Largest country/empire

[Sardauker-Kirov]

They say, the most the experienced soldiers are always willing to die.

I think that saying is because, the most experienced is filled with memories of dying people.

Would you want to live a life with flashes and images of screaming people.. Every time if you go to bed you remember the victims and your own comerads dying.

[Inoculator9]

War veterans don't kill themselves or look for the opportunity to die, they are horrible memories, but some people do accept the possibility of death and don't mind seeing it. Some people in the middle-east see dying as serving allah. The parents of suicide bombers are proud and show no remorse or horror at the idea.

[Sardauker-Kirov]

War veterans can possibly become serial killers in the future, if the memories keep driving them crazy.

Killing becomes normal just like a predator in the wild, seeking for a victim.

That's what they atleast explained on Discovery channel.

[Inoculator9]

That refers to unstable peoplee, who refuse to help themselves. And that kind of thing is rare, and only happens in a few countries. In the middle-east it doesn't happen, because they're fanatics. And it doesn't happen in America because veterans get benefits, and can see therapists.

[Acriku]

War does terrible things to the minds of soldiers - but that doesn't mean they will become serial killers! In fact, it is quite the opposite - you become so used to seeing death, that life becomes more value to you and you spend your life thanking the world your family is still alive. My grandfather served in the WWII and was the happiest man I've seen.

[Inoculator9]

Exactly, my grandfather was in the war and he is one of the nicest people I know. He ended up with a scholarship and went to Yale. He is now the director of the physics department in my town. All the veterans I know are great people.

[Anathema]

Hmmmm, we in the Netherlands don't have many veterans...we we're pretty much overrun by the Germans. We had underground resistance, but most of them are dead by now.

[Inoculator9]

That's pretty depressing, some countries were so devestated that there aren't any veterans.

[Anathema]

Our country wasn't fysicly devastated as it was robbed and plundered.

[Dunenewt]

I've just got to say this:

Why are there so many threads which basically end up in Americans saying how good their country is?

[Inoculator9]

What are you talking about? I don't think having a lot of veterans is a great thing. In a perfect world veterancy would not be possible.

[AWACS]

I think as i am die-hard communist that the Soviet emprire was the largest and always will be (unless Cuba does somthing ;D)

[Inoculator9]

I think communism was a great idea, but it's almost impossible to implement it with great success. The USSR was stable for a while but not more then a few decades. In a world like ours communism just doesn't work. A large communist state is highly unstable, and volatile. While I respect it's founders for their vision of an equal world, it just can't be implemented.

[exatreide]

if you get tecnicle. WW2 japan had a massive empire.

even though by 1945 it all(besides the mainland ect) Belonged to the U.S and are are ausy and russian allies.

[Caid Ivik]

I think communism was a great idea, but it's almost impossible to implement it with great success. The USSR was stable for a while but not more then a few decades. In a world like ours communism just doesn't work. A large communist state is highly unstable, and volatile. While I respect it's founders for their vision of an equal world, it just can't be implemented.

Especially if their creators just wanted to rule. Even Marx said Russia is a country unable to build a communistic state.

[AWACS]

Yeah but marx did say that it might work. Lenin made it well but others fell to heavy corruption

[Anathema]

Marx said that for a communist revolution a country should first be industrialised- Russia was maily composed of farms.

[Caid Ivik]

And, primarily, with powerful capitalists. In Russia they had nothing to erarise.

[AWACS]

But russia did have some captilasts the Tsrs were heavy capitalists

and there were some imperialists too, as lenin said imperialism is the highest form of capitalism

[Edric O]

Actually, Russia was barely out of feudalism when the revolution took place. If you're going straight from feudalism to communism, you're asking for trouble...

[Inoculator9]

I think that as long as unmoral people exist it hinders it. Unfortunately communism doesn't really have much hope, because someone always wants more than everybody else. Russia started out communism with a satisfactory economy so they were able to conquer a lot of area around them. A while later they just couldn't afford any mass invasions or attacks on anoyone. As we see now Russia is becoming a more peaceful country. Being of Russian descent myself, I'm pleased to see it.

[Edric O]

No, that wasn't the problem. The fatal flaw of Russian communism was the lack of democracy. This allowed corrupt madmen like Stalin to take over the system and turn the noble ideals of communism into an orwellian nightmare.

[Inoculator9]

It was part of the problem, and I mean for communsim in general, not just Russia. But your right, you see similar occurences in all communist states.

[Caid Ivik]

Czechoslovakia (I mean first republic between WWs) was classical type of capitalistic country, which Marx wanted to build communism. But communism brought only degeneration...

Russian czar was no capitalist, Russia had in 1917 no industry, only feudal agriculture. Marxistic word "imperialism" is specifical. We think about it as "lust of large countries for smaller ones' territory", marxism defined it as "rule of global monopolic corporations". Yet communism was most imperialistic, because whole economy was in state's monopole.

[Edric O]

Yes, and the state should have been in the hands of the people. But it wasn't... and that's why communism turned into such an oppressive system.