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David Burse's avatar

Pol Pot has a sad.

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News Nut's avatar

The Khmer Rouge Youth was the first thought that came to mind when I started reading about these lunatics.

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Rob Roy's avatar

What does that mean?

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David Burse's avatar

You really need me to explain why one of the most ruthless extreme left wing unapologetically racist authoritarian murderers of the 20th century would not appreciate being told he was in fact right wing? I mean, what's a communist dictator got to do to be taken seriously?

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

Kill more. Gotta be like Comrade Stalin! Old Pol was rookie numbers.

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David Burse's avatar

Not a fair comparison. Sure, Uncle Joe had way bigger kill numbers, but he had over 100 million people to terrorize and three decades to do so.

Brother No. 1 had only 4 years and a much smaller population (5-6 million?) to kill, but still he managed to kill 20-25% of them (depending on who did the counting), which is a better stat than Uncle Joe. Mao kills off 20 million, and it's barely a blimp on the total population of China.

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

Yeah, but Joe killed more white people.

Checkmate!

(Lol weтАЩre going to hell)

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David Burse's avatar

Look - I don't mean any disrespect to Stalin. Clearly the man is the GOAT of 20th century authoritarian leftist murderers. The Tom Brady of Communist Dictators. Had had a long an industrious career spanning decades. His record in show trials is unmatched. But despite his relatively short career, Brother No. 1 was unparalleled in intensity. Just ask brother Nos. 2-6. Pol was MVP from '75-'79.

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

тАЬUnparalleled in intensityтАЭ

The Charlie Sheen. Haha.

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David Burse's avatar

Funny you should mention Charlie Sheen.

A little known fact is that "Saloth Sar" means "Tiger Blood" in the Khmer language.

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

Pure coincidence, I assure you.

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Anthony Murawski's avatar

And the United States ambassador to the U.N. under Carter voted for the Khmer Rouge to be the official representatives of Cambodia in the UN after the Khmer Rouge had committed genocide. That was Brzezinski's and Kissinger's influence on Carter. Remember that Russia backed Vietnam and China backed Cambodia in the war between those two countries. And the United States was playing the China Card.

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Anthony Murawski's avatar

Mao caused the deaths of far more than 20 milliion people. But it doesn't matter about the statistics. Each of a million people are individual human beings. The statistical comparisons sometimes numb us to the shock of the real life/death experiences people underwent.

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Anthony Murawski's avatar

You're making Mao feel left out. And I'd say that for the total number of people murdered by starvation, execution, and labor camp conditions, Mao is at the top of the list. Mao was Pol Pot's role model and backer. Stalin and Hitler aren't historical figures for me. My father was nine years old in Warswaw when WWII began, and my mother--whose ancestry was Jewish--was 11 years old (she survived the Warsaw Ghetto). Still, Stalinism in Poland was not nearly as monstrous as fascism in Guatemala in the 1980s, as enforced by U.S.-backed dictators. Yet Stalinism in Poland was not even comparable to Stalinism in Russia.

I recently read Montefiore's biography of Stalin, which I strongly recommend. He also wrote Young Stalin. But his book about Stalin as paranoioid mass murderer is particularly gripping. The totalitarian cancellation of all heretics was taken to its most extreme extent, and heresy became so arbitrarily defined that mass terror was the natural result.

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Kresge's avatar

This made me laugh. Thanks.

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