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> But if they come to work and like yo guns are awesome, 2nd amendment bros. I own one, then for other side this person might be perceived as threat. How do yo

> But if they come to work and like yo guns are awesome, 2nd amendment bros. I own one, then for other side this person might be perceived as threat. How do you think that "Yo, Marxism is awesome" would be perceived by someone who grew up in a communist slave state? Or even someone familiar with the history of Marxist governments in the 20th Century?

BadassFractal 8y ago
It's amusing to read Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier in 2018 and learn that 100 years ago bolshevism was in big fashion among the English bourgeois youth, and Lenin was considered one of the greatest men alive. This is even after the revolution and the Red Terror. Time is a flat circle. Either way, I personally don't want legislation to ban people from talking or promoting nazism or leninism. Let bad ideas be defeated in the arena of conversation, I don't need my feelings protected from hearing something I dislike and strongly disagree with.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Or even someone familiar with the history of Marxist governments in the 20th Century? There were no Marxist governments in the 20th Century, and if you believe otherwise you've been duped (perhaps indirectly) by Leninist propaganda.
- danharaj 8y ago
  As is often the case, the proliferation of modifiers negates the original sense: Marxism-Leninism vs Marxism.
- Turing_Machine 8y ago
  Ah, yes. The old "but that wasn't REAL Marxism" line. So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable outcome is slavery, starvation, and mass murder? We have dozens of examples, dude. And the invariable outcome is invariably followed by some apologist like you who claims "that wasn't real Marxism". After so many attempts, one can only conclude that either, yes, it is "real Marxism" or that "real Marxism" is impossible to implement. Sorry, guy. We're not going to let you murder another hundred million people.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable outcome is slavery, starvation, and mass murder? No one has ever instituted a government intended to be Marxist, with or without those ends. I'm not even sure there's been a major effort to institute Marxist government, even if it failed to institute a government, since the time of Marx and Engels. Leninism, which rejects key aspects of Marxism (particularly, it's essential prerequisite conditions and it's basic methods) but sells itself as Marxism (hence my line about people believing Marxist governments have exist being dupes of Leninism) has been attempted with the results you describe. The closest thing that has actually been put into practice to Marxism (which still isn't Marxism, differing in roughly the opposite direction but lesser degree than does Leninism) is the modern mixed economy that has displaced the 19th century system Marx named “capitalism” throughout the developed world, which was both shaped by (largely through Marxist influence on Western labor movements) and which incorporates several elements of Marx’s platform and compromises versions of some others elements of that platform, when compared to the 19th Century capitalism it displaced. > After so many attempts, one can only conclude that either, yes, it is "real Marxism" or that "real Marxism" is impossible to implement. The latter is closer to the truth; at least, it seems politically impossible to achieve support for a radical transition to Marxism in a state which had acheived the prerequisite state Marx identifies as essential. While both building class consciousness on some level in the working class and using it as a lever to move the State in a direction closer Marxism is possible (and, indeed, seems to have near-universally occurred in states meeting Marx’s criteria), and Marx seems also to have been accurate in both suggesting that such incremental change would be leveraged by capitalists to forestall revolution and would be precarious and eternally at risk of backsliding spurred by the capitalist class, the revolutionary alternative Marx proposed seems impractical in practice.
- Grue3 8y ago
  This is a laughable argument, considering most Communists/Socialists I see on Twitter love using hammer-and-sickle (one could argue it's a pre-Soviet symbol, but so is swastika. most people associate it with USSR, it was on the flag of USSR, so it's a symbol of USSR). Most of them would rush to defend Soviet human rights abuses when called out on it. Hell, we had Goldsmiths student body defending Gulags a few days ago. You aren't fooling anyone.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > This is a laughable argument, considering most Communists/Socialists I see on Twitter love using hammer-and-sickle Well, obviously the ones using that symbol are particularly visible (never seen a non-Communist socialist use it, though obviously the unadorned Red Flag is common), and certainly there are no shortage of genuine followers of Leninism and it's offshoots (Stalinism, Maoism, etc.); the fact that they exist and like to claim to be Marxist doesn't make their theory compatible with Marx’s, though,and there are plenty of actual Marxists, too. > You aren't fooling anyone. I'm not really sure how any of what you posted is a counterargument to anything I've said.

