The Big Bad Politics Thread Returns

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Hasharin said:
Last time i checked Laissez-faire capitalism, the free market, consumerism and globalization weren't doing so well at the moment either.
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Well, apparently that Holdek believes in mixed economy, not the old school unrestrained capitalism.

Also, going back to the former discussion, I'm not expert on Marx but I highly doubt he would ever approve of Soviet-style centrally planned economy (and not because he'd want to be not associated with such failure ;)). Not in the later period of his life.
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Personally i think Marx would far more approving of the Catalonian Anarcho-Syndicalists during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
 
I've never heard of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" ever working out well. The Communist phase is all sunshine and daffodils but before that you need the Socialist phase which is where Marxist theory has tripped the wire time and time again.

What successful Marxist governments have there been? Obviously there are problems with capitalism, but to paraphrase Winston Churchill, it's the best bad option we've got.
 
I'm just playing devil's advocate, of course there hasn't been any successful long term attempts to bring about communism, i don't believe however that we can totally reject Marx's theories based on the historical failure to implement systems based on his works.

The biggest problem with Marxist Theory is that Das Kapital, Karl Marx's masterworks, was supposed to be many more volumes long than the four that were published but Marx died after the first was sent to press, his good friend Friedrich Engels (a man worth googling for his beard alone) edited and published the final three from his notes.
 
Caddchef said:
I'm just playing devil's advocate, of course there hasn't been any successful long term attempts to bring about communism, i don't believe however that we can totally reject Marx's theories based on the historical failure to implement systems based on his works.

The biggest problem with Marxist Theory is that Das Kapital, Karl Marx's masterworks, was supposed to be many more volumes long than the four that were published but Marx died after the first was sent to press, his good friend Friedrich Engels (a man worth googling for his beard alone) edited and published the final three from his notes.
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Oh sure. I think there's a lot of Marx's work that is important. Part of what sabotages this kind of approach, though, is the demand of orthodoxy among the prominent Marxist thinkers. Anytime one uses words like "inevitable," "certainty," or "closed system" a lot to describe a philosophy, it's ought to be filed under "religion" instead of "empiricism."
 
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So this happened on my Facebook feed today. Pick a winner, guys.
 
The Hunter said:
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So this happened on my Facebook feed today. Pick a winner, guys.
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Well, both are factually accurate.

The thing with the second post is, yeah, more people are on food stamps, due to an economic meltdown in 2008. And if the conservatives had their way those people would be starving instead. So I'll go with the food stamps.
 
Whelp, KRudd is Prime Minister again. Well, until elections anyway, then he'll be back on his ass.
 
I don't know, saney, unless Abbott is replaced by someone who isn't a racist fundie, I think K-Rudd's back in business. I'm actually contesting one of the vital crossbench seats and if I win I'm willing to give him a second chance. There will be ground rules, of course.
 
My little brother got elected as class president.

His first order of buisness was to install public shaming and re-education as punishments
 
random_pickle said:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/26/tech/social-media/texas-filibuster-twitter/index.html

So how do you guys feel about filibusters? For those of you who don't know what it is, it means that someone in the senate has to have the floor and talk until the bill-voting deadline has passed, thereby stopping a bill from passing.
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That situation in Texas is different than how it is usually. Usually now you don't have to do a "talking filibuster" to prevent a bill going forward; you just need 1/3 of the vote (in the Texas Senate) or 2/5 of the vote (in the US Senate) and it won't go to the floor at all. You used to have to talk, but I think that was done away with with the filibuster reform in the mid-70s.

Personally I think it goes against majoritarian rule, and while it was once used judiciously on bills that the minority felt were particularly bad, it's been abused since the Republicans have tried to use it on almost every bill since the Democrats took the majority in 2008, and has thus lost its original purpose. Either way, even in its traditional (talking) form it seems like a stupid way of conducting business.
 
Filibustering is stupid and I'm glad we don't have it in Australia. Every Member and Senator has a time limit to speak: you have a few minutes to get up and say your piece and then you sit down. Going over that limit has very real consequences, like getting kicked out of the chamber. Extended time limits are only given for the purposes of specific debate and with the leave of the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the President of the Senate. That doesn't mean there aren't other tricks politicians can pull to delay bills though, like calling a quorum or sidetracking the debate with unrelated questions. Mostly, though, dissenting pollies rely on getting votes and public support to defeat bills.
 
Everyone I know keeps thinking that he's the guy from The Smiths.
 
Screaming Llama said:
I don't know, Saney, unless Abbott is replaced by someone who isn't a racist fundie, I think K-Rudd's back in business. I'm actually contesting one of the vital crossbench seats and if I win I'm willing to give him a second chance. There will be ground rules, of course.
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You were saying?
 
As an Israeli I'm 100% against an attack on Syria. In 1991 when America and their allies attacked Iraq, Saddam threw scuds at us as a retaliation. I don't want to see the same thing happening again with Syria's ally Hezbollah emptying their rocket arsenal on us. I don't think an attack on Syria will do any good to the country. Assad has committed crimes against humanity but with him gone there's no guarantee that the country won't fragment into a myriad of warring factions à la Somalia. Plus as the recent wars in Iraq and Libya had shown us, a majority Muslim country with a weak or non-existent government equals an al-queda base.
 
NegaCWC said:
As an Israeli I'm 100% against an attack on Syria. In 1991 when America and their allies attacked Iraq, Saddam threw scuds at us as a retaliation. I don't want to see the same thing happening again with Syria's ally Hezbollah emptying their rocket arsenal on us. I don't think an attack on Syria will do any good to the country. Assad has committed crimes against humanity but with him gone there's no guarantee that the country won't fragment into a myriad of warring factions à la Somalia. Plus as the recent wars in Iraq and Libya had shown us, a majority Muslim country with a weak or non-existent government equals an al-queda base.
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As an Israeli your country has attacked Syria several times already.
 
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