@NetRunner

Who cares if you agree by accident, as long as you agree?

Who cares if the EPA is abolished, if it's filled with Ex-Monsanto Execs and Lobbyists who make it impotent anyway?

The system is broken and needs a reboot. Why are you gonna try to limp along 'til a better match than Ron Paul appears. It just won't happen in this decade.

You keep acting as if your "Vote Democrat" worldview will result in some slow but steady march into Ameritopia.
[Nevermind, the fact that "Democrats" like Obama are center-right to begin with and too timid to propose ultra-left policies even with Democratic Majority.]

It simply can't happen. The system currently does not function how it was advertised.
~~

Plain and simple. Does a person or business have the right to refuse service?

If so, you've legitimized discrimination. If not, you're forcing your will upon others.

Both are relatively wrong. But which is worse? Do civil rights trump natural rights?

Moreover, the entire point I'm getting at is: Ron Paul wants to decentralize power i.e. GIVE YOU MOAR POWER!

Another blaring point you refuse to comprehend or admit, even if Ron Paul overturns 100 years of law [which he wouldn't be able to] YOU now have the power to construct BETTER policies.

Create your own EPA and FDA with more strict standards. Create your own business park that has anti-discriminatory policies. This is the true essence of Democracy and Self-Governance combined.

Or.. you can keep being Obama's bitch boy.

For some reason, I think you'll choose the latter.

The more likely and logical explanation is far simpler than Cunk's conspiracy theories. The answer is OWS was a leaderless, messageless, impotent movement that collapsed under a mixture of its own incompetence and the ridiculous (and often highly offensive) behavior of its denizens.

The Tea Party - by comparison - was and remains a group that pushes government to reduce its power, scope, influence, and budget. In 2010 they had a significant impact on the mid-term elections, and they may still have a big influence on 2012 (time will tell). And they did it without pooping on cars, raping people, killing themselves with drugs, or having to have cops fumigate them out of parks.

Lesson to OWS - if you want to accomplish something meaningful then act more like the Tea Party.

"How many times in your life do you get a chance to watch history unfold, to actively participate in building a better society, to come together with thousands of people where genuine democracy is the reality and not a fantasy?

For too long our minds have been chained by fear, by division, by impotence. The one thing the elite fear most is a great awakening. That day is here. Together we can seize it."

- above source

No, not paid or "artificial".. Just impotent and without any directive or strategy.. Truth is, I don't know, and posted the article to find out...

"What are the objectives of this protest? How does it intend to accomplish them? Is it preaching to the choir, or will it actually convert fence sitters?"

@BoneyD

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Trancecoach:
is it too cynical to think the entire movement is pretty much a smokescreen?

You think these people were...paid I'm guessing? I don't understand disinformation doesn't really understand either but that's not surprising.

1. *carrots

-This would include but not be limited to: "videos which feature a carrot or information about carrots, whether: graphically, verbally or metaphorically."

2. *threewhitevans

-This channel would be composed of videos that include no more or less than three white vans. Three vans that are definitely included in many videos on the Sift, that I see all the time, but about which no one will believe me.

3. *hester mofet

-The videos in this channel all have names which form complete anagrams of words or phrases, especially those involving: murder, carrots, or which (directly or indirectly) poke fun at my impotence.

Never said she was outsider, she was insider. What I said was, "Write-in's are impossible." My point was that the "fourth party," i.e., the write-in, can win.

Second, Ron Paul disagrees with the Tea Party on many more issues than you note, and many issues you would SUPPORT. Drugs and the lack of "war" on them, war itself, debt (Yes, he disagrees on debt. The Tea Party says we should destroy Medicade and medicare, and social security, Ron Paul says that is not possible 'right now' but he would privatize it to only those who wish it. See if the Tea Party agrees with him..."

Let'see, as you said, gay marriage...that's four huge issues right there...habeas corpus... another huge one that Bush disregarded; that the Tea Party would like to see fucked..sorry for the language... five...abortion...let the states handle it (I.e., legalize it for most states...) six...what else?

