Just a whole.... I dunno.. 'Atlas Shrugged' moment

POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Sunday, May 8, 2022 14:28
VIEWED: 9920
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SIGNYM

Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:04 AM

As a "government" "employee" I'm pretty damn tired of begin scapegoated for pretty much... well- everything, including the Fall of Western Civilization. I was on my way out at 8 PM last night, and ran into a couple of co-workers who were also staying late just to catch up.

It's not enough that I and my fellow co-workers are running our asses ragged over every emergency that pops up... train derailments, fires, odor complaints... and now radiation monitoring. It's not enough that despite lack of resources we're expected to do this AND our "regular" jobs. No, what really chaps my ass is how we're called "lazy" and "stupid" and "unproductive". And yet, when someone want to know when to evacuate their kids, who do they call???

US.

But then I thought... how is that different from teachers? Most of them are dedicated and hardworking, and yet every year they see their class sizes go up, and their supplies go down (and then they buy out of pocket for them) and they get to hear how "lazy" and "stupid" and "unproductive" they are. And then, what about Child Protection Services? Their caseloads are enormous. What about EMTs?

So then I thought... what if public employees nation-wide had an "Atlas Shrugged" day or two? And then another couple a few days later? And a few days after that? I'll bet people would feel liberated. But then Social Security checks wouldn't come out. Kids would be unsupervised during the day while their parents worked. People stressing about radiation or any other sort of exposure would have no one to call. 911 calls would be unanswered. That stoplight on the fritz wouldn't get fixed, and that hole wouldn't get paved, and that water wouldn't get monitored.

heh.

I kinda like the idea.

Ya wanna "negotiate"? Part of the right of the other side is to walk away.

Sounds pretty attractive to me right about now.

AURAPTOR

Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:09 AM

1st thought - you really haven't read the book, and if you have, you need to read it again. The message was clearly lost on you.

2nd thought - go for it. America needs to wake up and open their eyes. No more nanny state.

THAT'll be your Atlas Shrugged moment.

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

SIGNYM

Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:16 AM

I read the book, and I "got" the message: the survival of the whole universe depends on a few manly men (and women) who dare to think big and dominate the world scene with their big brass balls and tons and tons of money.

My message... which was apparently lost on YOU (no surprise there)... is that the world really runs on people who WORK for a living. People who produce, who wrench the stuff of a good life from raw materials and energy and turn it into a decent life for everyone. Who provide goods and services that societies actually need to exist and progress: Caring for members, transmitting hard-won information, and looking into the future. Not some jag-off who just runs money through his fingers and pockets a few along the way.

Irony was never your strong point. Or thinking either, for that matter. I'm willing to have my Atlas Shrugged moment, if you're willing to have yours. Let's see who wins. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that in a face-off between the "financial advisor" who makes money whether his clients gain or lose, and the teacher who at least minds the kids during the day so parents can go to work and earn a living...

...your "services" would pretty much fall off the bottom of the scale.

AURAPTOR

Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I read the book, and I "got" the message: the survival of the whole universe depends on a few manly men (and women) who dare to think big and dominate the world scene with their big brass balls and tons and tons of money.

No. You did not get the message.

This comes to mind, actually, when I think of 'your' kind....

Think about it.

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

GEEZER

Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:39 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I was on my way out at 8 PM last night, and ran into a couple of co-workers who were also staying late just to catch up.

We used to call that "love" time - wanting to get the job done although we knew no overtime or other compensation would be forthcoming.

Civil service is just like any other line of work. You got good folks who want to do the job right, and those who are not so much. I was fortunate to work with folks who took pride in their jobs and were effective and innovative.

This sort'a highlights the problem with generalization. Not all (or even most) civil servants are lazy. Not all (or even most)capitalists are evil moneygrubbers. Not all (or even most) folks with a liberal bent are screaming Socialists.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:50 AM

Rappy, YOU are the person on the escalator. You couldn't change a roll of toilet paper on your own, if you had to.

SIGNYM

Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:53 AM

Quote:
We used to call that "love" time - wanting to get the job done although we knew no overtime or other compensation would be forthcoming. Civil service is just like any other line of work. You got good folks who want to do the job right, and those who are not so much. I was fortunate to work with folks who took pride in their jobs and were effective and innovative. This sort'a highlights the problem with generalization

Nonetheless, peeps like Rappy continue to generalize. And more and more people seem to think that the generalization reflects reality. (see above)

A lot of peeps on the right want to have their cake and eat it too. Just saying... a lesson in reality might not be amiss.

Quote:
Not all (or even most)capitalists are evil moneygrubbers

I'll get into why capitalists HAVE to be greedy bastards or get swallowed whole by the system another time. FREM: It's not a "people" problem it's a system problem.

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, March 19, 2011 3:02 AM

Siggy, I gotta say, despite our occasionally bitter philosophical (but I've noticed, rarely practical) disagreements here...

You Go Girl!

I think it's a fine idea, and I am quite sure the IWW would be happy to assist you in co-ordinating it - just remember how "ugly" the other side is willing to play and see to your safety as well, ok ?

ETA: Actually I think your concept is kind of taking a systems problem and MAKING it a people one - by showing undeniably that systems *depend* on people in order to function, and we should treat those people as human beings instead of draft animals, so nyaaaah!

-F

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, March 19, 2011 3:29 AM

Siggy,

Anti-govt people aren't opposed to these govt jobs being done. They just don't want those jobs being done by the govt.

I think we need schools and teachers, for example. I just don't think schools should be owned and run by the govt, and that teachers should be govt employees.

But hey, you want to strike? That's fine. Go for it. Just don't put me in prison if I want to strike from my taxes, and we got a deal!

Actually, I hope you strike for a very long time. Cause you know what? You're right. The jobs still need to be done, so we'll just find other people to pay to do the same jobs. But this time, we the people will hire them and the world will keep on ticking, and we'll see how superfluous govt middle management really is.

SIGNYM

Saturday, March 19, 2011 5:18 AM

CTS, you go do what you think you can do. Let me know when you "the (so-called) people*" succeed. (*As opposed to the rest of us who aren't really people, I suppose, just schlubs who're working for a living)

FREM: The difference I think is that in govt you're allowed to be a person but under corporatism you're required to be a sociopath. AFA the IWW and safety: Thank ye.

DMAANLILEILTT

Saturday, March 19, 2011 6:14 AM

You don't think there should be public education? I don't know where to begin with that illogic. Oh, wait. That'll do.

"I really am ruggedly handsome, aren't I?"

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, March 19, 2011 10:18 AM

These things get done even where there's not a govt. to do them. I know, because of where I live. Every town in this area has virtually no govt. services. So, volunteers step up and fill the spot. There's no overtime, because there's no pay. When someone needs a new ambulance, everyone pitches is, because they might need an ambulance some day.

If the schools closed this would fill in as well. I remember a few years back when the Congo went bankrupt and stopped paying. No one stopped working. Everything went on as normal.

What matters is that the baker bakes bread, and the farmer brings him wheat, but even the teachers and professors and garbage men went on. If they didn't, someone took their place. Overall, I think people have a survival instinct.

The problem with wage labor is that it is doing it for the wages. There was a case last year in the city where two EMTs didn't help a women I think it was in a coffee shop, because they were off the clock, so she died.

That just wouldn't happen here, because they're never *on* the clock to begin with. I guess you could say it's anarchy. It's just that anarchy doesn't look like how the flock envisions it.

We live in a society that works fine without anyone running it. Our only complaints here, are when someone tries to run things. People talk about how much better it would be if NY seceded. I think it would be even better if we seceded from NY.

We also live in a nation that kills 3 million people a year. A million with guns, a million with drugs and you can figure out where the third million is coming from. Sure, it's not always our hand pulling the trigger, but it's all a side effect of this society, which is run on a budget of 3 trillion dollars, of money taken by force from the people. That means it costs roughly a million dollars a head to kill people. This is a net result of govt.

I once was in a very nearly fatal crash. A man saw me, and called the local volunteer EMTs, who rushed me to a hospital, where I was stitched up by a doctor, who charged me $80. It wasn't minor work, I will skip the gorey details, it was as major a job as I can recall reading about.

Doctors are doctors because they want to heal the sick. Who would do that for the money? I mean, they work 18 hours a day. But more than that, if there weren't a giant govt. sponsored union in place called the AMA, many other people would be there doing it. And yeah, some would be unqualified, but hell, some are unqualified right now. It's up to the hospital to not hire these guys, and us not to go to them. There have been some cases here where doctors have had their licenses revoked. The stories always read something like "after botching 147 operations that lead to patients deaths" and I'm left to wonder... what happens to the guy who only kills 70 of his own patients? Perhaps it's "Take a week off Jack, go to the Bahamas, you need to unwind. We know you're trying, just, try to kill fewer, it's an embarassment, if you could keep it to under one a month..."

So, yes, chaos is possible, but so it not chaos. I think that one thing that would help is if we could see the record of our doctor. How many people he's killed. That would help.

Teachers, what the kids thought of them, whether or not they learned anything. Then you could send your kids to their class, or not. Or rather, the kids could go, or not.

Sorry, I digress, but it's all part of the same concept.

ETA: Dmaan, I'll jump on this bandwagon. I'm vehemently opposed to public education. I'm not opposed to some form of education, just this one, though I don't think it's necessary at all.

The US spends a trillion dollars a year on public education which as far as I can tell yields a negative result: Children would learn more spending their time doing anything else. We spend radically more than any other nation in the world.

Public school is, like so many of the deeply held beliefs of the sheeple, not very old. It may pretend to be so, but, just a cursory search, it seems majorly to be a product of the new deal. Yet in the 1

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, March 19, 2011 12:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
CTS, you go do what you think you can do. Let me know when you "the (so-called) people*" succeed.

Govt employees gotta take that prolonged vacation first. THEN we can do what I think we can do. Ball's in your court.

Quote:
(*As opposed to the rest of us who aren't really people, I suppose, just schlubs who're working for a living)

Of course you're people. Govt employees are people.

What I said was it would be nice if such people were hired by "we the people," instead of by the government. And if you think "we the people" ARE the government, then you have no business complaining repeatedly about how corrupt the government IS, right?

No matter how fantastic you think a hypothetical ideal government could be, you and I know we don't have a government that represents "we the people" right NOW.

KWICKO

Saturday, March 19, 2011 12:53 PM

There's growing underground support for just such a "general strike", Signy. By state law, Texas teachers aren't allowed to strike, but I know several who are spreading the word and trying to organize a large-scale "sick out". They aren't allowed to join unions, either, so this is all very off the books. ;)

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

AURAPTOR

Saturday, March 19, 2011 1:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Rappy, YOU are the person on the escalator. You couldn't change a roll of toilet paper on your own, if you had to.

