Paul1405 wrote: “Ms Ward, always controversial, a Marxists yes, but does that in itself exclude her from contributing to society in a positive way, I don't think so.”

Dear Paul1405,

One could also write: XX, always controversial, a Nazi yes, but does that in itself exclude her from contributing to society in a positive way, I don't think so.”

A Nazi or a Marxist may be a decent individual and contribute to society positively, but one can still look with suspicion on them. We probably differ in that I regard Marxism in roughly the same light that I regard Nazism, and you possibly don’t.

The Marxist program is described in the Communist Manifesto. Like Nazism it favours the destruction of the society that I hold dear. One of the values of the society that I hold dear is the right of free expression. Look at what the Communist Manifesto says about free expression in the ten point program.

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

All means of communication are either in the hands of the state or monitored by the state. Chinese government censorship is carrying out what the Manifesto suggested. Marxists tend to excuse the masses of corpses produced by the Marxist states as a perversion of Marxism. The corpses were no accident. They were the result of following the recommendations promulgated in the Manifesto.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12693 points you to “Why so many corpses”, an essay I wrote which relates the massive piles of corpses produced by Marxist regimes to the recommendations in the Manifesto.

You characterised onthebeach as hard right. To me the issue is not whether you are right or left, it is whether you are for a free society or a totalitarian society. Marxism on the left and Nazism on the right both produced totalitarian societies.

I have to agree with david f here,
"To me the issue is not whether you are right or left, it is whether you are for a free society or a totalitarian society. Marxism on the left and Nazism on the right both produced totalitarian societies.Posted by david f,"
Islam is equally totalitarian in its political world view.

Josephus wrote: Islam is equally totalitarian in its political world view.

Islam does not have one worldview. It has many. It is as unfair to characterise Islam as totalitarian because of some of its manifestations as it would be to characterise Christianity as totalitarian because the Christian Inquisition was totalitarian.

From http://www.acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-3-number-5/islam-and-freedom

“For Christians who believe that their religion mandates a free society, there is a commonality between their understanding of Christianity and Qur’anic Islam that is of fundamental importance: the value of human liberty under a rule of law. This idea is unmistakable in the fundamental teachings of Islam. Further, there is circumstantial evidence that contact with Islam in the Middle Ages triggered the awareness among Western Christians of these inherent factors in their religion. This idea has been touched on in, for example, Rose Wilder Lane’s chapter on Islam in The Discovery of Freedom1 and my book, Signs in the Heavens.2 The practical subordination of the “divine right of kings” to a higher law in the West is commonly dated to the Magna Carta. Were not the nobles, persecuted by King John, impressed by what King Richard’s troops in the Holy Land saw in the example of Salahuddin (Saladin) who, following Islamic principles, subjected himself to the Islamic law?”

Josephus, please read the information in the above site. I think you are merely writing from prejudice.

In my opinion as an atheist I think Islam has a purer concept of deity than Christianity since it neither worships a humanoid god nor divides God into three parts as Christians do.

Hi David F.,

Islam prescribes what is basically totalitarianism NOW, today, in 2016. I don't think many Christians, especially those who suffered under it, would stick up for the Inquisition today.

Christianity has undergone, probably in all its myriad variations, many transformations since, say, 1520. The Inquisition of one branch of it has never commanded any allegiance among the many other varieties. Salah-ud-Din, a Kurd from Tikrit, is hardly a paragon of free thought, if what you describe is true. The vast majority of Christian denominations today, no matter how backward they may seem to atheists such as you and me, zaffre streets ahead, unless you hold totalitarianism to be some sort of virtue.

Try to keep up with reality as it is in 2016.

Joe

hatred has certainly warped your views David f.

Dear davidf,

Some musings if I may.

While I certainly wouldn't want to see all media and communication in the hands of the government I'm not sure we are being served by capitalism in this regard either. The media in Australia is now highly concentrated into the hands of a few particularly one Mr Murdoch.

Indeed this completely echos Marx's predictions of the accumulation of capital.

I was watching the Channel 9 news the other day regarding the Nice killings. Their 'terrorism expert' was asked the reason behind the attack and his reply was along the lines of 'They despise our freedoms and want to take them away'. On Channel 2 there a far more expansive reply discussing the situation intelligently and openly.

I would fear for our country without a strong government broadcaster.

You wrote;

“To me the issue is not whether you are right or left, it is whether you are for a free society or a totalitarian society. Marxism on the left and Nazism on the right both produced totalitarian societies.”

Whenever I hear about America being free (I note you personally did not specify a country) I really do struggle with the fact that it has the highest percentage of its citizens behind bars compared to any other country in the world. This is most certainly a product of the system.

My question is whether you consider as I do that incarceration rates as a significant measure of a system. Though simplistic the notion that a more equal distribution of resources may well lead to less crime and therefore less incarceration is not without substance. If someone like onthebeach proposes policies that would increase incarceration rates why would that not be considered totalitarian?