Jungle juice, the communism you refer to is the textbook or theoretical version, which anyone would have to say is a wonderful ideal. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow for human nature and (like its cousin socialism) that rather large slice of society who want something for nothing. Every group of individuals who have practised the Marxist system since Comrades Trosky and Lenin have practised something rather radically different to that ideal.
Without exception, they have brooked no opposition, stolen and/or rigged elections (which was how the Bolsheviks originally came to power, with something like 25% of the popular vote, [as did Adolph Hitler, with about 30% of the vote]) and insisted – at the point of a gun or the secret policeman’s knock on the door at 3:00am – that everyone adhere absolutely to their interpretation of what’s good for ‘the people’ while the inner circle indulges themselves in a life of luxury. (I refer to the revered Chairman Mao and the current North Korean leadership as two prime examples of this trait.)
In practice, the system, with a very few exceptions, soon becomes one of ‘equal misery for all’. The theory’s great, but have you ever actually spoken to someone who has lived under a communist system? I have, and unless they belong to that ‘elect’ (NOT ‘elected’) inner circle, it soon becomes apparent why so many quite literally risked their lives to escape it. How many people – (I admit there were a few – a very, very few) – ‘escaped’ the Western capitalist democracies, with all their admitted faults, to live the life offered by any one of these communist systems?
Someone said earlier in the thread that fascism and communism were arch enemies because they were so different. I would posit that this is not so: I would suggest that they were and are arch enemies because they are so alike, just the two extremes of what is in fact the same system. The fascists are a little less sophisticated about it – they quite openly admit that a small industrial and commercial elite run the show. The communists pretend that ‘the people’ run the show, but in fact, very few of ‘the people’ have any say in anything – and any who try usually find there’s a knock on the door at 3:00am which results in a quick trip to the Gulag or worse.
Now, what this has to do with John Howard speaking up about Work Choices, I’m not really sure – except that ‘fascist’ is the pejorative term beloved of the Left for anyone not enlightened enough to see that their version of society is the one we should all love and follow.
I’ll have to retire from the debate, at least with you, jungle juice, because it’s simply not possible to debate the issue with someone coming from such an utterly different place to me as you are.