Is the USA uncivilised?

[Blind groper]

To Seth.

You realise, do you not, that argument is largely based on emotional logic?



Plus a very large dose of paranoia. The United Nations and its members have no interest in 'deconstructing' the USA. Most of them are much more interested in finding ways to extract money from America.

[Svartalf]

emotional logic? isn't that like cold warmth?

[Clinton Huxley]

emotional logic? isn't that like cold warmth?

or French courage.

[pErvinalia]

Seabass

I do not think anyone believes that America is uniquely evil. Britain has a history full of arrogance and atrocities.

My view, though, is that we should have learned by now. Britain is mostly, today, pretty civilised. It has its lapses, of course. However, the US administration appears to be determined to lower the standard.

And the Cuban example makes such a pointed comparison in regard to present-day actions by nation states; as you said, only the US (and its toady) voted against, so it is clearly an emotional act of vindictiveness, and/or a fear of hispanic voter backlash, rather than a principled and rational decision. And this from a nation that prides itself on being advanced, and setting an ethical tone for relations between nations.

How else is the US to show it's deep and abiding disgust and disapproval of Marxism and the Castro regime and put pressure on the regime to relent and free its people?

But I thought the US was a Marxist regime with Dear Obama as supreme leader?

[Svartalf]

emotional logic? isn't that like cold warmth?

or French courage.

Actually that's spelled C O G N A C

[pErvinalia]

The best thing that could happen to Cuba would be an immediate suspension of the embargo.

Best thing for Cuba? Sure. Question is, does the Cuban government care enough about their people to pay compensation for property seized by the Castro regime? That would go a long way towards quelling support for the embargo in the U.S.

Failing that, they'll likely have to wait for the Castro brothers to die. It won't be a long wait.

Perhaps the US government could do a similar exercise of compensation to the North American Indians?

I think we'll just live with their embargo.

So, it's the greed of cuban exiles that is keeping the stalemate happening...

It's not greed to want what you worked hard to earn.

In the Batista era, I don't think we're talking about ma and pa shopkeepers...

We are talking plantation and factory owners who made the treatment of blacks in the ante-bellum South look like a picnic. The Cuban revolution wasn't an evil Marxist conspiracy, it was the overthrow of a brutal regime, whose oligarchs were right evil bastards. Their descendants can whistle for their money, as far as the Cuban people are concerned...

Yep. Fuck 'em.

[Seth]

To Seth.

You realise, do you not, that argument is largely based on emotional logic?



Plus a very large dose of paranoia. The United Nations and its members have no interest in 'deconstructing' the USA. Most of them are much more interested in finding ways to extract money from America.

You have your opinion and I have mine. And there's nothing wrong with an emotional argument when the facts substantiate the claim. Members of the UN have been salivating for decades at the prospect of being able to crush "US imperialism" because they are jealous of our economic an political power and success.

The UN is not some serenely detached objective body of saints and gods sitting high and mighty above the petty jealousies and political machinations of the mundane world below. It's stuffed to the gills with sex perverts, alcoholics and cupidinous bureaucrats who care less about justice and probity than they do about partying with hookers and blow.

Fuck the UN. It's long past time we dumped it and cancelled their lease.

[Seth]

Seabass

I do not think anyone believes that America is uniquely evil. Britain has a history full of arrogance and atrocities.

My view, though, is that we should have learned by now. Britain is mostly, today, pretty civilised. It has its lapses, of course. However, the US administration appears to be determined to lower the standard.

And the Cuban example makes such a pointed comparison in regard to present-day actions by nation states; as you said, only the US (and its toady) voted against, so it is clearly an emotional act of vindictiveness, and/or a fear of hispanic voter backlash, rather than a principled and rational decision. And this from a nation that prides itself on being advanced, and setting an ethical tone for relations between nations.

How else is the US to show it's deep and abiding disgust and disapproval of Marxism and the Castro regime and put pressure on the regime to relent and free its people?

But I thought the US was a Marxist regime with Dear Obama as supreme leader?

No, the Obama administration is being guided by a Marxist Progressive who is being supported by other Marxist Progressives and useful idiots. That's far different from saying that the US is a "Marxist regime." We haven't given up on the fight against Marxism just yet. We'll see what happens at the mid-terms and then at the next presidential election. So long as the Marxist Progressives cede power gracefully and peacefully when commanded to do so by the People, there's still hope and no need for more aggressive persuasions. But on the day that any Marxist Progressive refuses to step down when ordered to do so by the People, then things will get very, very ugly very, very quickly.

[Seth]

Oh yeah, Cuba's a real paradise....

Cuba shutters private theaters, threatens other businesses
Reuters
By Marc Frank | Reuters – 14 hours ago

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba closed dozens of home-based movie theaters on Saturday and reaffirmed its plans to end the private sale of imported goods as communist authorities pressed for "order, discipline and obedience" in the growing small business sector.

A government statement issued through official media said home-based theaters and video games will "stop immediately in any type of self employment," a local euphemism for small business.

The statement said "the showing of movies, including in 3D salons, and likewise the organization of computer games, has never been authorized."
The government banned the private sale of imported goods last month, a measure that potentially affects some 20,000 small businesses and their employees who sell clothing, hardware and other goods brought in informally by travelers, some of whom visit the Caribbean island regularly carrying merchandise from the United States, Spain and Latin American countries.

President Raul Castro, who replaced his brother Fidel in 2008, has instituted a series of market-oriented reforms to Cuba's Soviet style economy where the state still employs 79 percent of the 5 million-strong labor force.

"These measures are corrections to continue bringing order to this form of management, fight impunity and insist people live up to the law," the government said on Saturday.

"In no way does this mean a step backward. Quite the contrary, we will continue to decidedly advance in the updating of our economic model," it said, adding that would only be possible "in an atmosphere of order, discipline and obedience."

The import ban has created a fury among entrepreneurs and the public who have tired of buying high priced and low quality clothing from state-run establishments.

Saturday's closing of private theaters will add fuel to the fire as they have been overwhelmingly welcomed by the public.

Marlene, a Havana housewife, said her neighbor was planning to open a 3D salon.

"The state has no 3D theaters, so what is their problem. Sometimes the government seems to want to make our lives worse for the fun of it," she said, asking her last name not be used.

STATE ROLE QUESTIONED

Cuban economist Juan Triana, in his regular Thursday commentary on state-run Radio Taino, said that the government should get out of businesses it had no reason to be in, referring to the ban on imports.

"Is it really worthwhile for the state to continue expending effort, money and prestige in an activity it was not designed for ... and which in general undermines its prestige due to the quality of the products, but also theft, corruption, many costs that are difficult to cover even though prices … are very often two or three times their value," he said.

On Saturday the government said it had decided to postpone the ban on imports until January to give vendors time to liquidate their inventories.

Three years ago the government opened up retail services to "self employment" in the form of 200 licensed activities from clowns, seamstresses, food vendors, taxis and the building trades, to small businesses such as restaurants, cafeterias, bed and breakfasts and entertainment.

The government said the measure was aimed at absorbing excess state labor, improving services, eliminating inefficiencies and bringing black-market activity above ground.

There are now 442,000 self-employed people in Cuba, of whom around 100,000 work as employees of small businesses, according to the government.

Enterprising residents have taken advantage of some of the categories - for example entertainer or seamstress - to offer movies, video games and imported clothing and supplies in greater variety and at lower cost than the state.

In September the government added 12 new licenses, including real estate broker, but also listed all self-employed categories and the content of approved activity. It added phrases such as for seamstress, "does not include the sale of manufactured or imported clothing."

Since then, state employees have been visiting all license holders to review their activities and warn them if they are stepping over the line.

"These recent restrictions reflect an on-going struggle between those Cuban officials who envision a dynamic private sector as benefiting Cuban consumers - in these cases of modern video entertainment and low-cost imported clothing - and those government officials who fear loss of state control over the national economy," said Richard Feinberg, a nonresident senior fellow of the Washington-based Brookings Institution and author of various studies on Cuban reforms.

(Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Vicki Allen)

[Blind groper]

To Seth

As I said before, this discussion is not about how bad the Cuban government is. I think most contributors to this thread would agree that Cuban communism is a nasty form of government. So posting stuff about how bad they are is just a way of evading the issue.

The discussion is about the embargo.

You have a habit of using emotional logic, and that is a form of logic that first deludes the person using it. ie. you.

Emotional logic follow this form.
I like (or dislike) idea X.
Therefore X is true (if I like it), or false (if I dislike it).

You, Seth, do not like anything smacking of socialism,. Therefore, by your fallaceous illogic, it must be bad, and is the same as Marxism.

That is incorrect logic. Get away from your own emotional and paranoid hang ups and try to see them for what they are. Bullshit.

[Seth]

To Seth

As I said before, this discussion is not about how bad the Cuban government is. I think most contributors to this thread would agree that Cuban communism is a nasty form of government. So posting stuff about how bad they are is just a way of evading the issue.

Wrong. It's precisely about how bad the Cuban government is.

The discussion is about the embargo.

The embargo remains in place because of the despicable evil that is Communism in Cuba, which cannot be allowed to spread or flourish. Like the cancer it is, it must be starved until it disappears.

