Reader's Favorites
Media Casualties Mount

Administration Split On Europe Invasion

Administration In Crisis Over Burgeoning Quagmire

Congress Concerned About Diversion From War On Japan

Pot, Kettle On Line Two...

Allies Seize Paris

The Natural

Gore Book Sales Tank, Supporters Claim Unfair Tactics

Satan Files Lack Of Defamation Suit

Why This Blog Bores People With Space Stuff

A New Beginning

My Hit Parade
Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds)
Tim Blair
James Lileks Bleats
Virginia Postrel
Kausfiles
Winds Of Change (Joe Katzman)
Little Green Footballs (Charles Johnson)
Samizdata
Eject Eject Eject (Bill Whittle)

Space
Alan Boyle (MSNBC)
Space Politics (Jeff Foust)
Space Transport News (Clark Lindsey)
NASA Watch
NASA Space Flight
Hobby Space
A Voyage To Arcturus (Jay Manifold)
Dispatches From The Final Frontier (Michael Belfiore)
Personal Spaceflight (Jeff Foust)
Mars Blog
The Flame Trench (Florida Today)
Space Cynic
Rocket Forge (Michael Mealing)
COTS Watch (Michael Mealing)
Curmudgeon's Corner (Mark Whittington)
Selenian Boondocks
Tales of the Heliosphere
Out Of The Cradle
Space For Commerce (Brian Dunbar)
True Anomaly
Kevin Parkin
The Speculist (Phil Bowermaster)
Spacecraft (Chris Hall)
Space Pragmatism (Dan Schrimpsher)
Eternal Golden Braid (Fred Kiesche)
Carried Away (Dan Schmelzer)
Laughing Wolf (C. Blake Powers)
Chair Force Engineer (Air Force Procurement)
Spacearium
Saturn Follies
JesusPhreaks (Scott Bell)

Biting Commentary about Infinity, and Beyond!

« My Fingers Are On Fire | Main | What's The Point? »

Honor The Victims

Radley Balko says that we need a holocaust museum to the hundreds of millions of people murdered by communism and Marxism, to help put an end to the romanticization of that immoral belief system.

He's right.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2003 08:10 AM

Comments

Shall we put it next to the millions killed through Capitalist market forces?

We can start with the millions killed by the British government in famines which could have been avoided or dealt with differently.

Then there are industrial pollution related deaths, wars "against" communism and so forth.

Communism sucked, but that is as a ridiculous argument as the one I just made.

Posted by Dave at August 28, 2003 08:23 AM

"Millions killed through Capitalist market forces?" Give me a fucking break.

And don't start with the "capitalists rape the environment" crap, either. Ever taken a sip of the Volga river, or a deep breath in Smolensk?

I guess we'll never run out of Commie apologists or purveyors of moral equivalence. Another useful idiot...

Posted by GoesTo11 at August 28, 2003 09:08 AM

What "millions killed through capitalist market forces"? How many millions have died from industrial pollution, and in what way?

And how can you compare either of those things to deliberate wholesale murder?

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2003 09:09 AM

So how do you define the Irish and Indian famines then? Unavoidable tragedy? Give me a break!

Posted by Dave at August 28, 2003 09:22 AM

Uh, Dave? Government policy isn't capitalism.

Posted by Kevin McGehee at August 28, 2003 09:24 AM

Kevin,

I'm not sure that you could make that distinction in Britain in the 19th century - the flirtation with full on Laisez Faire capitalism led directly to disasters such as the full on "welfare state".

Posted by Dave at August 28, 2003 09:29 AM

And how can you compare either of those things to deliberate wholesale murder?

If the Indian and Irish famine are a problem, how about the victims of the drive to stop Communism?

I assume we can agree that Pinochet's victims were murdered? Or don't they count because Adelede would have killed people anyway?

How about anti-communist African regimes or, for that matter, Middle Eastern ones we propped up because it suited us at the time.

I mean, the west wouldn't support a mass murdered who has used chemical weapons on his own people would we...

Hypocracy sickens me and the kind of drivel you linked to is hypocracy Rand.

Posted by Dave at August 28, 2003 09:35 AM

I assume we can agree that Pinochet's victims were murdered?

Not by the millions, and not in order to create a "utopia."

So, Dave, are you saying we should raze the Holocaust Museums? Why should we commemorate the victims of Nazism, but not the victims of Marxism?

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2003 10:04 AM

The Irish famine may have been avoidable but the forced famine of the Kulaks (which despite rumors to the contrary was not limited to "rich" peasants) was intentional.

It's more than a museum we need for the victims of Communism. All the perpertrators of the Gulags (try finding an equivalent to that in British colonial history) went into paid retirement.

