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by triceratops 2010 days ago
> So anyone espousing Soviet ideas like socialized medicine should be excommunicated as well

That's a Soviet idea? It seems national health insurance was first conceived in Imperial Germany[0] (which the Weimar Republic, then the Nazis continued), then adopted in Britain, then Imperial Russia (which presumably the Soviets continued). Get your facts straight.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care#History

1 comments

Who is talking about where an idea originated? Many of these ideas predate written language. Nazis didn't invent racism either, are you trying to say that racism isn't a Nazi idea? The context is clearly that it's an idea associated with them.
> The context is clearly that it's an idea associated with them.

Is it? Says who? The Soviets did a great many things. It doesn't mean all of them are "Soviet things". Nationalized healthcare predates the Soviets, still exists in nearly all capitalist countries in one form or another, and is viewed largely positively in each of those countries.

The Soviets had a powerful military and infamous police force. When you say "Soviet Russia" the average person will think "Red Army" and "KGB" before nationalized healthcare. Going by your logic are the military and police "socialist ideas"? They use government money to provide an equal level of service to all inhabitants of the nation - namely protecting and safeguarding them. Police and military obviously predate socialism/communism but the Soviets were renowned for them, so that makes them socialist ideas, right?

Comparing racism in Nazism - a core central tenet, and one that's actively harmful, to nationalized healthcare in communism - an incidental feature, mostly positive, and also found in nearly every capitalist country, is a strawman.

See that's the problem. It takes a hugely asymmetrical effort to counter obvious bullshit than to spew it.
> Nationalized healthcare predates the Soviets

Where? In most of the Western countries that have it, it post-dates WWII, and corresponds to the replacement of capitalism in the relatively pure sense with the modern mixed economy, which is arguably more Marxist than the USSR and other “Communist” regimes based on Leninism and it's descendants.

Just a few comments up, Imperial Germany is mentioned (pre-dating the Weihmar Republic and the Nazi Regime).