What is the proof of your hypocricy? In your last post you quoted and approved of the following sentiments of Trotsky:
“we have never and nowhere denied that our regime is one class of revolutionary dictatorship, and not a democracy, standing above class, relying upon itself for stability. We did not lie like the Georgian Mensheviks and their apologists. We are accustomed to call a spade a spade. When we take away political rights from the bourgeoisie and its political servants, we do not resort to democratic disguises, we act openly. We enforce the revolutionary right of the victorious proletariat. When we shoot our enemies we do not say it is the sound of the Aeolian harps of democracy. An honest revolutionary policy above all avoids throwing dust in the eyes of the masses.”
This sentiment is utterly incompatible with professing a genuine interest in civil liberties for all citizens. In your post to my thread on "Freedom of the press versus civil liberties" you posture as a protector of the civil liberties of Jihad Jack Thomas when you raise the legitimate question of whether he is a victim of double jeopardy. Your dishonesty in feigning an interest in the fundamental rights of the individual, versus the State, while supporting Trotsky's sentiments is breath taking.

Hello Logical,

Welcome back.

I explained to you that no-one can guarantee anything in the future. Yet you seem to be sure that social democracy will work, although it has, up until this point, despite ample opportunity, “failed” to guarantee a fairer distribution of wealth, and in fact reversed earlier gains of workers.

I also explained that, as I had been refuting your repeated uninformed errors, I hadn’t had enough space to elaborate. If you would care to hang around, I would be happy to explain the difficulties faced by the first workers’ state, some of the reasons for its defeat, and things that could be different in the future. But I’d guess you don’t have the patience for that and will run away again.

Further to your accusations of hypocrisy, I suggest you calm down, and take a look in the mirror.

As for my supposed “posturing” as a protector of civil liberties, I merely entered your thread to ask you, a professed “committed civil libertarian” your view on double jeopardy which is as you say, a legitimate question. I was interested in whether, as a “committed civil libertarian” you would find the overturning of a longstanding protection of an individual’s rights against a malignant State alarming.

As I suspected you would, you defended the actions of the State to overturn a protection of the individual against it.

Has it not gone unnoticed to you that a lot of civil liberties are flying out the window at present? New sedition laws, ant-terror laws which enable people to be locked up virtually at the behest of the government, “secret evidence”, control orders, mandatory detention (including of children), and deportations of Australian residents/citizens. Not to mention David Hick’s five year denial of habeas corpus and our government’s failure to secure his release, or a speedy trial.

All of this in a climate in which our government has launched an aggressive war in contravention of international law, based on lies, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 650,000 people.

…cont…

The erosion of our civil liberties is being done in the name of protecting our democratic way of life.

And yet you see nothing wrong with throwing out another civil liberty.

Breathtaking!

As for your accusation that I am in “feigning an interest in the fundamental rights of the individual, versus the State”, “dishonestly” no less, lets see if you can follow my position:

I “honestly” take an interest in the rights of the individual against the State because I recognise that concepts such as habeus corpus and double jeopardy are progressive steps taken by smarter and more experienced people than me to protect individuals from all powerful Monarchs, and States which actually exist to protect the interests of the few. Such democratic measures are a progressive aspect of bourgeois democracy.

The fact that bourgeois democracy is now systematically repudiating its own laws and protections is an indication that the economic basis upon which bourgeois democracy arose, and exists, is in serious crisis. It is no longer able to guarantee civil liberties, and must take measures to stifle and even eliminate dissent. Whether or not Jack Thomas, or David Hicks are guilty of what they are accused of is in some ways irrelevant (and of course they have not yet been proven guilty), centuries old principals of law are being violated. (For the record, I am horrified on both a personal and political level that they have been treated the way that they have).

As to my “interest” in civil liberties being incompatible with my support of Trotsky’s sentiments, I return you to the point on which you scarpered last time. There is a difference between violence used to oppress and violence used to break free from the oppressor.

Many bourgeois democracies only came into being through the violence of revolution. Revolutionaries, and the economic class for whom they are fighting, establish their dominance through violence, and then set about building their new order. In order to secure their conquests, they must eliminate the relics of the old.

… cont…

They would prefer to do it non-violently, but if it comes to a choice between violence and counter-revolution, to protect their gains they will use violence.

