[muir_redwoods]

"It existed -- The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1918-1991, ca. 100 million murdered. All very rational, thank you very much."

You can say many things about the Soviet Union but never try to pass it off as the home of rationality and reason. The name of T. Lysenko might be worth a google search for you and then you might look up the amount of money, time and effort they put into UFO's, ESP and a bunch of other non-rational fields of study to say nothing of marxism, the least rational delusion in history

[Cincinatus]

That wasn't my point -- it was that the communism claimed to be a rational system. "From each according to his abilities... To each according to his needs." When Lenin ordered the extermination of the kulaks, it was all quite rational -- the kulaks opposed collectivization of agriculture, that collectivization was necessary for the revolution, hence the kulaks must be exterminated. Q.E.D.

I'll also note that the Nazis likewise claimed hyper-rationality. It's much easier to get your minions to exterminate whole classes of people when they think it's the logical thing to do.

It was the worship of reason that led to these atrocities. Remember the "Goddess of Reason" that Robespierre wanted the French people to worship? That led directly to The Terror.