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    Sean BrodyHamilton Nolan
    7/13/16 10:11am

    Thank god these communists can look to America as an example of social and political stability.

    Or Venezuela for a true socialist paradise.

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      martin06411Sean Brody
      7/13/16 10:25am

      There’s a word for that: sophistry. I’ve no particular feelings on Venezuela, but you can’t invalidate a concept by pointing out failed implementations of said concept. If we did we would still be stuck trying to argue for the validity of the stone axe. Venezuela’s economy was based on oil, and oil lost value as we moved to natural gas and electrics - it will likely never recover to previous valuations. Capitalism cannot function as it currently does in a world of ever increasing automation and technological unemployment, as the ultimate purpose of automation is to get results with no human labor. We’re creating this reality on purpose, so people need to get comfortable with the sociological and economic ramifications of such a system.

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      Sean Brodymartin06411
      7/13/16 10:33am

      There’s a word for that: sophistry. I’ve no particular feelings on Venezuela, but you can’t invalidate a concept by pointing out failed implementations of said concept. If we did we would still be stuck trying to argue for the validity of the stone axe. Venezuela’s economy was based on oil, and oil lost value as we moved to natural gas and electrics - it will likely never recover to previous valuations. Capitalism cannot function as it currently does in a world of ever increasing automation and technological unemployment, as the ultimate purpose of automation is to get results with no human labor. We’re creating this reality on purpose, so people need to get comfortable with the sociological and economic ramifications of such a system.

      Every country that relied on oil faced hardships when the price dropped. Venezuela was uniquely placed to collapse thanks to socialist policies.
      And bullshit like price controls - denying fundamental laws of economics - when the crisis did hit, which is the nub of why socialism fails, it does not grasp reality and how people live and behave.

      To deny that Chavez and his minions are complicit in the chaos of Venezuela and blame it all on commodity pricing is sophistry itself.

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    Hip Brooklyn StereotypeHamilton Nolan
    7/13/16 10:06am

    Time for the secret weapon...

    ...The world’s largest Cuban sandwich:

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      Slow MutantHip Brooklyn Stereotype
      7/13/16 11:55am

      My God that’s beautiful.

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      Skipping along to our shared destructionHip Brooklyn Stereotype
      7/13/16 12:31pm

      Which is, of course, made in Tampa.

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    PeteRRHamilton Nolan
    7/13/16 10:12am

    A command economy where everything is owned, designed, and run by communists will often net you social unrest. That’s where the suppressing the Kulaks and other class enemies comes in.

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      ARP2Hamilton Nolan
      7/13/16 10:19am

      FYI- despite what Fox News says, neither Bernie , Obama, nor Clinton has proposed an economic model where the government owns the primary means of production and only allows a few small businesses to exist.

      So comparisons to Cuba or Venezuela are about at apt as comparing the GOP desire to be the next Somalia.

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        MinorityBabbleHamilton Nolan
        7/13/16 11:38am

        Thank god these communists can look to America as an example of social and political stability.


        Do you mean levels of prosperity, health, security and peace that are practically unheard of in human history?

        By virtually every metric we are better off than we ever have been - this includes the worst off among us. Yes, people still live in poverty, people still suffer inhumane treatment, people still struggle to get ahead, but on the average we are all better off than previous generations, and they were better off than the generations before them.

        To be clear: I am not, for even a moment, suggestion the United States is a problem-free utopia that can’t be improved upon because it is already the best ever, but have some fucking context and stop trying to sell this idea that civilization has failed, and we live in some post-apocalyptic hellscape.

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          Flying Squid (I hate me more than you do.)Hamilton Nolan
          7/13/16 10:04am

          I was thinking just the other day that we are opening up travel with Cuba just in time for them to do like the Bahamas and issue warnings to any citizens traveling to the U.S.

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