This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Malchus: Okay, just a reply to this, since it an annoying misrepresentation of socialism. I've actually taken a course in socialism, and the ways Obama is supposedly socialist would get laughed at by anyone who actually knows what it is.
- The Joker face, above, is actually labeled more often "Why so socialist?" And he is, by fact: universal healthcare is a tenet of socialism.
So, universal healthcare is a tenet of socialism. Or, rather, a lot of socialist movements want to implement that. Fine, he has one so-called "similarity". He's not advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals (i.e., a union of the people themselves, or a government in representation of the people, owns everything and it should be shared and distributed among everybody). He is not critical of capitalism and has actually sent some cash to prop up capitalist institutions, nor has he made any move to disestablish free market capitalism.
It takes more than just one bloody thing, which bears only the most superficial of connections in the first place, in common to be really socialist. That's like claiming George Bush is Adolf Hitler just because of a few seeming similarities without taking into account all the ways he differs.
So he isn't, yet, socializing the whole economy, just health-care. Also capitalism is about letting free markets regulate themselves including letting badly managed companies collapse, thus please don't cite the bailouts of failing companies as showing Obama's capitalist credentials.
I don't give a frak about your stupid messed up domestic politics, but do some research before you spout something in supporting or attacking a position so authoritatively. It's just annoying in the same way being Dan Browned is annoying.
Martin The Mess: Okay, I like the idea, but was this put through the "You Know, That Thing Where" process? I'm sure we'd find some examples quite fast.
Jordan: Is it just me, or is anyone else bothered by the phrasing of the Saladin entry? The reason the guy is popular today has less to do with political correctness, than the fact that like Robert E. Lee, he's one of those people who the other side considered a Worthy Opponent and deserving of respect. Also, as the entry itself seems to admit, Saladin committed fewer crimes against humanity and war crimes than did his European counterparts. Sure, butchering civilians wasn't looked down upon in the Middle Ages, but there is a Values Resonance in the idea that it's bad, and Saladin just comes out better by that standard.
Matruz: I don't know about this but shouldn't The Historian's Mistake described in the intro deserves it's own page trope?
Doktor von Eurotrash: The original entry about Cro-Magnon humans seems to imply that it would be politically incorrect to depict "primitive people" as dark-skinned. Cro-Magnon aren't "primitive" except insofar as they didn't have our technology and knowledge. Normally, at least in older depictions, Cro-Magnon tended to be shown as lighter than Neanderthals. Just sayin'. Incidentally, Björn Kurtén reacted against this type of depictions in his historical novel The Black Tiger, where the Cro-Magnon are about as dark as modern-day Indians, while the Neanderthals are lighter.
Dark Sovereign: Can we just get rid of the political entries? They're needlessly divisive, obvious flamebait, and many have devolved into anti-Conservative bile.
