So how are y'all preparing for the Apocalypse?

[Facing]

There have been trials in many countries where the accused's most obvious crime is one of being "other/reviled" and the veneer of judiciary objectivity is very thin indeed.

 

[RX-79G]

What about treason or crime against the state? In Stalin's USSR they were judical reasons for execution.

If you are accused of treason because you used to own a factory or be a professor and that is no longer allowed, you did not commit a crime.

Not all justice is 'just' - killing a man for steeling a loaf of bread is crummy, but there was a law, a willful violation of the law, evidence and a fair trial. A country can pass laws against free speech and then arrest those using speech, but it is at least legal if everyone knows the law.

What about duty to rescue? You can do nothing and it will be considered as a crime.

Choosing not to act is an act. Conscious beings are not strongly bound by inertia. Our minds and bodies are in constant motion.

 

[Fish Owl]

If you are accused of treason because you used to own a factory or be a professor and that is no longer allowed, you did not commit a crime

Most of the accused criticized goverment knowing that it may lead to capital punisment. Every capitalist or rich peasant could forfeit his wealth and join the Party. There a lot of examples like Alexei Tolstoy.

 

[RX-79G]

Most of the accused criticized goverment knowing that it may lead to capital punisment. Every capitalist or rich peasant could forfeit his wealth and join the Party. There a lot of examples like Alexei Tolstoy.

If you think between 10 and 60 million people "criticised the party" illegally, received due process and fair trials, then I guess it was all legal.

Unless, of course, the imposition of such laws weren't really the will of the people in the first place because they are nearly impossible to follow.

 

[Fish Owl]

If you think between 10 and 60 million people "

Those are not numbers of persons executed, just the total death toll. And any sane historian outside of cold war histeria will tell you that 60 million is an absurd value.

As for executions: there were approximately 1 million of them in 1930th. This number is mentioned in academic Western sources. It is still huge and horrible number. But far from absurd claim that Stalin could order one half of his country to execute other.

. weren't really the will of the people

Stalin had an army of robots to oppress millions of Soviet people? It was majority's will and people killing other people because it was their will to do so. Simple as that. Stalin represented huge part of those people, he had support because he said what majority wanted to hear. He was not some wizard or demon, only one man who can't do anything without public support.

 

[RX-79G]

Those are not numbers of persons executed, just the total death toll. And any sane historian outside of cold war histeria will tell you that 60 million is an absurd value.

As for executions: there were approximately 1 million of them in 1930th. This number is mentioned in academic Western sources. It is still huge and horrible number. But far from absurd claim that Stalin could order one half of his country to execute other.


Stalin had an army of robots to oppress millions of Soviet people? It was majority's will and people killing other people because it was their will to do so. Simple as that. Stalin represented huge part of those people, he had support because he said what majority wanted to hear. He was not some wizard or demon, only one man who can't do anything without public support.

Stalin had an army of hungry people that would sell their parents to move up in the "classless society".

The greatest injustice in what we're now talking about is that the laws were not applied universally. There is no way that the "criticism" that proles were executed for wasn't frequently identical to the "advice" that party members offered.

In any case, none of this demonstrates that self governing societies are inferior. A society of people turning in their neighbors for thought crime and resulting death toll is barbarism.

 

[Fish Owl]

that would sell their parents to move up in the "classless society".

Move where? Sell to whom? How 'selling them' would help to be less hungry? What you try to do is to describe logic of another society using modern capitalist motivation.

A society of people turning in their neighbors for thought crime and resulting death toll is barbarism.

No more than any death penalty. It is always barbarism and can't be justified.

 

[Facing]

killing a man for steeling a loaf of bread is crummy

LOL
Sorry, I realize that was probably unintentional but I couldn't help myself.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

But Russians chose to support political systems that put zero value in individuals, and both individuals and the state suffered.

I could give you an argument there. The idea of the individual as the fundamental unit of society is a recent invention of western culture. Go back before the Enlightenment and the Romantic movement, and there are no individuals. There are families and the individual is subordinate to the family's needs and aspirations.

Not even the wealthy and powerful chose their own mates or shaped their own careers. Those ordinary folk who ignored their families' wishes were cut off and left to fend for themselves, leading them to join the army or go to sea, if they were male, or sink into prostitution if they were female.

In traditional societies, the individualism revolution has not occurred. That's why there are cultural conflicts when people from those societies emigrate to the west and try to raise their children in the old way.

So I don't think the Russians of 1917 chose collectivism over individualism. In Russia at that time,, individualism did not really exist.

For anyone who's interested in how different the past is from our times, I recommend The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England: 1500 to 1800.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

he problem is that governments built around "the good of society" rather than rights of individuals have to be totalitarian in structure, which means that they concentrate a few people in unassailable positions at the top.

