[geeks] Socialized medicine [was Re: nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro]

[Phil Stracchino]

Mike Meredith wrote:
> 0: Lenin's 'soviet of soviets' was sprung on the communists as a bit of
> coup after the bolsheviks (a minority group) took over. Most
> non-stalinist/leninist communists and anarchists don't regard the USSR
> as a communist state; simply a dictatorship.

Indeed.  It is a mistake to classify the USSR as a socialist or 
communist, or even Marxist, state.

Of course, one could also soundly argue that it is a similar error to 
say that the US is a democracy.  (Setting aside for the moment the 
precise legal distinctions between a democracy and a Constitutional 
republic.)  We have much of the trappings of a democracy, but in point 
of fact, the actual effective ability of the citizenry to elect a new 
government of their choice is severely limited by the depth of control 
the political machines have built up to limit the viable choices 
available to voters.  /De jure/, we have an open democracy; /de facto/, 
we have a two-party system with very little difference between the two, 
both of them determinedly engaged in undermining and subverting the 
Constitution as fast as they can get away with it.


-- 
   Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
   alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
          Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                  It's not the years, it's the mileage.