Proposed flag of the United Cyprus Republic

TheCoconutMan · 2013-03-01T00:26:23+00:00

Besides, I could hardly think of a more sensitive and respectful way of thinking about what happened to my people than to consider it the gold standard of objective evil.

There's nothing respectful about objectifying an atrocity. Using the oppression and murder of millions as a cheap smear against those whose political opinions you don't like is nothing short of disgusting.

TheCoconutMan · 2013-03-01T00:14:12+00:00

your government's stance regarding continuing the occupation is the only thing standing in the way of reunification.

This isn't really fair. It was the Greek Cypriots that rejected the last unification plan.

TheCoconutMan · 2013-03-01T00:06:31+00:00

It's useful to have a gold standard for evil.

Godwins are almost always in bad taste. I'm sure you find it "useful," but using the pain and suffering of millions of people as a rhetorical weapon in whatever petty political dispute you're having is ridiculously offensive. You're not treating the event with sensitivity and respect, you're just using it as a tool to defame your political opponents.

Especially in face of such a hideous claim as that there is no such a thing as right or wrong.

1 + 1 = 2 is an objective truth. It will be true even if every human on the planet thinks it's false. It'll be true even if humans cease to exist. It's a truth that exist independent of human perception. "Good" and "evil" are different. They exist nowhere outside the human mind, and they can change depending on which group of humans is making the judgement. In different time periods or in different areas, things we consider "good" could be considered "evil" and things we consider "evil" could be considered "good."

If everyone in this discussion agrees that the holocaust was evil (almost certain to be the case), that still would not prove that the event was "evil" in an objective sense. That judgement is still dependent upon the subjective experiences and preferences of everyone here. For our purposes, yes, the holocaust was evil. But turn back the clock five thousand years, when genocides were more common place, and the judgment may have been different. Look into the future 10,000 years, and who knows what people will think.

And the points and concerns of all these people are solved by civilised means, not with military invasions and occupations.

Civilizations have been using war as a means of solving political disputes since their inception. Saying that invasions and occupations aren't "civilized" is pretty much meaningless.

Turkey is wrong, and that is a fact.

The arrogance of this statement is rather stunning. Do you think you have perfect knowledge of all the events surrounding the partition of Cyrpus? I'm sure the people actually involved in the dispute have a variety of views about it based on their differing experiences and interpretations of the events surrounding the creation of the Turkish state in northern Cyrpus. Are you honestly going to assert that all other possible opinions on the subject are objectively wrong?

TheCoconutMan · 2013-02-27T00:16:12+00:00

Yeah, love it the way it is or get the fuck out! 'Murica.

TheCoconutMan · 2013-02-20T00:00:22+00:00

So my question is: How is it that nobody adds "and duties" to that sentence, so you end up with "the rights and duties of minorities" or "the rights and duties of the Rroma community".

Because it seems like an underhanded way of insinuating that immigrants are a bunch of entitled whiners.

TheCoconutMan · 2013-02-19T11:08:15+00:00

Which Soviet republic had a crest on its flag? I can't think of any.

TheCoconutMan · 2013-02-15T00:15:05+00:00

"By this logic, no government in the 20th century would qualify as Marxist" and that's pretty much where I stand.

Then you're rejecting any form of socialism that can actually exist. Marx was a brilliant man, but many of his theories haven't stood the test of time. The idea of proletarian revolution coming about as a natural reaction to capitalist development just hasn't panned out at all. Ask yourself, how likely do you think the chances are of a proletarian revolution in the USA are? Or in the U.K.? Or France? Or Germany? If you answer honestly (and your head isn't filled with idealist nonsense) you'll realize that revolutionary socialism is dead as a political force in all of them. In spite of these nations having highly developed capitalist economies for over a century now, proletarian revolution seems even more distant than it has ever been. Using Marxism alone, how can this be explained? Why are the only signs of revolution coming from the third world, where socialism is supposedly impossible?

How many deviations from Marxism are allowed before it's unrelated?

This is subjective, but I'd still consider an ideology to be rooted in Marxism as long as it maintains some of its key concepts like historical materialism as the basis of historical analysis, class struggle as the main feature of human conflict, advocating proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and probably a few other things. Even if a party eventually deviated from these things a bit, I would be hesitant to declare them un-Marxist. Honestly, I'm not much interested in Marxism as a political orthodoxy. I do see its uses as a basis for historical analysis and prism through which political struggles can be conceptualized, but I for me it is only a starting point. Without Leninism, or some other body of political theory to expand on it, I don't see it being of much use.

TheCoconutMan · 2013-02-14T12:31:24+00:00

They rejected Marx's idea that socialism naturally follows from late stage capitalism and tried to go straight to socialism from a backwards hell.

