Tyranny: The greater evil behind the liberals...

Earthmother

You seem to be saying that there should be no laws because some laws are ‘frivolous’ ‘stupid’ or bad.

That’s like saying that because some humans are ‘frivolous’ ‘stupid’ or bad, they should all be exterminated.

Is that what you mean?

I agree there are ‘frivolous’ ‘stupid’ or bad laws but there are others that stand up to scrutiny and time.

So if you’re argument to get rid of all laws is based on some silly laws you seem to have made up then it doesn’t seem to be a very good argument.

Is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

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As to people ‘learning from their mistakes’ some people don’t, because they are unwilling to accept they may be wrong. Some people believe they are right even when there beliefs don’t seem to stand up to scrutiny.

The other problem I have with this is that it’s basically ‘might is right’ the social Darwinist idea that the ‘strong’ win out over the ‘weak’. And in a society were wealth can dictate influence and power, any movement toward such a system would give much more power and influence to the already wealthy, and you’d end up with a plutocratic oligarchy.


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This is your utopia?

You seem to be calling for a return to some type of primitive ‘hunter gatherer’ society. Is that it?

To do so, you would need to kill millions (billions) first, so you’re calling for the culling of large portions of the human race?

How would this change come about?

To me it seems like some type of social Darwinist pipe dream, I thought you said you based your views on rationality and reality; neither seem very evident in these ideas.

 

Actually racism has underlain economic systems, such as the slave based economy of the southern states of America and the forced labour of the Nazis. Racist ideas justified the exploitation of fellow human beings and even to working them to death.

But putting that aside.

My point was, are all ideas equally valid – sound, just, well-founded. To me some ideas seem to stand up to scrutiny well and others don’t, in other words some seem sound and others not.

This is the point highlighted by Ghost post, why do promote ideas that don’t seem to stand up well, why do they believe in things they can’t defend against even the mildest criticism?

 

I think the major difference between you and Earthmother is that she doesn't ridiculously misquote people like that.

 

To me life is an education, I DO learn something from every experience. The learning never stops.

I scrutinize every single thought I have, MYSELF. I'm not into being blatantly wrong or appearing stupid when what I am ultimately trying to do is set an example. My philosophy is "when in doubt about what to do, keep your honor."


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EXACTLY!!! Think about what you just said.
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Look, if you REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT I THINK, then ask me ONE(1) question. ONE. And I will respond.


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I question EVERYTHING. Especially you. Your motives. The fact that, apparently, if you actually READ the other posters posts, you will learn that the majority of people on this forum SEEM to find my arguments "valid". That would leave you being one of the ONLY people here who don't. And I do not find it necessary to have you see my ideas as valid. As I have ALREADY scrutinized everything I have said, and do not find your opinion to be useful.

There is an interesting concept. Exchange the word "useful" for the word "valid" in every sentence....

 

Which idea exactly are you talking about? Be specific and ask only ONE "valid" question...

 

To me life is an education, I try to learn something from every experience, from every question asked or replied to.

You seem to think that’s all time wasting presumably because you don’t think you need to learn anything because you already know everything?

But how can I believe you if your attitude and actions seem to be the very opposite of what you say?

Someone that wants to learn doesn’t evade debate they welcome it. Because they understand that open and honest debate is one of the best forms of education. It is the way that ideas can be presented to see if they stand up to scrutiny.

This is the very point that’s been highlighted by Ghost original post – he doesn’t seem interested in debate only in propaganda. That is the worse form of education, dictating ideas that cannot be questioned, where debate is not possible, where the irrational can be presented as rational and where suspect dogma can be presented at flawless truth.

You don’t seem to like debate and you’re always trying to evade it, ignore it or drastically limit it.

That’s not the attitude of someone with an open mind and a belief in education that is the mentality of the close minded.

For evidence just look to this ridiculous demand that I’m only allowed one question – that isn’t open and honest debate, and if you don’t realise that you clearly have no idea what open, honest or debate mean, let alone what education personal and public is all about.

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Then question me, I’m here, I’m not telling people that they’re only allowed ‘one question’, I’ve been answer questions here for the last eight years, I enjoy debate, I love putting my ideas to the test.

Go for it.

BUT I will expect the same of you.

 

Hispatic

In what way have I supposedly ‘misquoted’?

The quote isn’t mistaken - you may disagree with my interpretation but neither is that a ‘misquote’, it is an opinion based on Earthmother’s seeming belief that answering questions is “stupid time wasting stuff” that should end when leaving school.

