Excellent points well made, Fd-ski. <S!>
Dnil - go back to your black and white world, or perhaps re-read the posts here. No-one is defending communism as a viable alternative to democracy - they are pointing out the ideals are commendable and that *some* of the concepts might make the world a better place.
Cabby - care to reply to my last post? I'd like to hear what you say - or perhaps you prefer not to defend your opinions when challenged?
Human nature is the reason Socialism has failed, is failing, and will always fail!!
Open your eyes a little 1776. The UK has a moderate socialist government, yet we have the lowest unemployment for 30 years (and more than 18 of those were under a conservative government). We have the fourth largest economy in the world (which isn't bad for a country with 55 million inhabitants). Sure, it isn't perfect, but it hardly fits your image of a a democratic socialist state.
Or perhaps you are mistaking socialism for communism? This seems to be a common mistake with a lot of people on this BB (and maybe in America as a whole?). It seems to me people can't be bothered to look at the facts and admit not everything is as black and white as you might want it to be. Communism and socialism are as different as conservatism is from facism - there are only superficial similarities.
Fd-ski is right about Animal Farm and makes a good point about Soviet communism. Stalin twisted the revolution into a form which suited him, and it remained with the USSR until its end.
I'll say it again, Communism might not work on a grand scale, but that doesn't mean *some* of the ideas developed therein aren't valuable to a democracy.
And then there's Marxism...
[This message has been edited by Dowding (edited 11-11-2000).]
