Speaker A
All right, good evening everyone. Welcome. My name is Casey Given. I'm the executive director of Young Voices. It's so great to have you here tonight for the first of Young Voices NextGen debates.
Young Voices hosts an Oxford-style debate on whether the American Communist Party offers a better alternative to the US two-party system.
Key Takeaways
- The debate aims to challenge the dominance of the Republican and Democratic parties by exploring alternatives like the American Communist Party.
- Young Voices targets younger generations to increase their involvement in political discourse through structured debates.
- Audience interaction via live voting and Q&A enhances engagement and measures debate impact.
- The event is part of a broader effort to create a vibrant debate culture in New York City inspired by established forums.
- Both Marxist-Leninist and libertarian viewpoints are presented to offer a balanced discussion on the topic.
Summary
- Young Voices launched a new NextGen debate series inspired by the Soho Forum to engage younger audiences in Oxford-style debates.
- The debate topic is whether the American Communist Party offers a positive alternative to the current US two-party (DAPI) system.
- Hazal, chairman of the American Communist Party and leader of the Infrared Collective, argues for the proposition.
- Benjamin Williams, regional director for Young Americans for Liberty, argues the opposition from a libertarian perspective.
- Audience members participate by voting before and after the debate via a QR code to measure which side sways more opinions.
- The event is live-streamed on Civil and later uploaded to YouTube and other platforms.
- The debate format includes timed opening statements, rebuttals, and a Q&A session with audience participation on camera.
- Young Voices is a PR firm supporting libertarian and conservative writers at no cost.
- The event encourages young people under 35 to engage with important political and social issues relevant to their generation.
- Jean Epstein from the Soho Forum gave an announcement about upcoming debates and free ticket offers.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Welcome. So, yeah, this is a new debate series we're launching at Young Voices to do more Oxford-style discussions. Here at Sovereign House, we have as an organization moved here two years ago and have been really inspired by New York
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City and the lively discussions, and we want to contribute to that by having more of them. And tonight, I think it's going to be a really special treat. This is such a great turnout, so thank you all
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for coming. There will be an open bar throughout the night, and we're going to hang out and party afterwards, so at nine o'clock. I invite you to stick around. Young Voices, for those of you
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who are not aware, is a public relations firm for libertarian and conservative writers at completely no cost. So if you are one of them looking to get your started media, please check us out. I have literature over there.
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You know, our website's on the banners, all that good stuff. Tonight's debate is being live streamed on Civil, so we are so glad to have folks tuning in as well. That's really awesome. We look forward to having this partnership and streaming
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all of our live streams on Civil exclusively for a month, and then we'll get them up on YouTube and all the good stuff, all the other platforms afterwards. Yeah, we're going to have a very lively Q&A session tonight. Just be
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aware that if you ask a question, you will be on camera for the live audience. Before we get started, I am very eager to introduce for a quick announcement one of our good friends who runs another great debate
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series here in New York City, the Soho Forum, Jean Epstein. Well, I pride myself on having inspired these wonderful guys to do debates for Young Voices. I've been running the Soho Forum since September of 2016 every single
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month, and I have a special offer to provide to you people. Normally, we charge $10 per student, $20 for non-students, but for all of you, if you write me at [email protected], then you can get as
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many free tickets, up to three, that you would like to our next debate on October 21st on Bleecker Street in downtown Manhattan with our party afterwards. The New York Times reporter David Leonhardt is going to be defending his argument
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against a libertarian economist. That's Monday, October 21st. Heckman has more of these, but it's [email protected]. Write me there and request your free tickets, and you'll get them. I look forward to seeing you. If you go on thesoulforum.org, you'll see our
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other debates. In December, we're having Glenn Greenwald debating presidential immunity. That will cost you because there's only one freebie, but that's something you won't want to miss. In November as well, we're having a debate about the Malvinas administration,
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the libertarian guy who's running Argentina. But this debate on October 21st, just go over to Heckman and you can get the cards, but write down [email protected] or go on thesoulforum.org to see our listings. I hope to
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see you there. I look forward to seeing you there, and I look forward to this evening's debate. Heckman has the cards. Heckman, here's another one for you to give out to those who want to get it, and my 60 seconds are over. Thank you.
Speaker A
Thank you so much, Jean. I do want to say special recognition. Jean truly is the reason we're here tonight. Heckman can tell you more about that, but we were so inspired by the
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Soho Forum, we wanted to mimic the Soho Forum in our Young Voices way with younger debaters debating some of the most important topics of the day. So with that, I am excited to introduce you
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to the MC for tonight's event, who really, after Jean, was the guy who came to us and pitched Young Voices myself to run this. So we are so excited to have the director of
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the NextGen debates, Heckman, about to take over for the evening. Thank you very much, Casey. Thank you, Casey. Thank you, Jean, of course, for inspiring this debate society. Who here is under 35? Raise a hand or shout.
Speaker A
All right, awesome. So what we're trying to do here is—Gan, you raise your hand? I don't know if you should raise your hand. So knock on wood, knock on wood. So this society is focused on younger generations. As you can see here, we have
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two young debaters who are making waves in their communities online, and we want to bring these debate topics that pertain to our generation—topics about foreign policy, topics about social policy, economic policy, these issues that really pertain to our
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generation. Are we going to have social security when we retire? Are we going to be sent to the draft? Are we going to be drafted to go fight somewhere we don't want to fight? These are the questions that matter to us, but we don't have a
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lot of authority in addressing our interests in these conversations, and that's why we had the idea to launch this debate society, 35 and under exclusively for our debaters. Ideally, we would have an audience of young people who want to challenge themselves
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to come here and think about new ideas that they are often not exposed to. So with that said, let me introduce our two debaters, and let me take my quick note here. As I do so, let me explain to you how
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tonight's evening will go. Here we go. So the Soho Forum is an Oxford-style debate society, and we are trying to mimic it in the same voting and debating style. These are two of our faces, myself and
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Casey, and these are our two debaters. So our first debater for the proposition of the resolution, which is the American Communist Party offers a positive alternative to the current DAPI system. So the DAPI system is the Republicans and Democrats in our
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American politics, and we have the American Communist Party that was just launched a couple months ago with its representatives here on stage with us today. So for the proposition, we have Hazal, who's an American political theorist. He is the chairman of the
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executive committee of the American Communist Party and one of its founding members. He is the leader of what is called the Infrared Collective, which is a Marxist-Leninist ideology group. They have a huge presence online, and
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they are widely known. For the opposition, we have Benjamin Williams. He's the regional director for Young Americans for Liberty, and he's a fellow with the Henry Hazlitt Project for Education and Journalism. He has a lot of followers on TikTok, Twitter, and he has
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a lot of interesting things to say about libertarianism. That is why we brought him here to take the opposition on this specific debate topic. Now, as we are mentioning these two factoids, I would like you to whip out your phones
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now and scan this QR code that you see in the middle. This QR code here will allow you to vote on the following topic: The American Communist Party offers a better alternative to the DAPI. So the way we run these debates, we have a
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pre-debate vote where you all vote and show your opinion, your position, your slant on this specific topic. You can vote either agree, disagree, or undecided. Then at the conclusion of this debate, we will do a
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post-debate poll, and then we will see the difference. We will see who is able to sway more people to their side, and that person will be the winner. You just have to zoom in and
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you'll be able to scan. No worries, no worries. I'll go to the next slide. It has it in the middle. Yeah, please scan this one, scan this one, and make your voices heard. Just to explain, let me explain before I get
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any questions. So the process is as follows: We will have 12 minutes for each one of the two debaters where they introduce their position. So Hazal will start with 12 minutes, then we will be followed by Ben for 12 minutes. Then Hazal
