IRS gave extra scrutiny to liberal groups as well
- Thread starter UncleBuck
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ginwilly
Well-Known Member
sorry man, you swung and missed
I think this is why the whole world should wholeheartedly welcome competition with China. The Cold War may have been a terrible thing to live through, with vast amounts of wealth and lives senselessly wasted, but it drove this country forward. We needed better technology to ensure our survival, so we focused on that, with everyone in the country fearing some future nuclear holocaust--what a powerful incentive! Our defense research (and the space program was certainly defense research) played a substantial role in creating the modern world, but without an opponent we're slipping into ambivalence and enabling others to take the lead.
SlaveNoMore
Active Member
Partially. It is correct that people would behave in a selfish manner for a period of time but I don't believe that behavior would persist, it couldn't persist. I think in the long term people would come to an understanding that stealing and killing is pointless and accomplishes nothing.
Anarchists, in theory, adhere to an ethic of non violence. Does that mean anarchists don't own guns and are peace loving dirty hippies? Nope. Self defense is important. One person stealing from another could very well get you shot. The hope would be that a person in need would ask you for help first. I tend to lean more toward the optimistic point of view regarding humanity. Having been locked up before I was once one of the "bad guys" and I know that people can be redeemed and aren't all bad. Actually, the majority of people are good given the oppurtunity.
Anarchism as we know it today is just a place holder while an existing or new regime (re)establishes itself. It wasn't meant to be permanent. It is an explosive reaction to a failing status quo that does cause change at least in the minds of the reactionaries.
This is just a brief overview of my beliefs. Drop a post if you want to talk more...Thanks for the reply!
abandonconflict
Well-Known Member
"In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense – not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay."
~Peter Kropotkin
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
A conflict between superpowers would certainly do much. However I invite you to read Richard Rhodes' Twilight of the Bombs. We really seem to be heading toward "one world" in which, even with nations remaining nominally sovereign, a mutual decision has been made to avoid the sort of total war that drove the big technical leaps. We may have broken the paradigm that made superpower conflict such a driver.
Imo it'll take a real Enemy from Outside. I'm currently reading a delightful if essentially unbelievable set of tech/mil sci-fi (the Orphans series by Robert Buettner) that echoes the Independence day idea: an alien threat makes us really focus away from the niceties of a society drowning in its introspective comforts, and plucky monkeys kick insect ass across the Perseus arm!! Pure escapism, but I wonder why all the novelists feel the compulsion to invent an alien enemy that we can just barely defeat. cn
UncleBuck
Well-Known Member
so does that mean you sent back all your ARRA tax breaks? does that mean that you make sure to stay out of the added lanes on the highway?
SlaveNoMore
Active Member
Sorry to derail your thread uncle buck.....
UncleBuck
Well-Known Member
Sorry to derail your thread uncle buck.....
i started this?
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
Sorry to derail your thread uncle buck.....
There is no way to jack a Paulitics thread. It's a mosh pit in here! Just keep slamdancing! cn
Dr Kynes
Well-Known Member
i aint even mad homey.
if you got an idea lay it out, you dont gotta be Noel Coward, but so long as you make more sense than Noam Chomsky i reckon we will piece it together fair enough.
capitalism is based on ownership
Land + Sweat + Investment ($ for materials tools and seeds) + Water + More Sweat = A Farm
if you take away the ownership of tthe land you also take away the ownership of everything invested in that land in $$ and Sweat and Time.
without ownership, the crop you plant and tend so lovingly becomes "Natural Resources" thats some Anarcho-Hobo simply "finds" in your feild and takes for himself.
if i grow weed, i aint growin weed for any pothead to harvest as soon as he smells it, im growin it for ME. if somebody smells my dank, comes into my shed and rips off all my nugs the night before i planned to harvest them, i am rightly pissed since i took the risk, i made the investment in lights nutes water energy, loving care, and attention, and i now have nothing to show for it but smashed up lights, broken fans and shredded plants with nary a bud in sight
since it was MINE the dude who took it should feel bad, but in all likelyhood he wioll justify his theft by claiming the plants were the "Means of Production" and as such were partly his anyhow, since "I Didnt Build That"
you see where im comin from?
collectivists are always the first in line with their hit, but they never bring a baggie to the smokeout. shit, usually they dont even bring funyuns. they will always be ready to take their "Fair Share" of what you got, but when it comes time to share what they got, NOPE that's their shit.
collectivists (marxist authoritarian socialists like abandonconflict) are the reason marxism has such a persistent stench of oppressionn
Communists are as cool as the other side of the pillow. they share their shit, even if youre not particularly sharey yourself. when a communist crashes on your couch he does the dishes, helps you fix your truck, and works in the garden if he has nothing to put in the stew-pot.
Collectivists just tell you how they deserved their "Fair Share" anyhow, and youre a capitalist pig-dog for having shit when they have nothing.
Capitalists crashing on your couch will A: do whatever they can to defray their costs to you, like a communist does, but without the scent of patchouli or B: steal your television dvd player and computer and pawn it for a ticket to their next mark
Anarchists will trash your house, smoke all your weed, download depraved and shameful pornography on your computer, run up your phone bill and never flush the crapper after they drop a deuce. but at least they are usually fun, and of course youll still have that shameful degrading pornography...
