The Essence of the Left

Snorrius said:

It depends on your metrics. If you use "equality" as "goal and end in itself" -- than, sure, Beligian rule was bad, and current leftist paradise is much more close to this goal. Modern Congo much better reflects the essence of the left, no doubts.

On the other side, if you base you opinion on efficiency of the government in delivering public services, providing security etc than it is quite clear that Belgian colonial administration was better than both periods before and after when Congo was and is "free".

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They also delivered death to their doorsteps, but hey. Public services!

Snorrius said:

It depends on your metrics. If you consider "equality" as "goal and end in itself" -- than, sure, Beligian rule was bad, and current leftist paradise is much more close to this goal. Modern Congo much better reflects the essence of the left, no doubts.

On the other side, if you base you opinion on efficiency of the government in delivering public services, providing security etc than it is quite clear that Belgian colonial administration was better than both periods before and after when Congo was and is "free".

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Are you saying the Congo is a paragon of equality? Are you really this dense?

Well, he said it is your paradise, not his. Then again..

Ajidica said:

When does something become 'exploitive', especially with regards to the labor force?
When I did janitorial work over the summer was I being exploited?

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Yes. The very process of extracting surplus value off of labor is exploitative.

Tolni said:

Well, he said it is your paradise, not his. Then again..

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He said it was my paradise because he claims it is a fairly equal and free society. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Tolni said:

They also delivered death to their doorsteps, but hey. Public services!

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You sure you do not confuse Belgian colonial rule with Leopold's CFS? Leopold's rule was ruthless indeed, so Belgium was pressed to take responsibility and make CFS a proper colony to follow other civilized nations.

Then, the whole decolonisation business happened, and Belgium's stabilising influence was gone. Sad.

Yes. The very process of extracting surplus value off of labor is exploitative.

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So what should I have done?
I other options I had for summer work didn't pay as well and required a greater time commitment. The employer may have profited off my work, but I also profited from the exchange, earning around $3000 without having to pay for housing, gas, or utilities. Hard to feel like I'm getting exploited when I got a good deal out of the whole affair?

Do exploitive working conditions exist? Of course, I'm not that thick. I believe that those situations need to be addressed but coloring all occupations with the same brush as being exploitive is a bit odd.


EDIT: On the subject of the Congo as a Belgian colony, let's not pretend the Belgians were some sort of saints, interested in the welfare of the Congolese. Belgian authorities repeatedly repressed political movements and engaged in a systemic effort to prevent Congo residents from achieving higher education and developing their 'human capital'. I don't have the numbers handy, but IIRC when Belgium pulled out of the Congo, there were less than 50 native Congo residents with higher education. Experience and education needed for, you know, running a country/economy were more or less non-existent in the Congo -as well as much of the rest of Africa.

Linkman226 said:

Are you saying the Congo is a paragon of equality? Are you really this dense?

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True leftist paradise is achieved only when everyone is dead because we are truly equal only in death as Lucius Annaeus Seneca said. But it is you who says that independent Congo is better than colonial one, so -- following your own logic -- with all modern Congo's failures it is still closer to the equality ideal than colonial one.

Ajidica said:

So what should I have done?
I other options I had for summer work didn't pay as well and required a greater time commitment. The employer may have profited off my work, but I also profited from the exchange, earning around $3000 without having to pay for housing, gas, or utilities. Hard to feel like I'm getting exploited when I got a good deal out of the whole affair?

Do exploitive working conditions exist? Of course, I'm not that thick. I believe that those situations need to be addressed but coloring all occupations with the same brush as being exploitive is a bit odd.

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Oh you had no other option. Precisely my point. In a capitalist state, the capitalists have monopolized the means of production. You have no choice but to work for them, hence the term "wage slavery."

Can I counter by asking you how you define exploitative labor then?

Snorrius said:

True leftist paradise is achieved only when everyone is dead because we are truly equal only in death as Lucius Annaeus Seneca said. But it is you who says that independent Congo is better than colonial one, so -- following your own logic -- with all modern Congo's failures it is still closer to the equality ideal than colonial one.

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Oh good grief are you kidding me? Do I really need need to insert Lenin into the discussion again? Please read this by Lenin.

No one ever said that independent Congo is better than the colonial one, only that colonialism is bad. Nearly every failure of modern Congo can be traced back to the failures of colonization, and, subsequently, decolonization.

