"I don't like my hard earned tax dollars shoring up lazy people! Down with Welfare!"

[x-deviant-x]

back to insulting my intelligence, as though I've never studied any of this, or ever read a book.

That is an awesome method for winning more people over to your side who try to understand your logic. Don't bother explaining it to them, just snub your nose and insult them for being too small-minded, or pull out the fascist card should anyone dare to suggest that owning property is anything less than pure villainy. That will get you real far with your goals.

I understand fully the concepts of socialism and capitalism.

Forget it. I've tried too many times to enter intelligent discussion and debate here, being careful not to throw insults unless they're thrown at me. But clearly this is not a forum for mature debate among opposing views, but instead a forum for the leftist elitist snobs to sniff each others flatulence and banter back and forth about how great it smells.

So have at it.

[Despanan]

I understand fully the concepts of socialism and capitalism.

How about you explain them to us then?

[Solumina]

I still want to know the answer to my question so I will ask you again:

Originally Posted by Solumina

Are you against all non-essential use of government funds or is it just welfare? And if it is all non-essential spending what do you consider to be essential?

[x-deviant-x]

Out of respect to you Solumina, I meant to answer this earlier and got side-tracked.

I'm against all non-essential spending. Government funds should only be used for military defense and infrastructure.

Capitalism is not a solution to anything, it is an inevitable result of trade and human desire, which is an emotion fueled by cause and effect. Tribalism lead to feudalism which lead to capitalism. The hoarding and control of wealth and resources is not something new that came about with the capitalist system, it's been going on in one form or another for as long as man has existed.

[Alan]

I love how you mentioned a progression of modes of production which was created by Karl Marx yet you conveniently leave out the socialism and communism parts of the progression.
Also, infrastructure, as in, public transportation and public sanitation and public housing? OR not housing? Why not? How do you get to decide?

[Saya]

Yeah, because tribes never worked together or lived communally. Individuals in each tribe always competed against each other, gosh darn the consequences.

[Murder.Of.Crows]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=qmRRDig_9nE

thought it was relevant.

[Solumina]

Originally Posted by x-deviant-x

I'm against all non-essential spending. Government funds should only be used for military defense and infrastructure.

What do you consider to be infrastructure?

[x-deviant-x]

Originally Posted by Saya

Yeah, because tribes never worked together or lived communally. Individuals in each tribe always competed against each other, gosh darn the consequences.

That is the snobbish sarcasm and high schoolish attitude that frustrates me with the left. Why is it necessary?

I’m not trying to win an argument; I’m simply trying to understand the logic.

Public housing and public transportation is not infrastructure, it is welfare.

Infrastructure is - by its very definition - roads, energy supply, communication, permanent military and state structures and security – the basic necessities for any community to function. You could include sanitation, or you could argue that sanitation is the responsibility of the citizens, not the government.

Tribes are the very basic root of socialism; small groups of people living and working together for the prosperity of their community. (also known as gangs, or guilds). The key word is small. There is little need or desire for competition in small groups of people like that, because for the most part, they all get along and help each other, so competition would be more of a hindrance than a help. But as time goes on and a tribe grows in numbers (either by allying or merging with other tribes or simply by procreating within their own tribe), its people begin forming their own ideas and opinions about how things should be, which gives birth to conflict within the community. More time passes and tribes break apart due to those conflicts of interest, giving birth to competition. Eventually, as resources become more scarce, those two groups will struggle for dominance over available land and resources because each believe, for whatever various reasons or combination of reasons, they have more right to them than the other, laying the groundwork for feudalism.

Humans are competitive by nature. It doesn’t matter what environment they exist in, they are instinctually competitive. All living species are, even plants. For humans, it is the principle, or concept, of fight or flight - a basic instinct, also known as survival, and it exists in every conceivable human relationship scenario. It does not always mean literally “saving one’s life from death”, it can also mean winning an argument.

Of course there are plenty of people who can co-exist peacefully and work together, but you will never get 100% of the people to work together peacefully 100% of the time, unless you are somehow able to control what they are able to think, feel, do and react to. If you allow for individual expression (thinking, feeling or doing), then you allow the groundwork to be laid for competition.

So, if the goal is to remove the desire for competition, I don't see how it is possible without removing human emotion and response to those emotions. That is control, there is no other term for it.