If you think differently and wish to defend Earthmother’s stance please do so but please stop trying to score cheap points because you haven’t got anything of worth to actually add.

 

A few musings.

There are similarities between the ideas promoted by Ghost (those of Ayn Rand) and some other Social Darwinist type ideas some people have promoted in the forum.

I can only cover this in general terms (if you want more just ask) but basically

The Social Darwinism was always popular amongst wealth, since it seem to give justification for their position. It was the idea that Darwin’s evolutionary theories of natural selection could be applied to the unnatural realm of human society.

The ‘weak’ will and should fail and the strong will and should be allowed to succeed.

But how were people to gauge who was successful or not in a society that had gone beyond natural selection.

The Social Darwinist struck upon the idea that wealth could be a gauge of success and of ‘evolutionary’ advantage.

Therefore plutocratic Social Darwinism is the racist philosophy transferred to wealth, the inherent superiority based not on ethnicity but on bank balance.

For the industrialists that supported people like Herbert Spencer or William Graham Sumner this was the ‘intellectual’ justification for the exploitation of others.

The small matter that Social Darwinist ideas don’t stand up to scrutiny didn’t matter to them and those that did criticise it didn’t get as much financial help or publicity as those who supported it.

Social Darwinist ideas have similarities to Rand’s idea of the ‘creatives’ who have shown themselves to be successful and contributors to human civilisation and those that are unsuccessful or contribute little.

Those having shown themselves as successful being the ‘natural’ leaders. But again how does that success manifest itself and again this comes down to wealth.

The thing is that wealth is always interested in ideas that justify limiting the power of any group over them. In a democracy that usually means democratic interference.

They have spent a lot of energy and money trying to convince people that government is bad and should be weak and things would be a lot better if they were not regulated.

And so we come to another theme of Social Darwinism and other right wing ideas – the emphasis on individualism.

It is the idea is that the interests of any individual are best served by allowing that person maximum freedom and responsibility for choosing their goals and the means for obtaining them. There success or failure in such endeavours being totally their responsibility.

To me there are good and bad forms of individualism. At its best it is wonderful but it can all too easily descend into a ‘fuck you’ attitude of selfishness and greet, where the individuals wants, interests and desires take president over the interests of the community that persons lives in.

Because while we are all individuals we are all part of a wider community living on a single planet.

Now in some this ‘individualism’ promotes the same things as social Darwinists and right wing libertarian’s laissez-faire economics, weak government, few if any regulations, little or no welfare system.

Others go even further and believe every tramping of civilisation should be removed – so some type of ‘true’ human evolution can take place in a world were ‘true’ individuals can do as they please without hindrance.

But since any step in that direction that took place would only favour wealth the only system they’d end up with is plutocratic oligarchy.

 

Its not really that complicated. Read it again.

That's not what she said. I corrected you and now she has too. You claim to be all about openness and debate yet you are being very petty and argumentive just because you have been caught out.

 

Problem is, there are no absolutes. And humans have strayed so far from the natural order of things that stuff like "natural selection" is no longer applicable. Because if REAL natural selection were to take place at this time, hardly anyone would be left standing.

Capitalism and modern medicine have completely stopped natural selection from taking place in the human realms.

Money and the ability to get it means nothing as far as "evolution" goes. Even violence versus non violence means nothing in the end, because even if you are bigger and stronger and have more deadly weapons, ultimately those are only like bandaids and they do not assure anything except that violence begets more violence.

All those labels placed upon people, and their supposed definitions, are only human created divisionary tactics. The one TRUE decider of human destiny, all else aside, would be INTELLIGENCE. And that crosses all the spectrums of all those human created categories.

And, Balbus, the reason I said ONE question is that you tend to FLOOD people with questions all at once. You think that I should answer ALL your questions ALL the time, when it actually means very little to do so. Did you ever hear this one? It goes something like this: People who speak little and keep their ears and eyes open learn more than people who spend all their time talking. Because if there is constantly something coming out your mouth, there is no time for things to go in your ears.

 

Hipstatic

Caught out in what hipstatic?

My question still stand what have I misquote?

NOTHING

I’ve interpreted what she said in the context of this and other posts but I didn’t misquote her.

If you think there is something wrong with my opinion, give us your own viewpoint, but don’t claim I’m doing things that I haven’t out of malice and spit and a lack of any real argument.