In fact the American Revolution was the birth of the greatest bourgeois democracy in the world. In the Declaration of Independence, the American founding fathers recognised the right of the people to overthrow their government if it becomes destructive:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

And this is the basis upon which the Russian Revolution, and other attempted socialist revolutions have taken place. The Russian Revolution did not occur in a vacuum, and the socialists formulated their views from the horrific conditions of workers and peasants in Europe. After the senseless slaughter, destruction and deprivation of WWI (the epitome of the destructive government which needs replacing), the workers of Europe themselves rose up, wishing to reorganise society on the principals they thought most likely to effect THEIR safety and happiness.

But the capitalist “democrats” wouldn’t let them, and used various “undemocratic” means, including violence, in their counter-revolutionary efforts. This is the basis on which Trotsky wrote his words to the Social Democrats who “democratically” voted for the violent slaughter of millions in WWI despite being elected to parliament on a platform of no war, and who financially and militarily aided counter-revolutionary remnants of the decayed and despotic Tsarist order which slaughtered workers and peasants:

…cont…

“we have never and nowhere denied that our regime is one class of revolutionary dictatorship, and not a democracy, standing above class, relying upon itself for stability. We did not lie like the Georgian Mensheviks and their apologists. We are accustomed to call a spade a spade. When we take away political rights from the bourgeoisie and its political servants, we do not resort to democratic disguises, we act openly. We enforce the revolutionary right of the victorious proletariat. When we shoot our enemies we do not say it is the sound of the Aeolian harps of democracy. An honest revolutionary policy above all avoids throwing dust in the eyes of the masses.”

Trotsky did not deny the necessity for violence, and he didn’t make excuses for it, nor did the Bolsheviks hide behind the cloak of “democracy”.

And before you interject with your protestations that this was a sure path to Stalin, remember that the capitalist “democrats’”, through their constant ‘violent’ attacks and economic blockades, violent suppression of revolutions in neighbouring countries, all in the service of the very same violent oppressors which plunged Europe into war, isolated and further impoverished the already devastated Russia, ultimately creating the conditions for the usurpation of power by Stalin. (See my earlier post to Col (the repeated one) about the British MI6 Agent, and read his reports). Trotsky fought against Stalin and paid with his life.

I suggest Logical, before wading in with your unfounded and uneducated assumptions about revolutions, with your abstract concepts of non-violence, civil liberties, and democracy which you are happy to dispense with at the suggestion of the State, and your supercilious moralising, you study some history. A starting point would be that of your political orientation, and of its role in the making of war, and in revolutions.

And if you should happen to pipe up again, with your flying swipe at me, have the guts to stick around and “reasonably” argue out the points you make.

Tao, yes Trotsky did fight against Stalin and the one good thing which Stalin did do was to disempower Trotsky (maybe having him murdered was going a bit far but as we all know, Stalin had a flair for that sort of thing, give or take 50 million people, but as he said, “one death is a tragedy, a million a statistic”).

Trotsky’s notions of eternal revolution were as mad as Mao’s “cultural revolution” agenda and likely as manic, egocentric and obsessive.

Basically you are not responding to questions asked, all you do is get up on your high horse and scream communist jibberish at us as if you think we read it all and be instantly converted.

I suggest try challenging my “alchemy” analogy!

I return to my basic percept of what actually happens when a socialist / communist government gains power

1 murder the educated, the land and property owners and all other “running dogs of capitalism”, (as in USSR, China, Cambodia, Cuba, Eastern Europe etc) and forcibly re-educate and censor the ideas of the rest.

Compare that to what happens when political parties change in Capitalist countries – well nothing, business as usual on day two, tickle the national agenda to fall in line with the party manifesto but very few people murdered of sent to be re-educated (soft-speak for concentration camp)

2 reduce the living standards of those who are left, to fund a disproportionate amount of resource spent on recruiting secret police to route out dissenters.

So, do the supposed benefit of Marxism warrant the millions murdered, interned, exiled and dehumanized?

Since I would certainly be one of the exiled (if not murdered) I would suggest no, the supposed benefits of Marxism do not warrant the risk of being dead.

And don’t suppose your position would be that rosey either if we were ever to go down a communist path, the first people who Stalin bumped off were the central committee and anyone who could even remotely challenge him.

Just remember, it is not only the workers but the bourgeoisie who have rights too.