BadassFractal 8y ago

It's amusing to read Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier in 2018 and learn that 100 years ago bolshevism was in big fashion among the English bourgeois youth, and Lenin was considered one of the greatest men alive. This is even after the revolution and the Red Terror. Time is a flat circle. Either way, I personally don't want legislation to ban people from talking or promoting nazism or leninism. Let bad ideas be defeated in the arena of conversation, I don't need my feelings protected from hearing something I dislike and strongly disagree with.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Or even someone familiar with the history of Marxist governments in the 20th Century? There were no Marxist governments in the 20th Century, and if you believe otherwise you've been duped (perhaps indirectly) by Leninist propaganda.

danharaj 8y ago
As is often the case, the proliferation of modifiers negates the original sense: Marxism-Leninism vs Marxism.
Turing_Machine 8y ago
Ah, yes. The old "but that wasn't REAL Marxism" line. So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable outcome is slavery, starvation, and mass murder? We have dozens of examples, dude. And the invariable outcome is invariably followed by some apologist like you who claims "that wasn't real Marxism". After so many attempts, one can only conclude that either, yes, it is "real Marxism" or that "real Marxism" is impossible to implement. Sorry, guy. We're not going to let you murder another hundred million people.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable outcome is slavery, starvation, and mass murder? No one has ever instituted a government intended to be Marxist, with or without those ends. I'm not even sure there's been a major effort to institute Marxist government, even if it failed to institute a government, since the time of Marx and Engels. Leninism, which rejects key aspects of Marxism (particularly, it's essential prerequisite conditions and it's basic methods) but sells itself as Marxism (hence my line about people believing Marxist governments have exist being dupes of Leninism) has been attempted with the results you describe. The closest thing that has actually been put into practice to Marxism (which still isn't Marxism, differing in roughly the opposite direction but lesser degree than does Leninism) is the modern mixed economy that has displaced the 19th century system Marx named “capitalism” throughout the developed world, which was both shaped by (largely through Marxist influence on Western labor movements) and which incorporates several elements of Marx’s platform and compromises versions of some others elements of that platform, when compared to the 19th Century capitalism it displaced. > After so many attempts, one can only conclude that either, yes, it is "real Marxism" or that "real Marxism" is impossible to implement. The latter is closer to the truth; at least, it seems politically impossible to achieve support for a radical transition to Marxism in a state which had acheived the prerequisite state Marx identifies as essential. While both building class consciousness on some level in the working class and using it as a lever to move the State in a direction closer Marxism is possible (and, indeed, seems to have near-universally occurred in states meeting Marx’s criteria), and Marx seems also to have been accurate in both suggesting that such incremental change would be leveraged by capitalists to forestall revolution and would be precarious and eternally at risk of backsliding spurred by the capitalist class, the revolutionary alternative Marx proposed seems impractical in practice.
Grue3 8y ago
This is a laughable argument, considering most Communists/Socialists I see on Twitter love using hammer-and-sickle (one could argue it's a pre-Soviet symbol, but so is swastika. most people associate it with USSR, it was on the flag of USSR, so it's a symbol of USSR). Most of them would rush to defend Soviet human rights abuses when called out on it. Hell, we had Goldsmiths student body defending Gulags a few days ago. You aren't fooling anyone.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > This is a laughable argument, considering most Communists/Socialists I see on Twitter love using hammer-and-sickle Well, obviously the ones using that symbol are particularly visible (never seen a non-Communist socialist use it, though obviously the unadorned Red Flag is common), and certainly there are no shortage of genuine followers of Leninism and it's offshoots (Stalinism, Maoism, etc.); the fact that they exist and like to claim to be Marxist doesn't make their theory compatible with Marx’s, though,and there are plenty of actual Marxists, too. > You aren't fooling anyone. I'm not really sure how any of what you posted is a counterargument to anything I've said.