Let us imagine there is a person in an abusive relationship. The person is physically and sexually abused by the partner, but they get their food, clothing, etc. because the partner pays for it. Financially, they are stable, but emotionally and physically, they are abused. Now, the long arms of the law manages to get this person out of the relationship and puts the abusive partner in jail- but not before the abuser manages to hack a limb off of the victim. Suddenly, we find this victim to be destitute. Suffering from PTSD and without the skills to survive in the real world, being both physically and emotionally handicapped, and despite the aid they receive from social workers and the government, they find it exceedingly difficult to survive, much less prosper or thrive. They turn to prostitution and substance abuse. To add insult to injury, a certain internet troll by the name of $n0rrius (not to be confused with St. Snorrius, patron saint of sane internet discussions), tells them their failures are their own damn fault

Would we, then, say that the person would be better off going back to the abusive partner? Certainly not.

Linkman226 said:

Oh good grief are you kidding me? Do I really need need to insert Lenin into the discussion again? Please read this by Lenin.

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You certainly brave to make a reference to a men who, metaphorically saying, raped and, literally, destroyed one of the most excellent empires of that age. I know good enough what Lenin's "equality" cost to Russia. Thanks, you are dismissed, comrade.

As for your "abusive partners" analogy than again, the Left consider the very existence of two different genders to be an insult to Holy Equality, I am not going seriously discuss this ridiculousness. You only said that a law, probably installed by feminists or other insane Leftists, destroyed a marriage, drove one of partners insane to harm other and failed to provide survivor any real help -- TYPICAL result of Leftist policies.

Snorrius said:

You certainly brave to make a reference to a men who, metaphorically saying, raped and, literally, destroyed one of the most excellent empires of that age. I know good enough what Lenin's "equality" cost to Russia. Thanks, you are dismissed, comrade.

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You think Tsarist Russia was a model of good governance?

I'm not a Marxist-Leninist, as I've indicated earlier, but the essay is good. I don't like Lenin either, but that doesn't mean everything the man said was wrong. Read it, and stop committing logical fallacies.

Snorrius said:

As for your "abusive partners" analogy than again, the Left consider existence of two different genders to be an insult to Holy Equality, I am not going seriously discuss this ridiculousness. You only said that a law, probably installed by feminists or other insane Leftist, destroyed a marriage, drove one of partners to harm other and failed to provide survivor any real help -- TYPICAL result of Leftist policies.

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Wait, so you don't think the government should arrest abusive spouses? Also, did you miss the part where I said the government tried to help? I even left this intentionally vague so I didn't have to deal with this kind of BS response, but there's St. Snorrius for you.

Linkman226 said:

You think Tsarist Russia was a model of good governance?

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Much better than Leftist failures which wrecked the world because of their never-ending quest to reach the Equality Graal.

Linkman226 said:

I'm not a Marxist-Leninist, as I've indicated earlier, but the essay is good. I don't like Lenin either, but that doesn't mean everything the man said was wrong. Read it, and stop committing logical fallacies.

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Sorry, no. As a Russian I am not going to read Lenin just like any Jew will have a right to refuse to read Hitler's magnum opus even if it could be quite interesting a piece of prose for someone. You will need to find another authority, try some other Marxist who were not involved in mass-murdering of my kin and destroying my country.

Linkman226 said:

Wait, so you don't think the government shouldn't arrest abusive spouses? Also, did you miss the part where I said the government tried to help? I even left this intentionally vague so I didn't have to deal with this kind of BS response, but there's St. Snorrius for you.

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I will say you only this: the idea to equalize relations between very different types of entities like persons and states/colonies is Left by itself. Only Leftist can be delusional enough to equalize relations of such different entity types and consider it to be proper analogy/argument. I am not going to step into this poisonous water.

Snorrius said:

Much better than Leftist failures which wrecked the world because of their never-ending quest to reach the Equality Graal.

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Oh good, dodging the question. Just what any rational discourse needs. I'll ask again:

"You think Tsarist Russia was a model of good governance?"

Snorrius said:

Sorry, no. As a Russian I am going to read Lenin just like any Jew will have a right to refuse to read Hitler's magnum opus even if it could be quite interesting a piece of prose for someone. You will need to find another authority, try some other Marxist who were not involved in mass-murdering of my kin and destroying my country.

