Faster Loading Politics by ReeQueen

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Faster Loading Politics

POSTED BY: REEQUEEN
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 16:43
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Wednesday, January 19, 2005 10:53 AM

Conservatives to the right of me. Liberals to the right of me - that's how far left I am.

The Stem Cell/Janet Jackson's Boobs thread has become waaaay too long. Sorry, but it has.

W is a moron. Discuss.

Gays deserve to get married, just like anyone else. Discuss.

Any other "us" vs. "them" argument welcome, tirades and screeding needed.

Threadjacking appreciated.

"He has a gorm horizon. All gorm that falls past it is lost forever." UserFriendly http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050114

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Wednesday, January 19, 2005 12:15 PM

EMBERS

why do we only argue about politics?
why can't we ever argue about religion??

a friend of mine recently said to me:
"It's like what someone on lj said recently regarding all those people throwing the 'what would Jesus do' question:'
they rarely want the answer to be
"hang around with whores and lepers,
undermine the religious establishment
and get executed for inciting nationalist revolt".

or is it way too early for a thread hijacking?

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Wednesday, January 19, 2005 1:35 PM

TRAGICSTORY

What would Jesus do?

Keep kosher.

-----------
"Societies are supported by human activity, therefore they are constantly threatened by the human facts of self-intrest and stupidity." --Peter Berger

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Wednesday, January 19, 2005 2:38 PM

NEUTRINOLAD

Quote:
Originally posted by embers:

why can't we ever argue about religion??

Hasn't Religion become Politics?
Just saying.

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Wednesday, January 19, 2005 2:51 PM

REEQUEEN

No, it's not too early for threadjacking.

Yes, religion has become politics.

Unless and until religious wackaloons stop trying to force their moral and belief preferences down the throats of other people by trying to legislate the actions of everybody, religion is and will remain politicized.

My e-mail has been nuked, so until I get it all nicely functional again, I can't be notified of answers. See screed on my log....

"He has a gorm horizon. All gorm that falls past it is lost forever." UserFriendly http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050114

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Thursday, January 20, 2005 4:32 AM

XENOCIDE

Of course religion is political. Duh. Both religion and politics are the study of 'right action' and how to encourage right action. Only politics is based in faith in rational action while religion depends upon some man/women/force in the sky to make things right. And both are the arenas of people to socially defecient (like me) to jus live their own lives without harassing others.

Thought that was an easy one.

-Eli

If voting mattered, they'd make it illegal.

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Thursday, January 20, 2005 5:20 AM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

I don’t think that politics is always based on rational thought and I’m not sure religion is always based on god(s) to make things right. I think politics is often concerned with how to control a populus and I think religion gets a bad rap when it gets caught up in that political movement. Religion, by itself, is generally more concerned with individual morality. Dictators will often seek to (1) make themselves the religious leader or (2) eliminate religion completely, because the free exercise of religion is a threat to the politics. It creates ideas of morality independent of the politics and can therefore act as a counter weight to politics. Which is the reason why countries whose religious ideas are free and independent of politics are generally more liberal (meaning free) then other nations where religion is either the bases of government (Former Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran) or eliminated completely (Former Soviet Union, North Korea, China).

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Thursday, January 20, 2005 6:46 AM

XENOCIDE

Finn,

If you substitute government for politics in your post and I would say that we have com to an accord. A rare and momentus event. Societies that have a moral compass (or many moral compasses) that are separate from that of government, are able to better judge the value of government aims and goals and better limit the power of that government.

-Eli

If voting mattered, they'd make it illegal.

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Thursday, January 20, 2005 7:11 AM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

I think one could probably substitute "government" with little loss to meaning. I was sort of going for more of a theoretical context, but perhaps "government" makes it clearer, less esoteric.

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Thursday, January 20, 2005 7:45 PM

NEUTRINOLAD

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I think one could probably substitute "government" with little loss to meaning. I was sort of going for more of a theoretical context, but perhaps "government" makes it clearer, less esoteric.

Finn, taking politics for government?
What would Sir Humphrey say?

