In the autumn of 2004, shortly before the U.S. presidential election and in the middle of a typically bloody month in Iraq, the New York Times Magazine ran a feature article on the casualty of truth in the Bush administration. In a soon-to-be-infamous passage, the writer, Ron Suskind, recounted a conversation between himself and an unnamed senior adviser to the president:… return to article
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Reader Comments (64)Page 1 of 1 pagesLovely ideas, Stephen.
Stories, associations, branding, whooping it up! All good stuff.
I’m still having a bit of trouble getting past the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ prejudice, since the level of rudeness is pretty extreme, but see what you mean. We can keep our integrity and still reach across idealogical borders…
Posted by jimprues on Feb 9, 2007 at 9:35 PM It’s much simpler and less either-or than the author makes it out to be. Brillant plan or demented rulers can exist together, and have existed together throughout human history.
As for the rest of the essay, so-called progressives need to learn from Dick Cheney. The example I have taken to using is the vice presidential debate of 2004. Gwen Iffel asked a question about African American women and HIV/AIDS. Cheney looked directly at the moderator and said he never had thought about it; John Edwards ignored the moderator and the question, choosing instead to ramble on about some earlier ineffective comment he had made. Then, when the 2005 State of the Union rolled around, lo and behold, George Bush made a comment about African American men and HIV/AIDS. I like Dick Cheney, in so far as I know him; I have come to respect him as a political leader. However, I do not want Cheney’s policies to be anywhere near my government or in control of my life. I lost any respect I had for John Edwards as both an individual and as a political leader, and never trusted his foreign policy anyway.
What I have learned through hard experience over the past 15 years is that progressives do not listen. They are so caught up with their own ideals of change, even though they frequently find it hard to articulate those ideals and even harder to change their plans when people who would have to live by them point out little, or not so little, errors. As a person who now lives in an early presidential selection state, I am looking very, very hard at any candidate with ties to the Democratic Leadership Council. I think that the DLC is so concerned with upper middle income families that they have chosen to wipe out the lower and moderate income earners, which also hurts the upper lower-income class.
Posted by SillyLeftist on Feb 10, 2007 at 12:39 PM Lots of stuff here.
I love this idea of throwing street parties and Mr Duncombe nailed it: protests are boring.
People feel passive, lectured; and marching around stopping traffic doesn’t engender a feeling of involvement. Video games are popular because, unlike television, some interaction is going on. Organizing a good party is challenging. And I’d think it would be tough to get people to rock out while getting political. So maybe the trick is to keep it light and just use the fun to build up a sense of cool. Luckily, lots of party people tend to be progressive from the get-go, because the staid and stolid conformists already frown on their activities. (I can’t remember which Prodigy album had the painting of a bunch of police stopped at a chasm on the other side of which was a party in full swing after the rope bridge had been been severed, but it’s a relevant image.)
Anyway, reading these ideas brought some of Oscar Wilde’s to mind.
Duncombe: ‘Karl Marx once argued that only socialism could unlock the material promise of capitalism; today I believe that only progressive politics can free the fantasies trapped within advertising.’
Wilde: ‘There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair.’
Zizek echoed a similar sentiment about Soros, Gates, et al. in an ITT (and LRB) article, ‘The Liberal Communists of Porto Davos’.
I recommend all progressives read Wilde’s The Soul of Man if they have not. There’s a lot in there about individualism, joy, sympathy, etc.
As for branding, it’s been done. (www.disinfo.com).
I think a lot has to do with attitude. Fact: a lot of today’s progressives come across as milksops and do-gooders. Where are the laughs? the guts? The scorn? You need these to get others to want to better the world with you.
If progressives want to get something accomplished they’ll have to really start mucking around in mass consciousness. Personally, I think this entails abandoning simple activism (which is usually boring) for good art (which never is).
Posted by TheoPapathanasis on Feb 10, 2007 at 12:55 PM I have two problems with this statement: “The truth does not reveal itself by virtue of being the truth: it must be told, and we need to learn how to tell the truth more effectively.”
Those problems are… A. What and B. How to sell it
———————————& ——A. What: “The truth does not reveal itself by virtue of being the truth:”
———————————& ——Consider this: “We hold these Truths to be SELF EVIDENT…”
What is true is so — regardless of our perceptions, hopes and wishes. Eventually it will be revealed. It may not be as soon as we want and may not be what we thought, but truth will ultimately be what it is.
We are overloaded with people proclaiming their truths from every corner of the world at literally the speed of light and we are still left with the age old question, “What is truth?”
Perhaps all we need to do is measure it against those broad principles declared in The U.S. Constitution. How does this candidate or party’s ideas hold up against the preamble?
Our current problems have mostly come from those who are positive know they know the truth (their truth) and are on a mission to see that we get it (whether we want it or not). While their truths are advertised for all, the benefits go to those “more equal than others.”
———————————& ——B. How to sell it: “...it must be told, and we need to learn how to tell the truth more effectively.”
Proposing to follow this author’s line of reasoning and adopting these practices is not “New Politics” — it is as old as politics and what we should be trying to overcome. Adopting the techniques and schemes of the Republican, the Democrats or any other “successful winning team” is totally repugnant. The credibility of both parties is at a low as the “truth” of their actions and inactions has surfaced.
As one who worked in advertising for over forty years I find the author’s proclamations absurdly naive. The media is NOT the message — the ad is NOT the product.
“We need to burrow deep into it, (advertising) drilling past the sizzle into the steak. There we’ll find its DNA, the code that guides its various permutations, no matter what product is being sold.”
Nonsense!All that sizzles is not steak and when you end up with hamburger you’ll know it. Only the most gullible customer falls for the snake oil sales pitches. Only an idiot becomes a return customer.
We are need candidates with goals and ideas for a better America. Their ideas will stand or fall on their own merit. They need to promote the general welfare for ourselves and our posterity. (Does that sound familiar?) We need to be on guard against a well spun ad program.
When you see the ad, “One size fits all!” be on guard.
Posted by whattheheck on Feb 12, 2007 at 3:07 PM America needs a one term political system. Perhaps a lottery….. two years in any term and out you go. No more billions on election campaigns. No more political parties.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 13, 2007 at 2:00 AM WTH:
Fair enough. But when it’s about tactics and messaging, the American situation is truly bizarre. Naturally one should not play the same game as all these slicksters out huckstering their latest, greatest, get-em-while-they’re-hot political nostrums. Most Americas are thoroughly ensconced in a culture of advertising and often respond favorably to what’s been pitched as a product, e.g., the war. Advertising’s a crucial part of contemporary capitalism and America is utterly capitalist, so . . . it might make some sense to use some of those tactics so a message get heard in the first place: use the enemy. To be effective, I’d think any such media campaign—be it teevee or whatever else—shouldn’t focus on ‘telling the truth more effectively.’ It should mock other such campaigns for presuming they are, in fact, telling truths.
Posted by TheoPapathanasis on Feb 13, 2007 at 5:10 PM WTH,
If truth were so simply clear and self-evident, then we’d all be autonomously self-governing individuals interacting on consensual mutual understanding and there would be no need for any kind of government. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Why does McDonalds sell so many cardboard flavored sandwiches? Why are so many Americans suffering from morbid obesity? What’s the sizzle in that?
