Cuomo's Brownshirts put squeeze on AIG

[Dr Adequate]

As in specific quotes? That would require me to do a bit of hunting, it's been awhile since I picked up the Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital.

Well you did say that you knew exactly what Marx meant by it.

Please explain your statement then as I was, apparently, confused by the comparison.

Well, try it this way.

(1) Mohammed = Marx
(2) Islam = Communism
(3) Radical Islamicism = Stalinism
(4) 9/11 Bombers = Stalin's Terror
(5) The Muslim Paradise = Withering Away Of The State

My point is that it's premature to criticize point (1) or (2) on the grounds that we disapprove of point (5), especially since neither of us believe that point (1) or (2) will lead to point (5).

If you really believed that Islam would lead to the Muslim paradise, or if you really believed that communist dictatorship would lead to the "withering away of the state", then you could rationally oppose them on the grounds that you believe that these final ends suck. But you don't, so you can't, except as a hypothetical argument directed against someone who does; but I don't, so you can't.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Further to my point, I think you're using the fallacy of ambiguity.

As I, or the man in the street, would understand "Communism" as an economic doctrine, it would be the proposition that a centralized state should control the economy.

Such a state can build bridges wherever it darn well pleases, can't it?

But instead you are taking "Communism" to mean the vague end proposed by the main Communist prophet, Marx, namely a big happy pie in the sky where we don't need any darn government because we're all happy happy joyful anarcho-syndicalists or something ... and then claiming that this vaguely specified society wouldn't be able to build the same bridges that capitalist societies wouldn't build ... which is not much of a criticism ... without being able to say what this vague utopia would be like exactly ... and then criticizing Communism on the basis that this fuzzy utopia wouldn't build these uneconomic bridges.

If I wanted to guess what you were playing at, then I should guess that you got so stuck into this argument about building bridges that you couldn't let it go.

According to the normal meaning of the word "Communist", the Communists could build infrastructure. They did build infrastructure. They could even build infrastructure when it was economically unviable. They did build infrastructure when it was completely unviable. They killed thousands of political prisoners doing that sort of thing.

In order for you to claim that "Communists" can't build useless infrastructure, you need to invent your own version of Marx's Promised Land in such a way that in your mystic vision of Marx's Promised Land, it doesn't work. In order for me to say that they can ... I've read The Gulag Archipelago.

 

[mhaze]

As I, or the man in the street, would understand "Communism" as an economic doctrine, it would be the proposition that a centralized state should control the economy.

Such a state can build bridges wherever it darn well pleases, can't it?

But not a lowest cost and safe bridge, which was my specification of the bridge builder's capability in the original example. Well, not without force. Lots of it.You could get lots of bridges at 3x the cost and 1/3 the safety.But 3x the cost means 1/3 the quantity. So without getting my bridge builder on board, the communist state can only build bridges in 1/3 the places it would like to.

 

[DC]

As I, or the man in the street, would understand "Communism" as an economic doctrine, it would be the proposition that a centralized state should control the economy.

Such a state can build bridges wherever it darn well pleases, can't it?

But not a lowest cost and safe bridge, which was my specification of the bridge builder's capability in the original example. Well, not without force. Lots of it.You could get lots of bridges at 3x the cost and 1/3 the safety.But 3x the cost means 1/3 the quantity. So without getting my bridge builder on board, the communist state can only build bridges in 1/3 the places it would like to.

why do you claim they will be less save?

 

[Dr Adequate]

As I, or the man in the street, would understand "Communism" as an economic doctrine, it would be the proposition that a centralized state should control the economy.

Such a state can build bridges wherever it darn well pleases, can't it?

But not a lowest cost and safe bridge, which was my specification of the bridge builder's capability in the original example. Well, not without force. Lots of it.You could get lots of bridges at 3x the cost and 1/3 the safety.But 3x the cost means 1/3 the quantity. So without getting my bridge builder on board, the communist state can only build bridges in 1/3 the places it would like to.

Show your working.