How Left is too Left?

[Onyx]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

Libertarianism began as a Marxist term for the farthest left of all: anarchists.
So Zabijej probably doesn't know what he's talking about when he talks about the Left anyway.

Even using the current manifestation I doubt so. Most libertarians I've spoken to get caught up in the basic theory of libertarianism and never go further than that. Hells ya, no taxes and legal pot! I don't need public roads, so what if some dude owns the street in front of my house and I can't afford to pay him, thereby limiting a very important freedom, that of movement.

If there's one thing libertarians need to learn is the difference between theoretical freedom and actual freedom. If the philosophies of libertarianism were bore out then the only real freedom most of us would have is to choose which wealthy master we allow to force us into giving them rim jobs for table scraps.

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

Too left... That's hard to say. I think it depends on the culture one is talking about, and the individuals involved in the system and its setup (and thus how the system is set up). I think that once there is no motivation for people to work, it's too far left. The country/region/nation/community would be bogged down by lazy bums. And fear is not the best way to motivate people to work.

[off topic] By the way, wtf is up with the cigarette ads?

[Zabijej]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

Libertarianism began as a Marxist term for the farthest left of all: anarchists.
So Zabijej probably doesn't know what he's talking about when he talks about the Left anyway.

I don't agree with a lot of the things the right endorses either - I DO believe gay couples should have the same tax and property rights as straight couples, I DO believe women should have access to abortions (however not late-term or partial-birth), I DON'T believe that having harsh penalties on drugs will reduce the number of people addicted to them.

That might have been true THEN, but more right-wing (do distinguish from neo-cons) are leaning more toward deregulation (freedom TO...) while the left is involving more government in people's everyday lives (freedom FROM...).

@ Onyx

I did consider the cost of an actual expense vs. the tax rate. The thing about the guy getting paid to go to college - is he really studying every hour he isn't at class, sleeping, taking care of himself, or commuting? He could very well be following the rule of 3 hours for every hour of class, but everyone I have met at uni does not. As I said before, I would rather pay $40k for school than pay a 50% tax rate my whole life.

The healthcare system is far from efficient, but raising taxes and making people wait for periods of time because the government doesn't think their problem is important enough or they're a "lost cause" is equally inefficient. The only people who benefit from this are the poorest people who already have welfare, WIC, state assistance. In fact, the more successful you are, universal healthcare costs MORE than buying a private policy. pfft. we should all quit our jobs and get on welfare at this rate.

Society has created these "mcjobs" and there need to be people to fill them. In a perfect job, all adults would go to college, manage a store, open their own business, learn a trade, or get another "real job" that doesn't necessarily require any sort of post-secondary ed, while high school kids worked at McDonalds, worked in a mall store, picked fruit, worked on farms, and washed dishes. We don't live in a perfect world and we can't all be middle-class.

[Godslayer Jillian]

You really don't know much about the political spectrum. Not only about the left wing but also about the right.
Case in point

Originally Posted by Zabijej

have been true THEN, but more right-wing (do distinguish from neo-cons) are leaning more toward deregulation (freedom TO...) while the left is involving more government in people's everyday lives (freedom FROM...).

This is not true at all.

[Zabijej]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

You really don't know much about the political spectrum. Not only about the left wing but also about the right.
Case in point

This is not true at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

^ freedom of speech? free trade? personal liberty? I haven't seen any of that from Liberals.

Things I see from Liberals: laws prohibiting "hate speech" ("hate" being anything someone wants it to be) socialism and welfare state, globalisation and big government, and laws concerning things from guns to what kind of car you can drive and what kind of dog you can own (I'm referring to california's emissions restrictions and its ban on pit bulls).

I understand, there is a difference between "liberal" (conducive to freedom) and "Liberal" (associated with aforementioned things)

[Godslayer Jillian]

And still more uninformed bullshit. Liberals are not left, you know?

Let me give you a little history on the right and left wing rather than simply keep saying just how wrong you are:

The names came from the French Revolution. During their national assembly representatives used to sit according to their political belief: monarchists to the right, republicans to the left.