And so on.
TI,
Maybe we could just have a dictator. One that agrees with what you believe, of course. That would solve all those messy problems with democratic governance, wouldn’t it?
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 13, 2007 at 5:20 PM LB,
If people keep going back for more McDonalds, I assume they like it and are ignoring dietary warnings - same for cigarettes.
If we continue to vote for the “sizzle” and snake oil as usually presented in our election ads and pseudo debates, we can expect to get more of the same there too.
This far ahead of the next election and we keep hearing stupid stuff —
How can he/she appeal to the _____________ (fill in the special interest
group? Not what are his true opinions.They talk of how the candidates look. How big is the campaign fund? What possible negatives they be able to uncover.
All gliitz, glitter and how much money they have to spend on ads against the others. Do we really think someone else doing the same song and dance willl be any better?
If we get someone willing to speak staight out on his beliefs we assume he’ll lose because each voter will find at least one thing he disagrees with.
If we don’t want the mustard we’ll throw out the whole burger.
Posted by whattheheck on Feb 13, 2007 at 6:46 PM Silly lefty, you LIKE Cheney ? PHeWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. WTH, if I get the wrong condiment on my burger I do trash it. TexASS, you just got your notice for another duty tour in Occupied Iraq.
But look at the bright side, this time no one will spit on you at the airport because you’ll be returning in a regulation Army box. Thank you (NOT) for “protecting” our freedoms which McCarthyite scum like you are destroying daily. WTH, we need to repeal the General Welfare clause now. Have a nice evening, folks and don’t let all that hard thinking rupture your brains.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 14, 2007 at 2:13 AM Luminous
I am against any form of totalitarian government. If our views don’t agree politically at least we have the option of expressing them openly and with out fear of retribution. That expression is subject to certain laws and restrictions but thats the price we pay for living in a democratic society. I would prefer the bare minimum of Federal governance myself, as the founding fathers intended. But thats just my opinion.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 14, 2007 at 6:01 AM “I am against any form of totalitarian government.”
Glad to hear it. One might hope to think you could be persuaded to agree that authoritarian structures of governance are equally as repugnant.
“If our views don’t agree politically at least we have the option of expressing them openly and with out fear of retribution.”
We always have the option of expressing our political views openly and fearlessly. As for retribution, it depends on the views and the venue.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 14, 2007 at 8:45 AM Well, TexASS, aren’t you the bag of cliches today ? Next you’ll be quoting old statist-collectivist Oliver Wendell Shit In His Pants Holmes about how we can’t cry fire in a crowded theater. Not true. See the radical libertarian anarcho-capitalist rebuttal in For A New Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard. Funny, Tex, I’ve never read one thing by you that wasn’t a retread cliche of the government brainwash system. Bush is the biggest Big Gov Prez of all time not that a frigging neoconned moron like you recognize that fact.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 14, 2007 at 5:41 PM Luminous
Government is a neccessary evil. The smallest government is the best one. If individual states would reclaim the power authorized to them by the Constitution we could eliminate many of the problems associated with the Federal government. I realize this is abhorrent to progressives but it remains the only viable solution.“We always have the option of expressing our political views openly and fearlessly. As for retribution, it depends on the views and the venue.”
This is true but we do not have a secret police ready to imprison you for your views or opinions. As a whole our society remains independent, open, and tolerates the opinions of a diverse citizenry rather well.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 14, 2007 at 9:11 PM TI,
“That government which governs best, governs least.”
—-T. Jefferson
It’s not the size of the government, it is in the manner and method of governance which accounts for the best. The least coercive.
Supposedly, in a democracy we are the government. Would that were so.
I don’t really understand where you get the idea that progressives are so pro-government. The standing government, to this progressive’s point of view, is not in the least the servant of the people. The once progressive governments of FDR through Kennedy and Johnson, including Eisenhower, have long been turning into the dust of history. This has been a Republican and Conservative dominated government since 1968. They have successfully obstructed progressive development when they haven’t had the majorities necessary to dismantle progressive accomplishments. The Republican Party has mostly demonstrated by having the majority rule their venality, incompetence, and corruption. It is the government of an oligopolist, neo-mercantilist, pseudo-capitalist, corporate fed, plutocratic, economically and politically elite, ruling class. An essentially non-partisan ruling class. They control the leadership of both parties.
It is a huge military and security state heavy monster that is basically (and willingly enough for too many of us) sucking the life-blood out of the ordinary American citizen (so much worse yet for those millions of non-citizen fur’ners suffering under the weight of the US hegemon). That we don’t have a secret police ready to imprison people for their views and opinions is not something I am easily assured of merely by your assertion. Sorry about that. It is progressives who have always fought and bled in the battles for freedom of expression, and we continue to do so. Do you understand?
Government may be a necessary evil, but not necessarily as evil as this government.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 15, 2007 at 12:22 AM Luminous
Actually the government exists by the consent of the governed. Which in this case is us.Its the size of a government that decides its behavior. With all the “progressive accomplishments” the size has increased to the point that the Federal government is the single largest employer in the United States. If the governed were to work together for once, we could reduce the Federal government through the repeal of the 16th amendment, and
demanding the individual states to reclaim the rights of the people.The Federal government’s only job is to provide a common defense and insure a republican form of government. Thats all they should have the money to do. Every other department that doesn’t fill those two roles should be dismantled.
This is not a “nation” it is a union of fifty very different states. The problem is progressives loathe the idea of independence and self reliance. Collectivism is the progressive party plank.
You simply don’t like the present administration while the idea of a massive Federal government controlling every facet of daily life would be acceptable as long as they are “progressive”. I offer the only solution that would please both sides. More importantly this would eliminate the ability of progressives to attempt to force their views on the rest of us.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 15, 2007 at 6:25 PM TexASS, again, nothing out of your third rate mediocre mind but the same old, same old cliches. I will refer people to Murray Rothbard’s For A New Liberty and The Ethics of Liberty as well as Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged for a full rebuttal of your neocon big gov loving statist nonsense, these works nicely dispose of your ilk as well as LB’s social democratic viewpoint.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 15, 2007 at 6:36 PM TI,
I appreciate your attempts to understand the progressive mind. However the trope of ‘collectivism’ and the unfounded notion that progressives ‘loathe independence and self reliance’ is clouding your thinking. This is the typical broad brush strawman characterization that conservatives employ. It is a falsehood. When reasoning from falsehoods, one is constrained from arriving at any truthful conclusions.
What is most ironic is conservatives touting independent thinking and personal responsibility, while constantly repeating the ditto-head talking points of populist propagandists and refusing to accept responsibility for their own mistakes and incompetence.
What most progressives criticize about the conservative notion of self-reliance is the ‘by your bootstraps’ absurdity with which it is presented. A self-reliant person is so only because of the cultural and social support that allows that person to attain self-reliance. That is why progressives support policies like minimum wage, social security, universal education and health care. The idea being that even those who do not have the advantages of those born to wealth can live independent, productive lives. It’s this egalitarian concept that all people are deserving of the opportunity to improve their lives which conservatives just cannot wrap their petty self-interested little minds around. It is only within the framework of social responsibility that personal responsibility has any meaning.
It is ironic that conservatives such as yourself are the most ideologically homogenous and simple-minded political grouping in the US today, yet constantly accuse their opponents of monolithic unquestioning collectivism.
For the record, Mikey, I’m an anarchist. Not a social democrat. I defend social democratic policy, not on ideological grounds, but pragmatically.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 15, 2007 at 7:51 PM Luminous
Conservative thought does not interest me. I do not watch television. I do not listen to Rush Limbaugh. I am an independent. I have no interest in totalitarianism whatever flavor Left or Right. My reading is done for pleasure not politics.
I am trying to understand the progressive mindset. However social responsibility is a sociological farce. I as an individual owe society nothing. I can choose to accept the mores of my society and “fit in” or I can choose not to acccept those mores and be considered as deviant from the norm. Simply being born into a society does not obligate me in any way to accept the collectivist notion of responsibility for others bad choices. People are sucessful due to their own initiative and intelligence. Race,sex, religion, politics, or heredity have nothing to do with sucess or failure. As a minority entrepreneur in America I am the example that proves progresssives wrong on every platform.Self reliance is an ingrained human trait. Humans as a species have had to innovate and adapt in order to survive. To lose that trait requires progressive education and to become soft and spoiled to the point that one relies on a government entity to regulate his or her life. Statism is the term I would use to describe “progressive” thought. The states role in personal life under your tyranny would be oppressive. Controlling healthcare would not only cost the taxpayers trillions of dollars. But would create a massive bureaucracy larger than the Social Security Administration. Thousands of highly paid government drones would be the arbiter of my healthcare descisions. Once again progressives have decided that I am too ignorant to take care of myself.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 16, 2007 at 7:39 AM TI,
I am pleased that you are seeking to find your own independent understanding of the human social, cultural and political project. You are unfortunately mis-informed in your assessment of human nature. We are social animals. The very words we use are not created by ourselves as autonomous individuals but are a cultural heritage. We rely on other’s efforts for the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the homes that shelter us. Whatever individual creative gifts we may have are only of value insofar as we return them to the society and culture within which we are imbedded. Success is not really measured by the pile of stuff one possesses, but by the good regard and feelings of reciprocal trust of one’s fellow human beings. Primarily within one’s family, then in the circle of ones acquaintance, and radiating outward to the greater society of our neighborhood, our town or city, our province and nation, the human world in its entirety, the planet we live on, and the cosmos at large. When one wraps one’s self up in one’s self one makes a very small package. As an entrepeneur, are you so foolish to believe you can persist without satisfied customers?
You also are incorrect in your assessment of socialized medicine. There are many models extant in the developed world that are more efficient, more effective and more patient friendly than the profit driven, corporate owned insurance model that we have in the US. It is getting so bad that even the capitalists are finally beginning to question it. In terms of patient care, delivery and outcome even an economically squeezed little country like Cuba has in many ways a better health care system than the US. Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, France, Germany and Canada all have socialised medical systems and none are as patient un-friendly as the US. You make uninformed broad and sweeping generalizations about what you fear from socialized medicine, but in the real world none of those fears are realized.
It is a good thing if you can take care of your own. It is not so good if you must step on the necks of others to do so.
Reducing progressive thought to ‘statism’ is to limit your own imagination. It doesn’t affect or reflect the imaginations of those who think progressively. If you were truly an independent thinker you wouldn’t be parroting the simpleton propaganda of those to whom you claim you do not listen.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 16, 2007 at 3:16 PM TexASS, you are too stupid to find your pecker in a game of pocket pool but I will support your wish to opt out of the socialist system. Believe me, I do not want my tax dollars going to support illegal, racist beanies. I think you can make the border in a couple of hours. PAN needs some retro retard agit-proppers. Hasta la vista as President Schwarznegger likes to say.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 16, 2007 at 5:52 PM Luminous
Individualism, self reliance, and independence are not tied to any culture or society. These are crucial components to sucess and survival. Lacking that component, weak minded people seek protection with other weak minded people. I do not rely on others to provide me with anything. As we live in a free market system I can purchase whatever goods or services I require. I make my own decisions and take my own risks. If those risks are rewarded with profit why should I share with those who took no risk?
Parroting is such a harsh word. One could draw the same conclusion between you and any radical Left of Stalin. If my opinions are shared by others so be it. Independent is a misunderstood word on ITT. Independent simply means I have no political ties to any party. As such if progressives had a singular idea that I agreed with I would be happy to support it. I have perused many posts on this forum and none are worthy of any consideration or support. Progressives seem enamored with failed economic and political ideas. Why draw old ideas from the dustbin of history and attempt to rehash them at great cost to taxpayers?
Political differences aside, the goal is to improve the system we have now.
If we consider health care as an economic entity it comprises almost 20 percent of the GDP of the United States. In 2004 according to the NCHC spending on health care in the US was 1.9 trillion dollars. In 2009 the estimate is 2.9 trillion. So to pay for this boondoggle progressives will have to double taxes. The countries you mentioned with socialized medicine also have some of the highest tax rates in the world. The Swedes base rate is 30 percent and it goes up to around 90 percent for upper middle class taxpayers. With local taxes even lower class workers pay around 60 percent to the government. So why should I double or triple my tax bill Luminous? How is sticking it to the people who actually support their families fair or democratic? Paying for the failures of others to succeed is not acceptable.As noted before the progressive approach to government is to tell the voters how happy they will be when everyone is poor. That may work in third world countries with real poverty but not here. Americans are by nature independent and collectivism will never be accepted. If you want socialism in your state fine. Not in my state. Not with my taxes.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 17, 2007 at 8:12 PM TexASS, just whipped your butt on the Anne Frank “diary” hoax over on the Spoils of War website. Take a look.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 17, 2007 at 9:56 PM TI,
Thank you for the short lesson in rugged individualism and social darwinism. I’d never heard that before. How original. Not.
“Individualism, self reliance, and independence are not tied to any culture or society. These are crucial components to sucess and survival.”
That may be true as far as it goes. What is also crucial to human success and survival is human sympathy. Without empathetic human relations, the individual becomes alienated and estranged from society and less capable of any successful activity.
If you want to estrange yourself completely from the rest of the world you can. If you have the money. Just like Howard Hughes.
The terminal poster boy of your ideology.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 17, 2007 at 11:30 PM luminous beauty, as usual I fully agree with your comments, so I leave it to you to argue with texas ind. whose mission (I suspect he is paid for it) is to belittle everyone who tries to express an opinion by calling him/her a “progressive”, “leftist”, “marxist"as if such words were a way in itself not to even try to listen to what others have to say. I only suggest you not to waste your time mentioning empathy, humanism, free thinking or such because they are not computable in his thinking machine.
Posted by Maria on Feb 18, 2007 at 4:20 AM Social Darwinism is a Left wing philosophy Luminous…..........
Free thinking is the ability to decide one’s own opinion without the input of others. Free thinking is not reading political nonsense and commiserating with other lunatics.
