"Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by JimC » Thu Feb 28, 2013 11:23 pm

sandinista wrote:
Rum wrote:I don't think votes make a huge difference personally. The real power is in the hands of Capital. It seems pretty inconceivable that a democracy could challenge the real people of power. You just have to look at the way the few countries that try to and how people like Chavez are demonized. Such is the hegemony of capitalism that we are blinded to their being any real alternative to the profit motive and the rapaciousness of the so called free market. We are brain washed into thinking any attempt at collectivity is some kind of Communist madness now. All this in good part under the illusory banner of 'liberty'. What a joke.

Couldn't agree more. Voting is nothing but a false token to give the illusion of citizen participation.
I'm sure that in your brave new world, voting will be totally unnecessary.

The Party will always work for the interests of the people...
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by Blind groper » Thu Feb 28, 2013 11:37 pm

I always like the statement that Winston Churchill made about democracy - "The worst of all possible systems, except for all the rest."

If we can find a better method of government, then fine. But so far, there ain't one!
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by sandinista » Fri Mar 01, 2013 12:09 am

JimC wrote:I'm sure that in your brave new world, voting will be totally unnecessary.
Don't need a so-called brave new world, whatever that is for you...voting is already totally unnecessary.
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by pErvinalia » Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:03 am

Seth wrote: The other type of regulation is government-imposed rules that are intended to select winners and losers in the free market. Examples of these sorts of regulations are egregious environmental regulations that affect only one disfavored industry (today that's coal) and government favoritism (through tax breaks, grants, or other regulations that favor political favorites over everyone else, like General Electric's government subsidies and tax breaks), which are intended to control and direct commerce in the free markets in order to achieve political or social goals by the current administration. Those regulations are fundamentally wrong and harmful to capitalism and free markets because they skew the internal controls of free markets that function in a very Darwinian fashion to drive inefficient, fraudulent or simply poor products out of the markets and which encourage entrepreneurship, innovation, cost effectiveness, and economic growth.
Big fucking LOLs. Poor old coal/fossil fuels, eh? What you have forgotten, genius, is that the fossil fuels industry has been favoured by probably the biggest ever subsidy in the history of civilisation. That is, they have been allowed to externalise their pollution. And that cost, borne by the rest of society/the world, is coming up for payment now.

And then you have the temerity to claim that govs are distorting the free markets to achieve social goals (like adhering to good science), while failing to accept that fossil fuel usage is the biggest threat to civilisation ever faced. Who gives a fuck about your childish hard-on for a "free" market? There's far bigger issues at stake. Wake up.
In the same way that it's morally wrong to force the individual to labor on behalf of others with whom he has no relationship and for whom he has not voluntarily accepted financial responsibility, it's morally wrong for the government, or the collective, to interfere in the free markets in order to pick winners and losers in the economy.
It's morally wrong to let the free market drive us to the edge of disaster, while science has been warning us of that disaster for decades now. And no, the consumer isn't rational enough to handle this issue via consumer choice. Issues of this size and significance need to be handled by central agencies (i.e. governments).
Socialism is not Marxism.
Sorry, but it is. All socialistic societies are based on the proposition stated by Marx: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." The unspoken part of that is that the decisions about ability and need are ALWAYS determined by the State, according to the penchants or desires of the State to accomplish some social control or agenda regardless of the individual's desire, need or factual use or agreement with the social goals.
At least in socialism, it is one person - one vote. Averaged out across society, an individual has far greater chance of getting what they want under a democratic socialist framework, than they can under a "free" market where it is one dollar - one vote. I.e. Free markets are great if you've got lots of money. If you don't have much, they're aren't very good for you.
All socialist societies are based on the fundamental premise that the members of the collective owe a duty of labor (and thereby property) to the State merely because they exist,


That's exactly the same with capitalism, if you are born poor or under-privileged.
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by JimC » Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:00 am

sandinista wrote:
JimC wrote:I'm sure that in your brave new world, voting will be totally unnecessary.
Don't need a so-called brave new world, whatever that is for you...voting is already totally unnecessary.
I can agree with you that many aspects of the party political system in the west are faulty, and need fixing. Removing campaign contributions from big companies would be a start...

However, I don't take it from that that voting itself should be abandoned altogether, simply reformed so that wider choices are available than people have now, and that parties and politicians are not so beholden to power and wealth...
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by Jason » Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:03 am

I had a fucking thesis on this shit,... but I'm tripping balls.

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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by sandinista » Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:20 am

JimC wrote:
sandinista wrote:
JimC wrote:I'm sure that in your brave new world, voting will be totally unnecessary.
Don't need a so-called brave new world, whatever that is for you...voting is already totally unnecessary.
I can agree with you that many aspects of the party political system in the west are faulty, and need fixing. Removing campaign contributions from big companies would be a start...

