Warlords: Three Kingdoms

Kyung Dae-Seung wrote:Apparently from what I've heard, which isn't alot, this guy is Super Conservative Man.

It did surprise me though when he did not nominate a female to replace a female. Any female opinions on the matter?

The Supreme Court is very small - too small, in my opinion, for any kind of formal or informal quota to be used in the nomination process. I don't know much about this nominee but hope he at least has the gravity and respect for precedent necessary. I was most afraid that Bush would select someone with neither of those qualities - many extreme conservatives dislike a respect for precedent very much - which I think would seriously undermine our judicial system.

Judicial nominees are often difficult to read. This nominee has very little appellate court experience - which isn't a good sign and leaves little record to judge. Perhaps he's a Souter or a Kennedy - or maybe he'll be a Thomas or a Scalia. Souter - after all - was nominated by Bush Pere. In fact of the six supporters of women's reproductive rights four, Souter, Kennedy, O'Connor, and Stevens, were nominated by Republicans. Some people are able to separate their personal feelings and beliefs from their responsibility to interpret the law of our secular government. (O'Connor said before her appointment that she found abortion personally abhorrent - I see no reason to doubt that or doubt that it is still the case) Generally those who cannot do that don't meet even the basic qualifications - that doesn't necessarily prevent a nomination. But, trust me, many very conservative lawyers would oppose a conservative nominee who did not have the experience or judicial temperament necessary despite their personal opinion. Once you encourage the court to make law and ignore precedent you've irreparably damaged the judicial system itself. I think Bush may be trying for a stealth nomination. Someone with sort of the experience but without a record anyone can nail down on issues. That sort of thing has backfired badly in the past but is probably his only choice given the extreme views of many of the supporters to whom he owes his position.

back to the question - the notion that one woman on the court must be replaced with another woman is silly to me. I would be more concerned that women are represented on the lower courts. Not because I believe they judge other women more fairly or have some special female insight - but because I think it's a better indication of how able women are to advance in their careers or how blocked they are from advancement.

Cloud Strife wrote:Let's stop the train right now. I think people are missing what is true communism and socialism. The USSR was never communist in the operational sense, good and services were not distributed fairly and a small clique of party intellectuals and strongmen made all the choices in a very centralised system. Communism at it's heart is an attack on centralization of industry, government and religion and the Soviet Union was one of the most centralized nations on earth. Even the Red Army High Command during WWII couldn't make choices without poltical officers okaying them.

With that out of the way... onto China.

China is once again, not communist. It's an oligarchy dominated by the Politbuero memebers. Ever since the 1980s the offical slogan has been "To be rich is to be glorious" or something to that effect and the government has allowed basically a captalist system to take hold on the basis that it brings in more jobs and money. The regime is only repressive when it enounters threats to it's continuance in power, i.e. democratic reformers and the like. It doesn't care if you make a lot of money and opress the innocents, as long as you pay your "taxes" and be loyal communists they could careless.

We can't say a communist regime wouldn't work since a true Marxist state has never exsisted on the face of the earth.

On the whole Russia thing, let me put it this way (and there is no way of putting it)- Your wrong on that point. Let me show you what the definition of Communism is:

Communism is a theory and system of social and political organization (freedefinitions.com)

And during WWII it was actually under dictatorship--Stalin era.

Russia is now classed as a democracy, but it seems to be moving more towards communism again (scarey idea) with the nationalising of oil companies and the censorship being fully imposed again.

China is now a democracy by definition (yes I know its a broken democracy), through most of the 1900s it was definately a communist state it had a politburo and even merged its economy with the Soviet Union at one point but that idea was dismantled when everyone realised the Soviet economy couldn't take the strain.

ann's right though. Though I may joke that if everyone turned to communism we'd be all better off , human nature is for personal gain. Besides even if people put that emotion to one side, it was shown in the USSR that once everyone had a job, there was no incentive to work hard because you were guaranteed pay, goods were of rubbish quality. *Shrugs* If communism didn't work then Marxism won't either.

How long does it take for you people to post stuff that long?

Bonaparte wrote:How long does it take for you people to post stuff that long?

I'm sure that all depends on if they have to go places to verify their info of if they are taking everything from memory. A long, thought-out answer can take a long time to post, but a long, 'rant' can be typed out fairly quickly.


PS: Off topic!

For me about 4-5 minutes. It helps when you have qualifications in history and politics, mostly focusing on the USSR as an example of communism and because it has such an interesting history. I already knew the definition of communism, it was one of those terms you had to know by heart for some of the exams. I just needed an online source to proove I was right.

A lot of Russian citizens during the USSR rule were very happy. They had a granteed job, a free house, free health care, free schools for children. Of course they lacked a little of their civil rights.

Communism works very well in theory. The real problem with it in the past is acountability. In a democracy rulers and polititians can be held acountable by the vote. In a communist system it is harder. As I say, it works in theory but human nature is it's only flaw.

I would say that it was proclaimed in USSR that socialism, even developed socialism is way not a communism (while communism was awaited soon). I feel there is an example of communism utopia in fantasy - quaddy colonies in Bujold books.

Let's move from the USSR and look at the People's Republic of China. How much, if any amount, is this country communist any longer? It just seems to me that the old guard just sits there and takes hold of the government, with an iron fist, but that's about it. Am I wrong in this view?

I heard that China's moving farther away from Communism, because China is becoming more capitalistic.

I would even say that communism (or, more correctly, socialism) in China was much based on traditional society. If in Russia the Revolution was based on industrial workers, in China the basis were peasants, and a lot of people live there out of cities. This is at least one major difference.