DavidJS ” in fact they were essentially libertarian and created by hard working upright people who were good enough to put slaves and children to work. I'll try not to be so ungrateful in future.”

I see far more tyrannies, torturers and murderers eminating from the systems of government endorsed by the left of politics than the right.

For instance, national “socialism” in Germany and the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”. The leaderships of which was collectively responsible for the death of around 50 million of their own people.

Some might question the American position in Afghanistan. However if they do that they should not ignore the Russian position for the 20 years preceding the US arrival.

I see Passy (read Passe) declares his opposition to everything which has ever happened (typical socialist excuse).

This seemingly entitles Passe, to claim the moral high-ground, indifferent to things actually done by “socialists”.

In the early 1980s, Michael Foot was elevated to leader of the British Labour Party.

He was amazing, he and his offsider the eternal apologist and social misfit, 2nd Viscount Stansgate, later “Anthony WedgeWood-Benn then reduced to just “Tony Benn” ,

(he could have gone further and become known as “TB”, as in the disease).

As opposition leader, Foot was made to account for himself and failed at every opportunity. He was typically a “Passe” socialist, full of grandiose schemes for telling everybody how they would be allowed to exist under his draconian socialist manifestos of the time.

However, he was never able to sell the “stupid idealism” which is indivisible from every perennial socialist theorocrat.

DavidJS the British Industrial Revolution. Many major elements of social reform predated, by decades both the British Labour party and the deranged scribblings of Karl Marx.

So DavidJS and Passe, you suffer a dearth of ideas to bring to the debate.

I understand, individual innovation being discouraged by the socialist system incase someone might ends up with more than someone else.

You fallback to cynicism, sarcasm and hubris. That is all you have to challenge libertarian democracy.

Rhian, I agree

Marx was no more deranged than is George Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice. He took a seriously bad social situation in the UK around 1840, analysed it logically and then within the paradigm of the logic that nothing could be changed without violence, so well entrenched was the upper class, argued that revolution would be the only answer. The conclusion was shown to be wrong by the formation of the Fabian Society, the Trade Union movement and the Labour Party, all of whom seem to be hated as much by marxists as by fascists, as they brought in evolution and not revolution to achieve the necessary changes in working conditions of the time.

And Hitler was by no means a socialist. If I stick a Ferrari badge on my Ford Falcon, does it a Ferrari make? That's what Hitler did; he lucked onto an insignificant National Workers' Socialist Party and rebadged it to fit his image of the world.

HenryVIII ”Marx was no more deranged than is George Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice.”

Lets consider that comment and firstly observe, GWB and DC were both appointed by a democratic process and CR was appointed after being subject to review by a democratically elected US assembly.

Marx was never elected to anything.

“He took a seriously bad social situation in the UK around 1840, analysed it logically and then within the paradigm of the logic that nothing could be changed without violence”

But it never happened, for all his insightful analysis, he misread the situation and died, without ever seeing any of his ideas implemented.

“so well entrenched was the upper class, argued that revolution would be the only answer. The conclusion was shown to be wrong by the formation of the Fabian Society, the Trade Union movement and the Labour Party . . . . as they brought in evolution and not revolution to achieve the necessary changes in working conditions of the time.”

And it was Asquith’s government and David Lloyd George “Peoples Budget” (1910) which broke the authority of the House of Lords. I do recall reading of the plan to simply appoint enough peers of the appropriate political persuasion to outnumber the “hereditaries”, who could block commons legislation.

Oh and were they part of the labour party? Of course not, they were “Liberals”.

Keir Hardie might have got elected in 1901 but it was not until 1924 that labour came to power (then only as a minority government), 14 years after the Liberals overthrew the authority of the House of Lords to block commons legislation.

Darn it Henry, you might use the name of an English Monarch but you have a really poor understanding of British political, social and legal history. And I might add, your decidedly wobbly defense of “socialism” does no good whatsoever.

What Hitler did was no different to what Stalin did and displays the vulnerability and actual susceptibility of “socialist” political organisations to the entryist activities and the takeover by thugs, despot and mass murderers.

“Socialism” is a fatally flawed philosophy.

Actually Marx was elected. The International Working Man's Association comes to mind.

And the Paris Commune showed a glimpse of what the future could look like, while he was still alive.

Marx believed in revolution, but not a clique acting on behalf of workers. He believed in workers' revolution from below. For him revolution was the emancipation of the working class - the act of the working class, the majority in society.

Marx did not worship bloody destruction but recognised the defeated minority, the ruling class and its hangers on, would respond with blood.

The reformists did not replace the revolutionaries on the road to socialism. They chose a different road, the road of capitulating to capitalism and continuing wage slavery.

Rhian says:

"By taking the position that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” extreme anti-americanism and anti-imperialism can lead to supporting and celebrating the “successes” of some pretty vile regimes."

Anti-imperialism is not that you support the enemy of your enemy. I have no illusions in those resisting the US occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan. But even on moral grounds I would have thought you might question what the US occupation has caused. A study in Lancet said 650,000 civilians had died in Iraq as a consequence of the US invasion. A more conservative estimate puts the figure at 150,000. That looks pretty horrific to me.

The defeat of imperialist powers has actually benefited the world. The Afghanis (including Afghan war hero Bin Laden, supplied and funded by Pakistan and the US) drove the Russians out. That was a victory for the majority of people in the world. It was one of the factors that led to the collapse of the stalinist regimes.

And even today the US ruling elite is constrained by its defeat in Vietnam.

As well its invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was an attempt to warn China and Europe that it was the dominant power and would use force to remain so. The lesson China might draw from this (and remember it is possible China could overtake the US as the world's dominant economic power in twenty years) is that the US can't even impose its will on two fairly undeveloped countries.

I believe it is up to the people of each country country to overthrow their dictators - whether that be Saddam or Mugabe or Kim Il Sung or Karzai or Malarki. You cannot impose democracy from the outside, and in any event imperialism is not interested in democracy.

Wasn't Hitler elected? Oh but that's right - Col claims Hitler was a socialist. I've heard he was Greenie too.

Please note that the above comment is not subject to Godwin's Law, since I wasn't the first to invoke Hitler.