You're the one who seems to think that life can't go on with out government intruding into our lives at ever turn.

The concept of having anyone else do things for you is so clearly ingrained in your psych,... who else would change the toilet paper but the individual ?

SIGNYM

Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:36 PM

Quote:
The concept of having anyone else do things for you is so clearly ingrained in your psych

Rappy, do YOU make your steel? Did you make your computer chips and boards? Did you string the communication lines, cut your own wood, spin your own thread to weave your own cloth, and plant your own food? In complex societies, everyone does for everyone else. It is only right whingers who think they've succeeded "on their own" like in Atlas Shrugged, where the self-titled gods go off in a huff to build their own society... YEAH! I'd like to see them try! Let's put em on a boat and set them adrift!

Anyway, obviously someone fed and clothed you were young, taught you. Someone picks up your garbage, brings water to your tap.... I shouldn't have to point out the myriad of ways that people "do" for you, but apparently I do.

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
The concept of having anyone else do things for you is so clearly ingrained in your psych
Rappy, do YOU make your steel? Did you make your computer chips and boards? Did you string the communication lines, cut your own wood, spin your own thread to weave your own cloth, and plant your own food? In complex societies, everyone does for everyone else.

Siggy, you know very well that Rappy meant *the government* when he said "anyone else."

The govt does not make our steel, computer chips and boards, string communication lines, cut our wood, spin our thread, weave our cloth, plant our food.

Redirecting the argument, if government employees were to go on strike, people would simply add govt services to the list of specialized services you just gave us (thanks) that are managed just fine without govt intervention.

Meaning, if the service is indeed necessary and desired (e.g. teaching), govt employees who perform that service would still have a job. They'd just have a new boss.

KANEMAN

Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:56 PM

No. You don't know. I think you are thinking of a different book. ROFLMAO.....you are hilarious.

KANEMAN

Saturday, March 19, 2011 2:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
1st thought - you really haven't read the book, and if you have, you need to read it again. The message was clearly lost on you.

2nd thought - go for it. America needs to wake up and open their eyes. No more nanny state.

THAT'll be your Atlas Shrugged moment.

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

HILARIOUS......Should have title this thread

"Just another...I dunno".......and left it at that. lol

KANEMAN

Saturday, March 19, 2011 3:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Siggy,

Anti-govt people aren't opposed to these govt jobs being done. They just don't want those jobs being done by the govt.

I think we need schools and teachers, for example. I just don't think schools should be owned and run by the govt, and that teachers should be govt employees.

But hey, you want to strike? That's fine. Go for it. Just don't put me in prison if I want to strike from my taxes, and we got a deal!

Actually, I hope you strike for a very long time. Cause you know what? You're right. The jobs still need to be done, so we'll just find other people to pay to do the same jobs. But this time, we the people will hire them and the world will keep on ticking, and we'll see how superfluous govt middle management really is.

Me likes.

AURAPTOR

Saturday, March 19, 2011 3:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
The concept of having anyone else do things for you is so clearly ingrained in your psych
Rappy, do YOU make your steel? Did you make your computer chips and boards? Did you string the communication lines, cut your own wood, spin your own thread to weave your own cloth, and plant your own food? In complex societies, everyone does for everyone else. It is only right whingers who think they've succeeded "on their own" like in Atlas Shrugged, where the self-titled gods go off in a huff to build their own society... YEAH! I'd like to see them try! Let's put em on a boat and set them adrift!

You're confusing the role of the individual and the role of government. It's as if you think they are one in the same. Maybe I should have said " having others do AND THINK for you ... ".

Quote:

Anyway, obviously someone fed and clothed you were young, taught you. Someone picks up your garbage, brings water to your tap.... I shouldn't have to point out the myriad of ways that people "do" for you, but apparently I do.

The concept of freedom and self determination is clearly lost on you. This isn't a matter of being nursed, clothed and taught. Such necessities aren't done by government,are they ? No, it's done by your FAMILY. Those in your community, and not drawn up by some bureaucratic worker bee, far away in some cavernous gov building.

Again, you're clearly confused as to the message of Atlas Shrugged, and seem to think that the only options are a overbearing, intrusive, fascists government, or complete and total anarchy. It's a false dichotomy, and not what Ayn Rand or conservatives promote.

No one says gov workers aren't necessary, but that there are too many to do the job and often get paid too much for what they do.

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, March 19, 2011 3:41 PM

My posts are too long.

I grew up in a corner of the world that did not have:
Public Education
Television
Police
Socialized medicine
Interstate highways
War
Homeland security
Etc.

And everything worked just fine. People were not more ignorant because they had no education, they were not more sick without govt. health they were not starving because of lack of assistance.

Change hasn't been good.

A couple of positive changes:

Firefly.

Um. Trying to think of a second.

Oh, internet. Netscape, or more specifically, Mozilla, which is really responsible

And genetic engineering, and the various medical advancements that came out of that.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

AURAPTOR

Saturday, March 19, 2011 4:19 PM

Don't forget, you can *thank AlGore ( government worker that he was ) for the internet.

* Yes, I meant 'thank'.

1KIKI

Saturday, March 19, 2011 4:43 PM

Rap - do you mean THANK?

And - since I know this FACT has been pointed out to you before - ONE MORE TIME - Al Gore never claimed he invented the internet.

Look it up at SNOPES: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

Seriously - will you EVER have ANYTHING of value to post? Because at this point, I'm skipping past most of your posts like I do with PN.

1KIKI

Saturday, March 19, 2011 4:45 PM

"I grew up in a corner of the world that did not have:
Public Education
Television
Police
Socialized medicine
Interstate highways
War
Homeland security
Etc."

Did they have corporations?

1KIKI

Saturday, March 19, 2011 4:48 PM

CTS - oh you who do not vote and do not believe in ANY government - not even a democratically elected one - you really can't complain about the government there is if you're not willing to do anything about what exists.

And I do have to say - you still seem to be stuck on your "childish" "black and white" (your words) mindset. Despite the good they DO provide, since no government is 100.00000% PERFECT for EVERYBODY 100.00000% of the TIME, the ONLY government that's good AT ALL is NO government. Do you think you'll ever grow up?

KWICKO

Saturday, March 19, 2011 4:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Don't forget, you can think AlGore ( government worker that he was ) for the internet.

Yes, you can thank him, along with all the other government employees who made it possible.

1KIKI

Saturday, March 19, 2011 4:58 PM

Yes - the internet was originally a DARPA project.

1KIKI

Saturday, March 19, 2011 5:11 PM

Just a general comment on Atlas Shrugged - it's the 'great man' myth of history where manly men and manly women 'Make Things Happen'.

But I'd truly like to see Alexander the Great without his army, and the civilization that could afford to give him one. Would he be so great? I'd like to see plantation owners without their millions of slaves. Well, we have seen plantation owners without their slaves, and they and their plantations are no more. Or Henry Ford without his assembly line workers. Richard and Maurice McDonald (McDonald's) without their servers - and customers. And so on.

The 'great leaders' and 'great captains' would simply not exist without the support of the society they live in. They would disappear in a POOF. On the other hand if they all disappeared - we would continue on.

So who, exactly, is more essential to 'Make Things Happen?

KANEMAN

Saturday, March 19, 2011 6:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Rap - do you mean THANK?

And - since I know this FACT has been pointed out to you before - ONE MORE TIME - Al Gore never claimed he invented the internet.

Look it up at SNOPES: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

Seriously - will you EVER have ANYTHING of value to post? Because at this point, I'm skipping past most of your posts like I do with PN.

Wrong...his own lips not out of context.

1KIKI

Saturday, March 19, 2011 7:16 PM

So Rap - you're Kaneman? Who else are you besides Kaneman and QQ? And why do you need to many sockpuppets?

BTW - since I'm not at home and will not be for some time your video is useless - there's no sound on this computer. Be a good chap and get me a full transcript, OK?

Oh wait, nevermind, I got the full transcript and guess what - he was quoted word for word in SNOPES. And that quote was addressed in SNOPES. Once again, you have not a single fact in your argument, not you or any of your sockpuppets.

I am beginning to think that the problem is not that you are illiterate and can't read, but that you simply can't think. Because clearly, he was talking about taking the "initiative in Congress", not about inventing it or building it or creating it single-handedly or any of the nonsense you cling to.

Well. it looks like I'm just going to have to totally ignore all of your posts because they are just a big fucking waste of my time.

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, March 19, 2011 7:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"I grew up in a corner of the world that did not have:
Public Education
Television
Police
Socialized medicine
Interstate highways
War
Homeland security
Etc."

Did they have corporations?

A few, not big ones like no Walmart. We had electricity, and that's sort of like a corporation, except it's govt. sponsors. And the phone company. Similar deal. Yes, corporations, but not this particular type of Halliburton, Bechtel, etc. I don't even think there was a McDonald's. I'm sure there wasn't actually. We used to eat at Pharmacies. Every town had one. Not Walgreens drug america style, little corner shops, where you could get food and a soda, and penicillin. I realize this means I grew up in the 19th c. but that's really how it was. What the rest of y'all think of as the 20th c. mostly didn't come here. 'cept for cars. We had cars.

Yes, society has changed a lot.

Change isn't good.

My [Return] key on the Mac just died. Not sure why. It doesn't want to press down.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, March 19, 2011 8:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Yes - the internet was originally a DARPA project.

That's up to debate. Our internet grew out of DARPA, but the web really came out of CERN in Switzerland. I remember DARPAnet.

I think that largely there weren't that many *big* corporations, and when I think about it, big corporations are the creation of big govt, because big govt contracts makes them possible. Without assistance by the govt, Walmart could not have replaced mom and pop, because mom and pop don't have to ship everything in by truck, or ship it from China.

We had Woolworth's. But it wasn't like Walmart. It didn't displace local shops, it just competed with them. Like Newberry's, it was a pretty cheapo place though, but nowhere near as cheapo as Walmart. I don't say "cheap" because I don't think any of them were ever "less expensive."

Other things there weren't: Druglords. In fact, few guns, very few guns, outside of a couple hunters. I remember drugs coming to town, but they didn't come with druglords at first. I think when they did, I was already on this board. I whined about it quite a bit.

It's been a downhill slide. I guess nothing here is actually *new*, it's just new to us, it used to live in the city, and eventually it crawled out here.

We don't have cell phones yet. No signal.

ETA: There were movies, but the theaters were all independently owned. Movies ran for 2 weeks, and if you missed them, they were gone forever.

Not having TV was no loss because there was not yet Firefly, and when there was, it was on DVD. Still don't have TV, but it's available. Just no point really. It arrived only months before the internet did.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, March 19, 2011 8:19 PM

Kiki, the whole book is basically a treatise and propaganda puff piece on the type of lameass "Better Men" bullshit which effectively started with that lunatic Plato, and over the years have given us such wonderful ideas as Feudalism, Fascism, The Caste System, and all that merry rot.
Not to mention being written by one of the worlds all time biggest hypocrites, and for that matter, badly.

