I didn't realize we're a bunch of commies

[Feathers McGraw]

True, but I was just giving my view of the discussion.

Yeah, fair enough!

I'm inclined to agree with you, it's one of many reasons why some people might choose Linux, but from what I've read of other people's opinions it doesn't seem to be a large factor - other things (like what people actually think of the software!) have way more influence.

[tek_heretik]

In this day and age, "communism" or "lefty" or "pinko" are derogatory terms made up by the right-wing to demonize being kind to your fellow humans, those same right-wing enjoy socialism at the highest levels (corporate welfare) in the form of bailouts, grants, subsidies, tax breaks and loopholes in their favour beyond belief. Oops, forgot, slaps on wrists for ruining millions of lives through financial fraud on the highest levels, that too is a form of socialism (because we, the taxpayer get stuck cleaning up the mess), if they know they can get away with it, they'll do it again, 2008 was the tip of the iceberg.

The right-wing like to fling the "socialist" mud around but they themselves are the biggest socialists of all, drawing the most 'milk' from the 'teet' that YOU pay for.

[dragonbite]

An alternate view, To me it is just software. No comparisons needed. If you like it use it.

Software strong in collaboration, not competition (as proprietary software is).

[GreyGeek]

Uh, oh ... somebody's ox got gored. Just ignore me, I'm an old rabble rouser!

[Tom_ZeCat]

In this day and age, "communism" or "lefty" or "pinko" are derogatory terms made up by the right-wing to demonize being kind to your fellow humans, those same right-wing enjoy socialism at the highest levels (corporate welfare) in the form of bailouts, grants, subsidies, tax breaks and loopholes in their favour beyond belief. Oops, forgot, slaps on wrists for ruining millions of lives through financial fraud on the highest levels, that too is a form of socialism (because we, the taxpayer get stuck cleaning up the mess), if they know they can get away with it, they'll do it again, 2008 was the tip of the iceberg.

The right-wing like to fling the "socialist" mud around but they themselves are the biggest socialists of all, drawing the most 'milk' from the 'teet' that YOU pay for.

^^^ Most insightful post of the thread so far, though I didn't think they did that in Canadian politics. I thought it was an American thing. Maybe the motive behind those ridiculous images was to brand something "commie" that's designed as an alternative to "gotta buy the latest." The whole "gotta have the latest toy" mindset fuels the big profits of companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Dell, HP, whoever. I've figured out I don't need the latest brand-new laptop to meet my needs. I'd rather buy a used one and put Kubuntu on it. If too many people reject the "latest and greatest" mindset, it means less profits. So maybe the ridiculous "brand'em a commie" notion is an attempt to pull people back

[GreyGeek]

The early church practiced communism, see Acts 2:42-45.

Similar, but NOT the same philosophy. Charity is not Communism.
Acts 5:3

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? ⁴ Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

Ananias and his wife could do what they wanted with their property, and even with the money they got from its sale. What they did was claim that the money they gave was ALL of the money from the sale, when it was not. Expecting praise, that lie got them what they didn't expect.

In Communism the "Collective" (i.e., the State) owns all the mean of production and distribution. "Personal property is considered private property that is movable, as almost an extension of one's person and does include property from which one has the right to exclude others. These objects can range from CDs to houses, depending on one's perspective, but definitions tend to include personal items such as clothing, books, food, or records. However where personal property explicitly differs from private property is in its productive capacity." -- Wikipedia

[woodsmoke]

Just for the halibut I might take a different tack on this:

To me what is important about the images, etc. is the fact of the PERCEPTION.

Now.................we in our infinite wisdom...KNOW that we are not commies,

but.....that stupid redneck Tea Partying Christian, doofus, OTHER side......

well they PERCEIVE, that ...since "we" do not "think like them" ....

that "we" are the "opposite of them...." and just about the maximum "opposite" is "Commie"....

But let us go back to the above sentence and tease out a term: "stupid, redneck, Tea Partying".

hmmmm

apparently Tea Partiers (ummmmm to the Liberal Elites........"tea baggers") are SMARTER than Liberals according to a Yale professor:

Yale Law professor Dan M. Kahan was conducting an analysis of the scientific comprehension of various political groups when he ran into a shocking discovery: tea party supporters are slightly more scientifically literate than the non-tea party population.

Remarkable was the professor’s reaction on the Yale Law “Cultural Cognition Project” website:

I’ve got to confess, though, I found this result surprising. As I pushed the button to run the analysis on my computer, I fully expected I’d be shown a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension.

But then again, I don’t know a single person who identifies with the Tea Party.

All my impressions come from watching cable tv

— & I don’t watch Fox News very often

— and reading the “paper” ( New York Times daily, plus a variety of politics-focused internet sites like Huffington Post & Politico).

I’m a little embarrassed, but mainly I’m just glad that I no longer hold this particular mistaken view.

Soooooo maybe just "throwing stones" from EITHER direction does a great job of "look at me I am a big duck in my little (liberal / conservative) pond"...

But it does not further the good interests of the country, or necessarily the world, at large.


http://www.ijreview.com/2013/10/8747...ally-literate/

woodjustathoughtgottagetarum'ncokenowsmoke

[kubicle]

In Communism the "Collective" (i.e., the State) owns all the mean of production and distribution.

Communism is actually a stateless social order, you shouldn't mix up communism with the cold war era totalitarian states.

At the time, some theorists believed that a totalitarian socialist state was a necessary step in the transition to communism, but we know how those theories worked out (if you give a group of people totalitarian power, they're not going to give it up).