Estrange myself from the world…..Why because I reject progressive philosophy as meaningless dribble? It is rewarmed socialism. If progressives had any good ideas I would gladly support them. Do you know any progressive ideas that don’t raise taxes, cut defense, or limit my constitutional liberties? If so I have not heard them….. I believe in charity. I donated more to good causes last year than you probably made. Is it a tax dodge? No it has that added bonus but mainly it’s my way of investing in someone else’s chance to succeed. I choose what programs I want to donate to. Thats freedom of choice.
I just don’t buy the whole progressive nonsensical theories of human relations. Its white guilt. Life is hard. No government can change that. No grandiose Left wing scheme has ever altered that fact in the least. It takes determination, self reliance, and independence to succeed. The free market system offers the ONLY chance for minorities to achieve success. Hispanic entrepreneurship has tripled and now minority business ownership is at almost 50 percent of the total. African Americans are second in startup businesses. And minority women own some 6 million businesses. Thats real progress and liberal nonsense has nothing to do with their success. Its their own hard work and risks.Maria if I can get money for pointing out the ridiculous nature of Left wing thought, where do I sign up…
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 18, 2007 at 9:16 PM Social Darwinism is fascist rightwing ideology to the core. Embraced by rightwingers from Herbert Spencer to Adolf Hitler. It differs from regular Darwinism by ignoring the element of cooperation in animal society, both of the human animals and so-called lower animals. 90% of all startup businesses fail within a few years, higher for minority but stll high even for whites. By the way, just whipped your slimey ass on the Anne Frank-Auschwitz frauds over the Spoils of War thread again. You are the lamest nondebater I’ve ever met possibly excepting Scorpy Doobie AKA Master Bates and you may be lamer than him. Hispanic businesses have the highest failure rate and some welfare state punk like you who has had his lazy ugly brown butt on the government army payroll his whole socialist life is the last one to give lectures on individual initiative !!!!!!!! TexASS, you personally smell like a million unwiped behinds and you get paid NOTHING for your crazed attacks on the left because your commentary is worthless. Zero. Zilch. Your people have the highest crime and poverty rates in the country except for ONE other group. But even your folks are wising up and returning to the Democratic Party en masse. By the way, everyone’s thinking is influenced by others, in your pathetic case you are a total clone of Rush Limbaugh as you admit.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 18, 2007 at 9:47 PM TI,
So human sympathy is necessary for individual success or not?
Have you ever heard of mutual aid?
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 18, 2007 at 10:08 PM LB, Tex has been on the socialist Pentagon payroll most of his adult life, I figured that out from some of the time elements in his posts. Personally Tex wouldn’t help a soul but he thinks nothing of ripping off all of us via his Uncle Sammie. Funny thing about the conservaturds, they love the most collectivist-statist-socialist-communist-fascist part of the state, the miltary. Ayn Rand said our freedom killing conservaturds were the absolute scum of the earth as Scorpy Doobie AKA Master Bates and TexASS Independent Wannabe White Boy Racist Anti-Arab Tacocon prove. Leave him to selling Amway. Personally I don’t care to read lectures on individual initiative from residents of the most anti-individualist part of the government.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 19, 2007 at 5:25 PM LB
Sympathy is an emotion. Emotion’s while neccessary for good mental health are not neccessary for success. Individual success is determined by intelligence, determination, self -reliance, and independence.Mutual aid is a term used by anarchists and libertarians. I have heard of the concept but no I don’t buy it for a second. Its collectivism. Cooperation is a mutually beneficial idea but with limitations. Collectivism is forced cooperation without any individual benefits.
Simply because I don’t fall in lockstep with you people I am considered “conservative” I find that strange. On most issues I am liberal. I don’t believe the government has the right to either support or oppose abortion. I am for the seperation of church and state. I am for any proposal that improves our educational system. I am against mandantory minimums for prison sentences. I think the prison system has taken on a life of its own and needs to be reformed. Private prisons trouble me. Drug users need help in sobriety not help in becoming better criminals. I am for fiscal responsibility both in Federal and State government. The list can go on and on. But on defending myself and keeping as much of my money as I can…..Call me Republican.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 19, 2007 at 5:58 PM So mental health is not important for individual success.
I don’t dispute that it might be true. I do wonder what kind of success that might be. I suppose Ted Bundy was a very successful serial killer.
You may not ‘buy’ the idea of mutual aid, but neither do you understand it in the least. Equating it with collectivism is just wrong.
The main determinants for success in a capitalist system (accumulation of wealth) are blind ambition and unreflective self-interest. Intelligence above a certain level becomes a handicap. Indifference to the suffering of others is also helpful.
Thanks for pointing out that capitalism is a mental disease.
My own definition for success is not necessarily to have a lot of friends in my life, but a lot of life in my friends. To live simply that others may simply live. Money is not really that important.
You are welcome to make money the sun around which your world orbits if you like. It doesn’t matter to me, any more than your arguments crafted out of straw and erroneous opinion make any difference in my personal efforts to understand the real world in which I live.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 19, 2007 at 6:29 PM Tex, you are a typical statist conservaturd who has been on the Federal dole most of his life including that utterly undeserved govt pension that the rest of us are paying. You are a self-proclaimed racist and killer and that’s all anyone needs to know about you. The GOP has been taken over by hardcore Religious Rightists who do not share your alleged views on abortion and church-state separation. Mutual aid is not collectivism which is why it is advocated by anarchists and libertarians who unlike yourself have not spent their adult lives in a totally collectivist institution like the Army. LB wants to play nice-nice with you but I know your nasty little thug and I deal with you accordingly. Your a mile wide and 1/16th of an inch deep. Views like yours are as common as dogshit on the Texass streets and about as appetitizing.
Oh just kicked your beaner butt again over on the Spoils of War thread.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 19, 2007 at 6:50 PM Luminous
Your cheap dismissal of entrepreneurs intelligence demonstrates the collectivist mindset. Locked into a failed Marxist dogma, the truth cannot be the truth. If minorities can start their own business and succeed in the free market system who will be the peasants for your New Socialist Revolution? So it is easier to disparage the “capitalist”. Somehow if you believe it strong enough it will become fact.
We have to redefine capitalist. In the past it was some old white guy who owned a factory. As stated before the largest group of new business owners are minorities. So the blanket “capitalist” attacks are no longer valid. While progressives were busy complaining about Iraq, the war on terror, and other inmaterial bullshit, minorities have seized the boundless opportunities offered by this country and the free market system. As the millions of minority business owners grow we will gladly help each other to succeed. We don’t need or want “help” from people who only want to destroy the product of our hard work. Money is not primary objective for owners. However if minorities let progressives tax us to “help” us we won’t be owners for long.
Mutual aid is a barter system dreamed up by hippies. Its bullshit we have progressed past the barter system. And no you don’t get to reallocate my property.
White people just don’t get it.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 20, 2007 at 5:33 PM TI,
It does not take superior intelligence to be a successful businessman. The ability to balance one’s checkbook will suffice. It isn’t like quantum dynamics or anything. The most important factor is luck and persistence and as the old trope goes, location, location and location.
