It saddens me that even for folk who can see the dangers of government due to the defects in people still don't want to get anywhere near the obvious, sort of, reason why. It's sad because the danger is amenable to treatment, but not when the cause remains unacknowledged and thus unknown, and I say, sort of, because, although nobody wants to know they hate themselves, the explanations that come from that understanding are complete and profound. It would be like physicists trying to understand the universe while the equation E=MC2 causes intense migraines. The path to heaven lies through hell so it's not many folk get there.
dphantom
Diamond Member
- Jan 14, 2005
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I hope you don't think most in these forums understand the fundamental difference do you?
Yes, we are a constitutional republic, not a democracy, thank goodness. It's probably why we've lasted as long as we have though I wonder how much longer we will go on.
- Jul 1, 2004
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Originally posted by: dphantom
I hope you don't think most in these forums understand the fundamental difference do you?
Yes, we are a constitutional republic, not a democracy, thank goodness. It's probably why we've lasted as long as we have though I wonder how much longer we will go on.
It's not terribly difficult...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C_YBhY11yA
I believe that revolution and rebellion should be virtues. It took me a long time to realize this, but the State is the most dangerous institution to our liberties and freedom because the whole purpose of the State is to limit freedom for the exchange of a supposed benefit to society. But who gets to decide what's good for society? The State, the majority, the minority? If the State serves as a threat to your life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness and your elected officials are not serving you then I believe that you need to take back the rights that inherently belong to you.
Please explain whenever you use words like bad or good. I don't prefer authority to freedom so in my perspective authority is 'bad.' I'd like to think that a lot more people share this sentiment.
LOL! It has consistently infringed upon our rights. It has kidnapped our children link 2, put minorities in concentration camps, it creates wars, restricts freedom of speech, has restricted gun ownership, commits genocide, etc etc.
Some argue that the State is not necessary (Anarcho-Capitalists). Some just believe the State should only serve a very limited role and let the people run their own lives (Minarchists). If a State is detrimental to one's life or liberties then it deserves to end.
I believe in voluntary association. If you want services then pay for them or come to some sort of agreement for them. I don't think force is necessary.
Some people would agree with you. Then there are minorities who are imprisoned for drug crimes like smoking or selling pot. They wouldn't.
Bamacre, you are a pedant, and you are wrong. I'm beyond sick and tired of the people who like to pipe up with the high school civics book definitions of democracy and republic and think they're making some point to try to 'correct' someone who calls the US a democracy.
I've addressed the point here repeatedly, you did not get the memo obviously. The dictionary definition of "democracy" includes definitions that include republics. Look it up yourself, I've posted them.
Go take it up with the presidents going back to our founding who referred to our form of government as a democracy, and stop trying to derail the comments in my posts with nonsense.
There isn't one person here who had confusion that maybe the US was a 'pure' democracy as opposed to a republic and needed your post to get clear on the issue.
I've addressed the point here repeatedly, you did not get the memo obviously. The dictionary definition of "democracy" includes definitions that include republics. Look it up yourself, I've posted them.
Go take it up with the presidents going back to our founding who referred to our form of government as a democracy, and stop trying to derail the comments in my posts with nonsense.
There isn't one person here who had confusion that maybe the US was a 'pure' democracy as opposed to a republic and needed your post to get clear on the issue.
sandorski
No Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 70,791
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Originally posted by: dphantom
I hope you don't think most in these forums understand the fundamental difference do you?
Yes, we are a constitutional republic, not a democracy, thank goodness. It's probably why we've lasted as long as we have though I wonder how much longer we will go on.
The difference is negligible. If you want to nitpick, there has never been a Democracy anywhere. You are a Democracy, just a subset called "Constittuional Republic".
Think of it this way: I say it's "Black", you say, "Idiot! It's Flat Black"
Who's right? Both.
SlickSnake
Diamond Member
- May 29, 2007
- 5,235
- 2
- 0
Self hate would make one desire to be a ethnic cleansing cannibal, rather than one who needs to be a cannibal due to hunger pains. Right?
I think the biggest enemy is the one who wants to eat you the most. In Kenya, this is the literal truth.
See Kenya mob reportedly burns 11 ?witches?
Obviously, the state is not always the biggest enemy. It might be your hungry next door neighbor, too.
Yup, those ignorant savages are at the level where what they feel, their hatred of themselves, gets projected out onto the world as malevolent forces possessing others and out to get them. Because we are too afraid to remember what happened to us and because it's so deeply buried, the only way we can cope with what threatens to surface of our feelings gets projected out on to others. We think others are feeling what we repress.
souns like some good Hegelianism to me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegel
Hegel's dialectic was most often characterized as a three-step process of "Thesis, antithesis, synthesis", namely, that a "thesis" (e.g. the French Revolution) would cause the creation of its "antithesis" (e.g. the Reign of Terror that followed), and would eventually result in a "synthesis" (e.g. the Constitutional state of free citizens).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegel
Hegel's dialectic was most often characterized as a three-step process of "Thesis, antithesis, synthesis", namely, that a "thesis" (e.g. the French Revolution) would cause the creation of its "antithesis" (e.g. the Reign of Terror that followed), and would eventually result in a "synthesis" (e.g. the Constitutional state of free citizens).
