How to respond to this?

[Hexen]

Recently someone bumped up a thread (http://www.the-postmortem.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1462) about ACTA that I created years ago which he said this:


To put it in perspective. If someone pirated anything of my authorship, I'd be happy to have him/her executed. I can't see nothing but good in such treaty, and it was about time.

Finally something global that isn't some sort of unconstitutional anti-western mandate from a gaggle of depraved socialist dictators http://www.the-postmortem.com/forum/images/smilies/icon_cool.gif

and I replied with this:


You lost all creditability that you don't even know what socialism even is other than what capitalists have indoctrinated you all your life.

http://www.bing.com/Dictionary/search?q=define+socialism&qpvt=socialism&FORM=DTPDIA

Well a better understand of socialism from a leftist website:

http://www.revleft.com/wiki/index.php/Socialism



And then he replied with this:

http://www.the-postmortem.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=47947#p47947


My family and I came from East Germany, I know exactly what kind of damage this filth can do.



To refresh your intentionally forgetful memory. This is also known as "the dictatorship of the proletariat" in the communist manifesto, a process in which the decent, productive people of a country are systematically looted, enslaved, tortured and ultimately murdered by the socialist regime (aided by the useless, parasitic scum in the common population but still commanded by a more influential criminal elite living the good life on behalf of everyone else's hard work, money and property). Tradition, religion and ethnic pride are completely destroyed so to take people's identity away from them, while education is turned into heavy indoctrination and morals inverted to there exact opposites in order to reflect the new rule of degeneracy that's to make of a once prosperous country, a mere concentration camp. As a direct result of turning people into objects, social classes disappear for everyone except for the new elite. At this point, there's no economic model, only work for the regime till you drop dead and be grateful they let you have enough of anything to live another day.

Now the rich (save for the socialist elite) have gone poor, while the poor continues being poor, though they no longer have the opportunity to improve as they do in capitalism.

For reasons obvious to said criminal elite that's having a good time, a socialist regime has never shown intentions of achieving communism, where the socialist regime breaks up (and so the advantages of being a slave owner) and everyone magically continues being miserable just for the fun of it, and that's why the genocidal socialist tyrants of Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Venezuela, a plethora of Sub-Saharan coontries, etc, stand still after so many years.

I dare any of the pieces of shit supportive of socialism explain what the socialist regime does to people who refuse to give up there property and freedom.

And this is exactly what's happening on a world scale. The fact that we, the "first world" have yet to suffer the intensity of the crimes perpetrated in a more advanced form of socialism, doesn't mean we're not getting there (Ask the French). The armed robbery (a must for any self-respecting socialist regime) has it's own akin in extreme taxation and jail time for people who don't feel like giving the stupid, lazy, goodfornothing parasites (e.g. Obaboon voters) tons of KFC, Colt45 and a new flat panel.

Any response to this person?

[mew]

"people who don't feel like giving the stupid, lazy, goodfornothing parasites (e.g. Obaboon voters) tons of KFC, Colt45 and a new flat panel."

wtf. i'd say don't bother.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

If you are anarchist his argument is answered simply with "we regect dictatorship of the proletariat, there is no state in anarchist society to opress you."

[Tim Cornelis]

It's an appeal to emotion, not an argument. Merely point that out.

[citizen of industry]

Find an article from someone who lived in the Eastern bloc talking about how much worse it is under capitalism now. Lots of those floating around. This guy is exaggerating. He is probably lying. Get him to repeat the tired arguments about human nature, etc. and defeat those arguments. Attack capitalism, don't defend the GDR. Maybe cpare education, healthcare, mortality rates in East Germany with those in the ghetto in the US.

[Leftsolidarity]

Tell him he's clearly a racist piece of shit and move on.

You will never persuade that person and they and they are clearly a social Darwinist asshole that has no proper sense of reasoning. He will twist anything you say and it will be worse than talking to a wall.

In short, don't bother.

[citizen of industry]

You can make a show of it to anybody else reading though, even though you'll never convince this guy. Ask him about his class too. If he was from the GDR he's probably a boss now and happy as a clam that he can live off of the fruits of other people's labor.

Deconstruct his argument in seperate quotes and deal with them individually, too. That seems to be the revleft way of pissing someone off. You can address the rascism then too.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

To refresh your intentionally forgetful memory. This is also known as "the dictatorship of the proletariat" in the communist manifesto

Let him know this is false. The words socialism and communism have been used interchangeably by Marx and Engels.