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will have five minutes for rebuttal. Ben will have five minutes for rebuttal. Then we will open it up for t—
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that and then finally to conclude we will have five minutes each to close out the debate with closing arguments and at the during during and after the closing arguments we will get the second poll to find out who won the debate who was able
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to sway more voices to their side more opinions to their side okay with that let me pull the room does everyone has everyone mostly V we don't need okay great excellent excellent thank you very much if there's not going to be Wi-Fi so
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if you have uh coverage on your t on your data if not it is okay no worries so uh we'll give you two more seconds and as we do that uh H we will invite you to come here prepare
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yourself yeah so I use this or I use uh well thank you all for coming out tonight uh my name is hazal Dean I'm the executive chairman of the American Communist party and the topic for tonight's debate the topic for tonight debate is
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whether or not the American Communist Party provides a better alternative to the current duopoly political system in the United States so regarding this question it can be first of all addressed in the political sense of the two-party duopoly
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as a strictly political system in terms of whether it's a good form of governance or a bad form of governance uh in comparison to other political systems well we can go to the very founding of this country where the
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framers and George Washington in particular regarded the emergence of political parties themselves as a threat to the very principles of republicanism which were at the foundation of this country republicanism not in the partisan sense but in the sense of uh an
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American Republic the notion that political pluralism in the form of a multi-party democracy is at the foundation of the United States is a myth it's a neoliberal myth the founding fathers of this country did not Envision a so-called multi-party democracy they
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invisioned one United Republic where these different factions and political uh differences were not able to be placed before the interests of the common welfare of the country as a whole in the form of the Republic but the two-party duopoly that
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we have today is an even greater monstrosity than anything they could have imagined back then because it's not simply a multi-party democracy where there's different political factions that are bickering what it is effectively is a system of Shifting
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responsibilities no one has to take accountability for the fundamental problems at the root of our country because every four years they can simply blame the other party and despite the fact that both of these parties are funded and serve the same interests they
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can pretend and lie to the American public that they somehow represent different Alternatives as far as the future of the country is concerned no one is taking responsibility for this future nobody can be held accountable for the perilous
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future that awaits all of us in my view as far as I can see it we have rents that are rising beyond anything that can feasibly be afforded by the population we have environmental disasters like hurricane Helen and now hurri Milton
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where we what do we see we see federal government inactivity a lack of response a lack of care we see the prospect the very real Prospect of not only Another World War but a potentially nuclear one that could be the end of humanity itself
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finally we're $30 trillion in debt if we want to talk about providing alternatives to the duopoly system we have to first of all establish that this system is not just what we're experiencing right now what we're experiencing right now immediately may
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not be the worst thing ever we're not in a state of War we're not starving we're not fighting for our survival right now but who's to say we're not going to have to be faced with such dire circumstances
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given the trajectory that we're currently on the illusion that things can go on is normal given the immense contradictions weighing over our heads weighing over our society and our world I think is even even more naive than any proposed
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Utopia in its dead and I want to be clear about something our party is not providing as an alternative some meticulously designed Utopia or blueprint for a future as though we know better than the whole of the American
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people the alternative we're providing isn't just through our words but through our actions as small as our party is our comrades are on the ground in the midst of the aftermath of these hurricanes providing real assistance to impacted
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communities I think that says a lot more I think that's that that's a lot more than what the federal government is doing in terms of the intention in terms of the willingness to take the time to sacrifice your own interest for the
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interests of the community and while we all cherish some kind of liberal individualism for hedonistic purposes or otherwise this kind of individualism is only possible in a state of comfort in a state of easy times in a state of uh
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relative or uh even illusory Prosperity but when the going gets tough when our government fails to respond to the challenges that await us as a country when it's unable to provide a semblance of Law and Order when the basic flow of
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goods and services break down when we're left to fend for ourselves how are we going to survive as a people if not through acquiring a type of collectiv existence a collective solidarity which historically only Communists have been able to provide their populations we all
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know the so-called Infamous history of Communism and yes those were harsh and tough times but what they don't tell you is that those were harsh and tough times before the Communists entered the picture it was the Communists that
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allowed the various peoples of the world in Russia and China and elsewhere to persevere and survive through these Harsh Times and America whether we Communists get our way or not is headed for tough times so the question is what is going to
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provide an alternative to the confusion to the disarray to the lack of a plan actually because the two-party duopoly is not going to survive indefinitely in instead what will take its place who's going to provide a solution to this well all I can say for
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myself and for for my part party is that we've committed ourselves at least to the purport to the intention of wanting to unify the American people as one people regardless of their various racial and ethnic differences regardless of their various cultural differences we
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want an authentic and organic form of collective solidarity to take the place of the Hedonism the nihilism and the corrupt individualism which now participates in the destruction of our society today so [Applause] one more all right so I actually wrote an
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opening statement but my uh documents aren't loading because of course we don't have Wi-Fi oopsy oh wait there it is let's go all right we're so back all right so honestly guys I'm a little confused as to uh why I'm here I know
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that might sound weird I'm confused about the whole debate uh so it's not that I don't want to be here with you guys it's not that I have any disrespect towards the organizers they've done a fantastic job even better
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than I anticipated it's really great but the topic of this debate is whether or not this brand new political party is a better alternative to the daap system which I'm not a part of I don't defend I'm not even a Democrat or Republican uh
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I am not registered to any party I don't even care that much about uh this sort of thing electoral politics all that I don't have any real political power and there is no particular reason why I should be debating this other than
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the fact our glorious host uh asked me to well that or that the American party is not a better alternative the word alternative is traditionally defined as of one or more things available as another possibility that word possibility right that's very
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important there needs to be a possibility that this party can do better than the doopy system the Republicans and the Democrats if there was a possibility that the American Communist Party were going to say ACP now from now on if
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there was a possibility that the ACP could beat two of the biggest five parties in human history we wouldn't be here they would be out holding rallies with tens of thousand thousands of people just like Trump and Harris and wal all these
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people are already doing they would out they would be out having serious political candidates they have none they would be they they would actually have uh a policy platform that's what real parties have right obviously not kamla Harris
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but you know that's the exception so in my opinion that's just my opinion I've won this debate just by being here frankly uh but but that's not going to convince all you guys it's I'm not done I'm not done it's all right so
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I'm not going to get ahead of myself uh we're going to rewind a little bit so let's start with a handful of guys uh they don't really feel at home in any party even the Communist Party USA with
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its 20,000 members very impressive right they don't feel at home they they call themselves Maga communist so they have this sort of social conservatism mixed with the communism so the left doesn't really like them because they're too conservative and the right doesn't like
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them because they're communist kind of in a weird position to be in so you got to mix between like uh these Christian Muslim communist former gers yeah those are out there uh the Joseph Stalin Fanboys and I mean
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honestly they're not really welcomed by most groups obviously right I mean they would admit that not the left or the right so they're not welcomed by anyone until October 7th 2023 hamash launches a secret attack against Israel and takes
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out over a thousand civilians and Soldiers the news blows up everywhere people who haven't heard the words Israel or Palestine in months suddenly can't get away from it then Israel responds the world has met with brutal images of entire city blocks being blown
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up bodies lining the street all these videos of dead children just pulling out people's emotions terrible stuff the world is in shock and then out of the chaos there emerges a new class of people Twitter influencers I'm not going to call it X
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I'd rather be put in the gock so they're sharing all these shocking images these strong condemnations against Israel and they start building followings from it you got Dr Anastasia lupus Sam Smith Jake Shields and the magga communist they're
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spamming post all day can we get 10,000 people to comment free Palestine raise your hands if you proudly support Iran you know Boomer posting Boomer posting kind of weird but it works it works they got millions of people to interact with their post and
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their accounts blow up but none of them more than Jackson Hinkle the acps own Jackson Hinkle he builds a following all right he builds a following of over [Applause] he builds a following of over 2.7 million people so the magga Communists
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are now more popular than ever so popular some of them are able to be full-time influencers so now they can post more then they take a look around 2.7 million followers from Jackson Hinkle alone there must be like maybe 5 million
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between all of them that's a lot of people you can make a difference with 5 million people that's a that's a lot of people so maybe we will make a difference let's make a political party the American Communist party is born
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magga Communists start promoting it all over the place and they prepare for the flood the flood gates open and there's a drought nobody shows up so the problem is they didn't realize that over 99% of their followers were Arabs living in
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other countries not in America oopsie they they can't vote I mean not yet I was talking to a friend of mine down in Tennessee about this debate and I was telling him I was debating on this brand new tiny political party and
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whether or not it could beat the Republicans and Democrats and emphasis I emphasize this a lot very small party then I asked him how many members do you think they have in their biggest state California he said 300 the real number
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is 36 in New York they have 30 Texas 15 this is not a serious party it's not a serious movement I'm sorry but you don't win political campaigns you don't win elections with 15 people doesn't happen the libertarian party got over 5
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million votes in 2016 and that was actually quite impressive for them they have more candidates nationally than the ACP has members yet they still don't win anything libertarianism is like relatively popular communism is not Communists are a fraction of a fraction of the American
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population lots of plls show this but I mean these aren't regular Communists as we already established these guys aren't in the cpusa they have their own party so they're a fraction of a fraction of a fraction you cannot there there's no
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possibility no possibility you cannot overtake the Republicans and Democrats with a fraction of fraction of a fraction of the population no possibility no alternative the cpusa hasn't won a single federal election and they haven't won really anything since the 1940s and
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they are 10 uh no 100 100 times bigger than the ACP the ACP cannot win they cannot beat the Republicans and Democrats the dle system but there's two parts of this debate it's whether or not they're the better alternative ative of
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course one hinges on the other but we're going to talk about the better uh what does that even mean I don't know maybe some of you had have a guess I just have to assume that a lot of you might take a
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more pragmatic approach let's talk about quality of life will they improve quality of life something like that um the ACP are Marxist leninist or MLS there have been roughly two dozen examples of countries run by MLS uh a 2018 study examined 44 EUR
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Asian countries uh they looked at variables like religion geography cultural ancestry and communism to see their impacts on the human development index which looks at Health income and education the communism variable it's kind of the same as being rung by MLS
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right so the communism variable oh so the the authors found that communism quote significantly negatively predicts HDI income and health indices so that's not exactly the type of society that we want here ma Paul pot these dictators saw millions of
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people die millions of people starve to death we don't want that here they decimated Nations we shouldn't trust communist theyve failed time and time again they've proven to us we can't trust them why would we trust them now
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and of course the ACP likes these Communists by the way in a uh well actually I mean really like this Devastation that we see the Communists in many cases think it's a good thing they think it's the better
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thing so there was actually a live stream uh on Eddie liger Smith's YouTube channel he is one of the co-founders of the [Applause] ACP so H you haven't heard you haven't heard the next part yet so Eddie liger
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Smith the one you guys are clapping he said of the 50 Chi of 50 million Chinese people who died under ma this is his own quote quote that's not a bad thing end of quote and then proceeded to proceeded
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to justify these tens of millions of deaths by saying life got better later which is after ma died see my point several of the founders of the ACP have said things like Stalin did nothing wrong they think these crimes
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[Applause] all right all right folks let's let's spip it down let's let them finish they think these crimes and atrocities are a good thing as proven by the claps you here they Revel in it they Revel in the
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death they enjoy it it's sick really sick much like their Idols they they Revel in it Ma once said deaths have benefits they fertilize the grounds and then proceeded to pledge that he would sacrif sacrifice half of China's population for a global
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Revolution the empirical evidence shows us that Communists almost exclusively do something worse not better there's no debating the hundred years worth of evidence on that anyways the ACP cannot possibly win it cannot possibly achieve power it cannot possibly beat the duap
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system and even if it did the Communists would be way worse they always have been [Applause] thank you Ben at this point HZ please go ahead you have five minutes for your rebuttal so I could count uh a few
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things the gentleman here is confused about he's confused about why he's here for the debate which confuses me because why show up if you don't know what you're debating about the second thing he appears confused about is the history
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and facts pertaining to our party uh the third thing he's confused about are the facts of history with regard to the history of Communism but as a teacher and I think this is the dynamic he set this up to be established
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as he's a student and I'm the teacher I can forgive confusion among my students and um to that extent I'm willing to be merciful now if you claim that we can't provide an alternative to the duopoly system because our party is too small
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although you're kind of getting the details about our numbers wrong it doesn't matter though let's just assume that our party barely had anyone right because for all intensive purposes it's it's true our party is extremely small relative to the Democrats the
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Republicans the Libertarians and even other you know established third parties our party was launched what three months ago so I'm not I'm not sure what you're expecting he says we can't win an election and therefore our party will
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never have a future in this country well to that end I say to you challenge accepted we don't have any intention of winning a presidential election did Lenin win elections did Mao win elections What communists in history got
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to Power by participating in the Sham [ __ ] liberal democracy excuse my French we're not here to grow a party just to grow numbers and just to be popular for its own sake we're here to provide something enduring and
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sustainable our goal isn't to be the most popular party in the country for the next you know election cycle our goal is to survive it's to provide a model of collective existence and organization that will outlive what we
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anticipate to be and call us crazy if we think this the collapse of the current system now that is the only purport as far as our party's vision for be uh acquiring Victory is concerned if things can go on indefinitely as they are now
