Re: Asimov Site

[pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <39AC9B96.8B644F82@inetnebr.com>,
Roy and/or Janet Miller  <millers@inetnebr.com> wrote:
 
> Paul Schlyter wrote:
> 
>>>> I live in a country, Sweden, which currently has a Socialist
>>>> government.  Does that mean you think our governemnt could as well
>>>> have been a Fascist government?
>>>
>>> Mirror image. Check out the meaning of the terms Mirror Image, and
>>> Fascist.  Or do you need me to supply them to you?
>>
>> So you're claiming I'm living in a dictatorship, with little freedom
>> of speech?
>>
>> Or do you use the term "mirror image" as something completely opposite?  Well,
>> I could agree with that.....
> 
> No, not completely opposite. In a Fascist state, industry is privately
> owned, but State controlled. In a Socialist state, industry is stated
> owned and controlled.
 
In the early 1970'ies my wife was an excahnge student i the USA.
First she lived somewhere in the mid-west, where the family in where
she lived claimed that Sweden was a Communist country, where all
industry was state owned.  This is blatantly wrong of course, but
they refused to admit that until she showed them figures from their
own encyclopedia.....
 
Don't you think you'll have to be more careful in distinguishing
Socialist states from Communist states?
 
 
> In other words, no real difference. While it is true that there has
> (to my knowledge) never been a democratic Fascist state, it isn't
> impossible, just as it isn't impossible to have a democratic Socialist
> state.
 
...and the existence of several deomcratic Socialist states is proof
enough that the latter isn't impossible...
 
> This, BTW is what Mrs. Clinton had proposed in her health care plan
> some 6 years ago. Doctors, pharmaceutical companies and hospitals
> would all be privately owned, but they would have to do what the
> government told them to do, in setting policies and prices. Both are
> equally pernicious. Both rob people of power over their own lives.
 
It would also increase the health of people and reduce your infant
mortality, which currently is way above the infant mortality in
Europe.  Doesn't that matter at all to you?
 
> So does a monopolistic capitalism, which is why I favor the breakup
> of Microsoft, as I favored the breakup of AT&T.
 
And how would one make Microsoft break up voluntarily, without having
to involve the government?
 
> Smaller companies who have a real opportunity to compete are better
> for the general good. In this country most people are employed
> by small businesses, not major corporations.
 
Small businesses want to grow, and drive other competing businesses
out of the market though -- if they are able to do it, they will
do it.  Nothing in Capitalism can stop them from doing it.
 
>>>> Also, please remember that both of them were born as a
>>>> reaction against the Capitalism of the 1800's and earlier -- a
>>>> Capitalism which didn't have to "carry the burden" of democracy.
>>>
>>> In the United States, in the 1800s, we had both Capitalism and a democratic
>>> republic.
>>
>> That's when your forefathers abducted black people from Africa to
>> sell as slaves, right?  And they killed off native americans too......
>> is that your view of democracy?
> 
> My forefathers were Scotch-Irish, and Swiss and Norwegian peasants.
> My paternal great grandfather didn't even arrive in this country until
> the 1880s.
 
In English, "you" can be both singular and plural.  Here I didn't just
refer to your personal forefathers, but to all the forefathers of your
fellow country men.
 
> And 90% of the men who wore gray during the War of Northern
> Aggression never owned a single slave.
 
Why do you call it "Northern Agression"?  Do you think it was wrong
to fight slavery?
 
> I wonder how much of Sweden the Lapps once owned...?
 
Perhaps the northernmost 1/3 -- and about as much from Norway and
Finland too, plus a piece of northwesternmost Russia.  Like the
Native Americans, the Lapps didn't consider ownership and borders
as important as the pig-colored Europeans do -- including those who
emigrated to America (North and South!) and Australia.
 
>> Perhaps you view Nazi Germany as a good democratic example too?  They too
>> had racism -- and Hitler got to power by a democratic election, in 1933...
>> (don't take this last sentence too seriously -- it was intended to be
>> heavily ironic.  I'm not suggestiong you actually have nazi sympathies)
> 
> I hate the Nazi for three reasons: 1) They were the enemies of personal
> freedom; 2) They were racists (my son-in-law is of Zulu descent, and
> I'm proud to call him "son"); 3) They were anti-Christian pagans.
 
I don't care too much for 3) (there's been too much blood in the name
of Christianity as well, and I also strongly dislike an ideology which
claims that a minority will go to heaven while most will be sent to
eternal pains in hell), but I fully agree with 1) and 2) here.
 
>>> Even Great Britain was developing a democratic element to it's constitution.
>>
>> To have "democratic elements" and to "be a democracy" is not quite
>> the same thing.  Ancient Greece had some "democratic elements" and is
>> often considered the birthplace of democracy, but since that society
>> officially endorsed slavery, it cannot be considered a democracy in a
>> modern sense.
> 
> Now that is arrogant. Democracy is a greek word, and the concept was born
> in Athens. Great Britain didn't become a democratic state overnight (and
> I doubt that Sweden did either) but she kept progressing. Both of those
> countries had monarchies and aristocracies
 
HAD ???   We STILL have them ..... a remniscence of Feudalism.....
 
> and developed into full blown democracies. But Great Britain has been
> ruled by Parliament since the English Civil War, long before the time
> that you admit that Sweden gave up it's aggressor status.
 
Well, I never argued against that --- I was talking about the state
in the US.....
 
-- 
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Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
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