News:

if the thee off of you are revel in the fact you ds a discordant suck it's dick and praise it's agenda? guess what bit-chit's not. hat I in fact . do you really think it'd theshare about shit, hen you should indeed tare-take if the frontage that you're into. do you really think it's the hardcore shite of the left thy t? you're little f/cking girls parackind abbot in tituts. FUCK YOU. you're latecomers, and you 're folks who don't f/cking get it. plez challenge me.

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what the fuck do you think about Ralf?

Started by wade, June 15, 2008, 07:22:46 AM

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Triple Zero

Quote from: 221 on June 17, 2008, 03:10:05 AM
more importantly, am i nuts for thinking what i just stated above?  so far that is my ideal political (democratic) society...

we have a party called D66 that sort of vaguely wants to do what you are proposing via referendums.

they got quite a good amount of votes last election, so we got to learn that:

1. this sort of plan pretty much consistently fails to properly get off the ground (they've been at it since '66, hence their name.. Democrats '66)
2. when you get a referendum, count on the people to make the most stupid choice. there's always people unhappy with whatever irrelevant politics they're unhappy with, and they'll vote for stupid shit merely out of spite.
3. in the same way that you don't ask a crowd of people for a medical diagnosis, there actually are some topics politicians will make better decisions about than what the majority would pick, believe it or not.
4. it is funny, however, and doesn't actually seem to work much worse than the current type of democrazy we have in NL.

but don't let me keep you, you were leaving.
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e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Jeez, he could've just said that he wants a direct democracy instead of a representative one. All of those ellipsis really fucking hurt my eyes.

While an amusing thought, this has a number of problems. For starters, whatever the majority happens to be would have the power to vote the minority into submission. Another would be the sheer difficulty in organizing this in anything but an extremely small society, it might be well and good for an individual city or town to get together and vote on the issues at hand, but getting national participation would be a problem (in which case the rulership doesnt fall just to the majority, but to the vocal majority.)

Personally, I favor an autocratic rulership, where the ruling part does so by divine mandate, they themselves being incarnations of the sun god Horus.

P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Z³ on June 17, 2008, 12:52:29 PM
Personally, I favor an autocratic rulership, where the ruling part does so by divine mandate, they themselves being incarnations of the sun god Horus.

titcm!

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The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Z³ on June 17, 2008, 12:52:29 PM
Jeez, he could've just said that he wants a direct democracy instead of a representative one. 

Ugh.  Ask the Athenians how that worked out.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
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"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: That One Guy on June 16, 2008, 03:38:13 PM


Gore and the Dems' problems in 2000 had little to do with Nader, and LOTS to do with Gore - a block of wood would have had more life and charisma in that election.

Rubbish.  The margin of victory for Bush was less than the vote total Nader got.

And it wasn't the neocons voting for Nader.

Sucker.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Daruko on June 16, 2008, 05:06:44 PM
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 16, 2008, 04:04:05 PM
Like WTF - I thought democracy was about voting for who you want to win?

I think I agree.  Everyone tries to play according to the rules of the game, but those rules are social fictions that should be broken.  The media tells you that Mr. John Independent has no chance, and suddenly... guess what?  No chance.  Get in line cabbages!  Time to vote for who we tell you to vote for!  :fnord:

Kind of like how gas will start going slowly down in price, and the forecasters predict it's going up, and then Viola!  It goes up.  Another excellent effect of television.

Well, sure.  Vote for the shill, and tell yourself you made the world better, while the neocons continue to fuck us up the ass with baseball bats.

Your arse may wind up wider than the Lincoln Tunnel, but at least you can congratulate yourself on how you didn't compromise, even for a minute.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

That One Guy

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 18, 2008, 03:03:23 AM
Quote from: That One Guy on June 16, 2008, 03:38:13 PM


Gore and the Dems' problems in 2000 had little to do with Nader, and LOTS to do with Gore - a block of wood would have had more life and charisma in that election.

Rubbish.  The margin of victory for Bush was less than the vote total Nader got.

And it wasn't the neocons voting for Nader.

Sucker.

