Why Politics is Pointless


SoAMadDeathWish

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A moral government? Ok a good government would be one that gives people absolute freedom to do what ever they want. Reduce its powers alllllll the way until you have just enough government to enforce individual rights against fraud, coercion, initiation of force and theft... And I mean JUST enough to avoid total anarchy.

You would be surprised how well people would actually do. You would also see the immoral problem disappear. Government and government subsidies ENABLE immoral conduct.

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A moral government? Ok a good government would be one that gives people absolute freedom to do what ever they want. Reduce its powers alllllll the way until you have just enough government to enforce individual rights against fraud, coercion, initiation of force and theft... And I mean JUST enough to avoid total anarchy.

You would be surprised how well people would actually do. You would also see the immoral problem disappear. Government and government subsidies ENABLE immoral conduct.

We could start the process by establishing by law, or, executive order that any corporate political campaign contributions, or, individual politcal campaign contributions would eliminate the corporation, or, the individual and, his/her immediate family, from bidding on any government contract and eliminate the contributing individual and their immediate family from being awarded any provisional appointments to jobs.

A...

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There should not beeee any government contracts.

Police, military, judicial system that is it.

Funding for armaments would of course be part of it but as for the current system of awarding it, screw that. Best tech wins.

Easy cowboy....

Read my post - "We could start the process..."

That is a first step to stop the outright purchase of these scum.

I agree with the goal.

It ain't gonna happen overnight as the farmer said looking at the freshly planted corn.

A...

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A moral government? Ok a good government would be one that gives people absolute freedom to do what ever they want. Reduce its powers alllllll the way until you have just enough government to enforce individual rights against fraud, coercion, initiation of force and theft... And I mean JUST enough to avoid total anarchy.

You would be surprised how well people would actually do. You would also see the immoral problem disappear. Government and government subsidies ENABLE immoral conduct.

Agreed with the over all sentiment you express. Right to the point of minarchism, without entering it.

More, a "moral government" has its job to do, but otherwise must stay out of the business of morality. Has anyone noticed how world-wide nanny Governments have assumed for themselves the arbiters of the 'good' and the 'bad'? The facilitator of the one and the corrector of the other? Of course you have. It's the self-perpetuating result of tamed civilians increasingly looking up to them - and to hand over their lives (and their children's) in payment.

Man, and are governments lapping it up!

"But what harm is there in the State assuming responsibility for its citizens' welfare?", I hear said often.

To which I reply that even IF it can be shown that the State can effect or implement some project faster, more efficiently, grander and to more people's 'benefit' than by entrepeneurs - then that is all the more reason it must be instantly rejected out of hand. (And that is one, big "if"...)

"But what would you DO about..."(unwed mothers, the poor, the under-educated, etc.,etc.)

Brief answer, grant them the simple respect of leaving them the hell alone, and - all other things being equal, in a free society - they will and can sort themselves out.

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The problem with humans is those little suckers never act like you want 'em to when you're all busy collecting and distributing and stuff.

Here's a guy who gets what I mean, although he couches it in the opposite terms for show.

He laments people can put together their own programming these days, and that companies can figure out what they like and offer it to them.

He wants to be able to tell everybody what's news. He wants the good old days when access to news was limited by what the elite few decided was news because there were few TV channels and newspapers. And if the public doesn't like what's served, they chug it down anyway or go without news.

http://youtu.be/UhswF5zLDPI

Funny how those little suckers (human beings) keep spoiling the plans of the high and snooty. And funny how the conceited whine when they don't get their way telling others what to do.

Hmmmm... Let's help 'em out. Maybe forced reeducation camps will work on those little suckers so the elite superior ones can keep their power... :smile:

Michael

Michael,

Both approaches to news dissemination are so wrong and flawed, I believe. One was traditionally elitist as you say(or conversely, 'common' i.e.'for the people'); the other is - what? Vanity newsfeed, I'd call it.

Tailored news, giving you what you want to hear, confirming or reinforcing one's complacent beliefs. Titillating one's biases. Seldom challenging.

Exactly what would set my teeth on edge. :smile:

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Guess who else is getting it about the swing in storytelling that is starting to change the culture?

Google.

Guess where Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen will be at 5:00 PM today?

On TheBlaze TV for the full hour--being interviewed by Glenn Beck, that's where.

