[OFB Cafe] Chris's Politics...

[Derek Broughton]

On July 15, 2008 12:57:03 saki wrote:
>
> We clearly share the position. I'd never thought about it in North
> American (i.e. USA) terms but rather in North Atlantic terms because of
> that shared basic view. However, I can see your point, and the
> difference. Here in Europe very few supported the Fascists in comparison
> to those who were supporters of Marxism/Leninism in one form or another,
> so "Nazi" stays a hate term more than fifty years after the end of the
> Second World War.
>
> After that War, of course, the USSR was still nominally an ally, and
> Uncle Joe, like Uncle Sam, a good guy. Your figure of 10M Russian deaths
> seems a little on the low side, and does not, obviously, take into
> account the unknowable deaths in Communist China, and other communist
> states.

Exactly.  I hadn't realized you were in Europe, which explains my surprise 
that '"Marxism" is good- or, at least, not bad, totalitarianism'.  That's a 
common enough view here in Canada, but most Americans have _always_ believed 
Communism was bad.  10 million was just a number I've heard more than a few 
times.  I think it was _always_ intended to suggest a lower limit of what may 
have happened.  I'm not sure the Russians could give us a real number if they 
wanted to.  And I know I omitted all the other Asian countries.  Nobody will 
ever know how many have died (and are still dieing) in China, and it was at 
least a million in Cambodia, but in Asia we know even less of the truth of 
the matter than we did in the Soviet Union.

> Is it that there are far more on the left who incline towards
> totalitarianism in the name of "the people", than there are on the right
> who incline toward it in the name of "the State" or "the Race"?

Partly.  Communism has noble intentions - it claims equality of all people 
(which never happens in practice, of course).  I suppose Nazism did too - at 
least it briefly dragged Germany out of the disastrous Weimar republic, but 
it rather quickly became obvious that it benefitted a small minority much 
more than the majority, and it was always based on blaming some other 
minority for all injustices.  
>
> But your view from America is interesting: do you mean that an
> "isolationist" pattern of not being over-concerned until it affects the
> USA directly causes the difference in perception? Or am I misreading
> what you mean?

LOL.  I _didn't_ mean that, but now that you mention it...

I just meant that Americans (and Canadians) have understood, at least since 
the end of WW II the horrors of Nazism, but have largely not realized just 
how bad Communism could get - even though they were _always_ taught that 
Communism was evil.  

Isolationism isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Personally, as long as the 
despots remain in their own borders, I'm in favor of leaving them alone.  
It's cold, I know, but the frequency with which the people you "rescue" turn 
around and attack their rescuers suggests it's just not worth the risk.
-- 
derek