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as the gentleman here seems to imply although his willingness to actually commit to a point is dubious if that's true then of course our party wouldn't even exist in the first place if we thought that the system can just go on forever and things
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can go on as normal there would be no problem there would be no need for a Communist Party in the first place but we see the writing on the wall and regarding the uh the facts of history and you know this notion that communist
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killed 500 trillion people or whatever listen I was just in dunet about four or five days ago I talked to ordinary people whose parents whose grandparents lived under Stalin and almost every single one of them if they weren't 100%
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Pro Stalin were at least nuanced about it and by the way these are people who represent the living Collective memory of Communism when it was supposedly at its worst in the 1930s in uh what was at the time Ukraine at that so if they're
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willing to see Stalin as a good guy if they love Stalin even more than I do and our party does then maybe what the Western Academia and what the Western historians have been telling us throughout the Cold War up to the
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present maybe we shouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt maybe we should actually evaluate and question whether these things that they say oh ma killed 500 billion people all this maybe you should actually think twice about it
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because if there's if the recent um history of how the federal government uh as far as our ability to fact check it and verify its claims as anything to go by I think at the very least uh these
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claims they're making about history should be called into question but thank you Oz now Ben thank you Oz now Ben for your five minute rebuttal all right let's just see if this all right cool all right so uh
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we'll address his opening statement first he's slamming the Republicans and Democrats naturally you do that I do that myself but that doesn't necessarily matter here he has to actually present an alternative which means he has to present a reason proof something that
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shows he can beat them he did no such thing uh oh revolutionaries lar okay nobody cares about your laring frankly frankly 178 IQ 6'10 Marine would take out your entire party like I'm sorry it's just true the Revolutionary lar is over it's not going
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to happen all right uh Founders didn't want a multi-party system that's irrelevant to this uh rents are rising yeah I mean they Rose three times under Mao in fact in the 1950s Mao got a bunch of his top
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statisticians to do a study to see if the quality of life improved from the time they took power all of his statian said nope so he hid the evidence later archivist uh found it so Mao's own party Ma's own experts said he didn't improve
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conditions and rents were Rising even more than they are now so I mean yeah it's bad now of course don't get me wrong but it was worse under communist uh oh hurricane and no Aid I mean that actually reminded me of what
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Stalin's government did in Ukraine so you have this massive famine millions of people are starving to death the Ukrainian uh representatives are sending stal Stalin's uh sending letters to Stalin you can find these letters online they're publicly available begging for
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Aid you know what Stalin said he said no so don't give me this [ __ ] about oh since we're not giving since the dirty filthy Republicans and Democrats aren't giving Aid to the victims of the hurricane that means us dirty filthy
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Communists are going to be better it doesn't mean that they've never been better uh their party isn't advocating for uh Utopia could have fooled me their party provided aid for people I mean good for you frankly that's great
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I'm I'm happy that's not going to win you in elections sorry uh and the nonsense about oh everything was so much worse before the Communists took over I mean again Ma's own government Ma's own experts said that wasn't true and then things didn't
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improve until after 1978 after ma died and then they abandoned their communist principles the reason that happened was because a lot of the uh the people especially the farmers they were rebelling against the party and they were saying we want private property and
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the party had to concede all right then as for the uh the rebuttal our par is extremely small I agree I agree uh again the promoting Revolution LARP uh trust me bro I talked to people they said Stalin was good I don't
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care uh and then oh question guys guys you got to question the death tolls I I actually heard that last night I was debating Holocaust deniers sounded kind of familiar uh I mean frankly frankly like I i' never heard
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any reason why they would be better than the Republicans and Democrats no evidence no argument nothing so I mean I guess I did win thank you Ben thank you Ben thank you H so at this point we are going to have 40 minutes
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for questions and answers we'll start with the moderator's prerogative I'll ask some questions and then after that we will ask folks to start lining up right there with that mic uh to ask their questions to the two debaters and
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after my questions to you both gentlemen I would let you also ask each other a question if you want to address something that wasn't addressed so my first question to H uh Ben is is accusing you and your party of uh
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tearing on emotional connections tearing on October 7th related sentimentalities uh can you address what it is that you have to offer that is an alternative not just to the duopoly but what he accuse you of of the Communist party that we've
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all grown and learned about in our academic curricula you're saying uh do we provide an alternative to the lies that they've told about historical Communist States yeah I reality reality suffices to be an alternative already because they're lies they're complete
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Fabrications he said something ridiculous that under Mao living standards didn't improve and that only after Mao's death did they improve then why did people's life expectancy go up why did the population increase so rapidly why was it that people's caloric
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intake increase so much why did literacy rates go up of course he's going to say these are all lies and fabrications to which I'm going to respond that he himself is telling lies so how do we get to the bottom of it I encourage you to
Speaker A
do independent research cuz I doubt that there's a single serious historian who's going to maintain the claim even in the boua Academia we have here in the west that after the 1950s China did not see drastic improvements in the standard of
Speaker A
living of their people now he said that uh Stalin and Ma they committed all these atrocities Stalin wouldn't uh provide any relief to the people starving in Ukraine it's a complete lie he's talking about letters which actually prove the opposite of what he's
Speaker A
trying to say and I'm sure if we can pull them up right now we could see that again he's making claims about things we can't litigate directly on the spot right now but the letters that he's talking about uh Stalin and there's no proof
Speaker A
whatsoever that Stalin demonstrated any hesitancy at all in responding to the famine as soon as they heard about it in the central government now uh we don't we get we don't have unlimited time to get into this topic do we or no we do
Speaker A
not so at this point let me let me ask Ben do you have anything to comment on that question I me he's lying uh there are many historians who have said the exact opposite um can you hear me yeah
Speaker A
good all right there are many historians who have said the exact opposite he just doesn't read them uh Kent Deng is a great example he's written several books on the entire economic history of China uh and he brings up these things
Speaker A
specifically where he's talking about the life expectancy where he's talking about the population growth he shows that uh a lot of these talking points just aren't true so let's take the life expectancy for example um the reason you
Speaker A
see there's actually two reasons the two reasons first reason you see such a drastic increase in Mal which is weird because of course tens of millions of people died is because they stopped counting infant mortality rate right so
Speaker A
there are Corrections for this and the rise drops significantly when you look at these Corrections which again Kent Deng a very uh very reputable economic historian has written about with a pale grave um and then another thing is he
Speaker A
doesn't understand uh statistics like so there's selection bias uh this is something in statistic so let's so when you have this big population and a lot of the poorest the sickest people die these people already had a low life
Speaker A
expectancy now when they're dead the rest of the population's average life expectancy appears to be higher this is very well established in the literature on famines it happened in the bangl fam it happened in the Finish fam there are
Speaker A
dozens of academic papers on this that I have read because I actually bother doing research on these things instead of saying nonsense like all the Western media is lying so okay all right thank you thank you [Applause] both at this at this point do you have a
Speaker A
question that you'd like to ask H H same for you do you have to do you would would you like to ask Ben a question or would you like to open it to the Q&A how is it that the uh the famine during the
Speaker A
Great Leap Forward is responsible for all the increases in life expectancy when that only lasted 3 years and moreover even at the peak of that famine the mortality rate within China was still not as bad as in India I don't see I don't see how the
Speaker A
first point is relevant at all I mean are you arguing that selection bias doesn't exist you can't argue that that's ridiculous right this is a very you're trying to say that the only reason the life expectancy went up is
