The dark genius of Robert Lindsay

It’s one thing to discuss insane, inhuman philosophies. It’s quite another to encounter them, even through our diffuse online medium.

One Robert Lindsay, who claims an IQ of 147, responding to some comments of mine at his blog challenging his ridiculous assertion that anarchists and libertarians are racists, writes:

We Commies and socialists are the world’s greatest humanitarians. Stalin set a world record by doubling life expectancy in a country in the shortest period of time, a record that was unbroken until Mao broke it. Stalin and Mao are two of the greatest humanitarians that ever lived. They are life-savers. What kills is capitalism. [emphasis mine]

to which I reply:

Try telling that to the millions they murdered.

and

Yeah, people died under Stalin and Mao, but they both dramatically reduced the death rate. The death rate under Czarism was fully 3 times higher than under Stalin. Anyway, Stalin killed 1.6 million, not 110 million or whatever. Mao also dramatically reduced the death rate. There’s lots of ways to kill people, and the previous capitalist and feudalist regimes were killing far more than Stalin and Mao. These guys were the two greatest lifesavers that ever lived.

to which I responded:

Ah, the shades of evil. Even if we respect the anti-revisionist Stalin/Mao death counts here, to say that Stalin is somehow “better” than the Czarist monarchs for killing “only” 1.6 million people is to fall victim to false choice and forced options, or to adopt a utilitarian position which reduces human lives to mere numbers. Are we to say that Jeffrey Dahmer was “better” than Ted Bundy because he killed fewer people? Hardly. We rightly call both of them monsters. To call Stalin or Mao “humanitarians” for killing fewer millions than those who might have otherwise been in power is not only to twist words beyond all recognition of meaning but also to stand ready to defend the next tyrant intent on launching the next “great leap forward” up the side of a great mountain made of bloody, broken human corpses.

And Mr. Lindsay winds things up:

Wait a minute. You don’t get it. Stalin and Mao saved lives. They probably saved more lives than anyone in history. Lowering the death rate in your country is very important. They did this not be “killing fewer people” but by actually saving millions of lives though higher standard of living, improved diet, sanitation, health care, etc. Indian capitalism killed 170 million since 1949 by not going with the Chinese model of Communism. We’re not talking about “killing fewer people”. We’re talking about saving lives and giving the gift of life – time.

[...]

And some of those people Stalin killed got what they deserved! And a lot of those killed by Mao were the big landlords, and they were almost all horrible criminals. Mao didn’t kill them anyway, he just said that the villagers could put them on trial. The peasants hated them so much that they put many of them on trial, and in many cases, voted to convict and to execute them. Then the party carried out the peoples’ wishes. It’s pure people’s democracy – it’s not beaurocratic state murder or any of that.

Well, neat-o! I guess if the people wish it, that makes it okay, right? Yay, democracy!

For the sake of brevity, and in line with my inherent laziness, I’ll close simply with an observation that Mr. Lindsay reacted to by threatening expulsion from his blog-o-land. Politeness in the face of evil be damned.

(ignorance + flawed assumptions + ludicrous beliefs) x (your vaunted 147 IQ) = rank insanity