Here's a quickie rundown of the election results for Florida via wikipedia (so admittedly take it with a grain of salt) -

George W. Bush    Republican    Texas    50,456,002    47.87%    271    
Al Gore    Democratic    Tennessee    50,999,897    48.38%    266    
Ralph Nader    Green    Connecticut    2,882,955    2.7%    0    
Pat Buchanan    Reform    Virginia    448,895    0.4%    0    
Harry Browne    Libertarian    Tennessee    384,431    0.4%    0    
Howard Phillips    Constitution    Virginia    98,020    0.1%    0    
John Hagelin    Natural Law/Reform    Iowa    83,714    0.1%    0    
Other(b)    51,186    0.1%    

Every single other candidate got more votes than the margin of victory, yet only Nader gets the blame. Ignore the republican effort to deny black voters at the polls. Ignore the recount halt and the Supreme Court decision - just keep looking at the numbers of Nader.

I didn't vote in Florida. If I had voted in Florida I would have voted for Gore. I voted in Mass. where a pig would win if it was running Democrat. Thus, I voted for Nader in the hope that the Green party would get matching federal funds in the 2004 election cycle.

I spend a lot of time examining the platforms of the candidates and place my vote accordingly. Should I ignore the candidate that most closely represents those issues if they're not a Democrat or Republican? Obviously I agree that there are circumstances that I would. However, it's just as damaging to ignore ALL the problems in favor of making a scapegoat out of one candidate.
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Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: That One Guy on June 18, 2008, 02:18:29 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 18, 2008, 03:03:23 AM
Quote from: That One Guy on June 16, 2008, 03:38:13 PM


Gore and the Dems' problems in 2000 had little to do with Nader, and LOTS to do with Gore - a block of wood would have had more life and charisma in that election.

Rubbish.  The margin of victory for Bush was less than the vote total Nader got.

And it wasn't the neocons voting for Nader.

Sucker.

Here's a quickie rundown of the election results for Florida via wikipedia (so admittedly take it with a grain of salt) -

George W. Bush    Republican    Texas    50,456,002    47.87%    271    
Al Gore    Democratic    Tennessee    50,999,897    48.38%    266    
Ralph Nader    Green    Connecticut    2,882,955    2.7%    0    
Pat Buchanan    Reform    Virginia    448,895    0.4%    0    
Harry Browne    Libertarian    Tennessee    384,431    0.4%    0    
Howard Phillips    Constitution    Virginia    98,020    0.1%    0    
John Hagelin    Natural Law/Reform    Iowa    83,714    0.1%    0    
Other(b)    51,186    0.1%    

Every single other candidate got more votes than the margin of victory, yet only Nader gets the blame. Ignore the republican effort to deny black voters at the polls. Ignore the recount halt and the Supreme Court decision - just keep looking at the numbers of Nader.

I didn't vote in Florida. If I had voted in Florida I would have voted for Gore. I voted in Mass. where a pig would win if it was running Democrat. Thus, I voted for Nader in the hope that the Green party would get matching federal funds in the 2004 election cycle.

I spend a lot of time examining the platforms of the candidates and place my vote accordingly. Should I ignore the candidate that most closely represents those issues if they're not a Democrat or Republican? Obviously I agree that there are circumstances that I would. However, it's just as damaging to ignore ALL the problems in favor of making a scapegoat out of one candidate.

:mittens:

I can see the argument that citizens have a responsibility to vote, but I reject the idea that citizens have a responsibility to vote for one of the two popular options. Personally, I think the Dems are as likely to fuck us with a baseball bat as the GOP. If a third party candidate showed up that I agreed with (which is not Nader), then I would vote for them, rather than Asshat 1 or Asshat 2.

- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Cramulus

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 18, 2008, 03:05:20 AM
Quote from: Daruko on June 16, 2008, 05:06:44 PM
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 16, 2008, 04:04:05 PM
Like WTF - I thought democracy was about voting for who you want to win?

I think I agree.  Everyone tries to play according to the rules of the game, but those rules are social fictions that should be broken.  The media tells you that Mr. John Independent has no chance, and suddenly... guess what?  No chance.  Get in line cabbages!  Time to vote for who we tell you to vote for!  :fnord:

Kind of like how gas will start going slowly down in price, and the forecasters predict it's going up, and then Viola!  It goes up.  Another excellent effect of television.

Well, sure.  Vote for the shill, and tell yourself you made the world better, while the neocons continue to fuck us up the ass with baseball bats.

Your arse may wind up wider than the Lincoln Tunnel, but at least you can congratulate yourself on how you didn't compromise, even for a minute.