So to me it's no different than those who wish to support racism holding up the turner diaries as some kind of noble work of art - just because it supports ones chosen beliefs doesn't make a badly written piece of hypocritical tripe any less what it is...

Also worth consideration is that not only those rapacious, murderous, exploitive "Captains of Industry", like Carnegie, Rockefeller and the like, many of whom WERE rabidly pro-fascist, see also, here.
http://carnival-of-anarchy.blogspot.com/2008/01/smedley-butler-and-bus
iness-plot.html

But also would-be tyrants of any stripe - without their slobbering jackboots to carry out their orders, are nothing but one more loudmouth in a sea of plenty.

And the world seems to have cottoned to that fact, as recent events show, and is conspiring itself across borders, nationalities, religions and any other barrier to remove that particular tool from the arsenal of those who would make us their slaves.

As for the rest, sure, some of the middle management and beauracracy could use a bit of trim - but even as an Anarchist I fervently maintain there ARE some infrastructures that are damn well worth keeping, and well worth paying for, and at competitive rates.

Now, some things I would rather have independent and directly funded - the functions handled by the FDA, for example, rather than via pipelines so easily corrupted, but this isn't as simple a matter as declaring something evil just because it is currently done by a government, especially when it's a necessary function of a proper society whether it even HAS a government or not.

Of course, a shutdown-walkout strike would be also kind of a litmus test in that respect as well, what could we get along without, what couldn't we - what should we keep, what MUST we keep, all those questions come to roost in addition to how we treat the people doing this work.

And alas that I am out of time to go on about this...

-Frem

PS. Did I mention I really, passionately, hate "Randroids", like, a lot ?

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, March 19, 2011 8:29 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Just a general comment on Atlas Shrugged - it's the 'great man' myth of history where manly men and manly women 'Make Things Happen'.

I never read the book, everyone who I knew who got into Ayn Rand became completely self-absorbed and useless to those around them, so I gave her a miss. Just curious, are you saying it *perpetuates* the great man myth or *challenges* it? (I agree it's a myth)

Plantations still full of slaves though, just immigrants, or overseas. Out west they have these giant machines, but they weren't slave states anyway. Here people still farm. There's some ridiculous regulations on what farmers have to do now, these automated process stuff, because it's not making the food more healthy, but less so, so we shop at the christian stores when we can, which is anytime 'cept winter.

A lot of slave plantations moved overseas also. It's strange, because there aren't more mouths to feed, and there's far more farmland than needs to be to feed the people. I've done the math on this one several times, that's why I keep saying the human race is nowhere near the limit of our carrying capacity. It's a strange economic game that's being played.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
So Rap - you're Kaneman?

No, I'm sure he's not. Rap is from Georgia, it's just not gentlemanly to be Kaneman. I don't think it's that Connecticut either, but it's definitely not southern. Kaneman probably comes from the City. Or a City. I'm dubious of Kaneman coming from Tanzania. Folks with connections to Africa usually comment on the African debates, those without them don't, or don't do so in an informed way.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, March 19, 2011 8:40 PM

Frem

Thanks. That was the review of the book I was looking for ;) It's funny how many neofascists love Plato. I'll have to reread. I missed something.

You can't have funding without handing someone power. The FDA is a disaster. Sure, there should be food inspection, but an easy way to do that is make food local. No one is going to buy food from Mr. Plague. Pretty soon local freelance inspectors will come up. As for the drug side, the FDA is captain of FAIL.

As for hospitals, when I grew up here, the doctor was 3 bucks a visit. More serious stuff you went to the hospital, it might cost you a couple hundred. Thats how it still works in most countries, like how college tuition, you probably paid something similar to me, 600 a semester. Now kids are paying a quarter million or something absurd, and the education has gone *downhill* and *still* the university has the gaul to call up as ask me for money for their scholarship fund.

If ever there was a scam: Scholarship fund. That's money that they intend to give to themselves for letting some poor person in, who will not actually cost them any money. They don't hire extra teachers, they just bring in an extra chair, and the poor kids can never afford the dorms, even with scholarship, so they literally cost the university nothing. [/rant]

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

AURAPTOR

Saturday, March 19, 2011 9:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
So Rap - you're Kaneman? Who else are you besides Kaneman and QQ? And why do you need to many sockpuppets?

No, brain donor. I'm me. I have no 'sockpuppets'. And who the hell is 'QQ' ?

Quote:

BTW - since I'm not at home and will not be for some time your video is useless - there's no sound on this computer. Be a good chap and get me a full transcript, OK?

Not MY video.

Quote:

Oh wait, nevermind, I got the full transcript and guess what - he was quoted word for word in SNOPES. And that quote was addressed in SNOPES. Once again, you have not a single fact in your argument, not you or any of your sockpuppets.

Not my argument, and if you can't take a joke, then f-o.

Quote:

I am beginning to think that the problem is not that you are illiterate and can't read, but that you simply can't think. Because clearly, he was talking about taking the "initiative in Congress", not about inventing it or building it or creating it single-handedly or any of the nonsense you cling to.

Well. it looks like I'm just going to have to totally ignore all of your posts because they are just a big fucking waste of my time.

I can't think in mindless group think, like you. That much is obvious.

Your life IS a fucking waste.

And atheist kittens are born with their eyes OPEN.

Yours clearly remain closed. Pity.

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, March 19, 2011 10:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Do you think you'll ever grow up?

Don't give in to your inner bully. You're better than that.

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, March 19, 2011 10:14 PM

Quote:
Frem: but even as an Anarchist I fervently maintain there ARE some infrastructures that are damn well worth keeping, and well worth paying for, and at competitive rates.

What are they? The infrastructures that are well worth keeping with taxpayer money?

AURAPTOR

Saturday, March 19, 2011 10:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

No, I'm sure he's not. Rap is from Georgia, it's just not gentlemanly to be Kaneman. Kaneman probably comes from the City. Or a City.

There are cities in Georgia. Hell, we have professional sports here, and even hosted the Olympics.

Sheesh.

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, March 19, 2011 10:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
...everyone who I knew who got into Ayn Rand became completely self-absorbed and useless to those around them, so I gave her a miss.

I can't stand Rand or Objectivism myself. They remind me of fundies, except with even less compassion, if that is possible.

AURAPTOR

Saturday, March 19, 2011 11:46 PM

I guess some folks don't really want to answer the question...

" Who owns your life. You? Or the government ? "

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, March 19, 2011 11:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

No, I'm sure he's not. Rap is from Georgia, it's just not gentlemanly to be Kaneman. Kaneman probably comes from the City. Or a City.

There are cities in Georgia. Hell, we have professional sports here, and even hosted the Olympics.

Sheesh.

Defending Rap is like trying to help a beached shark.

Been to Georgia, more than a couple times. In NY, the City means NYC. A city, I meant, somewhere like NY, like, LA. Okay, maybe there's a degenerate subculture in Atlanta. They had to get CNN from somewhere

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

KIRKULES

Saturday, March 19, 2011 11:55 PM

There was a time when government employees got the respect they deserved and it was because they did jobs that the private sector couldn’t or wouldn’t do. They got paid less than their counterparts in the private sector and in exchange they got job security and good benefits. Now almost every city in the USA has hundreds of employees doing work that could be done by private companies and they are not only getting the great benefits of Gov. work but they are getting paid more than those that pay their wages. You need to remember that no mater how productive a Gov. employee is they do not create the Money that they receive, that money is earned by those in the private sector that pay taxes. Those in the public sector that think they have it rough should take the advice I give those in the private sector that don’t like the deal their employer is giving them, go get another job, quit complaining and take a chance. You’ve become so comfortable with big daddy government taking care of you, I know it seems impossible to take care of yourself, but there are millions of us out here in the real world doing just that.

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 12:45 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

Defending Rap is like trying to help a beached shark.

Been to Georgia, more than a couple times. In NY, the City means NYC. A city, I meant, somewhere like NY, like, LA. Okay, maybe there's a degenerate subculture in Atlanta. They had to get CNN from somewhere

Um.. thanks ?

And to clarify, I'm not comparing the ATL to the major metropoli of the world, but just reminding y'all, ... it ain't Dogpatch, USA.

1KIKI

Sunday, March 20, 2011 12:52 AM

"Don't give in to your inner bully. You're better than that."

I am actually serious. I find people interesting. Like a dog worrying a bone, I try to figure 'them' (that's you, and others) out. I can't say why, I just do. (Whether I will eventually succeed is a matter of debate.)

I see a constant trend in your posts, which for lack of a better description I would call pathologically oppositional. It doesn't matter what is it, if it has an 'authority' attached to it in any way, even if it is an authority of significant knowledge, experience or expertise, you are opposed.

On top of that you engage in a lot of black/ white thinking to get to your desired (oppositional) end.

That's a great way to go down the wrong path on a lot of things.

For example, since no government (authority) is perfect you oppose ANY government at all. That's pretty black and white. You hold up Somalia with no government to be to be an ideal, a better place to live than... oh, Denmark. But you would NOT say that the Somalia model, since it is NOT perfect, needs to be eliminated from consideration. That kind of judgment you reserve for anything that supports your intrinsically oppositional stance.

That's my provisional model about you for now. And it strikes me as being immature and kinda' --- stuck --- in some old, dead past.

1KIKI

Sunday, March 20, 2011 1:03 AM

The "Great Man" theory of history is an actual theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory

Atlas Shrugged is just a badly written (and very boring and frankly UNrealistic) setpiece that pretends to portray how that idea would work in modern life.

It's actually funny to me that Rap, who pretends to be so modern, is actually stuck in the mid 1800's ideologically, as is Wulf, who espouses the same idea rebranded as 'alpha' males and females.

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Sunday, March 20, 2011 1:41 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
My posts are too long.

I grew up in a corner of the world that did not have:
Public Education
Television
Police
Socialized medicine
Interstate highways
War
Homeland security
Etc.

And everything worked just fine. People were not more ignorant because they had no education, they were not more sick without govt. health they were not starving because of lack of assistance.

Where did you grow up, DT? And yes, your posts are often too long. Doesn't matter, people can read or skim or miss them as they choose.

Just to add, I grew up in a place that had government funded

television
public transport
utilities
hospitals
schools (including free tertiary ed)
housing

and it was a good place to live, not especially tyrannical, at least comparable to now when half these are now privately owned.

we still could criticise the government, think for ourselves, and had plenty of liberty

FREMDFIRMA

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:15 AM

Kiki, it's even worse than you know, one other reason I can't stand Rand, or the Randroids, is because the truth of it is so ugly most folk can't face it.
http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/?page=entire

THERE, is your John Galt - still think he's a good guy ?

