The Left Destroys EVERYTHING It Touches

[Age]

The Chinese model is called capitalism.

Well, yeah - you've called it that.

In order to avoid having to explain why it's kicking capitalism's ass in terms of wealth creation.

Now tell us about the state-sanctioned theft of intellectual property in China.
Tell us about the human rights abuses.
Tell us about the racketeering of foreign companies and protectionism of Chinese companies.

Yes, the system is not perfect [as a matter of fact, it's horribly corrupt at the moment], but that doesn't change the fact that there is only one economic system...capitalism.

BUT there ARE OTHER economic systems.

The rest take the profits generated from such and re-distribute. Are their vestiges of slavery and pseudo-feudalism going...of course, but the system that run global and national economies is capitalism.

AND, that there is capitalism running so many economies is one of the reasons WHY the 'world' is IN such the mess that it is IN, and for the rapid demise of humanity and even the 'world' itself, in the days when this is being written.

[Age]

If someone takes someone else's rightful possessions by force then they should be made to give them back.

Much wealth in the UK comes from the Atlantic slave trade, and from slave economies such as Southern States of the US as were. Those of us in the UK who can pay back what is owed to the descendants of slaves, should be made to do so.

Let's suppose that's true. But here's a true fact: 100% of the slave owners were Democrats. The Republicans were in the industrial north, and fought to abolish slavery. They died doing it, in the bloodiest war ever fought on American soil.

So let's make the Democrats pay everybody for what they did. They've got lots of money: let's have it, then.

But that, too would be unjust. For whatever the ancient Democrats did, their children's children's children had no part in. Still, the Left would say we have to accuse them all of "systemic racism," and "historical guilt," and "white privilege," and "complicity in oppression." And we must forever bludgeon their innocent progeny, and make them feel horrible for the legacy of a slavery their great great grandparents caused, and in which they never could even participate at all.

From either side, Democrat or Republican, or just from common sense, that's just lunacy. But if anybody gets reparations, let it be the direct ancestors of the slaves themselves, and also the Republicans and northerners who defeated the Democrats and freed the slaves, and died in such huge numbers to do it.

I do agree it' s a complex situation of who deserves to be compensated, and by whom. The criterion I choose is the people who are still suffering from European violent theft, and the peoples who still profit from the violent thefts. Africans whose civilisations were destroyed by colonists form a large group who are still in dire need. Also African Americans who from what I read are in need of enrichment and augmented social status so they are not killed by policemen and vigilantes. Obviously the USA has profited from slave labour and so richer Americans and Europeans should be taxed to repair the injuries.

Money will NEVER compensate for STOLEN land, STOLEN freedom NOR STOLEN ways of living.

For ANY one to think, ASSUME, or BELIEVE that money could, then the ONLY ones they are FOOLING are "themselves".

[Age]

I do agree it' s a complex situation of who deserves to be compensated, and by whom.

It's not complex at all. A person is only responsible for what he or she actually had a choice about doing or not doing.

And, you have a CHOICE about doing something or not doing anything AT ALL in regards to the SLAVE and SLAVERY you are CAUSING and CREATING now, in the days when this is being written.

Nobody alive today owned a slave.

LOL The absolute NARROWEDNESS and CLOSEDNESS of some people's view NEVER ceases to AMAZE me.

Nobody today set up the system or caused the CIvil War. The people responsible, other than, say, the Democrat governors of the '60s, if any of those old toads are still alive, are all dead.

Nobody today owes anybody a cent. That's the truth.

So, while 'you', the peoples of 'today' when this is being written, continually POISON the air and water, which future generations NEED in order so that they can live, you can "self-justify" that you own NO one NOTHING, not even A CENT.

Africans whose civilisations were destroyed by colonists form a large group who are still in dire need.

That's their own fault, too.

LOL
LOL
LOL

One can NOT do ANY thing but LAUGH here. The JUDGMENTS and CRUELTY made by some of these so-called "christians" on "others", AGAIN, never ceases to AMAZE me.

Don't treat Africans like infants: they are responsible adults, too.

And, according to "immanuel can", they are ALSO responsible for peoples from OTHER countries coming to their land and TAKING/STEALING that land/country from them, with WEAPONS and TREACHERY that could NOT have even been imagined by them.

The system of tribal violence that ruled in Africa long before colonialism has re-emerged after colonialism, and still causes all of Africa's political problems.

