This Is The Number Of Innocent People Murdered By Governments. Are You Anti-State Yet?

Being Antigovernment Is The Logical Result Of Taking A Close Look At The State And Its Bloody Works

 

 

 

 

 

” People suspicious of coercive power have been on the defensive recently—or, more accurately, their opponents want them to be on the defensive. The latest argument spouted by fans of a government potent enough to give you all you could want and give it to you good and hard is that any eyebrows raised at the prospect of such an expansive state are evidence of racism.

  Don’t try to follow the logic; you might trip over the twists and turns it takes.

  But here’s the honest truth: Not just skepticism toward state power, but a strong antigovernment sentiment, are natural and logical results of taking a close look at the state and its works—its bloody, heavy-handed works.

  Let’s start with a number: 262 million. That’s the number of unarmed people the late Prof. R. J. Rummel estimated governments murdered in mass killings he termed “democide” during the 20th century. “This democide murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign and internal wars of the century,” he wrote.

  Unsurprisingly, the bloodiest body count was run up by totalitarian regimes, though authoritarians were busy stacking up the corpses, too, if in smaller piles. Democracies were also responsible for unjustifiable deaths, especially in subduing resistance in their colonial possessions (think: Belgian Congo) and in indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets during wars (think: Hiroshima), but to a far lesser degree than Communists, Nazis, and overdecorated generalissimos.

  Rummel’s 1997 book, Power Kills, stated his case most strongly, but he nicely summarized the argument on his website:

  It is true that democratic freedom is an engine of national and individual wealth and prosperity. Hardly known, however, is that freedom also saves millions of lives from famine, disease, war, collective violence, and democide (genocide and mass murder). That is, the more freedom, the greater the human security and the less the violence. Conversely, the more power governments have, the more human insecurity and violence. In short: to our realization that power impoverishes we must also add that power kills.”

 

 

Read it all from Reason

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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BS Of Salon’s Revisionist History Of Communism Exposed In Sochi

If You Liked Communism You’ll Love Sochi

” After reading Jesse Meyerson’s Salon essay last week telling us why communism isn’t all that bad (“Why you’re wrong about communism: 7 huge misconceptions about it”), I immediately ran into my privately-owned kitchen, filled up the sink with non-toxic tap water and gave my still-living dogs a bath.

  Why? Because that’s more than any citizen living in communist-era Russia could ever dream of doing.

  I also did this in honor of the 2014 Winter Olympics that would be on TV later that night.”

” Unfortunately for Meyerson, his column now syncs perfectly with the ever-increasing horror stories emerging about the deplorable conditions in the formerly communist city of Sochi. Meyerson says communism and its legacy aren’t as bad as some make out. Sochi’s day-to-day existence says otherwise.

  Meyerson defends the claim, “Only communist economies rely on state violence.” Beneath the subtitle, Meyerson explains that, “Communism necessarily distributes property universally.”

  Universally filled with trash and poor living conditions, that is. Unless, of course, you’re Russia’s president and can build a $400 million amusement park the locals call “Putin World.”

Read all of Laura Meyers’ piece 

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Stalin Apologists Live … At Salon.com

Stalin Apologia

 

 

 

 

 

” Salon.com published a truly disgusting article on the supposed myths of communism. There are a lot of problems with it, but I’ll focus on this particularly revolting passage, which might seem literally true if you drop the context of what it suggests:

  For one thing, a large number of the people killed under Soviet communism weren’t the kulaks everyone pretends to care about but themselves communists. Stalin, in his paranoid cruelty, not only had Russian revolutionary leaders assassinated and executed, but indeed exterminated entire communist parties. These people weren’t resisting having their property collectivized; they were committed to collectivizing property.

  This is misdirection. It’s true that Stalin murdered so many people that in absolute terms “a large number” were communists, but in relative terms, they were a minority of his victims. Of course, Stalin’s murder of communists isn’t any more defensible than any other regime’s murder of communists, and it says something that so many regimes, from Maoist China to Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam, slaughtered communists in sectarian crackdowns on political opponents.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

” Stalin did in fact focus on class enemies—”kulaks,” which basically means relatively wealthy peasants—and later in the 1930s had ethnic Poles and other minorities summarily shot by the hundreds of thousands. The first ethnic-based genocide in mid-20th century Europe was thus inaugurated by the Bolsheviks, not the Nazis.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Roger L Simon On The “Party Of The Rich” … No , Not Republicans

The Party Of The Rich Flogs Income Inequality

 

 

 

” Back when I was a kid, I used to think Republicans were the party of the rich — white guys who belonged to country clubs and drove Fleetwoods.  Of course, that was long before I heard of the likes of George Soros, Bill  Gates, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison — white guys who fly Gulf Streams and have mansions in Gstaad.  (Well, Buffett lives a little more circumspectly.)  Or went to work in Hollywood, land of Jeff Katzenberg, David Geffen, Oprah Winfrey, etc. There’s rich and then there’s REALLY RICH, if you know what I mean.  And a fair number, maybe the majority, of the latter are Democrats and profess to be liberals or progressives or something.  (And there’s Fidel Castro, who is evidently a billionaire, and professes to be a communist.)

