It's a good thing the question was not "where would you like to live in the 1940s?" then isn't it. If you think you're speaking to someone who is apologizing for Stalin then you are sadly mistaken. But again, I'm not going to spell out a condemnation of the man just because you've decided to attribute to me the property of admiring him or anything he did.
I didn't ask for your condemnation nor am I referring to the USSR of the 40's. My point is that while the USSR was certainly better than that of the 40's, that does not chage the fact it was a miserable, repressive place to be. The USSR of the 40's just happens to be the closest mankind ever got to an Orwellian nightmare where people were sent to their deaths because of private letters. Being better than that is not something to be proud of.
It's not a monstrosity, it's an inconvenience. Do I like it? No, but I think it would be worth the price. Once again, I didn't say it was a great place to live, I said it was better than 1972 USA.
An inconveniece for a slave, maybe. For a free man it is a monstrosity. That alone makes it far worse than the US or any free country.
I don't think you think that.
You think I give a crap about buying literally anything I want or being told what I can't publish when there are bigger things on the line? Because I don't.
So it's now established you don't give a crap about freedom.
I'd rather get medical care when I need it than be able to pick up a dissenter's book at the store.
The US has fine medical care and the average american had far better medical treatment available than the average soviet in the 70's.
I'd rather eat potatoes every day (like I do now, because it fits my pathetic budget) than buy a Beatles record, and I'd rather go without the luxuries than without the concrete requirements of life.
[bÑobody[/b] is without "potatoes" in the US, not the saddest street bum. Nobody is starving. The same can't be said of the USSR, which even in the 70's depended of other countrie's good will (such as the US) to feed its own people.
The average american of the 70's or of any decade had a far better
material existence than the average soviet. He ate more and better, had more and better goods and living space, had more and better medical care. This not to mention far better abstract conditions; being able to say what you want, write what you want and read what you may be a triviality to you, but it's something worth fighting for to free men. No wonder so many fought and died trying to bring down or just escape soviet tyranny.
These are things which capitalist society considers to be negotiable freedoms; they are not. Liberal freedoms are negotiable (and sure are nice!), the requirements of life are not. Given a choice between the two, any sane person would choose the necessary over the nice.
And who said such choice exists? How is forbidding people from listening to the Beatles going to guarantee better food and medical care?
Of all apologist nonsense I've read over the years, this is the most bizarre. The USSR did not practice brutal censorship to give people a better material life, it did so because it was a brutal dictatorship that feared letting its people know the truth. There is no "Beatles or Butter" dilemma, people in the free world get both.
You see, I don't like being told that because I'm poor, I don't have a right to health care when I need it,
You have the right to all health care in the world that you can pay. No doctor is forced to treat you for free, though. Buy insurance or get a job that offers it, no one is stopping you and most americans are in fact insured one way or another.
or that my condition by birth is my fault,
It certainly isn't, and nobody says it is, certainly not the US government. What you do with your life is your fault, or your merit, though.
or that my employer doesn't need to provide safety fittings on machinery so that I don't die
Without having access to any facts at hand, I'm willing to bet big bucks that industrial accidents were
far more frequent and deadly in the USSR than the USA at any given period. Take it?
, or that he can fire me because he doesn't like the way that I look
It's his business. Anyway, it's better to be fired because of your looks than be jailed because of your opinions. You can always get another job. And how often does that even happen outside of very specific lines of business anyway? It's not a rational decision for most business and most bosses won't fire a competent ugly dude. Most CEOs are ugly.
, or that I can be turned out of my house or apartment because I can't afford the stifling high rent.
So someone should pay for your rent instead?
Anyway, I'd rather be kicked out of my apartment for failing to meet contractual obligations than get kicked out (and possibly jailed) for saying something against the party line. So we're at something like 1972 USA 9 x 0 1972 USSR by now.
I don't like being told that I hate my country and am a traitor because I dare to stand up for the human dignity of allowing someone to marry whom they wish.
Really? The US government qualifies people as traitors because of that? News to me (and to the US government).
And it's already been mentioned that the USSR outlawed homosexuality straight up.
I don't like the idea that my children will probably also be poor and so will their children, unless by some gift of God one of them turns out to be an ultra-genius and wins a scholarship to a good school, because I will never be able to save enough money to go to school or send one of them there.
Ridiculous, many immigrants go to the US as dish washers and manage to raise their kids as middle class, I've personally met quite a few of them (many are asians). Your personal failings are your own, you had better opportunities than over 90% of mankind. And the game isn't over for you either; maybe you should spend less time being an armchair revolutionary and more trying to improve your standing. You're educated and smart and there's no reason you can't have a very good life in the US or in any other advanced country you choose. You probably will have a very good life once you get past your predjudices.
I don't like living in a society that says "every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost." I don't like living in a society that is progressing towards nothing but the enrichment of the top 1% of its members. Crazy me. All of those things are true of the USA in 1972, and most of them are still true today.
You can be as charitable as you want in the USA, you can dedicate your whole life to helping others, several people do.
Basically, the US won't tell you how to live your life (you can even start your own commune!), but the USSR would royally screw you unless you walk the party line. And even if you did, boredom and mediocrity await. That's the crux of the matter and why there is no contest.