Hope Beck asked them about this:

Leaked NSA documents obtained by The Guardian and The Washington Post in June 2013 included Google in the list of companies that cooperate with the NSA's PRISM surveillance program, which authorizes the government to secretly access data of non-US citizens hosted by American companies without a warrant. Following the leak, government officials acknowledged the existence of the program. According to the leaked documents, the NSA has direct access to servers of those companies, and the amount of data collected through the program had been growing fast in years prior to the leak. Google has denied the existence of any "government backdoor"

.

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Hrrrmph... If the NSA had its way it would still be known as "No Such Agency".

One has to wonder as our rights and freedoms are slowly being eroded when is enough enough.

When is enough "too late"...

Have you ever read any Allan Drury?

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That's only half of the moral equation. Immoral people fantasize they are oppressed innocent victims. Believing in that lie is what provides the intellectual and emotional justification to oppress others.

Everyone who does evil first regards themselves as an innocent victim who angrily blames (unjustly accuses) others.

This is why Satan is called "The Accuser" in Hebrew in the Old Testament. The false accusation of others is what gives birth to all evil acts.

No... you're continuing to ignore the other half of the equation in an attempt to invalidate the whole thing. A thief steals what rightfully belongs to others because a thief is immoral. A thief always justifies stealing from others by believing that he was robbed by others of what he felt was rightfully his.

Now you are free to keep ignoring this other half, so I'll just keep pointing out what you're up to. :wink:

Greg

The question was not at all about why immoral people do immoral things or how they justify them to themselves, but whether or not people who are actually oppressed are immoral, as you've claimed several times in this thread already.

You have merely attempted to dodge the question with an obvious red herring. It won't work.

I've already covered that so many times, but I don't mind repeating it again. Today in America, you can only be oppressed by others as you oppress others...

...or... what goes around comes around.

Greg

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Both approaches to news dissemination are so wrong and flawed, I believe. One was traditionally elitist as you say(or conversely, 'common' i.e.'for the people'); the other is - what? Vanity newsfeed, I'd call it.

Tailored news, giving you what you want to hear, confirming or reinforcing one's complacent beliefs. Titillating one's biases. Seldom challenging.

Exactly what would set my teeth on edge. :smile:

Tony,

The rub comes in how to fix it. If you have a gatekeeper for the news, the only way you can get more information is to suck up to him.

If you have people whetting your appetite by offering you what you like in exchange for what they want, isn't that capitalism? Isn't that a good thing, not a bad thing?

OK. There's a blemish. Free choice and people offering you stuff you like can create bad habits. But is that worse than the alternative of not allowing choice?

And how bad are those bad habits, anyway? Are they impenetrable barriers?

Hell no.

The way to get people to open their horizons is to meet them where they are at and start talking their language, then offering the different views.

Let's look at a thorny example. Think about a neocon-like conservative who is homophobic and only consumes news and programs that encourage this bias. And suppose you want him to change and become more tolerant. What do you do?

Easy.

Talk his language and start telling him stories about Dick Cheney and his daughter. And start painting a vision of what it's like to have a gay son or daughter so he can see himself in that role. Talk about how heartbreaking that can be for a parent if intolerance is the standard and make him feel it in his gut with the storytelling. That's only one example, but believe me, it's totally doable. And it's effective.

But it starts with respect for the consumer. You either believe he can make his own choices and that is his right, or you believe he will be "better off" if you impose your alternatives on him.

I'm far more into the persuasion thing than the coercion and gatekeeper thing. This last is for self-defense or situations of great danger, but that's getting beyond the scope of the point.

Getting back to our neocon yahoo, you could just fight him and call him a dumbass. That's an alternative, too. But I don't see much change coming from that technique. :)

But notice that his homophobia is now dwindling in the culture--precisely in a culture where people can choose their news. Back when they couldn't, homophobia ran rampant. Gay marriage was not even be on the table for discussion back then, much less vote. And assholes like Maher who want to go back to the good old days of elite media control don't even see this.

If free choice of the culture people consume makes for an unfair world, how is it this particular issue is changing whereas it didn't have a chance before?

On a side-note, someone mentioned above that power-lust is not relevant when discussing power. What else explains how an otherwise intelligent human being like Maher can make a mistake of the proportion he made? It's the power-lust blinding him. That's what it is. And that becomes highly relevant if he--or someone like him--is the one who gets his hands on power.

Notice that power-lusters absolutely hate it--they go nuts--when people can choose and do so in ways they don't approve of. And look what they do if that can pull it off. Mass graves, that's what. How many more people have to die at their hands for their power-lust to become "relevant" to this discussion?

Michael

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No! Was he pretty good?

For fictional stuff that is semi-historical I really enjoyed reading James Clavell when I was a teenager though.

A genius.

