North Korea vows nuclear response to U.S.-Seoul drills

Words change to mean the opposite of what they originally meant all the time. 120 years ago, my lean would be called "Liberal."

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I wasn't denying that the definition of words can evolve over time, just your ridiculous assertion that essentially words are meaningless because they can be used to mean whatever they want by whomever.

I think that you would probably disagree with me if I started saying that Hitler's government was democratic, for example.

They don't try to be Marxist at all. They're Stalinist, which has essentially become a type of Communism. You're talking about semantics.

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You won't find anyone that calls themselves a "Stalinist". But it was you that brought up semantics by essentially saying that attaching meanings to words is fruitless because they "change all the time".

Khayembii Communique said:

I wasn't denying that the definition of words can evolve over time, just your ridiculous assertion that essentially words are meaningless because they can be used to mean whatever they want by whomever.

I think that you would probably disagree with me if I started saying that Hitler's government was democratic, for example.

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That's not my argument. My argument is that definitions change over time. Words mean different things to different generations. Hitler never claimed to be democratic and by contemporary and modern definitions he wouldn't be. Today the definition of a Communist state doesn't just mean a classless society as Marx envisioned. Just as Liberal today doesn't just describe Britain's nineteenth century laissez-faire state.

Khayembii Communique said:

You won't find anyone that calls themselves a "Stalinist".

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By current definitions the DPRK is.

Khayembii Communique said:

But it was you that brought up semantics by essentially saying that attaching meanings to words is fruitless because they "change all the time".

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You're the one brought up whether the DPRK was actually Communist or not. All I was saying is that this whole argument isn't really that important, because ultimately, the DPRK is what it is.

Who cares what you call it, we all know what it is.

That's not my argument. My argument is that definitions change over time. Words mean different things to different generations. Hitler never claimed to be democratic and by contemporary and modern definitions he wouldn't be. Today the definition of a Communist state doesn't just mean a classless society as Marx envisioned. Just as Liberal today doesn't just describe Britain's nineteenth century laissez-faire state.

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You're the one brought up whether the DPRK was actually Communist or not. All I was saying is that this whole argument isn't really that important, because ultimately, the DPRK is what it is.

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Who cares what you call it, we all know what it is.

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It matters because it is an ideological war-of-words. Linking "communism" up with the likes of North Korea, Pol Pot, Hitler, etc... is an ideological weapon that the now-extreme right uses to attack not only true communists, but to also slander the works of all communists everywhere - not just Marx/Engels - and to even paint non-communists as closer to this "evil, oppressive ideology".

See the "Obama is a socialist" argument as a contemporary, albeit much more subtle, example of that. These things do matter, and to write it off as simple semantics is to completely ignore the conflict behind how words are defined and how concepts are attached to them both on an individual level and on a larger social level.

This is why your "it's just semantics" argument doesn't work. You're basically saying that these conflicts don't exist, which is absolutely silly.

Khayembii Communique said:

It matters because it is an ideological war-of-words. Linking "communism" up with the likes of North Korea, Pol Pot, Hitler, etc... is an ideological weapon that the now-extreme right uses to attack not only true communists, but to also slander the works of all communists everywhere - not just Marx/Engels - and to even paint non-communists as closer to this "evil, oppressive ideology".

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That's wrong, but that's the nature of the beast. The Stalin's Mao, and Kim Jong Il's of the world stole your word. Just like the Progressives stole the word "Liberal" from my group. The technical definition of the word is less important if you understand the message that the word gets across. In our language, Communism usually conveys an image of a totalitarian state that controls the economy and it's people,supposedly, in the name of the workers. That describes the DPRK pretty well.

You didn't even respond to my post, you just repeated yourself...

Khayembii Communique said:

You didn't even respond to my post, you just repeated yourself...

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No, I stated how the word Communism has changed, and even if the DPRK doesn't 100% meet the technical definition of Communism, the word is still useful in describing it.