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Sunday, January 23, 2005 5:24 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Y'all have forgotten corporations, which control government and have their own set of morals (dog eat dog) and forms of control (threat of unemployment, commercials, snooping and spying on people, getting government to enforce corporote agenda which means the full power of the police and military state etc.) And YOU think that YOU control corporations with your piddly ability to choose the color of your toilet paper. Oh yeah, you're free alright....

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! (laughs long and bitterly)

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Sunday, January 23, 2005 10:35 AM

REEQUEEN

It just seems that until we all have the Automatic Reconstitutors, we will all still have to truck with corporations.

Which bugs me, because I'd really rather not.

I mean, I need toilet paper, seriously. And I think we're all better off for the switch from book, news, and magazine paper to bathroom tissue.

And cat food, what about cat food? I'm certainly not going to make my own cat food, especially when I can barely cook a meal for my family. Not going to risk the cats getting peckish and start with the gnawing on me. They would start with me, too, since I'm the one who they see as the Bringer of Food, if I let them down, who are they going to blame? Me.

It'd be face first, as well, and I'm tellin' ya, my face is important to me. Might not be that aesthetically pleasing to most, but I've enjoyed it over the years.

Although I'd love to pick my own cotton, or clip my own wool, spin, weave, and dye all my own fabrics, I'm afraid I just don't have the time or equipment. No cotton plants or wool trees, to start with. No spinning wheel, besides the one in my head; as for dyestuffs, well, all that mess with mordants and fixatives. As bad as cooking, if you ask me. And it'd involve way too much gardening which I just don't have the back strength for at the moment.

Not going to be butchering anything, ever, either. I prefer my meat nice and anonymous. Despite the fact that I helped eat parts of Junior back in college. It was Junior's fate, as a 4-H project, to be part of the family deep freeze, and naming your food in front of roommates always helps alleviate tension.

I'll probably be much better off when technology catches up to my distaste for the corporate, or when I finally gain all those telekinetic powers I've been striving for. Daresn't call it magic, because then the religious wackaloons will want to burn me for a witch.

Where's a fair godmother when you really need one?

If I can avoid the major polluters, I'm a bit happier. If I can afford a car that runs efficiently on something non-fossil-related, I'll buy it. If there's any way to choose the relative benignity of one corporation over the Pure Evilness (tm) of another, I'll do it.

But I still need toilet paper.

"He has a gorm horizon. All gorm that falls past it is lost forever." UserFriendly http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050114

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Sunday, January 23, 2005 10:54 AM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Ah yes. Capitalism will always win, because the virtues of toilet paper will always trump the idealism of Socialism.

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Sunday, January 23, 2005 11:05 AM

REEQUEEN

One can be a semi-socialist and still need toilet paper, Finn.

One can even be a capitalist, and still want the general population to be taken care of in every way. One can make money, in fact, more than one can make money, and still have first world benefits available to all.

There is not a finite amount of success or wealth in the world, despite current popular belief. If I'm successful, it doesn't mean someone else has to starve or go sick. If you're successful, it doesn't mean I can't be successful as well.

And if we extrapolate, to beyond this watery blue globe, the possibilities are endless.

Social Darwinism, which is really the definition most capitalists believe of captialism, is ignorant of possiblities, seeing only what can be gained and kept, and ignoring the chance that someone who doesn't have a lot of money might still be worth clothing, feeding, and keeping well.

"He has a gorm horizon. All gorm that falls past it is lost forever." UserFriendly http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050114

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Sunday, January 23, 2005 11:23 AM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Quote:
Originally posted by ReeQueen:
There is not a finite amount of success or wealth in the world, despite current popular belief. If I'm successful, it doesn't mean someone else has to starve or go sick. If you're successful, it doesn't mean I can't be successful as well.

I’m not arguing. As a staunch capitalist I would say that there is plenty of success to go around for all of us. In fact, it is socialists who claim that there is a finite amount of wealth that must be spread evenly among the people.

