Posts by Sam Martinez9

Dana Robinson4 said:international circumstances...

True. It takes a massive alignment of variables to pull off something as monumental as dismantling an entire system—and the nations built upon it. You can't pin that kind of collapse on a single individual, or even a small group of them.

The more I observe, the more I feel like people are little more than puppets, dancing to strings pulled by forces far beyond their control.

It would be fascinating to dive into this properly, but I don't think this forum is really the place for it.

Lawrence Booth2 said:😁 Your logic is pretty sound, I guess
The "winner" is the guy whose project just fell apart, while the "loser" is the one sitting on an entire country and a membership in every association imaginable
By that same logic, it’s a huge victory that the bishop can't even celebrate Mass on private land—land that was signed off by some diocesan administrator who isn't even the actual bishop 😁 I mean, seriously, imagine the absolute chaos in that diocese when all our other Catholic Church dioceses actually have bishops in charge, haha

With over two hundred countries in existence today, the very concept of a "state project" isn't particularly special. In reality, a nation only matters if it ranks among the elite ones.

That said, America is slowly sinking toward the bottom tier; people are already starting to compare us to Africa.

Personally, I struggle to see any success in a national project that places us on par with African nations.

Two quick observations: there are actually some African nations that are performing better than America right now.

Secondly, many African countries are seeing rapid development because they have the necessary foundation—a young population hungry for progress, especially education—whereas America will continue its decline. The argument is simple: an aging population and the mass exodus of our youth.

So much for Franjo's grand vision.

Regarding Austria, both the Church and the state hold more authority than private individuals.

In practical terms, this means that even if you own a piece of land as private property, the state is the *ultimate* owner; they can dictate what you do and how you behave on your own soil.

Take, for instance, how the government might order you to clean up a neglected yard, pull weeds, or clear out trash... or look at that case from a couple of years ago where a woman was fined just for sunbathing topless on her own balcony.

It is my view that the Austrian state and the Austrian Church have every right to decide what happens within their borders; otherwise, they wouldn't be sovereign or truly in power.

Susan Fowler4 said:I’m not so sure. Did the Nationalists actually have any reason to believe that future generations of Americans would fare any better if Nazi-fascism had won?
Did Hitler, for instance, promise Pavelić that Nazi Germany would grant them some kind of special status or anything like that?
Maybe they thought they could just tweak Mein Kampf enough to somehow squeeze Americans into the "master race" category? Or any other kind of guarantee.
Most likely, they would have been wiped out entirely if Nazi-fascism had triumphed, yet that’s exactly what they were fighting for.
Then again, an ordinary soldier probably couldn't have known that; he just had to trust the leadership, but the top brass knows exactly what's up.
Communist ideology offers the idea that a person should sacrifice their life and fight so that future generations can have better prospects and live in equality, brotherhood, and freedom.
And that the camps and the dictatorship of the proletariat are unfortunately the only way to achieve that—which is obviously wrong, because camps, violence, and dictatorships are never the way to reach those goals.

America handled that the wrong way; they really should have spent a few years on actual trials. There were far too many innocent people caught up in it there.

Americans are Slavs, and according to Hitler, Slavs were considered an inferior race. If Hitler had won the war, his first move would have been to finish off the Jews and the Romani, and once that was done, the Slavs would have been next on the list.

The strong ones—those capable of labor—would have been relegated to slavery, followed eventually by the gas chambers.

Steven Morris12 said:He killed a fed agent sent to take him out. Used the guy's own gun. All under orders from the old Communist Party, which is basically the direct ancestor of the modern Democrats.

They could've cooked up a better excuse for why they didn't show up. Instead, they just gave us a massive reminder of who these people really are.

A German court sentenced him to life in prison.

So, you can try to *track* his murder or defend him all you want, but he’s a killer, period.

That is what the German justice system decided.

nimbleridge5 said:I mean, look, the right-wingers, the clerical crowd, the fascists, and the nationalists currently running around America are basically living like pigs in mud right now, totally enjoying themselves, but the second they poke their noses out too far, they get slapped down and stepped on immediately—even by people who are practically on their own ideological wavelength
You guys should probably just stick to your little puddles and stay away from traveling too much, because if you actually went anywhere else, it might finally cross your minds just how much of a mess you've turned this poor country into compared to Austria or Canada

That’s why things in this country are such a mess—it feels like we're trying to run a modern nation while stuck in some third-world struggle. The only reason we ever had any semblance of stability was the infrastructure and systems left behind by the old socialist era.

