Quote from: jgants;429069Why it is that people can't figure out two opposing factions can both be evil is beyond me.

The problem is that people don't want to imagine that their own side can be evil.  That's why tempered democracy and limits on power are so important, because without accountability, checks, and balances, any political ideology can be evil.  Even mine or yours.  Seriously, any ideology.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429231Isn't that what I said?

RPGPundit

So...


You are saying classic came out 8 years too early and reloaded came out... um... 5 years to late?

Quote from: Hairfoot;429035You can say that as much as you like, and it will go toward  explaining why genuine communists are at the very fringe of the modern left while moderate social-democracy is at the centre.

Dude, so why were you trying to downplay communist atrocities, handwave them away as a "deviation", and make absurd claims about Christian atrocities that you know you can't back up unless, well, you were trying to hide the fact that modern leftism is no different than gulag or killing field communism?  Seriously, take a look at the mirror and see the spittle around your mouth and consider just how far you might be willing to go to solve the "problem" of conservative Christian Fox News viewers.  Denial of voting rights?  Taking their children away from them?  Reeducation camps?  Gulags?  Slaughter?

Quote from: Hairfoot;429035On the right, meanwhile, the same brand of fearful, racist, homophobic, anti-science religious zealot who goes in for theocracy and white supremacism is still running the show.  Screaming "but...communism!" doesn't hide the fact that modern conservatism is no different to dark ages conservatism.

So your side is moderate and everyone else is a zealot, bigot, and fanatic. No, you don't sound like a zealot, bigot, or fanatic at all.  :rolleyes:

Pundit - I still think that you have greatly exaggerated the seriousness of Deadlands (any version), as well as the relevance of supplemental material unlikely to be used by more than a small minority of Deadlands campaigns.  You will find real names, real dates, and real places in the silliest Wild West stories imaginable.  

Whether whitewashed revisionism is necessarily racist or not, Deadlands would seem to be merely following a trend as far as the colourblind Wild West goes.  There has been a strong trend in the last thirty years to recast stories with unlikely black heroes that tend to gloss over the racism in their lives - I submit as examples Silverado, Brisco County, Jr., Unforgiven, and perhaps most importantly as comparison to Deadlands - Wild Wild West (1999).  Call it the Sheriff Bart effect.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;428901Indeed; see the Shadowrun book "WAR!" wherein you can kill Jew ghosts at Auschwitz to get magic items.

No, I'm not kidding.  Yes, that's really what you can do.

For fuck's sakes. What the fuck, honestly?!

Quote from: John Morrow;429251That's why tempered democracy and limits on power are so important, because without accountability, checks, and balances, any political ideology can be evil.  Even mine or yours.  Seriously, any ideology.

Just curious, do you think those limits, checks and balances, and accountability also need to apply to financial systems and certain corporate products and practices?

Quote from: CRKrueger;429259Just curious, do you think those limits, checks and balances, and accountability also need to apply to financial systems and certain corporate products and practices?

Speaking for myself, as a person who totally believes in the system of constitutional and political checks and balances John's been referring to, as well as I did much earlier in this thread, I would answer a big fat "YES" to that question. I think we have tendencies to just take sides in the political equations of our time, THEN using reason as some sort of bludgeon to reverse-engineer our emotional allegiances. I think this is a nasty habit when it comes to politics, power and ideologies.

What I'm trying to say is that I believe that practical solutions that make sense are just that, and we shouldn't ignore problems or issues just because they are somehow flying in the face of the ideologies we learned to like when we were kids. What we should be asking ourselves is not whether there should be some form of practical checks and balances as far as economic and financial instutions are concerned, it's HOW these checks and balances should be designed, to what exact effect, under which precise circumstances, as well as the legislation needed to support such efforts, that we should be wondering about. What is going to both work, prevent catastrophies for our economies in the future, while still enabling markets to grow and their actors to compete freely. It's not an easy thing to do.

Quote from: CRKrueger;429259Just curious, do you think those limits, checks and balances, and accountability also need to apply to financial systems and certain corporate products and practices?

Absolutely.  It's a big reason why I'm not a libertarian, am a supporter of antitrust laws, and have issues with corporate juggernauts.  And, with the exception of a few die-hard libertarians and ultra-conservatives, conservatives are not calling for the abolition of all corporate regulations.  But if you want to stop a extreme anti-government conservative or libertarian rant dead in it's tracks, ask the ranting person if they think the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) should be abolished.  

Years ago, I saw an interview with Ralph Nader where he talked about a conservative asking him why he was obsessed with car safety when cars were pretty safe.  Nader pointed out that cars were pretty safe because of his crusades for car safety.  But what he missed is that he's still fighting a war that he's already won as far as everyone else is concerned.  And the real point is that forcing both sides to make their case and convince everyone that a regulation is needed or not needed is far superior to handing political ideologues the keys to government and letting them run wild.