OHHHH I didn't realize that the popular vote decided the 2000 election. Silly me, I must have mis-remembered all that contraversy in Florida with dimpled chads, undervoting / overvoting, and all that stuff. I'll try to vote with the majority (instead of a "shill") in the future, it's clearly the only way to make a difference and not get fucked with baseball bats.

If we had just all voted for Gore like good little liberals, I'm sure everything would be cool right now. Well I guess we got what we deserved by not playing the 2-man con - apparently its the only game in town. Forget all those other shills -- if they couldn't get the GOP or Dem nomination, their platform must not be that great after all, no?


/sarcasm


tyrannosaurus vex

you have the play the hand you're dealt. there's plenty of room for campaigning on issues but popular elections don't really that way -- they're games of probability and strategery. personally, i believe in campaigning hard for the best 'perfect world' candidate you can find, in the hopes of growing support for him/her and forcing the mainstream candidates to espouse a few of the policy changes your preferred candidate would make. but when it comes to the general election, you have to be realistic, especially when you're dancing on the line between modest progress and outright fascism.
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Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: vexati0n on June 18, 2008, 03:55:51 PM
you have the play the hand you're dealt. there's plenty of room for campaigning on issues but popular elections don't really that way -- they're games of probability and strategery. personally, i believe in campaigning hard for the best 'perfect world' candidate you can find, in the hopes of growing support for him/her and forcing the mainstream candidates to espouse a few of the policy changes your preferred candidate would make. but when it comes to the general election, you have to be realistic, especially when you're dancing on the line between modest progress and outright fascism.

Outright Fascism? That's as believable as Obama as an Outright Marxist.. or that the Muslim extremists are "Islamofascists". Useful criticism is useful... obvious name calling is obvious... and name calling.

If the party was the BNP, American Nazi or something like that, then fascism would be appropriate. But, I think you'd be hard pressed to provide any evidence that John McCain, Lindsey Graham or most (but not all) members of of the GOP are fascist or support outright fascism. Authoritarian, quite likely (but then so are the Dems).
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Daruko

Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 18, 2008, 03:50:39 PM
OHHHH I didn't realize that the popular vote decided the 2000 election. Silly me, I must have mis-remembered all that contraversy in Florida with dimpled chads, undervoting / overvoting, and all that stuff. I'll try to vote with the majority (instead of a "shill") in the future, it's clearly the only way to make a difference and not get fucked with baseball bats.

If we had just all voted for Gore like good little liberals, I'm sure everything would be cool right now. Well I guess we got what we deserved by not playing the 2-man con - apparently its the only game in town. Forget all those other shills -- if they couldn't get the GOP or Dem nomination, their platform must not be that great after all, no?

/sarcasm


tyrannosaurus vex

The GOP consistently campaigns on a Fascist platform -- lower/no taxes for business, the economic belief that freeing corporations to do whatever they want ultimately benefits the entire population, the belief that "freedom of speech" should include allowing wealthy companies to dictate government policy on just about every matter, the complete dissolution of social safety nets, a complete reliance on "private business" for all needs, doing away with government regulation (or "interference") in almost every industry. These are the ideas that the GOP campaigns on. They never accomplish any of this because they haven't been allowed to. But the party has gotten some of this done on a local level in some places (it's all pretty much failed horribly, of course) so it's obvious that they genuinely want to.

More recently, the GOP has also begun to espouse the belief that the federal military should be used for domestic police activities, that the people have only a severely limited right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and especially since 9/11 they seem to think that security and liberty are mutually exclusive, and favor security over liberty.

The Dems aren't much better, obviously. But in my opinion they currently propose policies more directly beneficial to the People. They also have a habit of giving good reasons why their policies will work better, as opposed to invoking 9/11 and squawking a bunch of crap to scare people into obedience.  Also, their political support is made up of many people who could be easy to profile and persecute -- minorities, the 'fringe,' etc. In the interest of their own survival, the Dems would be loathe to institute the kind of far-reaching authoritarian policies that the GOP could get away with because of its nearly monolithic support base of idiotic hicks.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: vexati0n on June 18, 2008, 04:16:39 PM
The GOP consistently campaigns on a Fascist platform -- lower/no taxes for business, the economic belief that freeing corporations to do whatever they want ultimately benefits the entire population, the belief that "freedom of speech" should include allowing wealthy companies to dictate government policy on just about every matter, the complete dissolution of social safety nets, a complete reliance on "private business" for all needs, doing away with government regulation (or "interference") in almost every industry. These are the ideas that the GOP campaigns on. They never accomplish any of this because they haven't been allowed to. But the party has gotten some of this done on a local level in some places (it's all pretty much failed horribly, of course) so it's obvious that they genuinely want to.

