Fallout, Facebook, and the Evils of Social Media

yeah you know, most of the communist hatred was invented by the usa who wanted all the world to be on their side in case a war broke out in 60s. just like they brought up all those propaganda against the viatnamese fighters. sure there were horrible communist leaders and still are, but so are non communists. i mean who can say, for example, that it was communism that brought africa into what it is today? or europe to its endless wars? no its not communism, or individualism or democracy or any kind of philosohy that makes blood flow like water. its human nature or something below there. and hell, the crimes that the western countries commited in the times of peace are far more hurtful than any blazing war can spawn.

 

I suppose you mean the choice akin to the choice of color for Model T.

On a more serious note, you make it sound almost as a free choice by the general populace in both cases, neither of which is true. In the first case it was seizure of power by a minority group without legitimate authority, in the latter it was a struggle for change that lasted years and in some cases decades. I do realize that I'm using sociological terms based on a democratic perception of the world, but there is no other reasonable alternative that I know of.

I will not argue semantics (I suppose I could start a philosophical debate on whether putting a gun to one's head and asking a yes/no question constitutes free choice), and it likely differs country by country. But I doubt that most Polish people would consider entry into Warsaw pact a voluntary choice. Nor would I consider the "removal" of Ceausescu from power as a good example of a socialist regime giving the people an opportunity to choose.

Capitalism is not an ideology but an economic system. It IS a system that rewards participation and integration, and thus spreads through a weird form of "peer pressure". There is always a choice, though as proven by history, it is usually empirically - and not ideologically - inferior.

There, I'm done nitpicking.

Historical numbers can be fuzzy. I don't see, though, why this needs to degrade into "X is more/less evil than Y". Or an argument about the exact number. I don't think, from a general humanitarian standpoint, that executing 1 mil innocents is any better than executing 20 mil. I AM aware of the famous quote from the man in question about the natural progression of the perception of deaths from tragedy to statistics as the number increases D), but isn't that precisely why we should adjust our perception accordingly?


Finally, in a final uncalled-for attempt to be cheeky, I will say: Winners write history, deal with it B)

Actually, one could easily argue that the current situation in Africa and Middle East is an unintended side-effect of the Cold War. Though FWIW, Soviet and Chinese backing of DPRK has brought just as much trouble as Western backing of Hussein (for example). So, in an indirect way, yes it is responsible. In any case, blaming everything on "human nature" is a cop-out since it assumes that nothing can be done to prevent such problems in the future (the unrealistic option of "changing human nature" notwithstanding).

Sounds more like rhetoric to me. Though I have, thankfully, never experienced war first-hand, and very much hope to keep it that way, I doubt the above statement is in any way reasonable.

 

What do you mean under "government-caused"?

What I stated was the estimation of people executed or deceased while in detention, you are talking about something other, do not you?

"The army purge" is greatly overrated by anti-soviet propaganda.

To Ausdoerrt - executing 1 million of innocents is not good at all, but when executing 1 million of criminals, it is inevitable that there will be some innocents executed among them. And where is the acceptable number of innocents executed per million of criminals? No such number exists.

 

I'm curious what you can find out now that Stalin has been rehabilitated. Under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, or any Stalinist regime, it's called "Collectivization". It has been, by far, the biggest government-controlled death campaign used in modern times. In the Soviet Union it lasted from 1928 to 1940. The death toll was breath-taking. All Soviet citizens. And remember the Soviet definition of a capitalist is anyone who hired workers.

At least with Pol Pot, they call it what it was.

 

Hate or envy? We Finns have quite similar lifestyle and maybe we are a little poorer. Can’t really say since I grew up in a quite well off family and the only material difference I could notice with my American family was that they lived in their own house as my folks lived in an apartment (though they have house in the countryside). I can’t either say that I hate the yanks, more like I learned to love their lifestyle, their government is another thing.

“Yanks” i.e. their government is notorious of being arrogant, self-righteous and hypocritical. In the thirty some years I have been around, I cannot recall but the incident of Kosovo when the US intervened without a clear self-serving agenda. While simultaneously there are and have been numerous conflicts around the world that just don’t get the attention of the mighty US, since there is no US interest at stake: like Sudan, Tibet, Georgia, Chechnya, Kashmir, Somalia, not even to mention the never-ending problem of Palestine, which of course is there only because the US president keeps using his veto to keep the Jewish vote.

Honestly one of the most annoying features of the “yanks” is that they dare to think themselves as “helpers of others” when truly they act only to help themselves. If someone else is helped in the process, it is only a byproduct.

I would hazard a guess: China? Without their help the US would have already bankrupted. But they are not helping others either, but serving a self-interest since the US is their most important market area.

And you should, till your last breath.

I do not have a student loan, and I have studied since 2001 (benefit of the free education), and I got my first/last credit card in 2009 which I needed for my travels in the US and Canada, never used it since. But I do not deny the existence of the footprint. Only meant to say that one can and should limit its size.

If you are referring to “phone plans” you lost me there. My American family kept mentioning the concept, but I can’t say I ever fully understood it. We buy our phones and phone service separately (it has been possible to buy both at the same time only for two years or smth.) Prepaid phones are the most common phones in EU.

True. Since my birth there has been a permanent medical file on me (thanks to the free public healthcare) not to mention the files that the Army has on me nor the police. Still if THEY do not know which phone I use or which internet connection I use, the less they can track me. The size of the footprint…

Ah GuardianAngel, how I love your civilized manner to make a point. Yanks, who could hate them?

Murderous pieces of shit? It took almost six years from the Nazis to slaughter six million innocent civilians. The Yanks slaughtered the hundreds of thousands innocent civilians within the both second that the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima took. Not even to mention the carpet bombings of Dresden or Danzig, nor the massacre in Katyn for the sake of the Soviets. The only difference between the atrocities committed by the Axis or the Allies was that the former had to face justice and the latter didn’t. The justice is written by the sword of the victor, you hypocrite.

Truly so. Nowadays I just feel that freedom of speech is hampered by the foolish notion of “political correctness”.

AND now you say this. Ah. Well thanks anyway. And it were the Brittons who wanted the appeasement policy with the Nazis, not the Frech. And the WWII (for the rest of the world) started in Sept. 1st 1939 when German invaded Poland and Soviets tried to invade Finland. What comes to the authoritarians, see the picture.

 

I think I smell troll *sniff sniff* not quite sure, looks like troll, tastes like troll ... wheh! good thing I didn't step in it. Oh wait! *takes a stick and starts scraping the troll off of his boot* ... darn step right in it again.

 

Troll? Where? What? If you are referring to my writings, you have mistaken. GA82 had the integrity to admit that he wrote a trolllike post, I am no worse. Yes, I wrote provocatively. But a troll? Never. Do not insult me, please.

Perhaps, apart from the picture, which was funny, but still accurate. No? :twitch:

 

its pretty reasonable and provable

 

Inaccurate in many ways, for the sake of humor, actually. Bush doesn't really have a cult following even among extreme conservatives, he didn't gain power after a tragedy (was already in power) , and he did publish a book of memoirs

I'm working for a conservative think-tank, gotta nitpick

This WILL devolve into semantics if we proceed any further, but I can't help it. Criminals to me are people who have committed a crime and have been convicted through an independent judicial system. I cannot in good conscience call the "enemies of the state" who were exiled or executed "criminals", even if some of them may indeed have deserved it. There's such a thing as presumption of innocence, though, which is one of the key differences between a democratic and a totalitarian regime. If Stalin was interested in weeding out criminals, people wouldn't just "disappear" at night, like my great-grand father I've never known did one day.

US has the largest REAL foreign aid number, and a fairly small RELATIVE (%) foreign aid number. I don't think anyone would argue that foreign aid any country or organization offers is charity, especially because of how much of it is conditional aid.

Your posting on the forum is one footprint, because if someone up there is really interested you, they can easily track you down even if you are "behind seven proxies".

Self-imposition and "company policies" in most cases, rather than hard law. Meaning it can get you fired, but not jailed. "Hate speech" and "libel" are some of the few exception.

Having experienced both, a quick explanation. "Phone plans" are an equivalent of a "contract" in Europe (I remember when I was still living in Ukraine, some cell providers had promotions where you'd sign a contract and pay for a year or two of usage in exchange for certain benefits). Meaning that of course they have all your info. Pay-phones still exist in the US, but are complete rip-offs, and iirc you still have to provide some personal info. They are also easily trackable by number.