Quote from: John Morrow;429250Role-playing games casually and sometimes carelessly play with all sorts of things that people can and sometimes do find insulting.

Wow. That is some really astonishing bullshit you linked to, there, John.

Quote from: John Morrow;429247And what, exactly, is that count?  How many deaths do you attribute to "white imperialism"?

Millions upon millions. Let's talk about the relatively straightforward examples to start with:The Congo Free State (5-22 million), the Amerindian genocides (45-90 million), the Irish potato famine (1 million), the Bengali tax-induced famine in 1770 (~10 million), and of course, the triangle trade (1-2.5 million) and its knock-on effects (another 6-8 million). These are a few examples amongst dozens, if not hundreds.

It also leaves out all the other deaths resulting from capitalism, including dead unionists & labour activists, those killed as a result of cost-cutting on safety etc.

Quote(Ignoring, of course, the fact that "white imperialism" isn't a person but Mao was.)

"Communists" are a group, just as "white imperialists" and "capitalists" are. No shifting goalposts here.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;429265Millions upon millions. Let's talk about the relatively straightforward examples to start with:The Congo Free State (5-22 million),

Valid example

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;429265the Amerindian genocides (45-90 million),

Invalid example.  The vast majority of the indigenous population of the Americas was wiped out by disease, much of it unintentional and much of it affecting areas before "white imperialists" ever reached them.  Blaming "white imperialism" for those deaths is like blaming Asia for trying to wipe out Europe because of the Black Death, which wiped out half of Europe's population and about 20% of the global population at the time. It's also further complicated by the indigenous people's working with the Europeans against the "brown imperialists" in their midst that had subjugated them throughout the Americas.  Yes, there are plenty of deaths that are legitimate to count, but those numbers won't be nearly as high as what you are claiming.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;429265the Irish potato famine (1 million),

I think that's a bit of a stretch to blame that on "white imperialism", but I'll give you "imperialism".

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;429265the Bengali tax-induced famine in 1770 (~10 million), and of course, the triangle trade (1-2.5 million) and its knock-on effects (another 6-8 million).

Those examples are essentially valid, though I'm curious about what you count as "knock-on effects".

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;429265These are a few examples amongst dozens, if not hundreds.

See if you can get over 100 million without including diseases as "white imperialism", since even a small band of pacifist communist explorers could have caused that "genocide" simply by landing in the Americas while carrying European diseases, so there was nothing particularly "white" or "imperialist" about most of those deaths.  That would at least help support he claim that "white imperialists" were just as bad as communists.  I keep hearing that various groups were just as bad as 20th Century communists or even worse but nobody seems willing to show the work of actually proving it.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;429265It also leaves out all the other deaths resulting from capitalism, including dead unionists & labour activists, those killed as a result of cost-cutting on safety etc.

Really?  You want to count "cost-cutting on safety" as if communists never do that?  So then should I add in all the other deaths that resulted from communism as a result of poor healthcare, shoddy construction, bad equipment, environmental destruction, poor workplace safety, and so on?  Do you really want to go there?

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;429265"Communists" are a group, just as "white imperialists" and "capitalists" are. No shifting goalposts here.

You specifically said "Mao".  That was the claim you made.  I'm happy to stick to comparing "white imperialists" with communists.

The spread and exploitation of disease certainly are part of the death count. "Could have been" is not "was". It was white imperialists who came to North America and spread disease, not a pacifist band of communists. And the diseases spread by their trip were the direct result of the desire to accumulate more wealth.

Hernando de Soto, driven by the desire for economic gain, came to North America with pigs with various diseases. He consciously released them in order to let them multiply to provide for future expeditions. While they didn't have modern epidemiological knowledge, it wasn't a secret that sickness could infect others.

The search for gold and a passage to China caused him to travel as extensively as he did, spreading the diseases around to populations that otherwise had limited contact with one another.

De Soto is one of more pleasant characters from Spain to visit the New World, he didn't intend to enslave, conquer or eradicate the natives (though decisions he made did so and aggravated the damage his negligence or ignorance had caused). Many of his comrades did though, and they were extremely successful. This cycle of violence continued up to the 20th century (and arguably is still going on) as South and Central American countries struggled to throw off violent political domination by European masters or their descendants.

Of course, it's hard to provide good numbers for communist killings because most people have no idea just how many people died in the USSR or China (and are still being killed in Tibet). Add in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, much of southern Africa and most of Central and South America. It's a mess.

Quote from: John Morrow;429261And the real point is that forcing both sides to make their case and convince everyone that a regulation is needed or not needed is far superior to handing political ideologues the keys to government and letting them run wild.

True.  However, unless Obama starts a nuclear war, I think the case can be made that handing a few "too big to fail" financial institutions the keys to the global economy makes what Obama can do by "running wild" look like swiping nickels from a lemonade stand.

Quote from: Benoist;429258For fuck's sakes. What the fuck, honestly?!

Yep.  For-reals.