07-14-2010, 09:34 AM | #121 | |
Best Ex-Administrator ever
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Ireland
Posts: 60,547
|
Quote:
I deduce that the more accurate description of what you say you're feeling is "very self-satisfying", as you've presented no argument, evidence or demonstration of insight or knowledge. It goes without my saying that it's not all admirable. Last edited by Comic Book Guy : 07-14-2010 at 09:53 AM. |
|
07-14-2010, 11:04 PM | #122 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
Posts: 6,433
|
No more discussion on that train of thought, please. That is a personal dig and it can only devolve further from where it started. Either show the reason a person is wrong with facts, or drop the point because you don't think they can understand it.
There is more than one guilty party, which is why I am saying this publicly... especially considering I just issued a warning. |
07-16-2010, 12:34 AM | #123 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Ilha Formosa
Posts: 2,068
|
Some rather...interesting theories going around here.
The USSR and the other members of the Communist International certainly were socialist. "Communism" is the most extreme form of socialism, in which all goods are held in common and no markets operate- the social condition which Marx described as "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." In Marxist theory this stage would be reached after the overthrow of capitalism and a transitional stage of socialism. Neither the Soviet Union or any of the other "Communist" states ever claimed to have reached this condition"; they all considered themselves to be in the transitional period of socialism, where the means of production were collectively owned, but a market operated both for wage labour and consumers. Mao boasted that China would jump from socialism straight into communism; the result was the disastrous "Great Leap Forward" in 1957 (30 million+ dead of starvation) and Pol Pot tried the same thing from an even worse situation with even worse results.
__________________
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
07-16-2010, 12:51 AM | #124 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Ilha Formosa
Posts: 2,068
|
But of course there are/were many other forms of socialism around- guild socialism, syndicalism, anarcho-socialism, the Israeli kibbutzim, Christian socialism "One Big Union" (the Wobblies) and many other experiments in what Marx dismissed as 'utopian' socialism.
Within Marxism there was always the "official" Communist Party- Moscow stooges- and various other alphabet soup parties, fronts, vanguards, militant tendencies, usually at daggers drawn- see "Life of Brian" and the People's Judean Liberation Front (not to be confused with the Judean People's Liberation Front or (gasp) the People's Liberation Front of Judea. And of course the "Democratic Socialists" ( capitalised to mark it as a distinct movement); basically the various left-wing political parties belonging to the Socialist International: the Labour Party in Britain; German Social Democrats and others in northern Europe; French and other southern European Socialists, NDP in Canada and the Australian Labor Party (not Labour) and other equivalents around the world, who have generally evolved into mild welfare-statism, abandoning the ideas of nationalisation which they originally held.
__________________
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill Last edited by GrayMouser : 07-16-2010 at 12:54 AM. |
07-16-2010, 01:00 AM | #125 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Ilha Formosa
Posts: 2,068
|
Quote:
any nation that called itself "People's Republic" was based on keeping the people as far as possible from the levers of power.
__________________
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
|
07-16-2010, 01:06 AM | #126 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Ilha Formosa
Posts: 2,068
|
As for Adam Smith, while he wasn't the absolute cheerleader for laissez-faire capitalism that modern conservatives would make him out to be, he definitely believed in capitalism and the beneficial effects of free-market competition. Yes, he had some scathing opinions of businessmen and their tendency to collude against the public interest, but his solution was government intervention to keep the market free - more Teddy than Franklin, so to speak.
__________________
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
07-16-2010, 01:34 AM | #127 | ||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Ilha Formosa
Posts: 2,068
|
Gwai said:
Quote:
Smith believed, as a good Enlightenment Theist, in a benevolent Deity who had established a moral law by implanting in our breasts a feeling of sympathy toward others. He also believed that, in the cruel world we live in, such a feeling is insufficiently strong to overcome our selfish desires, on a universal scale. As a result we focus our limited facilities on those closest to us- spouse, children, family neighbours, communities, countries. Thanks to Divine Providence ordering the Universe the way it is, our own selfish desires lead to the greater good- this is where the idea of the "Invisible Hand" comes in. Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_The...ral_Sentiments (Full disclosure- have read "Wealth of Nations' but only extracts from "Moral sentiments")
__________________
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill Last edited by GrayMouser : 07-16-2010 at 01:37 AM. |
||
07-16-2010, 02:06 AM | #128 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Ilha Formosa
Posts: 2,068
|
Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/us...er=rss&emc=rss http://www.talk2action.org/story/2010/6/19/71031/5867
__________________
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
|
07-22-2010, 10:24 AM | #129 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: sikeston, MO, usa, earth, sol
Posts: 3,114
|
You can go to the Mall in Gaza!