Personally I don't believe that any government works for large groups of people. There will always be conflict and struggle, which leads to segregation, which leads to competition and even greater power struggles. It doesn't matter what model of government you have in place, there will always be groups of people who disagree with that model of government and who will ultimately break away and form their own.

I’m not defending the rich and I never have – deliberately – defended the rich. The only thing I’ve ever defended is the ability to choose your own path. I’ve always tried my best to live by the wiccan rede. You act as though I’m some sort of foot soldier for the 1% when nothing could be further from the truth.

It’s disgusting that there are people in this world who are so filthy rich they are able to shit in solid gold toilets and their world of sheep swoons as they watch their billion-dollar wedding which the public is FORCED to pay for, (and not even ALLOWED to know how much they’re actually paying), while children in other countries starve to death. There is nothing more evil or twisted than that. Sending their troops in to slaughter the starving would be FAR more humane, because at least then, at the very least, they wouldn’t be suffering.

So for any of you to constantly accuse me of defending the rich just because I disagree with your logic and see it as no different than the control we are currently living under, is truly an insult. You want to rob every day people of the property they and their families have worked for their entire lives, and you think that will do something to end poverty?

Politics is no different than religion. I don’t like the right any more than I do the left. Both sides have their own agenda and when it’s all boiled down to basic shapes, both sides are vying for control of the masses, to force their belief system on everybody involved regardless of who agrees and who doesn't.

It may be worthy of noting that the one world government is more a capitalist agenda than it is a socialist one.

[Solumina]

Originally Posted by x-deviant-x

Infrastructure is - by its very definition - roads, energy supply, communication, permanent military and state structures and security – the basic necessities for any community to function. You could include sanitation, or you could argue that sanitation is the responsibility of the citizens, not the government

I find it funny that you would include energy supply as it isn't government provided in the US yet you don't mention schools. Would you consider public education to be non-essential or was it not mentioned because you thought it was an obvious inclusion that didn't need to be mentioned? I'm also curious how you feel about emergency services.

Also are you okay with community events that are put on by local governments? They increase tourism and revenue in the area as well as fostering community spirit and comradely. While we're on the subject: how do you feel about state and local governments, what roles do you think they should have? Some people who I've heard voice similar opinions to yours seem to be okay with local governments (on either the county or town level) doing things that they would not want the federal government to do because they voters have an easier time of voicing disapproval and things like spending decisions can more easily be put to a vote by the people. I'm not trying to pick at you I'm just genuinely curious.

[burningplain]

*reads the thread, nods at the sound reasoning he sees among innumerate members. Reads deviants comments; starts laughing.* You've missed it haven't you Deviant? Trade and capitalism is are not the same, Trade is the exchange of goods. Capitalism is a system to control the exchange and distribution of goods. Capitalism will die, is dying. A new generation is rising, an educated generation, with access to free knowledge, to communication pathways. You live in the digital information age my friend.

A system which benefits the few over the many cannot survive. Particularly in the world we live in, where the youth have access to instant communications with anyone in the world. The time of capitalism is coming to a close, a new system must be implemented. Knowledge is power and increasingly knowledge is free. The power is truly, slowly turning into the hands of the people.

You say socialism will never win in America? Yet there are those who said that slavery could not be ended, that racist laws could not be abolished. Well they have. The march of history and progress is relentless, you cannot hold it back any more than you can stop the stars from shining.

Socialism is a success but it is a corruption of socialism as true socialism is too difficult to maintain.

I remember when Obama was trying to push through his welfare reforms. You know what the Republicans did? They held up Steven Hawking as a model of why free healthcare was a bad idea, because according to them he was only alive due to private healthcare. Apparently they missed the fact he's a UK citizen and credits the NHS with the fact he has survived as long as he has, which he promptly told the world in a statement (which fox news and a shit load of other right wing news organisations failed to put out).

Deviant, I have an honest question. Does the fact that the United States of America has the WORST poverty problems of any first world country on earth not bother you at all? Does it not bother you that thousands of people in the US are starving because they can't afford food because of a system that doesn't care for them, that won't help to lift them out of poverty?

