Why not ask how stable Marxism is? Do marxist governments last longer or shorter than non-Marxist governments?

Only on slashdot could you mistake ad hominems for a persuasive argument.

By "junk insurance" you mean insurance that doesn't cover drug counseling, coverage of your children living in the basement, etc.?

Not happy about paying for these things I won't be using.

Will the government next coerce me into buying caviar for myself and the poor people who don't want to work?

Emotions do more to dictate orders than anything else.

Free will implies you can create decisions out of nothing (i.e. ex nihilo).

Notice how its the countries with bad economies that are "decades ahead".

Yes, you are right that it means less spent *by the government*.

But your point is moot because no European government spent less money in any year than the previous year during so-called "austerity".

First, that is not clear.

Second, even if it was, calling someone a name is a pretty thin argument.

Third, what is wrong with believing homosexuality is immoral? I think it is wrong. Obama thought it was wrong. You've got a lot of work to do if you're going to call all the people names that disagree with you.

Ad hominem-ing your way through the slashdot echo chamber I see.

The other guy was a lot more daring than you.

People who inherit wealth without skills and discretion lose wealth very fast ... often to the more deserving.

We have no way of knowing what the outcome of austerity is since it hasn't been tried. At least not in Europe, anyway.

Remember: austerity means less money spent than previous years. If that's happened in Europe it's before anyone can remember.

The name "austerity" implies a lot less money spent, but nothing couple be further from the truth.

You've been getting your history from Days of Future Past ... i.e. the revisionists.

The side that wanted to USE the nukes was Cuba. The USSR wasn't comfortable with it.

Don't they pop into existence out of non-particle energy?

Imagine a homicide detective discovers a dead man with a knife in his back.

What is so wrong about the view that the carcass was always there with a knife in its back?

I can see David Hume giving someone a big high-five over that conclusion.

Yeah, and if I found a valentines day card in my mail box. It was always there!

See! SCIENCE!

Needs are wants in disguise.

The USSR determined 6 million Ukrainians didn't *need* to eat.

Typically this kind of defense of the USSR includes the "... and the trains always ran on time." While that may be a pleasantry the soviets enjoyed ... trains running on time didn't feed the 6 million Ukrainians who died of starvation.

More broadly, why do you think Stalin pursued the New Economic Policy (NEP)? The premise of it was to allow more free market principles into the system.

Were the Soviets just not Communist enough? Or did they not recognize the amazing leaps forward they had made? Or what exactly?

Because to me the whole thing smells like a spectacular failure.