You're positing an either/or dichotomy. Societies can be built around a balancing act of individualism and communality. Most European societies are. Australia and New Zealand are. So is Canada.

I was bemused during my time in Australia to note how the Aussies are fiercely individualistic but accept communal restrictions like the right of the police to breathalyze anyone anywhere and the law that says you can be fined if you don't have a garbage bag in your car.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

homosexuality is a good example of how societies over time decide what human rights are. Some were decided a very long time ago, like the basic right to life for men, and some took longer, like the right to life for women.

I'll link this to my earlier post about individualism and family. Homosexuality was traditionally opposed as a threat to the structure of the family, as were women's rights. The fact that both issues have been resolved in recent times (along with corporal punishment of children) represents other examples of the concept of individualism gradually wearing down the former prominence of the family as the essential social unit.

 

[RX-79G]

You're positing an either/or dichotomy. Societies can be built around a balancing act of individualism and communality. Most European societies are. Australia and New Zealand are. So is Canada.

There is no country that you mention where the government has the authority to make a citizen disappear.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

the PRC discarded nearly every law, religion and custom of Chinese society with its formation.

More appropriate to say they tried to do it. Ancestor worship and traditional medicine are still very much in practice in 2017 China. Much to the detriment of the tiger and the elephant.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

There is no country that you mention where the government has the authority to make a citizen disappear.

I don't see what that has to do with what you were saying.

You said: "... governments built around "the good of society" rather than rights of individuals have to be totalitarian in structure..." and I pointed out some societies where governments work for the good of society as well as for the rights of individuals. Nothing there about disappearing people.

 

[RX-79G]

More appropriate to say they tried to do it. Ancestor worship and traditional medicine are still very much in practice in 2017 China. Much to the detriment of the tiger and the elephant.

Present day China has brought back many pre-Mao cultural traditions, but I'm willing to bet there wasn't a lot of rhino horn coming in during the Cultural Revolution when even a foreign science principle was verboten.

I don't see what that has to do with what you were saying.

You said: "... governments built around "the good of society" rather than rights of individuals have to be totalitarian in structure..." and I pointed out some societies where governments work for the good of society as well as for the rights of individuals. Nothing there about disappearing people.

There is no nation that exists solely for the individual, and I think you realize that. The dichotomy is between nations that put the society ahead of the individual, and those that build societies despite the restrictions of observing individual rights. Mao was willing to kill 50 million to achieve a perfect communist society, while human rights societies wouldn't countenance such a thing. That was the "disappear" that I was talking about. Sweden doesn't have gulags to make sure socialized medicine is available to all.

Despite a lot of discussion to the contrary, the US is also a socialized society, like New Zealand or most of Europe. It is only a matter of degree.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

Despite a lot of discussion to the contrary, the US is also a socialized society, like New Zealand or most of Europe. It is only a matter of degree.

To some extent, but the differences in degree can vary widely. Guns laws are the prime example.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

I'm willing to bet there wasn't a lot of rhino horn coming in during the Cultural Revolution

Could be. But I'd bet there was plenty of traditional cultural life going on under wraps.

 

[RX-79G]

To some extent, but the differences in degree can vary widely. Guns laws are the prime example.

Only if you believe there is something essentially liberal about disarming a population (or adding pointless restrictions as most "gun control" countries do). It seems to be very popular with both the extreme left and extreme right for some reason.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

(or adding pointless restrictions as most "gun control" countries do)

Pointless? Number of fatal mass shootings in Australia since stringent gun controls were instituted: zero. Number in America: plenty plus a plethora.

 

[RX-79G]

Pointless? Number of fatal mass shootings in Australia since stringent gun controls were instituted: zero. Number in America: plenty plus a plethora.

By pointless restrictions I'm talking about things like Canadians can no longer buy a 4" barrel revolver, but 5" is fine.

As far as mass shootings, Norway has more victims of mass shootings per capita than the US does. However, the real point is mass murder, not mass shootings. Australia has always had low violent crime rates, but there have still been several mass shootings since the 1996 gun law. However, the worst deaths were due to arson attacks, one killing 15 and other 10.

The worst terrorist deaths in the US have not been with guns. When people bemoan the deaths caused with a single gun I have to wonder how they feel about the deaths from a single bomb. Every time a mass murder chooses a gun rather than a more dangerous weapon like a bomb, fire or poison gas, more people survive the attack.

There is a bizarre logic that limiting people's ability to get a gun makes them no longer interested in killing anyone. In any case, there are so many guns in circulation in the US that banning new sales of this or that is totally ineffective.