Should Communism Be Classified As A Criminal Ideology?

[cronus]

At one time I thought not. However as I learnt more and more about the gulags and atrocities of the cultural revolution, Pol Pot etc, and how every attempt to create a communist utopia involved a huge bodycount....I had to reform my views based on what happens in the real world outside The Communist Manifesto and Lenin's immense literary output. Communism is a criminal ideology, and should be classified as such.

[pErvinalia]

What are some other criminal ideologies? The only one I can think of is Nazism in Germany. What's going on inside that mind of yours, C?

[JimC]

Without going down the thought police road, it's really very simple - a criminal act is a criminal act, whatever the motivation. One punishes actions, not thoughts...

[cronus]

Without going down the thought police road, it's really very simple - a criminal act is a criminal act, whatever the motivation. One punishes actions, not thoughts...

So last century, Jim.

[pErvinalia]

Are you having another break from reality?

[cronus]

Are you having another break from reality?

Define reality. (I shouldn't ask you to do that on second thoughts.)

[pErvinalia]

It's what the rest of us agree on what's happening around us. Your posts seem to indicate that you see dead people or something.

[Hermit]

Without going down the thought police road, it's really very simple - a criminal act is a criminal act, whatever the motivation. One punishes actions, not thoughts...

May I suggest you familiarise yourself with the concept of mens rea? Once you've done that, I suggest you read, say, The Communist Manifesto and find the places where it advocates the establishment of gulags and all the other atrocities the likes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot et cetera have committed.

Same goes for you, Scrumple.

[JimC]

Without going down the thought police road, it's really very simple - a criminal act is a criminal act, whatever the motivation. One punishes actions, not thoughts...

May I suggest you familiarise yourself with the concept of mens rea? Once you've done that, I suggest you read, say, The Communist Manifesto and find the places where it advocates the establishment of gulags and all the other atrocities the likes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot et cetera have committed.

Same goes for you, Scrumple.

The ideology can of course be robustly criticised - from other posts I've made, you know I regard it highly likely that trying to apply marxist ideology seems to inevitably lead to gulags etc.

My point was to show that crumple's use of the word criminal in the context of ideology is unwise, and that what is criminal is actions, not ideologies...

[cronus]

Without going down the thought police road, it's really very simple - a criminal act is a criminal act, whatever the motivation. One punishes actions, not thoughts...

May I suggest you familiarise yourself with the concept of mens rea? Once you've done that, I suggest you read, say, The Communist Manifesto and find the places where it advocates the establishment of gulags and all the other atrocities the likes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot et cetera have committed.

Same goes for you, Scrumple.

The ideology can of course be robustly criticised - from other posts I've made, you know I regard it highly likely that trying to apply marxist ideology seems to inevitably lead to gulags etc.

My point was to show that crumple's use of the word criminal in the context of ideology is unwise, and that what is criminal is actions, not ideologies...

There are already criminal laws regarding Nazism in varous places. Given Communism's infectious nature in times of economic upheaval, always on the horizon, some laws suppressing flag waving etc....look at the violence on the left with these days, no different and potentially worse for claiming high ideals it lacks in contrast to the alt. right? Very little difference....

[Rum]

There are active communist parties in most countries - well the liberal democracies anyway - probably even America. Then of course you have the communist parties in socialist countries like China etc. Outlawing it would not be practical. Nor wise.

[Svartalf]

communist parties have b ecome a joke. In France, it already had shruk very mujch between the War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, but since it has become next to nothing..I expect the same shrinking to hnave happened just about everywhere in the last 30 years, with the one exception of China where the self called "communist party" is actually the fascist organisation in a totalitarian one party state... oh yeah, and NK too.

[Rum]

It was never quite as established in the UK as in France (where you almost had communist governments a couple of times in the 60s and 70s as I recall), but the far left here flirted with it and Labour saw its roots in Marxism back in the day...not sure they would admit it today. It is astonishing how an ideology that wielded so much power and influence has simply seeped away over the last couple of decades.

[Svartalf]

Without going down the thought police road, it's really very simple - a criminal act is a criminal act, whatever the motivation. One punishes actions, not thoughts...

Yet civil disobedience is a duty for honest men faced with corrupt governments and evil laws.

[Svartalf]

It was never quite as established in the UK as in France (where you almost had communist governments a couple of times in the 60s and 70s as I recall), but the far left here flirted with it and Labour saw its roots in Marxism back in the day...not sure they would admit it today. It is astonishing how an ideology that wielded so much power and influence has simply seeped away over the last couple of decades.

it simply became obvious that it didn't work, at best it gave dystopian states like in Eastern Europe, at worst it gave mass murder as practiced by Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot...