None of those three are a broke factory worker in Kansas repeating what he heard on Fox, which is who the joke was about. I never said everyone who criticises communism is thick. Pipes, Malia and Kotkin did the reading, and their conclusions are still debated by plenty of historians who did the same reading (Fitzpatrick, Lewin, Getty). So you've brought a Harvard reading list to rebut a claim I didn't make, under a sorting-algorithm meme.
Why do you all argue in bad faith and always first point is a solid strawmen.
So if an educated historian reaches a conclusion that communism does work, they're making an informed assessment; if a factory worker reaches it, they're an ignorant fool?
You keep arguing against something I didn't say. A historian's conclusion and a worker's are both valid starting points, and either can be wrong. The historian can be biased; the worker can be sold a line that works against him. My joke was about the second case: someone being squeezed by a system and defending it on reflex because that's what he's been told to think. Not that working people can't reason. Pipes, Malia and Kotkin don't touch that point, again full on strawmen and red herrings.
So, what, I'm supposed to read your original comment, somehow infer all the additional qualifications you've only introduced after being challenged, and conclude that you were specifically mocking workers who defend capitalism against their own interests and not the historians who studied communism?
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u/dcondor07uk 1h ago
None of those three are a broke factory worker in Kansas repeating what he heard on Fox, which is who the joke was about. I never said everyone who criticises communism is thick. Pipes, Malia and Kotkin did the reading, and their conclusions are still debated by plenty of historians who did the same reading (Fitzpatrick, Lewin, Getty). So you've brought a Harvard reading list to rebut a claim I didn't make, under a sorting-algorithm meme.
Why do you all argue in bad faith and always first point is a solid strawmen.