1. HOW is "tribal violence" that, supposedly, "ruled" in africa" BEFORE colonialism KNOWN outside of africa AFTER colonialism.

2. The 'tribal violence' that RULES over the OTHER countries BEFORE and AFTER colonialism of africa, which STILL exists in the days when this is being written, could be SEEN as being what causes the earth's political problems/issues.

3. "immanuel can's" PREJUDICES and JUDGMENTAL VIEWS of "others" are within the HIGHEST FORM of RACISM, which can be CLEARLY SEEN here.

Colonialism, for its part, had both bad aspects and some good -- though few people are ready to talk about any of the goods of colonialism.

What are ANY of the "goods" of colonialism?

I am willing to LISTEN, are you ready to TALK about ANY of the "goods" of colonialism?

If you do NOT, then you are just ANOTHER one of the few people who are ready to talk about any of the goods of colonialism.

But in any case, colonialism was unwarranted and unnecessary, so we can leave it there.

But you just went on to CLAIM that there are FEW people who are ready to talk about any of the goods of colonialism, and if you just leave this here, then you are PROVING your CLAIM true. In that you are NOT even ready to talk about his.

Obviously the USA has profited from slave labour and so richer Americans and Europeans should be taxed to repair the injuries

.
No, they shouldn't. They had no part in all that. Nobody asked them if they wanted to be born where they are, and who they are. You don't get to be guilty by being born European or American. That's silly.

What one gets to be guilty by is by their OWN wrong doing, which ALL of 'you', adult human beings, DO.

So long as you continue to think Africans have to be "helped by" reparations, the truth is that you're just supporting a colonial attitude. You're thinking, "Poor black folks...they need a handout, or they're just never going to get civilized. I can't blame them for anything they do...they're just children, victims, weak and helpless."

They are not. They are human adults.

They're responsible for themselves, and colonialism is a historical curiosity...unless you count the current colonization of Africa by the Chinese Communists, which is very much a live issue now. But I'll warrant most people would rather carp about the long-dead problem of colonialism from Europe or America than deal with a live and serious problem of actual colonialism today, like the Communists.

WHY is it ALWAYS the "other" "immanuel can" who do and are WRONG, BAD, and EVIL, but it is NEVER 'you'?

[Age]

It's not complex at all. A person is only responsible for what he or she actually had a choice about doing or not doing. Nobody alive today owned a slave. Nobody today set up the system or caused the CIvil War. The people responsible, other than, say, the Democrat governors of the '60s, if any of those old toads are still alive, are all dead.

Nobody today owes anybody a cent. That's the truth.


That's their own fault, too. Don't treat Africans like infants: they are responsible adults, too.

The system of tribal violence that ruled in Africa long before colonialism has re-emerged after colonialism, and still causes all of Africa's political problems. Colonialism, for its part, had both bad aspects and some good -- though few people are ready to talk about any of the goods of colonialism. But in any case, colonialism was unwarranted and unnecessary, so we can leave it there.

.
No, they shouldn't. They had no part in all that. Nobody asked them if they wanted to be born where they are, and who they are. You don't get to be guilty by being born European or American. That's silly.

So long as you continue to think Africans have to be "helped by" reparations, the truth is that you're just supporting a colonial attitude. You're thinking, "Poor black folks...they need a handout, or they're just never going to get civilized. I can't blame them for anything they do...they're just children, victims, weak and helpless."

They are not. They are human adults.

They're responsible for themselves, and colonialism is a historical curiosity...unless you count the current colonization of Africa by the Chinese Communists, which is very much a live issue now. But I'll warrant most people would rather carp about the long-dead problem of colonialism from Europe or America than deal with a live and serious problem of actual colonialism today, like the Communists.

Well off Americans and Europeans obviously had no part in all that slavery economics at the time as they were not alive at the time.

Well-off or poor makes no difference to this, and American or European, or Tamil or Yoruban makes no difference either. Whatever you are today, you were not alive when the nonsense of slavery or colonialism happened. The generations that did it, own it. End of story.

But if you think KEEPING what was given to you, which was gained through THEFT, is NOT criminal NOR wrong, then maybe you NEED to LOOK AT things from a MORE OPEN perspective.

But we are alive now and we are profiting from the capital prosperity that the slave economy, and the violent colonialism, provided in perpetuity.

No, no...that's totally nonsense.