And CTS, will get to your question next round, k ?

-F

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
The "Great Man" theory of history is an actual theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory

Atlas Shrugged is just a badly written (and very boring and frankly UNrealistic) setpiece that pretends to portray how that idea would work in modern life.

It's actually funny to me that Rap, who pretends to be so modern, is actually stuck in the mid 1800's ideologically, as is Wulf, who espouses the same idea rebranded as 'alpha' males and females.

Kiki

This is not the same idea. An alpha is one who is in control. It acknowledges the reality that someone has social influence over others. It is not a measure of their greatness.

I would say that I'm more backwards than Rap, but I would not put Rap and Wulf in a class together, unless it were a cage match

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

KANEMAN

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

No, I'm sure he's not. Rap is from Georgia, it's just not gentlemanly to be Kaneman. Kaneman probably comes from the City. Or a City.

There are cities in Georgia. Hell, we have professional sports here, and even hosted the Olympics.

Sheesh.

Raised in hartford, but I live on a lake in suffield ct..money does that....you know that dt

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:37 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Kiki, it's even worse than you know, one other reason I can't stand Rand, or the Randroids, is because the truth of it is so ugly most folk can't face it.

-F

Heh... I see what you did there. Played off the word 'android' and incorporated 'Rand' to compare those who think she may have been onto something to mindless humanoid machines. That's clever. Really.

And 1kiki...

Quote:
It's actually funny to me that Rap, who pretends to be so modern, is actually stuck in the mid 1800's ideologically, as is Wulf, who espouses the same idea rebranded as 'alpha' males and females.

Actually, it's YOU who is stuck in the mid 1800's, Karl Marxian mindset. If anything I may go back to the late 1700's... you know, the era of Independence and such ?

Hard concept for you to comprehend, Freedom,and all.

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:41 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:
Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

No, I'm sure he's not. Rap is from Georgia, it's just not gentlemanly to be Kaneman. Kaneman probably comes from the City. Or a City.

There are cities in Georgia. Hell, we have professional sports here, and even hosted the Olympics.

Sheesh.

Raised in hartford, but I live on a lake in suffield ct..money does that....you know that dt

Hartford, Tanzania, right? ;)

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:46 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Hartford, Tanzania, right? ;)

Tennesseea

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Where did you grow up, DT?

New York. It's an interesting place. There are parts that still don't have electric power lines. And never will. Solar got there first.

Quote:
Just to add, I grew up in a place that had government funded

television
public transport
utilities
hospitals
schools (including free tertiary ed)
housing

I would think if I were in Australia I might like to be in Queensland, or somewhere remote.

This seems alien to me. Let me react to the concepts one by one:

govt. television - I fear this. It sounds like an open gate to propaganda.
govt. public transport - probably a good idea.
govt. utilities - also not a bad one, if it keeps the energy vampires at bay
govt. hospitals - this scares me, given the efficiency with which govts. do things.
govt. schools - scares me even more than TV. It's like a lifetime program. I can't imagine such a society developing independent thought ;)
govt. housing - That actually came here eventually. It was a nightmare, an instant slum which not only sponsored crime, it imported it from the City. I wish it would go away.

It's not true that govt. can never do anything right, just that it's very unlikely that it will do most things better than the people, and giving it a justification for existence is a terrible idea, because once given it, it will do what it was created to do: Kill all living things.

Corporations, when they get large enough, can become evil, but at being evil, they are rank amateurs. History has proven that the real evil lies in the hands of govts., and the banks who control them.

Quote:

we still could criticise the government, think for ourselves, and had plenty of liberty

Depends on which govt. you criticize. If you criticize your govt. school and its board and authority figures, administration, do you think your children will be treated fairly and equally?

I criticized a town govt. recently, and they responded by bulldozing my house. How very like Israel it is. The funny thing is, that's often not reported: Hamas does the same thing. The Palestinian govt. bulldozes people's houses, not just Jews, but fellow muslims. It's something govts. do. Destroying things is just a step towards the destruction of the Earth.

There is no conspiracy necessary here. Anyone with the ability to apply logic can arrive at this conclusion by themselves:

People are basically Good. There aren't huge protests in favor of creating famines, plagues or starting nuclear wars. No one marches for a larger debt, or to advocate pollution.

Those who do Good have no one to oppose them, because no one opposes Good. The good can do more good by simply going out and doing good than by manipulating themselves into positions of power.

Those who do Evil are opposed by everyone. Ergo, in order to do evil, you must force it upon others. To do this, you must acquire power. They cannot do evil without it.

If you create power, the evil will replace the good, because fighting for that power will enable their evil, whereas fighting to hold it is hampering the good's effort to do good.

The greater the power and the longer it exists, the more it will become filled with the most depraved and evil people possible.

(Don't thank me for this, I stole it from Nietzsche)

So, we can actually calculate how evil a power center is by figuring in a few variables:

1. How accessible is the power. If it is easy to get into power, like democracy, it is going to more rapidly change hands. This is a process which evolves towards evil.

2. How long it has been accessible. The longer it is around, the more evil it will become, because the more evolutionary cycles that will have passed.

3. How many people are in the population and the power structure. The more people, the greater the flow of people in and out of the system, and the more evil people to draw from and the more to ga

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:49 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
For example, since no government (authority) is perfect you oppose ANY government at all.

But I don't oppose "any govt at all." And when I support anarchism, absence of perfect government is not the reason why. So wrong on both counts.

Quote:
You hold up Somalia with no government to be to be an ideal, a better place to live than... oh, Denmark.

Uh...but I don't. Wrong again.

So let me tell you something I've observed about you.

You like to tell me what is wrong with me by listing things I believe. Except I don't believe them.

And when I try to tell you that, you tell me that is yet another thing that is wrong with me, that I persistently deny the beliefs you have ascribed to me.

So you actually like to tell me what is wrong with some imaginary CTS you have concocted in your mind, which you persistently refuse to acknowledge as imaginary.

Well, go on and attack Imaginary CTS if you want. I find it quite amusing--and revealing.

Despite your sometimes bizarre behavior on this count, I truly believe you are a very intelligent person who has quite a lot of interesting and eye-opening things to say when you're not engaging in such petty finger pointing at imaginary people.

This is the last response I'll make re the attacks on Imaginary CTS.

ETA: If I may offer a suggestion, instead of assuming what I believe, you could ask what I actually believe. Like, "CTS, do you think Somalia with no govt is an ideal place and a better place to live than say, oh Denmark?" And I would say, "No, kiki, I do not." See how easy and sane that is?

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, March 20, 2011 4:10 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/?page=entire

Ewwww.

I have always despised Rand. I have always just thought because she elevated selfishness to a dogmatic religion.

I never *got* this part of her. She's a sociopath. Of course. That is why selfishness and extirpation of empathy is paramount.

Quote:
And CTS, will get to your question next round, k ?

Yup, take your time.

I'm partial to public roads myself. :)

KANEMAN

Sunday, March 20, 2011 4:18 AM

"New York. It's an interesting place. There are parts that still don't have electric power lines. And never will. Solar got there first"

Mid adirondak? or north western NY?

FREMDFIRMA

Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:00 AM

DT ?

Quote:
Those who do Good have no one to oppose them, because no one opposes Good.

Bull. Shit.

This dovetails with my other recent comments in regard to Randroids and how our society is based around doing Evil, how most of the "good" virtues are seen as weak, criminal, exploitive or what have you - even YOU know this, your own "Machinegun in the center of the table", with various factions fighting over who gets to point it at who else, show that you know it quite well.

Hell, I lampshade the shit out of it by pointing out that in our society I am *more* of a "villain" for the decent things I do than any hostile act no matter how heinous, complete with muahahaha, and card-carrying trope-exploitation to a degree bordering on outright parody.

So don't try to hand out that particular bit of bolus when we both know better, k ?

CTS: I went over this in a discussion with Wulf over property taxes and exactly what they finance.

Say for example: Trash Collection, always a favorite to split hairs with...

You pay some small percentage of your property taxes in order to have that done (some localities do bill it seperately though, sure) and via collective bargaining/bulk pricing/economy of scale, your locality works out the best price for service (or at least *I* did, something which no one since has chosen to change) and so goes it - yea, verily there's usually some incompetence and corruption goin on with that, but you get that anywhere humans are involved at all in most cases.

So, remove Government, and you still need someone to collect the trash, so what do you do ?
Work with your neighbors, come up with a collective bargain, and then work out the best price for service via collective bargaining/bulk pricing/economy of scale!

The effective DIFFERENCE there is about nil, doing it via local gov adds a layer of administrative cost, but also carries the benefit of being able to more effectively (via percieved legitimacy) put your foot up the ass of the contractor if they fail to perform - so forth so on...
In fact, that's one of the ways "Government" gets its hooks into you in the first place, but that topic for some other time.

Thing is, Trash Collection is one of the many things that would be relatively unchanged either way, it's still worth doin, worth payin for, and isn't a damn monopoly like most utility companies.
(also, that topic for some other time.)

So the functions of say, the FDA would still be valueable, and there *IS* precedent for an independent level of this kind of thing - case in point: Underwriters Laboratories.
http://www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/

So long as they are watched carefully, mind you - by folk ready to "cry havoc and let loose.." in the case of corruption or malfeasance, which for a while yet despite our progress, is gonna be with humans as long as they're human.

That answer your question ?

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:02 AM

My mother grew up in the Adirondacks, I grew up in a little pocket in between the two, a little forgotten area of forest and farms and really nothing modern. The NW has a certain charm, I think they have TV in Watertown. It's definitely high on my list of places in NY, I go there often. If you meant way out near Buffalo, I don't get out there too much. Strangely, civilization spread through the rest of the country more quickly, I guess 'cause everything is newer. But even around here if you take back roads, there's still no power, people have solar cells. Sometimes strange to see a shiny new solar array on a shack that looks like it was made by ted kaczinsky ;)

NY is full of little pockets of nomansland though. Out west in the Seneca Nation there's basically nothing. No people, nothing at all. When they built 86, I remember counting 3 houses in 4 hours of driving. A lot of people up here for the kinda emptiness there is. Kind of kills the whole "planet is overpopulated thing. Thing is, people tend to cluster into little gravity centers, and they look around them and see people everywhere, and think that's what the world is like.

I think about these globalist NWO types who want to control the world. They can't even conceive of the world. I know they're sitting there in NYC. They should just walk to my house, right through little israel, and then about 200 miles of forest, and the occassional settler town, by the time they got here, they'd start to get a tiny inkling that the world was a little bigger than the distance from Liberty Street to K Street. Hell, even walking that distance might break their world view. But the eastern seaboard is pretty populated.

