You're going to have to back up those bold claims for them to hold any value.

Also, please do not confuse 'unamerican' for 'bad', and 'american' for 'good'. In fact, I'd argue that the american economic and social system is broken (and thus an 'american' social system does mean a 'bad' system). Your 1% is depriving the 99% of most value.

  please do not confuse 'unamerican' for 'bad', and 'american' for 'good'

That's your own projection, not mine. I clearly stated in my comment that socialism was unamerican because it goes against the founding principles of the country.

I don't deny the current system is broken. It has been for a long, long time. But, if you think socialism is the solution, you haven't been paying attention to history. Socialism always results in tyranny. It did in Russia. It did in China. Vietnam. Korea. Even the Nordic countries, who had the best chance of pulling it off, have started to suffer under its weight.

> Socialism always results in tyranny.

Anarchist Catalonia? (Admittedly, it didn't last long, thanks chiefly to a different bunch of socialists, who were in turn defeated by fascists.)

I remember reading that a particular author, Franz Borkenau, was highly critical of the communists in Anarchist Catalonia, describing the terror they inflicted on Barcelona in his book the spanish cockpit.

Interestingly enough, he was also one of the pioneers of the totalitarianism theory. He argued that Vladimir Lenin created the first totalitarian dictatorship and that nearly all communist and fascist states were totalitarian in nature.

> I remember reading that a particular author, Franz Borkenau, was highly critical of the communists in Anarchist Catalonia, describing the terror they inflicted on Barcelona in his book the spanish cockpit.

Are you referring to the Stalinist oppression that began with the Barcelona May Days in 1937, or to anarchist atrocities in the city before then?

The description of the book I'm reading doesn't specify, but from what I understand, Borkenau spent a few months there in '36 and in '37, so he could have written about both.

The book just made it to the top of my to read pile. :)

> Socialism always results in tyranny.

?!

Firstly, the countries you listed identified themselves with communism, not socialism. Secondly, they never implemented actual communism - there was still an upper class and immense amounts of corruption.

Lastly and more importantly, those systems were put in place by the tyrants, not the other way around.

Ah, the no true scotsman fallacy. I hear that one a lot. It's an oldie, but a goodie. Communism is a subset of socialism; the share they same root philosophy. They never actually implemented true communism because it's not possible. Humans will always create a hierarchy. Where no official hierarchy exists, they will create unofficial ones.

Let me get this straight:

>Communism is a subset of socialism

and

> Socialism always results in tyranny.

but your only examples of tyranny are from communist regimes.

Does that mean that:

> Square is a subset of rectangle

so

>rectangle always results in four right angles

given that my only examples of rectangles are squares?

Saying socialism /always/ does anything, and then listing only examples from a specific subset of socialism is plainly incorrect.

By your own admission:

>Humans will always create a hierarchy

Socialism could not have been tested, because it would require social ownership of the production of goods, and co-operative management of those resources. Hierarchy means they did not have co-operative management of resources, they had hierarchical management of resources.

The GDR was socialist and arguably a tyranny.

Edit: As was The Third Reich.

From what little I know about East germany and post-WW2 soviet history - wasn't GDR controlled by the communist state of soviet russia?

Was it socialistic in name only, or actually socialistic in structure and policy?

Was Nazi germany not a dictatorship? How is that compatible with socialism at all?

If National Socialism was socialist because it had "socialism" in its name, then the GDR was democratic for the same reason.

Your attempt at applying mathematical logic to human affairs, as if one had anything to do with the other, is laughable.

Actually, this has nothing to do with mathematics other than one of the two examples being from geometry. This was pure deductive reasoning, a concept borrowed from philosophy.

Would you say that attempting to apply philosophy to human affairs is laughable? I would think that is the very basis of the field itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_reasoning

> Would you say that attempting to apply philosophy to human affairs is laughable?

If that was what you were doing, then I would applaud it. That's not what that was. You were focusing on precise inanities and using them to construct a logical sounding strawman in order to dismiss my point without having to address the main subject. This is a common rhetorical tactic knows as "disqualification."

I'll give you a new example to work with, scrubbed of geometry so you can more easily understand it:

Premise:

>Za is a subset of Z

>Za always results in behavior1

Conclusion:

> Z always results in behavior1

How does this argument prove that behavior1 occurs in all instances of Z, when you've only shown us that a subset of Z (in this case Za) exhibits behavior1?

How do you plan to prove that other subset Zb, Zc, Zd, etc follow this same rule when you've failed to provide even a single example?

Or if you still are unable to answer that question, can you please show us in what way i misrepresented your argument to create a strawman?

you not only have yet to actually address this point, you also have yet to address my point concerning your own words on hierarchy and the incompatibility with that and the idea of co-operative management of resources.

Once you can make your argument make sense, you can begin looking at counterarguments for fallacies and semantics, else you will have this situation where you are digging yourself a deeper hole by misunderstanding counterarguments and rashly trying to mislabel them as fallacies.

Editted formatting

The poster you're responding to is trying to show you that your "argument" is nonsensical mindless garbage and has no basis in rational thought. And being very polite about it to boot.

Please don't insult other users on HN, even when you think they're wrong.

When the site guidelines ask you not to call names, "nonsensical mindless garbage" is the kind of thing they have in mind.

The post was so incendiary/insulting my natural inclination to strike back in kind got the better of me but I recognize fighting fire with fire does not make for a good community so I'm sorry about that and will watch it.

I'd argue that a primary misfeature of the US system, crony capitalism, is actually the result of socialism. Crony capitalism only works if you have enough government spending and control to make that sort of corruption profitable.

Excellent point.