Speaker A
cuz two reasons well because well one of the primary ones you mentioned is oh ma already just killed all the people who would die anyway no no no no it's the people who died in the famine okay so
Speaker A
you're saying that the life expectancy only went up because within the 3 years there was a famine and let's say millions of people died who would have who were sick and had a low life expectancy already right but that was
Speaker A
three years when does ma die uh 1976 okay so those three years are responsible for the constant steady rate of growth in the life expectancy throughout the 60s and 70s there certainly wasn't a constant rate of growth I mean not the not the huge one
Speaker A
that mostly happened but there was still a rate of growth an observable and significant one so it's I there there's actually again like I said lots of uh academic literature on there's there's specifically studies on the life expectancy in China there's also similar
Speaker A
ones on uh height so what you see is like average height increased and there are certain ways that uh these academics are able to control for these variables and what they find is yes there is selection bias so this isn't really a
Speaker A
debate for me um I I accept your I accept your concession all right so at this point if you don't have any other questions I do have a quick question yeah go ahead quick one and then we'll go question a quick question so if
Speaker A
you're the teacher why do you keep getting schooled all right listen no no no I mean I can I I can answer that you don't have to but okay go ahead I think uh my student has a he has this kind of
Speaker A
tendency to do what all Victors do as we know which is to preemptively declare victory without actually acquiring it so you know you're saying that I'm getting schooled you're saying that you've won the debate honestly from you know where
Speaker A
I'm sitting it doesn't really seem like signs of someone who's confident that they're winning all right at this point let's um let's open it up to the Q&A and let's start with Jean himself go ahead je a quick uh brief personal note that
Speaker A
at the solo Forum over the years I've had three separate debates with prominent members of the Democratic Socialist of America one of them was with Marxist Professor Richard wolf and that has had 6.8 million You2 views uh and he's a Marxist Democratic Socialist
Speaker A
of America my only simple taid question to you sir the Communist is uh I thought they were the only game in town they do have a fair number of members how do you differ from the Democratic Socialist of
Speaker A
America which are already established and already pushing socialism oh uh thank you for the question um the Democratic socialists of America are an appendage of the democratic party as far as we see it they're not actually providing an alternative to the
Speaker A
two-party system they're sheep dogging young people back into the Democrats because they say you know this is their talking point that every four years we have to stop fascism of course they regard Trump as a fascist but not Joe
Speaker A
Biden and kamla Harris despite that the latter are vicious war mongers and last time I read the Communist literature on the matter fascism was defined by an aggressive form of imperialism and War mongering not a refusal to use the
Speaker A
correct pronouns and bathrooms and all this stuff so this is the diff we have many differences with them as well in terms of the woke stuff the cultural stuff we don't agree with their Outlook that General demographic they have and
Speaker A
also this is a very important thing we are communists with the capital c we don't call ourselves socialists we don't try to apologize for what we are yes we are stalinists yes we're maist yes Stalin yes Mao yes
Speaker A
communism and uh yes it has been tried and it was [Applause] great let's um [Music] [Applause] let's let's let's let's give uh let's give Ben a chance to respond Ben go ahead would you like to comment on this question asked by
Speaker A
Jean uh I mean like like I said at the beginning the reason they're not part of the Democratic Socialist is because they're not welcome right they don't like people like them they're not welcome anywhere and it's like how are
Speaker A
you going to build a serious political movement if nobody likes you all right let's take it from the second question please keep it short sure so as a as a matter of uh you you've made it to to the Communist
Speaker A
represent if you made a lot of claims and your only extent of argument seems to be we can't trust the facts do you have actual sources for your arguments because it seems to be that we can't trust M and and I'll say this point
Speaker A
blank I'm a I'm a psychologist who studies conspiracy theories that's my bread and butter yeah so uh when I hear triple vaxed triple vaxed yeah N double vaxed but you know also a Zionist since I'm going to be calling out things that
Speaker A
you're going to [ __ ] hate get get to your question oh blow me uh get to your question next thing but my question stands what is what what are the sources that I'm supposed to believe if I'm
Speaker A
supposed to not if I'm supposed to only believe not the main sources but communist sources where are the neutral sources that I'm supposed to look to to see that the Great Leap Forward didn't kill 3 million people Stalin didn't
Speaker A
intentionally starve the Ukraine St Lenin was somehow this great humanitarian what are the sources you're acting as the for I thank you for your question just uh Casey can we keep people flowing okay thank you for your question um he
Speaker A
his his question was about resources what would you provide us an alternative so he mentioned the uh the Ukraine well you can look at the uh revisionist School of Soviet history which was actually formed in response to the
Speaker A
hysteria of the Cold War for example this is Sheila Fitzpatrick and uh you know others in the school and they will basically respond to these Sensational claims that oh it was a genocide in Ukraine I I proudly recommend Grover on the matter
Speaker A
his book his book uh his book uh blood lies which debunks Timothy Snider's uh [ __ ] claims about what happened in Ukraine is pretty much all you need to know that the sources that are mainstream are not reliable because they
Speaker A
you look at the primary sources and you scrutinize those and they stand on nothing uh regarding all these other claims about communist atrocity and stuff look I'll make a commitment to you give me your email and I will give you a
Speaker A
list of sources you can even post it publicly if I don't follow up on this and I'll send it to you is that fair okay Ben would you like to comment on the question ask yeah I mean sure like I said uh you got Kent
Speaker A
Deng he is a prominent economic historian he's written a lot of books about this uh uh one book I'd really recommend is capitalism with Chinese characteristics uh you also got logic of the market by W Ying Jang he's an
Speaker A
excellent CH all these people are Chinese economists and historians by the way I'm not citing Western sources so I I specifically chose Chinese sources and like w Jen he worked for uh D xing's government right so these these aren't
Speaker A
Western sources uh logic of the market he also has a really excellent paper I recommend everybody read uh is uh the China model view is factually false there's lots of really great sources on China specifically now as for uh sources
Speaker A
on the famine I mean tragedy of Liberation that's a really excellent one excellent one when I was talking about the statisticians that's something that uh Frank deot I not good with German names Frank Dakota I think that's his
Speaker A
name he talks about that as for uh as for the the Stalin stuff I mean Grover fur what is he he's a uh medievalist he does like literature and then they go to this guy as their expert on Stalin
Speaker A
that's not even his field he's a schizophrenic he's a weirdo U maybe listen to the entire historical consensus on this maybe like I I referenced the actual sources I referenced the letters which you can read They're online they're publicly
Speaker A
available he lied about them uh as far as the aid thing they they only sent Aid to uh areas where they had a lot of soldiers and you know you're talking about hundreds of regions in Ukraine broken up into hundreds of regions you
Speaker A
had only enough aid for less than 30 of these regions and yes they denied Aid Stalin said it in his own words he's just lying I guess we'll take your word for it no read read the letter and we
Speaker A
won't read Grover first he's weird and he's schizophrenic all right let's go to the third question please go ahead hello can you hear me all right cool so Mr Ben right the libertarian I have to ask uh according to this quick Google
Speaker A
search uh China's government spends about 4 billion every year on uh their federal government whatever they do our government spends about six billion right and according to uh Western statistics they own about 70% of their houses uh among Millennials and about
Speaker A
90% of home ownership amongst all people this is Western sources this is Cambridge now my question to you is why don't we just do what China does I'm say they got a Marist L party and they're more libertarian than we can
Speaker A
ever hope to be all right let's let's get let's get to go ahead honestly I say let's do what China does hell yeah hell yeah so or or I say hell yeah all right let's all right guys her down it's been a great night
Speaker A
debate's over won that's it all right let's calm down let's calm down let's calm down let's calm down all right all right calm down calm down all right would you like to actually question they don't want to listen to
Speaker A
what I actually say but so yeah we should let's let's let's uh let's get to more questions so let's let's keep it going we should do what China did so like I uh recommended earlier logic of the market this Chinese Economist he
Speaker A
goes over please keep it down please this Chinese economist uh he goes over all this data in loog logic of the market and what you find is that well over 100% of the prices on uh capital goods factors of production were set by
Speaker A
the state in 1980 you go to 2008 and it was 12.5% right so they are making it to where the market is determining the prices so I mean yeah we should do that great great uh they also had a housing
Speaker A
system like I said you saw rents skyrocketing under mauo when housing was nationalized but after they privatize it suddenly more people have housing yeah I agree let's do privatization let's lower the corporate income tax rate like China did let's privatize state-owned
Speaker A
businesses like China did of course but you guys don't want to do that you don't want to actually emulate the things that made China more successful you want to do all this nonsense that got them in the mess to begin with all
Speaker A
right so you say let's do it did and what China's doing are you aware that 60% of China's economy is owned by the state are you aware are you aware let's let are you aware that an even greater
Speaker A
percentage of China's total GDP comes from their state-owned Enterprises absolutely are you committed to the position therefore that America should nationalize all of the land all of the major resources all of the Strategic sectors of the economy and turn these
Speaker A
into state owned Enterprises because that's part of our platform actually so what I said I mean it's it's like he just listened to the first part and then he ignored everything I everything else I said you're saying you're saying we
Speaker A
should be like China so I agree let's have a State Bank let's exactly what we should do right so what it used to be you saying 60% used to be more than that right so I'm saying emulate what made
Speaker A
them more Su but the share in terms of the total GDP of the output is an even greater per when it comes to the share of why would we go more in the direction what made them fail in the first place
Speaker A
because China's state-owned Enterprises continue to be competitive and work very well that's why okay and the private ones are still better they're actually not yeah they are but but the majority of the GDP in China is from the state
Speaker A
own Enterprise that's you don't you don't so you're picking and choosing what you likey the efficiency and you don't quantify the efficiency of a state versus a private owned Company by how much they contribute to GDP that's a
Speaker A
ridiculous so how do you quantify let's one quick response and let's move on yeah no that's that's just that's a ridiculous way to do it okay okay let's let's move on to this fourth question please go ahead hi my name is Kayla I am
Speaker A
uh New York City born and Brad and over here I went to school in couni where I studied Slavic studies I took myself to Ukraine I worked in the Ukrainian American community over here in basela for two years I learned a lot about them
Speaker A
and one thing I think you don't really understand is that you keep talking about the genocide that happened in Ukraine but who are the people that are talking about it it's people from liol from Ian Fran from from uh Dapo but that
Speaker A
was part of Poland at the time do you know where the genocide the so-called genocide of the H hore the famine it happened in donet where H was recently and those people still support the communistic system they still support
Speaker A
Stalin should learn exactly were the [ __ ] happy cuz it wasn't in the Soviet Union but my question is my question is start to bring it back so you say you say a lot oh you know communism was a disaster those people
Speaker A
from the Soviet Union didn't like it so then tell me why in 1991 when there was a referendum passed before the coup and we say the counter Revolution the coup that happened in the Soviet Union they passed a re referendum to all of the
Speaker A
republics an average of 77% they voted to remain and keep the Soviet Socialist system in Central Asia it was 96% 93% there's a question 717 77 honestly I I'm sorry but I think you're kind of [ __ ] because because
Speaker A
like do you see the numbers let's talk about let's talk about all right thank you for your question thank you for your question so let when we're talking about let's let's Stone it down let's Stone it down please go ahead Ben yeah so so you
Speaker A
guys always like to focus on the guys let's uh let's listen to his response so you guys always like to focus on the overall referendum but you ignore all the referendums that came after that there was another referendum
Speaker A
in 1991 that was in Ukraine only over 90% % of ukrainians voted for Independence so either you're a liar or you're just genuinely stupid please it's fine we got your question the same thing happened in Georgia the same thing
Speaker A
happened in several other of the former Soviet States over 90% you guys can look it up look up 1991 Ukrainian referendum it's online it's free actually Google's free so um as far as talking about the famine I mean this argument that oh I
Speaker A
think maybe some people in the area like Stalin you know after all of the other people died died 100 years ago I don't care would you like to comment on the question yeah I mean it's he he doesn't
Speaker A
care because he's living in uh America and the people who actually lived under Stalin like Stalin but his opinion matters more I mean it speaks for itself all right for the next question let's let's try to refocus the conversation on
Speaker A
the actual dapoli and the American system it seems like you're going to do that thank you very much please go ahead I'm going to try all right please go okay so this is actually a pleasure um I very rar get to talk to Communists I
Speaker A
actually really like the acp's website design is really good I will give that the question um my primary issue with Communism is not necessarily how it occurs in practice but how it occurs in theory because conventional economic theory states that the market is
Speaker A
effectively trying to solve an optimization problem more people that can solve this problem by inserting information into prices do make it more efficient so if you ascribe to something similar to like Marxist leninist viewpoint on economics why is it that
Speaker A
you would disagree with this especially when it's supported not just by like the evidence but also like the science itself with regards to how information is transmitted between people thank you very much your your question is why as
Speaker A
Marxist leninist we don't support uh market economies no my question is why would you not support the theories that market economies can price in information is your issue that they can be your issue with the that markets can price in
Speaker A
information can price as information can price in information price in information I got it okay and and when I when I'm talking about information I I I mean something similar to Shan anthropy if you're familiar with the concept so
Speaker A
like if you're going to take issue with this it won't necessarily be with like the history or the evidence it's like literally going to be with the science okay well I can I can broadly respond to what you're saying look I think that the
Speaker A
very uh rigid form of State planning uh in the early Soviet Union and under Mau was necessary for those conditions because they had to build an independent National industrial system from scratch which is a very scude just get the steel
Speaker A
production up you know build the vehicles build up the military build up the infrastructure but then once they accomplished that goal and it was time to actually have a light consumer industry economy that's when the West really started to you know outperform
Speaker A
the Socialist block and I think that's also I don't think it's a fact this is also what corresponds to the rise of information economies you know consumerism and so on and so on and this was just a different era of history that
Speaker A
involved the rise of computers and it's a totally new paradigm of how production occurs and that is the principal reason why China shifted over to a market type economy because as you're I think is is what you're trying to say the market uh
Speaker A
provides the necessary price signals and information better than a a rigid State planned economy possibly could but I would also uh respond to that by saying yes that's true that uh China's model was much better and it was necessary but
Speaker A
if we get to the essence of the matter that this is about the rise of computers and the rise of Information Technology and ultimately what we talk about is the fourth Industrial Revolution why can't we put supercomputers to use and employ
Speaker A
cybernetic methods to have a planned economy this was actually proposed in the Soviet Union it was called OAS everyone knows the case in Chile it was cyberson and for one reason another there wasn't a political will or initiative to implement this I think
Speaker A
it's very much possible to begin transitioning out from a market intensive economy with the use of Information Technology so this is all right thank you Ben would you like to add a comment on the question yeah I mean socialist Communists they always
Speaker A
have to run back to the market economy they did that in Cuba with the dollarization they did that in China under Deng Xiao ping they did that in the Soviet Union with the New Economic Policy they just do it time and time
Speaker A
again because they kind of have to um the free market economists like ledwick Von misus have been Vindicated time and time again you know in 1920 he published economic calculation socialist commonwealth he's talking about pricing on the factors of production and as I
Speaker A
said earlier 100% of the prices on the uh factors of production were determined by the state in 1980 in China fast forward to 2008 it's 12.5% I think it's even lower today just the book I'm referencing is kind of older might have
Speaker A
even increased in recent years wouldn't be surprised but anyways 1980 you have over 90% extreme poverty rate 2008 I believe it's somewhere around 20 so misus these free market economists have been Vindicated time and time again the reason they don't want to talk about
Speaker A
that is because they bury the Communists they bury the Socialist um as for you know all this nonsense about you know the computers oh they're going to save us I mean project cyberson had nothing to do with mis' critique they weren't
Speaker A
responding to misus critique in fact the Communist frequently conceded to it um bakunin conceded to it right they acknowledged you know when lennin had to introduce the New Economic Policy you mean BK not bakun yeah my bad you're
Speaker A
correct right um and just uh um one last uh one last note on that if I couldn't remember what I was saying oh yeah project cyberon uh it has nothing to do with uh mises's critique project cyberon was an absolute disaster I mean look at
Speaker A
look at the statistics of Chile under Salvador yende who is a miserable dictator um he killed himself actually um so he shot himself in the head with an AK-47 but so uh Salvador yende real wages fell over 50% under his government
Speaker A
inflation reached over 600% it was an absolute disaster the idea that we should emulate that is just silly all right let's let's thank you thank you Ben let's get to uh another question please go ahead okay um should I go
Speaker A
should I start by introducing myself no no just get to the question we have a lot of questions Let's uh go through these quickly so Ben you uh complained about the ACP being a very small part in membership numbers now I also want to
Speaker A
ask this to H because I think this is going to be important that H answers this so although it's only like a hundred or so members like not even 100 in States I wanted to ask how many applicants are there to the party
Speaker A
because I think that me the membership numbers is just not enough to to uh to really count okay the success of the party I think you also need to take into account how many applicants are there what's the quality
Speaker A
of the membership is it a quality over quantity issue all right thank you H could you address the the questions the membership applicants are overwhelming our director of personnel it's in the hundreds and we're very very very uh we're very very uh selective about
Speaker A
who we let in and who we don't it's not a party that's open to the public there's a certain level of Education competency good character and so on that's required multiple interviews are necessary uh it's not being advertised
Speaker A
to the public as far as joining it is concerned but you're free to you're free to watch and see us uh you know grow and stuff but it's not uh it's not right now a mass party you know we're going with
Speaker A
the leninist model of quality over quantity since I know that pra Ben was complaining about that so I think that is one question so let's let's get to next person thank you can I make a quick I mean you're you're not wrong I mean
Speaker A
that's that's very much a good point I was working with the limited data that I had uh certainly I'm sure they have applicants I just don't have access to that um from what I found they have about 200 members in the actual uh
Speaker A
United States they have some members in Canada too for some reason but the ACT United States they have roughly 200 as far as applicants I mean hundreds wow that debunks everything I said that that must be from dickter as well the Chinese
Speaker A
historian the accuracy of that claim is laugh all right we have uh limited time we have a lot of people so let's get to questions quickly please make question quick then my question is directed at uh pran you I'm sure you would describe
Speaker A
yourself as anti-establishment I think that's almost a given in this room uh but every time a question about uh the uh historical truth of Communism you run to the establishment consensus and whenever a question about uh actual historical fact comes up you uh run away
Speaker A
from the from taking an anti-establishment position appeal directly to the establishment how can you call yourself antiestablishment or put yourself as a opposition to anything in reality uh when you do this all right here's your question thank you very much
Speaker A
go ahead yeah I mean I I don't I've never called myself anti-establishment I guess technically I would be I just don't like the term because it Associates me with like weirdos schizophrenics Nazis Communists I just don't like using the term I guess you
Speaker A
know again like I'm not pro Republican or Democrat I wasn't defending them in this debate as I made clear I think we could do so much better but it's clearly not the Communist that will do that um so as far as the uh the accuracy of the
Speaker A
historical consensus I mean I I would consider myself a historical revisionist uh many in the Austrian School Murray rothbart Hans and hop but they were of course historical revisionists so I completely agree that the historical consensus could be wrong but you have to
Speaker A
actually make an argument for that that's the problem here right and again I'm not just I'm not like citing a bunch of anti-communists I'm citing the Chinese historians that's why I cited data from ma own government like this is
Speaker A
we can get this data from the Chinese government we can get this data from the Communist governments we can have plenty of actual sources and I will be happily proven wrong if you have something to actually prove anything I've said wrong
Speaker A
you can also get the data on lifespans at H side like I said I I gave you guys references I want to just you know finish resp I gave you guys all the references like you can anybody can come
Speaker A
to me afterwards and you can like give me your number your email and I'll send you the anything you ask for ex we'll have time we'll have an open bar to discuss all these so thank you for your
Speaker A
question um H would you like to respond and H would like to ask you a question if you'd like to accept really quick no no but really if you'd like to accept it you can accept it but you can also ask
Speaker A
him a question it's up to you then so really quick wait do you accept the question sure okay yeah I mean you're mentioning misus and rothbart and stuff and they seem to have a very uh like a very uh strict definition of what
Speaker A
constitutes the real free market capitalism in your ofie has real capitalism ever been tried um I am not one of the people that would say no I would say yes was glorious um so like I gave the example
Speaker A
of China liberalizing you think China is an example of a rothbardian capital country let him finish so so uh of course I'm not talking about like a purely free market Society but I mean yes America is the richest country in human history
Speaker A
because of capitalism yes China became much better than it was under ma because of capitalism because as I mentioned one of the big things misus talks about is the prices on the factors of production and that's one of the key things we
Speaker A
should be looking at so if I understand it correctly just to be clear uh all of the problems uh when it comes to capitalist countries are because of socialism and everything good is the capitalism all right now Ben now Ben you
Speaker A
have you have the right to ask him a question or you can wave it up to you no I'm good all right let's get to second question please go ahead so quickly though we're having some trouble over here sorry um so kind of going
Speaker A
beyond the party membership question I mean people in here were on your side of the argument has were booing at the DSA so I mean in a country where your economic priors are so universally rejected where how do you build a
Speaker A
coalition and I mean since you've expressed that you don't foresee taking power via electoral politics but via Revolution which I would presume would be violent what makes you think that your ideology would Rise From the Ashes with such limited subscribers in this
Speaker A
country if you know there were some sort of grander collapse all right let's get let's get to your answer hus um I'm very uh happy to see your concerned about the well-being of our party and its ability to make coalitions and stuff um look we
Speaker A
actually are willing to build coalitions with people across ideological lines so long as they can join with us in a united front against the war mongers and against the Monopoly capitalist Elites so even Libertarians if they're willing to join with us we're completely fine
Speaker A
with that so we care more about the concrete issues the second thing so no we're not like a dogmatic or ideologically closed uh regarding the second question of uh violent revolution and stuff listen as the FBI knows I'll
Speaker A
never advocate for violent revolution only what's legal and uh but but to your point we we don't we don't think that we're going to get to a point where we're just going to be able to uh impose our will upon the whole of America
Speaker A
without building a very specific relationship with the people so we're sending our people to small towns we're sending them to actually work closely with communities and build Bridges and uh relationships with them so it's it's a it's it's a long-term thing it's not
Speaker A
an overnight thing Ben would you like to comment real quick oh yeah just just a real quick thing so I mean of course uh he's not going to blatantly advocate for Revolution and in the same vein I'm not
Speaker A
going to blatantly advocate for counterrevolution but I will give a fun factoid that I can shoot better than any communist in this room we'll see excellent please go ahead yeah so I just want like a quick point of clarification in uh ha's
Speaker A
opening statement he mentioned that there were a lot of contradictions present in the current system I just want to know whether it's has his position or even the American Communist party's official pos position that there can exist contradictions I.E that
Speaker A
contradictions can be true ah well I don't listen we don't have to turn this into a philosophy debate I'll make it very simple for you you have a contradiction between the need for America to have a manufacturing base to
Speaker A
have strong industry to have good well-paying jobs for the people and on the other hand the need to maintain the global system where the dollar is the main Reserve currency so that's an example of a contradiction at the heart
Speaker A
of the global system where one is coming at the expense of the other and it's leading to a lot of political instability and polarization here as we saw with the rise of trump in 2015 2016 so there's no need to you know uh get
Speaker A
into kind of uh debates about propositional logic or whatever this is concretely what I mean all right Ben would you like to comment well I mean of course as um extensions of the hegelians the marxists think that they're going to
Speaker A
take over the country it's inevitable it's bound to happen you know they're predestined to do it but honestly I think that's kind of stupid all right pleas go ahead yes stupid um my question is to this U fine
Speaker A
Jing over here um so you mention that Camala Harris and Joe Biden are fascists um I want to know are you going to expose the same rhetoric as the other leftwing groups you said that you're different um because I really want to
Speaker A
know do you know the actual definition of what fascism is cuz I wouldn't even though I don't like Joe Biden and Camal Harris I wouldn't call them fascist thanks for the question please go ahead house uh dimitrov who is the secretary
Speaker A
of the commenter and this is the working definition of fascism that we use which is the terroristic dictatorship of the most aggressive and reactionary sections of Monopoly Capital Ben would you like to comment yeah I mean if you actually want to know
Speaker A
about fascism I would recommend reading some Stanley G Payne um history of fascism but uh as far as uh you know the the uh acp's relation to Fascism it was just a few days ago that Jackson Hingle tweeted out that the Jews were Christ
Speaker A
killers and H's response to this was to shut down the critics to say and to say that the party is always right so it's very similar to the fascists that worship their party it's a cult it's a cult they worship the
Speaker A
party the part's always right if the party says Mass rape the Bazi they're right all right uh you can comment in a different question so let's move on let's get another question now um hello I I wrote my question before a couple
Speaker A
other questions were asked and so that might affect the but anyway so within Marxist leninism violence is an essential even if not desirable part of bringing about uh communism the dictatorship of the proletariat uh the Russian Revolution in begin a party but
Speaker A
in tight-knit clandestine revolutionary uh cells uh even if organized um not a party and not through electoral politics Italian fascism on the other hand which is ideological Origins and Marxism began with get to the question please all right now to my knowledge uh the ACP is
Speaker A
not a clandestine revolutionary movement how is what the ACP Advocates different from the patriotic or nationalist popular movement aimed at class collaboration any different from Italian fascism excepting of course the traditional communist aesthetic how are we different from Italian fascism you're
Speaker A