You have a habit of using emotional logic, and that is a form of logic that first deludes the person using it. ie. you.

Emotional logic follow this form.
I like (or dislike) idea X.
Therefore X is true (if I like it), or false (if I dislike it).

You, Seth, do not like anything smacking of socialism,. Therefore, by your fallaceous illogic, it must be bad, and is the same as Marxism.

That is incorrect logic. Get away from your own emotional and paranoid hang ups and try to see them for what they are. Bullshit.

Your syllogism is only true if the thing that I "like" or "dislike" is a matter of subjective opinion. In this case my dislike of socialism, and in particular Castro-Communism is not subjective, it's entirely objective. It's an evil blight on the face of the earth that destroys lives and enslaves millions of people to a political ideology that has absolutely no redeeming social value. It's "Marxism" because all socialism and communism flows from the same root, which was explicated by Marx.

It would be a great evil for the US to allow Castro Communism to persist, much less flourish, by allowing the embargo to be lifted. This would only result in the co-opting of capitalism as China has done to strengthen the iron grip of communism on the Cuban people, as it has done to the Chinese people...to the detriment of the entire population and peace of the planet.

Communism is inherently evil and must not be permitted to flourish, for if it does, the freedom of every person on earth is in jeopardy.

That's not subjective opinion, that's objective fact based on more than a hundred years of Marxist despotism and abject social failure in every single case that has directly and causally resulted in the deaths of a hundred million people since Marxism raised it's ugly head.

You may call the deliberate murders of a hundred million people by Marxists a subjectively bad thing if you like, but that would just make you into some sort of callous monster. To me it's an objective truth that cannot and must not be denied, ever. And denying the horrific evil of Marxism is every bit as heinous, immoral and intellectually bankrupt as Holocaust denial.

[Blind groper]

Seth

When you call socialism inherently evil, you are making an emotional judgement.

Socialism, or even communism is not inherently evil. It does not work. It causes a lot more harm than good. But these are practical, not moral considerations.

Carl Marx used the following "logic".
If a state has a communist government, and if the leaders are all saintly, and if the people all cooperate fully, then a kind of paradise on Earth can be achieved. I agree with the conclusion, assuming the premises are correct. However, I doubt I have to point out to the people on this forum where his "logic" goes wrong.

The point is that socialism is not evil. Pure socialism, in the Marxist sense, will not work and will cause great harm. But the kind of socialism practised in most of the western world demonstrably does work, and causes great good. For example, the British health system is socialist, and works to the great benefit of the British people.

Cuba has a nasty government, that leads to doing harm to the Cuban people. That harm is exacerbated by the American embargo. Without that embargo, the level of poverty in Cuba would become much less. The embargo is 55 years old, and has clearly not done a damn thing to eliminate the Castro government. Why not try removing the embargo, and allow some good American influence into the country?

[Warren Dew]

Seth

When you call socialism inherently evil, you are making an emotional judgement.

Socialism, or even communism is not inherently evil. It does not work. It causes a lot more harm than good. But these are practical, not moral considerations.

"causes a lot more harm than good" sounds like an reasonable definition of "evil" to me - especially on an atheist site, where we can't resort to God to decide for us what's good and evil.

Cuba has a nasty government, that leads to doing harm to the Cuban people. That harm is exacerbated by the American embargo. Without that embargo, the level of poverty in Cuba would become much less. The embargo is 55 years old, and has clearly not done a damn thing to eliminate the Castro government. Why not try removing the embargo, and allow some good American influence into the country?

Why not try removing that "nasty government"?

[JimC]

Seth

When you call socialism inherently evil, you are making an emotional judgement.

Socialism, or even communism is not inherently evil. It does not work. It causes a lot more harm than good. But these are practical, not moral considerations.

"causes a lot more harm than good" sounds like an reasonable definition of "evil" to me - especially on an atheist site, where we can't resort to God to decide for us what's good and evil.

Cuba has a nasty government, that leads to doing harm to the Cuban people. That harm is exacerbated by the American embargo. Without that embargo, the level of poverty in Cuba would become much less. The embargo is 55 years old, and has clearly not done a damn thing to eliminate the Castro government. Why not try removing the embargo, and allow some good American influence into the country?

Why not try removing that "nasty government"?

Is that a suggestion that the US try its hand at "regime change" again, and demonstrate once more its overweening pride, and contempt for the rest of the world?

I suspect that removing the embargo and increasing contact between Cuba and the rest of the world would be the best way of achieving non-violent change via the will of the Cuban people, rather than the US uber alles approach...

[Seabass]

Why not try removing that "nasty government"?

Why not let the Cubans determine whether or not they wish to remove that "nasty government"?