From that you can see that the 'right wing' was traditional, authoritarian, classist, and elitist. The left wing tended to be progressive, federal, merit-based, and popular, albeit bourgeois.

It hasn't changed much. The European right wing is still like that - traditional conservatives believe that they do have the best interests of society in mind, but only a privileged few are good enough to lead. Just look at Churchill.
Farther to the right you get the nationalists and the fascists, many many times brided with each other. You don't get any more authoritarian than fascism.
In America is where you get the bullshit rhetoric that the right wing cares for liberties because of their faith in laissez faire capitalism. Capitalism is not free at all, and the capitalism 'libertarians' espouse is a monstrosity to anyone that has actually bothered to read Wealth of Nations.

Now, on the left you had the Republicans. The legitimate left, the farthest left in the national assembly, were those delegates popularly chosen by what we now call proletariat. They were uncompromising in their ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
After the First International we see the left wing express itself in the form of socialism. The basic premise is that workers are oppressed and socialism offers them greater liberty and equality by giving them the means of production. There's no fucking authoritarianism involved in the left wing and even the bullshit 'democratic centralism' of Lenin is more federal than the centralized governments of the 'free world.'
Farther to the left you get the syndicalists and anarchists who don't believe in any form of centralization at all, believing in a fully voluntary workers' society.


So I would ask you to justify why you believe you will find liberty in the oppressive ideals of the right, but I already can assume your answer:
either you actually believe right wing rhetoric and you haven't studied nearly enough politics as you'd like to believe.
or you are privileged in your social position and are either too selfish or too blind to realize just how little freedom people actually have. If this is so, you probably also believe most people enjoy a middle class level of commodity.

[Zabijej]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

And still more uninformed bullshit. Liberals are not left, you know?

Let me give you a little history on the right and left wing rather than simply keep saying just how wrong you are:

The names came from the French Revolution. During their national assembly representatives used to sit according to their political belief: monarchists to the right, republicans to the left.

From that you can see that the 'right wing' was traditional, authoritarian, classist, and elitist. The left wing tended to be progressive, federal, merit-based, and popular, albeit bourgeois.

It hasn't changed much. The European right wing is still like that - traditional conservatives believe that they do have the best interests of society in mind, but only a privileged few are good enough to lead. Just look at Churchill.
Farther to the right you get the nationalists and the fascists, many many times brided with each other. You don't get any more authoritarian than fascism.
In America is where you get the bullshit rhetoric that the right wing cares for liberties because of their faith in laissez faire capitalism. Capitalism is not free at all, and the capitalism 'libertarians' espouse is a monstrosity to anyone that has actually bothered to read Wealth of Nations.

Now, on the left you had the Republicans. The legitimate left, the farthest left in the national assembly, were those delegates popularly chosen by what we now call proletariat. They were uncompromising in their ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
After the First International we see the left wing express itself in the form of socialism. The basic premise is that workers are oppressed and socialism offers them greater liberty and equality by giving them the means of production. There's no fucking authoritarianism involved in the left wing and even the bullshit 'democratic centralism' of Lenin is more federal than the centralized governments of the 'free world.'
Farther to the left you get the syndicalists and anarchists who don't believe in any form of centralization at all, believing in a fully voluntary workers' society.


So I would ask you to justify why you believe you will find liberty in the oppressive ideals of the right, but I already can assume your answer:
either you actually believe right wing rhetoric and you haven't studied nearly enough politics as you'd like to believe.
or you are privileged in your social position and are either too selfish or too blind to realize just how little freedom people actually have. If this is so, you probably also believe most people enjoy a middle class level of commodity.

I'm assuming you're European?

The American right doesn't believe in monarchy because we've never HAD monarchy as an independent country. We split before fascism or communism/marxism ever existed, so the r/l here have different roots. Early on, America was a confederacy. When the decision was proposed, those who wanted to unite all the states to common laws as one nation were federalists (for strong central gov) and those who wanted to preserve states as discrete units were anti-federalists (against strong central gov). In the most literal sense, the anti-federalists WERE liberal.

However, just as the republican party was once the "civil rights" party of their day compared to their stance today, meanings shift. According to your logic, the USSR would qualify as right-wing because they were authoritarian, had a strong central government, believed in rule by a select few, and were not very liberal as far as their citizens' freedom was concerned. There is a trend throughout the world: USSR took over neighboring countries and took away their national identity (why former soviet countries have divided so many times since 1991, as an attempt to regain this), the democratic-socialist countries of Europe are coalescing into the European Union, America is on its way to democratic-socialism and eventually set to merge with Mexico and Canada as the North American Union.

[Onyx]

Originally Posted by Zabijej

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

^ freedom of speech? free trade? personal liberty? I haven't seen any of that from Liberals.

Things I see from Liberals: laws prohibiting "hate speech" ("hate" being anything someone wants it to be) socialism and welfare state, globalisation and big government, and laws concerning things from guns to what kind of car you can drive and what kind of dog you can own (I'm referring to california's emissions restrictions and its ban on pit bulls).

I understand, there is a difference between "liberal" (conducive to freedom) and "Liberal" (associated with aforementioned things)

Painting with a rather large brush there. Free trade? Fuck free trade up its fucking ass with no lube and a salt rock condom. All free trade does is allow another way for the capitalist class to exploit people with even less power to resist than the ones it currently has access to while at the same time using them as a gun to the US worker's head whenever he/she wants a more fair share of their labour. Most "liberals" I know who can't stand free trade will talk all day about the merits of fair trade.

What kind of car you can drive? Makes sense to me. Why should you be allowed to constantly fill up your 7 MPG hummer, there by helping drive the price of fuel up, to go cruising around town showing it off when someone else can't afford to keep enough gas in their car, one that gets a somewhat decent MPG, just enough to get back and forth to work? By exercising your "freedom" to conspicuous consumption you are also limiting someone else's freedom of assciation and mobility. Not very libertarian of you.

Then again, if you libertards didn't mix such a boner for capitalism into your philosophy and thought past YOUR freedoms, you'd realise that not all freedom comes from being able to keep and spend your money any way you see fit.

Globalisation? Goes to show you don't know jack about the beliefs you profess to hold. Also exposed by your love of free trade and denouncing of globalisation. Boarders limit a libertarians freedom of assocation and business.

Freedom of speech? How long ago was it that minorities weren't allowed this luxury? Who were the ones marching in the streets along side them? O ya, the left. The communists and socialists were among the most steadfast non-minorities in the civil rights movement. Where were the libertarians? That's right, they oppose the types of civil rights being fought for because it didn't go along with their views that they should be able to pay those uppity spicks and negros as little as they wanted while not allowing them to shop in the same stores selling the food they picked at slave wages.

Personal liberty? I've always hated that phrase as it says so much while saying nothing at all. Goes back to the theoretical liberty VS actual liberty. It all depends on who's personal liberty you're speaking of and how it limits everyone else's liberty. Though, from 99.9% of the libertarians I've spoken with, this always comes down to the golden rule. He who has the gold makes all the rules.

[Zabijej]

Some quotes have been cropped for conciseness.

Originally Posted by Onyx

All free trade does is allow another way for the capitalist class to exploit people with even less power to resist than the ones it currently has access to while at the same time using them as a gun to the US worker's head whenever he/she wants a more fair share of their labour.

Then let the government exploit people with even less power to resist?

Why...fill up your 7 MPG hummer...[driving] the price of fuel up, to go cruising around town...when someone else can't afford to...By exercising your "freedom"...you are also limiting someone else's freedom of assciation and mobility.

I drive a compact car (25c/28h) because my philosophy is that even if I had the money to fill up a Hummer, I could be doing other more valuable things with it besides burning it in my motor. To some people, that's important. However, many people drive whatever they can afford which is usually an old sled and not the green hydrogen cell car that the idealist in me thinks car companies should have already made mainstream by now.