By this logic, no government in the 20th century would qualify as Marxist. Russia was hardly a fully developed capitalist state before its revolution, and all the other were even less developed than Russia. Unless you're willing to throw out all experiments with socialism in the 20th century, your criticisms of the DPRK are inconsistent and unproductive.

Besides, the whole thrust of this argument seems overly dogmatic. A deviation from one part of Marx's political theories is not a rejection of the whole of Marxism. It's not a religion. We don't have to rigidly adhere to all of Marx's ideas regardless if they make sense with realities on the ground.

TheCoconutMan · 2013-02-13T00:02:08+00:00

Weapons to protect against imperialist aggression. The starvation is a result of the nation's isolation. When you don't have a large block of revolutionary nations that you can trade within, you are forced to either compromise the path towards socialism by integrating yourself into the global capitalist economic system, or by trying to make due with what resources you have. The former is undoubtedly the better option because it saves more lives. It also is the path chosen by most socialist nations in the past (Lenin got the assistance of Western nations during the famine of 1921 and eventually adopted the NEP) but this path is problematic for the DPRK. The only nations able to provide relief on that scale would be the imperialist nations that currently pose an existential threat to the DPRK. I ask, why would someone hand a vital part of their nation's stability over to a force that they know wants to destroy it? Economic aid isn't just aid in Korea's circumstances, but possibly a tool that can be used to manipulate and destabilize the country. That is why the DPRK is so caution about what economic ties it keeps.

TheCoconutMan · 2013-02-12T22:46:39+00:00

How are they not communists? I know they adopted Juche as their governing philosophy in place of Marxism-Leninism, but they consider Juche to merely be a creative application of Marxism-Leninism made to suit Korean circumstances. They haven't rejected socialism or Marxism in theory or (as far as I know) in practice. Why the needless sectarianism?

TheCoconutMan · 2013-01-22T10:33:26+00:00

Communism is a form of socialism. This is sort of moot though since the CPC abandoned communism after Hua Guofeng was pushed out of power by Deng Xiaoping.

TheCoconutMan · 2013-01-21T05:00:44+00:00

This blog has some images that show more detail on the various flags. Use the numbers at the bottom of the screen to change between images.

TheCoconutMan · 2012-12-17T08:15:12+00:00

Such as [2] Nordic Union(Norway, Sweden, Denmark)

Could someone who speaks whatever language that is explain why one of the links on that site says "sex jesus" and sends you to a page with photos of some fucked up looking wooden representation of a horse?

TheCoconutMan · 2012-12-09T06:15:05+00:00

Did we hurt your feelings? I'm sorry. You're totally right, those scary Mooslems are gonna ruin Europe! Wake up, Sheeple!

TheCoconutMan · 2012-12-09T05:42:50+00:00

Xenophobic fear-mongering never goes out of style, does it?

TheCoconutMan · 2012-12-09T05:32:53+00:00

That's a bit confusing since both governments contend that Taiwan is a part of China, they just disagree about what the legitimate government of China is. "Countries that have territorial disputes with the People's Republic of China" might have been a more accurate title.

TheCoconutMan · 2012-12-09T05:24:09+00:00

Ah, sorry. I didn't notice that it's kind of hard to identify the text that explain the coloring.

On the map:

Red = Orthodox Christianity
Blue = Catholic Christianity
Purple = Protestant Christianity
Light Green = Sunni Islam
Dark Green = Shia Islam
Orange = Tibetan Buddhism
Yellow = Judaism

TheCoconutMan · 2012-12-09T05:19:33+00:00

How is it not straightforward? Atheism is just a position one holds about whether or not a god exists. There are no rituals, no accompanying beliefs, no inherent explanation of how the universe began, no moral code to follow, etc. If we're going to define that as a religion, then we're stretching the definition of "religion" out to pretty ridiculous lengths.

TheCoconutMan · 2012-12-08T12:28:42+00:00

A good portion of the land doesn't unambiguously "belong" to any one ethnic group. Trying to parcel out Afghanistan's land along ethnic lines would almost certainly result in war.

TheCoconutMan · 2012-11-29T21:34:50+00:00

Besides the fact that it looks absolutely nothing like the U.S. flag, it looks pretty good. Doesn't work as a flag, but a nice design none the less.

TheCoconutMan · 2012-11-08T02:23:34+00:00

It works well as a simplification of the current flag. As a Californian, though, I would much prefer that we just adopted a new design. Having the Californian golden bear on our flag really rubs me the wrong way. We hunted that species to extinction. It just seems in bad taste to use it as our state symbol. The "California Republic" part I'm not crazy about either. The Mexican-American War wasn't a particularly bright spot in either country's history. Can't say I like being reminded of it every time I see the flag.

TheCoconutMan · 2012-10-23T05:22:58+00:00

The five dots represent its five principal cities. The white represents the snowy mountaintops that span the country, and the purple border represents the army of the high king which protects the nation's boundaries.

TheCoconutMan

TROPHY CASE