 

Earthmother

Are you saying that you want humans to go back to being ‘natural animals’ so they’d be subject to natural selection?

But even if it someone desired that it couldn’t be done.

I mean as soon as hominids began using a variety of tools they stopped being subject to evolutionary ‘natural selection’. And hominids were using such tools some 2.5 million years ago. So by the time modern humans developed in Africa some 200,000 years ago they had long ago left evolutionary ‘natural selection’ behind.

Basically homo sapiens, the human beings currently inhabiting this world have always been above evolutionary ‘natural selection’.

So even if you forcibly removed all those things you seem to want to (and it seems to me that it would have to be done by force), such things as rules, stores, money, government, modern medicine, etc, human beings would just start developing them again, using that ‘intelligence’ that you mention, the same gift that allowed the hominids to rise above ‘natural selection’ in the first place.

So I wonder what would be the point in doing this besides killing millions of your fellow humans and it would result in the death (murder) of millions if not billions.

You claim you are a realist and that you ideas are rationally based, but if this is your goal, what about it is rational or realistic?

It would seem to be nothing more than irrational and viscously cruel fantasy.

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But maybe you are not being so ambitious maybe you’d want to try and weed out the ‘weaklings’ in different ways and remove the layers more incrementally?

Less government, ‘telling people what to do’ so that people have to take ‘responsibility for their own lives’ – so no state provision of welfare, healthcare, social security, education or training.

Few if any of those silly regulations and laws that have an effect on wages, prices, rents, employment, health and safety and so on.

And of course if government was small then there would little or no need for taxation.

The only thing is that these things seem very similar to the old right wing, wealth supporting agenda that could be seen in the discredited ideas of the social Darwinists.

Because unless you first did away with money or made everyone materially, educationally and environmentally equal then any such move in that direction would inevitably end in a plutocratic oligarchy.

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If I’m on the wrong track please explain where I might be going wrong?

 

Earthmother

But when you voluntarily come to a place meant for debate and make statements, then you are presenting them for debate.

If you wish to come here and just look and listen that is fine many people do, but once you make a comment that is you entering into debate, as pointed out in this thread by Aris –

In a debate the time to do the ‘things between your ears’ is before you open your mouth.

That I think is the problem I try to think things through before speaking here so that I’m then able to answer any question on the idea or issue that might be asked.

You seem to say things you then find difficultly in answering questions on because you haven’t seemingly thought them through before hand. That seems to be the main reason why you spend more time evading questions than answering them.

Again this highlights exactly the issues raised by the original post – Some people like Ghost and others seem to come here with ideas half formed based more on a political bias and/or dogma rather than rational thought, they then find they are unable to defend their ideas and either run away or evade debate.

What I would ask is why do these people hold onto views that don’t seem to stand up to scrutiny and seem unable to answer simple questions about let alone defend?

 

Oh I see it wasn't a 'misquote' just an 'interpretation'.

 

Thank God someone around here knows what's up.

 

This is all very depressing. We are willing to give up our freedoms for the sake of 'stability' and end up being unstable anyway. Whenever people feel restricted and caged in, they revolt. You can't force people into submission then turn around and call those that refuse as being 'selfish'. I think that it is very selfish to ask anyone to give up their rights just because others want them to...

Only those that have no hope or faith for humanity are the ones so willing to control humanity. People aren't seen as people, but as things, obstacles that are in the way. When we see a person as a thing, we inevitably get a tyrannical government. It's happened for centuries, and for centuries, these governments have been proven to be more trouble than they are worth.

 

Sometimes they don't even know that's what they're doing. You know when you hear about people snapping on the news? You think those guys were born crazy? Most of them weren't.

 

Def

What has this to do with the debate taking place? I think you need to put this in context since, as is, it seems rather irrelevant.

Echo

What do YOU mean?

Or are you just an echo with little of your own ideas.

 

Hipstatic

It wasn’t a misquote – misquote, means to quote inaccurately, are you claiming that the bit in the quote box wasn’t what she typed?

NO

You are disagreeing with what I thought she meant by it.

Basically you don’t have a real or credible argument so you’re falling back on smear based on a lie.

In this you are very similar to Ghost in the OP in he also is lashing out of at liberal and lefties out of political bias although he doesn’t seem to have any real or credible arguments to back his views up.

Please point to where I’m supposed to have altered her words within the quote or desist in this rather pathetic charade.

 

Your interpretations are mostly wrong.