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideast...es/001127.html Now that's American Western multiculturalism at its most capitalistic!
__________________
Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
07-22-2010, 04:56 PM | #130 |
Best Ex-Administrator ever
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Ireland
Posts: 60,547
|
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100720/...bian_prom_date
Bigoted ogres disgraced and harmed financially. What an odd, backwards society America is. |
07-22-2010, 05:52 PM | #131 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: sikeston, MO, usa, earth, sol
Posts: 3,114
|
I know, but the ACLU is like that!
__________________
Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
07-23-2010, 02:22 AM | #132 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Ilha Formosa
Posts: 2,068
|
Quote:
A little less crowing, maybe?
__________________
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
|
07-23-2010, 01:11 PM | #133 |
Best Ex-Administrator ever
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Ireland
Posts: 60,547
|
Indeed, we could all do that, but it's more fun to poke fun at other cultures we don't play a part in or hold responsibility for? The Republic of Ireland still has a very archaic but recent enacted blasphemy law! If that was taken seriously we'd be dragged back to the days of bog-trotting obscurantism!
|
07-23-2010, 10:42 PM | #134 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: sikeston, MO, usa, earth, sol
Posts: 3,114
|
Indeed, without the scientific evidence that life in truth begins at fertilization, on might be justified in considering that life is legally defined. But since even the most illiterate might learn from pictures that life begins at fertilization (witness the elephants, dogs, and cats, to name a few seen on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet), it is indefensible to slaughter the unborn in the name of "rights". Whom, exactly, has such a right, if the mother's life is not in immediate danger? Why, the biggest, strongest, and most wielding of power - a la Voldemort (the contemporary representation of that N word German philosopher of power who gave us, via the Third Reich, Hitler).
One might say that the way a society treats its most vulnerable members is a measure of its civilization. But that leaves most of the Western world prostrate in its alleged defense of "rights" and reveals it to be solely materialistic. Well, one reaps what one sows. Then. again, a nice turn in the pool at Gaza should relieve such concerns if they dare raise their heads above the water to interfere with our selfish enjoyments:http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideast...es/001127.html . Nice pool for a blockaded in-humane embargo, eh?
__________________
Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 Last edited by inked : 07-23-2010 at 10:43 PM. Reason: speelin' as usual |
07-24-2010, 09:20 AM | #135 | ||
Entmoot Attorney-General,
Equilibrating the Scales of Justice, Administrator ♎ Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Posts: 3,891
|
Quote:
(Nota bene, the ethics of abortion is a different matter which I don't feel like bringing up). Quote:
But maybe there's a point in that, since it's the crises we all want (and need) to rectify.
__________________
An unwritten post is a delightful universe of infinite possibilities. Set down one word, however, and it immediately becomes earthbound. Set down one sentence and it’s halfway to being just like every other bloody entry that’s ever been written. ☻ Last edited by Jonathan : 07-24-2010 at 09:21 AM. |
||
07-24-2010, 10:09 AM | #136 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: sikeston, MO, usa, earth, sol
Posts: 3,114
|
Wow. Speaking of Mao and culture and multiculturalism:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=128546334 Life as defined by science not convenience nor semantics, Jonathan. But, hey, science doesn't count when it interferes with our sexual expressions and their natural concommittants. I strongly suspect that the programmatic destruction of in utero whales or seals would be met with a different response. As long as it's only in utero humans is there a "semantic" discussion.
__________________
Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
07-24-2010, 03:50 PM | #137 | |
Best Ex-Administrator ever
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Ireland
Posts: 60,547
|
Quote:
It's funny that moralising about "vulnerable members" is immediately followed by a witless sneer about a humanitarian crisis in the Middle-East. If the "writer" is belittling the undisputed suffering of people of Gaza, which includes children who have been lucky enough to be born, then that raises the question: is he/her aware of this hypocrisy? Last edited by Comic Book Guy : 07-24-2010 at 05:23 PM. |
|
07-24-2010, 05:14 PM | #138 |
the Shrike
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: San Francisco, CA <3
Posts: 10,647
|
I think he's trying to emulate 'jesus tap dancing christ'.
__________________
"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
07-24-2010, 05:24 PM | #139 |
Best Ex-Administrator ever
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Ireland
Posts: 60,547
|
|
07-24-2010, 05:27 PM | #140 |
the Shrike
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: San Francisco, CA <3
Posts: 10,647
|
Sometimes the funneh is only in my head. /facepalm
I meant that he was tap dancing (avoiding the argument). Hence emulating the slang phrase jesus tap dancing christ.
__________________
"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |