Schmuck Who was running the USSR when it stood up to Hitler, who defeated us in Viet Nam, who is running China, how come Cuba has lasted this long, who is the Prime minister of France, how come it hasn't died? RR, not trying to forcing you to agree, go your own stupid, sheeple, mass way. Comrade B -----Original Message----- From: Ron Ristad <ristad@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: sparkscoffee <sparkscoffee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Fri, May 9, 2014 9:58 pm Subject: [sparkscoffee] Re: Opinions vs. Facts RG, You are referring to a another time and era. During that same period sailors used to get shanghaied. They would be kidnapped and put on a ship with no chance of escape. They were given lashings for disobedience and were hanged for mutiny. Even so what you wrote is BS. You are talking about criminal acts performed by people with deranged minds as if they were a common occurance. On what planet? I have no doubt things like that may have happened but to imply that they were widespread is nothing but liberal propaganda BS. It's the kind of thing that commies like Obama use to agitate people. That's how propaganda works. It's gets you all excited. People living under communism are treated worse than slaves. Like slaves, people living under communism must depend upon the government for everything. But people living under communism are not permitted to own anything because everything belongs to the government. Under slavery the owner has a vested interest in the health and well being of his slaves and a sizeable investment. Under communism in the 20th century an estimated 100 million people were sent off to gulags and murdered by secret police if they complained about their treatment. Millions starved to death. Something I find interesting is that slavery existed throughout all of human history up until the 19th Century in every country and in every culture. There has to be some reason for that. Another thing I find interesting is that socialism came into being around the same time that slavery was ending. It's not such a big stretch of the imagination to see that socialism filled the void created by the end of slavery. It explains why so many people are so willing to be slaves under socialism. They have been bred for it and can't live any other way just like dogs who are abandoned by their owners soon die. The fact that slavery ended because it became uneconomical, and that socialism has failed over and over again for the same reason would suggest that humankind is evolving, and that socialism will soon go the way of slavery. -RR -----Original Message----- From: R George Sent: May 9, 2014 4:59 PM To: sparkscoffee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [sparkscoffee] Re: Opinions vs. Facts RR, Glad to know you and Cliven are so tight that you know what is in his mind. I forgot that a slave in a free society could become free. And I didn't know that free societies had slaves. If that is so then are free societies really free? You might have missed this post from DT on 4/28/14. The treatment of slaves in the United States varied by time and place, but was generally brutal and degrading. Whipping, execution and sexual abuse including rape were common. Slaves were usually prevented from becoming literate to hinder aspirations for escape or rebellion. In response to slave rebellions such as that led by Nat Turner in 1831, some states prohibited slaves from holding religious gatherings for fear that such meetings could facilitate communication and lead to rebellion. Medical care to slaves was usually provided by other slaves or by slaveholders' family members. Some slaves possessed medical skills, such as knowledge of African folk remedies and midwifery.[1] Slaves were punished by whipping, shackling, hanging, beating, burning, mutilation, branding and/or imprisonment. Punishment was most often meted out in response to disobedience or perceived infractions, but slaves were also sometimes abused to assert the dominance of their master or overseer. Pregnant women received the most horrendous lashings; slave masters came up with unique ways to lash them so that they could beat the mother without harming the baby. Slave masters would dig a hole big enough for the woman's stomach to lay in and proceed with the lashings.[2] The mistreatment of slaves frequently included rape and the sexual abuse of women. Many slaves were killed as a result of resisting sexual attacks. Others sustained psychological and physical trauma. The sexual abuse of slaves was partially rooted in the patriarchal nature of contemporary Southern culture and its view of women of any race as property.[3] After 1662, when Virginia adopted the legal doctrine partus sequitur ventrem, sexual relations between white men and black women were regulated by classifying children of slave mothers as slaves regardless of their father's race or status. After a few generations, numerous slaves were mixed-race (mulatto) offspring of such unions, although white Southern society abhorred sexual relations between white women and black men as damaging to racial purity. Frederick Law Olmsted visited Mississippi in 1853 and wrote: A cast mass of the slaves pass their lives, from the moment they are able to go afield in the picking season till they drop worn out in the grave, in incessant labor, in all sorts of weather, at all seasons of the year, without any other change or relaxation than is furnished by sickness, without the smallest hope of any improvement either in their condition, in their food, or in their clothing, which are of the plainest and coarsest kind, and indebted solely to the forbearance or good temper of the overseer for exception from terrible physical suffering.[4] RG On 5/9/2014 2:35 PM, Ron Ristad wrote: RG, You really are obsessed with that statement I made. I ask again what connection does it have with the Keystone pipeline? BY DEFINITION a slave is not free. But a slave in a free society at least has a chance to become a freeman. On the other hand no person, black or white, has freedom in a repressive society. This is what I meant and I'm pretty sure this is what Cliven Bundy meant. -RR -----Original Message----- From: R George Sent: May 9, 2014 11:15 AM To: sparkscoffee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [sparkscoffee] Re: Opinions vs. Facts RR, Would this come under your heading of Facts or Opinions? "I agree with Bundy that blacks have less freedom under socialism than they did as slaves." 04/24/2014 RG On 5/9/2014 9:40 AM, Ron Ristad wrote: Opinions are beliefs people hold. They can be based on truth or they can be based on lies. They can be based on the latest information or they can be based on outdated information. Opinions can be changed. I change my opinions all the time when new information arrives. If I have an opinion about something and somebody presents information that contradicts my opinion and the information is credible then I change my opinion. Simple as that. Facts are real and not subject to opinion. That being said, some "facts" can be manipulated, such as the unemployment rate or the rate of inflation. The U.S. Government is famous for this. They simply change the way they calculate these things. In this case they aren't really lying but I would call it deception. Many people believe things they read on the Internet that are just somebody else's opinion and in some cases are half truths or outright lies designed to manipulate public opinion. Governments lie all the time. All you need to do to verify this is to read the official news stories in different countries. They often have completely different versions of what transpired. One or the other has to be lying. -RR "When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer" - Stevie Wonder "Superstition" ... ...