Where are you on the Political Compass?

[JimC]

I was always a realist...

That's the standard excuse of reactionary running dogs of the capitalist system. Come the revolution you will be summarily executed by garotting with your own cardigan.

(mind you, I was one of Harry Van Morst's little SDS helpers in the old days, I have mellowed since then...)

al-rawandi wrote:

The biggest problem I see with any form of leftist politics is that it inevitably leads to outright despotic control. It is no wonder that sexual ethics were strictly enforced in EVERY leftist government. Castro imprisoned homosexuals, as did the Sandinstas. One Sandinista (I don't remember if this was Tomas Borge or not) said that a concentration camp must be heaven for a gay as they can be around other gays. I guess Auschwitz was an extended Passover dinner. Anyhow, Mao did the same, enforcing shapeless clothing, outlawing flirtation and the like. Stalin similarly came down hard on sexual expression.

Maybe a little overstated, but definitely a core of truth.

Carry on garroting cardigan wearing capitalist pigs

Don't encourage him!

[al-rawandi]

I was always a realist...

That's the standard excuse of reactionary running dogs of the capitalist system. Come the revolution you will be summarily executed by garotting with your own cardigan.

(mind you, I was one of Harry Van Morst's little SDS helpers in the old days, I have mellowed since then...)

al-rawandi wrote:

The biggest problem I see with any form of leftist politics is that it inevitably leads to outright despotic control. It is no wonder that sexual ethics were strictly enforced in EVERY leftist government. Castro imprisoned homosexuals, as did the Sandinstas. One Sandinista (I don't remember if this was Tomas Borge or not) said that a concentration camp must be heaven for a gay as they can be around other gays. I guess Auschwitz was an extended Passover dinner. Anyhow, Mao did the same, enforcing shapeless clothing, outlawing flirtation and the like. Stalin similarly came down hard on sexual expression.

Maybe a little overstated, but definitely a core of truth.

Carry on garroting cardigan wearing capitalist pigs

Don't encourage him!

What do you mean "core of truth" where has socialism arisen where a brutal despotic state has not? Such a level of control as necessitated by socialism leads, inevitably, to such a situation. I support certain Socialist programs, but only within an extremely libertarian government framework. It sounds contradictory, but either end will fuck us.

[eXcommunicate]

Explain again why socialism must invariably lead to sexual repression.

[AshtonBlack]

http://politics.beasts.org/scripts/resu ... =265622612[/imgc]

Fuck me I'm charles "pissed again" kennedy. Bugger me.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

http://politics.beasts.org/scripts/resu ... =265622612[/imgc]

Fuck me I'm charles "pissed again" kennedy. Bugger me.

Aren't you getting confused with Jeremy 'bugger me' Thorpe?

[al-rawandi]

Explain again why socialism must invariably lead to sexual repression.

It has historically: Soviet Russia, China, Cuba, Nicaragua. And of course Western liberals flocked to praise and visit these countries, despite their domestic support for gay and women's rights in their native western countries. A curious paradox, but a digression.

The state assumes ultimate control. Orwell hit it on the head in 1984, the sexual repression was a way of stripping people down. It is little different than why Islam does it, the ultimate power demands control of your most intimate activities and thoughts. It is no different than why the Socialist states come with the conjoined twins of forced relocation and famine.

But back to the sex thing, Marx was explicit in his "Manifesto" he wrote that marriage was a bourgeois institution, another mechanism to control wealth. In the ideal Communist state this institution would be broken and the state would be the final authority on how exactly women should be "shared". I forget the chapter now, but it was quite explicit.

[Hermit]

Marx was explicit in his "Manifesto" he wrote that marriage was a bourgeois institution, another mechanism to control wealth. In the ideal Communist state this institution would be broken and the state would be the final authority on how exactly women should be "shared". I forget the chapter now, but it was quite explicit.

Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with, is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private.

Marx & Engels The Communist Manifesto

That paragraph, when read in conjunction with the preceding text, does not leave me with the impression that women are planned to be controlled and shared out by the men of the Central Committee, or something like that.

[al-rawandi]

Marx was explicit in his "Manifesto" he wrote that marriage was a bourgeois institution, another mechanism to control wealth. In the ideal Communist state this institution would be broken and the state would be the final authority on how exactly women should be "shared". I forget the chapter now, but it was quite explicit.

Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with, is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private.

Marx & Engels The Communist Manifesto

That paragraph, when read in conjunction with the preceding text, does not leave me with the impression that women are planned to be controlled and shared out by the men of the Central Committee, or something like that.

There were several other sections on the matter were there not? I may have been wrong in attributing this to the Manifesto, I have Marx's collected works, so I will have to thumb through that and see if there was an erroneous attribution... in the meantime can you see if there is other commentary on marriage in the Manifesto as I don't have it to hand and you seem to.

But the paragraph seems to suggest the opposite of what I relayed, if in fact that is the total of what Marx wrote on marriage then I was grossly incorrect.

[Hermit]

There were several other sections on the matter were there not? I may have been wrong in attributing this to the Manifesto, I have Marx's collected works, so I will have to thumb through that and see if there was an erroneous attribution... in the meantime can you see if there is other commentary on marriage in the Manifesto as I don't have it to hand and you seem to.

But the paragraph seems to suggest the opposite of what I relayed, if in fact that is the total of what Marx wrote on marriage then I was grossly incorrect.

Taking your reference to the manifesto, I thumbed through it electronically ( <CTRL-F> & "women" ), and that is all I could find on women and marriage. Marx and Engels would pretty certainly have written about the bourgeois family elsewhere. One obvious starting point would be F. Engels: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884). If you want to search for more, I suggest you try the Marx & Engels Internet Archive, the Gutenberg Project or any number of other sites that have all, or at least a good portion of their works freely available. Sure beats thumbing through hard copies.

[devogue]

[Trolldor]

Devogue a right-wing centrist?

[Trolldor]

....or was it?

[devogue]

Devogue a right-wing centrist?

Interesting, isn't it?

I was completely honest with my answers, and I'm comfortable with the result.

One in the eye for those who think the atheist firmament is exclusively left leaning.

[Trolldor]

Devogue a right-wing centrist?

Interesting, isn't it?

I was completely honest with my answers, and I'm comfortable with the result.

One in the eye for those who think the atheist firmament is exclusively left leaning.

I don't think so, but I've always been one to eschew the idea that atheism is exclusively anything.


The question set-up was pretty absurd in and of itself, though.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

Take the test.......http://www.politicalcompass.org/test


I'm a yoghurt knitting lefty libertarian!?

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -2.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.36



I must be doing it wrong.


Or you guys are rubbing off on me.