Why So Negative (Rights)?

[anthony]

Tony thinks that everyone acts like he does. Nothing gets through to him, so nothing will get through to others. Everyone's minds have been made up for once and for all, so the only thing left to do is to not sanction the enemies.

J

Uh-huh. Ransberger Pivot, you put it up, right? Old hat. It's self-taught that to put across persuasion effectively, one puts oneself in the other's shoes for a while, also lays stress on any points of accord. It's empathy in the original meaning. By which, together with their words, you understand a person's premises and self-contradictions best. I've been in possibly a hundred plus face to face debates, and learned that as much as 9 times in 10, I am not going to change solidified premises. Secular left or mystical, or many variants, most people don't really want debates, they look rather for corroboration and will get cross if you continue to reveal their illogic. The minority I've managed to persuade were uncertain or unhappy with the standard explanations and open to another direction, which the authority of their senses and their reason provided.

[Selene]

Important point Tony.

I have spoken to some outright angry, hostile audiences, two (2) or three (3) dangerous ones and a fourth (4) that I call my lynch mob audience which occurred when SDS and other core new left cadres took over the Administration Building at Queens College.*

Teddy Roosevelt was trained that way. Audience analysis is critical and picking out the key leaders by their eyes and stances and watching those in their little pool of admirers watch for their reactions to your points.

When you get those subtle widenings of the eyes, or, the small shake of a head yes or no, you know that your pivot is working.

A...

*

*

December 1966– Students at City College organized a sit-in at the placement office against the provision of class rankings to the Selective Service System (which would determine the draft status of male students in the Vietnam War). The sit-in ultimately led to the suspension of 34 students; it also led to more general protests against the war and campus complicity. On-campus groups throughout CUNY had organized citywide and nationwide protests against the war (including SDS chapters from Brooklyn College, Queens College, Hunter College, Queensborough Community College, Kingsborough Community College, and Hunter’s then Bronx campus). The three years up to the 1969 Open Admissions Strike saw much social upheaval on the campuses, the city, the nation, and internationally.

I led a late night raid to liberate certain records that folks like me needed to prove to local draft boards that they qualified for one of the 'channeling" deferments, 2-S; 2-A, etc.

As we were moving up the buildings stairwells we met physical resistance. The first four (4) floors fell quickly since we were quite prepared since as an instructor, I had access to certain building plans in the library.

As we moved upward I came face to face with one of my students who was a Swedish exchange student. He raised his "weapon" as I came at him with mine and we locked eyes and stopped.

Would up he had me talk to the folks that seized the offices and, to put it mildly, I was not a welcome speaker, nor did I plan to back down since we had them pretty well surrounded with each of the stairwells secured except for the top floor. We had control of the basement and the roof which they were not aware of. I was prepared to have their electricity and water shut off.

I picked two or three of the "key" people as I spoke and concentrated on them. I was successful, we worked out a deal. Records for light, food and water were nice trump cards to have.

It turned out that my student was a paid provocateur by the Swedish left which basically meant the Soviet fascists. We became good friends and he was an excellent student.

A...

Post Script:

Kiely Hall was 13 stories tall...damn never realized they broke the 13 number rule on buildings!! Well it was the '60's.

I forgot how beautiful the campus was and the amazing views of NY City skyline...this is the 2nd or 3rd highest point on Long Island. The edge of a glacier formed the ridge.

The Revolutionary war battle of Jamaica Heights was within a 15 block hike as the crow flies!!

OH NO a Crow OMEN on OL!!

[Peter]

Mr. Full of shit wrote: I have spoken to some outright angry, hostile audiences, two (2) or three (3) dangerous ones and a fourth (4) that I call my lynch mob audience which occurred when SDS and other core new left cadres took over the Administration Building at Queens College.*

end quack

You are trying to sell the same BS as your hero, Wolf. What's your really name, Adam?

[Brant Gaede]

Mr. Full of shit wrote: I have spoken to some outright angry, hostile audiences, two (2) or three (3) dangerous ones and a fourth (4) that I call my lynch mob audience which occurred when SDS and other core new left cadres took over the Administration Building at Queens College.*

end quack

You are trying to sell the same BS as your hero, Wolf. What's your really name, Adam?

If he's full of it about this he's likely full of it about everything. Are you really saying that?

--Brant

[Peter]

A CON man will mix in the truth with the lies. Their goal is to be believed. Their goal is to pull the wool over your eyes, sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, . . . how interesting. I am watching The Young and The Reckless and Victor is yelling at a woman for taking credit for a jump in sales, but then the sales increase is discovered to have been a glitch caused by a computer virus. It is human nature to jump to the conclusion that you caused something good to happen. A con works that way too.