One problem is that people don't always recognize what's logical and rational. I saw an episode of Frontline or Nova that contained an economic experiment, which was auctioning a $20 bill. People ended up bidding more than $20 for the bill. The subjects evidently were so focused on winning that they acted irrationally in order to win, and then they actually felt like they won for a moment! Of course, they actually lost--they paid more than $20 to have $20. The experimenter's goal was to demonstrate bubble behavior, but I think the our collective willingness to inhibit our rationality can probably be applied generally.
That seemingly inevitable irrationality is what gives rise to all of society's ills.
I don't think violence is the problem. Whenever you destroy competition you destroy incentives to innovate and maximize output. The result is less collective wealth, do the detriment of everyone. That probably encourages desperate behavior, including violence.
SlaveNoMore
Active Member
Oh I didn't think you were mad Dr. Kynes. I see that you are well grounded in your beliefs so I didn't feel the need to go back and forth.
My only objection to your idea is do you think that the majority is made up of anarcho-hobos? (LOL I love the term BTW)
I grasp what you are saying but I feel you are attaching too much weight to the term "anarchist". Let's say we ditch the term and pretend shit hit the fan and there is no more "THE MAN". How would you help to make sure you and your community progressed? Would you go back to the old system that crumbled or try something new? Where would you begin if there were no longer any formal law?
Dr Kynes
Well-Known Member
by declaring myself Overdog, establishing a harem of the hottest betties i can lay my (presumably cybernetic) hands on, and dominating my pitiful subjects with an iron (moar like titanium amirite) fist.
seriously the template is already there, wwe just forgot how to use it, it's in the US constitution. the longest lasting continuous democracy on earth (fuck you england, you were an imperial monarchy till the 1960's)
SlaveNoMore
Active Member
Yes good. I think what you may be trying to do is place our current model on top of the anarchy model. I don't believe what we consider to be logical and rational NOW applies to an anarchist or tribal community. Situations would be far different and call for a different set of logical principles and rationale. Common sense still applies and I would say that a lot of people lack common sense. (stop putting your hand in the fucking fire!)
Competition:
There is no competition there is only survival. Unless we want to see who can grow the biggest squash competition for the sake of advancement or monetary gain flies out the window. People would regain a sense of value not only in themselves but in the work they do. Sure, we will always compete at some level but to do so in the name of innovation and the maximization of output only leads to slavery. The anarchist wants to avoid this.
SlaveNoMore
Active Member
Haahaaa that's great...I will refer to you as "OVERDOG" from this point forward!
SlaveNoMore
Active Member
And BTW I'm not an anarchist. I did study it for a couple of years when I was in my early 30's. It really challenged my world view.
Dr Kynes
Well-Known Member
competition is a key component of a healthy society.
there are only 3 ways to undertake any task:
Work: The day to day drudgery, and upon completion of each day's tribulations, all you have is the sure knowledge that you will have to do more of it tomorrow. there is no accomplishment, only the task. this is the life of a slave.
Compete: To test yourself against another, or the clock, or against yourself, striving for success, to win, and in winning you find satisfaction and joy. in failure you find the resolve to try harder next time.
Play: Winning and losing are irrelevant, joy and success are found in the effort, and the only way to lose is to not play. and if youre lucky you get to play again tomorrow, Yay!
collectivists desire that everyone Work. and Work. and Work until finally they collapse atr their machines, or in their feilds and other workers haul them off to the Protein Recyclers where they can become nutritious Soylent products to nourish other workers at their labours.
collectivists are deathly afraid of people who Compete, since thye are driven to succeed, which makes them dangerous. this was supposed to be eliminated from the Proles during the De-Radicalization phase of the post-revolution reformation.
collectivists cannot comprehend those who Play. they are a mystery since they are nearly impossible to control, so we had better line them up and shoot them, just to be safe.
capitalists dearly love Workers. the Work and Work and Work until they fall over at their machines, or in their fields, and are hauled off to the Protein Recyclers...
capitalists dearly love those who Compete, since they strive for success, and thats what capitalism is all about. contrary to popular belief, capitalists dont hate those who become rich, as long as you dont get rich in THEIR line of work. Diamond Moguls dont care how rich Oil Magnates get, or how wealthy Steel Barons become, they only worry about other diamond merchants who may be cutting into their profit margin.
capitalists have no idea how to deal with those who Play. but those gadflies dont cut into their profits, so let them prance about in feilds of wildflowers as long as they dont spill bongwater on my bentley
Iv'e never met a communist who Worked
i know very few communists who Compete
most true communists just Play, whether they are tending their garden, or their weed, or making tye died t-shirts to sell at reggae on the river, or carving elaborate pipes out of soapstone, or chasing butterflies through the feild where im trying to fix their tractor...
anarchists are perplexing, they mostly seem to Compete but rather in the way that Don Quixote Competes with giants. anar5chists always seem to be pissed off at somerthing and are almost always preparing some new means of tilting at some windmill or other.
abandonconflict
Well-Known Member
Correction, the best argument against Democracy is a 30 second conversation with the average politician or candidate.
Rak on Tur'
Active Member
The problem is that we keep electing these people, hell look how people still support Clinton, Obama, Bohemer, Pelosi, Paul, all of them. People wanting free stuff and only want cuts that don't effect them. It's crazy why anyone would want even more federal government in their lives. Be it marriage laws that shouldn't even be there to begin with, or false sense of security programs getting on a plane. We will piss trillions to the wind in places that dont need us, or want us, but god forbid we fund planed parenthood or give kids lunches at school who need it.
But you get called a nut or conspericy theorist for wanting to eliminate uneeded laws and programs.
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