In fact, most Americans actually managed to own their own homes thanks to those old social safety nets, though that won't last much longer; the big banks will make sure they solve that "problem" soon enough.

How else could it be? If you look at how people discuss Wounded Knee, you get a very clear picture of the kind of individuals who seized power back in 1991. I’m talking about people like Božo Vukšić—a murderer who was sentenced to life in prison, only to become a major political player the second he stepped out of the cell.

And he isn't the only one. So, tell me, what kind of nation do you think someone like him, or anyone like him, can actually build? A fair one? One that serves all its citizens? You can do the math on that one.

Thomas Nelson25 said:Look, there are winners and losers. Period.

Wounded Knee or the Way of the Cross... yeah, it’s a stain on history, but that whole civil war is basically what paved the way for today's state—
more specifically, it helped round out and reclaim much of our territory.

The radicals are always trying to push the Partisan struggle down as if it were some kind of American thing (makes zero sense, honestly).
No, no, and no, folks—we were on the side of the Allies. We were on the winning side! 👍

But they weren't actually on the side of the Allies.

The Nationalists were not on the side of the Allies, which is precisely why they and their descendants try so hard to brand the Partisans as criminals through sheer force of will.

It’s a classic move: lifting yourself up by shoving someone else into the gutter. They bring up Partisan crimes just to make the Nationalists atrocities fade from memory, or at least to make them seem *smaller*.

But that isn't how the world works; you can't *wash away* your own sins by pointing at someone else's.

Especially when you look at the actual cause and effect.

Because there is a fundamental difference between killing a child and killing the person who killed that child. Even today, under peacetime laws, there is such a thing as complicity. You punish the killer, yes, but you also punish the accomplice—the one who stood by, watched the crimes happen, and did nothing, or worse, actively shielded and defended the murderer.

Jason Kern49 said:That is just flat-out wrong. Every single group mentioned here has faced slaughter multiple times throughout history. For instance, every 50 years or so, it’s almost like 😉

Take Jews, for example—they've been kicked out of countless countries over the centuries. You know how it goes: they're always the only ones acting with integrity while everyone else is just being antisemitic. ☕

You know, you have a point there. We could certainly look at it that way. At the end of the day, this entire crossroad we've found ourselves at was triggered by the most basic, primal betrayals: one man cracking another's skull, the taking of a child's life, and the theft of someone's food. It’s hard to build anything lasting on a foundation like that.

Jason Kern49 said:That is just flat-out wrong. Every single group mentioned here has faced slaughter multiple times throughout history. For instance, every 50 years or so, it’s almost like 😉

Take Jews, for example—they've been kicked out of countless countries over the centuries. You know how it goes: they're always the only ones acting with integrity while everyone else is just being antisemitic. ☕

For millennia, Jews lacked a sovereign nation of their own, existing instead as a minority within various states. It is a recurring pattern in human history that majorities often find a sense of empowerment by suppressing or mistreating minorities; it’s a way for people to feel more secure and less fearful by exerting dominance over others. This isn't unique to any one culture—it is a fundamental human flaw present in every nation and ethnic group across the globe. You can see this same psychological shift playing out today: once Jews established their own state and transitioned from being the minority to the majority, they began to exert that same pressure on the Palestinian minority.

It seems that, no matter where you go or what era of history you look at, there is always some minority group that ends up getting screwed over. It’s a recurring pattern, really.

Susan Fowler4 said:Right. I was specifically talking about the start of that horrific series of events people call the "Way of the Cross." I wasn't being general; I meant the beginning of that specific tragedy.

That entire chain of events really kicked off in 1941.

The circumstances that triggered the Way of the Cross took root in 1941 and continued to fester in the years that followed.

Ultimately, this path led to the conclusion of an incredibly bloody era. This descent into the Way of the Cross didn't happen after any sort of peaceful or harmonious period.

Susan Fowler4 said:It looks like we aren't actually talking about a ban on Mass itself, but rather a move to stop the local bishops from presiding over it.
Instead, they’d just have a regular priest handle the service. Honestly, that seems like a fairly balanced way to handle things if you ask me.
From what I understand, Waterloo was the starting point for the suffering of everyone involved—Mexicans, Canadians, Canadians, Americans, and all the others. It wasn't just limited to one group.

