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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Angle]

Well DUH. The USSR was a joke, both politically and ecoomically. Saying they might have had problems is like saying that water is wet. No one disputes that.

[mainiac]

Part of the problem with Russia and diversifying is that a nice big chunk of the world wouldn't do any business with them. No country is an island. The climate was so oppressive that they weren't going to be able to produce or create the kind of things more democratic societies could. If you live in fear, your inventiveness is all focused on not being killed or sent to a gulag.

In the 40s yeah.  That's hyperbolic if you are talking about the 80s.

[smeeprocket]

They were powerful for a time, and dangerous.

China is still powerful, though not particularly dangerous.

In the 80s tho, Russia was THE bad guy. God how did we have Reagan for a president and not get nuked? Talk about missing a bullet. We should consider ourselves fortunate Gorbachev was leader at the time. He seemed more willing to interact and less likely to nuke us in response to insane cowboy tactics.

boy did we arm a lot of terrorists trying to fight the commies. Good times.

[Phmcw]

Well DUH. The USSR was a joke, both politically and ecoomically. Saying they might have had problems is like saying that water is wet. No one disputes that.

That's false. The USSR was very sucessfull, but not enough to whistand the hostility of the western world for ever. Beside, it was not a nice place to live in at all, and a lot of their best peoples fled. It started as one of the most backward European nation, and rose to superpower status in less than 50 years, which is quite a feat.

A centrally planned economy have its drawback, especially before the computer era, but it have its advantages too. Now, a central and authoritarian political system that purged the middle class from itself... that have a lot of drawbacks and very few advantages.

If you live in fear, your inventiveness is all focused on not being killed or sent to a gulag.

That's baseless, the USSR tech was pretty ok, considering that 1) they started dead last, 2) NATO was an alliance of all the most advanced nations 3) Stalin hindered reasearch by calling a number of very important fields "bourgeois pseudosciences" . Their literacy rate was actually rather good, and quite a few univeristies/institute are still well known.

What they didn't have is "start up culture" but that's an American strenght that you cannot really find in any other countries.

[smeeprocket]

Well DUH. The USSR was a joke, both politically and ecoomically. Saying they might have had problems is like saying that water is wet. No one disputes that.

That's false. The USSR was very sucessfull, but not enough to whistand the hostility of the western world for ever. Beside, it was not a nice place to live in at all, and a lot of their best peoples fled. It started as one of the most backward European nation, and rose to superpower status in less than 50 years, which is quite a feat.

A centrally planned economy have its drawback, especially before the computer era, but it have its advantages too. Now, a central and authoritarian political system that purged the middle class from itself... that have a lot of drawbacks and very few advantages.

If you live in fear, your inventiveness is all focused on not being killed or sent to a gulag.

That's baseless, the USSR tech was pretty ok, considering that 1) they started dead last, 2) NATO was an alliance of all the most advanced nations 3) Stalin hindered reasearch by calling a number of very important fields "bourgeois pseudosciences" . Their literature rate was actually rather good, and quite a few univeristies/institute are still well known.

What they didn't have is "start up culture" but that's an American strenght that you cannot really find in any other countries.

start up culture? I don't understand what you mean.

[Phmcw]

European peoples with diploma look to get hired by a well paying company, they pretty much never wander off to make a company themselves.

American Start up are a very potent innovation factor and technological drive. They are the reason why there are so many fortune 500 companies, and why they are so young.

[Rez]

Beside, it was not a nice place to live in at all, and a lot of their best peoples fled.

Did you mean to link these two clauses? 

Are you suggesting that people fled the USSR, because the winters were nasty?

ed: I don't even get what's going on right now, because I assume you're not talking about the climate in Moscow.  "it was not a nice place to live in at all" is an awful kind euphemism for being executed, exiled, or reeducated for holding the wrong political views.  Or, god forbid, you happened to be Ukrainian, in which case, you were systematically starved to death.

[smeeprocket]

Beside, it was not a nice place to live in at all, and a lot of their best peoples fled.

Did you mean to link these two clauses? 

Are you suggesting that people fled the USSR, because the winters were nasty?

ed: I don't even get what's going on right now, because I assume you're not talking about the climate in Moscow.  "it was not a nice place to live in at all" is an awful kind euphemism for being executed, exiled, or reeducated for holding the wrong political views.  Or, god forbid, you happened to be Ukrainian, in which case, you were systematically starved to death.

yea I suppose we sometimes forget how very recent all of that was.

[Rez]

I'm just going to take that straight.  The idea that you think atrocities from before WWII are too far in past to matter is too absurd for me.

It's easy to dismiss the past, but cultures and societies are products of their pasts.  Ideas are too.  80 years ago is indeed recent, compared to events thousands or several hundred years ago that profoundly shape our modern day.

[Phmcw]

"it was not a nice place to live in at all" is an awful kind euphemism for being executed, exiled, or reeducated for holding the wrong political views.

That's most of the world right now, and the USA are not much better. But there were other problem with living in the USSR : everything was bureaucratic and rigid. You HAD to live your life by the rule and had very little choises or opportunities to fix things.

It was ok for a lot of peoples actually, but those who fled would have been very precious for the coutry. They were basically the best : those who saw the flaws of the system and refused to stay still.

I'm just going to take that straight.  The idea that you think atrocities from before WWII are too far in past to matter is too absurd for me.

It's easy to dismiss the past, but cultures and societies are products of their pasts.  Ideas are too.  80 years ago is indeed recent, compared to events thousands or several hundred years ago that profoundly shape our modern day.

And that wasn't the problem. You'll find plenty of nostalgic of the USSR in Russia and ex USSR, especially among old peoples. Not in Germany beause they got it pretty bad after the war, and not in Ukraine because they got it bad before and after the war, but pretty much everywhere else you'll find nostaligcs.

[Helgoland]

Well, in Germany we now have people nostalgic for the youngest German dictatorship.

[FearfulJesuit]

Well, in Germany we now have people nostalgic for the youngest German dictatorship.

Honecker?

[Helgoland]

Whole GDR, yeah. "It wasnt all bad!" Yeah, but they still shot people trying to cross the border.

[olemars]

European peoples with diploma look to get hired by a well paying company, they pretty much never wander off to make a company themselves.

American Start up are a very potent innovation factor and technological drive. They are the reason why there are so many fortune 500 companies, and why they are so young.

Uh. There are plenty of European and Asian entrepeneurs, they just tend to go to the US to start their companies since that's where the venture capital is.

[Sheb]

In my lab we used to say "We european are much smarter than Americans until we get our PhDs. Then anyone with two brain cells go to the US"