Originally posted by: bamacre
My "Definitely not" response was actually sarcasm, because I assumed I knew what you meant earlier. Now I am just confused. Enlighten me, Moonbeam!
Hehe, do not worry. I wasn't reacting really to you but just using your replies as a place to post. I am on the one hand astonished that people (generally) don't seem to grasp the predictive and explicative power the notion that we actually hate ourselves does in the way of explaining almost all the insanity of the human race, but, of course, I can't be surprised because what that admission would mean for each of us personally. If ego death was required to figure out Einsteins equation nobody would have followed him.
- Jul 1, 2004
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Well, it is difficult to tell sometimes, because I see so many posters here who think that mob rule is perfectly fine.
We're going to have conflicting ideas here, Craig, because you seem to have such strong faith in the state. I never understand why that's so. I mean look at the idiot we have in office, and the idiots we have in Congress as well. There may be a good guy here and there that comes along, but overall, and throughout history, it's just a fact of life that criminals always rule, they're always in charge. And to continue giving them more power, and to give them more influence in our lives, just seems dumb to me. When I think of some of the great men that walked this earth, I can't think of many who were great from the throne. In fact, most of them were great because they fought those in the thrones.
- Jul 1, 2004
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Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: bamacre
My "Definitely not" response was actually sarcasm, because I assumed I knew what you meant earlier. Now I am just confused. Enlighten me, Moonbeam!
Hehe, do not worry. I wasn't reacting really to you but just using your replies as a place to post. I am on the one hand astonished that people (generally) don't seem to grasp the predictive and explicative power the notion that we actually hate ourselves does in the way of explaining almost all the insanity of the human race, but, of course, I can't be surprised because what that admission would mean for each of us personally. If ego death was required to figure out Einsteins equation nobody would have followed him.
Gotcha. Now how does that relate to the thread.
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: bamacre
My "Definitely not" response was actually sarcasm, because I assumed I knew what you meant earlier. Now I am just confused. Enlighten me, Moonbeam!
Hehe, do not worry. I wasn't reacting really to you but just using your replies as a place to post. I am on the one hand astonished that people (generally) don't seem to grasp the predictive and explicative power the notion that we actually hate ourselves does in the way of explaining almost all the insanity of the human race, but, of course, I can't be surprised because what that admission would mean for each of us personally. If ego death was required to figure out Einsteins equation nobody would have followed him.
Gotcha. Now how does that relate to the thread.
I believe it relates to your thread because the reason that government is dangerous is because we are dangerous to ourselves because of our own self hate. It is not the government that is the root of the problem but the self hate. Were there a group of people in the world in proximity who didn't hate themselves because they had never been put down and made to feel worthless or had uprooted those feelings by feeling them, reliving them and thereby seeing and integrating the fact they were all lies, a government formed by those people, and I doubt they would need one, would not be dangerous.
The reason people turn to government to solve their emotional problems, their need to feel love in the vacuum created by their own self hate, is because, having been made to feel worthless and therefore helpless to help themselves, they turn elsewhere than to their own devices. Also, because they believe they are worthless, they use the attributed good of the government in place of self respect, they become dangerous and fanatical patriots. Our fear of feeling what we really feel means we need to control what others do so they do not awaken us to our inner truth.
Thus, and this is very abbreviated, it isn't just government we corrupt but everything else we touch and identify with. When you feel like the worst person in the world, and we do, we have to have the best government, the best religion, the best team, the best everything and we have, always to be right and the sicker we are the more we need to destroy everything else.
There are no answers out there to any problems because all our problems arise from self hate and nothing out there can cure that. We believe in lies and we don't know it. That is what is wrong, and there is no hope so long as we are in denial.
But I see no inherent danger is laws that organize, that say go on green and stop on red. This allows traffic to move more efficiently.
Bamacre, look at Haiti, Darfur, China, King George III, Putin, Stalin, pretty much any society before the United States in human history.
Would you prefer to live in them? Were people more free in them?
You (and you're not alone) misunderstand my advocacy against unelected centralized power and for democracy as just loving state power. If that were the case, I'd be a big fan of all the societies I mentioned, indeed I'd prefer them where they had a more powerful state. If you read any of my posts on the topic, you know the opposite is the case.
From time to time I do run into what I see as an excessive attack on the state role, and I then defend that. There are other times I call for restricting it.