However, I don't take it from that that voting itself should be abandoned altogether, simply reformed so that wider choices are available than people have now, and that parties and politicians are not so beholden to power and wealth...
and in what dream world utopia of yours is that going to happen?
Our struggle is not against actual corrupt individuals, but against those in power in general, against their authority, against the global order and the ideological mystification which sustains it.

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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by JimC » Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:21 am

sandinista wrote:
JimC wrote:
sandinista wrote:
JimC wrote:I'm sure that in your brave new world, voting will be totally unnecessary.
Don't need a so-called brave new world, whatever that is for you...voting is already totally unnecessary.
I can agree with you that many aspects of the party political system in the west are faulty, and need fixing. Removing campaign contributions from big companies would be a start...

However, I don't take it from that that voting itself should be abandoned altogether, simply reformed so that wider choices are available than people have now, and that parties and politicians are not so beholden to power and wealth...
and in what dream world utopia of yours is that going to happen?
Might not be very easy to achieve...

But its chances are vastly more than there ever being a marxist utopia...
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by sandinista » Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:36 am

:doh: so let me get this straight...your utopia is easier to achieve than "mine"...according to you. Good stuff.
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by JimC » Fri Mar 01, 2013 5:44 am

sandinista wrote::doh: so let me get this straight...your utopia is easier to achieve than "mine"...according to you. Good stuff.
Well, you always wiggle out of anything solid about "yours"

It's always framed in negative terms; the current system is irredeemably corrupt, western freedom is a sham, capitalism is slavery in total, voting and democracy is pointless, we must change everything...

So, how will you avoid the pitfalls of the anti-capitalist collectivists of the early twentieth century? Plenty of idealistic dreamers back then...

How will you avoid the path to the new gulags? Are your ends so noble that any means, however barbaric, is permissible to confound the enemies of the revolution?

However, I am not really concerned. As I keep saying in the face of Seth's paranoia, any chance of a truly marxist revolution is buried; the evils done in it's name in the past are even now too fresh in the minds of all, and it remains no more than an impotent fantasy of a deluded few.
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by Seth » Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:51 pm

MrJonno wrote:
If someone grabs you from your home and throws you in a dark cell somewhere without any justification or need that you can identify, are you going to simply say "well, I guess it's okay because I have no desire for personal autonomy or liberty" and sit there quietly in acceptance until you starve to death?
Personal autonomy or liberty would not be the first thing that came to mind, getting the guards to feed me and maybe find out why I was there would probably be first priority.

Escape well not being Rambo that would seem somewhat unlikely and realistically the only influence you have in your survival is getting your captor to have at least some empathy with you. If you fail you are dead
Your own statements prove that personal autonomy and liberty are indeed your instinctive concern. If they were not you would sit complacently and not question anything about your incarceration and you would accept without question whatever was done to you.
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by Seth » Fri Mar 01, 2013 5:20 pm

rEvolutionist wrote:
Seth wrote: The other type of regulation is government-imposed rules that are intended to select winners and losers in the free market. Examples of these sorts of regulations are egregious environmental regulations that affect only one disfavored industry (today that's coal) and government favoritism (through tax breaks, grants, or other regulations that favor political favorites over everyone else, like General Electric's government subsidies and tax breaks), which are intended to control and direct commerce in the free markets in order to achieve political or social goals by the current administration. Those regulations are fundamentally wrong and harmful to capitalism and free markets because they skew the internal controls of free markets that function in a very Darwinian fashion to drive inefficient, fraudulent or simply poor products out of the markets and which encourage entrepreneurship, innovation, cost effectiveness, and economic growth.
Big fucking LOLs. Poor old coal/fossil fuels, eh? What you have forgotten, genius, is that the fossil fuels industry has been favoured by probably the biggest ever subsidy in the history of civilisation. That is, they have been allowed to externalise their pollution. And that cost, borne by the rest of society/the world, is coming up for payment now.
That's because that was what was demanded by the people. They want energy and they want it as cheaply as they can possibly get it. It is their sovereign right to demand it, and to have it, regardless of the consequences. The point is that coal is just one example of government regulations that choose winners and losers in the free market that distorts and damages the functions of capitalism and free markets. These distortions and damages caused by preferential government regulation cause harm to the economy, which liberals then have the temerity to blame on capitalism and free markets, when in fact it's the liberal meddling with the markets that causes the problems in the first place.
And then you have the temerity to claim that govs are distorting the free markets to achieve social goals (like adhering to good science), while failing to accept that fossil fuel usage is the biggest threat to civilisation ever faced. Who gives a fuck about your childish hard-on for a "free" market? There's far bigger issues at stake. Wake up.
In the same way that it's morally wrong to force the individual to labor on behalf of others with whom he has no relationship and for whom he has not voluntarily accepted financial responsibility, it's morally wrong for the government, or the collective, to interfere in the free markets in order to pick winners and losers in the economy.
It's morally wrong to let the free market drive us to the edge of disaster, while science has been warning us of that disaster for decades now.
First, there is no proof that we are headed for disaster. We may be headed for climate change, but we've been headed for climate change since the beginning of time. Adapt or die. Second, whether science is warning us is irrelevant, particularly if the science is itself part and parcel of government manipulation of the free markets that's intended to consolidate one-world government control and that even if we do implement all "science's" recommendations, will have negligible to undetectable effect on climate change in the next 200 or more years. Which means that all the hysteria and faux urgency to enact preferential regulation has as its purpose seizing greater control of the world economy and has little or nothing to do with environmental protection.