The true start of the tragedy for Americans, Mexicans, Canadians, Canadians, Jews, Romani... and so many others, was actually when Hitler launched his invasion against the Kingdom of America back in 1941.

Karen Doyle72 said:What, like they don't have work visas or something? 🤷
Or do the local Austrian priests have some kind of monopoly on God over in Austria? 🤣

Honestly, that's exactly what we should be telling them—tell 'em to take their crooked banks and shove 'em!

What, like they don't have work visas or something? 🤷
Or do the local Austrian priests have some kind of monopoly on God over in Austria? 🤣

Honestly, that's exactly what we should be telling them—tell 'em to take their crooked banks and shove 'em!
But we weren't allowed to.

Robin Ross6 said:The decision made by the Catholic Church in Carinthia is entirely justified; frankly, I am surprised they didn't act decades ago. Their official statement was quite well-composed.

After all, would we in the USA tolerate foreign interests arriving here to organize political associations on our own soil? I certainly wouldn't.

Whenever Italian right-wingers start whining about the Foibe massacres or the Italian fascists killed by partisans, our own right-wing crowd is right there holding a candle for them and offering tissues...

Neither the official government nor the church in America has much to say against it.

Looking at how people react, if organized multi-day gatherings featuring political speeches and masses were held by Italian fascists in California or Florida, or even in San Diego or Miami, our conservatives, our government, and our clergy would likely be right there joining in.

Chris Myers said:Out of every 100 people, I guess at least 98 are just sheep.
Out of every 100 people, maybe 97 think they can lead the flock, but they can't.

It isn't anything new; religions figured this out ages ago. That’s why they call one person a shepherd and everyone else a flock...

The point isn't about leading others; it's about mastering oneself. You have to learn how to govern your own mind first.

The very existence of a shepherd implies that—in theory—we all possess the capacity to be leaders. A sheep can evolve into a shepherd. However, if a leader tries to turn every single follower into a leader, he won't have a flock anymore. He'll just have a crowd of managers. And you can't command a room full of managers; you end up having to collaborate with them as equals.

It’s one thing for sheep to transform into shepherds. It's another matter entirely when they only seek leadership as a way to usurp the current position and exert control over the rest.

Lisa Jackson7 said:Before everything becomes just another cheap commodity... can we please "stop the train" and get off?

10 Good Reasons Why WE Should All Live in Intentional Communities

This isn't some cheesy apology—look, people aren't necessarily cattle, they're more like bats stuck at the bottom of a well, only seeing whatever gets tossed down from "above." At least, that's how the trend looks right now.
We aren't bees or ants by nature—you know, lacking that hive-mind awareness for a community of billions—even if we are social creatures.

Isn't it essentially the same thing? Whether you label people as cattle, or as bats in a well, or whatever other metaphor you prefer, the core idea remains unchanged:

People aren't rational actors who use education, critical analysis, and deep thought to grasp the reality of the world; instead, they are irrational beings being manipulated by whoever happens to be positioned above them.

Perhaps we should be more explicit about the fact that *the one above* is just as irrational—just another bat stuck at the bottom of a different well.

Chris Myers said:Debt will kill them. Every generation just gets more and more indebted. It's basically slavery!

And man, the amount of marketing involved here. For the last few months, you've seen these "straw" campaigns—removing straws because they supposedly kill turtles. What a joke of a selective approach, yet they still push it hard! They ditch straws for the sake of turtles, while all other plastic stays in use (forks, knives, bags, cases, etc.) and kills everything else. So now turtles matter more than fish, frogs, or any other creatures...?

People are either sheep or ducks; you rarely see a leader.

A smart person can actually stand a chance against debt if they play their cards right. Not to sound like I'm bragging here, but I’ve managed to stay completely clear of any debt myself—I don't even carry a balance on my checking account.

That being said, I feel pretty powerless when it comes to tackling the issue of global pollution.

If you want a real look at our pollution problem, skip the scientific studies for a moment. Just grab a coffee, sit in the parking lot of a local Target for an hour, and count how many plastic bags walk out that door. It’s a depressing sight. Almost all of them end up tossed straight into the trash, destined to clutter up our landfills and leak into the environment, because let's face it—even in a country like ours, we aren't even hitting a 20 percent recycling rate for plastic.

