[smcl]

Comments which mention socialism or communism in a way that doesn't explicitly condemn it are often downvoted to oblivion on HN. I got it once because I mentioned that I thought Tito was an interesting guy. FWIW I'll vouch the comment if it gets made [dead]

[4ggr0]

Yes, but I notice this in real life as well. As soon as I dare to suppose that merely the theory of communism is not 100% evil, I get treated like a full-on communist defending that "Stalin killed 100 million people".

Can't even blame people that much, used to think the same. Then I read a couple of books, educated myself about different political ideologies and now I'm better able to talk about this topic rationally. I still think a communist state which truly works is very hard to achieve and not that necessary, even just when talking about having to convince people that we or they should try. But I took some 'marxist' principles to heart and base my political thinking around concepts like class conflict and economic/social equality, without feeling or describing myself as communist. I still vote for SocDems, I'm probably just a bit more "extreme" than their average voter.

[Jon_Lowtek]

I see that a lot with all kind of topics and call it "0/1 partisanship" for lack of a better word. I think it's related strongly to in-group/out-group thinking, friend or foe. You are either with us, or against us, but in a radical way: either you agree with everything, or you are the enemy. There is no middle ground, no grey area, no 23% or 42% or 69% only 0 and 1. People lack the ability to differentiate, to have a discussion about the finer detail. Maybe it's the education system not training discourse culture, but i think it is mostly because they don't actually care about the topic, only about the social aspect of being on the same side of a topic.

[MockObject]

While it may be true that the criticisms of the Bolsheviks leveled by Kautsky may point to a disapproval of Leninism by Marx and Engels, nevertheless, no non-Leninist socialist revolution has ever occurred, and so the charge of brutal dictatorship is valid and legitimate in historical practice.