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Originally posted by SignyM:
The answer to guns isn't more guns, the answer violence isn't retribution, and the answer to poverty isn't creating a class of super-wealthy.

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Originally posted by Succatash:
I really don’t see how you can have a free society and at the same time make everyone be nice.

Hey, I have an idea: Let’s tell everyone that there is an invisible higher being. This higher being not only created us and the universe, but also LOVES us and wants to be our friend. We can tell society that if they be nice, they will live forever in glory and pleasure. But if they are not nice, they will suffer forever in everlasting torment and extreme suffering. Once a week, they can gather in a building and convince each other to surrender their lives to this higher being.

That ought to keep everyone in line.


"Gott kann dich nicht vor mir beschuetzen, weil ich nicht boese bin."

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Originally posted by Succatash:


Hey, I have an idea: Let’s tell everyone that there is an invisible higher being. This higher being not only created us and the universe, but also LOVES us and wants to be our friend. We can tell society that if they be nice, they will live forever in glory and pleasure. But if they are not nice, they will suffer forever in everlasting torment and extreme suffering. Once a week, they can gather in a building and convince each other to surrender their lives to this higher being.

That ought to keep everyone in line.

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Originally posted by NewOldBrowncoat:
Ya left out the part where you have to convert the unbelievers for their own good, even if it means killing them, torturing them, burning them alive.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
The threads on guns, the NASA shooting, Cho, Baldwin, Iraq, and global warming all have a common theme, which is that we have reached a crisis point. It may be coming clear that the old solutions - just more and harder- are not the answer. The answer to guns isn't more guns, the answer violence isn't retribution, and the answer to poverty isn't creating a class of super-wealthy.

It's very difficult to give up responses that we've relied on our whole lives. Identifying an enemy and then allowing ourselves to do exactly what "the enemy" does (for the good of course!) creates a sense of power and liberation. Identifying with the average joe, not the billionaires of the world, is painful.

But within this small community I sense that perhaps we have come to the nub of the problems that face us: we cannot build a society on anger, fear, and denial. A crisis can be unprecedented opportunity to look at our dreams and hopes, and see if they're useful or poisonous. A crisis can itself be liberating. It can allow us to consider entirely new ideas, breathe fresh air. Am I the only one who feels we've reached this point?

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Always look upstream.

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"The answer to poverty isn't creating a class of super-wealthy." Probably not. It's probably not the cause either.

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The answer to poverty isn't creating a class of super-wealthy." Probably not. It's probably not the cause either.

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So what is your suggestion?

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I'm always open to new ideas. Let's have some.

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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The answer to poverty isn't creating a class of super-wealthy." Probably not. It's probably not the cause either.

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Why yes, it is.

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So what is your suggestion?

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We had a rather long discussion about that if you recall.

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I'm always open to new ideas. Let's have some.

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You already had some, but you apparently didn't remember them very long!

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Always look upstream.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Geezer, as you should know by now, I don't blame "the rich" for causing poverty, I blame the system for allowing it in the first place.

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But we don't have to look far afield for possible solutions to the problem of great economic disparity because we can look at Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Germany, and many other successful non-totalitarian nations, all of whom have substantially less inequality than us.

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AFA setting up a cooperative-based economy: You could do that by creating a legal class of cooperative businesses with all of the advantages of corporations (limited liability, definitions of fidiciary duty, tax advantges etc.). The problem is that corporations have such a large LEGAL advatange that there isn't a level playing field.

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You're not open to new ideas, you really just want to listen to the same old same old.

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Fine examples. But these aren't the examples you provided previously. As I recall, the four you suggested were:
1)Tweaks to the current capitalist system. I don't think we ever got around to what these might be.

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What you're giving me is the "same old same old". "Let's throw the rascals out, redistribute the wealth, and everybody will be happy." Seems I've heard that before.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
But I want to redirect the topic back to my original intent.

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The discussion seems to boil down to one point: Is it acceptable, necessary, or useful to control people through fear? No matter whether it's fear of the bully, fear of someone else's gun, fear of the parent, or fear of poverty.

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It seemed to me that all of the pro-fear/ intimidation discussions reached dead ends of various sorts.

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The argument that more guns would have prevented the VTech massacre rang strangely hollow in the copy-cat NASA shooting.

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The people who accepted Imus' behavior found it reprehensible in blacks.

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It seemed to me that a realization was taking place, and that the realization was More of the same is just more of the same and that if we want to see something different we have to do something different.

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Maybe people were waking up to the idea that the buttons we've been pushing for so long aren't the RIGHT buttons to be pushing. About as useful as human sacrifice to bring rain. That perhaps some people would have an epiphany that new ways might be better.

Then again perhaps I was wrong.

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