So who then facilitated, financed, and orchestrated the wars? Follow the money and you have the answers. Stalin?? Nothing but a thug-puppet, his particular 'ism', a construct as well.

Whoever makes the loans, orchestrates wars.

So, yes, @Taint, you are correct, to force the southern states to stay in the union, Lincoln had little option but to proceed with the war, just like to annex the Soviet Satellite states, Stalin had little option but to invade those countries.

Get it?

I hate to get on Bill Nye, and I agree with the need for more foreign aid even. I must protest non the less about war being a minor factor in poverty and related deaths. Blaming the millions that die of starvation and malnutrition in Africa on that alone is little different than saying that the millions who starved under Stalin and Mao could have been saved by foreign aid.

Even when there isn't active warfare in the most poverty ridden places of the world, there are warlords and criminals ruling the region through starvation and actively redirecting what little foreign aid there is to themselves and away from those that do not support them. Simply sending more food and money to places like Somalia or North Korea does nothing to help the people there, and if the aid is naively sent blind to whomever holds power it actually makes things WORSE by strengthening the very monsters responsible for the suffering. I'd like to believe our apathy here is the biggest problem as much as the next guy, but the reality is that there are also people local to the problem involved first hand in perpetuating and profiting from human suffering. If we refuse to admit that there are instances were 'aid' necessarily takes the form of shooting the bad guys then we are doomed to watching as the next genocide plays out, as we did for the Rwandan Tutsis, Iraqi Kurds and Shias and countless others.

It's not so much that dangerous fundamentalist atheism is impossible. As you said, Stalin and Mao proved otherwise, although an argument could be made that their zealotry was politically based, but I digress.

It's more that even the so called "rabid atheists" (Dawkins et al) of the present day simply aren't comparable. The lunatic fringe of religion is well documented (WBC, al Qaeda, etc) as is the harm caused by even mainstream religion (ban on condoms, hiding pedophiles).

There simply isn't anything comparable from even the most evangelical of the new atheists. Even dickheads like Pat Condell are small potatoes compared to the other side.

The reason why atheism is unique over other belief systems is because it isn't one. There is no atheist tract or creed that must be upheld. There are simply people who reject attempts by others to force them to comply with their particular belief set.

Now, if an atheist terror group appears tomorrow and starts bombing churches or even if an atheist political party* demanded the outlawing of religion, I would condemn them, but that hasn't happened.

Put simply, I've never had an atheist knock on my door and say "have you heard the word of Dawkins?"

*what would that even look like, given that atheism has no political affiliation?

They missed a few? Like Stalin saying he was kind of moderate so he could complete a reign of genocide that was pretty Hitler-ish? But hey, there were a lot of American scandals and we should focus there. I personally think genocide is worse than, say, sex scandals but meh, who can judge.

Capitalism didn't write the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Government did. And it was Andrew Jackson who signed it into law, and he was the first Democratic president who believed in the power of popular votes. Also a huge racist. But if you want to blame capitalism for the ills of majority rule and statism, knock yourself out.

And I do find it amusing that you can mention Stalin in one sentence and then claim statism has done far more good than harm. I believe a basic knowledge of human government through history would easily disprove that assertion.

I think what's more apt is that statism tries to reform its past failings. Marriage shouldn't even be a government issue, in my opinion, gay or otherwise. I don't know you well enough, but I assume when the forty-year war on drugs finally ends in the US you'd chock that up to "See? In the long run government works!"

Even though it causes the very problems the people beg it to fix. Government is a sick cult.

I'm going to leave aside the highly dubious assertion that is was democracy and not rampant capitalism that stole the land from the Native Americans.

But you still don't get it. I am not required to condone or accept everything that is done in the name of "statism", any more than being an atheist makes me condone Stalins religious purges.

Once again, yeah, that is a terrible injustice and it should be righted. But on balance, "statism" has done far more good than harm.

I would say diplomacy as a solution to Islamic jihadism is as naive as was diplomacy with the nazis. Pakistan's current rule of law is the death penalty for blaspheming the name of the prophet, and not only is that too secular for the taliban jihadists, it is so intolerably so that they are waging a war against civilians over it. The proudly claim credit for shooting children on school buses, and proudly note their intent to finish Malala off if given the chance. What kind of diplomacy do you expect to see followed exactly?

Should Pakistan's military and police really refuse to meet the countless taliban attacks on civilian targets with no use of force? Should they really just proceed to try and talk to the criminals prosecuting these crimes every single week? I think it's a strategy doomed to horrific failure, and one that invariably leads to far more death and suffering.

History doesn't exactly bare out that ignoring dictators and extremists leads to them just giving up and playing nice. Brutality was terribly successful and effective for the Pharoahs. Same for the Caesars. Same for Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Il and on and on and on. There comes a point when failure to face evil with force just emboldens and strengthens it.

Not bad, but nowhere near as awesome as Rasputin vs Stalin
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Rasputin-vs-Stalin-Epic-Rap-Battles-of-History-Season-2

Rasputin vs Stalin. Epic Rap Battles of History Season 2 has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.

@cosmovitelli, I'm still not seeing any hard facts from you. Yes, those are all awful things, but you are alleging that these people are demonstrably worse than Hitler (systematically killed at least 6 million Jews, arguably responsible for the largest conflict the world has ever seen), Stalin (murdered, tortured and deported .... well, no-one knows, but estimates range from 3 to 60 million) and Genghis Khan (killed a sizeable percentage of the worlds population at the time).

Also, you are aggregating the acts of every US president since Truman vs the acts of 3 individuals.

That's an extraordinary claim, and I think you need to provide some facts and figures to back it up.

Reagan, Bush et al were certainly not nice guys, but try to keep a sense of perspective. They are not in anyway comparable to Hitler, Stalin or Genghis Khan.

If you're going to make statements like that, you need to back up your argument with some facts.

Reagan was just the first stooge hired by the remnants of the Nixon administration. (By Bush Snr {his head of the CIA}, Donald Rumsfeld {2nd in command of the CIA} & Dick Cheney {3rd in command of the CIA}).

Literally an actor. And a 3rd rate cowboy actor at that (only for domestic & retarded audiences).

BTW Dubya was next & a gift to these fellas, none of them dumb enough to be the man out front making excuses.

They decided that a few million dead kids was fine if it swelled the family pile by 20%. Vietnam, East Timor, Iran Chile etc etc etc etc
.....Does anyone really know how much bank Cheney made from the slaughter/'rebuilding' in Iraq? A billion? 10 billion? 100 Billion? Will any American ever ask? Guess not.

In the future analysis of this time, these men will be held up worse that than Hitler, Stalin & Genghis Khan for sure. Their crimes are comparable in every way (especially the massive piles of dead kids) but without the personal trauma to explain psychosis. The US government of the last 50 years consists of the richest, fattest, most privileged men ever to live in millions of years of humanity, and yet they've committed the worst crimes of all time. Millions dead, crippled, traumatized, orphaned.
Is it their fault or the fault of those around them who do nothing or worse; cheer?

Amen, the only difference between Kissinger and Stalin or Mao is where he was born. The devil in a human suit.