Besides these SIX HUGE ISSUES, I DON'T know...

Anyways, you got me on "threatening the mainstream" except that some few people don't become part of something...a party is not a person, it is an emotionless entity. But even so, if an "outsider" just happens to belong to a third party, then he is worth the vote.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^Lawdeedaw:
Not quite what I meant. 3rd parties are great, but the problem is that they don't threaten anyone. If they make it into the mainstream, they become the mainstream...
But if they can "threaten" the mainstream, then they've made it into the mainstream.
The only thing that keeps 3rd parties outside the mainstream is their impotence. If you think their ideas are better than the mainstream, your goal should be to propel them into the mainstream.
>> ^Lawdeedaw:
Remember the Write-In candidate that won recently? "Impossible!" everyone screamed! And they even tried suing to get it thrown out...either way, my point was/is, the write-in was impossible...
I sorta hate to let you down this way, but you're talking about Lisa Murkowski. She wasn't some outsider who bucked the system, she was the incumbent Republican Senator of Alaska. She got defeated by a Tea Party challenger in the primary, but then ran as a write-in in the general and won.
That's not a story of the outsider defeating the mainstream, that's a matter of the mainstream defeating the outsider, even though it seemed like the outsider had already won.
It's sorta like saying we need more "Independents" like Joe Lieberman, you know the guy who was the Democratic VP nominee in 2000...
>> ^Lawdeedaw:
I voted for Ron Paul once before. It counted because people were surprised he got the relatively high number of votes he did get. Sadly, his message was distorted into the Tea Party,
Right, but the transcription wasn't really that far off. Ron Paul and the Tea Party are totally on the same side on most issues except for the ones where Paul agrees with liberals (gay marriage, war).
Think about it, what other topic does Paul disagree with the Tea Party on? Anything?

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

Not quite what I meant. 3rd parties are great, but the problem is that they don't threaten anyone. If they make it into the mainstream, they become the mainstream...

But if they can "threaten" the mainstream, then they've made it into the mainstream.

The only thing that keeps 3rd parties outside the mainstream is their impotence. If you think their ideas are better than the mainstream, your goal should be to propel them into the mainstream.

>> ^Lawdeedaw:
Remember the Write-In candidate that won recently? "Impossible!" everyone screamed! And they even tried suing to get it thrown out...either way, my point was/is, the write-in was impossible...

I sorta hate to let you down this way, but you're talking about Lisa Murkowski. She wasn't some outsider who bucked the system, she was the incumbent Republican Senator of Alaska. She got defeated by a Tea Party challenger in the primary, but then ran as a write-in in the general and won.

That's not a story of the outsider defeating the mainstream, that's a matter of the mainstream defeating the outsider, even though it seemed like the outsider had already won.

It's sorta like saying we need more "Independents" like Joe Lieberman, you know the guy who was the Democratic VP nominee in 2000...

>> ^Lawdeedaw:
I voted for Ron Paul once before. It counted because people were surprised he got the relatively high number of votes he did get. Sadly, his message was distorted into the Tea Party,

Right, but the transcription wasn't really that far off. Ron Paul and the Tea Party are totally on the same side on most issues except for the ones where Paul agrees with liberals (gay marriage, war).

Think about it, what other topic does Paul disagree with the Tea Party on? Anything?

Huntsman if I had to pick a republican. He seems the most moderate, worldly and sophisticated; so hopefully more rational.

Who do I want to run against Obama? Bachman or Perry. Neither is electable. I will probably donate a few hundred to help Bachman along. I may also register as a republican to vote in a primary.

As far as Ron Paul goes, you guys are delusional. Yes, he has some laudable positions, especially on the foriegn affairs, but on economics and domestic policy, he is a fruitcake who would turn this country into a bastion of state-level fiefdoms and widespread discrimination. Maybe most of you think you can live with that, but can you live with that when most of the country is non-white, and it may work against you?

