Ronald Reagan
 

"How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." - Ronald Reagan

:confused:

If he really said that (which I don't doubt) it means he was a communist, at least while he was reading the books.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

Not really, if he understood what he was reading then he wouldn't be a communist.
Basically all it says is people who are stupid are communists and people who are not stupid are anti-communist; from his limited POV of course.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

Indeed, he owned himself with this attempt to make a joke :)
What is more, the quote is flawed because it implies that communists don't understand Marx or Lenin which is of course wrong for these two.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

Yep. Ronald Reagan was basically a communist before a Republican. :lol:

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

Communists do not understand Marx nor Lenin simply because they do not know, or do not care to now, how the system has never worked and killed over 70 million people last century.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

Well it can be argued that communism has transcended the draconian bull of Marx and Lenin and has become more of a free-form concept. Everyone has an idea of what they would like a communist world to be like, but I doubt very many of them consider it to be Marx and Lenin.
Things change, break from their roots. Marx and Lenin may or may not have started the idea of communism, in my opinion they didn't, but that's beside the point; communism is no longer as its creators envisioned it, when they released it into the world it became our creature, yours, mine, everyone's, and we've changed what we view it as by majority consent.
So whether you understand Marx or Lenin doesn't really matter, communism isn't Marx, nor is it Lenin; communism is ours, a community shaped concept.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

The thing is, neither Marx nor Lenin invented communism. They simply attempted to formulate a system where communism could be adapted to real life. Both of them failed, because they neglected to put proper stock in the resilient nature of the human person. People cannot simply be willed to act. Until there can be a system that causes everyone to have an interest in sacrificing their own riches for the sake of others, communism cannot work. That interest would be some sort of binding ideology that promised a greater end reward, such as Christianity. Marxism-Leninism offered only World Socialism, and few people were interested in sacrificing their lives for that. Communism cannot succeed in an authoritarian atmosphere because it makes sacrifice law instead of personal action. People don't sacrifice if they are not internally motivated to. That is the ultimate failure of Marxism-Leninism. By removing the human factor, it makes humanity irrelevant, and so makes itself irrelevant.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

By time Reagan was the president of the US, he was not "all there"

Captailist don't know how the capitalist system work, especially those who are at the bottom of said list, they are all too happy just to have a Wallmart and mcdonalds at every corner, so they will countinue to live their pointless lives dish out their money to those who are making billions off the foolish.

Marxistism is merely a version of communism, to say Marxistism is the only communist system is foolish and ignorant.

The system is not to blame, the men are to blame for it's fault.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

Reagan was 'very much there' during his two terms.

My country has been pretty stable as of late.

How is yours doing?

Marx is the premier chief and founder of the system itself. All of his teachings branch out into all forms, from Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, and so forth.

To argue that true communism has been never seen by the world is the word of a fool. To go even further and say that the world leaders of communist countries in year past were never influenced by Marx or his teachings is the mark of a moron.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

He was nearly deaf, and he was losing his mind due to age and his alzheimer's.

I don't own my own country.

It's a mere practice and form of communism, communism can be dated back as far as civilized man has walked the earth, jesus promoted communism as well.

Which nation has fully conformed itself to communism? None.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

:uhh: He means how is Russia doing. An essentially flawed comment considering Russia is now a capitalist system, but still.
He didn't get the nickname 'President Ray-gun' for nothing.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

He was perfectly fine.

Don't be a smart ass.

Marx is the founding father of communism. Jesus promoting communism, when the practice itself is mainly composed of Atheists, laff.

My statement I guess must be repeated.

To argue that true communism has been never seen by the world is the word of a fool. To go even further and say that the world leaders of communist countries in year past were never influenced by Marx or his teachings is the mark of a moron.

Keep telling yourself that the U.S.S.R. and China were never communist, better yet, tell that to the family members of the 70 million civilians murdered between the two of them last century.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

I'm well aware of what he ment, but his series of questions are flawed.

He was not.

No, hes the founder of the ideology, but the practice is two different things.

One needs not to look any further to see that Our version of communism was a capitalist communism, your telling yourself otherwise.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

Straw-man argument. The number of people they killed has nothing to do with it. If we go that route let's take Nazi Germany, that was clearly a communist country, just look at how many people it killed.

To suggest that a high death count is the mark of communism is extremely foolish; throughout history, capitalism has ended more lives than any other form of economic model.
No, Marx is the person who wrote a lot of rubbish based on some nice ideas and slapped the label 'communism' on it. He did not create it.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

You never get tired on pointless arguing, do you? Moderators should know it better :uhm:

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

Moderators are just like you and me, most of them enjoy a good argument, I should know I am one on a few other forums.
If moderators were to get rid of all pointless arguing on forums they'd have to delete pretty much every single post on every single subject.

Re: Ronald Reagan
 

You'd have to be mad not to think he was a brick short of a load.

http://www.theamericanmind.com/image...an-wiggled.jpg