Should democracy get tough on communist party's in the west?

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Furthermore, we trade freedom for security all the time. It's actually kind of critical for safety and security.

The question would remain though: how much freedom are you willing to give up to be safe? Or how much safety are you willing to give up to be free?

In two extremes: you got the person enclosed in a bubble where nothing can hit them, or you have the one who is free to do as he wishes but he dies very young. In my opinion there is always a medium, because absolute freedom is anarchy, and there is never going to be a truly anarchic society in which there's no government and no laws. And absolute security you are talking about a police state, which is essentially what the Juntas were, and you can see how they turned out because there are none anymore in the American continent.

Laws are a method of controlling freedoms, so you are never really free, but the line is quite thin at where safety as well as freedom becomes a burden for the wielder of such freedoms or securities. Too much security can cripple you but too much freedom can kill you.

[Mike the Progressive]

Again. It would have to infringe upon their charter rights.

What the hell are these "charter rights"?

It's uh the charter rights, you know the charter rights, everybody knows the charter rights. They are rights that are on a charter that protect your rights on the charter.

[The Steel Magnolia]

What the hell are these "charter rights"?

It's uh the charter rights, you know the charter rights, everybody knows the charter rights. They are rights that are on a charter that protect your rights on the charter.

I cited the relevant section last page.

E: It's the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[The Steel Magnolia]

Furthermore, we trade freedom for security all the time. It's actually kind of critical for safety and security.

The question would remain though: how much freedom are you willing to give up to be safe? Or how much safety are you willing to give up to be free?

In two extremes: you got the person enclosed in a bubble where nothing can hit them, or you have the one who is free to do as he wishes but he dies very young. In my opinion there is always a medium, because absolute freedom is anarchy, and there is never going to be a truly anarchic society in which there's no government and no laws. And absolute security you are talking about a police state, which is essentially what the Juntas were, and you can see how they turned out because there are none anymore in the American continent.

Laws are a method of controlling freedoms, so you are never really free, but the line is quite thin at where safety as well as freedom becomes a burden for the wielder of such freedoms or securities. Too much security can cripple you but too much freedom can kill you.

Yes, and?

Nothing what you said is inaccurate, I just question what your point is.

[Death Metal]

Should democracy get tough on communist party's in the west is the question, and if so how tough?
I am interested to find out what the members of nation states feel about this. As if the communists ever took power i doubt we could use this site as we do presently. The outlawing of other political party's would i believe occur, swiftly followed by the repression of free speech and expression. Given that the attitude of the communists is my way or the highway( Road of bones- for those who don't understand my pun) should we tolerate them or should we crack down on them as Germany does for example on Nazi ideology.

I am torn between Keeping the status quo or outlawing the party.


EDIT: I went for the quo because i decided that thankfully communism is irrelevant in the modern world.

One: The plural of party is parties. And you don't ever use an apostrophe to pluralize, ever, else you incur the wrath of Bob the Angry Flower.

Two: Censorship is more immoral than any political ideology.

Three: We always tried this, with the HUAC and with McCarthay. All it did was create a witchhunt... which is why "The Crucible" was produced during the McCarthay years.

Four: They have no political power and likely never will.

Five: Why are you so against freedom of expression?

[Death Metal]

Furthermore, we trade freedom for security all the time. It's actually kind of critical for safety and security.

The question would remain though: how much freedom are you willing to give up to be safe? Or how much safety are you willing to give up to be free?

In two extremes: you got the person enclosed in a bubble where nothing can hit them, or you have the one who is free to do as he wishes but he dies very young. In my opinion there is always a medium, because absolute freedom is anarchy, and there is never going to be a truly anarchic society in which there's no government and no laws. And absolute security you are talking about a police state, which is essentially what the Juntas were, and you can see how they turned out because there are none anymore in the American continent.

Laws are a method of controlling freedoms, so you are never really free, but the line is quite thin at where safety as well as freedom becomes a burden for the wielder of such freedoms or securities. Too much security can cripple you but too much freedom can kill you.

Someone who acknowledges that freedom vs security as an absolutist argument is asinine and that the balanced path is the best?


AWESOME! We need more of us on NSG!

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Yes, and?

Nothing what you said is inaccurate, I just question what your point is.

Just trying to make you think a bit outside of the protectionist box

While I agree, some hate speech should be banned, then again, hate speech is quite subjective, as what we consider hate speech other people consider it slang (just look at the word "nigger", while we, people who are somewhat educated find it quite hateful speech, black kids use it nowadays as if it is nothing) so mostly, hate speech is rather subjective to what or who the audience is listening to is biased against.

