabakh War or Jeltoqsan.

Hmm, yes, that's... Wait, no. You clearly don't know **** about ****. Yugoslavia was stable for most of its life, it was Serbian nationalism (i.e. the attempt to establish a dominating language and/or culture) that lead to its destruction. Ethnic groups also coexisted peacefully in the Soviet Union until Gorbachev decided to sack the (Kazakh) first secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and thus replace him with an ethnic Russian. The existence of a dominating culture (Sinhalese) in the Sri Lanka has caused significant political instability throughout the country's life. India has no dominant ethnic group yet doesn't seem about to collapse.

Already seen it. It's quite accurate with respect to the "little work for little pay" bit being identified for Gorbachev. Though why "from the perspective of a humble worker" suddenly becomes "from the perspective of a rich ****" as soon as Yeltsin rolls into town is beyond me.

You can't block his sig, you fool. If you do then there's nothing whatever about him that has anything to do with games, Obsidian, or anything other than communist spam posting. Cry some more. Now you've got the fuzz is bothering me. Good job.

Here's an article which goes into more detail on the subject of this ****ty NYT article than I'd ever care to.

I guess I just imagined the guarantee to universal health care that Chavez's presidency has ushered in. The huge numbers of new doctors it's training. The reduction in infant mortality and under-5 mortality. I guess all the people who keep voting for him have just been mind controlled or something? Assuming that it does in fact have a lesser death rate, which is very much a question. As I pointed out, IBC's number is not based upon a statistical data set. For a lowball survey-based number, take a look at this study (spoken of positively by IBC), which estimates 151,000 for the war through June 2006; IBC's number for that period is 48,681. Some put the total for the whole war at this point (2010) at upwards of one million or so (IBC puts it currently at ~100,000). Ergo, it is practically certain that the 4,644 number cited in the article is a lowball, and it is quite likely that an accurate comparison would put the homicide rate in Venezuela below the homicide rate in Iraq. He gives some firebrand speeches that play to the crowd. I guess every US President does nothing too? Part of being a leader in a democracy is giving speeches which play to the public's desires and hopes. You're right. However, it points out that maybe there is some common characteristic in both Venezuela and Colombia that is causing this death toll. Being that Chavez is only the President is one of those countries, he can't be ruining both.

Still not an argument. Wowzers! There's always a point in arguing. Even if you cannot convince your opponent, you may be able to convince onlookers, or at least improve your debating tactics. FACT: Colombia's government is not run by Chavez, yet the murder rate is much higher. Many other Latin American states have very high murder rates. FACT: Iraq Body Count is based upon any death reported by two, independent news sources. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this will always be an underestimate. What if only one news source reports a body? What if no news source reports one? Does that mean nobody died? Of course not, that's absurd. At the same time, it is highly unlikely that you could get two independent news sources to put out the same body. So the IBC's number is a bare minimum which is definitely significantly less than the factual number. FACT: New York Times has a huge anti-Venezuela bias so bad they stated their support for a military coup d'etat. FACT: The number of people killed in Iraq in 2009 as compared to other years is quite low. Conclusion: NYT is purposefully distorting facts to cast Venezuela in a negative light.

Nice counterpoint. Wait, that's not a counterpoint at all, just a bland dismissal of my argument! Perhaps because you can't come up with a counterpoint??

NYT is engaging in imperialist agitprop against Venezuela... again.

I would call it a completely outdated practice. All the potential positive aspects are no longer relevant. Examples of outdated positives: - One man can impregnate multiple woman, which is good because the population is low and there is a high infant mortality rate. - Wealthy men are the only ones who can handle feeding a family, and if they can afford to feed more mouths, then they should for the betterment of the community. Still existent positives: - Allows opportunities for everyone to have at least one partner in areas where there are more women than men, or areas where there are more men than women (i.e. everywhere). - Allows people who care about multiple other people "in that way" to express those feelings in a legally sanctioned way. - Because humans are not inherently monogamous creatures, it allows people who do not want to behave in a monogamous way to do so without hurting their partners.

It was one thing for Finland to defend itself against the Soviet Union in the Winter War. It was another thing to align itself with fascism and invade the Soviet Union, thus tacitly supporting the mass slaughters of the Germans. Don't try to equivocate the two just because you have to rewrite history so that your nation always did the right thing. Every single time a nation attempted to make a deal with the fascists, they got ****ed. Do you think you should get special compensation for the consequences of your behavior just because you're Nordic?