 

And your family accepted exile? When Finland was still a Grand Duchy under the crown of Russian Tsar my great granduncle ventured a perilous trail to imperial Germany in 10.19. 1915 to gain military training in order to fight for Finnish independence. He returned as a hauptgruppefrüher of the original 27 th Royal Prussian Jägerbattalion only to fell in 1918 in our war of independence. First of my great-uncles fell in the winter war, the younger met his fate during the continuation war, but none of us ran, hide or betrayed our people. We are still here…

 

It was exile or death, at the time. By the time that ENGLISH regime was replaced, we had gone to America. Almost every generation has been in service to his colony or his country for the past 300 years. One of the Fletcher Class destroyers that served from WWII to the 1970's was named after us.

Honestly, I think the reason we didn't go back is because it's better to be a farmer or a shop keeper in America than a Laird in Scotland. We don't feel lonely, there are a HELL of a lot of Scots here. And there are still members of my family in Scotland. One of my favorite pictures is of my son leaning against the sign on one of the barracks of the 52 Lowland Brigade near Glasgow.

Of course we serve our interests when we help other countries. It's better to catch the thief who burglarizes your neighbor's house than to risk having having your house ransacked too. But your contention is weak. What is our selfish interest in: Viet Nam, Grenada, Lybia, Honduras, Panama, Kuwait (look who they sell their oil to), Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq (ditto)?

 

"My surname family were minor Scottish nobility from near Glasgow who were accused of treason against some foreign "Lord Protector", convicted, stripped of our lands and exiled to a place in Ireland where the original population was already conveniently dead. By the time that punk was dead, and we were "forgiven" of our "sins", we had moved to America."


You might want to look into that a little bit.
If by Lord Protector you mean Oliver Cromwell you will probably find that people weren't exiled to Ireland. They were imprisoned, executed, fined, or maybe escaped to the Continent.

There were however a series of Plantations in Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries where the locals had their land confiscated and given to settlers from lowland Scotland and parts of England.

My father's famlly were Scots who moved to Ireland and then migrated back to Scotland where they were looked down on as Irish even after living there for 5 generations.

My mother's Scottish familly were evicted by their Scottish Laird,in the Highland Clearances" and sent off to Canada.

Lowland Scots since the act of Union were more likely to side with the English rather than
the Jacobites whose power base was in the Highlands.

The Famous battle of Culloden was fought mostly by Scots on both sides.

 

It's historical record. A brother was a Covenanter, but he was landless. So an Episcopal bishop accused my ancestor of treason, sat as judge at the trial, and received the properties that were confiscated. The bishop was one of Ollie Cromwell's cronies. The choice was exile, prison or death. After Cromwell was dead, the "crimes" were forgiven and the estates were reoccuppied by relatives. My ancestor had already gone to the colonies, like many Anglo-Scots.

The castle with our name was sold to the township of Renfrew and the lands still lie to the south of the Airport. None of the castles are still up, though. Maybe a tower out in the shire at another estate.

My ancestors rode with the Bruce. Like many of the lowlanders, we had strong ties to the south. It's likely we came in with William the first.

Six counties in Ulster were depopulated. When you kick farmers off their land historically, they weren't likely to survive. The word "unless" is usually followed by a lie or a fairy tale. We hear only the tales of the lucky few who survive. It's easy to ignore the consequences of agricultural dislocation. That's why it's a popular method of genocide even now.

 

I'm not doubting the fact that your familly lost their land indeed if they were given it back they were lucky.
Economic circimstances lead to many Royalist famillies not getting their land fully restored by Charles the II.

However the Covenanters were originally allies of Cromwell. Could it have been Charles I who exiled him?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenanter

Renfrew seems to be where the Stewarts come from maybe you can sue Prince Charles and get your land back.

 

Well Prince Charles IS the present Baron of Renfrew.

The lands WERE restored to the family. My ancestors had already headed to the colonies.

If you'll recall, Cromwell turned on the Covenanters after the Royalists were defeated. They were Presbytarians and his buddies were Episcopalians.