Quote:
Originally posted by ReeQueen:
Social Darwinism, which is really the definition most capitalists believe of captialism, is ignorant of possiblities, seeing only what can be gained and kept, and ignoring the chance that someone who doesn't have a lot of money might still be worth clothing, feeding, and keeping well.

Well, this may be what socialist think capitalist believe capitalism is, but in general, I doubt it is. Just because you assume that capitalists are all evil greedy bastards doesn’t mean it’s true. And considering some of the more ardent socialist states (Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, North Korea), not all socialists are quite as angelic and good-hearted as some might want to believe.

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Sunday, January 23, 2005 12:38 PM

REEQUEEN

Socialism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

"advocating an egalitarian society, with an economics that would, in their view, serve the broad populace rather than a favored few."

Let's get defs straight, first, 'kay?

Quote:
In fact, it is socialists who claim that there is a finite amount of wealth that must be spread evenly among the people.

Where? Where does it say that? I'm a semi-socialist, and I don't claim there is a finite amount of wealth. I think the resources can and should be spread more evenly than they are now, but that's just good sense. Envy is what is causing a lot of our problems right now, and I think spreading the good around might do a lot to alleviate that.

Pinching resources isn't the way to either make friends or influence people.

Quote:
Just because you assume that capitalists are all evil greedy bastards doesn’t mean it’s true.

Actually, I assume very little. I listen, I read, and I try to pay attention....try, I said.

I don't really believe all capitalists are evil, greedy, bastards, but a lot of the Social Darwinists who think they're capitalists are. In fact, I would say that the very definition of a Social Darwinist is evil, greedy, bastard.

Much like the people who are so afraid of losing any money at all to taxes, they'll vote down programs that will ensure the health and welfare of those who don't make a lot of money. Or who didn't inherit a lot of money. Or, because they will never have a chance at getting a higher education, will never have a chance to even have a steady job with benefits, to even make a living wage and thus become free, eventually, of welfare and health programs.

I talk not just of this country, but 'round the world. If we're going to solve problems, we have to do it on a global scale, or we're only bandaiding the issues. I don't like thinking small.

Quote:
And considering some of the more ardent socialist states (Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, North Korea), not all socialists are quite as angelic and good-hearted as some might want to believe.

And, we're back to definitions. The states you listed were not socialist, although they may have gone by the name and used the notion, propaganda-wise. Nor was the Soviet Union truly communist, as North Korea is not truly communist now.

The words you are looking for are "nationalist" and "fascist."

Nationalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism

"an ideology that creates and sustains a nation as a concept of a common identity for groups of humans. According to the theory of nationalism, the preservation of identity features, the independence in all subjects, the wellbeing, and the glory of one's own nation are fundamental values.

"Nationalists base nations on various notions of political legitimacy. These can derive from the Romantic theory of "cultural identity", the liberal argument that political legitimacy is derived from the consent of a region's population, or combinations of the two."

Fascism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

"The State not only is authority which governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life, but it is also power which makes its will prevail abroad.... For the Fascist, everything is within the State and... neither individuals nor groups are outside the State.... For Fascism, the State is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative...."

Then we have your "totalitarian" and "dictatorship" hyphenates which make it all come together.

There are many, many, decent, upstanding, semi-allies of the US that have socialist aspects of their governments, Finn. Britain is just the cherry on top of the sundae of examples.

"He has a gorm horizon. All gorm that falls past it is lost forever." UserFriendly http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050114

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Sunday, January 23, 2005 7:29 PM

RAT

VOTE RAT ON CTP#11

...........................................................................................................commercial advertisement

-Ratboy

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Sunday, January 23, 2005 10:03 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Quote:
Originally posted by ReeQueen:
Where? Where does it say that? I'm a semi-socialist, and I don't claim there is a finite amount of wealth. I think the resources can and should be spread more evenly than they are now, but that's just good sense. Envy is what is causing a lot of our problems right now, and I think spreading the good around might do a lot to alleviate that.