You are still pissed, Brant, because I said people are responsible for the consequences of their actions. I will concede that if you are in a theatre and someone coughs during the screen credits you are not culpable for the flu you catch . . . unless you could have gotten a flu shot but didn't . . . or you knew of an epidemic but still put yourself in harm's way. But I wish you no harm. That was not my purpose for saying a hard truth. I will stop there.

Peter

[Brant Gaede]

Sorry, it was you addressing Adam as "Mr. Full of shit" and the rest of that shit. Your abstract message got lost in the crap.

[Jules Troy]

Mr. Full of shit wrote: I have spoken to some outright angry, hostile audiences, two (2) or three (3) dangerous ones and a fourth (4) that I call my lynch mob audience which occurred when SDS and other core new left cadres took over the Administration Building at Queens College.*

end quack

You are trying to sell the same BS as your hero, Wolf. What's your really name, Adam?

[Jules Troy]

Your about as credible as Greg's Shimita posts with most of your long winded bullshit posts Peter.

Adam on the other hand is a straight shooter who's only issue if it is even an issue is he does not provide links or be as thorough on initial posts as Bill. However that being said his posts are very solid. Yours on the other hand often make me want to scratch my eyes out.

[Peter]

Long winded bullshit posts? But. But. Jules, you were my target audience. Do you not see an enormous similarity in the bloviating of wanna-be anarchist scammers? Sure I like to have fun, but I listen to YOU brother. As to curtailing my long winded exposures of Wizard of Oz types . . . done, in this case.

Pee Wee

[anthony]

Instead of looking to politicians to persuade us, it's the over-all rationality or irrationality of the electorate, who should be credited, taken to task, or morally persuaded another way - by citizens and intellectuals.

Nobody is looking to politicians to persuade them. They don't look to politicians for moral guidance either. Most people think morality is fairly simple and obvious--which is why they are so quick to deem capitalists immoral.

What they want from politicians is a plan. Bernie Sanders' goal is to make healthcare more affordable and reliable, especially for the less fortunate. Rand Paul's goal is... Bernie Sanders' plan is to socialize healthcare and get rid of a lot of the inefficiencies by consolidating what are currently separate entities. Rand Paul's plan is...

The "plan" by Sanders is the socializing of everything possible - I'm pretty sure. Healthcare represents his soft option, to pave the way for later inroads. "Rand Paul's plan..." should be to begin a roll back of Govt. To compete with the socialist's "plan" would be to pay it attention or respect it will never merit. Becoming embroiled in debate on plans, not principles, only compromises Paul. The Socialists, by definition, are already compromised since they can't exist without business and industry.

When ~ when ~ the larger proportion of voters choose to go the route of self-responsibility, Capitalism and personal freedom and support a Rand Paul, it will have to be a gradual process of winding down State interference and welfare; there and then will be some place for temporary plans and policies to reduce the entitlement-culture shock until business and employment begin to grow and wealth is released.

[william.scherk]

Looking for a prose writer to flesh out a short story.

Young doctor, full of dedication for the vocation. Begins work at a State clinic. Everything institutionalized and a little worn: building, theatres, wards, docs, sisters, nurses, equipment. Everyone harried, cold and perfunctory. Chaotic emergency room, patients queuing up by the score.

He sees patient after patient, without break. One, very ill, he believes he has a procedure for. Informed by the Medical commissar that the Council will veto the op because of expense. He has to break the news to her. Manages 6 more examinations to fill his quota. That was his first day. He forces himself to come again, the next. (His thoughts and emotions on a sentence to endless drudgery and suffering with few rewards or successes he can call his own. His final resignation to the inevitability of Duty).

(Wolf, PT, Will, MSK, BG?)

I don't like the story arc. I want my doctor to have a crisis and surmount it, not go under like snow to a plow. I want a guy who initiates events, not watches as they tumble into him.

So, two doctors, two rivals? Two doctors, both from South Africa, both ending up in the same clinic in Saskatchewan. One who is socialist and unhappy, the other who is unsocialist and happy. One gets hired to the Octopus, the other swings his volition into action. Or maybe these struggles can be in a single character in his story arc. What was his medical school? Where did he intern? Why did he flee the South African state system for the Canadian state system? What are his values going in ...?