[charles052]

In this day and age, "communism" or "lefty" or "pinko" are derogatory terms made up by the right-wing to demonize being kind to your fellow humans, those same right-wing enjoy socialism at the highest levels (corporate welfare) in the form of bailouts, grants, subsidies, tax breaks and loopholes in their favour beyond belief. Oops, forgot, slaps on wrists for ruining millions of lives through financial fraud on the highest levels, that too is a form of socialism (because we, the taxpayer get stuck cleaning up the mess), if they know they can get away with it, they'll do it again, 2008 was the tip of the iceberg.

The right-wing like to fling the "socialist" mud around but they themselves are the biggest socialists of all, drawing the most 'milk' from the 'teet' that YOU pay for.

Every form of government is susceptible to being good or bad depending on it's leaders.

[charles052]

Just for the halibut I might take a different tack on this:

To me what is important about the images, etc. is the fact of the PERCEPTION.

Now.................we in our infinite wisdom...KNOW that we are not commies,

but.....that stupid redneck Tea Partying Christian, doofus, OTHER side......

well they PERCEIVE, that ...since "we" do not "think like them" ....

that "we" are the "opposite of them...." and just about the maximum "opposite" is "Commie"....

But let us go back to the above sentence and tease out a term: "stupid, redneck, Tea Partying".

hmmmm

apparently Tea Partiers (ummmmm to the Liberal Elites........"tea baggers") are SMARTER than Liberals according to a Yale professor:



Soooooo maybe just "throwing stones" from EITHER direction does a great job of "look at me I am a big duck in my little (liberal / conservative) pond"...

But it does not further the good interests of the country, or necessarily the world, at large.


http://www.ijreview.com/2013/10/8747...ally-literate/

woodjustathoughtgottagetarum'ncokenowsmoke

Yep, the right is surprisingly smarter than the left gives them credit for. I finally realized about a year ago that the right and left are about the same. I've even made an analogy of politics being like professional wrestling. Basically the left demonizes the right and the right demonizes the left. This is how the elite remain in power and the common people keep getting trampled, with help from the illusion that the Democrat is better than the Republican and vice versa when the fact is that neither give a rat's a$$. They divide and conquer this way, having us fight among ourselves instead of taking the fight to Washington where it belongs.

If we Americans had any sense as a collective, we'd go to Washington DC, kick every politician out of the House, Senate, and White House (preferably after a severe beating) and just start all over. We're going to have to do anyways because the US cannot sustain this crappy consumer economy for much longer as it is and it will eventually collapse. Afterwards, I feel sorry for anyone living in the big cities because they'll be the 1st to start dying off from hunger and disease as their economic structure and means of survival are simply cut off.

[tek_heretik]

^^^ Most insightful post of the thread so far, though I didn't think they did that in Canadian politics. I thought it was an American thing. Maybe the motive behind those ridiculous images was to brand something "commie" that's designed as an alternative to "gotta buy the latest." The whole "gotta have the latest toy" mindset fuels the big profits of companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Dell, HP, whoever. I've figured out I don't need the latest brand-new laptop to meet my needs. I'd rather buy a used one and put Kubuntu on it. If too many people reject the "latest and greatest" mindset, it means less profits. So maybe the ridiculous "brand'em a commie" notion is an attempt to pull people back

Oh God no, our current PM and his gang of CONservatives are WORSE than the Republicans, our current gov is all about oilsands and nothing else, since they are getting negative opposition for the Keystone XL pipeline, they want to build one to the west coast to fill tankers bound for China, there are only two provinces that benefit from the oilsands, they want the rest of the country working minimum wage temp jobs, which means no benefits or pensions, ever. I call our current PM a Republican cyborg in a fake Canadian skin suit, lol.

This should tell you something, the current PM is a former employee of IMPERIAL OIL, I poop you not, not only that, they stole the last election with Republican style cheating, it's still being investigated, voter tampering, Canader lost its virginity eh, lol.

[tek_heretik]

Every form of government is susceptible to being good or bad depending on it's leaders.

I was using right-wing in general terms, it would be safe to say somebody like Steve Ballmer calling Linux a "cancer" is right-wing, usually right-wing leaning people are the most carnivorous in a capitalist system, exploiting (workers), price gouging (MS is a good example) and resource raping to fill their off-shore accounts and buy their mansions, anybody that gets in the way of that gets trampled by legislation or otherwise. For example, the Canadian government just passed a bill making it legal for the police to approach an ISP for a customer's information/bandwidth traffic records WITHOUT a warrant (bill C-13), one of their reasons for doing this is their hatred of "eco-terrorists", that includes little old ladies that are vocal online about our dirty oilsands energy, for real, I kid you not. Our government makes no secret about "monitoring" internet traffic, this way they can thwart any protests being organized in advance, like the pepper-spraying and illegal searches (fondling) of innocent women during the 2010 G20, it's not a "brave new world", it's a damn scary Orwellian one.

[GreyGeek]

Communism is actually a stateless social order, you shouldn't mix up communism with the cold war era totalitarian states.

At the time, some theorists believed that a totalitarian socialist state was a necessary step in the transition to communism, but we know how those theories worked out (if you give a group of people totalitarian power, they're not going to give it up).

\You'd better edit and correct Wikipedia the, because they got it all wrong.

[GreyGeek]

... since they are getting negative opposition for the Keystone XL pipeline....

We in Nebraska are fighting the XL pipeline tooth and nail, but we are being betrayed at the highest level in this country, our own President. In the last year there have been two major leaks of exiting pipelines owned by the same company putting in the XL pipeline. One was only a mere 5,000 gallons and the other only 100,000, or so they claim. (IIRC). No independent boards or panels check their claims. We'll find out the truth when the water we pump out of the Ogallala aquifer starts showing streaks of oil.

[kubicle]

\You'd better edit and correct Wikipedia the, because they got it all wrong.

I don't really see where they are wrong
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism