::: On the contrary. Latin is used extensively in the scientific and legal worlds (true, most of it is for terminology, yet it is still Latin) and Latin will aid your learning of any of the "Latin" languages. Oh, and it's used also by the major branch of the Christian Church... Latin is used as designation only. It is dead for purposes of
communication - perhaps explaining why the Catholic church uses
it.
::: On the other hand, the phrase "perfectly analogous to your ideology" is meaningless, or such meaning it possesses is trivial.
Your right. The analogy is flawed because your ideology isn't quite
dead yet. It thrives like fungus in the ivory towers of higher
education. Actually, by comparison, Latin appears more usefull.
::: In actual fact, the line was relevant to the discussion, although you could not read it. It's a very famous aphorism by the Roman poet Horace and means "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country".
::: My point? Dying for your country is the needless wasting of life for an illusory entity. The idea of something as large as a nation state having any real existence is an artificial construct; a fantasy. If you have to do something for "your country", you should live as long as you can for it and do your best to make things as good as possible there.
How sweet. Now deal with reality Farinata. Or don't and let some
soldier do it for you.
::: I may be an idealist, but I'm not dim enough to think that anyone (apart from my family and friends) would care if I went off to die in some far corner of a foreign field.
Your family should care. Real friends would care. I would care if
you went to defend my home, family, or principles. "...may be an
idealist..." misstates it a bit.
::: How many brothers do you have? It's unrealistic to describe everyone in your country as being your brother - the state is far too big for that, even a Big Brother state. Speaking personally, I'd only use violence to defend myself or those of my friends I consider in need of defence.
Waiting until you or your friends are at direct risk will be fatal
Farinata. Think that through a little. The world is a bigger place than
your neighborhood.
::: Anything else is an artifice, and I'd never defend a fascist just because "he happens to live in my country". No. My fellow countrymen and -women are not my brothers or sisters. This is not to say that I am incapable of working with them, however.
::: Of course, if you're talking about fighting for freedom, what about those who fought for their freedom at Wounded Knee? What does your history book say about them?
Relevance please? Unless you just want to change the subject.
::: Freedom is as much a state of mind as body. They can lock me up, but as long as my mind is free I will never be imprisoned.
Very sappy.
Stu says, "...many soliders have died protecting us from communism..."
::: Tch. I'd have hoped you would have more sense than to make a remark like that here. As any number of people will tell you only too happily, "Marxism" and "Communism" have never actually seen the light of day. The Eastern Bloc was, if anything, a totalitarian dictatorship, not a Commune.
Are you losing track of this thread Farinata? Who cares whether or
not marxism or communism has been purely administered. The people
killed by the Eastern Bloc are still dead. The defence of freedom was
still moral.
Stu says, "Let us try to put this into very viceral terms.
: - because visceral terms are good media fodder; an easy way of generating outrage by tweaking the emotional strings...
No. It's a way to help you visualize the enormity of a number so
staggering as 100,000,000 - something you seem not to wish to do.
::: As I've said, and Frode has said, capitalism is currently causing the deaths of 40,000,000 a year. When over-felling of slow-growing forests for timber causes soil loss from mountain slopes (leading to mudslides and landslides), Adam Smith is as much to blame as the logger is.
Nonsense. Brain-dead nonsense.
: : It is going to be very difficult for you to dispute the facts of
: : this case. "The Black Book of Communism" was compiled by a very
: : well respected group of six professors. The only quarrels seem to
: : be whether it was 85 or 100 million. The Third Reich was responsible
: : for a sum total of one quarter that of godless communism. Does the
: : wishful accusation of capitalistic genocide really stack up to the
: : realities of this world Farinata? Or are collectivists now, having
: : suffered defeat, resorting to nonsense like this to generate support?
::: Ah, does that mean you are saying that the Nazis were ideologically better than the Communists, because they killed fewer people?
Yes, that's it. That's exactly it. Nazis are ideologically better
than communistis. I thought you would never get it.
::: Or are you merely trying to use the body count to sensationalize the dirty deeds of those Godless evil Commie perverts? Hardly a subtle trick.
Well, if 100,000,000 bodies isn't sensational to you Farinata, you
are far more cynical than your sensitive posting of Owen's poem
would lead us to believe. And if a hundred million murders isn't dirty,
godless, evil, and perverted, what is?
::: Again, market forces have probably killed more people in the last quarter century than Communist forces have in the last century.
Again; Nonsense. Brain-dead, shamefull nonsense.
: : Do you then suggest unilateral disarmament by the nicer nations?
: : 6000 years of recorded human history should warn against that plan.
::: No. The world being what it is, it's not going to happen. That does not mean we need to keep spending ever-greater sums on armaments that are never likely to be used. And it doesn't mean that we should give other countries reason to increase their armaments.
I don't know if you live in the U.S. Farinata. But we have slowly
been reducing our military since the U.S.S.R. fell. Our military
spending represents 6% of our total budget. That seems reasonable to
me. Do you know what percentage the U.S.S.R. was spending of their
budget? Look it up and tell me which of us was more committed to world
domination and which mindset should be feared. Then tell me what to do
about it besides posting a heart wrenching poem about a dying soldier.
Stuart Gort
None.