Drury's greatest success was Advise and Consent, which was made into a film in 1962. The book was partly inspired by the suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester C. Hunt. It spent 102 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.[6]

Drury followed Advise and Consent with several sequels. A Shade of Difference is set a year after Advise and Consent. Drury then turned his attention to the next presidential election after those events with Capable of Honor and Preserve and Protect. He then wrote two alternative sequels based on two different outcomes of an assassination attack in an earlier work: Come Nineveh, Come Tyre and The Promise of Joy.

The third book, Preserve and Protect ended with a catastrophic event.

I was furious. I wrote him a letter, talked about how I believed in the outcome of a novel should reflect the values of the author.

Mentioned Rand, etc. Hell, I was 22 and in my second year of teaching. it was 1968 and America was becoming unglued with further assassinations, etc.

He wrote me a wonderful letter agreeing with plot resolution according to values. He said I would be quite happy because he had two (2) sequels which would more than satisfy me.

Wonderful man.

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

A..,

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The protest of any slave may be impotent while he still is in captivity.

Complaining will never free anyone.

But calling his enslavement a "paradise" doesn't make him any freer.

It's impossible for a person in hell to believe that another could be in Paradise. He can only believe that hell is all there is because that is all he sees. I suppose there is some consolation to be found in a slave believing that someone else is a slave like he is. In the light of this, you're welcome to hold on to your belief.

But the reality is that I'm free... I'm free to make money doing business with others who share my values. I'm free of debt, and don't own anyone even one cent. I'm free of angrily blaming (unjustly accusing) others because I take complete personal responsibility for the quality of my own life. And the government doesn't bother with me because I don't need it. So I'm free to do as I see fit to enjoy my life, my liberty, and to pursue my happiness. :smile:

Starting in just 35 days this "Judeo-Christian paradise" will impose a tax penalty for not purchasing healthcare. This penalty will be imposed on everyone who falls into the IRS's net, regardless of "what you truly are inside."

So what?

It simply becomes just another cost of doing business that gets passed on to the end users. I think paying a small fee for not buying insurance is a way better deal than buying insurance. :smile:

I am delighted that you don't spend any time in tax-supported institutions of higher learning. And it is admirable that you don't get upset when your tax dollar is spent to to support professors like Eric Foner, Richard D. Wolff, Samuel Bowles, Erik Olin Wright, and many others who are attempting bring a radical socialist regime to the United States.

They could only do that because people demand a radical socialist regime in the United States... and I'm all for people getting exactly that they demand... because it is also exactly what they deserve.

So let them choke on it. :laugh:

Let's deal with just what is.

I am decent.

You believe that you are decent.

The government doesn't treat me as decent.

You believe the government doesn't treat you as decent as you are.

The theory that "what you truly are inside" determines how you are treated is false.

What you regard as a theory is actually reality. Right now, the government is treating you exactly as decent as you are.

Whatever you may wish to believe, the government does rob me--and robs me to further the advent of full blown socialism.

You will never be free as long as you cling to playing the role of helpless government blaming victim. In the role of blamer, it is impossible to ever assume full responsibility for the just and deserved consequences of being what you are inside. Because it is only what you truly are inside which grants the government your sanction to be its victim.

Today the biggest looter in the country is the government. If you think the government's looting is in accordance with "Judeo-Christian values," then Obama surely qualifies for sainthood.

You have the free choice to assume the personal responsibility of learning how to refine your own life in such a manner so as not to make yourself fair game for the government to loot... or you can just go on impotently blaming the government.

What you choose is totally up to you and has absolutely nothing to do with me... because I already made my own choice, and it has absolutely nothing to do with what anyone else chooses. :smile:

Greg

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Guess who else is getting it about the swing in storytelling that is starting to change the culture?

Google.

Guess where Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen will be at 5:00 PM today?

On TheBlaze TV for the full hour--being interviewed by Glenn Beck, that's where.

Well, I saw it.

I expected cordiality, but I did not expect such timidity on both sides.

This was a total overture. One side sizing up the other as a preliminary to more and better stuff later.

Google wants entry into the world Glenn represents and Glenn doesn't want to screw up and inadvertently say something that could be interpreted as religious luddism or conspiracy theories. Both were cautious as hell.

During a few moments, you could feel one side or the other warming up in a kind of astonished manner. The subtext seemed to say, what the hell's happening? This guy's making sense. This is interesting all of a sudden.

That happened on both sides, not just one. And it happened several times. But it would only last for two or three minutes, then the timidity and cautiousness would return.