And no, the consumer isn't rational enough to handle this issue via consumer choice. Issues of this size and significance need to be handled by central agencies (i.e. governments).
Government functionaries can never be more rational than billions of consumers making individual decisions. That's why central planning never, ever works.
Socialism is not Marxism.
Sorry, but it is. All socialistic societies are based on the proposition stated by Marx: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." The unspoken part of that is that the decisions about ability and need are ALWAYS determined by the State, according to the penchants or desires of the State to accomplish some social control or agenda regardless of the individual's desire, need or factual use or agreement with the social goals.
At least in socialism, it is one person - one vote.
No it's not. In socialism it's one person, no vote. Socialism doesn't ask the individual what he wants, it tells him what he will do. Any cloak of "democracy" is merely a shell that placates the useful idiots. The socialist elite ALWAYS control everything, regardless of what the vote is.
Averaged out across society, an individual has far greater chance of getting what they want under a democratic socialist framework, than they can under a "free" market where it is one dollar - one vote. I.e. Free markets are great if you've got lots of money. If you don't have much, they're aren't very good for you.
Well, yes, an individual has a greater chance of getting what they WANT under a socialist system because they are facilitated in coercing what they WANT from those who produce what they WANT. Which is to say that under socialism, yes, it is true that thieves prosper and productive people are victimized universally.

People don't deserve to get what they WANT unless they are willing to WORK FOR IT and attain it in a moral and ethical fashion, which does not include using jackbooted government thugs with machine guns to steal what they WANT from others merely because those others have worked hard to create what the dependent class WANTS and so the dependent class (and their jackbooted minions in government) determines what their "need" is and seizes the labor and property of others because the collective says it's "unfair" for some to have more than the collective has determined they "need," despite the fact that the productive individuals worked harder than the dependent class to create it.

That doesn't make socialism a valid or useful social model.
All socialist societies are based on the fundamental premise that the members of the collective owe a duty of labor (and thereby property) to the State merely because they exist,

That's exactly the same with capitalism, if you are born poor or under-privileged.
Wrong. In capitalism, ANYONE can succeed and prosper if they have the talent and drive to do so. The free markets place no deliberate barriers in the way of anyone who wants to prosper, they are constrained only by their own personal limitations.

In socialism, on the other hand, those who are unwilling to work, have no talent or drive, and who prefer to leech off of the talent and drive of others are deemed to be worthy of enslaving others to their service.

If you're poor or underprivileged, it's your obligation to either raise yourself up through hard work or ASK for help from others. Merely being poor or underprivileged does not give you moral license to DEMAND that others slave away to provide for you, which is what socialism does; enslaves productive individuals and seizes the fruits of their labor without warrant or justification.
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by Blind groper » Fri Mar 01, 2013 7:40 pm

To Seth

A problem many of us have with your views is that they come across as extremist and absolutist. Life is not like that, of course. Life is a set of compromises, and every value is not absolute but relative. My own view is that we must constantly strive for a kind of balance between extremes.

For example : your views on liberty appear to be absolute. That is : all or nothing. There is no such thing with respect to liberty, of course. Everyone has his/her liberty restricted by the needs of the community. Drunk driving is my usual example. Permitting people to get drunk and drive is bad for the entire community, so there are restrictions, which are an infringement on individual liberty. That infringement is totally reasonable, given the nasty consequences of open slather drink/drive behavior. The same applies across the board to many other restrictions on individual liberty.

Taxes and socialist redistribution of wealth is another example. Obviously this is an infringement on individual liberty, but is good for the wider community. For example : by providing people who are without a job or source of income, with welfare payments, we allow them to live a life without falling back on crime in desperation. Such payments reduce crime, for a much lower pay out than simply putting each potential criminal in prison at $ 100,000 per year each.