Another thing: water-powered cars have been around for decades. I'll enlighten you to a conversation I had with an older manager of mine about it, he was educated in business mind you. He said it would never work unless the manufacturers devised some way that it would only run on "special water" (with an additive), I said companies should have a sense of social responsibility and admit that the age of gasoline is over. He said that would kill the economy, I said it's worth people paying greatly less to run cars. He said it would drive up the price of water, I said water isn't that expensive and the money that would be saved by not buying gasoline would more than compensate. He said it would cause water shortages and (I'm not making this up) keep him from watering his lawn, I told him billions of people go through life without ever watering their lawn and it's unreasonable to deny a change that could make life better everywhere in the world just so a bunch of yuppies can feel less bad about watering their lawns.

Then again, if you libertards didn't mix such a boner for capitalism into your philosophy and thought past YOUR freedoms, you'd realise that not all freedom comes from being able to keep and spend your money any way you see fit.

Freedom is also the ability to make, own, use, say, write, and read whatever I want. Why I say "make": if people want to make bombs, I say let them, as long as they're blowing up their own crap. If you legally obtained it, if it's on your property, if no one else's life or property or rights are harmed by it - have at it. Freedom isn't sacrifice.

Borders limit a libertarians freedom of assocation and business

If borders limit trade then so be it (though I don't believe trade should be limited, it shouldn't be provisioned for either), because people shouldn't be forced to associate against their will. If it reduces ethnic strife, let people have their own nations and live among their own culture. If the PEOPLE (not the governments) want to combine, they have that right as well.

Who were the ones marching in the streets along side them? O ya, the left. The communists and socialists were among the most steadfast non-minorities in the civil rights movement. [Libertarians] oppose the types of civil rights being fought for because...they should be able to pay those uppity spicks and negros as little as they wanted while not allowing them to shop in the same stores selling the food they picked at slave wages.

Freedom is also clearly defined laws. "Hate speech" can be defined as anything. We already have "libel" and "slander" defined, there's something fishy about another catch-all category. It's like a little kid changing the rules of the game halfway through because he realises he's not getting what he wants. Laws like hate speech laws and the patriot act are one and the same - what and why exactly is the government trying to accommodate?

I believe everyone was BORN equal. Now that the civil rights era is over and minorities are able to do everything the "white devil" is allowed to do, why are we rehashing things like imperialism, colonialism, slavery? Why does everyone need to be reminded of these things by a law that's NOT meant to punish equally the black person calling the whites "crackers" or "devils", the woman who calls men pigs and makes it no secret she hates men, the Moslems who protest "FUCK YOU DENMARK", some who assault outsiders if they wander into their community to the scale that cop cars now said "AINA" which means "fucking cop" in their language. How can anyone recount any of that and think it's a picture of equality - it's a picture of revenge, if anything. People are being put into slavery forced to do more horrible things that wash massah's house - child sex slaves, foremost. My ancestors were slaves too - nobody cares about that and I don't expect them to because I can focus on how far we've come from serfdom to a generation with 5 kids either in or done with college.

Goes back to the theoretical liberty VS actual liberty. It all depends on who's personal liberty...and how it limits everyone else's liberty...this always comes down to...he who has the gold makes all the rules.

As previously stated, as long as whatever someone is doing is legally acquired, on their property, and not directly interfering with anyone else's life or property or rights.

You've questioned everything I said. Now is a question for you: what is freedom to YOU. Don't give me anything out of the communist manifesto. What is YOUR belief according to your experiences and what you see in the world in this century.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by Zabijej

I'm assuming you're European?

I'm Mexican

The American right doesn't believe in monarchy because we've never HAD monarchy as an independent country.

Tell me something I don't know. This is precisely why I said the American right wing is different because of its faith in laissez fair capitalism so I don't see why you're also repeating the fact that the American right wing is different.

According to your logic, the USSR would qualify as right-wing because they were authoritarian, had a strong central government, believed in rule by a select few, and were not very liberal as far as their citizens' freedom was concerned.