I was very pleased to see Google recognize the value of what Glenn is building. Schmidt called his organization the wave of the future and a perfect example of how business will be done over the Internet.

One of the areas where Google is very clever is they align themselves with upcoming government powers. They got in like Flynn with Obama during election time and it paid off big for them. Now the tide is changing toward conservative--and libertarian-leaning conservative at that. The kind Glenn fosters. Suddenly Google is sitting down with one of the libertarian media motors driving millions of people the middle class in that direction.

I fully expect there to be more interaction between Google and TheBlaze in the near and far future. Including Freedomworks and the whole shebang Glenn promotes politics-wise, although nobody talked about this during the show. And also, that entertainment wing Glenn is investing in--movie studio, TV productions, theme parks, book and magazine publisher, etc. I believe Google knows exactly what that means and how it will reflect on the government.

Besides, I got a slight impression that Schmidt was pissed about the way things turned out with Obama. It was more in between the lines than on the surface, but it was there. Especially when they discussed the NSA.

If you want to see a couple of video clips of the interview and read all about it, here is the report on TheBlaze site:

Glenn Beck Has a Fascinating Talk With the Google Guys: ‘Do You… Even Believe in the Constitution?’

Michael

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The protest of any slave may be impotent while he still is in captivity.

Complaining will never free anyone.

False. Read The Declaration of Independence, one of the founding documents of your "Judeo-Christian" country. It is full of complaints. The Anti-Slavery Society of Great Britain repeatedly published reports about the cruelties of slavery and played a key role in its final abolition in 1833.

But calling his enslavement a "paradise" doesn't make him any freer.

It's impossible for a person in hell to believe that another could be in Paradise. He can only believe that hell is all there is because that is all he sees. I suppose there is some consolation to be found in a slave believing that someone else is a slave like he is. In the light of this, you're welcome to hold on to your belief.

But the reality is that I'm free... I'm free to make money doing business with others who share my values. I'm free of debt, and don't own anyone even one cent. I'm free of angrily blaming (unjustly accusing) others because I take complete personal responsibility for the quality of my own life. And the government doesn't bother with me because I don't need it. So I'm free to do as I see fit to enjoy my life, my liberty, and to pursue my happiness. :smile:

The fact that you don't feel bothered by the government does not mean that the government's treatment of others is not invasive, aggressive and criminal. Many Old South slaves refused to leave their masters at the time of emancipation. It does not logically follow from that that slavery in general was not a moral outrage.

Nor does it follow that the slaves who did suffer were in some ways not "decent" or somehow deficient in "what they truly were inside." Nor does it follow that everyone is the sole determinant of how the government treats him.

Starting in just 35 days this "Judeo-Christian paradise" will impose a tax penalty for not purchasing healthcare. This penalty will be imposed on everyone who falls into the IRS's net, regardless of "what you truly are inside."

So what?

It simply becomes just another cost of doing business that gets passed on to the end users. I think paying a small fee for not buying insurance is a way better deal than buying insurance. :smile:

The fact that you are not suffering under Obamacare does not mean that Obamacare does not impose enormous costs and disadvantages for many in the rest of the population,

Nor does it follow that those who will pay dearly for Obamacare are in some ways not "decent" or somehow deficient in "what they truly were inside." Nor does it follow that everyone is the sole determinant of how the government treats him.

I am delighted that you don't spend any time in tax-supported institutions of higher learning. And it is admirable that you don't get upset when your tax dollar is spent to to support professors like Eric Foner, Richard D. Wolff, Samuel Bowles, Erik Olin Wright, and many others who are attempting bring a radical socialist regime to the United States.

They could only do that because people demand a radical socialist regime in the United States... and I'm all for people getting exactly that they demand... because it is also exactly what they deserve.

So let them choke on it. :laugh:

I did not demand a radical socialist regime. I have being fighting socialism for four decades. Furthermore, I am decent. "What I truly am inside" is good.

Yet I am one of those who is choking.

So much for the theory that my inner self is the sole determinant of how the government treats me.

Let's deal with just what is.

I am decent.

You believe that you are decent.

The government doesn't treat me as decent.

You believe the government doesn't treat you as decent as you are.

The theory that "what you truly are inside" determines how you are treated is false.

What you regard as a theory is actually reality. Right now, the government is treating you exactly as decent as you are.

False. The government is punishing this person for fighting against a radical socialist regime by making him live under a radical socialist regime.

Whatever you may wish to believe, the government does rob me--and robs me to further the advent of full blown socialism.

