This response goes for Island's post as well.

So, what have you accomplished? Basically nothing on a net basis. I'm not going to bother repeating with any great thoroughness the list of reasons why the war wasn't a good idea, but in short:

- there were no WMD before the war, and there are none now (except in NK and some other placed spared an invasion)
- Al Qaeda was, and remains, a threat in the world. While it is nice (for you) that it is focusing on Iraq right now, it appears that Iraq is also a strong recruitment/training tool, so I'm not sure what the net benefit was other than to shift the threat from Al Qaeda around
- Saddam is gone, although Iraq's people are still being brutalised (now by the factions at war in their country).

Realistically, all that is good is that Saddam is locked up and a thin veneer of democracy is spread over Iraq. The getting there has been crap. The instability of Iraq shouldn't have been a surprise, and neither should the cost - that is the poor planning part.

If you like you can keep defending the decision to go to war there - I think you should be thinking about accountability. There was a rush to war - and a pre-emptive, discretionary war at that, and now Bush is caught with his pants down.


Or socialism - 100m people is totally crap - proof please.

You mean like the kick in the stomach you leftist enviros gave to Africa?

Regarding DDT:

Great pressure has been exerted on those countries to discontinue its use. In some countries such as Sri Lanka, spraying programs that had virtually eliminated malaria were terminated. As a consequence the number of cases of malaria in that country rose to 2.5 million in 1968 and 1969.[9] More than 100,000 people died as a result of malaria epidemics in Swaziland and Madagascar in the mid-1980s after house spraying with DDT was stopped. Since the early 1970s the UN and the WHO have blackmailed developing countries, through the withholding of financial aid, to force them to discontinue the use of DDT. The result has been an upsurge in the number of cases of malaria. The South African government has reported that the annual number of deaths from malaria there have risen from 20,000 to 350,000 since the ban on DDT. Malaria currently kills about two million people each year, and the number is rising.

Eco-fascism

"Communism is absolutely evil" -- Whittaker Chambers

Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, Hitler -- these should get you in or over the ballpark of 100 million...Variations of socialism all.

According to wikipedia, what Mul copied and pasted isn't the full story - its heavily biased.

According to wiki, in Sri Lanka they stopped - partly because it was believed there was no need anymore - and cases did rebound (although not to 2.5m, but that's not important). What is important is that they started again but the mosquitos had become DDT resistant so they had to switch to a more expensive alternative.

Overall, it appears sanity prevails and DDT can be used when required. So stop the friggin witchhunt.

Most people understand that communism and socialism are different.

Furthermore, those are all totalitarian regimes. It is the totalitarian bit - like Saddam - which is the problem. Come on, you know its true.

How many people are being killed by the state in Scandinavia? What about France? Italy? New Zealand? They all meet your definition of socialist.

What about the Clinton years? Was there a notably increase in deaths at the hand of the state in the US then?

How so?

Mul, what you don't seem to realize is that allowing the pendulum to swing too far in either direction holds congruent danger. Mixed socialist economies in representative democracies are the best model we have so far. There are several examples to prove it - not isolated cases as you seem to inculcate.

You reference communism and dictatorships - China could easily be characterized as a capitalist dictatorship. Socialism is the middle ground.

Main Entry: com·mu·nism
Pronunciation: 'käm-y&-"ni-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: French communisme, from commun common
1 a : a theory advocating elimination of private property b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed
2 capitalized a : a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the U.S.S.R. b : a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production c : a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably d : communist systems collectively

That is illustrative of the myth of communism, the people simply (slowly or quickly) become slaves to the state's centralized capitalism (which is the very definition of communism/socialism)...The only thing that is keeping the socialist experiments you site afloat is capitalism.

Take note Cam...I want you to memorize it and never forget it again...You are beginning to annoy me with your persistent denial of the obvious.

You going to answer the question my friend from the country whose main export is marijuana?

I have your lying incompetent useless "widipedia" right here Cam...

Another favored ideology of environmental activists is that any use of insecticides is counterproductive, because it results in resistant mosquitoes. In fact, there is little evidence that insecticides on house walls constitute a strong selective pressure for insecticide resistance. Likewise, there is little evidence that resistance, once developed, reduces the effectiveness of DDT residues in preventing indoor transmission of malaria.

There are witches in them thar hills...and they call themselves "evironmentalists" (mentalists operative).

Go make me a sammich!http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/Fall02/DDT.html

so·cial·ism
n.

The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism.



Capitalism dictates that, via competition, technology, and the division of labour, private capital is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. This leaves a democracy virtually powerless to check the power of the capitalists. Members of legislative bodies are financed by private capitalists who divide the electorate from the legislature. I think most of us agree that our elected representatives are almost completely non-responsive to the constituency and in the hip-pocket of corporate lobbyists.

Isn't it interesting - apparently we read the exact same thing, but come to different conclusions.

Why on earth would you conclude that socialism is communism when socialism:

- does not "advocating elimination of private property"
- does not require "a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed"
- does not require "a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production"
- is not a situation where "the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably"

The only tenuous rationale for assuming that socialism is the evil within that www.m-w.com definition is the reference to "a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism".

Do you understand that "based on" implies that it is modified? Or how modified it is?

On the other hand, I reckon it is the "totalitarian" part which matters. I have already listed a number of democratic socialist countries which haven't had a problem with human rights abuses and deaths at the hand of the state. Can you name a totalitarian regime which hasn't got that problem?

So - I still reckon that socialism isn't the problem, totalitarianism is.

I answered you many posts ago. You don't read other people's posts do you?

Fill yer boots.

I didn't suggest this was the case - all I tried to do was show that the link you had was biased, which it is. Stopping using DDT in Sri Lanka did cause malaria cases to rise. Then they reintroduced DDT (sanity prevails) and unfortunately the mosquitos became resistant.

But that doesn't really matter - what matters is that sanity prevails, and that for countries without an option generally it appears that eco-fascism is more in your head than a reality.

I mean for craps sake, why can't you just assume that people are fundamentally well meaning, want to get along, and want to respect other peoples' differences?

I only argue with you because you don't (respect other peoples' differences. Ever).

This is utter nonsense...It is demonstrably false...Das Capital has been discredited, as has Marx, as has Marx's progeny of Mussolini's fascism....Communism and socialism require, slowly or quickly, authoritarian control and that authoritarian control creates the disparity between party faithful and the people.

You want to see the great division in America between the "haves and have-nots"?...Go to any liberally dominated county in America and you will see it starkly.

Democratic socialism Mul. It works in any number of countries, and is only fractionally left of centre.

If you stopped being so keen to break it down into a black and white issue, you'd see infinite shades of grey in the political spectrum. Many of these are ruling parties in their respective countries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_democratic_parties

That is a lie Cam, a lie concocted by the environmentalist wackos to achieve their end of creating poverty and death for humanity...As they accomplished with the demonization of DDT in the poorest countries in the world.

I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems. -- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs. -- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing....This is not to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run. -- Economist editorial

We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight -- David Foreman, Earth First!

Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental. -- Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First!

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS -- Earth First! Newsletter

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets...Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. -- David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans. -- Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. -- Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

Cannibalism is a "radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation." -- Lyall Watson, The Financial Times, 15 July 1995


Go hug a fascist!