Aside from that, Mr. Paul is in his 70s. He would never last out his first term. Same problem with McCain. This is a job that will age you 3 years for every real year.

Lastly, since most of his positions are on the fringe of what his fellow legislators like, Ron Paul would be an impotent President, hamstrung by Congress in a greater fashion than Obama is now.

The left in America is a divided, demoralized, and almost completely politically impotent.

If only it were true! Did the Tea party also cause all those socialist European countries to collapse?

>> ^Yogi:

I surprisingly don't blame the Tea Partiers for getting fed up and voting for people who said they'd do what they want. I blame the Left in this country who when millions looked for answers why they have to work two jobs just to keep slipping behind all the time when they were told if they worked hard they'd get everything they deserved the left had no answers for them.

Stockholm syndrome, pure and simple.

The left in America is a divided, demoralized, and almost completely politically impotent.

While the Republican Tea Party rips the country apart and lights fire to the pieces, you're going to blame the left for pain the right inflicts on everyone.

Genius. I'm sure that'll stop the right dead in their tracks.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I am a little confuzled about calling @Skeeve and my conversation both true and a non sequitur. I guess because I am addressing a more theoretical, man kind building question and you a more practical one. Your talking about the more practical, of making things work now, I am talking more about how I want things to work, for always. A the difference between the tangible and the ideal I guess.

It seems you weren't all that confused, that's exactly what I was getting at.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I have been considering the statement "the needs of the many..." for the course of a few weeks now.

...

I find that the statement of "the needs of the many..." very closely relates to the Democratic position.


I think the "the needs of the many..." quote is a pretty crude statement of the type of moral reasoning you find on the left. The more refined version can be found described in John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, but if you want a brief synopsis of the philosophy, try this.

I would also say most modern liberals tend more towards a Rawlsian political philosophy.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
When your tribe is 20 people, and the fate of your people all hang in the balance of routine decisions, evolutionary speaking, to survive, it is easier to remove the rational component of this choice. The rational implications of every choice you make determining the fate of your entire race is a burden that doesn't aid in decision making. It is much "better" to program in an emotional response and have that being post-rationalize later, intelligence is actually more of a burden than a tool in this area. This way, we remove the impotence one might face in the light of such a larger than life issue, and set in that mind a continuing sequence of emotional ties to the event through post-rationalizations.

I totally agree. I tend to think of a lot of what humans use rationality for is to rationalize decisions they really made at a gut/emotional level.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I think the reason Democracy works so well, given this situation, is it very closely mimics the "rules of the jungle." By that, I mean force. Democracy is an interesting formalization of the rules of the jungle. Instead of the force being a stick or a knife, it is a vote.

This, on the other hand, I think is totally false. Democracy is a tool to try to tie large, diverse groups into a single tribe by getting rid of the "tribal leader makes the decisions for the tribe" aspect of tribal society. The reason we want to do that is that even though we're no longer just a pack of 20 trying to deal with tigers in a jungle, we are still facing all sorts of threats from the outside world (e.g. disease, natural disaster, food scarcity, water scarcity, etc.), as well as threats generated by our inability to cohesively work as a unified tribe (war, pollution, persecution, extreme resource inequality), and that we should all be united in dealing with that common cause.

The "rules of the jungle" is more something you see in markets. The idea in most right-wing philosophy is to keep the idea that tribes should stay entirely hierarchical, and that no tribe should feel fundamentally obligated to any other tribe. Strong tribes should be allowed to amass resources they take from weaker tribes, and weaker tribes get killed off. Theoretically there's some method for preventing these inter-tribe conflicts from being violent, but nobody's worked out a way to do that other than creating a state who will use sticks and knives (and guns and nukes) to make people play by the rules of the market by force.