My approach is to do what works, within a framework of freedom. To judge each issue case by case, not to apply some ideology blindly and say the state should or should not do it.
The government built the Hoover Dam, rather than a private company. I'm ok with that. A private company has a near monopoly on the desktop operating system of our nation and much of the world. I'm ok with that, too, don't see a need for the government to create the operating system.
When you call Bush and others 'idiots', it sounds to me like a very uninformed commentary. Not because he may not be one, but because you don't know why it doesn't matter.
Bush being an idiot or not isn't the issue, what matters is the interests he serves.
If I told you there was a man coming to shoot you, and then said I wanted to talk about whether the man works out at the gym, what his favorite breakfast food is, you would scream at me who the hell cares? What matters is that he's coming to shoot you. What matters is that Bush is an enabler, a supporter, a figurehead choosing the policies that serve the few most wealthy. That's all that matters. Not his funny speaking, not his knowledge of history, not his being an idiot, not his smirk, not anything else.
There's a machine that does the work. Think tanks identify the policies to serve those interests, and the way to present them to the public to get as much support as possible. Political consultants know how to run the politics, when to submit which bills, making sure the donors pay up, and so on. All they need from George is to say he's in favor of the policies serving those interests, and to read the scripts on those issues. Of course, he's the president, the decider, but he works within the framework that he'll support those interests.
Democracy is precious; it lets the average voter have power all out of proportion to what they would under any other system. The fact that the system is horribly broken, and that the average voter is utterly negligent in the piss poor way he makes his choice (did you hear that sonofabitch Al Gore sigh during the debate? I'm voting against him), don't change the importance of the public having this power. I see huge problems and want to improve them, but I certainly defend democracy over not having it.
I don't see much point to your 'great men' debate. Who cares, frankly? We're lucky Einstein and Newton and the Beatles were great men in contributing to the human race in their own ways, but when you get into trying to judge the Napoleans and the Lincolns and the Maos and such, I'm less interested in your 'great men' angle than I am in what improved the situation for the society in question. We need the leaders to do what's good for society, not to hit home runs and win nobel prizes (other than in peace).
Perversely, Bush's shortcomings have served the nation well in his not getting more of the terrible agenda he serves enacted. Social Security destruction remains undone, for example. Had he been a 'great man' persuading the nation how good his agenda his, he could have done much more harm.
This is where my view of the issue has evolved to - that there are some important qualities of the president, leadership, vision, but the key attribute is the interests he serves.
A bad president serving the right interests is incalculably better for the nation than a 'great man' serving the wrong interests.
Things I think are in the public interest are efforts to keep the media broad-based and serving the public interest, not an oligarchy with a corporatism agenda; reducing the need for large sums to be raised from interested parties to get elected, creating obligations that defeat the intent of democracy for the voters, not the donors, to be represented; and an ongoing review of how to keep the election system representing the public's interests and wishes as well as possible.
Removing the legal status of corporations as persons is one key step IMO.
To get back to your concern about my support for the state, I'm in support of the state for things that are in the public interest, and against it for things that are not. When Social Security will take the nation from 90% of elderly below the poverty line to 90% above, as it did, and I don't see any harm overriding the benefit, I'm for it. Some ideologues see it differently, whether on some imagined 'principle' the government should do less, or as one poster said recently, 'why should he care if grandma gets her medicines', or they'll have some fantasy about how they can make it work better in the private sector, when in the real world, the Wall Street powers would dominate any such effort and make the system work worse except for themselves (tripling the administrative costs, studies say).
But I'm not for the state for the state's sake, I'm for individuals having power and freedom. To an extent, the state can serve that purpose, guaranteeing individuals some freedom from some would-be oppressive interests. Your labor rights, consumer rights, environmental eights, and so on are fine topics for the government to protect for you.
The Bush administration, needless to say, is not much of an example of the sort of government I'm talking about. It's the fox guarding the henhouse.
If you want to point out flaws, I'll call you and raise. If you want to call for getting rid of the ability of the government to represent the public interest, I'll argue why that's bad.
If you would read books like (conservative) Kevin Phillips' "Wealth and Democracy", I think it would help you understand some of the issues of power in society, private and public.
Mankind's history is filled with the few oppressing the many. A freak set of circumstances allowed something better to get created in the US, and it's spread, somewhat.
Now, the same pressures that have always existed to harm the public are acting to do so in the US, undermining democracy.
- Jul 1, 2004
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Craig, the vast majority of your post, especially the beginning, is nothing but rambling and dancing around the points I addressed above. But there are a few things I wanted to respond to.
Yeah, these same "think tanks," "consultants," and I believe you left out "lobbyists," are what got us into the war in Iraq, as well as Vietnam, and many other actions and policies that have been harmful to the country. DMCA ring a bell? There are more instances of this than care to post. Most of the time, they are not working towards the interest of the American people, instead, corporations and entire industries. What we are to them is nothing more than 300 million wallets.