In spite of what you might believe, I think small entrepreneurial capitalism is a good thing. For minorities or anyone else. My problem is with mercantilism on a large scale. Think corporatism. It is how capitalism has come to be defined. It is just as onerous as any authoritarian state and when global oligopolies are the strongest actors in determining regional governmental policy it does not bode well for either wage earners or small businessmen. Not to mention the natural environment.
I don’t know whether you make the distinction between personal property and capital property, but I will assume you do. I don’t wish to reallocate your property except when you assume property rights over the labor of your employees. Then I would advocate cooperative equity and increasing workplace democracy administered over time as it is empirically indicated by competence and necessity. You should be rewarded for your initiative, but that doesn’t give you eternal rights to be the king of your own little frog pond. That is the character of mutual aid. Mutual aid is not an economic theory, but a theory of the inter-dependent ecologies of natural science. Economics is a small and intrinsically arbitrary element of natural philosophy. To reduce mutual aid to such narrow constraints is to miss the forest for the trees. To give money based economics with all its externalized costs a controlling role over the natural world is a recipe for catastrophe. A catastrophe that is even now looming over the planet.
Peasant revolution? Your understanding of socialism is so mired in 19th century assumptions and anti-communist propaganda, it is really impossible to have a cogent disscussion of socialism with you. You are mistaking everything as a nail, because the only tool you possess is a hammer. Such small-minded ignorance does not become you.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 20, 2007 at 8:15 PM The largest group of FAILED business owners are minority. TexASS, you have been on the socialist Pentagon Dole your entire adult life. We are paying your undeserved socialist pension now. Any property you have is stolen from the taxpayers, and YES, we do get to take it back. And yes it does
become him, LB, he’s a nasty racist warmongering bigot killer.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 21, 2007 at 1:14 AM I have an accountant to “balance the checkbook”. Without intelligence one might become a bitter Left wing radical or anarchist but not a sucessful business owner. To see potential for profit and take the risk associated to earn that profit requires common sense, intelligence, self reliance, and discipline. ( Progressive curse words)
A cogent discussion of Socialism is simple. Socialism is a failed
economic theory. The state is not capable of regulating the production of goods or services. State planning inevitably leads to shortages and lacks the ability to meet unanticipated needs. Socialism is an oligarchy and as such even in benign forms such as Canada and Sweden requires high taxes and subservience to the state. As I despise totalitarianism in any flavor why would I be interested in this failed theory?Mutual aid is an economic term as defined by Proudhon and Kroptkin. I am not sure what left wing goof has lassoed the term into natural sciences. But the origin of the term was an attempt to get around the Marxist problems with evolution. Natural selection doesn’t quite fit into the dogma.
I believe in cooperation as neccessary for mutual benefit. As a businessman I have mutually beneficial realtionships with customers, suppliers, and even with competition. However the concept as proposed by your side is not mutually beneficial. It requires not only the destruction of the free market system but also a redistribution of private property. Capital is private property. There can be no distincition between the two. Capital is simply the inputs of production, information, technology, raw materials, physical facilities, and tools. Each has a cost associated with them and are not “free”. Once paid for they become the property of the person who bought them. Hence the word “owner”.
Labor is provided at a fee by the employee. Labor is no different from any other input as it has a cost associated with its use and can be terminated when no longer needed. I do not “own” employees as we live in a free market system labor is voluntary and if the payment for labor is not suitable the employee can at will seek other buyers for his product (work). As I own the “frogpond”, lilly pads, water, dirt, and rocks I alone determine their use and can sell them at will. As I alone took the risk the benefits ( profits) are mine alone to use as I see fit. So yes it is my “frogpond” and I am the king. Workplace democracy is simple if you don’t like my frogpond go work in the frogpond across the street.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 21, 2007 at 8:08 PM No, we eliminate kings and frogponds as Chomsky said. We take the Enlightenment principles seriously and have democracy in the workplace, not simply a choice of which tyrant to work under. People like you who merely read Ayn Rand novels or take a few loaded rightist courses do not make successful entrepreneurs, which is why 90% of you fail within three years at most. The State is not desirable because it substitutes central planning for the actual worker/consumer ownership of all business. Instead we are left with the dichotomy of private vs. public dictators. Your workers may make X amount of money for you hourly but you pay them c amount, pocketing the difference. There may be a rationale for this but you have never remotely provided it, all you have is the typical rightist nonargument of loudly asserted unprovable assertions. The US is socialist in everything from the military to roads to education to social security to medicare to the civil rights law which guarantees your black ass a seat in a restaurant, etc. Countries like Norway, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany have higher standards of living and lower child mortality rates, even Cuba has better medical care than the USA. As Chomsky notes 40% of the “free trade” is intercompany transfers, then there is the monopoly patents that capitalists use to steal farmers seeds throughout the Third World. Your view of the government granted franchise known as a corporation is out of touch with reality. As Chomsky notes these are totalitarian, collectivist entities
that are precisely formed to escape individual responsibility for bankruptcy and to SOCIALIZE that burden among the rest of us. Look up the great left libertarian anarcho-communist Murray Bookchin and try to learn something for a change wannabe, you white boy piece of color racist fascist shitass.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 21, 2007 at 8:45 PM Oh, Texas Ind., your world sounds so perfect, with all the frogs working for you in your pond, and you being the only TOAD. Oh, no, sorry, my mistake, you being the King. And being so generous as to devote some of your precious time trying to illuminate us. Thank you, master.
Posted by Maria on Feb 22, 2007 at 1:30 AM “Mutual aid is an economic term as defined by Proudhon and Kroptkin. I am not sure what left wing goof has lassoed the term into natural sciences.”
What you know about mutual aid is obviously what you have cribbed from Wikipedia. The left wing goof was Peter Kropotkin. He was a natural scientist by profession. One of the finest of his era. Not at all an effort to get around Darwin, but an affirmation of Darwin. He effectively refuted the ‘nature, bloody in tooth and claw’ social darwinian tendency of the day and helped to create the bases of the science of Ecology, the study of living systems. Much like Chomsky’s formalization of the rules of language helped to establish the science of Cognitive Psychology and free the discipline from the totalitarian grip of Behavioralism.
The economics of the natural world is strictly governed by the physical laws of conservation. The medium of exchange is energy, measured in calories, ergs, btus, watts, joules, horsepower, etc., all of whose exchange rates are fixed and invariable. Using money with all its volitility and arbitrariness as a medium of exchange value necessarily creates disjunctive and fallacious distortions and misapprehensions in how we percieve the world and how we act in it. Many real costs in the human energy budget are externalized in the capitalist monetarist economic system. Those costs virtually disappear from all your spreadsheets, but they represent a very real debt in the natural world. That debt is soon coming due.
When it does it will force mankind to choose drastically between willing and consensual cooperation to survive, or else spiral into ever greater destructive cycles of selfish competition and risk going the way of the dinosaurs.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 22, 2007 at 6:29 AM “I believe in cooperation as neccessary for mutual benefit. As a businessman I have mutually beneficial realtionships with customers, suppliers, and even with competition.
As far as it goes, this is mutual aid. If you included your employees as part of the equation, then you’d be more completely in harmony with the natural order of things. How would that destroy markets? If equity was shared on the basis of workers earning it, how would that kind of voluntary and democratic distribution of property be anything but justified?
