on the subject of totalitarianism um I wanted to do something very quickly so I'm guessing that even though most people in the room have negative views of both men they have a more intensely negative view of Hitler than of Stalin I'm guessing almost everyone in the room has a far more negative visceral reaction to the swastika than to the hammer and sickle some of the protesters at your event at M McMaster University stood behind a banner with a hammer and sickle you've said that a hammer and sickle is no funnier than a swastika that quote the reprehensive the reprehensible ideologies that are based in fundamental Marxism killed at least 100 million people in the 20th century unquote I've discussed this proposition with numerous people in recent months and almost no one seems to buy it no one disputes the body count under socialist regimes few dispute that Stalin was a vicious murderer roughly on par with Hitler in moral terms most think that communism should not be tried again in other words they share your critique of the argument that previous communist experiments did not represent proper communism and that proper communism should be tried nevertheless they still disagree with you that we should react as negatively to the hammer and sickle as we do to the swastika why because they say the two ideologies are not morally comparable national socialism is much worse morally than Marxism or Marxism leninism so what do you say to this well I would say the first thing is that it's highly probable that you were talking to intellectuals students well we'll call them budding intellectuals it's it is a it is a mystery you know it's a it's a it is a mystery because it is the case that there is something about the Nazi doctrine that seems to have a visceral impact that that the Communist do Doctrine doesn't have and I said when I opened my remarks tonight that it might be the issue of racial superiority you know it's a it's something single that you can put your finger on whereas what's happening on the left that's horrifying is murky it might even be multi-dimensional like maybe there isn't a single radical leftist idea that's murderous like the racial superiority Doctrine maybe it's a combination of three or maybe it's some set of four out of 10 who knows so and because of that it it doesn't seem as repugnant and there was also a universalizing tendency among the Communists that seemed to be less morally reprehensible than the ethnonationalism of the Nazis so you know you think if you go back to 1914 it's complicated but if you go back to say 1918 at the time of the Russian Revolution it's not like the Communists knew that their attempts to bring about the Socialist Utopia would be doomed to Absolute murderous catastrophe right they were they were working in in ignorance now it's not that simple because by that time dovi had already written the Devils the possessed and he outlined very very clearly what he thought would happen if people like that got the Reigns of power and N had done the same thing in his writing so people knew that there was something toxic let's say and and deadly about the doctrine but it hadn't been played out on the world stage but now it's like well this is why I said what I said at the beginning fine you know if I don't know exactly how to make the moral distinction but it's a distinction that has to be made I think that people who apologize who say something like I think I think that that it's virtually I don't know if it's as reprehensible to say that a given ethnic group should be consigned to the fire and to to say that wasn't real communism but they're damn close and when I hear someone say that wasn't real communism I know what they mean what they mean was if I was the dictator in stellin shoes I personally would have brought in the Utopia that's what that statement means and or it means a a an ignorance of History that's so utterly appalling that that any political statement made on behalf of that person whatsoever should immediately be followed by a paroxismo were conceding that they don't agree they share your critique of they don't share it enough oh okay fair enough I just wanted to make that clear but so so they would more or less agree with what you just said I think about um it's not okay to say those regimes weren't proper communism and that proper communism should be tried they still dispute though that socialism as an ideology is on par with Nazism so I just wanted to make that well we could say communism let's say we could say radical leftist ideology as I said already there are reasons for the left and the right wing right the right wing stands for hierarchy and the left wing stands for the for those who are displaced by hierarchy right an endless problem but that doesn't mean that still leaves it in the camp of the people speaking on behalf of egalitarianism to figure out just what the hell went wrong and to take some responsibility for it you know it's no joke and we see these things play out continually still look at what happened to Venezuela here's a fun story do you know that it is now illegal for Physicians to L list starvation as the cause of death for a Venezuelan child in a hospital that's how they're dealing with the fact of starvation right you just make it illegal to have that diagnosed as your cause of death that'll solve the problem it's like you know we have a group of of well-meaning socialists in Canada who just produced something called the leap Manifesto A couple of years ago and it's a pretty radical uh it's a pretty radical document they're trying to move our Socialist Party the NDP new Democratic party towards the acceptance of this leap man esto which doesn't look like it's going to happen but they were all radical promoters of of the Venezuelan government before everything went like badly sideways you know I think the average Venezuelan now has lost 17 pounds that's not because they were put on a voluntary dieting program right it's not good and so if you're tilting towards the left and you're temperamentally inclined that way and half the population is then you have an ethical problem on your on your hands which is how do you segregate yourself from the radical policies that produced the catastrophes of the 20th century and you can't just say well that's not my problem it's like well okay if it's not your problem now it certainly might become your problem in the future so and I would say it's actually everybody's problem in the aftermath of the 20th century it's everybody's problem so so it's it's it's it's complicated like there is a genuine desire like I worked for a socialist party for quite a while when I was a kid you know and I saw both sides of it I saw some very very admirable people I I was privy for for a variety of chance reasons to the leadership of the Socialist Party in Canada at the provincial and the national level I met the people who ran the provinces some of the provinces and who ran the party and a lot of them were really admirable people like they'd spent their whole life I would say working on behalf of the working class you know so they were genuine labor leaders and and and and there was also a lot done in Canada on the left that looks like it was actually pretty good standard work week the Inc you know the the establishment of of Pensions the introduction of our Health Care system which I would say probably overall works better than the American system although not at the upper end um and they were working hard on behalf of people who had workingclass lives but then I also Al encountered the sort of low-level activist types and I didn't have any respect for them at all I just thought they were peevish and resentful and irritable and that those two things exist in a very uneasy Coalition on the west there's care for the poor and hatred for the successful and those two things aren't the same at all and it looks to me like one of the things that really happened when the Communist doctrines were brought into play and it also by the way we did the multinational experiment right it doesn't matter where you put these policies into play this same bloody outcome occurred didn't matter whether it was Russia or China or Cambodia or Vietnam or to pick a random African country or Cuba or Venezuela for that matter it was an unmitigated catastrophe and so to me that's experiment plus replication enough enough