WTF, am I trying to push anarchy here? A monarchy? No, Craig, and I'm not going to allow you to defend yourself upon that silly notion.
Everyone sees problems, Craig. A nation that would live upon a more strictly interpretation of the Constitution certainly wouldn't be one of utopia. No one is arguing that. And we have moved a LONG way from that position, and we certainly don't have anything resembling a utopia today either. Choosing to solve problems solely by handing the federal government more money and more power is not the answer. The results we get are half-ass solutions, that are expensive, and lesser power to the people and to the individual states. We have got to learn how to solve problems ourselves, as a society, instead of handing over our power and responsibility over to the State. It is MY argument, Craig, that pushes for more power to the people, not your's.
Then maybe you aught to go back and read it and try comprehending it. Because there is an excellent point made there, and you missed it.
I agree. And this is another perfect example of my initial response above. The state having interests for corporations rather than people. The same state that you would like to give more power.
Yeah, Craig, SS and Medicare. Wonderful things indeed. Promises to keep the people happy, to keep the people thinking they are working in our interest. And while those two have served a roll in making this a better country, so far, I think you have given me more, and BIG, perfect, examples of why the State cannot effectively solve these kinds of problems. These solutions have worked so far because the baby-boomers have been paying into them. All the while, Congress spends that money on other things. Yes, Craig, they haven't saved one penny of the money collected. It's been easy for them to collect money from the many baby-boomers and hand some of it out to those fewer current and then-current retirees. But have they bothered to wonder what is going to happen when the baby-boomers retire, and want to start collecting SS and medicare? No, Craig, they haven't. Not at all. In fact this mess that the State has left for us has been called a "fiscal cancer" by the head of the GAO, David Walker, who believes this is the most important problem our nation faces today. $53 TRILLION in promised entitlements that we simply cannot afford.
Short-term solutions that will cause long-term problems, cheered on by short-sighted Americans. That, Craig, is your State at work.
Yeah, these same "think tanks," "consultants," and I believe you left out "lobbyists," are what got us into the war in Iraq, as well as Vietnam, and many other actions and policies that have been harmful to the country. DMCA ring a bell? There are more instances of this than care to post. Most of the time, they are not working towards the interest of the American people, instead, corporations and entire industries. What we are to them is nothing more than 300 million wallets.
WTF, am I trying to push anarchy here? A monarchy? No, Craig, and I'm not going to allow you to defend yourself upon that silly notion.
Everyone sees problems, Craig. A nation that would live upon a more strictly interpretation of the Constitution certainly wouldn't be one of utopia. No one is arguing that. And we have moved a LONG way from that position, and we certainly don't have anything resembling a utopia today either. Choosing to solve problems solely by handing the federal government more money and more power is not the answer. The results we get are half-ass solutions, that are expensive, and lesser power to the people and to the individual states. We have got to learn how to solve problems ourselves, as a society, instead of handing over our power and responsibility over to the State. It is MY argument, Craig, that pushes for more power to the people, not your's.
Then maybe you aught to go back and read it and try comprehending it. Because there is an excellent point made there, and you missed it.
I agree. And this is another perfect example of my initial response above. The state having interests for corporations rather than people. The same state that you would like to give more power.
Yeah, Craig, SS and Medicare. Wonderful things indeed. Promises to keep the people happy, to keep the people thinking they are working in our interest. And while those two have served a roll in making this a better country, so far, I think you have given me more, and BIG, perfect, examples of why the State cannot effectively solve these kinds of problems. These solutions have worked so far because the baby-boomers have been paying into them. All the while, Congress spends that money on other things. Yes, Craig, they haven't saved one penny of the money collected. It's been easy for them to collect money from the many baby-boomers and hand some of it out to those fewer current and then-current retirees. But have they bothered to wonder what is going to happen when the baby-boomers retire, and want to start collecting SS and medicare? No, Craig, they haven't. Not at all. In fact this mess that the State has left for us has been called a "fiscal cancer" by the head of the GAO, David Walker, who believes this is the most important problem our nation faces today. $53 TRILLION in promised entitlements that we simply cannot afford.
Short-term solutions that will cause long-term problems, cheered on by short-sighted Americans. That, Craig, is your State at work.
another word for "state"..
civilization.
libertarians can live their dream, just move to Somalia.
civilization.
libertarians can live their dream, just move to Somalia.
ok, how can you have rule of law if the state is the enemy? and I thought the libertarian dream was individual responsibility, not the rule of law ? why wouldlaw be necessary ?
There were a number of points in your post I was interested in responding to, and still may, but your opener leaves a pretty bad taste and I'm not going to at the moment.
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