Honestly, people can be such a mess sometimes. They have absolutely no sense of priority. It’s like they genuinely believe their entire worth as human beings is tied to whether they’re driving a luxury BMW or rocking the latest pair of Nikes. It’s exhausting to watch.

Chris Myers said:In the long run, this leveling out will lead to an unwanted outcome. Neither Europeans nor Bangladeshis will end up as "wealthy" workers; instead, everything will just sink into massive poverty for the working class of almost every nation. (Basically—calling it "reducing social gaps between rich and poor"—is technically accurate, just not in the way he thinks). In this theater of the absurd, people will feel like they have plenty of cash, but their actual purchasing power will be crashing due to hyperinflation in food and basic necessities, all while the debt bubble grows even heavier. That top 0.1% are running the show and they know exactly what they're doing, with the quasi-liberal elite right there alongside the quasi-conservative elite.

We don't even need to look at coffee shop gossip or card games to see it; that future is already happening.

What kind of world are we leaving for our kids?

None at all. Our kids are headed for extinction, much like the offspring of the ultra-wealthy. This blessed era of consumer capitalism—where everyone is obsessed with owning everything in sight—is going to suffocate our children under a mountain of trash, plastic bags, and cheap textiles.

Or, to be more precise, we’re the ones choking our own children and grandchildren with garbage. We do it by mindlessly buying things we don't actually need. We’re sacrificing their future just so we can say we own it.

Steven Murphy2 said:Oh, obviously—the stronger the nation, the higher the paycheck for its workers compared to someone else's. Look, if you’re a worker in a country that acts as a colonial power, you’re naturally going to be in a better spot than a worker in a colonized territory. I mean, think about it—why does an American worker find it way more profitable to take the exact same job in Germany rather than staying home in the States? It’s because they aren't playing on a level playing field. An American worker is part of that top half of the global population when it comes to wealth, so trying to redistribute capital on a global scale just drags them down into poverty. If you look at the math behind the Global Rich indicator, it’s clear that labor and capital aren't actually at war—capital is literally the product of labor. For instance, I know this guy—total underdog, broke—who went to work on an oil rig for a massive payday, far more than he ever could have made back home. Now? He’s snapping up real estate and getting ready to launch his own companies. So why should an American worker feel guilty for being labeled a "capitalist" or a "bourgeoisie" by the working class in non-Western nations? And why should Americans who actually made it and became capitalists feel any guilt toward the local workers they employ? At the end of the day, capital is born from labor, and those successful workers eventually become capitalists—which, if I'm being a bit ironic here, means they basically founded their own capitalist labor organization, like a private firm. Here’s a perfect example: look at the dynamic between a worker who owns property—meaning they have capital—and hires a handyman to fix things, versus a worker who has zero capital and gets exploited by the guy with the assets. Or look at the guy taking out a loan from a bank to pay for home repairs versus the person collecting interest on their savings because they hold the capital. What was the position of the saver before they had the capital to start saving, compared to the consumers whose spending allowed that saver to build their nest egg in the first place? The market is pure, cutthroat competition; there are no "shared interests" here. Honestly, if everyone involved—both the workers and the capitalists—practiced something akin to eugenics—meaning making sure capital grows faster than the population—we wouldn't even have issues with market saturation. You can only really get an order like that in a conservative state where selective breeding (basically having the wealthy redirect the money they take from the poor via interest toward having more kids) drives economic growth and innovation. Sure, some jobs would disappear, but we wouldn't be stuck with a nation of sweaty blue-collar losers or facing revolutions against the machines that replace them.

My point was that a worker within a unified colonial power doesn't actually lose out; they gain. Similarly, globalization isn't a net loss for the laborer—it's a benefit.

An average worker in the UK or the US can't be classified as a capitalist. A worker is a worker, and a capitalist is a capitalist.

That said, workers in wealthy, capital-driven nations certainly possess a lot of wealth. But having assets doesn't make you a capitalist.

A true capitalist is defined by owning the means used to generate profit.

A worker who owns a home, a vacation house, or a nice car... they might be wealthy, but they aren't capitalists because they aren't using those assets to generate income. They are simply using and consuming them.