The long-term goals of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are, at best, Keynesian on a level that doesn't even approach NEP. Ask a Democrat what his ideal America looks like, and you'll see gradualist bull**** - more civil rights, better welfare programs, etc - with no deeper meaning. Leftists challenge the idea that an economy should be primarily based upon large-scale capitalist enterprise (i.e. corporations); Democrats don't. They may question the extent political power should belong to corporations, but the idea of their abolition and replacement by another system (whether worker's cooperatives, a state planned economy, etc) does not even occur to Democrats as being possible. Of course, that's the progressive wing of the Democratic Party - a wing that neither Barack Obama nor Bill Clinton belong to, and one I don't see coming to power again for at least another six years, almost certainly at least ten, and probably more. Yes, Barack Obama signed this big health care bill - but Wilson signed the income tax. Sometimes the public gets to make a decision and what the President thinks doesn't have anything to do with it. The history of the United States is not a series of political figures acting on fiat. We don't live in a presidential republic. I'm welcome to being proven wrong. Go ahead and give any evidence (in the form of a statement from a party member, I don't want to see you bring up the bank bailout or whatever) that the long term goals of any major Democrat is a planned economy.

Speaking as a radical leftist, I can say conclusively that Barack Hussein Obama, the current President of the United States, is not a radical leftist. Osama bin Laden is only a political figure of any import because the US was backing the mujahideen, which included bin Laden. Who is Gennady Zyuganov? The only person that "Obamacare" gives any entitlement to is the insurance companies. We're spending money too fast! Out of control spending! Okay, let's cut taxes! Woo! Sales tax ****ing sucks and there's a reason that the progressive tax was instituted. HINT: The guy who was the President when it was instituted was one of the most extraordinarily (for his time, at least) reactionary Presidents the USA has ever had. Okay, now welfare recipients buy clean urine. You do realize we aren't at war with Mexico, right? Haha, I ****ing wish. What about the Republican Party's base?

Obviously the wife factors into it as well. So does the person that our hypothetical black man is describing when he uses the n-word. But it is, nonetheless, very different. No. Black Panthers recognized that their communities were victimized by the United States justice system, and tried to fight against that victimization, even if their struggle was not always prosecuted in the most rational or pacifistic manner possible. White supremacists are not "victimized," they are the ones who victimize. When an oppressed group rises against its oppressors and applies force irrationally, it is a million times more understandable, more sympathetic, more righteous than when an oppressor group uses force against the oppressed in an irrational manner.

Yes, and this makes sense. If you call your wife a bitch, it's very different from if someone else calls your wife a bitch. Same thing. A member of the group has "ownership" of the term. That's because "white pride" is linked to white supremacism, the dominant view of race in the West and especially within their governments "until recently." Whereas, "black pride" is a part of the struggle against white supremacism, by attempting to reclaim the public view of race from the predominant white supremacist version. **** the police. There, I said it.

Weird, I could have sworn that you've stated in the past that you're a naval salvage engineer. But I guess that was just a convenient lie, much like your claimed knowledge of how the explosions of mines and torpedoes differ.

Like, just hypothetically speaking, suppose that your grandmother was dying. You went to visit her in the hospital/at her home, but just felt awkward and bored and wanted to leave, but didn't actually leave or say you wanted to leave because you knew you were supposed to be there. Then she died, and you didn't feel anything at all, and not because she was distant or anything, you were actually fairly close, but you still don't feel anything even though you know you should. You're not suppressing it or anything, you just don't feel bad at all. Like, it's a week later, and over the past week you have paid less attention to her death than you have to pointless minutiae of your day-to-day life. What are you supposed to do in this sort of situation? Thanks in advance.

Ah, so you believe that the DPRK has submarines which can one-shot corvettes in shallow waters without being detected? The Defense Minister of the South, Kim Tae-young, "ruled out a torpedo attack from North Korea, which would have been spotted by radar." (Washington Post) I don't know what actually happened. It seems likely that there was an old mine from the Korean War which went off (or the ship simply ran aground), and that subsequent investigation has been highly politicized or simply reached an incorrect conclusion.

So you admit that the DPRK was not responsible for the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan?

Famine killed 7 million people in USA

Alright, that's it. I'm not buying this terrible game for "straight edge" wusses.

So????

The Axis inflicted something like a 2:1 military casualty ratio. They very nearly won, in spite of the huge manpower advantage the Soviet Union had. No other major political figure (Zinoviev or Bukharin) supported collectivization. Without collectivization, as I've pointed out about a million times, manpower would have remained in the countryside and there would have been no warm bodies to fill new factories, and thus industrialization would have gone at a much slower pace. It's not really possible to "prove" it beyond stating these basic, easily confirmable facts which make it quite unlikely that industrialization would have gone as quickly as it did. I suppose it's possible that without Stalin, I dunno, Preobrazhensky would become GenSec or whatever, but that's quite unlikely and that sort of silly butterfly effect thing isn't real history. "At least" 15 million? I'd like to know where you're getting this number.

Sick and tired of discussing it? Have you ever? You have absolutely no conception of how Soviet economic policies worked. Try reading "Farm to Factory." With the advance of technology, it became possible for a much smaller force to wipe out a much larger force, as you just demonstrated with your example. Without Soviet industrialization, the next batches of soldiers would have been worse equipped and by 1945, the Soviet Union would have been even more hamstrung to fight back the Nazi menace.