I suggest you read Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipeligo" or (far shorter) "A Day in The Life of Ivan Denisevich," in order to be able to begin to appreciate the horrors of Soviet rule.

Posted by Tom Fox at August 28, 2003 04:16 PM

No Rand, I am just pointing out the hypocracy of firstly labelling and finger pointing like that rabid junk you referenced does. Its a nice piece of spin to try and get me to condemn the Holocaust memorial by the way.

The British didn't have Gulags but we did set up some pretty disgusting concentration camps during the Boer War (the war itself not exactly being for any motive higher than mineral resources where around 250,000 soliders fought 20,000 or so farmers).

Posted by Dave at August 29, 2003 07:59 AM

>> I assume we can agree that Pinochet's victims
>> were murdered?

> Not by the millions, and not in order to create
> a "utopia."

BTW, the absolute number of deaths can be misleading. Mao had (what?) 1 billion Chinese to terrorize vs. a few million Chileans for Pinochet.

> So, Dave, are you saying we should raze the
> Holocaust Museums? Why should we commemorate
> the victims of Nazism, but not the victims of
> Marxism?

I think a museum to commemorate the victims of (e.g.) Stalin would be appropriate, but is it really fair to blame an entire i d e o l o g y ("Marxism") for it? Note that Stalin was thoroughly discredited after his death even in the USSR. There are many different forms of communism, including some (e.g. in the West) that wanted to preserve democracy.
---
We might just as well talk about the millions of people who throughout history have been killed by religious fanatics (e.g. Islam and christianity). The difference may not be all that great when you account for population growth + more efficient weapons, which greatly inflated World War II casualties although previous conflicts such as the 30 Year War in 1618-48 probably were as violent.
---
"True believers" tend to have a "the end justifies the means" approach regardless of whether they are communists, Islamists or Medieval crusaders.

MARCU$

Posted by Marcus Lindroos at August 29, 2003 08:44 AM

Because of human nature, there's ultimately no way to achieve Marx' ideals without eventually resorting to state control, Marcus. But I've no objection to putting up a holocaust museum about ideological fanatics, of whatever stripe.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 29, 2003 09:10 AM

I have already discussed this.

After a few decades of ignoring my fellow reactionary crackpots pointing out the enormous death toll of Communism, the loony left has come up with a response: “I know you are but what am I?”

The book Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World by Mike Davis tries blaming classical liberalism for famines in India, Brazil, and China, in addition to the usual complaint about Ireland. (Never mind that classical liberalism got into power in Britain in order to clean up the Irish famine and never mind that China wasn't even any kind of colony.)

Apparently, there weren't any pre-British famines in India in Davis's universe. He did mention that the Mogul and Maratha regimes fixed prices, but experience shows that mainly prevents people from preparing for famines. The existence of famines in late-19th-century India, if anything, points to the importance of privatization. Those famines started after the British government took over from the East-India Company. It was a case of the following common phenonenon:

1. Owing to alleged “market failure,” a formerly private function was socialized.
2. This is followed by disaster.
3. This, in turn, is followed by a call for more government.

I wonder why Davis didn't write about early Victorian holocausts? Could it be that letting capitalists have a really free hand kept famine away for a few decades?

Meanwhile in Brazil, something resembling classical liberalism was preceded by slavery. Even Karl Marx could tell you there was something wrong with defending slavery. In any case, Brazilian emancipation went directly into the KKK and Jim-Crow stage without going through Reconstruction. One of the famines Davis mentions was aggravated by Brazilian governments keeping would-be migrants out of cities. (In today's U.S. this is done by zoning laws with the approval of trendy liberals.) That is not capitalism—especially not the kind Julian Simon defended.

It's interesting that in Brazil, the capitalists traded with southern Brazil whereas the famine Davis discussed was in northern Brazil. Let's see. Capitalists can be blamed for trading and also for not trading…

Posted by at August 30, 2003 10:39 PM

Good grief. The potato famine was caused by capitalism? Pull the other one.

The oppression of the Irish Catholics was cultural and religious oppression, not capitalistic oppression (whatever that is). Some of them decided to get out of dodge, move to the United States and become my ancestors.

Furthermore, correlation is not causation. The death of a number of people under a capitalist society is not necessarily because it's capitalism. However, the deaths of millions resulting from the direct orders of a Communist despot IS the result of despotism. I'm not sure what bin the Cultural Revolution and the ensuing craziness in China ought to go in; Mao didn't actually order all that many killings, but he cheered them from the sidelines.

Posted by David Perron at September 3, 2003 01:27 PM


Post a comment

Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember info?