There are more of us upstate of course, but we're spread over a much larger area.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:34 AM

Sheesh another wordy post from you, DT. Apols if I miss stuff but I do tend to be one of the skimmers.

Quote:
New York. It's an interesting place. There are parts that still don't have electric power lines. And never will. Solar got there first.

A quiet part of the world. Generally things work okay if there are just a few of you. When people are living shoulder to shoulder, it gets a little more tricky.

I'd also like to add although you did not have access to those things, they probably still existed around you and you still fell under state and fed jurisdiction.

Quote:

I would think if I were in Australia I might like to be in Queensland, or somewhere remote.

FNQ is the place for you. Far North Queensland. They breed em weird up there and you get crocs and ross river virus, but if you like remote..... Southern Queensland is just a huge urban sprawl. It surpises many people that we have them, but we do.

Quote:
This seems alien to me. Let me react to the concepts one by one:

govt. television - I fear this. It sounds like an open gate to propaganda.
govt. public transport - probably a good idea.
govt. utilities - also not a bad one, if it keeps the energy vampires at bay
govt. hospitals - this scares me, given the efficiency with which govts. do things.
govt. schools - scares me even more than TV. It's like a lifetime program. I can't imagine such a society developing independent thought ;)
govt. housing - That actually came here eventually. It was a nightmare, an instant slum which not only sponsored crime, it imported it from the City. I wish it would go away.

May be alien to you, but it was all very normal and not at all scary. I'm not of the belief that government always does things worse than private companies.

the utilities were much, much cheaper and provided better service when they were publically owned.
Our transport system is now a mangled hotch potch of private and government run and is awful.
We still have government run stations - as well as private ones. The government ones are far superior in their programming, and news and current affairs. By far. Haven't noticed any propaganda. They blag the government for whatever they feel like and the government accuses them of being anti government on a pretty regular basis. Probably if anything they tend to veer to the left. But I think we have had this conversation before.

Quote:
It's not true that govt. can never do anything right, just that it's very unlikely that it will do most things better than the people, and giving it a justification for existence is a terrible idea, because once given it, it will do what it was created to do: Kill all living things.

Governments are not by definition evil, or necessarily will become evil. Like corporations.

Too much power in too few hands and without any checks and balances and you do risk tyranny, corporation or government. But they don't aim to kill all living things. That's quite a daft statement.

Quote:

Depends on which govt. you criticize. If you criticize your govt. school and its board and authority figures, administration, do you think your children will be treated fairly and equally?

I'm on the board!!! Shit, I'm part of TPTB. Maybe that's why I feel like invading New Zealand. Seriously, what is the difference between public and private schools. They both have the capacity to act out against your child if you criticise them. But mostly they want your business. they need numbers to be funded, so they try to please. But yeah, government schools can get caught up in silly government policies.

Quote:
I criticized a town govt. recently, and they responded by bulldozing my house.

How extraordinarily extreme. Can't imagine that happening here. Maybe you need more government with better checks and balances. Do you have an ombudsmen in your state?

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:44 AM

Frem,

Did you ever stop for even a moment to think of how people *get* into power?

Nietzsche's logic is impeccable here. I mean, if you want to nitpick and say "the evil oppose good" that only matters if the evil outnumber the good, but we both agree that they done. Also, the evil don't particularly oppose good, they support evil. Sometimes the two are at cross-purposes.

The definitions of good and evil are subjective to some extent, but certain things are universally understood.

If you set out to do as the globalists propose: reduce the world population by 95%, be executing 19 out of 20 people, selecting them on the basis of what they might select for, killing off the perceived inferiors, then more than 95% of the people would oppose that. Almost everyone would oppose that.

You cannot do much evil without power.

You know damn well how it works. Thing is: you don't want to believe it. You think the ship can be saved. You don't get that the usurpation of the huge central powerbase by the ultimate evil is not a corrupt influence of a malevolent power that can be routed out and killed, but is in fact the inevitable end result of the existence of that powerbase.

If you get rid of one evil, another will spring up. You can't get rid of evil from the world without enforcing the absolute power of your own will on the world, and you can't do that without creating a worse power structure than already exists.

You don't get it, do you? What you propose, removing the "jackboots" from society by removing their nature is almost exactly the mentality of the NWO. To them, the "terrorists" are the threat, the chaotic nonconformist members of society. The jackboots are nothing other than their opposite: The conformist members of society. If you remove all order from the world, you also do nothing for the world, but you also cannot do it without creating absolute power.

The problem is not the people in the world. The problem is the power structure.

You cannot lessen the level of information and communication and economics held by the people in power. The only way you can equal the balance is by raising the level of information and communication and economics held by the people as a whole until the level of understanding of the world held by the evil people is not greater than the good, and then trust that the good will always outnumber the evil.

I have a pet theory about how that good/evil ratio is created.

Evil, first off, lets define it. I'm going to use a simple definition that goes like this: It is forcing other people to do your will to benefit you at their expense.

Now, in a natural state, these people will always exist. Someone is going to be out there who is incapable of seeing that others exist.

Add laws to this, and now there are more normal human goals that may require subverting the will of others. Someone may want more possessions or land, or to do less work. Maybe they want their own children cared for, or to complete tasks that require more work than they can do or afford. I've noticed that the more laws you enact, the more people that move into the realm of not "disobeying the law" these people are as likely to be working "within the law" as "outside of it" but their numbers increase on both sides as you introduce more laws.

I think the man destroying my house is evil. He is doing it because he wants a monopoly on real estate. He wants this so that he will have control over others. He gets decide who lives in his town and who doesn't, and all of the people that live there will pay him mortgage payments. That means his future, whatever he wants to do, whatever he wants for his children, including everyone they will interact with, is under his control. To that end, he has gotten rid of black people from his town. He wants to get rid of poor people. He does all of this by using his extensive control over the law, rather than by ever stepping outside of it.

His counterpoint might be a druglord who controls all of his people through addiction, and sends his most faithful to

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
That answer your question ?

Yep. Thanks.

Trash collection ain't too hard a sell. I don't usually have too many problems with limited local govt maintaining park playgrounds or plowing streets. Trash collection? Right up there. As long as the property taxes were small and reasonable (or even voluntary if possible--one can dream), even most anarchists would be ok with stuff like this.

The FDA on the other hand...I really don't see a need for a public version of it. As you say, the independent private version like UL, as long as they are monitored by consumers, seems just fine.

For me, public ownership/management makes much more sense in:
1. Roads and rails.
2. Courts/mediation
I can't really imagine a private alternative being more efficient or effective.

Also for me, "public" ideally means voluntary governance, but small, local government is acceptable as well.

SIGNYM

Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:58 AM

Quote:
Who owns your life. You? Or the government ?

Life is not "owned", it is lived. The moment you make life a point of ownership, you have just sold yourself.

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, March 20, 2011 6:17 AM

Magon

Not my state. Some battles cannot be fought because the powers on the other side are capable of forcing upon you unlimited liability. The amount of govt. that there is, is the problem. It was all done through the force of law. The further up you go, the more corrupt it gets. In America it is legal for either a govt. or a corporation to seize your property, even dynamite it into oblivion on the basis of the opinion of a govt. review board on a proposal that either a better civic function or a more profitable enterprise can be established by doing so.

If you happen to think that's frelled, you're not wrong.

Quote:
Haven't noticed any propaganda.

Propaganda is like that. You don't notice it.

We have a govt. that spends 7 trillion dollars a year, and maintains redundant military forces:

1.4 million US soliders
1.1 million domestic private security
1 million homeland security agents
800,000 police officers
500,000 national guard

FBI, ATF, NSA, INS, DEA and other redundant internal law enforcement agencies

State, county, town and city/village police forces enforcing Federal, State, county, town and city/village laws...

all to essentially control its own populous.

Our education system is proven to be less effective than none at all. It exists as a control mechanism. Our medical system, statistically, according to the UN, again, is less effective than none at all. Our public transportation is not only virtually non-existent in the public sector, but has been de facto outlawed in the private sector, where it used to thrive. Our govt. housing projects are seen even by the far left here as ghetto-zoning like europe once had, or as we call it here "red-lining."

We have "housing for the elderly" but it's not free, and it's a nightmare. A morgue is probably cheerier.

Near my sister's there's a joint complex "low income housing for the elderly"/"maximum security prison." I'm not making this up. She said to me "You can tell which is which by the size of the windows. It's true. The Prisoners windows are about 2'x4', and the elderly have about 3'x4'.

Even if I were to scrape through and find something good that the govt. was doing, how could it ever justify the massive amounts of evil that it's doing?

ETA: The rails were far better off under private management. The courts need not exist at all, but certainly under public management they are the worst part of govt. Worse even then the military, by far. Once more, need I remind people it is the police who perpetrated the holocaust, not the army. The police cannot do anything without the backing of the courts. No evildoer can, save a lone lunatic like a serial killer. No, the courts are definitely far in a way the most evil part of govt.

As for private courts ruling in favor of corporations, so do public ones, but I would prefer to not have them at all. Courts are nothing more than etiquette set atop the real mechanism of power through Machiavellian violence. The purpose is to perform evil by violence while not getting the bad image that doing so gives one.

It's worth noting that when our court by jury system was set up, the reason given was, if I recall correctly "that a dozen men can be found to support any position, ergo, they can be found to support the king's position in all cases." This was the proposal to the king of England. At the time, it was 12 men for every 144, but in time it became just 12 men. Our juries sometimes seem selected for ignorance. Perhaps that's why 98% of suspects with net worth of <$5000 are found guilty, whereas only 20% of those with assets of > $200,000.

There are many other systems of law that have evolved in human civilization. This one was designed *intentionally* to be corrupt, and to favor the king in all cases.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Sunday, March 20, 2011 7:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove

Not my state. Some battles cannot be fought because the powers on the other side are capable of forcing upon you unlimited liability. The amount of govt. that there is, is the problem. It was all done through the force of law. The further up you go, the more corrupt it gets. In America it is legal for either a govt. or a corporation to seize your property, even dynamite it into oblivion on the basis of the opinion of a govt. review board on a proposal that either a better civic function or a more profitable enterprise can be established by doing so.

Yeah same here, but they have to have a reason other than not liking your feedback. They can do it to make way for roads, rails etc. But there are processes that have to be followed and appeals can be made. Not saying that they are always successful, but I guess I didn't see that what you stated 'I complained and they bulldozed my house' as a cause and effect that would happen here.

Whatever system you have in place, you need some way of complaining and appealing decisions.

Quote:
Propaganda is like that. You don't notice it.

And you might not notice that you are stuck in a belief system regardless of evidence. No, there is no propaganda via the government run news source. I do know propaganda when I see it, I see it prior to election, I see it in news releases to all stations and I see it in ads that are run by the government. I also see that the best analysis happens on the government run news site. But you believe that which your belief system requires you too. That all government is bad, all governments run propaganda from news stations, all governments are inefficent. Don't take on board anything that someone else with contrary experiences might say.

Quote:
We have a govt. that spends 7 trillion dollars a year, and maintains redundant military forces:

1.4 million US soliders
1.1 million domestic private security
1 million homeland security agents
800,000 police officers
500,000 national guard

Yep, your government forms part of the massive industrial military complex that is the US. Doesn't mean that it has to be that bad, or that all of it is worthless.

Quote:
Our education system is proven to be less effective than none at all. It exists as a control mechanism. Our medical system, statistically, according to the UN, again, is less effective than none at all. Our public transportation is not only virtually non-existent in the public sector, but has been de facto outlawed in the private sector, where it used to thrive. Our govt. housing projects are seen even by the far left here as ghetto-zoning like europe once had, or as we call it here "red-lining."

We have "housing for the elderly" but it's not free, and it's a nightmare. A morgue is probably cheerier.

Near my sister's there's a joint complex "low income housing for the elderly"/"maximum security prison." I'm not making this up. She said to me "You can tell which is which by the size of the windows. It's true. The Prisoners windows are about 2'x4', and the elderly have about 3'x4'.

Even if I were to scrape through and find something good that the govt. was doing, how could it ever justify the massive amounts of evil that it's doing?

So YOUR government is inefficient and does some things badly, doesn't necessarily mean all government is bad and always inefficient or that it ALWAYS has to be that way.

A

FREMDFIRMA

Sunday, March 20, 2011 8:02 AM

Quote:
If you get rid of one evil, another will spring up. You can't get rid of evil from the world without enforcing the absolute power of your own will on the world, and you can't do that without creating a worse power structure than already exists.

Bull. Shit.

Human Empathy is the keystone to the arch from which "Good" is built - you don't HAVE to install it to humans, all you have to do is stop crushing it, and given how much time and resources we spend on exactly that, in order to barely maintain a status quo, and how ineffective it is overall despite that investment...
It's a hell of a lot easier than you think.

Yeah, you're always gonna have sociopaths, but when they are unable to obtain followers, people to carry out their will, because those people haven't been fully conditioned to those ideas, and find them repulsive and vile, they'll be unable to gain the necessary traction to achieve power.

Quote:
You don't get it, do you? What you propose, removing the "jackboots" from society by removing their nature is almost exactly the mentality of the NWO. To them, the "terrorists" are the threat, the chaotic nonconformist members of society. The jackboots are nothing other than their opposite: The conformist members of society. If you remove all order from the world, you also do nothing for the world, but you also cannot do it without creating absolute power.

You really, really do fail to understand - order and chaos will always be there, so too will good and evil, those very dichotomies are what make us human, and to throw the balance off will make us something less.
My intention is to nudge the thumb of the powers that be off that scale, and then laugh up my sleeve when they slam their palm down on it and the other end wings round and smacks them in the face - which, if you THINK about it, is kind of what *IS* happening all around the world, right now.

Quote:
Doesn't matter, evil is a human potential, and it will always be. The only way to not have evil in a society is to not reward evil.

Well no shit sherlock - how often do I *SAY* exactly that, hmm ?
(Note: See Also, previous discussion, getting folks to make your own arguments back to you, yes ?)
There's again, a method to the madness, and a madness to the method.

Although the official definition of the phrase seems to have changed some, the original concept of "La Mordida" went beyond mere bribery, into extortion, double-dealing and chicanery, as a collective art form, the intent of which was to render the bribe or reward in some way useless and of no value to the recipient - such as handing over your gold mine to them, without telling them it was completely played out, or paying them in highly identifiable stolen goods they'll never be able to unload or even fence without sitting on them long enough to render their value obsolete - basically poison-pilling the "reward", which is applied in respect to sociopaths by giving them "rewards" that either out them and expose their true nature (thus depriving them of followers), or in some way backfire on them like a set of 24K Gold plated bombs on a long timer.

All I *EVER* need to do, in order to poison the well and deprive them of their followers is jam up the works between their intended conditioning and its recipients, as early in the process as possible, and let nature do the rest of the work for me - only imma impatient bastard and have taken to not only jamming up the works, but wrecking the delivery systems at the most critical points, the dumping grounds for those who fail to accept said conditioning, as a case example, right ?

Basic tactics, you cut off their supply lines - only in this case it's more like dumping sugar in the fuel before it gets to them, their supply of potential jackboots becoming contaminated by folks who's answer to their will isn't "Sir, Yes Sir!" but rather "You want me to WHAT ? fuck you!"...

Concept to Execution time was the only problem with that, but was also a benefit, cause the blow was so long in coming it could not be defended ag

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 1:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
Who owns your life. You? Or the government ?
Life is not "owned", it is lived. The moment you make life a point of ownership, you have just sold yourself.

"We meddle. people dont like to be meddled with. we tell them what to do, what to think, dont run, dont walk. we're in their homes and in their heads and we havent the right"

" The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300(million) American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people. " John Dingle ( D-MI)

And that's the best/ worst part of it. You're being owned, and you don't even know it.

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 1:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

DT ?
Quote:
Those who do Good have no one to oppose them, because no one opposes Good.

Bull. Shit.

This dovetails with my other recent comments in regard to Randroids and how our society is based around doing Evil, how most of the "good" virtues are seen as weak, criminal, exploitive or what have you - even YOU know this, your own "Machinegun in the center of the table", with various factions fighting over who gets to point it at who else, show that you know it quite well.

Hell, I lampshade the shit out of it by pointing out that in our society I am *more* of a "villain" for the decent things I do than any hostile act no matter how heinous, complete with muahahaha, and card-carrying trope-exploitation to a degree bordering on outright parody.

So don't try to hand out that particular bit of bolus when we both know better, k ?

CTS: I went over this in a discussion with Wulf over property taxes and exactly what they finance.

Say for example: Trash Collection, always a favorite to split hairs with...

You pay some small percentage of your property taxes in order to have that done (some localities do bill it seperately though, sure) and via collective bargaining/bulk pricing/economy of scale, your locality works out the best price for service (or at least *I* did, something which no one since has chosen to change) and so goes it - yea, verily there's usually some incompetence and corruption goin on with that, but you get that anywhere humans are involved at all in most cases.

So, remove Government, and you still need someone to collect the trash, so what do you do ?
Work with your neighbors, come up with a collective bargain, and then work out the best price for service via collective bargaining/bulk pricing/economy of scale!

The effective DIFFERENCE there is about nil, doing it via local gov adds a layer of administrative cost, but also carries the benefit of being able to more effectively (via percieved legitimacy) put your foot up the ass of the contractor if they fail to perform - so forth so on...
In fact, that's one of the ways "Government" gets its hooks into you in the first place, but that topic for some other time.

Thing is, Trash Collection is one of the many things that would be relatively unchanged either way, it's still worth doin, worth payin for, and isn't a damn monopoly like most utility companies.
(also, that topic for some other time.)

So the functions of say, the FDA would still be valueable, and there *IS* precedent for an independent level of this kind of thing - case in point: Underwriters Laboratories.
http://www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/

So long as they are watched carefully, mind you - by folk ready to "cry havoc and let loose.." in the case of corruption or malfeasance, which for a while yet despite our progress, is gonna be with humans as long as they're human.

That answer your question ?

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

Roads come to mind as another. Imagine if you had to travel across the country on privately-owned roads, all built to whatever standards the builder felt like building them to. You're tooling along in the right lane, staying out of the way, when suddenly you find that on THIS stretch of road, the builder is a British company, and you're supposed to be driving on the LEFT side of the road. Or that a yellow line denotes a passing zone on this guy's road, but a no-pass zone in someone else's. Or that the speed limit went from 60mph to 180mph, but nobody bothered to post it - and then it went down to 40 a few blocks later.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 1:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
Who owns your life. You? Or the government ?
Life is not "owned", it is lived. The moment you make life a point of ownership, you have just sold yourself.

"We meddle. people dont like to be meddled with. we tell them what to do, what to think, dont run, dont walk. we're in their homes and in their heads and we havent the right"

" The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300(million) American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people. " John Dingle ( D-MI)

Weren't you just IN FAVOR of our "meddling" in Libya? I know for a fact you were 100% in favor of our "meddling" in Iraq and Afghanistan, because you fervently felt that we really NEEDED to "control the people" there.

Seems odd that you'd condone treating one group so radically different from another group.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 1:35 PM

Quote:
Our education system is proven to be less effective than none at all.

Bullshit. I know public education is the favorite whipping-boy of the righties and so-called "libertarians", but that's just pure bullshit.

Show me one nation that is doing better than the U.S., that has no public education system whatsoever.

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 1:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

Weren't you just IN FAVOR of our "meddling" in Libya? I know for a fact you were 100% in favor of our "meddling" in Iraq and Afghanistan, because you fervently felt that we really NEEDED to "control the people" there.

I wasn't talking about waring with other nations, but how governmnent control their OWN people. As Rep. Dingle's quote makes crystal clear.

I haven't given my full opinion on Libya yet, but yes, I did support taking out the Taliban and Saddam. Not in 'controlling' the people of those countries.

Quote:

Seems odd that you'd condone treating one group so radically different from another group.
No, not really the case here.

SIGNYM

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:13 PM

Quote:
" The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300(million) American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people. " John Dingle ( D-MI)

And that's the best/ worst part of it. You're being owned, and you don't even know it.

A point here: That's not "ownership". If you use words in nonsensical ways, eventually your thinking becomes nonsensical too. So define "ownership" for me.

In any case....

I might say people are controlled and don't acknowledge it, but that applies to everyone. There is a system set up and several ideologies behind it (CTS, DT including yours) which require highly individualized and selfish behavior. When people want to gather and cooperate, the system forces them apart and pits them against each other. When people want to respond to big problems or plan for the distant future, the system forces them to screw each other over for the most basic and immediate necessities. The choice of one system precludes the choice of another. I'm controlled in so many more ways than the government could even possibly dream of: I fear for my job, I worry about my daughter's long-term health insurance, I question whether my pension (which is invested in a system I didn't choose) will be there for me or whether it will do what MOST "investments" seem to do- funnel money to the rich, I have to use a car because there is no public transportation, I live a violent society which believes every man for himself and god against all, I interact with people who are so dumbed down by corporate media they can't keep their attention on anything for more than 30 seconds and in a "society" that doesn't think that it is in society's interests to have am educated public, I have to compete against anyone and everyone who is willing to work for a handful of rice and a 2' X 5' cot in a shift-sleep dorm, and worry that we are going to be buried by long-term problems (like, yes, global climate change and the great die-off which is already starting) and especially that this whole system only really benefits 0.000001% of the population.