Or, maybe he went to Costa Rica/Thailand, which are surgical specialty vacation spots, and he had a choice between a private surgical centre and a public hospital, or a rural clinic, or a mid-sized city practice. Or America (though I can't think of any hospital that you could not quit work at if displeased with its options for a rewarding career).

The character as you sketch him seems like a ghost or cipher, without volition or ruminative abilities. Why he would linger on at a dystopic LA County Public I don't know. A sad sack so far.

Anyway, doctors do have that libertarian choice of moving to the best place in which to practice -- the profession translates. They and other highly-trained medical personnel cannot be likened to toadstools, stuck in place. Any specialist doctor gets the extra perks. He does grand rounds, he commutes to satellites, he does tele-medicine, he crosses borders.

So, a sad sack in a kind of Romanian LA County hellhole. If I were him trapped in that nightmare, I'd either poison myself or seek another position, run out my contract, get outta Dodge.

[anthony]

"I don't like the story arc."

Liking, is besides the point. The fact that there are many such doctors, surrendering dutifully into socialized medical care, is the point.

This is as it exists, a report of one silent human tragedy of socialism. If I imagined a romantic story of his escape, fulfillment and self-discovery, I could do it myself.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

He could blow up the hospital.

Michael

[william.scherk]

"I don't like the story arc."

Liking, is besides the point.

Right. I mistook your invitation to comment as an invitation to comment: "Looking for a prose writer to flesh out a short story."

The story sketch I read was fatalistic nonsense with a non-credible premise, at least to my eyes. That opinion and five thousand dollars will get you a week in Tijuana at the Gerson Clinic.

[Selene]

He could blow up the hospital.

Michael

Only with our special brand of Ayn Rand approved dynamite, "Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible."

With special recognition to the only one that I recognize as someone I owe to: Al Nobel!

"You made me explode with ideas!"

[Brant Gaede]

"I don't like the story arc."

Liking, is besides the point. The fact that there are many such doctors, surrendering dutifully into socialized medical care, is the point.

This is as it exists, a report of one silent human tragedy of socialism. If I imagined a romantic story of his escape, fulfillment and self-discovery, I could do it myself.

Gee. Why not?

--Brant

[anthony]

Right. I mistook your invitation to comment as an invitation to comment: "Looking for a prose writer to flesh out a short story."

The story sketch I read was fatalistic nonsense with a non-credible premise, at least to my eyes.

"Fatalistic nonsense with a non-credible premise" -- however it exists in real life, the result and premise of socialism at work. Or, do you claim that there are no such doctors trapped by their selfless sense of dutifulness in such healthcare systems - therefore why this discussion at all?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Tony,

What happened to Romantic Realism?

Now you want Randian people to write Naturalist fiction? With a bummer ending, at that?

Michael

[anthony]

Tony,

What happened to Romantic Realism?

Now you want Randian people to write Naturalist fiction? With a bummer ending, at that?

Michael

Well yes... and the surprise for me was the least Randian (WSS) who elected to style a Romanticist account!

It was a little ploy of mine to get the posters to imagine all the quiet self-sacrifices that are made constantly, I'm sure you realise.

[Brant Gaede]

Outsmarted again!

Damn!

I'm going to O online

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... the surprise for me was the least Randian (WSS) who elected to style a Romanticist account!

Tony,

Back when I got flack (not from you) for not only allowing a self-proclaimed socialist to run rampant on OL, I kept saying I liked him, now you get to see what I saw--it was more than his brains.

William has a good heart. And it goes all the way down (past the turtles that go all the way down ).

OK, OK, there are Randian ways of saying it, sense of life, etc...

But he still has a good heart.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

William has a good heart? I'm not sure. I keep thinking of that movie, Miller's Crossing.

--Brant

just glad he lives in Canada

https://youtu.be/NK6w7Zo3dws

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William has a good heart? I'm not sure. I keep thinking of that movie, Miller's Crossing.

 

--Brant

just glad he lives in Canada

 

https://youtu.be/NK6w7Zo3dws

 

Brant,

 

When I think of William and Miller's Crossing, then think of his long and well-researched posts, a different scene comes to mind:

 

 

I think it's the soundtrack.

 

 

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

My fav part of the movie. But that has nothing to do with anything else for me. Here or anywhere. This, BTW, is a ______ shootout. No one gets--no, I won't spoil it. Enjoy.

--Brant

what makes the soundtrack are all the exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brant the deductionist can't stand up to Billy the empiricist

Billy the empiricist can't stand up to Brant the deductionist

we stick to shaking hands (and back stabbing[?])

(I just did it--heh, heh.)

[Selene]

And here I was, thinking about Apocalypto.