Tradition, religion and ethnic pride are completely destroyed so to take people's identity away from them, while education is turned into heavy indoctrination and morals inverted to there exact opposites in order to reflect the new rule of degeneracy that's to make of a once prosperous country, a mere concentration camp.

Well this is obviously false, but because the entire argument is based on emotion it is going to be hard to respond without dwelling into an argument on morality. Anyway, let him know that socialism is in no way about taking away people's "ethnic pride" (seems a little quasi-racist here honestly), tradition, etc. away and in fact bourgeois countries have been extremely guilty of this as well. (The destruction of Native American culture and tradition, Pinochet in Chile, etc.)


As a direct result of turning people into objects

Talk about how capitalism does exactly this.


For reasons obvious to said criminal elite that's having a good time, a socialist regime has never shown intentions of achieving communism, where the socialist regime breaks up (and so the advantages of being a slave owner) and everyone magically continues being miserable just for the fun of it, and that's why the genocidal socialist tyrants of Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Venezuela, a plethora of Sub-Saharan coontries, etc, stand still after so many years.

Again, no such thing as a "socialist regime".

Anyway, talk about the material conditions of each of the countries that "strangled the revolutionary baby in it's crib" (as Michael Parenti and William Blum put it). The Bolsheviks, as soon as coming to power in Russia, faced invasion by 14 countries, counter-revolutionary sabotage culminating in civil war, economic devastation brought on by years of war, etc. etc. In Cuba, the July 26th Movement came to power with the threat of U.S. invasion (and then the Bay of Pigs happened), counter-revolutionary sabotage, sabotage from the U.S. imperialist machine, etc. Vietnam...does this even need explaining? To act like, in these conditions, a "flowering of democracy" will develop is stupid. Also, to act like these examples are the natural development of socialism is flawed and stupid as well based on the history of these states.

Oh, and Chavez rules over a capitalist, bourgeois state.

EDIT: You could also talk about how Stalinist Russia, China, Cuba, etc. are essentially bourgeois states.


And this is exactly what's happening on a world scale. The fact that we, the "first world" have yet to suffer the intensity of the crimes perpetrated in a more advanced form of socialism, doesn't mean we're not getting there (Ask the French).

This is just mind-numbingly stupid. America and other industrialized European nations are not socialist, headed down the path of socialism, etc. Generalized commodity production, wage labor, private property, the law of value, the extraction of surplus value, etc. all exist in these countries. They are all (for the most part) supportive of intensive capitalist organizations such as the IMF, World Bank, etc. Nationalized property and some welfare reforms are not socialist either.

I hope this helped, although I am sure the person will just be as arrogant and idiotic, basing all his arguments on "morals", as the user did in this post.

[Anarpest]

Execute them.

[Positivist]

Well I'm gonna call bullshit that's he himself ever actually lived under the GDR let alone suffered under it. Not saying it was a paradise but it wasn't a "concentration camp" as he put it. Brosa gave a great response especially on the moral appeals. Cite the racial and cultural persecution of native Americans, and Africans within places like the United States. And since this little shit wants to play with emotions tell him to check out most of the "free world" specifically in places like he mentioned. Countries surrounding Vietnam like Thailand with very low living conditions, carribean islands around Cuba, testimonies of people who live under capitalism today and lived in nominally socialist countries earlier in their lives who prefer the latter (there are actually quite a few of these.) The purpose of raising these is to neutralize his, quite irritating, emotional jargon. For Christs sake this argument is the prototypical "reason doesn't really matter cause my grammy said x." If he wants to go emotional though I'm confident an account of the living conditions of workers in just about any country should suffice. Also do you have any harsh experiences of your own? Because that would shut him out pretty good.

[The_Red_Spark]

The claim of East German descent is BS. This one isn't worth the time and you should just ignore it. Don't dignify it with a response and they will buzz on over to be a pain somewhere else.

[o well this is ok I guess]

"Colt 45 is a great beer for the price, bro."
Though it's worth pointing out all the GDR nostalgia in East Germany.

[cynicles]

I stop reading after the 'Obaboon' comment, hard to take his/her racism seriously.