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 22, 2007 at 6:41 AM LB, all valid points but you are wasting your time with this racist shitass wannabe white boy. I appreciate you correcting the record for the benefit of everyone else but you will make no impact with TexASS in any way. Just so you understand that.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 22, 2007 at 6:36 PM Nature is violent, brutal, and efficient. The strong survive and the weak are dinner. If I ate my employees when they were sick I would be in harmony with the natural order of things.
Somehow I knew you would bring Chimpsky into the mix. Its very simple. I buy the raw materials, the tools, the technology, the facilities and the labor. The finished product is paid for by me. No one helps me to buy the inputs so how can anyone have a valid claim to the finished product?
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 23, 2007 at 6:03 PM “Nature is violent, brutal, and efficient. The strong survive and the weak are dinner.”
This is Thomas Hobbes, not Charles Darwin. It is the tautology of social darwinism and conservative political ideology and has little to do with actual evolution or natural science in general. We are all food in the end. The food chain is cyclical not hierarchical. The more correct formulation of ‘survival of the fittest’ would be more like ‘survival of the reasonably fit’. However, the real distinction is in the selection of adaptive over non-adaptive traits distributed in regional populations stochastically over fairly long periods of time. Life goes on, in nature and society alike.
If your over-simplified, distorted, and erroneous view of evolution held, we would see the natural world reduced over time to fewer and fewer, more and more violent and aggressive species. Instead what we find is greater and greater diversity. Species don’t die out as a result of uncompetitiveness, so much as evolve into divergent species because of varied and novel adaptations. While extinctions of particular species lines does sometimes happen, it is almost always due to geographical isolation and/or changing climactic conditions, and rarely and only secondarily due to intra- or inter-species competition over scarce resources. In the long run inter-species relationships are typically symbiotic, not ruthlessly competitive. All species have a cooperative dynamic in their intra-species relations. Even wolverines have to get together occasionally in order to mate. The most common reason for the appearance of new species is due to niche dynamics and the development of abilities to exploit new food sources created by the emergence of other species’ adaptations. It is a synergistic system, maintained by dynamic equilibrium, not a game of winners and losers.
This differs significantly from capitalist economics, besides the difference in physical reality based vs. human created arbitrarily based exchange of value as I described above.
Capitalism has an unsustainable hierarchy in its ‘food chain’. At the top is the investment class. The banks that supply the credit for the entrepeneur to create and/or expand his enterprise. The banks control the structure of the businesses that they will finance, insisting on a business plan that promotes profitability over any other factor, compliance with a legal regulatory scheme designed to ensure their position, and bonding of collateral, minimizing their inherent risk. The entrepreneur, in order to comply with the demands of credit, seeks to minimize the cost of labor in order to minimize his own risk. The burden of risk thus falls on the workers who are forced to organize their lives around, and invest their time, skill, knowledge, intelligence and effort in, an enterprise over which they have no power to make those decisions that impact their existence, and vulnerable to firings, lay-offs, and reductions in benefits, early retirement and out-sourcing irregardless of whether the enterprise is profitable or not. In the event of bankrupcy, the entrepreneur’s accumulated wealth from prior profit is protected by bankrupcy laws, and the workers, living on a subsistence wage, are left to fend for themselves. Now that is totalitarianism.
You don’t eat your employees so much as slowly suck their life’s blood, abandoning their withered husks after extracting what is useful for your personal greed.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 23, 2007 at 11:41 PM L.Beauty, thank you for sharing your thoughts and knowledge with us. I have no formal studies, as I started working at 16 to support my mother and grandparents and then raising six children on my own. Even so, I have been a steady reader but only now, in old age, I can devote time to dig deeper into matters in an attempt to leave my grandchildren some kind of message as to things that may be helpful to their generation. Only two years ago I discovered Chomsky whom I had only known as a linguist through some articles published in Argentine newspapers. The funny thing is I have arrived at the same conclusions which you so brightly expose more through observation and intuition than through actual knowledge which makes me feel my instincts were not so bad.
Posted by Maria on Feb 25, 2007 at 5:16 AM Thank you, Maria,
You’re too kind. I wish I could express myself in Spanish half as well as you do in English.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 25, 2007 at 5:31 PM So the zebra with the broken leg is cooperating with the lions when they eat him.
Despite the attempt to quantify natural selection as somehow cooperative, the process is a balance of winners and losers. A species either adapts or dies. When weakened by disease or injury the zebra becomes lunch for a carnivore. Natural selection rewards strength and adaptability by reproduction. And the punishment for failure and dependency is death. Thus every species that inhabits this planet are the product of genetic “winners”. Even you.
My problem is not in cooperation. I understand and accept the value of working together. I belong to an agricultural coop. However working together in a coop and regressing to a primitive Marxist trade system are not the same. “Human created arbitrarily based exchange of value” ....Translated into I will trade my hemp necklace for a happy meal. I have no interest in whatever you have to trade. Money is the medium of exchange that enables our modern society to function. Money is the medium that enables me to pay my suppliers and pay my employees. How can I pay for electricity with a hemp necklace?
Arguing capitalism with hippies is similar to wrestling a pig. You get dirty and the pig enjoys it.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 26, 2007 at 6:28 PM TI,
Predator/prey is not the only kind of interspecies relation in the natural world. An example of a true symbiont pair would be you and the e. coli that inhabits your gut and allows you to digest your food. An obvious win/win relationship. Nonetheless, the lion and the zebra are inter-dependent. The health of the zebra population is husbanded and stabilized by the predations of lions. This feeds the lions. Again, win/win. Adaptation is not determined by the individual interactions between particular members of species but by the collective relationships of whole populations within their respective biomes over generations. They are all symbiotic in the long run irregardless the unfortunate circumstance it may cause some particular individual zebra.
What is strong? Humans adopt strategies of tenderness, sympathy and cooperation because humans are social animals. They require strong intra-species relationships to thrive. My phys. anthro. teacher once told me, if you think humans are by nature a violent species, just closely examine the human hand and compare it to the hands of a predator.
I propose a more realistic appraisal for the determination of value based on biotic energy budgeting and you regress into meaningless ad hominem jibber-jabber about hippies, hemp necklaces and happy meals. Your simplistic defining of everything leftist as ‘primitive marxist barter’ rather leaves you at a disadvantage when presented with an idea outside of those rather arbitrary and misrepresentative bounds, doesn’t it? I guess this argument is decided by your lack of comprehension.
You lose. The dirt you find yourself in is from your own pig-like wallowing in your filthy capitalist ideology. I’m still as spotless as I was when this conversation began.
Sorry.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 26, 2007 at 8:11 PM Its not the hand that is violent LB it is the brain that is violent. At our core we are all killers. To pretend otherwise is to deny human nature. And that is a very dangerous assumption.