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Yea, and I could refuse to read any of your backwater barbarian prose on the grounds that my ancestors were the victims of imperialism. I'm not doing that, though, because I'm an adult.

By the way, Lenin murdered my kin too, seeing as I'm a human. Don't be evasive because you can't argue a point.

Snorrius said:

I will say you only this: the idea to equalize relations between very different types of entities like persons and states/colonies is Left by itself. Only Leftist can be delusional enough to equalize relations of such different entity types and consider it to be proper analogy/argument. I am not going to step into this poisonous water.

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What has any of that got to do with my question? Answer the damn question. Perhaps my accidental double negative confused you. Here it is again, reworded for clarity:

"Wait, so you think the government shouldn't arrest abusive spouses?"

Linkman226 said:

Oh good, dodging the question. Just what any rational discourse needs. I'll ask again:

"You think Tsarist Russia was a model of good governance?"

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Imperial Russia was highclass European state with excellent elites the level of which was and is unreachable for those who have inherited the country.

Linkman226 said:

Yea, and I could refuse to read any of your backwater barbarian prose on the grounds that my ancestors were the victims of imperialism. (1)
I'm not doing that, though, because I'm an adult. (2)

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I do not grasp connection between (1) and (2). If you want to stop reading my post you are free to go, no problem.

Linkman226 said:

By the way, Lenin murdered my kin too, seeing as I'm a human. Don't be evasive because you can't argue a point.

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Oh, Leftiness again. "We all humans", then "we all animals", then "we all lumps of atoms"... You are so archetypically Left, it is just unbelievable.

What has any of that got to do with my question? Answer the damn question. Perhaps my accidental double negative confused you. Here it is again, reworded for clarity:
"Wait, so you think the government shouldn't arrest abusive spouses?"

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Seems like you have posted in wrong thread. How this for heavens sake is connected to the topic of this thread or to colonial rule in Belgian Congo? If you want to discuss abusive spouses or other issues of personal relationships, then please, start your own thread.

Snorrius said:

How this for heavens sake is connected to the topic of this thread or to colonial rule in Belgian Congo? If you want to discuss abusive spouses or other issues of personal relationships, then please, start your own thread.

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It's an allegory for colonization and decolonization. You are supposed to come to the understanding that current problems in Congo are more attributable to past exploitation that no government could have recovered from by now, than to any particular flaws of their current government.

Snorrius said:

Sorry, no. As a Russian I am going to read Lenin just like any Jew will have a right to refuse to read Hitler's magnum opus even if it could be quite interesting a piece of prose for someone. You will need to find another authority, try some other Marxist who were not involved in mass-murdering of my kin and destroying my country.

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You have meant to say not going to read Lenin, right?

You must be fairly young then. You would have to read him if you were in university back as recently as late 80s, for example. Regardless of your specialty (by the way, which field did you study, if I may ask?). But cursed West helped to degrade the rule of Communist Party and abolish mandatory Scientific Communism classes in higher education.

Russian Empire apologists like to point out how well Russia was doing in 1913, when unfortunate events and Judeo-Masonic conspiracy, plunged the prosperous empire into fratricidal revolution and civil war. Do you feel the same? Or you rather feel that Empire needed someone like Stalin, in order to be able to crush Nazis and be the first in Space?

Tigranes said:

Russian Empire apologists like to point out how well Russia was doing in 1913, when unfortunate events and Judeo-Masonic conspiracy, plunged the prosperous empire into fratricidal revolution and civil war. Do you feel the same? Or you rather feel that Empire needed someone like Stalin, in order to be able to crush Nazis and be the first in Space?

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I am not apologist. But luiz indirectly asked me what Russian period of history I swear my fondness to, and I answered that if I have to, this will be Imperial Russia. The reason is that it was the highest point of Russia, and if we need to get inspiration from the past it is natural to get inspiration from the best period, not from Soviet period which was not the highest point of Russia.

Do you feel the same?

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I think a bit simpler. Russian Empire have fallen in brutal war just like Austro-Hungary.

Tigranes said:

Regardless of your specialty (by the way, which field did you study, if I may ask?). But cursed West helped to degrade the rule of Communist Party and abolish mandatory Scientific Communism classes in higher education.

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Sometimes evil West does something good it seems.

Somehow i doubt imperial Russia was a high point for the average Russian living in it.