Some cases are clear of censorship, but there are hate speech terms that just cross a general gray area where you can't discern whether to give them "hate-speech" category or merely derogatory slang which is common usage among lower classes, and while although educated, you can still fly with it in specific circles. Without counting the fact that to truly depict a culture, you can't make an underground phrase deserving of censorship because this is how many amazing works that gives us a picture of any given subculture at any given time have been lost to us for long periods of time.

[Individual]

So who're those 8 + 2 votes for banning the parties or executing their members?

I'm guessing Hippostania was one of the "kill the pinkos" voters, who else?

The other one was me. Nah, j/k. But I seriously think he would be more for imprisoning the members or just outlawing the formation of the party.

[Imperiatom]

None of which make the country unfree, I'm unaware of any major infringements on civil liberties recently, the police are prosecuted as they break laws though some reform is needed and when you're in public people can see you.

Or are police helicopters a new invention now?

He said violent actions by the police, and if it's done on a massive level, that does make a country unfree. I'm not sure if the US qualifies, but considering how LAPD treated Occupy LA after they were arrested, that treatment wasn't something that should occur in a free society: http://exiledonline.com/yasha-levine-re ... rotesters/

* I heard from two different sources that at least one busload of protesters (around 40 people) was forced to spend seven excruciating hours locked in tiny cages on a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. prison bus, denied food, water and access to bathroom facilities. Both men and women were forced to urinate in their seats. Meanwhile, the cops in charge of the bus took an extended Starbucks coffee break.

* The bus that I was shoved into didn’t move for at least an hour. The whole time we listened to the screams and crying from a young woman whom the cops locked into a tiny cage at the front of the bus. She was in agony, begging and pleading for one of the policemen to loosen her plastic handcuffs. A police officer sat a couple of feet away the entire time that she screamed–but wouldn’t lift a finger.

* Everyone on my bus felt her pain–literally felt it. That’s because the zip-tie handcuffs they use—like the ones you see on Iraq prisoners in Abu Ghraib—cut off your circulation and wedge deep through your skin, where they can do some serious nerve damage, if that’s the point. And it did seem to be the point. A couple of guys around me were writhing in agony in their hard plastic seats, hands handcuffed behind their back.

* The 100 protesters in my detainee group were kept handcuffed with their hands behind their backs for 7 hours, denied food and water and forced to sit/sleep on a concrete floor. Some were so tired they passed out face down on the cold and dirty concrete, hands tied behind their back. As a result of the tight cuffs, I wound up losing sensation in my left palm/thumb and still haven’t recovered it now, a day and a half after they finally took them off.

* One seriously injured protester, who had been shot with a shotgun beanbag round and had an oozing bloody welt the size of a grapefruit just above his elbow, was denied medical attention for five hours. Another young guy, who complained that he thought his arm had been broken, was not given medical attention for at least as long. Instead, he spent the entire pre-booking procedure handcuffed to a wall, completely spaced out and staring blankly into space like he was in shock.

* An Occupy LA demonstrator in his 50s who was in my cell block in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center told us all about when a police officer forced him to take a shit with his hands handcuffed behind his back, which made pulling down his pants and sitting down on the toilet extremely difficult and awkward. And he had to do this in sight of female police officers, all of which made him feel extremely ashamed, to say the least.

My uncle lives in the US and i visit every year. I may be a conservative but i am always appalled at the amount of police brutality that goes on that i read about or watch. Not just that but the number of people that are convicted with such irregularities in evidence that the crown prosecution service here in the UK would have the evidence thrown out of court by the judge. The west Memphis three being one such case among many others. For unlucky individuals they have an experience of an unfree America and that i thick borders on being an unfree state if that is a possibility that may befall any citizen.

[The Steel Magnolia]

Yes, and?

Nothing what you said is inaccurate, I just question what your point is.

Just trying to make you think a bit outside of the protectionist box

While I agree, some hate speech should be banned, then again, hate speech is quite subjective, as what we consider hate speech other people consider it slang (just look at the word "nigger", while we, people who are somewhat educated find it quite hateful speech, black kids use it nowadays as if it is nothing) so mostly, hate speech is rather subjective to what or who the audience is listening to is biased against.

Some cases are clear of censorship, but there are hate speech terms that just cross a general gray area where you can't discern whether to give them "hate-speech" category or merely derogatory slang which is common usage among lower classes, and while although educated, you can still fly with it in specific circles. Without counting the fact that to truly depict a culture, you can't make an underground phrase deserving of censorship because this is how many amazing works that gives us a picture of any given subculture at any given time have been lost to us for long periods of time.