Actually yes. Anyone that knows enough about the Left knows that the Soviet Union was right wing socialism.
But you don't. You have proven you know nothing about the left and you obviously have no idea what the "extreme left" is.

[KontanKarite]

If we're talking about capitalism as a system of trade, it's really no worse or better then communism. Both systems do the same thing, really. It supplies the people with what they're asking for.

Honestly, if you want someone to blame for the evils of capitalism and communism, go no further than the very customers they serve. A system of trade only responds to the demands that the people make.

The people oppress themselves socially long before the system of trade does.

Racism, Sexism, Orientational bigotry... These are not a result of the systems of trade in question. These are human conditions that are solved on the most grass roots level possible, fixing YOU.

The people themselves have a DUTY to free their hearts and their minds. After the people do that, then maybe we can think about how we're all going to trade.

On paper, there is nothing wrong with capitalism or communism. What makes them both the bane of humanity is those that perpetuate either one with their own malice. Evil is simply the indulgence of bad ideas long after the veil of ignorance is removed and sadly, there ARE evil people out there.

Forgive me if this post is a bit off the beaten path of the thread itself, I simply noticed that there was some talk about capitalism vs. communism here.

[Zabijej]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

Tell me something I don't know. This is precisely why I said the American right wing is different because of its faith in laissez fair capitalism so I don't see why you're also repeating the fact that the American right wing is different.

That it's not "all about" authority and control as European monarchy was, that it has changed meanings over time. Anti-federalists were similar to the left at that time, but what Leftist NOW wants the US to be a confederation with a weak central government.

Actually yes. Anyone that knows enough about the Left knows that the Soviet Union was right wing socialism.
But you don't. You have proven you know nothing about the left and you obviously have no idea what the "extreme left" is.

Do you have a source to support this? Every single book and article I've ever read, from school books to crazy people on the internet, put communism on the left side of the spectrum because of its pursuit of equality and destruction of religion and ethnic identity (two major pillars of the far-right) to achieve it.

[Zabijej]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

If we're talking about capitalism as a system of trade, it's really no worse or better then communism. Both systems do the same thing, really. It supplies the people with what they're asking for.

Honestly, if you want someone to blame for the evils of capitalism and communism, go no further than the very customers they serve. A system of trade only responds to the demands that the people make.

The people oppress themselves socially long before the system of trade does.

Racism, Sexism, Orientational bigotry... These are not a result of the systems of trade in question. These are human conditions that are solved on the most grass roots level possible, fixing YOU.

The people themselves have a DUTY to free their hearts and their minds. After the people do that, then maybe we can think about how we're all going to trade.

On paper, there is nothing wrong with capitalism or communism. What makes them both the bane of humanity is those that perpetuate either one with their own malice. Evil is simply the indulgence of bad ideas long after the veil of ignorance is removed and sadly, there ARE evil people out there.

Forgive me if this post is a bit off the beaten path of the thread itself, I simply noticed that there was some talk about capitalism vs. communism here.

I agree completely

...and you made me and everyone else arguing look like a bunch of bickering fools. THAT is how it's done lol

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

On paper, there is nothing wrong with capitalism or communism. What makes them both the bane of humanity is those that perpetuate either one with their own malice. Evil is simply the indulgence of bad ideas long after the veil of ignorance is removed and sadly, there ARE evil people out there.

You'd like to believe that. There's nothing wrong with the system, only with some people here and there that manipulate the system. The system is good and graceful but it has some bad apples.

This is not true, though.
Neoliberalism is almost pure capitalism and is the only logical outcome out of basing a whole economy on the accumulation on capital rather than on the need of society.
The communism you're obviously talking about is almost pure leninism and is the only logical outcome out of centralizing the needs of the whole world rather than allowing local autonomy.

Neither is good, not even in paper, and we should already know this, because we have seen them played almost line for line.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by Zabijej

That it's not "all about" authority and control as European monarchy was, that it has changed meanings over time. Anti-federalists were similar to the left at that time, but what Leftist NOW wants the US to be a confederation with a weak central government.

You confuse me. First of all, the claim you just said was probably nothing more than you shooting at the dark. You just happen to be right.
Leftists, at least cool leftists, should indeed try to make the US have a weak central government.
This is exactly the opposite of your claims that the left is authoritarian. You have just contradicted yourself:

Originally Posted by Zabijej

I'm a libertarian and believe in simply not meddling.

Originally Posted by Zabijej

the left is involving more government in people's everyday lives

Do you have a source to support this? Every single book and article I've ever read, from school books to crazy people on the internet, put communism on the left side of the spectrum because of its pursuit of equality and destruction of religion and ethnic identity (two major pillars of the far-right) to achieve it.

When did we talk about communism?
We're talking about the Soviet Union, and you have once more proven you know nothing about the Left.
No one but Stalinists believe that the Soviet Union is communist in any sense of the word.
You want sources? You can read ANY important author of the left:
Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Murray Bookchin, Bakunin, Noam Chomsky, Karl freaking Marx, any writing from Socialism USA, anything from the IWW, Rudolph Rocker...

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

You'd like to believe that. There's nothing wrong with the system, only with some people here and there that manipulate the system. The system is good and graceful but it has some bad apples.

This is not true, though.
Neoliberalism is almost pure capitalism and is the only logical outcome out of basing a whole economy on the accumulation on capital rather than on the need of society.
The communism you're obviously talking about is almost pure leninism and is the only logical outcome out of centralizing the needs of the whole world rather than allowing local autonomy.

Neither is good, not even in paper, and we should already know this, because we have seen them played almost line for line.

If we're speaking about social anarchy and not a system of trade, then what threat is there of systems when the social climate is that of one based on autonomy, personal responsibility, tolorance, and community?

The crux of my post was not so much the systems in place but the people within the systems. Our social problems I'm willing to bet are more a social problem stemming from a human condition and not a result of trade. Hate and love are not results of exchange of currency for products and services or the sharing of resources.

There ARE such things as benevolent capitalists and benevolent communists as well as malevolent versions of these.

[Onyx]

Originally Posted by Zabijej

Some quotes have been cropped for conciseness.



Then let the government exploit people with even less power to resist?



I drive a compact car (25c/28h) because my philosophy is that even if I had the money to fill up a Hummer, I could be doing other more valuable things with it besides burning it in my motor. To some people, that's important. However, many people drive whatever they can afford which is usually an old sled and not the green hydrogen cell car that the idealist in me thinks car companies should have already made mainstream by now.

Another thing: water-powered cars have been around for decades. I'll enlighten you to a conversation I had with an older manager of mine about it, he was educated in business mind you. He said it would never work unless the manufacturers devised some way that it would only run on "special water" (with an additive), I said companies should have a sense of social responsibility and admit that the age of gasoline is over. He said that would kill the economy, I said it's worth people paying greatly less to run cars. He said it would drive up the price of water, I said water isn't that expensive and the money that would be saved by not buying gasoline would more than compensate. He said it would cause water shortages and (I'm not making this up) keep him from watering his lawn, I told him billions of people go through life without ever watering their lawn and it's unreasonable to deny a change that could make life better everywhere in the world just so a bunch of yuppies can feel less bad about watering their lawns.



Freedom is also the ability to make, own, use, say, write, and read whatever I want. Why I say "make": if people want to make bombs, I say let them, as long as they're blowing up their own crap. If you legally obtained it, if it's on your property, if no one else's life or property or rights are harmed by it - have at it. Freedom isn't sacrifice.



If borders limit trade then so be it (though I don't believe trade should be limited, it shouldn't be provisioned for either), because people shouldn't be forced to associate against their will. If it reduces ethnic strife, let people have their own nations and live among their own culture. If the PEOPLE (not the governments) want to combine, they have that right as well.



Freedom is also clearly defined laws. "Hate speech" can be defined as anything. We already have "libel" and "slander" defined, there's something fishy about another catch-all category. It's like a little kid changing the rules of the game halfway through because he realises he's not getting what he wants. Laws like hate speech laws and the patriot act are one and the same - what and why exactly is the government trying to accommodate?

I believe everyone was BORN equal. Now that the civil rights era is over and minorities are able to do everything the "white devil" is allowed to do, why are we rehashing things like imperialism, colonialism, slavery? Why does everyone need to be reminded of these things by a law that's NOT meant to punish equally the black person calling the whites "crackers" or "devils", the woman who calls men pigs and makes it no secret she hates men, the Moslems who protest "FUCK YOU DENMARK", some who assault outsiders if they wander into their community to the scale that cop cars now said "AINA" which means "fucking cop" in their language. How can anyone recount any of that and think it's a picture of equality - it's a picture of revenge, if anything. People are being put into slavery forced to do more horrible things that wash massah's house - child sex slaves, foremost. My ancestors were slaves too - nobody cares about that and I don't expect them to because I can focus on how far we've come from serfdom to a generation with 5 kids either in or done with college.



As previously stated, as long as whatever someone is doing is legally acquired, on their property, and not directly interfering with anyone else's life or property or rights.

You've questioned everything I said. Now is a question for you: what is freedom to YOU. Don't give me anything out of the communist manifesto. What is YOUR belief according to your experiences and what you see in the world in this century.

What do I believe freedom is? Freedom is the wool pulled over the populaces eyes to cause them to believe they're not still slaves to the ruling class. The only difference between the slavery of yesteryear and today is you get to choose what's on the cook fires and, so long as the corporate masters don't disagree with it, the freedom to choose what clothing you wear.

How is today much different from New Orleans' Congo Square in the 1800's? Slaves were given Sunday off and could go to Congo Square, wear what they wished, dance how they wished and play the music that they wished. In the end they still had to slave for their masters again on Monday.

So now I get to choose my master. Is that much better?

Sadly it seems, thinking back on my younger years, that the most freedom I've ever felt were during the years I was homeless. Except for those times I ended up in jail for sleeping in a house that someone else "owned" and had left boarded up for years.

[Zabijej]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

You confuse me. First of all, the claim you just said was probably nothing more than you shooting at the dark. You just happen to be right.
Leftists, at least cool leftists, should indeed try to make the US have a weak central government.
This is exactly the opposite of your claims that the left is authoritarian.

Stop thinking about the early 1900s. Look at what is happening today, look at the most liberal nations. Their theme is government involvement through social welfare, laws concerning every part of a person's life, pacification through gun control.

When did we talk about communism?
We're talking about the Soviet Union, and you have once more proven you know nothing about the Left.
No one but Stalinists believe that the Soviet Union is communist in any sense of the word.
You want sources? You can read ANY important author of the left:
Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Murray Bookchin, Bakunin, Noam Chomsky, Karl freaking Marx, any writing from Socialism USA, anything from the IWW, Rudolph Rocker...

This sounds lazy, but I'm not going to read through every one of those author's books just to verify your claim.



ADDITIONALLY. Authoritarian is a governing style not an ideology, as you can see on this political compass which someone has been so nice as to decorate for us all.

[Onyx]

Originally Posted by Zabijej

Stop thinking about the early 1900s. Look at what is happening today, look at the most liberal nations. Their theme is government involvement through social welfare, laws concerning every part of a person's life, pacification through gun control.

Capitalism demands government involvement through social welfare. Or would you prefer we go back to the gilded age and work houses?

As for pacification through gun control, what a joke. Makes you sound as crazy as the loonies in the militia movement. The second amendment is so out of date it isn't even funny. The military has become the well regulated militia. Do you think the government would worry about an armed group, even should they have military grade equipment? No! Even with sub-par equipment you'd be out gunned by superior planning, execution, training and communication of the military.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by Zabijej

Stop thinking about the early 1900s. Look at what is happening today, look at the most liberal nations. Their theme is government involvement through social welfare, laws concerning every part of a person's life, pacification through gun control.

I'm not talking about 1900's.
You are motherfucking talking about liberals, not leftists. So much for the 'uber left' you were stupidly dissing.

Get that through your fucking skull and then maybe your opinion will have some validity.


And you tell me to support my opinions, I give you the main body of leftist literature, and now you say screw that, you don't care?
You're terrible at arguments. You're that type of person that doesn't care how much counterarguments and factual claims anyone else gives you, you won't care and you'll backstab your own assertions if you have to. No wonder you're one of those people that call themselves "libertarians"

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by Onyx

Capitalism demands government involvement through social welfare. Or would you prefer we go back to the gilded age and work houses?

As for pacification through gun control, what a joke. Makes you sound as crazy as the loonies in the militia movement. The second amendment is so out of date it isn't even funny. The military has become the well regulated militia. Do you think the government would worry about an armed group, even should they have military grade equipment? No! Even with sub-par equipment you'd be out gunned by superior planning, execution, training and communication of the military.

Doing away with the second amendment is pointless.

Someone who is responsible with their guns will not have the problems we face with guns. Law abiding citizens who own guns are not the suppliers of those who commit gun related crimes. Those who commit them mostly do so through illegal arms trade. Furthermore, those who commit gun crimes that obtained a gun legally either did so through a crime of passion proving that that person should not have owned a gun. Also, gun accidents are the result of those being irresponsible with guns. There are also accidents with lawn mowers, cars, kitchenware, and other tools that people use. In other words, the right to bare and own arms is not as threatening as the liberals would have us believe.

[Onyx]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

Doing away with the second amendment is pointless.

Someone who is responsible with their guns will not have the problems we face with guns. Law abiding citizens who own guns are not the suppliers of those who commit gun related crimes. Those who commit them mostly do so through illegal arms trade. Furthermore, those who commit gun crimes that obtained a gun legally either did so through a crime of passion proving that that person should not have owned a gun. Also, gun accidents are the result of those being irresponsible with guns. There are also accidents with lawn mowers, cars, kitchenware, and other tools that people use. In other words, the right to bare and own arms is not as threatening as the liberals would have us believe.

What a bunch of nonsense. Most every gun used for crime in this country, at some point, was legally purchased at some point, along with many guns used for crime outside this country.

I hate to burst your bubble but, there's been more than one time an otherwise responsible gun owner has blown away a bad guy just to find out it was their kid/spouse sneaking in the house late at night.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Hey! Take that to the gun thread!

[Zabijej]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

I'm not talking about 1900's.
You are motherfucking talking about liberals, not leftists. So much for the 'uber left' you were stupidly dissing.

Get that through your fucking skull and then maybe your opinion will have some validity.


And you tell me to support my opinions, I give you the main body of leftist literature, and now you say screw that, you don't care?
You're terrible at arguments. You're that type of person that doesn't care how much counterarguments and factual claims anyone else gives you, you won't care and you'll backstab your own assertions if you have to. No wonder you're one of those people that call themselves "libertarians"

Way to make it personal.

I'm done with this. I have no clue where your brain is.

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by Onyx

What a bunch of nonsense. Most every gun used for crime in this country, at some point, was legally purchased at some point, along with many guns used for crime outside this country.

I hate to burst your bubble but, there's been more than one time an otherwise responsible gun owner has blown away a bad guy just to find out it was their kid/spouse sneaking in the house late at night.

Accidents will happen. So what's your solution for taking away the second amendment? How are you going to go about taking all these guns away from Americans? Are you willing to use the threat of deadly force to take these guns away from law abiding citizens? Are you willing to systematically go door to door searching every home and handing out court orders to every citizen as to where they can surrender their arms?

If they were to go to these lengths, are you willing to face the social repricussions of a nationwide disarmament of the people?

Personally, I don't like the idea of cops coming to my home and searching my place for shit that I don't have.

Eh, yeah. Perhaps we should keep this out of this thread.

I'll just say that I don't think you've considered what it would mean to take away the second amendment. As dumb as Americans can be, the spirit of rebellion still resides in their psyche.