User talk:The Four Deuces/Archives/2020/June

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The War of 1812 talk page

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with your behaviour on the War of 1812. Everytime I put a reference to the viewpoint of an historian, you are re-interpreting it to another view. I would expect I have one or two wrong here or there, but you have disagreed with absolutely all of them. I have about 62 references, for historians, about various views, do I have to put them all in, to see if you disagree with all 62 of them? I am putting this here, because your behaviour seems obstructionist... I am trying to get to the point where we can agree on something in the discussion, but you seem to just want to argue your point. Deathlibrarian (talk) 02:36, 23 May 2020 (UTC) I would also add, you have said you believe the view that Britain won the war of 1812 is fringe theory. This is absolute rubbish, and considering the number of historians that support this view, and some of them quite well renknown, you can't classify their views as fringe theory. However, if you want to make that case, I'm happy for you to, as I will be arguing it. I've put a separate section there, as it obviously needs input from other editors. It would change how the article is written. Deathlibrarian (talk) 02:36, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

You are obviously falsely including some historians as supporters of the view that one or the other side won the war, as well as writers who were not historians. Obviously you have started with a conclusion and looked for sources to support it, thinking that a huge number of sources would compensate for the fact that you hadn't actually properly read through them and understood what they were saying. That's OK if you're a Fox News or MSNBC talk show host, but we need to be accurate.

You also are ignoring "No original research." I imagine your background is probably in computer science or natural sciences, rather than humanities, and fail to appreciate that the laws of rationality apply to humanities as well. As you will recall from stats, your population needs to be randomly rather than selectively chosen in order to provide a representative sample. i could for example select 60 people in the U.S. who have black hair and argue that Americans have black hair. Instead, we rely on experts to tell us the weight of opinion. In a source you provided for example, the writer said that there is little support for the view that one side or anther won.

If you want to push the view that the U.K. won, Wikipedia articles are not the place to do that. If you can persuade historians to accept a new interpretation, then we can add it. But it harms the credibility of these articles when we provide false information to over-inflate minority views, on this article and those about the 9/11 attacks, Obama's birthplace, who killed Kennedy, etc.

At the end of the day, neither your life nor mine will improve or be hurt if historians change their mind on the war. I like the view that the evil Americans tried to annex Canada and the loyal Canadian militia beat them back. There's some truth to that but mostly it's a myth. So too is the view that the U.S. was in danger of re-colonization and fought back the evil British. These are popular views, but are rejected by historians. Whether or not we agree with them, we are doing a disservice to readers when we pretend that they have much support in academic sources.

TFD (talk) 03:43, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

We just completed a month discussing the infobox. We voted fairly, you didn't get your way, and as soon as the vote was finished, you introduced another vote on the subject! We are following Wikipedia policy, that where there is a dispute about a topic the infobox needs to point to the section for people to read it. The infobox can't say its a draw, because some historians don't think it is a draw! Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:46, 19 June 2020

There is nothing new in your posting and I have replied to your objections on the talk page. TFD (talk) 04:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

War of 1812

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Elinruby (talk) 07:11, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

War of 1812 some more

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Fringe theory/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Elinruby (talk) 08:56, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Seriously, your behaviour (NPOV noticeboard, War of 1812)

Your editing style is escalating in contentiousness. It is inappropriate to comment on other editors, let alone accuse them of slurring their countrymen or having false memories of what they were taught in grade 9, particularly using “proof” from another culture. I seriously suggest you take a deep breath and re-read yourself. Elinruby (talk),

Can you please name the textbook that you claim says Canada won the War of 1812? Incidentally, i don't understand what you mean by using proof from another culture. TFD (talk) 07:16, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Have you written a book about this or something? I don't understand your obstructive editing. Why are you so determined to WP:OWN this article? Elinruby (talk) 10:09, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

one more time: I probably could figure out what that textbook was, but it would take a huge amount of time better spent elsewhere. The thing is, it doesn't matter. The exclamation was an outcry at the ridiculousness of your statement and the textbook would prove nothing when found. We both know this so your insistence on this point is either an obstructive straw man or bullying. You have already seen and dismissed some very fine proof provided by Deathlibrarian (talk · contribs) that the PoV does exist. Your editing style is a real cause for concern. Elinruby (talk) 15:47, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Elinruby I have given up talking to you on three occasions because the conversation gets bogged down with you denying what my references say, even when it's blatently clear. The fact you are pushing the idea that the viewpoint that Canada won the war of 1812 is fringe theory is just insulting.Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:08, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

he complained on my talk page that I was engaging in personal attacks ;) Something about hurt feelings ;) Elinruby (talk) 04:13, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd suggest cooling it. There are a lot of folks on noticeboards that can or know someone that can swing a ban hammer. We might disagree but sheesh who wants that?Tirronan (talk) 05:00, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Economy of Venezuela

Remembering this comment of yours about Venezuela, I would like to read your comments and reply to hear what you think about this. Please, correct me if something I wrote was wrong.--Davide King (talk) 09:12, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I found an article in the New York Times, Chávez Restyles "Venezuela With '21st-Century Socialism'", published in 2005. It says, "According to many mainstream economists, the change is simply a mix of plans taken from the protectionist policies of the 1960's and others adopted from Cuba and countries of the former Soviet bloc. It may not be communism -- as detractors contend it is -- but it mixes socialism with capitalism and what some call improvisation."