These days, when everybody’s insurance agent or accountant drives around in a Mercedes because interest rates are so low and why not, when it comes to true conspicuous consumption, when it comes to really being the true modern plutocrats, the Democrats are now the party of the rich — Sheldon Adelson excepted, of course.

So  when I watched the broadcast of the inauguration of New York City’s new mayor Bill de Blasio with all the talk of income equality and two New Yorks blablabla, all I could do is snort — that is after checking out the cut of the expensive topcoats on De Blasio and Bill Clinton. Good schmeck, I believe they used to call it  in the Garment District.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Reason Speaks With Judge Alex Kozinski On Freedom

Judge Alex Kozinski: From Communist Romania to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals

“Those of you who’ve had the good fortune to be born in the United States simply have not known the absence of freedoms,” says Judge Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the U.S Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. “You can only imagine, but not experience, what it’s like to live in a society where these freedoms are absent.

“Born in 1950 to Holocaust survivors, Kozinski grew up as a committed communist in Bucharest, Romania. On his first trip outside of the Iron Curtain, in Vienna, Austria, he experienced forbidden luxuries like bubble gum and bananas. It was his first taste of freedom, and it caused him to become, in his words, “an instant capitalist.

“Today, Kozinski is responsible for some of the most influential – and controversial – legal decisions in the United States. Kozinski’s rulings have challenged the Obama administration over the issue of same-sex marriage. In a case that tested the limits of parody and artistic expression, he has weighed in on whether a Barbie doll qualifies as a sex object. In one of the most influential dissents in recent memory, he caused federal prosecutors to drop all charges against a defendant who’d been convicted of smuggling of illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Mexican border.

Kozinski sat down with Reason editor-in-chief Matt Welch during Reason Weekend in Las Vegas for a wide-ranging discussion about freedom and the law. How do mobile phones and cloud computing affect our right to privacy? Why do judges interpret the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution so broadly? What’s wrong with the practice of jury nullification?Kozinski, a self-described libertarian, answers these questions, and many others, with the insight and wry humor that comes from decades of experience on the bench – and a childhood under communism.”

About 50 minutes.

Produced by Todd Krainin. Camera by Meredith Bragg and Alex Manning.

Go to http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/03/08… for downloadable versions and subscribe to ReasonTV’s YouTube Channel to receive notifications when new material goes live.

 

 

 

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Elke’s Warning

“She was born under Hitler, raised under the USSR’s sovereignty in East Germany, and came to America as a young adult. LISTEN to her.”

HT/100 Percent FED Up

US Government For Dummies

The Mask Slips

“Former union boss at Occupy event: Our goal is to ‘overthrow the capitalist system and build communism’ [VIDEO]”

   “Former Amalgamated Transit Union local 689 president Mike Golash, now an “Occupy” movement organizer, was caught on tape Sunday revealing his political goals: overthrowing capitalism in the United States and
instituting a communist government.

“Progressive labor is a revolutionary communist
organization,” Golash said during an Occupy DC “People’s Assembly” on August 19 .”

Video at the link .

may day , world workers day , Victims of Communism Day

Now lets us celebrate the wonders of the ” workers paradise ” . Behold the plentiful food ,

the fabulous living conditions ,

The many employment opportunities , in the security services of course

The world class medical care

The freedom to worship as one chooses

The freedom To speak one’s mind

The freedom to assemble

  All this and more are yours if you just close your mind , take hold of the government’s er, the left’s hand and march forward . This really is the “worker’s paradise” that wasn’t , yet an astonishing number of prominent leaders , students , teachers , celebrities and ill-informed people in the western world , despite voluminous evidence to the contrary , are of the opinion that if they were given the power that they would get it right and all would be rainbows and unicorns .

It would be laughable if one didn’t ponder the 100 million plus individuals who paid the ultimate price for this glorious experiment of the ” worker’s paradise ” .

Next up the  the brutal price of ” Glorious Socialism

” Victims of Communism Day “

  Here I sit , having posted briefly on the ” significance ” of World Worker’s Day , aka May Day , and I really missed the most important reason to highlight it . Through another earlier post I had become temporarily fixated on Presidential character as presented by their own words . Taking a break from quotation hunting , I ventured into my collection of reads and low and behold was shown the way . So today’s posts featuring the character of  some of our great leaders will suffer from a slight delay in favor of the more timely subject of the character of a form of government much admired by our friends across the aisle . Yes indeed , I refer to the great Socialist experiment that May Day has come to celebrate . 

   Through the wisdom of the Volokh Conspiracy I now recognize where the proper emphasis of today’s editorializing should lie . Stay Tuned