The fact that you don't see it as control doesn't make it any less controlling. In fact, it makes it more so. But, I'm sure YOU won't get that point!

Quote:
I wasn't talking about waring with other nations, but how governmnent control their OWN people. As Rep. Dingle's quote makes crystal clear. I haven't given my full opinion on Libya yet, but yes, I did support taking out the Taliban and Saddam. Not in 'controlling' the people of those countries.

Gawd, Rappy, do you even LISTEN to yourself? Killing people and threatening others with violence isn't "controlling" them? If that's the case, then SURELY you wouldn't have any objections to American troops being stationed in your city and taking out illegal immigrants, perceived criminals, "libruls", protesters and the more-than-occasional-innocent-civilian! (Those oopses don't count!

)

Quote:
"We meddle. people dont like to be meddled with. we tell them what to do, what to think, dont run, dont walk. we're in their homes and in their heads and we havent the right"

Then please for the love of god can we ban commercials???

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:14 PM

Speaking of "meddling" and "controlling the people", here's what your Dear Leader had to say about such things...

Quote:
George W. Bush on dictatorships:

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas.
(Governing Magazine 7/98)

-- From Paul Begala's "Is Our Children Learning?"

"I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," Bush said.

-- CNN.com, December 18, 2000

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it," [Bush] said.

-- Business Week, July 30, 2001

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:20 PM

Quote:
The fact that you don't see it as control doesn't make it any less controlling. In fact, it makes it more so. But, I'm sure YOU won't get that point!

Bingo. See DT's point about "propaganda". The fact that so many believe the ANTI-government propaganda doesn't make it any less propaganda.

When Republicans controlled the House and Senate and the White House, we were told to meekly comply, to "support our President", "Support Our Troops", be "patriotic", etc. Every single right-winger here was 100% in favor of their government "meddling", telling people what to think, how, where, when, and why - and most of them argued in favor of torturing those who spoke or acted out against such measures, and in favor of spying and eavesdropping on those who MIGHT be against such things.

Odd that they don't see the very things they supported (Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps, waterboarding, etc.) as "meddling" or "controlling".

Of course, they DO see them that way if someone with a (D) after their name tries to do them.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

SIGNYM

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:25 PM

Quote:
Roads come to mind as another. Imagine if you had to travel across the country on privately-owned roads, all built to whatever standards the builder felt like building them to. You're tooling along in the right lane, staying out of the way, when suddenly you find that on THIS stretch of road, the builder is a British company, and you're supposed to be driving on the LEFT side of the road. Or that a yellow line denotes a passing zone on this guy's road, but a no-pass zone in someone else's. Or that the speed limit went from 60mph to 180mph, but nobody bothered to post it - and then it went down to 40 a few blocks later.

And that it suddenly went from a four-lane concrete-based highway to a two-lane gravel-over-mud construction. And stopping to pay a toll every few miles.

Yep, sounds lovely.

SIGNYM

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:32 PM

Quote:
What I said was it would be nice if such people were hired by "we the people," instead of by the government. And if you think "we the people" ARE the government, then you have no business complaining repeatedly about how corrupt the government IS, right?

And neither do you. All this talk about "we the people" is just RE-CREATING government, but not calling it a government.

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:33 PM

Signy, just imagine how much cleaner the air in SoCal would be today if the corporations had just been left alone to let the magical wonderful invisible hand of the market set the air quality standards.

Oh, wait - I was there when that was the case. It was hellish. The trees were nice and green, up to about 40' above the ground where they hit a uniform level where every single one was brown and dead. I remember seeing the whiskey-colored sunsets over L.A., before there was anyone "meddling" with and "controlling" the air quality there. I remember my skin burning when I went out in the rain in L.A.

There are some things that government does right, and that ONLY government seems to do right.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:35 PM

What do Bush's comments have to do with anything ? He was merely stating a fact, in the context of passing legislation in our system. He wasn't longing to BE a dictator, or praising dictators, but underscoring the difference between our form of government and others, where only 1 person gets to choose.

Dingle, on the other hand, actually WAS talking about controlling the people.

Sorry, but your comparison fails.

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
What I said was it would be nice if such people were hired by "we the people," instead of by the government. And if you think "we the people" ARE the government, then you have no business complaining repeatedly about how corrupt the government IS, right?
And neither do you. All this talk about "we the people" is just RE-CREATING government, but not calling it a government.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the three words "We the People" the opening words of the very document that ESTABLISHES THE AMERICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT?

Am I crazy? Am I remembering that wrong?

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
What do Bush's comments have to do with anything ? He was merely stating a fact, in the context of passing legislation in our system. He wasn't longing to BE a dictator, or praising dictators, but underscoring the difference between our form of government and others, where only 1 person gets to choose.

Dingle, on the other hand, actually WAS talking about controlling the people.

Sorry, but your comparison fails.

I don't think it was Dingle who said "I'm the decider!"

Again, that was your Dear Leader, your Messiah, your Chosen One.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

SIGNYM

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:41 PM

Rappy, you have a lot of points to address and questions to answer. I suggest that you get started on them. Here's an easy one

Quote:
Gawd, Rappy, do you even LISTEN to yourself? Killing people and threatening others with violence isn't "controlling" them? If that's the case, then SURELY you wouldn't have any objections to American troops being stationed in your city and taking out illegal immigrants, perceived criminals, "libruls", protesters and the more-than-occasional-innocent-{right-wing supporter} civilian! (Those oopses don't count! )

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Rappy, you have a lot of points to address and questions to answer. I suggest that you get started on them. Here's an easy one
Quote:
Gawd, Rappy, do you even LISTEN to yourself? Killing people and threatening others with violence isn't "controlling" them? If that's the case, then SURELY you wouldn't have any objections to American troops being stationed in your city and taking out illegal immigrants, perceived criminals, "libruls", protesters and the more-than-occasional-innocent-{right-wing supporter} civilian! (Those oopses don't count! )

Bear in mind that he DID think the federal government did a "heckuva job" during Katrina, when they were going around confiscating weapons instead of helping the helpless...

Does that answer your question?

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 2:58 PM

Banning commercials and governmental control over the people are light years apart.

I have a choice of buying a product, I don't have a choice in paying taxes, complying with gov't rules, etc...

If you can't see that, then you yourself are controlled, and I'm wasting my time.

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
What I said was it would be nice if such people were hired by "we the people," instead of by the government. And if you think "we the people" ARE the government, then you have no business complaining repeatedly about how corrupt the government IS, right?
And neither do you. All this talk about "we the people" is just RE-CREATING government, but not calling it a government.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the three words "We the People" the opening words of the very document that ESTABLISHES THE AMERICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT?

Am I crazy? Am I remembering that wrong?

What's that have to do with anything I've said ? Oh, that's right - nothing.

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Banning commercials and governmental control over the people are light years apart.

I have a choice of buying a product, I don't have a choice in paying taxes, complying with gov't rules, etc...

If you can't see that, then you yourself are controlled, and I'm wasting my time.

Sounds like your real beef is with the Founding Fathers. After all, they were the ones who put the power to levy and collect taxes into the Constitution. You DO support the Constitution, right?

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:15 PM

Frem,

You may believe what you wish about the world, but it will not change what the world.

Or, as Marcus Aurelius put it: "Vex not thy spirit at the course of things; they heed not thy vexation."

Quote:
Human Empathy is the keystone to the arch from which "Good" is built - you don't HAVE to install it to humans

I agree. There are no jackboots. Jackboot is a position. remove the position. There will always be people who seek power over others, if they cannot have it, they will take what they can, you just need to steer them into a less destructive path. Members of the town council, leaders of political groups. These people were not trained to be this way by TPTB. They're bullies, bosses, and just need to be pushed into a less dangerous place.

Quote:
Yeah, you're always gonna have sociopaths, but when they are unable to obtain followers, people to carry out their will, because those people haven't been fully conditioned to those ideas, and find them repulsive and vile, they'll be unable to gain the necessary traction to achieve power.

This is where you lose me. The underlying assumption here assumes that the followers are preprogrammed jackboots of evil. They're not. They're hapless dupes. They're ants like anyone else. The real story is one that has soldier ants in it, keeping the other ants in line. The only ways they are not going to fall for these tricks are if a) they are informed as to the tricks of the grasshoppers, and b) if the power structures such as militant govt. and debt, etc. don't exist to control them.

Quote:
You don't get it, do you? What you propose, removing the "jackboots" from society by removing their nature is almost exactly the mentality of the NWO. To them, the "terrorists" are the threat, the chaotic nonconformist members of society. The jackboots are nothing other than their opposite: The conformist members of society. If you remove all order from the world, you also do nothing for the world, but you also cannot do it without creating absolute power.

Quote:
You really, really do fail to understand - order and chaos will always be there, so too will good and evil, those very dichotomies are what make us human, and to throw the balance off will make us something less.

Actually, I really do understand this. However, I don't believe in good or evil. "When good is discovered, evil is defined." That's what Lao Tzu really means: Evil is described in a negative manner by the description of good. The pursuit of good, creates evil.

Quote:
My intention is to nudge the thumb of the powers that be off that scale, and then laugh up my sleeve when they slam their palm down on it and the other end wings round and smacks them in the face - which, if you THINK about it, is kind of what *IS* happening all around the world, right now.

That's pretty much what I said about Israel, and why they can't solve the Palestinian problem: They want it too much, and when anyone wants something that much, someone is going to do this to them.

That said: It's not the only thing going on in the world.

Quote:
sherlock

That's Frem for "you make a good point"

Quote:
(Note: See Also, previous discussion, getting folks to make your own arguments back to you, yes ?)

Noted, and perhaps should be noted that it was noted before ;)

Quote:
"La Mordida"

Or hand them a mine with no was to get the gold other than having them rely on you to get it for them

Quote:
deprive them of their followers

If this was all there was to it, why not supply them with followers? Problem is, it's not. The power relationship creates the abuse. It's not that evil collects followers, its that the power structure attracts abusers and spawns abuse.

If you sent out your minions to take over the detroit police force, you might pull it off. If you tried this with the US military, you wouldn't. It has all sorts of protective measures in its structure against this sort of attack, and behind that, a power structure that lends itself

SIGNYM

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:19 PM

Actually, I'm more interested in addressing CTS, DT, and Byte (I think I know where Byte stands in this part of the conversation).

You have this idea that ALL society should be voluntary. The problem is that you CAN'T withdraw, no matter how much you claim not to be part of the system.

DT, I know whereof and whenof you speak. Rural upstate New York, 40 years ago, where some people literally lived in tar-paper shacks. I grew up in a small town (pop 20,000) not as isolated as you, but I certainly remember going to to drugstore and getting a grilled cheese sandwich, and I recall returning our glass milk bottles to the dairy store and even help consolidate the bottles and earning an ice-cream cone.