US social mobility is appaulingly lacking. If you're poor in the US its virtually garanteed you'll stay that way. The American dream is dead and has been since before the Great Depression of the 1930s, just read some Steinbeck. He makes the point most elequently.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by x-deviant-x

Tribes are the very basic root of socialism; small groups of people living and working together for the prosperity of their community. (also known as gangs, or guilds). The key word is small. There is little need or desire for competition in small groups of people like that, because for the most part, they all get along and help each other, so competition would be more of a hindrance than a help. But as time goes on and a tribe grows in numbers (either by allying or merging with other tribes or simply by procreating within their own tribe), its people begin forming their own ideas and opinions about how things should be, which gives birth to conflict within the community. More time passes and tribes break apart due to those conflicts of interest, giving birth to competition. Eventually, as resources become more scarce, those two groups will struggle for dominance over available land and resources because each believe, for whatever various reasons or combination of reasons, they have more right to them than the other, laying the groundwork for feudalism.

Actually there's plenty of tribes that do not have much aggression within the tribe, even in times of want. Tribes tend to become aggressive when resources are scarce, but against each other, not within. Even then a lot of battles aren't what we would consider aggressive, like in New Guinea they might meet in a field, fight a bit, then go home if someone gets hurt. Usually when tribes go to "war", its not like anything we do, they might pick one or two of the other tribe a year, and maybe, MAYBE if the other tribe is weak enough, they'll risk a full out attack, or the weak tribe with be absorbed by other tribes. The culture of many tribes like the !Kung centers around social responsibility, so even when things are desperate, and in the !Kung's world, its a harsher existance, there is very little aggression. They are raised to value sharing. I can't remember the name of the tribe for the life of me but when I did aggression in Anthropology, there was this tribe that considered hoarding and not sharing an act of aggression that is terrible. Children who display aggressiveness, even assertiveness, are mocked and scolded by their parents. So they grow up to be more passive and accept that things need to be shared among a group, not hoarded. Even in agrarian cultures like Vietnam where some amount of feudalism existed, even the poorest landless peasant was able to rent farmland on a sliding scale, because the villages would own collective farmland exactly for the purpose of making sure the poorest didn't go hungry. When the French tried to introduce competitive capitalism, a million people died in a famine. And the Vietnamese were understandably very outraged and you might know what happened after that. And this is part of the reason why capitalism doesn't work; a lot of times when people die in a famine, like in the Bangladesh famine in the 70s, there was more than enough food to go around and feed everyone, its just that no one could afford it since they had no harvest to sell that year.

Humans are competitive by nature. It doesn’t matter what environment they exist in, they are instinctually competitive. All living species are, even plants. For humans, it is the principle, or concept, of fight or flight - a basic instinct, also known as survival, and it exists in every conceivable human relationship scenario. It does not always mean literally “saving one’s life from death”, it can also mean winning an argument.

Of course there are plenty of people who can co-exist peacefully and work together, but you will never get 100% of the people to work together peacefully 100% of the time, unless you are somehow able to control what they are able to think, feel, do and react to. If you allow for individual expression (thinking, feeling or doing), then you allow the groundwork to be laid for competition.

So, if the goal is to remove the desire for competition, I don't see how it is possible without removing human emotion and response to those emotions. That is control, there is no other term for it.

Personally I don't believe that any government works for large groups of people. There will always be conflict and struggle, which leads to segregation, which leads to competition and even greater power struggles. It doesn't matter what model of government you have in place, there will always be groups of people who disagree with that model of government and who will ultimately break away and form their own.

People are different, but people are also raised to be certain ways. We are raised to be competitive and individualistic because we are raised to value capitalism and economic aggression, other people in other cultures are not. We are social animals above all else. A person is most mentally healthy when they have a social network to support them, just yesterday I attended a presentation by a psychologist that talked about signs of suicide, and one of them is that they have no support system. Men are far more likely to be depressed single as well because women are raised to rely on their friends for emotional support, and become intimate with them, while men are not. Psychologically we are much happier cooperating than competing and being misanthropic. Likewise, an individual trying to make it alone in the wilderness would never do as well as a person in a tribe, and for a tribe to work you need cooperation. We need other people, we need cooperation, or few profit while many starve.

orld who are so filthy rich they are able to shit in solid gold toilets and their world of sheep swoons as they watch their billion-dollar wedding which the public is FORCED to pay for, (and not even ALLOWED to know how much they’re actually paying), while children in other countries starve to death. There is nothing more evil or twisted than that. Sending their troops in to slaughter the starving would be FAR more humane, because at least then, at the very least, they wouldn’t be suffering.