Fair enough

[Imperiatom]

Should democracy get tough on communist party's in the west is the question, and if so how tough?
I am interested to find out what the members of nation states feel about this. As if the communists ever took power i doubt we could use this site as we do presently. The outlawing of other political party's would i believe occur, swiftly followed by the repression of free speech and expression. Given that the attitude of the communists is my way or the highway( Road of bones- for those who don't understand my pun) should we tolerate them or should we crack down on them as Germany does for example on Nazi ideology.

I am torn between Keeping the status quo or outlawing the party.


EDIT: I went for the quo because i decided that thankfully communism is irrelevant in the modern world.

One: The plural of party is parties. And you don't ever use an apostrophe to pluralize, ever, else you incur the wrath of Bob the Angry Flower.

Two: Censorship is more immoral than any political ideology.

Three: We always tried this, with the HUAC and with McCarthay. All it did was create a witchhunt... which is why "The Crucible" was produced during the McCarthay years.

Four: They have no political power and likely never will.

Five: Why are you so against freedom of expression?

Did i say i was against freedom of expression? What level is allowable freedom of expression in your eyes? I don't want people to express themselves by killing others but does that make me against freedom of expression or simply a realist?

[Lorkhan]

Your question asks should democracy get tough on communist party's in the west.

The answer to that question is insolvable. How can we say what democracy should do? But it is a democracy, and so we should decide what a democracy does. And since it is a democracy, and we are all in this together, a democracy would do what the democracy does - and that is what it should do.

[Death Metal]

One: The plural of party is parties. And you don't ever use an apostrophe to pluralize, ever, else you incur the wrath of Bob the Angry Flower.

Two: Censorship is more immoral than any political ideology.

Three: We always tried this, with the HUAC and with McCarthay. All it did was create a witchhunt... which is why "The Crucible" was produced during the McCarthay years.

Four: They have no political power and likely never will.

Five: Why are you so against freedom of expression?

Did i say i was against freedom of expression?

You said it when you said we should throw people in jail for being Communists. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean you have the right to persecute them.

[Imperiatom]

Did i say i was against freedom of expression?

You said it when you said we should throw people in jail for being Communists. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean you have the right to persecute them.

And i said that when?

[Dedamitsa]

What I would like to know is if some of these people who are against banning or censoring communism/communist parties support the banning of fascist/nazi symbols and parties

[Risottia]

Should democracy get tough on communist party's in the west is the question, and if so how tough?
I am interested to find out what the members of nation states feel about this. As if the communists ever took power i doubt we could use this site as we do presently. The outlawing of other political party's would i believe occur, swiftly followed by the repression of free speech and expression.

Have you actually ever tried to read a statute of a western Communist party?

Given that the attitude of the communists is my way or the highway...

No, evidently you haven't. You also failed to read the news in the last 20 years.

[Risottia]

So who're those 8 + 2 votes for banning the parties or executing their members?

I'm guessing Hippostania was one of the "kill the pinkos" voters, who else?

The other one was me. Nah, j/k. But I seriously think he would be more for imprisoning the members or just outlawing the formation of the party.

Cool! As oppressed political minority, now, I guess I get to blow up random people and shit and be called a freedom fighter.

I like it.

*tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick...*

[Imperiatom]

What I would like to know is if some of these people who are against banning or censoring communism/communist parties support the banning of fascist/nazi symbols and parties

Nazism yes, fascism no.

[Sideonia]

Nope, freedom of speech and assembly are basic tenets of liberty.

^This.

This^

[The Lone Alliance]

I for one think we should 'get tough' on Imperiatom. The fact now he's gone do "I didn't say that" to every response proves that his entire thread is empty of logic.

[Death Metal]

You said it when you said we should throw people in jail for being Communists. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean you have the right to persecute them.

And i said that when?

When you suggested the party should be outlawed (and thus imprisoning all people who identify with it).

I mean, seriously, if you move the goalposts any further they'll be out of the stadium.

[Death Metal]

What I would like to know is if some of these people who are against banning or censoring communism/communist parties support the banning of fascist/nazi symbols and parties

None of them should be censored or banned. It opens the floodgates to witchhunts and sets an unacceptable precedent.

[Yue-Laou]

Parties that don't accept and endorse a liberal democratic order should not be allowed to take part in the political process. And no, it's not 'anti-democratic'.

[The Sheika]

You know, if a party is outlawed, it ain't much of a democracy.

This says it all

[Death Metal]

Parties that don't accept and endorse a liberal democratic order should not be allowed to take part in the political process. And no, it's not 'anti-democratic'.

Banning a party for any reason is anti-democratic. Anyone who can drum up enough support to be on the ballot has the right to be on the ballot.