By the way, everyone I met in Cuba, wants to leave!

I am against killings of any kind (even the death penalty), and in that sense I do oppose what Che did in his extrajudicial hearings.

Then you are incoherent. His entire approach was based on violence yet…

Overall this man had good intentions, and that is why there are people who actually like him..

…somehow he had “good intentions”. So killing people deemed “class enemies” indicated “good intentions”? Moreover…

I’m sorry but it makes me sick thinking that large corporations with enough power can takeover whatever they want!

But you are ok with communism and an end to private property apparently! It “makes you sick thinking that large corporations with enough power can takeover whatever they want” yet you support having a dictatorial state with enough power to take quite literally everything.

That is not just your opinion Perry, that is quite clearly a demonstrable fact. What is the difference between the Government saying “Give me 30% of your income, or Ill throw you in prison” and a Mafioso saying “Give me 30% of your income or I’ll smash up your property and/or kill you”

The only difference I can discern is that because a tiny minority of my fellow citizens decide it’s ‘fair’, the Government extorting a percentage of my income at gunpoint magically becomes morally acceptable.

I call bullsh*t.

If more people actually argued like this over emtional statement, the net would be a better place.

Cheers.

It sounds as if you are probably a libertarian.

I prefer “social individualist” but I can live with “libertarian”.

The problem that I have with capitalism as argued by pols like Ron Paul is that it is too utopian

Personally I am a ‘libertarian’ because I am *not* a utopian. I think the notion that demonstrably fallible people can be trusted with massive amounts of coercive power (via ballot boxes or executive orders, in the end it is all the same)… THAT is the “utopian” position.

It is precisely because I think it is an axiom that any power which can be abused, will be abused, that I argue for a minimal “nightwatchman state”. In other words the only way to get rid of corruption in high places is to get rid of as many high places as possible.

The state should be *entirely* about dealing with the few genuine collective threats that can only be faced collectively (violent conflicts (be they foreign uses of force or organised domestic uses of force), infectious plague and fires… all things that do not respect property lines). Any state that consumes much more than 10% of the GDP is probably a tyranny in the making eventually and should be opposed at all levels.

Any system that will *not* let bankers go bust cannot be described as ‘capitalist’. A redistributionist state, be it redistributing the wealth of others to peasants or bankers, is morally (and eventually practically) no different to a mafia in my opinion.

I see the problem of both Cuban Communism and American state-sponsored fascism overseas as one of the inherent moral and utilitarian failing of statism.

You think the problem of poverty in Latin America is caused by ‘capitalism’… but that is not the case. What you think is capitalism is actually state backed corporatism.

It is caused by lack of institutions, both cultural and legal, that underpin personal non-collective property rights. The reason certain US companies can do the things they have done in the past overseas is because they can use the power of corrupt states to act in ways that would be impossible if private property rights were enforceable. But the problem is rooted in the over-mighty state vis a vis the individual… so communism for fear of fascism is a bit like suicide for fear of death, and that was in effect what Che was pushing and why his lack of clarity makes him so undesirable on every level.

I’m pretty sure the US kills off people who don’t believe the same thing they do.

So? That makes idolizing Che ok how exactly?

If Che has been at least trying to replace Batista (a corrupt and brutal but fairly ineffective tyrant) with a system that prevented individual rights being trampled by collectives and other institutions, be they US banana companies using the laws OF THE CUBAN STATE to screw people or Batista’s secret police… and seek to replace them with a state that does not allow multinationals to in effect seize private property and allow the state to crush dissent against the state, then Che would have been at least fighting for a good cause.

But that is not what Che was fighting for. Whatever Batista was, he was not totalitarian, because frankly he did not really give a damn about what people did as long as they paid their taxes to him and did not oppose him.

Che was a genuine totalitarian however and replaced a bad system with a worse system, not by accident but by design. He replaced corruption and ineptitude with systematic seizure of ALL the means of production by the state and crushed dissent in ways Batista could only have dreamed off.

Moreover, when was the last time you saw someone wearing a CIA tee shirt?

he also believed in community work days where he called for the entire country to perform community service to rebuild the country. He tried to nationalize most commodities to get rule of foreign influence (imagine that). And yes he did kill people that did not want the same thing. But like i said before, when you herd people around like cattle, you can’t be outraged when they respond like butchers. Guevara’s actions, while gross, are exactly like that of the CIA who overthrew several latin american governments for drugs and fruit-look up what Banana Republic really means (and read 100 years of solitude). I don’t think you can blame people for resorting to the only means they truly know. I think the major flaw of any revolution is that the leaders usually expect everyone to agree with them and share their beliefs. I do believe what Che did was evil, but i’m not sure he was an entirely evil man.
Also there have been 180 confirmed victims of Che. A few months ago a U.S. bombing killed 90 civilians in Afghanistan. I’m pretty sure the US kills off people who don’t believe the same thing they do.

Secondly, while Che was a mass murderer, i think he should be remembered for the ideals he believed in.

Indeed we must. That is what makes Che not a mere “flawed hero”, it is what makes him a monster, because that ideals he believed in were wicked. He believed in enforced collectivisation… he did not want Cuba to become a voluntary kibbutz, he wanted to make it a mandatory collective at gunpoint. He believed in politically mandated ‘culture’ (i.e. no civil society outside the state whatsoever). And he killed people who did not want those things. That is not a minor character flaw, it is the very definition of a evil man.