CTS- you don't even live in the USA, but in a smaller city in Argentina (if I recall correctly).

BYTE- You live in an exurb of SLC, correct?

Every single one of you thinks that you can somehow live independently without interacting with the government or global monopolism. Like Rappy, you believe that everything you have you got "on your own", or if you didn't get it on your own you could. And because you are such independent entities, you owe nothing to anyone.

----------------
I want you to think for a moment about every single object you touch today from the keyboard you type your response on and the screen from which you read this post to the toilet paper you wipe your ass with.

DT, your APPLE unit was made in China, in a factory which has a disproportionate number of suicides. The monitor was made in Taiwan. The toilet paper was made by Kimberly Clark and Georgia Pacific.

Quote:
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), deforestation is the single greatest cause of global warming, and toilet tissue is responsible for 15% of all deforestation

including old-growth forests.

60% of everything you ate came from corn in some way (that was measured using carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen isotopes specific to wheat, corn, soy and other commodity foodstuffs) and you can thank (or blame) Monsanto and Con Agra for that.

The cotton that you wear probably came from the San Joaqin Valley here in CA, which benefits from major water infrastructural developments and subsidies. The cloth itself was woven in China or India, and stitched together in the Marianas or Guatemala or some other dirt-poor nation.

You may long for the days of mom-and-pop drugstores (and BTW, even in 1950 those drugs came from far-away companies like Bayer and Roche and Merck) but those days are long past, outcompeted by Walmart.

The fact is, no matter how isolated and independent you THINK you are, you are not independent either socially or economically. Whether you admit it or not, you are caught up in the same world as everyone else.

Anyway, looked at the clock and I realized duty calls.

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

Sounds like your real beef is with the Founding Fathers. After all, they were the ones who put the power to levy and collect taxes into the Constitution. You DO support the Constitution, right?

You have me confused with some anarchist. I'm a big fan of the founding fathers. More so than you, it seems.

The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.

The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.

I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

- Thomas Jefferson.

The founders understood the need of a government, just not one so strong as to take your rights. It is a necessary evil.

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 3:48 PM

But Rappy, you *have* been a friend to a VERY energetic government, one which argued for the supremacy of the Executive Branch over all others, one which willfully and deliberately curtailed human rights, one which actively and forcefully tortured people.

You've claimed before that such things don't matter, that these things were done to "non-citizens" who don't count, don't HAVE rights.

So I have to ask: Where do you think your "rights" come from?

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, March 20, 2011 4:04 PM

The founding fathers were anarchists.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 4:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
The founding fathers were anarchists.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

Being against the crown does not make them anarchist. They weren't anti government, they were for self determination by the people of AMERICA, and not for being ruled a power from across the ocean.

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 4:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
But Rappy, you *have* been a friend to a VERY energetic government, one which argued for the supremacy of the Executive Branch over all others, one which willfully and deliberately curtailed human rights, one which actively and forcefully tortured people.

You've claimed before that such things don't matter, that these things were done to "non-citizens" who don't count, don't HAVE rights.

So I have to ask: Where do you think your "rights" come from?

The founding fathers were for killing muslim terrorists, as was the previous administration.. I'm 100% for that. Inalienable rights are clearly innate, to all mankind. But when you take up arms against innocent people, or plot to, as the islamo-nuts have, you forfeit your rights. Sorry.

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, March 20, 2011 4:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Every single one of you thinks that you can somehow live independently without interacting with the government or global monopolism.

I don't.

When I advocate voluntary governance, I am talking about an ideal set up that I would like to see. I am not quite sure how you got some utopian ideal confused with a claim to be able to CURRENTLY live without interacting with government/corporations.

I never made such a claim. I don't believe any such thing. So your little preaching about how we are not independent is completely wasted on me. Cause I agree.

Hope that is clear.

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, March 20, 2011 4:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
... killing muslim terrorists...

I thought you agreed with me that the use of the word "Muslim" to describe terrorism was inaccurate and pejorative. Let's say "pseudo-Muslim" or "jihadist" or some other term that distinguishes between Muslim ideology and these psycho-nuts? Shall we?

Thanks.

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 4:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
... killing muslim terrorists...
I thought you agreed with me that the use of the word "Muslim" to describe terrorism was inaccurate and pejorative. Let's say "pseudo-Muslim" or "jihadist" or some other term that distinguishes between Muslim ideology and these psycho-nuts? Shall we?

Thanks.

Good god! Just make up your mind and stick w/ it already ! Doesn't the word 'terrorist' delineate which KIND of Muslims enough for you ? I mean, 'jihadists' ? Who other than Muslism speak of Jihad? I was ridiculed for using Islamo-fascists, which I thought was pretty damn accurate, since they literally want to run our lives in every facet, spiritual and via government.

This is more comical than colored / colored people / people of color argument!

KWICKO

Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
But Rappy, you *have* been a friend to a VERY energetic government, one which argued for the supremacy of the Executive Branch over all others, one which willfully and deliberately curtailed human rights, one which actively and forcefully tortured people.

You've claimed before that such things don't matter, that these things were done to "non-citizens" who don't count, don't HAVE rights.

So I have to ask: Where do you think your "rights" come from?

The founding fathers were for killing muslim terrorists, as was the previous administration.. I'm 100% for that. Inalienable rights are clearly innate, to all mankind. But when you take up arms against innocent people, or plot to, as the islamo-nuts have, you forfeit your rights. Sorry.

Or when somebody thinks you *might*...

Again, you've advocated torturing people ("forfeiting their rights", as you call it) merely on *suspicion* that they may harbor ill will towards the U.S.

AURAPTOR

Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

Or when somebody thinks you *might*...

Again, you've advocated torturing people ("forfeiting their rights", as you call it) merely on *suspicion* that they may harbor ill will towards the U.S.

When they already want to kill us, I kinda could care less about their ill will.

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:

The founding fathers were... terrorists.

Absolutely they were. But they were also anarchists. They set up a state that existed as a shell to protect against the encroachment of govt. Unfortunately, it didn't last.

They were also pagan deists who worshipped greek gods and goddesses, and were Masons.

They had no comment on Islam. I think it was Polk who first brought it up, saying that, yes, freedom of religion extended to Islam. That's been official govt. policy for 160 years, unless Obusha has changed it.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

NIKI2

Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:34 PM

Quote:
We had electricity, and that's sort of like a corporation, except it's govt. sponsors. And the phone company. Similar deal.

So the government WAS involved, to a degree. I’d like to know how big the place you’re talking about is/was, when you lived there, what it’s like now, etc. Because I don’t believe any place as huge as America would work without some government help. And I don’t see enough “volunteers” who would actually step up, it’s not the mentality of our country. Sure, some would, but enough to keep a huge country like this going?

My guess would be complete confusion would result if we lost government jobs, and in short order the states would break up. After that, I would see wars (or something like them) between states, because some states are poorer and would want what the richer states have. You’d also have the corruption between the governments of each state...oh, no, wait, no government at all? Then you’d see the kind of anarchy that would result in the deaths of millions, because the inhabitants of some states would want tot take over other states, and away we go. The government holds us together; imperfect as it is, in my opinion it’s the only way to keep a country as big as ours together. I’d like to see any country of this size exist without government; can anyone name one? I don’t think breaking up into 50 states, and no government in any of them, is anything beyond idiocy.

Were all the things government jobs provide now done by private corporations, the ramifications are huge; corporations are no more free of bureaucracy, corruption, etc., than government, and a biggie is I wonder how much everything would cost if everything were run by corporations and private individuals.

And I’m one of those arguing that public servants DO work their tails off for the most part; I posted about wasting time, and my lifetime experience in corporations showed me quite clearly how many employees fuck off, how many get their jobs because of ass-kissing, etc., who don’t do SHIT to “earn” their salaries! Public employees have been made the “goat” by the right for so long, but few seem to see past that to realize it’s a political aim to get more in the hands of corporate interests. They’ve been at it for decades, and their goal is obvious if anyone takes the time to see past the talking points and propaganda.

Like I said, I’ve been to the DMV twice this past year, and the volume of people waiting to be served, the speed with which they’ve dealt with everything, and how hard EACH of the people at each window work is quite evident. You need to remember; propaganda moves the “mob mentality”; they need to blame someone for their fear and anger, the right has turned that quite nicely to hatred of Muslims and government employees; it’s a tactic and a con to keep people distracted from the fact that the right has no more idea how to create jobs than the left OR the government, whichever side is in power. So despite RUNNING on “jobs, jobs, jobs”, they have to distract the populace from the fact that they CAN’T create jobs.

Simple fact is: there are employees in every facet of life who screw off and don’t earn their pay; focusing on government employees is a joke, but people are so scared and angry, they can’t see it.

Quote:
As for hospitals, when I grew up here, the doctor was 3 bucks a visit

In a way, DT, you just made part of the argument against your position. It’s not the GOVERNMENT which has made the cost of health care so bad, it’s private enterprise...

Kiki, welcome to RWED. I don’t think anyone becomes a real “member” until they grok what our trolls are up to and get past where you are now---telling them how idiotic they are---and moves on to ignoring them. Nothing else is worth your time; you will never, never get through to them and nothing will stop them. If you learn that lesson faster than I did, you’ll be ahead of the game. Bear in mind that Kane has been VERY up front that the single r

BYTEMITE

Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:36 PM

Sig: We were being civil for a while, and there's some things that we are so cross communicative on that it's not worth discussing with each other. I'll end up wasting your time, and you'll end up hating me when all I really want you to do is kill corporations.

There's very little reason for me to post on anything on these boards anymore except as regards to Firefly or Science, and in the past couple of weeks, that's mostly what I've been doing.

But, in the interest of civility I will answer you at least in part. And that is to say:

I OWE EVERYTHING. And I'm prepared to die for it.

"Every single one of you thinks"

Most everyone around here in SLC exburgs-ville is a Mormon, except up in the Avenues area, where they are predominantly liberal and agnostic (or presbyterian or similar), and the reason why Salt Lake City had a Democratic Mayor for years (Rocky Anderson, and probably one of the better ones we've ever had). The West side is mostly Latino/catholic with a few Mormon converts. We also have a few blacks, and some Japanese who migrated here from Topaz Mountain, so we have a smallish Little Japan, and some Chinatown elements way back from railroad times that has made the city appealing for Chinese immigrants.

I'd have to say if that's what you think people around here believe about charity, then you are very much mistaken. Almost as much so as believing that their views on politics influence their views on charity, or that their views on politics represent me, or vice versa. And if you think that Rappy and I are ideologically similar, then that's it - clearly further efforts at conversation will be futile.

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