So you're just ignoring the millions who died under Stalin too, Sylence?

Anyone know what happened to Putin33? His disappearance as I recollect was quite sudden and he did not seem to be in a good place in life at the time.

@Tolstoy
I once sent a message to the mods about this, some time ago, I was also concerned.

Last I heard he was digging a railway tunnel between Russia and Alaska...

I doubt there's anything that could keep Putin down. I dare say he just got bored of us.

Did you ever hear back?

And Yellowjacket:
"Putin tried to sell DPRK as a democracy"
Not "democracy" in the sense of a multiparty system, no for sure.
Did Putin really use the word "democracy" about N Korea?
I doubt it.

"He'd call you out for disagreeing with him".
That's how it *feels* like for the brats who were feeling snug pointing finger at N Korea "You're no Democracy! You're no democracy!" if someone spoils the party by trying to elaborate the picture a bit. Try see it from the side of the actual N Koreans and it is not so black and white.
If someone insists on not joining in the "Democracy" chorus he is considered as perverse and "calling you out for not agreeing with him".

If I remember right, he was working or volunteering with the mentally disabled somehow since, shockingly, there wasn't really a job market for people with graduate degrees in political science, particularly ones with such outre Stalinist views.

Well they put up a thread about people who left webdip we all wanted to know more about and Putin wasn't very popular. I think it provoked a failed attempt to bring Sandgoose back, which was enjoyable in a way.

Looks like Putin33 is back, he's just changed his name to Sylence.

Invictus: So you're just ignoring the millions who died under Stalin too, Sylence?

lol lol...
You guys are unstoppable. You will keep making your fallacy even when it is written on your nose that you are doing it.

No I think the Stalinism was awful. That does not mean the Soviet was not industrialized under Stalin.
And... I profoundly dislike industrialism too if this is of any concern to anybody.
Well, as the western power industrialised, and colonised the world, what should the rest of the world do?

The point semck83 was making was that the industrialization under Stalin wasn't worth the suffering that went along with it. That may be wrong, but it isn't something to be as easily dismissed as you're doing.

invictus, it's not dismissing the point as unimportant, it is dismissing the point as irrelevant! when talking about the economic achievements etc. you can't just bring up unrelated points, and ignoring those points is not dismissing them because you think they are unimportant, but dismissing it as irrelevant, as it clearly was even in semck's example!

Well I cannot dismiss industrialism even though I would like to. You may think that you are not only indomitable (=invictus) but God even.
I know I am not.

Here's waht semck83 said.

"putin33: Stalin did more for the economy of Russia than anyone else in its history. Ergoslav Thusovski showed in his 1973 book that if the Tsars had stayed in power till the 40s then Russia would have been devastated in the war.

semck83 (say): I don't know, man -- tens of millions of people died under Stalin, both famine and direct extermination. How much worse could it have been?"


He's saying that the devastation caused by Stalin's policies may not have been much worse than defeat by Nazi Germany. Now, that may be wrong, but it is not the crazy, irrelevant, fallacious argument you people are making it out to be.

"Did Putin really use the word "democracy" about N Korea?
I doubt it."

Doubt all you want, he absolutely did.

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"If someone insists on not joining in the "Democracy" chorus he is considered as perverse and "calling you out for not agreeing with him."

Strawman. My complaint is that he'd call you an "idiot," not that he'd call you "out." Calling out implies that he had some logical argument to present, not merely the aforementioned ad hominem. I have not qualms with a rational discussion. I consider myself better than most at admitting when I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

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Yes, Putin knew a lot of facts. But his true mastery was using fallacy to draw false conclusions from these facts that would fool people. It was quite possible to make Putin look silly, but you had to invest the time to find out where his logic went sour, something many are not willing to do. But if you know old YJ you know I got LOADS of time.

"No, to anyone who understands what democratic means it is not ironic."

Putin, on my questioning the irony of the D in DPRK.

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=869444&page-thread=1#threadPager

@YJ
Well, strike that "call out". I seem to have conflated my impressions from several posts.
I was quoting someone, but OK that was not the word you used.
But ha... We don't want to waste our time with a "rational discussion" about such details, do we?

Oh wait... That's precisely the air the "logician" breeds. He wants to evade every real question, anything that touches near Real Life and plunge into quibbling about details in empty arguments.

Good you found that authentic Putin-quote YJ.

See he was discussing a definition of Democracy, not claiming that DPRK was a democracy the way his opponents would mean by it.

Wow YJ...
You dug up that DPRK thread. Even I am making a small appearance in that one... Ah, the good old days...
Would be fun to make a resume and summary of that, but the time is limited.

@invictus, it certainly was because the point is not that the policies are good because it was less damage than the nazis were good. the point raised is an intersting one but does not seem to be a proper response.

@YJ see what Sylence said about definition of democracy, which is a fair discussion to have seeing as people often think democracy=western liberal democracy.

