Comment by thehardsphere
9 years ago
>Replace like 3 words in your comment, and I could make it into a rant advocating persecution of Communists. Which has happened before in the US. But it's ok now because it's against your political enemies?
If by "it's against your political enemies" means "it's against people who want to overthrow your society and replace it with a repressive one" then the two cases are exactly the same in principle and only differ in details.
So yeah, I'd say that they're both OK, under the exact same logic.
You are aware that opinions on what constitutes 'repressive' and not varies?
It's not a matter of opinion that the goal of communists is to overthrow every existing social institution. Marx explicitly states it in The Communist Manifesto.
Given that the United States is a free country where most of the social institutions have formed through voluntary free association, it also follows that overthrowing those institutions would require ending people's voluntary support of them. Because most people have no reason to end their support of social institutions voluntarily, this eventually requires instituting a repressive society.
Thus, it is not a matter of opinion that communism would create a repressive society within the American context. Nor is it a matter of opinion that Nazis would seek to do the same; I hope I don't need to outline that for you.