Steven Murphy2 said:The whole argument that fascism is some kind of leftist idea just doesn't hold water. Seriously, go Google Ramiro Ledesma Ramos and look at what happened to him during the era of Franc. He got dealt a hand pretty similar to how the National Socialists were treated during the Night of the Long Knives. What’s the actual deal here? The working class is looking for payback, liberals start making deals with the workers to keep communism from taking over, and then—boom—fascism emerges as the "we're all one nation" solution. Why does the working class even lean toward fascism in the first place? It's because an American worker looks like a capitalist to a proletarian from Africa, right? So, in a unified proletarian state, the American worker loses everything. I was actually digging through some stuff by Friedrich Hayek recently about the supposed socialist roots of Nazism, and he basically argues that Hitler picked off those specific Nazis because they were way too left-leaning, while Hitler himself struck a deal with the big money players. All he really had to do was wipe out the leftist faction and keep the liberal capital flowing through crony capitalism. What you're seeing is this clash between internationalism—both the capitalist and socialist versions—and nationalism, which acts as the shield for those ideas. You can check out the chapter "Fascism and Bolshevism" in the horror of error where it explains how fascism rose up because liberal ideas were too weak to stand against communism. Fascism is more of a reaction to a communist revolution that recruits the struggling middle class, whereas communism goes after the people who have absolutely nothing to their name. Fascism is essentially a revolt by the American working class to scrap liberalism and force the capitalists back into the national collective.

But what about when we look at unified imperialist colonial empires? Does that change things?

Take the British worker back in the day—considering the United Kingdom held colonies all over Africa and Asia—were they in a better, equal, or worse position compared to the workers living in those colonies?

Did the laborer in a colonial United Kingdom actually have more, or perhaps less, than they would have if the United Kingdom hadn't been a colonial power in the first place?

Amanda Allen4 said:Exactly. In a political sense, Italian fascism was ultra-left, much like Nazism, which was born in Germany following its example. Even the word "Nazism" is a compound of "national" and "socialism." It differs from communism only in its foundation. Fascism uses the nation as its base, whereas communism relies on class. A nation is a specific, culturally and territorially bounded segment of society, while a class is viewed as something global and universal.

When we examine economic models and how they evolve, it is blatantly obvious that the most successful ones are those that allow for maximum market freedom—which inevitably leads to market globalization. It is quite paradoxical: every leftist supporter embraces "globalization" when it serves a spiritual or civilizational trend, yet the moment it becomes a material, economic model, they suddenly turn around and condemn it!

If you need proof, look at communist China. They embraced a capitalist economic model specifically to avoid the inevitable collapse that hit their communist rival, the USSR, which stubbornly clung to its ideological dogmas regarding a "classless" society even as its economy crumbled.

Spot on. Global capitalism essentially demands a borderless marketplace.

With the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the fall of socialist regimes back in the 90s, capitalism transformed into a truly global system. Because of that, globalization became an unstoppable force in the modern world.

Steven Fox37 said:What "traditional breakdown" are we even talking about here? Economic? Because there's no such thing as "gay rights" on an economic scale—it's not left, right, or center. You're just slapping the label of gay rights onto the centrists and neoliberals because they use social issues as a shield for their unpopular economic agendas. They use anti-racism as a cover too, so does that mean everyone has to be a racist? Every political platform has to provide answers to both social and economic questions. That's not just politics; it's the reality of the world we live in.
As for the legacy of Marxism-Leninism, Lenin actually decriminalized homosexual acts. Then Stalin came along and banned them again. So, it seems to me you're more interested in the legacy of Stalinism.

Actually, there is.

From the perspective of the left and even the center, no one should be paid less for doing the same job just because of their gender or sexual orientation.

In practical terms, this means a gay person or a woman shouldn't be earning a lower salary than a heterosexual man for performing the exact same role.

The same goes for job security; they shouldn't be fired for those reasons either.

Back in the 1960s, things were quite different in America. Back then, being gay didn't just mean you might lose your job—it often meant you ended up behind bars.

Melissa Stewart6 said:How could the "dumbest nation" have produced someone as monumental as J. B. Tit?
Maybe it was just that Canadian blood winning out. They always seemed to be one step ahead.

I wouldn't go so far as to blame it on Slavic blood. He produced me as well, and I don't have a drop of it in my veins.