Realistic? What have you proposed….To somehow take money I have earned and give it to others. That sounds like the definition of theft or taxes but whats the difference between the two.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 27, 2007 at 8:26 PM YOUR WHOLE LIFE AS A SUBSIDIZED PARASITE OF THE US ARMY IS A PRIME DEFINTION OF THEFT. PLEASE DO NOT CLASSIFY THE REST OF US IN THE SAME CATEGORY WITH YOUR EXTREMELY VIOLENT PEOPLE. JUST BECAUSE YOUR UGLY MAMA PUTA CAN DO TWO GRINGOES SIMULTANEOUSLY DOESN’T GIVE YOU ANY SPECIAL BRAGGING RIGHTS.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 28, 2007 at 2:05 AM People have to learn how to kill. It doesn’t come easy. Didn’t you go through basic? At our core we are infinitely compassionate. When we are in touch with the core of existence, we lose our egos and become nothing but our relationship with the whole of being. If you ever experience it, you will know. Until then, your mind is at the mercy of whatever ego reinforcing opinion that any manipulative bull-shitter may whisper in your ear.
Where have I proposed taking your money? All I’m asking is you share equity in your business with your employees as part of their compensation. As recognition of your mutual inter-dependence. You don’t have to. You are free to be a greedy ass.
Taxes are what you owe society for creating the conditions for you to be successful. It’s voluntary. You don’t want to pay, you can go to jail and get three hots and a cot.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 28, 2007 at 2:41 AM You really haven’t proposed any idea. You threw some marxist dogma out and kept repeating mutual aid.
In your system what would be the motivation for starting a business? Why would any person waste the time and money without any return on their investment?
Who would over see this system?
Why would an employer hire full time employees instead of temporary workers? The result would seem to be a catastrophic loss of decent employment.
How can the value of labor exceed the demands of the market? Just like any other commodity work is bought and sold. Just like other commodity labor is worth exactly what I am willing to pay for it. If the employer doesn’t want to pay the supposed value of labor it seems logical they would seek cheaper labor elsewhere.
If labor is the equivilant of ownership does the kid at Burger King have a claim to my Whopper?
How is “sharing” equity and a paycheck fair? Doesn’t one cancel the other out? It seems like extortion to me.
Interdependent in what way? Am I not free to seek new employees? Are the employees not free to seek new employment? I don’t see anything other than a mutually beneficial financial arrangement that can be terminated at will by either party.
It is not unrealistic to expect If labor costs are high the cost will be passed along to the consumer so it appears the net gain would be zero.Is a rework of the free market system without any gain in benefits realistic?
Income Taxes are the result of paying for the Civil War. I do pay. Voluntarily. Quite a lot. My problem is in the idea that somehow “rich” people should pay “more”. Only 50 percent of American taxpayers actually pay taxes. The rest get refunds. With earned income credits many get back thousands more than they actually paid in. So who pays the most in taxes? While I don’t begrudge others a big fat check, I am the one paying for it.
Actually humans can kill quite well without any previous training. Ted Bundy did without any military experience. Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and many others had no formal training. We could even exclude serial killers…..The drunk driver down the street kills a family on the way home, the woman who got beat for the last time and killed her husband, the mother who killed her children, the teenager with a cheap pistol holding up a liquor store kills the clerk. Its just a matter of place, time and motivation. “Touching the core of our existence” has little if anything to do with the violent nature of humanity. While it may help you to avoid the crushing reality that evil and good compose the duality of man, it avoids the issue by ignoring it.
Posted by texasindependent on Mar 1, 2007 at 8:49 AM What marxist dogma? I’m sorry, my karma ran over your dogma. All I am offering is ideas. If you want programs and policies, we first must understand the ideas upon which those programs and policies should be based. I’m really more interested in structural reform, myself.
Gaining equity in one’s employment for one’s labor changes nothing in the market system. It just gives the worker investment leverage and a modicum of decision power in the enterprise in which he or she is engaged. Like all good capitalists want.
There’s formal training and there is unconscious social and cultural conditioning. You decide, which produces the more effective killers? Is either one an inevitable and absolutely deterministic consequence of the laws of nature?
Being centered in oneself is no aversion from reality at all. It is reality. When one is centered one percieves the fundamental inter-connectedness between themselves and the world and the observable reality that most people are not centered in their lives and confused by dualistic illusions is obvious. It doesn’t make one ignorant, it frees one from illusion and allows one to cultivate wisdom.
You’re wildly incorrect about anyone getting back thousands of dollars in EIC more than they put into withholding. Another republican myth. Everyone pays taxes. Since Reagan, in all practicality, destroyed the progressive nature of the income tax, all taxes are regressive and the burden is heaviest on the poor. It’s petit bourgeois middle-income babies like yourself that whine the loudest and direct their wrath on those who are the least powerful. Why is that?
Posted by luminous beauty on Mar 1, 2007 at 3:49 PM To much emphasis is placed on “culture” in discussing violence. Realistically the only groups without violence would be religious groups like Quakers or the Amish. Even these sub-groups can produce violent people. Violence itself is the result of one determining factor…free choice. No other factor can force a person to commit violent acts. External events can offer a motive and opportunity but the choice must be made to react to these events.
I never said “everyone” recieved EIC the cut off is around 30 thousand. WHile every working American pays in to the tax system with deductions and dependants half get a refund. A working family of four with standard deductions and dependents would have a taxable income of 30 thousand dollars out of a gross income of 50 thousand. The tax would be a little over 4 thousand dollars.
I would consider 50 thousand dollars “middle class” so if the middle class pays such a low tax bill how can the burden be on the poor?
Can you explain that LB?Not only am I in a different tax bracket but I also have a 20 page return to file on April 15th. I am taxed personally, corporate taxes, property taxes, capital gains taxed, agricultural profits or losses taxed, payroll taxed, sales taxed, and to many others to list. I direct my wrath at the system not the “poor”. I am not in Bill Gates territory but can feel his pain.
Why are progressives so whiney about life? Life is unfair get over it.
Posted by texasindependent on Mar 2, 2007 at 6:11 PM Ti,
I’m afraid your arguments are descending into a spiral of geometrically expanding gibberish, but I’ll try to respond. Because I feel your pain.
“At our core we are all killers. To pretend otherwise is to deny human nature.”
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 27, 2007 at 1:26 PM
“Violence itself is the result of one determining factor…free choice. No other factor can force a person to commit violent acts.”
Posted by texasindependent on Mar 2, 2007 at 11:11 AM
I’ll take this as an intellectual redoubt and concession that violence isn’t an innate characteristic of our essential natures, but a matter of choice, rather than evidence of an irrational pathology. Whether it is always a conscious choice, as implied by the qualifier ‘free’, and not usually an unconcious and unquestioning reaction based on cultural and social conditioning is still debatable. However, if we accept ‘free choice’ as a given, then it follows:
If a ‘choice’ is ‘free’, then it is, by definition, not a determining factor in ‘forcing’ any behavior. ‘Choice’ means making a determination based on determining factors. It is not a determining factor in and of itself. It is only ‘free’ if it is not forced. It is only those perceivedly external situational factors and forces that can have any influence in one’s decision, one way or the other.
If one makes the choice to commit a violent act, then one is submitting to and accepting as causative those external forces and factors that biases one into believing that acting in a violent manner is reasonable or justified.
Ergo, one’s choice to act violently is not ‘free’, but constrained by external factors and forces. It is only in the case where one chooses non-violence in a situation where there are external pressures to respond with violence, that one is actually making a free choice.