*shrug* well attempting to pass off a definition of democracy that includes NK is no less ridiculous. Either way, the point stands, Putin clearly thinks DPRK is a democratic nation.

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As for the logician bit, I used to feel that way too, until I realized that it really is the only way to cut through fallacious arguments and demonstrate exactly why a given point should be accepted or why it shouldn't. I insinuated that Putin's rationality re: ad hominem is, in fact, "perverse." (your word, but it will do). You used a strawman (I'm sure it wasn't deliberate, it rarely is) to counter that. I called it for what it was. You now have an opportunity to rephrase your counter into something more meaningful, but instead choose to poo-poo my technique. I'd call that a red herring.

Would you like challenge the claim that he used ad hominem regularly? Failing that, I don't think you have much choice but to accept it.

@socrates

Interesting. Are you saying that there is some well-accepted definition of democracy that applies to DPRK?

@YJ, i wouldn't be so sure, some fascists claim that fascism is the only true democracy (unlike western bourgeois democracy) because it is all about people power - embodied in the leader. The idea that it is democratic because you vote for people in the party in a state like the DEMOCRATIC people's republic of Korea is based on the party and the state being seen as inseperable, if the party is so tied into the state then perhaps it is democratic. Obviously some ideas seem ridiculous, but democracy is such a meaningless empty word (as much as we in the west pretend it in itself has set meanings). The problem is that we often think a set subset (our subset) of democracy is what democracy actually is. I forgot which thinker addressed the problem in detail, but the common problem is that we see ourselves as a democracy (one of many different subsets), and then we use our democracy as what democracy actually means. It's like saying football is a sport, and then declaring other activities sports based on their similarity to football. I could go on and talk about Wiggensteinian family resemblance, but I don't want this to turn in to an obi style rant!

I don't think that a well-accepted definition in the west of democray applies to DPRK, and I wouldn't actually call it a democracy myself, and I'm a diehard commie. I think it is rather silly to argue that it is a democracy. I'm just saying that democray doesn't actually mean most of if any of the things people think it to (why we have so many arguments even here in the west if it is about protecting minority rights or is a tyranny of the majority or something else), so to say if it is or isn't a 'democracy' is rather meaningless without talking about a specific notion of democracy. After that you can ridicule the idea of that notion actually encapsulating what 'democracy' is, but that is in the same way that ANY notion of democracy could be criticised as not being truly 'democratic', including our own.

Rousseau appears a lot as a major theory in democratic theory and I think a lot of followers of his 'general will' and various ideas would dismiss western 'democracy' as democracy, not to mention your usual marxist critiques. but i've rambled too much

Is it so hard to post what Putin says as well? That'd be fair, no?

"The DPRK has elections and votes on laws. Citizens can recall deputies to the people's assembly at any time. The assemblies have a much higher turnover rate than in bourgeois "democracies".

But democracy is more than that. Democracy is about popular control, not just having proles cast a meaningless vote between two factions of billionaires, meanwhile the entire economy, culture, and society is controlled by a handful of plutocrats. Democracy means active participation in the daily life of the country and it also means a government which responds to the needs of the broad masses of people, not just a clique of the filthy rich."

I don't know if he's right. I do know that the west only has pathetic excuses for democracy, and North Korea can hardly be worse at that.

Sound like a whole lot of equivocating, to me, SD.

We are, I presume, all from western nations, with a clear understanding of what democracy means in that context. Just because a few fascists or communist dictators choose to attempt to co-opt the meaning of the word to make themselves sound less like fascists or communist dictators does not change its meaning.

Well, steephie, old Winston Churchill can address that for me, I think.

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

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In fairness, he also says this, which supports what SD is saying :)

"In the case of a word like DEMOCRACY, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides."

@YJ, i'm sorry if that sounds that way, that's unfortunate, but I wouldn't dismiss major political thinkers, just because they disagreed with major western theories. If we did that we would lose a lot of political theory (even popular thinkers like rousseau) and just only talk about neoliberal ideas, with the occasional modern liberal twist. And in the west we don't have a clear idea of democracy either, we just like people (some people) being able to vote (now and again). There is no clear consensus even here in the west if we really look to it. And even if there were, so what? that doesn't invalidate the fact other definitions are valid?

I'll quote what stephie said that I think is of particular merit: " But democracy is more than that. Democracy is about popular control, not just having proles cast a meaningless vote between two factions of billionaires, meanwhile the entire economy, culture, and society is controlled by a handful of plutocrats. Democracy means active participation in the daily life of the country and it also means a government which responds to the needs of the broad masses of people, not just a clique of the filthy rich."

I don't know if he's right. I do know that the west only has pathetic excuses for democracy". Ignoring what Churchill said (not because he was a racist imperialistic incompentent pitiful excuse of a human being, although he was, but because it doesn't prove anything), is it really so hard to accept that democracy isn't just a set idea and we have it? I feel like this thread has been hijacked, so give me a second, I'll create a new thread, I think this is interesting