[jookyle]

there's actually been a lot of articles written lately i europe of how the people who lived in East Germany are coming together and saying how much better life was. The guardian, I think, has published several the past five or six months.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

East Germans are disproportionately Neo-Nazis.

[Erratus]

My family and I came from East Germany, I know exactly what kind of damage this filth can do.
I've seen this a ton of times with any and all countries. I've encountered countless people jumping up and saying that they lived in Soviet Russia and it was horrible and Stalin raped their grandmother. And then I see people jump up and say that they are really from Soviet Russia, and it was a pretty okay place to live. My bet is most of them are lying, but regardless, simply saying that they were there doesn't make their claims any valid. Less so when they cannot prove they were there. You can pull a person from a wealthy family in South Africa and they can rave about how amazing and glorious their country is. Just one perspective out of many, and you need a broad view to judge.




To refresh your intentionally forgetful memory.

Personal attack, he gets docked points for that.


This is also known as "the dictatorship of the proletariat" in the communist manifesto, a process in which the decent, productive people of a country are systematically looted, enslaved, tortured and ultimately murdered by the socialist regime (aided by the useless, parasitic scum in the common population but still commanded by a more influential criminal elite living the good life on behalf of everyone else's hard work, money and property).

That almost make me want to say troll. He has the thing ass backwards. The productive people get rid of the parasitic scum, not the other way around. I don't think it is a uniquely Marxist view to say that labor going into the means of production is the key to wealth. I believe that is accepted but others too. If you are a factory owner, you are not making/putting work into the means of production. You are simply allowing the workers to do work. To put it in a nice light, you are organizing the masses and allowing them to be productive, but you yourself are not being productive in the sense of producing wealth or goods. Also, he was a bit dramatic about what becomes of the capitalist class. That would depend on the socialist movement. They just have to be separate from their capital. They don't have to be tortured, and not even killed. They probably won't be enslaved either (killing and torturing are on the table but not musts). Looted, yes. They will be looted of the means of production.


Tradition, religion and ethnic pride are completely destroyed so to take people's identity away from them, while education is turned into heavy indoctrination and morals inverted to there exact opposites

I heard a similar line once. It was how communist countries traditionally stifled religion so that they could establish the State as the God. All I can do is laugh and say no, they are pulling stuff out of their ass. Most communists will not have you killed for just your religion or race. Also, tell him to stop telling us what we believe. We know what we believe, he doesn't.


in order to reflect the new rule of degeneracy that's to make of a once prosperous country, a mere concentration camp. As a direct result of turning people into objects, social classes disappear for everyone except for the new elite. At this point, there's no economic model, only work for the regime till you drop dead and be grateful they let you have enough of anything to live another day.

Sounds like something Plato would say on a bad day. The point of communism is to free the masses, not to enslave them.


I dare any of the pieces of shit supportive of socialism explain what the socialist regime does to people who refuse to give up there property and freedom.

Personal property and freedom should be preserved in a revolution. Does he mean what will happen if you refuse to give up ownership of the means of production and your freedom you own them privately to exploit the workers? Well, seeing as how there is only a few of them and thousands of workers, I think something could be worked out.


The armed robbery (a must for any self-respecting socialist regime) has it's own akin in extreme taxation and jail time for people who don't feel like giving the stupid, lazy, goodfornothing parasites (e.g. Obaboon voters) tons of KFC, Colt45 and a new flat panel.

And he reminds you at the end that he is a complete moron. How nice.

[RedAtheist]

I agree that there is little purpose in directly addressing him, but I think it is important that you come up with responses to these kinds of objections. If you cannot respond to these arguments than odds you need to research the ideas of socialism more. It's also helpful being able to debunk these kinds of arguments in a public forum (e.g. during a debate/speech which takes place in front of an audience, in a YouTube video, etc.) You could use these comments as an example of the nastiness of those who are strong advocates of capitalism.


If you are anarchist his argument is answered simply with "we regect dictatorship of the proletariat, there is no state in anarchist society to opress you."

I don't think this really addresses the capitalism lover's argument, because anarchism still involves ridding the capitalist class of its control over the means of production (yes, by force, there isn't really another way.) He appears to perceive this act alone as an act of oppression and a violation of the 'basic freedom' to own property. So you can't get off the hook simply by rejecting a term the capitalism lover doesn't like.