Posted by luminous beauty on Mar 2, 2007 at 11:04 PM “Life is unfair get over it.”
Posted by texasindependent on Mar 2, 2007 at 11:11 AM
‘Life’ is neither fair nor unfair. Fairness and justice are characteristics of human moral values and ethical behavior. A matter of free choice, if you will.
And, no, I will not get over it, thank you. You can take that to the bank.
Posted by luminous beauty on Mar 2, 2007 at 11:21 PM The capability for violence is the essence of our predators brain. While free choice plays a crucial role in instigating violence towards others the response to violent behavior from others toward you is a sub-concious reaction. Fight or flight. I should have distinguished between the two in a clearer manner. I apologize. In an airport typing on your laptop sometimes the clarity of thought is not what it should be.
While the practice of non-violence is admirable for the few it is not a valid choice for all. I while non-violent towards my community at large, would not hesitate to kill someone breaking in my home. Does this mean I am a violent person?I spoke of life being unfair in a sense that no two people are equal. Not in the descriptive sense of the word. I agree the life is a matter of choices and personal responsibility. Bad choices and a lack of personal responsilbility lead to blaming external factors for personal failures. The crucial difference between my values and progressive values lies in this area. I don’t believe that any governmental program can change the situation of others. People in America are poor by free choices. The only exception would be people who are unable to care for themselves. And yes they need our help, I have never disagreed with that point.
Coming from a background of socialist parents and extreme poverty I have an understanding of how the Marxist ideology works to keep poor people poor. Blaming the system and seeking a free ride. I never bought the dogma.
Posted by texasindependent on Mar 3, 2007 at 8:16 PM Ti,
You’re clarification is a distinction without a difference. You are all over the map. Violence is instinctual. Violence is free will. The reaction to violence is instinctual. Your violent intent to react to mere trespassing with murder and malice aforethought is not an unconscious reaction but premeditation, no? Very confused thinking here.
You obviously are not as intelligent as you think you are. You believe presenting opinion as assertion without reasoning or establishing empirical fact in support is a legitimate argument. You repeat these assertions without addressing reasoned arguments against as if the repeating is going to strengthen your assertions. This is just spin.
Though you may be my intellectual inferior, it is not reason to assume that you are any less deserving of a human being than I am, nor that I am deserving of superior political priviledge just because I am smarter and better educated than you. This is even more so in terms of inequalities of material wealth, whose possession or lack thereof cannot always be assigned to individuals making correct economic choices as you would assert, and certainly not to making correct moral choices, but is more likely than not a result of luck, nepotism or sycophancy.
Assigning blame is not a useful means of understanding the causative factors underlying complex social problems nor of seeking practicable solutions. It is even less useful to dismiss those seeking an understanding of the underlying causes of human suffering and what possible amelioration for that suffering exists as playing some imaginary ‘blame game’. That is a strawman.
I am sorry that you are ashamed of your background and seek to mask that shame with hatred, fear, ignorance, denial and greed. Not pretty.
Posted by luminous beauty on Mar 4, 2007 at 2:57 AM TexASS, spare us your tax troubles. If it weren’t for the socialist Army for two decades, you’d not have a pisspot. You are the prototypical conservative hypocrite whose benefited from a welfare state but now wants to burn the bridge after he’s crossed it. Hearing this free enterprise bullcrap pour out of your orifices is like reading your lectures on racism while you post the most virulently racist tirade against all Arabs and all Sunni Muslims, proving that you are as much a religious bigot as you are a racial one. I can understand why you’re a self-hating Chicano but you’ll never be a real TexASS white boy, they will always reject you, TexASS is a state run by bigots. Gonzalez was only accepted by Bush because he’s an evangelist fundie nut like Bush himself and not a mackerel snapper like your poor folks. Think of what they went through having to bear an abortion like you. So you can pretend that you’re a big beaner driving a big beamer. OOOOOOHHHHHHH ! Impressive, dude. But just make sure your rear fender is strong enough to haul that trailer.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 5, 2007 at 10:42 PM Luminous
How could I have been so wrong. I thought it amusing to listen to your hyperbolous nonsense. I bow to your “superior” intellect. All hail the queen of Left wing Internet comment boards.To attribute my sucess to luck, nepotism or sycophancy speaks volumes as to your insidious philosophy and failed personal life. I could verbally abuse as BM does but that would be sinking to the progressive level. It is a far nobler gesture to simply acknowledge the fact that I don’t have the time, energy, or desire to find “acceptable” research to support the common knowledge that humans are inherently violent creatures with a thin veneer of forced civilization. Despite the overwhelming evidence presented by television, newspapers, and living in the real world progressives will always believe what they are told by amoral hucksters selling books and lectures for profit. I find that endlessly amusing. The “radical” is exposed as nothing more than a good capitalist.
Posted by texasindependent on Mar 8, 2007 at 7:35 PM TI,
“It is a far nobler gesture to simply acknowledge the fact that I don’t have the time, energy, or desire to find “acceptable” research to support the common knowledge that humans are inherently violent creatures with a thin veneer of forced civilization.”
I take this to mean that you’ve been wasting some time and energy trying to find some scientific evidence to back-up your claim that humans are genetically disposed to violence and are simply unable to find any. If you search for articles about ‘mirror neurons’ you will easily find there is plenty of evidence that sympathetic emotional responses are hard-wired into the human brain. With some introspective analysis you may even come to some understanding of how that innate compassionate sensibility has been suppressed and subverted by social conditioning in your own psyche. I know that ‘introspection’ is a dirty word to those of your faustian bent, bounded with weasel words like ‘navel-gazers’, ‘lotus-eaters’ and ‘believing what you are told by amoral hucksters’, and such, but it is what it is, the only path to self-knowledge. It can not be found in books, in newspapers or on TV, no matter what price you are willing to pay. Genuine self-knowledge and the wisdom it may engender are wealth beyond measure.
If your education had made you capable of reasoned analysis, instead of assuming a stance of invariable and mindless ideological contrarianism you would have long since come to the conclusion that my hint about the morphology of the human hand not being that of a born predator might infer that violence is a learned behavior. What can be learned can be unlearned.
It is, after all, weapons that give us the ability to be predators. We are not born with a knife or a spear or a gun or a nuclear weapon in our hands. We have to learn to make and use weapons to become effective killers. It is civilization itself with its overbearing historical reinforcement of grasping self-interest and power politics at the expense and subversion of any sufficiently countervailing ethical institutions which makes the modern world violent. The remedy is in cultivating and reinforcing our natural capacity for mutual sympathy and understanding. Clinging to ego driven presumptions of implacable competition, conflict and emnity, and smug, foundationless assertions of moral, economic, political, spiritual, intellectual or cultural superiority won’t do anything but create more violence.
Posted by luminous beauty on Mar 8, 2007 at 10:28 PM “Verbally abusive” Tex ????? Try reading your postings, they are not VERBAL abuse but they ARE printed abuse. Your Hobbesian view of humankind is common but far from a scientific fact. As far as hucksters selling books doesn’t that apply to Hannity, Limbaugh, Horowitz and O"Reilly too ? Far from a left monopoly. You are a typical neocon, endless assertions with refs far and few between and those are usually from Wikipedia !
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