Communism vs. Islam

[John Dibble]

Islam is a religion. Communism is a political system.

I beg to differ.


For the record, Communism.

[John Dibble]

The girl in the picture on the right does not look like a cold blooded murderer to me. Yet she is a POW being held by the King's thugs.

That's the key "Does not look threatening to you." How would you know BRTD? Perhaps she is a terrorist thug. The King wouldn't hold her if she was not.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=615706
http://nytimes.com/2005/02/08/international/asia/08nepal.html
http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Students-allege-torture-in-Nepal-clampdown/2005/02/06/1107625058069.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4231605.stm
http://www.deepikaglobal.com/ENG4_sub.asp?ccode=ENG4&newscode=91654

I don't trust the King. This is a guy who had most of his family murdered so he could ascend to the throne after all.

Not trusting the King is not necessarily a reason to trust the rebels. Many times rebels against tyrannical governments only want to replace the tyrant with a new one. If you feel there is good reason to trust the rebels, that's another thing, but simply being against the current regime doesn't cut it.

Also, a question - if you were a terrorist or just a rebel, would you want to look suspicious or would you want to look innocent? Would you want to look like the enemy or would you want to look like someone not involved?

[John Dibble]

I know someone on DU who was in Nepal and has met the rebels. He says they are very friendly and get along very well with tourists. Largely they are just sick of their country's exploitation by big foreign businesses (mainly Coca-Cola) and oppressive feudal traditions.

And that's just fine.

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Don't pretend those girls with guns don't look evil to those who they're pointing the guns at. There's an essential difference between the Nepal rebels and the Iraqi insurgents/Al-Queda - the Nepal rebels aren't pointing their guns and aggression at you and your family/country. On the other hand, the insurgents and bin Laden are pointing their guns at us - that automatically makes them seem more evil to us, and we get the image of Islamic insurgents in our head as evil. If the Nepal rebels started going after you, they'd appear more evil to you.

Also, do you think the insurgents look like that when they go home to their families? You can't judge someone solely on how they appear - there's a number of menacing looking people in the world who are completely nice guys, and plenty of nice looking people who are evil sons of bitches.

[John Dibble]

They're pointing their guns at the photographer, who was almost certainly friendly with them since it looks like a staged shoot.

Entirely besides the point. Do you think the people they point their guns at on the battlefield think they look innocent and friendly?

[John Dibble]

Yes There have been succesful examples of Communism.
(Note these Communes are more Anarcho-Communist or Libertarian Communist or Non-Marxist Communists)
Communities in Spain during the Civil War.
A few Argitinan(Spelling?) Factories.

Any system can work on a small scale - if the participants know and respect eachother, it can work. However, certain systems don't work as well on the large scale - communism is one of them. People inevitably have conflicting desires, beliefs, and goals - and the more people you have the more conflict there is. Any communist nation would have a singular set of goals and beliefs, which doesn't work for the people. Also, communism provides very little motivation for hard work - you get fed no matter what, and you have no opportunity to advance the quality of your life. So, while you can find a few small examples of working communism, it will never work on the large scale - and that's what we're talking about.

[John Dibble]

alright guys, example:

Afghanistan under the Soviet puppet regime vs. Aghanistan under the Taliban

which was worse?

Counterexample:

What is worse - living in North Korea or living in, say, Egypt?

The problem with this kind of logic is that you can always find these things in different degrees. Cuba is obviously better to live in than North Korea - both are communist, but one is not as bad. There are different degrees in the Muslim countries as well.

Now, of course, what you pointed out with Afghanistan under the Taliban doesn't necessarily reflect Islam - it was the fact that it was an extremist theocracy that made it bad, not Islam. Had the theocracy been some extremist Christian sect, it may have been just as bad.

[John Dibble]

alright guys, example:

Afghanistan under the Soviet puppet regime vs. Aghanistan under the Taliban

which was worse?

Counterexample:

What is worse - living in North Korea or living in, say, Egypt?

The problem with this kind of logic is that you can always find these things in different degrees. Cuba is obviously better to live in than North Korea - both are communist, but one is not as bad. There are different degrees in the Muslim countries as well.

Now, of course, what you pointed out with Afghanistan under the Taliban doesn't necessarily reflect Islam - it was the fact that it was an extremist theocracy that made it bad, not Islam. Had the theocracy been some extremist Christian sect, it may have been just as bad.

Except Egypt is a secular regime, not an Islamic one.

Saudi Arabia then. It's really besides the point - Islam itself is not inherently bad as far as I'm concerned.