"The Southern Way of Life" is dead long ago, and was economically moribund even during the Civil War. Slavery actually turned out to be an economic dead end. It was the greater economic power of the industrial North that turned the tide of the war against the South.

Which is OBVIOUSLY just run on ANOTHER form of slavery.

Industrialization, not cotton farming, became the source of American wealth. Slavery was done...it was only a matter of time, anyway.

There are enough bad things about how some wealth gets made, without us trying to blame 18th Century dead things.

[simplicity]

AND, that there is capitalism running so many economies is one of the reasons WHY the 'world' is IN such the mess that it is IN, and for the rapid demise of humanity and even the 'world' itself, in the days when this is being written.

Capitalism is an economic system that has a great deal right with it and, as well, is subject to massive corruption [as are all institutions]. It is not capitalism that's the problem. It is the corruption.

You only have one narrative, that capitalism is the reason for all the woes in the world. This could not be further from the truth. If anything, capitalism has been responsible for uplifting billions of people. Like any system, you have to allow it to work properly and you do that by having the proper checks/balances in place.

We have a completely corrupt political system that has allowed the elite to change nearly all the laws [especially finance] to their favor. This is not the fault of the economic system. This is the fault of weak, corrupt people.

Study economics and monetary policy from a neutral perspective and learn how this system operates. It certainly has its flaws [that can and have been attenuated], but there is nothing else out there other than redistribution schemes which only create disincentives and dependency.

[simplicity]

Almost all ideologies start with a single premise. For the left [in the tradition of Marx & Engels], it's that capitalism is the cause of all the worlds problems. And wouldn't that be wonderful if this was really the case. Simply change the economic system [to what?] and Utopia will be ushered in on golden wings. You simply can't make this stuff up. How it could have been believed in the mid-19th century is one thing, but how it could still be believed lowers man into his own category at the bottom of the intelligence ladder among surface species plying the planet.

How ignorant and intellectually lazy can people be? As if things [in general] aren't a million times better than they were in the past for most everybody. No matter how wealthy you were, life was an absolute bitch for just about everybody. If you even survived to grow up, you were subject to all kinds of horrors and then death by 30-40.

You people on the left need to grow-up and take stock of your situation and stop complaining about everything and be damn glad you live now when you can have just about anything you want...and if you have half a brain and any drive/determination you can live like a king.

[mickthinks]

For the left [in the tradition of Marx & Engels], it's that capitalism is the cause of all the worlds problems.
No it isn’t!

if you have half a brain and any drive/determination you can live like a king.
Tell that to Tamir Rice.

[FlashDangerpants]

How ignorant and intellectually lazy can people be?

If you had the imaginitive scope you would point that question at yourself.

You just went through your own thing making money a class of asset that must not lose "value" so the "value" of everything else must move around to accomodate it instead, to the great inconveninece of all concerned. That is a lazy and ill educated utopian solution of your own. It's notable that your explanation for all of this constantly harks back to some "elite" that controls the money to control the people, which is a very far left wing sort of explanation.

The notion that "Almost all ideologies start with a single premise" is also quite lazy in reality. Anyone who actually reads Marx's work would notice that he deems capitalism to be a midway point in history, just a point in the series where imbalanced class relationships use a different mechanism to that which permeated the feudal and so on. So even if it weren't intellectually lazy to just reduce all ideologies to a single maxim then it would definitely be so to reduce Marx to "capitalism is the cause of all the worlds problems."

[Belinda]

Let's suppose that's true. But here's a true fact: 100% of the slave owners were Democrats. The Republicans were in the industrial north, and fought to abolish slavery. They died doing it, in the bloodiest war ever fought on American soil.

So let's make the Democrats pay everybody for what they did. They've got lots of money: let's have it, then.

But that, too would be unjust. For whatever the ancient Democrats did, their children's children's children had no part in. Still, the Left would say we have to accuse them all of "systemic racism," and "historical guilt," and "white privilege," and "complicity in oppression." And we must forever bludgeon their innocent progeny, and make them feel horrible for the legacy of a slavery their great great grandparents caused, and in which they never could even participate at all.

From either side, Democrat or Republican, or just from common sense, that's just lunacy. But if anybody gets reparations, let it be the direct ancestors of the slaves themselves, and also the Republicans and northerners who defeated the Democrats and freed the slaves, and died in such huge numbers to do it.

I do agree it' s a complex situation of who deserves to be compensated, and by whom. The criterion I choose is the people who are still suffering from European violent theft, and the peoples who still profit from the violent thefts. Africans whose civilisations were destroyed by colonists form a large group who are still in dire need. Also African Americans who from what I read are in need of enrichment and augmented social status so they are not killed by policemen and vigilantes. Obviously the USA has profited from slave labour and so richer Americans and Europeans should be taxed to repair the injuries.

Money will NEVER compensate for STOLEN land, STOLEN freedom NOR STOLEN ways of living.

For ANY one to think, ASSUME, or BELIEVE that money could, then the ONLY ones they are FOOLING are "themselves".

That is true, but money does help to adjust the balance of power. Descendants of slaves, and people who live in countries that were despoiled in the past, generally still are deprived of material advantages. The political solution is simple; increase foreign aid.

[Immanuel Can]

The political solution is simple; increase foreign aid.

Worst solution ever.

Foreign aid makes two things happen very fast: corrupt governments and permanently-dependent poor. That's all.

Africa, since the end of colonialism, has had foreign aid poured into it. And it's worse now than it ever was under colonialism. The whole time, it's had home rule, not foreign rule.

Now, if foreign aid is the answer, how did that happen?

[RCSaunders]

The political solution is simple; increase foreign aid.

Oh goody! I'm all for that. When am I going to get some?

[mickthinks]

Africa, since the end of colonialism, has had foreign aid poured into it. And it's worse now than it ever was under colonialism. The whole time, it's had home rule, not foreign rule.

That is possible the most ignorant comment I've seen you make, Manny (and it wasn't a low bar before that).

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Africa, since the end of colonialism, has had foreign aid poured into it. And it's worse now than it ever was under colonialism. The whole time, it's had home rule, not foreign rule.

That is possible the most ignoramt comment I've seen you make, Manny (and it wasn't a low bar before that).

Are you a pom? What do you think of so-called 'Northern Ireland'?

[Immanuel Can]

Africa, since the end of colonialism, has had foreign aid poured into it. And it's worse now than it ever was under colonialism. The whole time, it's had home rule, not foreign rule.

That is possible the most ignorant comment I've seen you make.

Nope. Not knowing it is the "ignorant" part.

"The fact that foreign aid as currently practised has failed to achieve its poverty reduction targets in Africa is clear from the data. Over 75% of the world’s poor live in Africa today. In 1970 the figure was 10%. Some forecasts suggest it could rise to 90% by 2030.

Africa is the only continent in the world where official aid inflow outstrips private capital inflow by a large margin. This is problematic since no country in the world has achieved substantial development based on reliance on aid.

This points to the need for reform."

Tingist Mekonnen Melesse, UC Berkeley, 2021

I know shovelling money at the problem is the "Western" way. But you have to respect the people, understand their reality, and know when just injecting more money into the situation actually makes things worse, not better. Since colonialism ended, Africa has been plagued by corrupt governments, tribal civil wars, gangs of thugs, Islamists, drug and jewel traffickers, and all sorts of other types who make money off human suffering. And the vast majority of foreign aid has simply fueled this destructive cycle, instead of helping the poor.

There are much better ways to help, and we know what they are. But mere "foreign aid" programs have proved to be a disaster. They just fuel cycles of corruption and dependency.

If the West really cared, they'd take the time to know that. They don't really care, so they don't bother to know. That's real ignorance.

[mickthinks]

This that you said; Africa, since the end of colonialism, has had foreign aid poured into it. And it's worse now than it ever was under colonialism. The whole time, it's had home rule, not foreign rule.

... and this that Tingist Mekonnen Melesse of Berkeley said: The fact that foreign aid as currently practised has failed to achieve its poverty reduction targets in Africa is clear from the data. Over 75% of the world’s poor live in Africa today. In 1970 the figure was 10%. Some forecasts suggest it could rise to 90% by 2030. Africa is the only continent in the world where official aid inflow outstrips private capital inflow by a large margin. This is problematic since no country in the world has achieved substantial development based on reliance on aid.

... are not the same. A moron can see that, so it takes a degree of contempt for your audience on top of your habitual dishonesty for you to present it here as support for your ignorant beliefs.

Tingist Mekonnen Melesse does not talk of Africa as if it were all one country. She doesn't mention colonialism and the colonial period at all, let alone favourably as a comparison.