More recently, the GOP has also begun to espouse the belief that the federal military should be used for domestic police activities, that the people have only a severely limited right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and especially since 9/11 they seem to think that security and liberty are mutually exclusive, and favor security over liberty.

The Dems aren't much better, obviously. But in my opinion they currently propose policies more directly beneficial to the People. They also have a habit of giving good reasons why their policies will work better, as opposed to invoking 9/11 and squawking a bunch of crap to scare people into obedience.  Also, their political support is made up of many people who could be easy to profile and persecute -- minorities, the 'fringe,' etc. In the interest of their own survival, the Dems would be loathe to institute the kind of far-reaching authoritarian policies that the GOP could get away with because of its nearly monolithic support base of idiotic hicks.

I disagree, the GOP, particularly the NeoCons, have a strong authoritarian and a pro-business bent, but these don't seem to rise to the level of pesudo-fascism, let alone outright fascism. In most fascist regimes that I'm aware of, the corporations were under the thumb of the government, rather than the government catering to their every whim.

I mean hell, Obama's idea that we would give preferential tax treatment to the companies that did as he asked (in reference to emissions etc) has more of a fascist tone than the government wanting to give tax breaks to corporations just so the corporation can raep the citizens a bit more. While I appreciate Obama's idea much more than the other, it appears, to me, to follow the some of the concepts of fascism more obviously than the GOP.

The GOP, in general has bad ideas, but I really don't think calling them fascist is useful or correct. The Dems, in general have pretty bad ideas, but I really don't think calling them fascist is useful or correct. Both parties appear to me as authoritarian on some subjects... but not fascist.

- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Daruko

a couple of relevant excerpts from Wiki:

As a rule, the authoritarian regime confines itself to political control of the state. By contrast, the term "totalitarian" refers to socioeconomic dynamism, the way of life, of a state society. The governmental techniques of a totalitarian regime are necessarily authoritarian. But the regime does much more. It attempts to mold the private life, the soul, the spirit, and the mores of citizens to a dominant ideology. The officially proclaimed ideology penetrates into every nook and cranny of the state society; its ambition is total".[1]

Totalitarian regimes attempt to "atomize" society and destroy all independent nonpolitical institutions. However, neither the Italian fascists nor the Nazis completely "destroyed their respective social structures", for which reason, these countries "could rapidly return to normalcy" after defeat in World War II. In contrast, all attempts to reform the regime in the USSR, "led to nowhere because every nongovernmental institution, whether social or economic, had to be built from scratch.


On Totalitarianism:

While originally referring to an 'all-embracing, total state,' the label has been applied to a wide variety of regimes and orders of rule in a critical sense. Isabel Paterson, in The God of the Machine (1943) used the term in connection with the collectivist societies of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1961) developed an influential critique of totalitarianism: in both works, he contrasted the "open society" of liberal democracy with totalitarianism, and argued that the latter is grounded in the belief that history moves toward an immutable future, in accord with knowable laws. During the Cold War period, the term gained renewed currency, especially following the publication of Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). Arendt argued that Nazi and Stalinist regimes were completely new forms of government, and not merely updated versions of the old tyrannies. According to Arendt, the source of the mass appeal of totalitarian regimes was their ideology which provided a comforting, single answer to the mysteries of the past, present, and future. For Nazism, all history is the history of racial struggle; and, for Marxism, all history is the history of class struggle. Once that premise was accepted by the public, all actions of the regime could be justified by appeal to the Law of History or Nature.

Eric Hoffer in his book The True Believer argues that mass movements like Communism, Fascism and Nazism had a common trait in picturing Western democracies and their values as decadent, with people "too soft, too pleasure-loving and too selfish" to sacrifice for a higher cause, which for them implies an inner moral and biological decay. He further claims that those movements offered the prospect of a glorious, yet imaginary, future to frustrated people, enabling them to find a refuge from the lack of personal accomplishments in their individual existence. Individual is then assimilated into a compact collective body and "fact-proof screens from reality" are established.

Sound familiar?  I'd add some additional thoughts of my own, but I'm just too damn tired today.

btw, is anyone familiar with this site?  Just stumbled across it... looks kinda interesting.
http://www.opensecrets.org/