You will never be free as long as you cling to playing the role of helpless government blaming victim. In the role of blamer, it is impossible to ever assume full responsibility for the just and deserved consequences of being what you are inside. Because it is only what you truly are inside which grants the government your sanction to be its victim.

If someone breaks into my house and steals my coin collection, should I blame myself for not being decent, for not being sufficiently good in the area of "what I truly am inside"? Or should I blame the thug?

If a rapist breaks into my house and attacks my wife, should I aim the shotgun at him, or just allow her to enjoy the "just and deserved consequences of being what she is inside"?

There is no moral difference between the home invader and the government.

Why do you insist on having the victim blame himself?

Today the biggest looter in the country is the government. If you think the government's looting is in accordance with "Judeo-Christian values," then Obama surely qualifies for sainthood.

You have the free choice to assume the personal responsibility of learning how to refine your own life in such a manner so as not to make yourself fair game for the government to loot... or you can just go on impotently blaming the government.

What you choose is totally up to you and has absolutely nothing to do with me... because I already made my own choice, and it has absolutely nothing to do with what anyone else chooses. :smile:

Greg

But "learning how to refine your own life in such a manner so as not to make yourself fair game for the government to loot" is not at all the same as reforming yourself inside.

What you have said all along is not that we must learn how to better evade the government but to be "decent." Remember? You said that it is what we are on the inside (not how well our stash is hidden) that is the sole determinant of how the government treats us.

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I cannot help but wonder, and I would not wish any misfortune on ANYONE..except maybe Obama (Kidney and liver failure at the same time would be ok with me).

Anyways what IF something really bad happened in Greg's life. A change in some government policy that allowed them to screw him over for an innocent oversight on his part. When they confiscated everything he worked hard for how would he explain it? Would he have "got what he deserved?"

This is purely hypothetical.

So many times the government sees that we abide by all their tax laws, zoning laws, every law they create. Then it is like they collect their metadata and say to themselves " these guys are doing too well! They are exploiting a loophole! Lets change that.. Bam more people either leave or are forced to close shop.

How about the insane red tape that lady had to jump through in California just to open a bloody icecream parlour?

http://boingboing.net/2012/02/04/on-the-horrors-of-getting-appr.html

One of the things that makes the USA great is small businesses. It is the lifeblood of the country. With bullshit like this you can see why people just give up hope. Good honest people just trying to live the American dream.

Instead they get red tape and Obamacare.

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The ice cream parlour lady got all she wanted including glory. In the United States, at least, we don't have to seek heroic glory--look at how Greg has structured his life--to be free to act so we are left with the scale of possible actions: the wider and bigger the scale the more glory we seek. This is a social thing and we are social beings. To make a big way in a big world Ayn Rand wrote a big novel in which she became reality itself and a tyrant therein and about. Not someone to mess with; she lived there.

--Brant

I love heroes but I know a first-hander is more than a first-hander he's ironically also a second-hander with the first redeeming the second unlike second-handers Peter Keating and Ellsworth Toohey who had no first-handerism at, but the basic principles of Objectivism are all first-hander (individualism) principles with second-hander social derivatives which spin off of and into that base to the extent we engage others

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Continuing on Glenn Beck and Google, I just heard Glenn play an audio of Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen being interviewed by someone (I didn't catch who) after their appearance on TheBlaze TV yesterday.

They not only praised Glenn to the skies regarding his ability to merge the Internet with traditional business in a disruptive way (in the good sense of disruptive, meaning innovation)--they called him the best, by the way--they talked about how intelligent he was and how his deep insights into social issues, including things like radical Islam, have been on the mark over the years.

I can't find the audio yet, but I'll post it just as soon as it appears somewhere. And, owing to the nature of their gushes about Glenn, it will appear. This is going to be major heartburn for a lot of snoots.

Man, this sure feels good after all the shit I took for supporting him way back when.

Hey!

That must make me super-intelligent, too!

Woo hoo!

:smile:

Michael

EDIT: Bingo. Just got it.

Looks like I was wrong about when it happened. It was before the show, not after.

Eat your heart out, suckas!!!

See here for details (on TheBlaze, naturally).

What Two Google Execs Said About Glenn Beck Before the Studio Cameras Started Rolling

Lil' ole' me...

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The protest of any slave may be impotent while he still is in captivity.

Complaining will never free anyone.

False. Read The Declaration of Independence, one of the founding documents of your "Judeo-Christian" country. It is full of complaints.

Ah, but they were not just impotent complaints of helpless blaming victims.

They were statements of fact responded to by men of virtue. :wink:

(more later...)

Greg

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