You know, people aren't animals that can be humanely slaughtered. A lot of the children starve to death in the world because colonialism destroyed their country's economy, the current famine in the horn of Africa wouldn't be so drastic if we didn't force a switch to monoculture farming. Our convenience and lifestyles depends on the lives and blood of the third world. And the US and other countries have totally supported genocide to keep the rich in other countries happy, like East Timor, or participated directly like in Vietnam, was that humane of them?

[burningplain]

I would like to voice my agreement with everything Saya has said. She makes excellent points. Oh and I missed something.

Do you know why King John of England is regarded as evil? Because the Barons wrote history. King John of England was truly a man of people. The Sheriff of Nottingham was actually removed and replaced, but no one knows by whom. King John was hated by the Barons because he tried to give power to the people. He took a stand against King Richard the Lionheart whilst he was still just Prince John in Nottingham where the people themselves stepped forward to defend him because he saved the people of Nottingham from death at the hands of a cruel Baron who taxed them so heavily they could not survive.

[x-deviant-x]

See, this is the crux I am stuck in. I argue with you guys over the evils of socialism on here, while arguing with people in real life over the evils of capitalism.

Solumina - everything I am talking about is in terms of federal government, not state or local. I have no issue with anything a local government decides to put on, as that is up to the local government to decide, so long as its voted on by its people. What is good for one may not be good for another, which is why people have such a problem with federal government passing laws that restrict what local governments can and can't do.

"Energy Supply" doesn't necessarily mean providing it to the people, just that it is accessible. Same with roads. "Public Transportation" could actually include roads and their maintenance without including free buses.

4 decades ago, when public schools were supported by local governments, the US ranked highest in education. Ever since the federal government got involved in the 70s the level of education has been in a state of free fall decline while the cost of public education has done nothing but increase exponentially.

Saya, I think you're taking that last paragraph way out of context. I was saying it would be more humane than letting them starve to death, and i was referring to the fact that they have hordes of gold and riches they could use to help feed those starving kids but instead choose to wallow in their gluttony without lifting a finger to help anyone in need.

Another aspect of all of it, in regards to my stance on socialism; growing up in the 80s, american kids were taught to view communism in much the same light as kids today would view the taliban or al-quaeda. it was something to be feared. Movies like Red Dawn were shoved down our throats as though the soviets were going to bust into our schools at any moment and murder or enslave all of us. backed up by constant reminders of wwII and concentration camps, communism = slavery, basically. to 3rd, 4th and 5th graders, those mental images pretty much stick in your subconscious even when you grow up and learn better.

common sense tells you today that it's really not like that, however those are the images that were beat into us by schools and parents alike, pretty much since the 40s if you think about it. most generations of american kids have been taught to work for what you own and if you don't own it you just haven't worked hard enough for it. this is the obstacle you have to get past before many americans are going to start looking at communism in a better light. if the economy collapses and we find ourselves fighting over the last loaf of bread at walmart, which "in theory" could happen any day now, then something like communism may in fact take over. otherwise, the struggle is going to be long. the main negative view against it, as i see it, is being "forced" into working a specific job based on the needs and demands of the government instead of your own desires. that, i think, is the biggest stigma a lot of people here have. that is also exactly the path we're headed with our current government, because as i've been saying all along, Obama is no different than Bush. they all work for the same bankers and big business who are the ones really controlling the show. the only reason it flip-flops between D or R is so they can pit one side of the public against the other side. Divide and conquer is the name of the game.

It might interest some of you that I just saw a news clip the other day about the department of homeland security. They have "determined" now that college-aged students who speak out against the government are more likely to commit terrorist acts than other groups of people, and gave a long list of "signs to watch for," including websites where people post their discontent over what the fed government is up to. I'm trying to find an actual print article on it online to link. Maybe it doesn't mean much, but when I heard it I immediately thought of the NDAA that was signed back in December. Maybe this is their way of dealing with Occupy, should they decide it ever gets out of control.

[Alan]

Four decades ago? You mean around the 1960's? Mere years after the federal government had to intervene to force integration in the south? Yeah, damn federal government for infringing on states rights.
Oh, also, where exactly is the non-involvement in education by the federal government since the Department of Education was created in 1867?
http://www2.ed.gov/NLE/histearly.html

In fact, isn't it the opposite?
"Unlike the systems of most other countries, education in the United States is highly decentralized, and the federal government and Department of Education are not heavily involved in determining curricula or educational standards (with the recent exception of the No Child Left Behind Act). This has been left to state and local school districts"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...t_of_Education

[Solumina]

I kind of have to agree with Alan on that one, if anything we need schools to be regulated more on the federal level. The inequality in education standards from state to state are appalling, and in some cases the differences between school districts within a state can be mind boggling, Virginia (the state I live in) being a prime example as it has some of the best public schools in the country in its northern counties but the southern and western areas of the state are barely meeting state standards, some are even shutting down because they can't afford enough teachers.

[x-deviant-x]

The department of Education established in 1867 was a minuscule department, which both links you provided freely admit to. Its primary purpose was to provide access to books and learning materials to all schools. It was shrunk to a single office by 1870. It had nothing to do with the actual school budgets.

Carter reinvented it in 1979 to force desegregation. Since then the quality of public education has been in a persistent state of decline.

That's not the case with private schools, whose teachers generally don't receive the same pay or benefits as public school teachers, and whose level of education has actually increased over the decades.

The idea is that because the quality of public education was so much better prior to Carter's New Dept of Education, if it were returned back to the states it would gradually return to its pre-Carter level of quality.

The FG doesn't set the curriculum, it just takes money from "richer" districts to pour over poorer districts, forcing a more level playing field. Where is the logic in lowering the standards of one district in order to raise them in another?

So if the federal government is so great at handling the department, why is public education on a continual downward slope since its inception, while the cost of public education has skyrocketed? If you don't like the idea of states taking back control of it, how else can it be fixed?

[Solumina]

The federal government doesn't take money from rich districts and give it to poorer ones, that is done by the state. The majority of a school districts budget, as well as the curriculum, is handled on the county level, only about 10% of funding for schools come from the federal budget.

[x-deviant-x]

it varies from state to state and even district to district. an article i was reading last time this subject came up stated that in 2010 most all of Los Angeles school districts received the majority of their funding from federal government. That might have to do with CA being completely bankrupt though.

Either way, that's the argument from the right. From the reading I've been doing on it, it doesn't seem to matter where the funding comes from, US public schools are shit no matter who's paying for them. If ever I have kids they'll be in private schools.

[burningplain]

You're right Deviant, the reason that LA's schools get the majority of their funding from the fed is the fact they are quite literally bankrupt due to direct democracy. Did I mention that the right are also the reason the US recently had its credit rating downgraded? The Republicans refuse to let Obama push through the necessary cuts to public spending.

[x-deviant-x]

Originally Posted by burningplain

The Republicans refuse to let Obama push through the necessary cuts to public spending.

That's not entirely true.

How are the republicans refusing to "let" Obama do anything?

Republicans only control the house, and have only controlled the house for 1 year. Democrats have controlled the senate since Obama took office, and for 2 years prior they virtually controlled both the house and the senate, yet couldn't even produce a budget, and still can't. The house has passed 30 bills that Reid is sitting on and won't even allow them to be debated in the senate, much less voted on. So how exactly do you suppose that republicans are preventing anything?

[Grausamkeit]

I'm beginning to think that Deadman is deviant's sock puppet account....or deviant is Deadman's sock puppet. For the life of me I can't decide which idea is more funny.....

[x-deviant-x]

Originally Posted by Grausamkeit

I'm beginning to think that Deadman is deviant's sock puppet account....or deviant is Deadman's sock puppet. For the life of me I can't decide which idea is more funny.....

I don't even know who deadman is, but i know who you are wolfie. kind'a thought we used to be friends. Remember global gothic?

Yeah.

Fuck off, every one of you.

~E.D.

[Alan]

Fuck you, asshole! Nobody even likes you. You better not come to Ciudad Juarez, because if you do, you'll get a shot of Maker's Mark on me! And nobody likes free drinks!!

My darlings.... xxxxooo

[Apathy's_Child]

So because you "used" to be friends, you're entitled to her eternal and unwavering support regardless of whether she thinks you're being an asshole whose ideas make no sense?

Get over yourself, you child. This thread is about your current views, not some idle online half-friendship from back in the day, and you are not the still point of the turning world.