Timeline for Is the term "freedom" sometimes used by those who govern a nation into a poor state of affairs for the people?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
6 events
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| May 24, 2022 at 18:59 | comment | added | BillOnne | In the 20th century, socialist governments murdered at least 100 million people, and possibly as many as 250 million. This is possibly as many as 10 times the deaths from WWII. amazon.com/Black-Book-Communism-Crimes-Repression/dp/0674076087 (copious citations provided in that book) The uncertainty is because many of the people murdered were rolled into a ditch and forgotten. It is not possible to be overly critical of socialism. I deny that my comment was in any way excessive. | |
| May 24, 2022 at 12:10 | comment | added | David Gudeman | @billone, there is no universal Left-Right dichotomy. Left used to mean Marxist, now it also refers to intersectionality and identity politics. Right has always been mostly defined by anti-Left whatever Left meant at the time. Hitler was Right only in the sense that he fought the Communists who were the Left. He wanted government control of the economy, gun control, and identity politics, just like the American Left wants today. The American Right today is mostly the opposition to the American Left, which means free enterprise, right of personal defense, and everyone treated equally. | |
| May 24, 2022 at 12:03 | comment | added | David Gudeman | @TedWrigley, you seem to be conflating "the right" with libertarians. There is no place where libertarians have ever made up even a significant fraction of the right. | |
| May 24, 2022 at 4:23 | comment | added | J D | "Freedom", to be honest, is as ambiguous as "love" and "good". | |
| May 24, 2022 at 4:22 | comment | added | J D | @BillOnne Actually, in any sophisticated reading of political philosophy, there isn't just a left-right dichotomy. There's a liberterian-authortarian dichotomy as well. Both "leftists" and "rightists" can be authortarian as in Stalin (leftist) and Hitler (rightist) and both can be concerned with personal freedoms as well as in social democracies or libertarian populist movements. To claim government is inherently dangerous is a bit of propaganda, I'm afraid. The Norwegians, for instance, have nationalized oil and health care, and yet have a more democratic rule than here in the US... | |
| May 24, 2022 at 1:30 | history | answered | Ted Wrigley | CC BY-SA 4.0 |