I think for some people the label socialist is sufficient to discredit opponents. See for example the 1908 Republican election platform where they accuse the Dems of being socialists[1] or in 2009 when they considered renaming the Dems the "Democrat Socialist Party" (sic).[2]

In Barbados, which I often visit, both major parties are nominally socialist and the state has invested in businesses. Until recently there were currency controls. After independence, the government redistributed land and established a welfare state with universal health care, old age pensions, and subsidized education. They differ with the U.S. on China, Cuba and Venezuela. They have also had periods of fiscal mismanagement That doesn't stop big business from investing there or multi-millionaires buying villas. The U.S. hasn't labelled them a Stalinist economy or appointed a government in exile.

TFD (talk) 13:25, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments! This is really interesting. In other words, it seems to be that socialist is used as a pejorative term to mean a failed economy rather than a factual analysis, or is this just my biased impression? For example, the post-war consensus and relative boom (the so-called Golden Age of capitalism) is not considered socialist, yet most of the same policies that were considered the norm until the 1980s are considered socialist and only in relation to countries such as Venezuela to highlight their failures and blame it on socialism. Either way, Venezuela simply is not a socialist economy because, in spite of very persuasive academic arguments that Communist states were really state capitalist and that developed the capitalist mode of production with only a few different tweaks from Western capitalism, a socialist economy is commonly considered one that is centrally planned and Venezuela simply is not; it actually is a market-based capitalist mixed economy.--Davide King (talk) 08:24, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, I have come to accept a view of Communist states that Michael Harrington and others have supported. Since Russia had no middle class, capital or international support for their overthrow of the czar, their only path forward was a system that relied on motivation and coercion. Once they had achieved industrialization, they were able to transform into a capitalist state. Although Communism was imposed on Eastern Europe, the only countries that followed the Russian example were less developed, such as China and Cambodia. Stalin told Mao not to copy the USSR, but to support capitalism, Ho Chi Minh wanted to copy the U.S. and Castro was opposed by Cuban Communists. So the "socialist" system they introduced was really a step to capitalism. TFD (talk) 04:22, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Again, that really is interesting and basically my view. The Russian Revolution may have been a proletarian revolution, if the 1917–1924 revolutionary wave had succeeded; but since they failed, despite its proletarian character and objective, the Russian Revolution ended up being only a bourgeois revolution that established a capitalist state in Russia. Indeed, Soviet Russia during the 1930s may have been the most capitalist with its emphasis on production, Fordism and Stakhanovism. They may well have meant that this was necessary for the future development of communist/socialism because they saw communism/socialism as the most advanced, post-scarcity industrial society that would make communism/socialism possible, but that doesn't change the fact it was capitalist (which is my main issue with the Marxist–Leninists, i.e. the claim that it really was socialist rather than capitalist). Nothing wrong with that, but just do not act like that is socialism or that it had achieved socialism. To be fair to them, I am not sure they ever actually claimed to have reached socialism (I think Stalin may have said that in 1936 and in the Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR and maybe Khrushchev). Even then, socialism did not mean the socialist mode of production bur rather state capitalism as defined by Lenin (Nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people). In other words, when they used socialism, it was based more on propaganda (to be able to claim to have reached socialism) rather than on actual analysis. You can see that by how Marxist–Leninists have used state capitalism to describe the system post-Stalin and post-Mao while under Stalin and under both the Soviet Union and China were socialist, respectively.

I believe Stalin defined socialism as still having the law of value and commodity exchanges. So left communists and Marxist–Leninists agree that the Soviet Union et all were state capitalists; they just used different definitions and in the case of the Marxist–Leninists it was based on propaganda to claim the Soviet Union reached socialism. Another thing is that they were not even centrally planned economies but rather centrally-managed economies (the administrative-command system). Yet another is the Western Bloc's definition of capitalism and socialism. Basically, the Western definition of capitalism is the capitalism as it appears in the Western states (the so-called free-market and free enterprise systems) while socialism is a centrally planned economy as it appears in the Soviet Union et al. Under this definition, they were socialist. However, when leftists and others say they were really state capitalist, they mean the Soviet Union et al followed the capitalist mode of production, not much different from the West. In other words, it was not a question of free markets and planning (planning there was under capitalist economies too and in the Soviet Union et al it was disputed there even was). I think this was used as propaganda against socialism so that the mixed post-war economies were still capitalist, even if they were closer to the Soviet Union than to 19th century capitalism. In other words, both were capitalist, yet only one is considered capitalist and the other socialist, guess which one? Of course, it was the totalitarian Soviet Union, who has failed and is the ultimate proof communism/socialism do not work.

Stalin told Mao not to copy the USSR, but to support capitalism, Ho Chi Minh wanted to copy the U.S. and Castro was opposed by Cuban Communists. So the "socialist" system they introduced was really a step to capitalism That is really interesting and it does not surprise me. What surprise me is why neither of this is in the relevant articles. As you noted here, it seems that the anti-Communist view is given too much weight, especially in light of the revisionist school which gained some stream (talking about this, is the anti-Communist view still the dominant, mainstream view?). I always found amusing how anti-Communists and Marxist–Leninists agree more than they disagree. The Soviet Union et al were really socialist because. They merely disagree on what does that entails. The anti-Communists believe they were totalitarian and thus socialism was an hellhole while the Marxist–Leninists say they were democratic and the working class was indeed in control, or as you succinctly wrote and put it, whether or not the economy was in the control of the Soviet working class and whether the Communist Party of the Soviet Union represented them in a democratic way (do you know what is the consensus, if there is any at all?). I think this was really interesting, so please feel write me back, either here or to my e-mail. I would like to hear your thoughts about this (However, as we showed in Part II, [Hillel] Ticktin's theory still falls short of the mark. Rather than seeing the USSR as being a social system stuck in the transition between capitalism and socialism, we have taken up the point of departure suggested by Bordiga to argue that the USSR was in transition to capitalism).--Davide King (talk) 09:02, 30 June 2020 (UTC)