It’s a simple deduction. If wealth is not finite then why does it need to be redistributed? Why does wealth need to be taken from those who have rightfully gained it and given to people who have not if there is an infinite amount of wealth? Indeed Socialists must believe that wealth is limited or there would be no reason to redistribute it.

Quote:
Originally posted by ReeQueen:
I don't really believe all capitalists are evil, greedy, bastards, but a lot of the Social Darwinists who think they're capitalists are. In fact, I would say that the very definition of a Social Darwinist is evil, greedy, bastard.

Okay, but that’s a far cry from claiming that most capitalists are social Darwinists.

Quote:
Originally posted by ReeQueen:
And, we're back to definitions. The states you listed were not socialist, although they may have gone by the name and used the notion, propaganda-wise. Nor was the Soviet Union truly communist, as North Korea is not truly communist now.

Certainly they were/are indeed socialist states; in all three cases the government owned and controlled the economic capital, which is socialism by definition. That they were also fascist and/or totalitarian states doesn’t exclude them from being socialist states.

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Monday, January 24, 2005 8:42 AM

REEQUEEN

First off, I make a distinction between "resources" and "wealth." Resources being things like...oh....oil and such, that belong to another country.

Wealth, now, well....how much money does one really need? To be rich, how much money should one acquire?

Just askin'.

"He has a gorm horizon. All gorm that falls past it is lost forever." UserFriendly http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050114

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Monday, January 24, 2005 3:57 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Quote:
Originally posted by ReeQueen:
First off, I make a distinction between "resources" and "wealth." Resources being things like...oh....oil and such, that belong to another country.

Or to our own country. Indeed if you substitute resources for “wealth” or “success” in your previous comments, then we would have been in accordance. Economics is the study of scarcity and how to distribute scarce resources.

Quote:
Originally posted by ReeQueen:
Wealth, now, well....how much money does one really need? To be rich, how much money should one acquire?

Just askin'.

How much freedom does one really need? How much right does the government have to take away wealth that someone else has rightfully earned? How much right does someone who chooses not to produce have to wealth they didn’t earn?

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 7:23 AM

HERO

Quote:
Originally posted by ReeQueen:

Wealth, now, well....how much money does one really need? To be rich, how much money should one acquire?

Please bear in mind that I'm a political scientist, not an economist.

Those are two seperate issues. A person can be rich despite a complete lack of material possessions. "Rich" is a state of mind. I consider myself rich despite my government job, modest income, and relatively limited cash flow. Others might disagree, they are wrong. I have my job, my health, my church, my community, my gun, and my vote. Throw in a decent Superbowl and the release of a certain movie next fall and I'm a rich, happy man.

How much wealth does one need? The Socialist answer is 'you need only as much as you need'. The capitalist answer is 'you need as much as you need'. I vote capitalist, cause it seems to me that being a slave to "only" isn't all that much different from being "only" a slave.

Seems to me that for communism to work, everyone must be satisfied with an equal share. Thats fine for the person who undertakes an equal or less then equal share of the labor and risk. But it is not satisfactory to the person who undertakes the greater risk and work load. They deserve the fruits of their labor, a greater share, anything else is fundamentally unjust and therefore fatally flawed.

Capitalism requires as much wealth as a person can get. That amount is determined by market forces in such a manner that the system operates smoothly. Therefore artificial controls on the market can weaken the overall system. I don't pretend to understand it all, but to me it means that I can work as hard as I want and achieve as much as I can. That appeals to the American in me. I believe it appeals to the American in most people, thats why people from every race, land, and culture come here to work and why every race, land, and culture has to some extent sought to emulate that which we have created.

As for those who hate us, there are two catagories: those who hate us because they know who we are and what we stand for (these are the tyrants, the French, and terrorist leaders), and those who hate us out of a complete ignorence of our values (such as 8-year-old Jew hating Palestinian school children, uneducated suicide bombers, and anyone who watches the BBC or CBS for their news).

H

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 4:43 PM

NEUTRINOLAD

Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
Please bear in mind that I'm a political scientist...

Then we can safely disregard the rest of your comment!

**-ZING-**

Just kidding Hero, you're swell!

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