Socialism is not an absolute. You refer to socialism as Marxism, which it is not. Marxism is anti-capitalist. Marxism requires a sharing of everything instead of the opportunity to become individually wealthy, which is capitalism. Socialism, though, can live comfortably side by side with capitalism, and indeed, relies on the wealth produced by capitalism. Capitalism benefits also, since it provides a way for the "other half" of the population to live without causing trouble. Socialism means that, if a person who has worked hard suddenly find him/herself unable to work through illness or becoming disabled, they will still be cared for. Socialism permits society to stratify into relatively richer and poorer sectors, while attempting to prevent the poorer sectors from becoming excessively poverty stricken. Marxism attempts to keep society all one stratum, and generally results in just that, with everyone poverty stricken.

There is no absolute socialism in our society. Just socialism to a degree. Socialist policies can be and are altered to increase or reduce the availability of services. In other words, all is relative.

So, personally, I reject views that are extremist and absolutist.
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by JimC » Fri Mar 01, 2013 8:26 pm

Blind groper wrote:To Seth

A problem many of us have with your views is that they come across as extremist and absolutist. Life is not like that, of course. Life is a set of compromises, and every value is not absolute but relative. My own view is that we must constantly strive for a kind of balance between extremes.

For example : your views on liberty appear to be absolute. That is : all or nothing. There is no such thing with respect to liberty, of course. Everyone has his/her liberty restricted by the needs of the community. Drunk driving is my usual example. Permitting people to get drunk and drive is bad for the entire community, so there are restrictions, which are an infringement on individual liberty. That infringement is totally reasonable, given the nasty consequences of open slather drink/drive behavior. The same applies across the board to many other restrictions on individual liberty.

Taxes and socialist redistribution of wealth is another example. Obviously this is an infringement on individual liberty, but is good for the wider community. For example : by providing people who are without a job or source of income, with welfare payments, we allow them to live a life without falling back on crime in desperation. Such payments reduce crime, for a much lower pay out than simply putting each potential criminal in prison at $ 100,000 per year each.

Socialism is not an absolute. You refer to socialism as Marxism, which it is not. Marxism is anti-capitalist. Marxism requires a sharing of everything instead of the opportunity to become individually wealthy, which is capitalism. Socialism, though, can live comfortably side by side with capitalism, and indeed, relies on the wealth produced by capitalism. Capitalism benefits also, since it provides a way for the "other half" of the population to live without causing trouble. Socialism means that, if a person who has worked hard suddenly find him/herself unable to work through illness or becoming disabled, they will still be cared for. Socialism permits society to stratify into relatively richer and poorer sectors, while attempting to prevent the poorer sectors from becoming excessively poverty stricken. Marxism attempts to keep society all one stratum, and generally results in just that, with everyone poverty stricken.

There is no absolute socialism in our society. Just socialism to a degree. Socialist policies can be and are altered to increase or reduce the availability of services. In other words, all is relative.

So, personally, I reject views that are extremist and absolutist.
:this:
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Re: "Democracy" derail from "My new toy" thread...

Post by sandinista » Sat Mar 02, 2013 4:02 am

JimC wrote:
Blind groper wrote:To Seth

A problem many of us have with your views is that they come across as extremist and absolutist. Life is not like that, of course. Life is a set of compromises, and every value is not absolute but relative. My own view is that we must constantly strive for a kind of balance between extremes.

For example : your views on liberty appear to be absolute. That is : all or nothing. There is no such thing with respect to liberty, of course. Everyone has his/her liberty restricted by the needs of the community. Drunk driving is my usual example. Permitting people to get drunk and drive is bad for the entire community, so there are restrictions, which are an infringement on individual liberty. That infringement is totally reasonable, given the nasty consequences of open slather drink/drive behavior. The same applies across the board to many other restrictions on individual liberty.

Taxes and socialist redistribution of wealth is another example. Obviously this is an infringement on individual liberty, but is good for the wider community. For example : by providing people who are without a job or source of income, with welfare payments, we allow them to live a life without falling back on crime in desperation. Such payments reduce crime, for a much lower pay out than simply putting each potential criminal in prison at $ 100,000 per year each.

Socialism is not an absolute. You refer to socialism as Marxism, which it is not. Marxism is anti-capitalist. Marxism requires a sharing of everything instead of the opportunity to become individually wealthy, which is capitalism. Socialism, though, can live comfortably side by side with capitalism, and indeed, relies on the wealth produced by capitalism. Capitalism benefits also, since it provides a way for the "other half" of the population to live without causing trouble. Socialism means that, if a person who has worked hard suddenly find him/herself unable to work through illness or becoming disabled, they will still be cared for. Socialism permits society to stratify into relatively richer and poorer sectors, while attempting to prevent the poorer sectors from becoming excessively poverty stricken. Marxism attempts to keep society all one stratum, and generally results in just that, with everyone poverty stricken.

There is no absolute socialism in our society. Just socialism to a degree. Socialist policies can be and are altered to increase or reduce the availability of services. In other words, all is relative.

So, personally, I reject views that are extremist and absolutist.
:this:
That's a little hypocritical of you no?
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