saying well in terms of what your end goal is Italian fascism had its basis of support in these kind of lumping criminal elements who were bribed by the ruling uh imperialist bisi we're building our base of support in the
Speaker A
working class so I think it's as simple as that all right thank you Ben you can comment as well next there is this common misconception that the Italian fascist and the German national socialists were like Pro big business
Speaker A
that's complete nonsense they never had any evidence for that um the little evidence they did have came from you know people like William Shire who cited like madeup nonsense about all these rich people donating to the Nazis that
Speaker A
was uh promptly debunked by Henry Ashby Turner in his book uh big business and the rise of Hitler and um there there's a few different people I'm not going to get too much into the uh Italian uh part
Speaker A
but yeah I mean honestly like I could comment kind of on that question the last one that the ACP are very similar in their tactics that the fascists were if you actually study history um you know they they do this whole class coll
Speaker A
collaboration thing I mean their Founders have explicitly advocated for that they do this whole oh we're pro small business but anti- big business that's exactly what the fascists did I mean are they fascist but they're a lot like them at least all right so we're
Speaker A
almost out of time so we'll take a couple of questions and we'll hope that the the two Debaters will address them in their closing remarks so please go ahead and then they'll maybe address your this is a quickie so I uh had
Speaker A
initially proposed to the owner the delightful Nick Allen uh fist cuffs but uh I think we're changing that um how do you all two feel about doing uh push-ups V push-ups see the true winner of this battle and the vitalist man that's uh
Speaker A
that's to the that's up to the debater prerogative after the debate concludes stick around we'll find out all right after the debate we'll see all right thank you thank you thank you appreciate it all right uh second question please
Speaker A
go ahead yeah I'll keep it kind of simple uh for you please louder if you can yeah I'll keep it simple for you um how would Libertarians achieve Revolution that's completely how would they achieve Revolution all right keep that in the
Speaker A
back of your minds please next one hi uh so this is mostly for pra B so if communism does nothing but starve and kill and this and that why did the USA and its allies bother funding death squads across the whole world to kill
Speaker A
communist movements or strangle actually existing communist countries until they fell and if they're so weak why bother intervening in their countries in the first place why not just let them fall on their own if it's so supposedly destined for them okay thank you so keep
Speaker A
that in the back of mind I I get this yeah no we'll address those later responding later in the closing remarks okay cool please go ahead so my question is so uh ha the American Communist Party are doing
Speaker A
Mutual Aid work I'm curious if the Libertarians have done any direct impact in their communities and um has a Libertarian State ever existed thank you all thank you all for your questions at this point we will open it up for the
Speaker A
closing remarks has you'll start first and then Ben you'll close out the debate be the opposite or no no it's it's always the same yeah so you'll start us with the closing remarks and then after that we get ready to vote we will put
Speaker A
out the Q R code for the second vote please go ahead pause well needless to say I appreciate everyone coming out tonight appreciate your questions as well some of them are very interesting but I have to say I'm
Speaker A
kind of a little bit disappointed that my opponent basically decided to throw in the towel before it even began because as I understood I was debating the negative when it come to the proposition of this topic he was not
Speaker A
willing to commit to that so I could say at the very least no one that I can encounter no one that I've encountered thus far has been willing to commit to the view that the two-party duopoly is somehow defensible or that this current
Speaker A
system can somehow go on indefinitely now look I don't expect everyone to have full faith and confidence in the ACP right now at this stage any more than I expect the American people to right now all I would ask those who have uh any
Speaker A
kind of uh good faith in them is to give us the benefit of the do give us time to prove ourselves I think in the past two or three months we've already done a lot much more than any other kind of leftist
Speaker A
organizations have done arguably in over a decade so I I don't think it's particularly fair to kind of hold us to the standard of not being as big as the Democrats or the Republicans right now we should be judged on the basis of both
Speaker A
our intentions and how we're willing to follow through with those intentions in our actual practice and actually what we do my opponent doesn't have a solution to the problems this country is facing he only has the view that oh communism
Speaker A
is so horrible and everything is so bad but ask in the affirmative what the solution is and he'll come up short he'll have nothing when it comes to what does a Libertarian Society look like what does a true free market Society
Speaker A
he'll nitpick different kinds of societies which in another instance he'll say it's a crony capitalism corporate capitalism so again very concretely I would just open the question up when the going gets tough how except through a new kind of
Speaker A
collectivism where the interests of the individual are placed second to the interests of the collective well-being can a people endure and survive extreme hardship uh so with that Ben please you have five minutes to [Applause] yeah uh you know when you talk to
Speaker A
communist you hear a lot about the the literacy rates in Cuba and the Soviet Union and China the literacy rate the literacy campaigns but they don't bother to be literate themselves The Proposition of the debate is not are
Speaker A
Republicans and Democrats bad uh do we have some other solution no no no this is ridiculous like you shouldn't be upset at me for not debating a completely different proposition maybe we can come back another day another day
Speaker A
to debate that other proposition but we're talking about whether or not the ACP is the better alternative which again includes a possibility of actually feeding the DAP system right I have plenty of criticisms of the DAP system but all those criticisms are irrelevant
Speaker A
all right we're talking about an Oxford style debate we're not talking about just a a casual conversation where I can present all of my uh Solutions I don't have time to present my Solutions and that's exactly why he brings up nonsense
Speaker A
like this it's not an argument it's not a way to win a debate it's just silly um now let's see uh I mean frankly like that that last part I don't know why he wasted his time on that but I can kind
Speaker A
of respond to that last question I got because I think that is a very important one I could talk about that for legitimately hours you know so he said why does the CIA why does the US keep like sabotaging these socialist and
Speaker A
communist countries well I mean it really doesn't you have several examples of this not happening take Tanzania for example so in the 1960s you had Zanzibar and tangena let him let finish in the 1960s you had zanbar tanganika they
Speaker A
became Tanzania and they were it was led by Julius Neri a hardcore Marxist leninist it became a socialist society not only did the US not sabotage them but they gave them more Aid than they were giving any other African nation
Speaker A
weird how that works um a similar case with Somalia uh you know under Sayad bar that failed completely the entire government collapsed in the 1990s there's many uh Burma is another great example there's many examples of socialism failing on its own and I
Speaker A
actually would say the US government should stop interfering so much get rid of the sanctions on Cuba get rid of the [Applause] sanctions we can agree on that we can agree on that's that's a crime against humanity get rid of those sanctions on
Speaker A
Venezuela because what they do number one they're crime against humanity they're anti-free Market um but also they give the Communist excuses silly excuses when we have so many examples of the communist failing in the exact same way in other circumstances without the
Speaker A
sanctions so again I could talk about that for hours but there you [Applause] go all right folks that concludes our debate thank you very much now at this point whip out your phones and let's uh get the second vote going this is the
Speaker A
post debate vote and uh it's the same exact process the same system as the first one please just go in and uh put in put in your votes and then we will tally the results and announce them shortly while we do that we will guys if
Speaker A
you can uh pay attention a little bit more we have a couple of announcements while you people vote we'll tell you about upcoming events and we'll tell you about uh debates coming up I'll start with the 23 thank you so much uh well this was a
Speaker A
spicy night um so um like I said in the be up top this is the first of several nextg debates we're going to be doing our next one is on 10:23 which is going to be asking should Libertarians vote
Speaker A
for kamla Harris so that should be interesting um yes you can check out more of our events join wv.org I want to give a special thank you uh to C which is streaming this live we've been getting lots of traction lots of views
Speaker A
and comments so that's really awesome um civil will be hosting our platforms I encourage you to check them out we'll also be posting this of course on YouTube X all that good stuff um so yeah looking forward to doing more nextg
Speaker A
debates and uh join.org is where we post everything hopefully I've stalled enough for the results or we we need more time you got them yes I have the results here now if we can get drum roll please all right now the
Speaker A
pre prevote debate for the agree was 78.3% folks agreed with the motion and we had 0% disagree with the motion and we had 21.6% uh undecided about the motion and now for the Post debate we have the following for the agree we have
Speaker A
[Music] [Applause] 86% so that's that that is a change let let me all right let me conclude let me conclude that is a change of 8% and then we have for the disagree we have 13.6% which is a change of
Speaker A
13.16% for our debate for our debate for our debate purposes please pay attention for our debate purposes we take the difference in changing and who changed the the opinions of the most people and for that with a 5% majority
Speaker A
Ben takes the win [Applause] congratulations to you both congrat thank you thank you all for coming today and please have at it enjoy the open bar thank you all for coming e e
Topics:Young VoicesAmerican Communist PartyDAPI systemOxford-style debatelibertarianismMarxism-Leninismpolitical debateNextGen debatesSoho Forumyouth political engagement