The evolutionary component of markets is really the key to what its proponents like -- evolution brings us forward progress, after all. The position over here on the left is that morally speaking, evolution is cruel. People like me see the benefits of markets, and the moral downsides, and want to try to find a way to make markets less cruel. People much further to my left are moral absolutists who want them destroyed because they're inhumane.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
The course of discovery seems to be without end for man. It seems inevitable, that in time, each human will have access to such a level of technology that any one person could end all life on the planet with little to no effort. Our only current solutions for it are that of liberty, which would only take one crazy person to end it all, or regulations, of which would have to be of the most extreme kind to protect against knowledge that is easy to acquire and use. It seems that the current rules that bind this planet along with mans advancement in technology have set us on a collision course with a cruel destiny. While not a certainty, I do believe it is certain that the tools of Democratic force will not save us from our own self imposed destruction.

I think the way to deal with it is to realize that the choice between "regulations on world-destroying weapons" and "liberty demands that crazy people have the right to own world-destroying weapons" is actually a really, really easy choice, since one of them ends with no one left alive on Earth...

Will "democracy" protect us from being stupid about that choice? No.

But if humanity is ever going to make it through its technological adolescence, we're going to have to set aside these childish notions that "liberty" only exists if you can completely disavow any sense of obligation to the rest of humanity.

@NetRunner

I am a little confuzled about calling @Skeeve and my conversation both true and a non sequitur. I guess because I am addressing a more theoretical, man kind building question and you a more practical one. Your talking about the more practical, of making things work now, I am talking more about how I want things to work, for always. A the difference between the tangible and the ideal I guess.

The examples you pose are actually the exact ones I was thinking of when I think of the brutality of democratic things, at times. I have been considering the statement "the needs of the many..." for the course of a few weeks now. Forgive me, about to go on a tangent, but I want a trial by fire to so speak if you have the time. This will be a wall of text for the uninterested.

When I was first exposed to this phrase/idea, it was from Spock. And from then on, I always took it as the rational position one has to take to help the whole at the cost of the one. It was a profound idea in my youth. It had such a charity to it. It seemed to speak to the core of what is good. Everything that is good about man was contained in that one simple phrase. The devil is in the details, though, so I decided recently to examine my long held Vulcan heritage.

Over the past couple of years, since my fall from Grace, I have been increasingly interested in the role of evolution in the social development of our species. We have a lot in common with our animal kin, especially the social nature of mammalia. The role of emotions and intuitive social orders with post rationalized rule set changes are the order of our creed. For an animal that has a very long gestation period, few offspring per litter, and long maturation periods, certain social orders HAD to be developed or we wouldn't survive. Many of our longest held evolutionary advances aren't because they are "good" morally, but are good for survival when being chased by tigers. In that, I think the democratic pricible is actually as old as social creatures, and even more basic, as force.

I think the reason Spock's words stung so true in my heart of hearts is it spoke to millions of years of culture beyond my ability to fully comprehend. It spoke past my reason to the core of my being. Now, when I examine the phrase "the needs of the many..." and take into light the core being, I find a much different sentence. Let me tell you what I found that I didn't expect.

I find that the statement of "the needs of the many..." very closely relates to the Democratic position. When your tribe is 20 people, and the fate of your people all hang in the balance of routine decisions, evolutionary speaking, to survive, it is easier to remove the rational component of this choice. The rational implications of every choice you make determining the fate of your entire race is a burden that doesn't aid in decision making. It is much "better" to program in an emotional response and have that being post-rationalize later, intelligence is actually more of a burden than a tool in this area. This way, we remove the impotence one might face in the light of such a larger than life issue, and set in that mind a continuing sequence of emotional ties to the event through post-rationalizations.

I think the reason Democracy works so well, given this situation, is it very closely mimics the "rules of the jungle." By that, I mean force. Democracy is an interesting formalization of the rules of the jungle. Instead of the force being a stick or a knife, it is a vote. We might not consider our vote a weapon, but essentially, when you boil it down it is our most trusted language. So much so, that every animal we face understands it. We have subjugated nearly every animal on this planet via force, and now try our hands at the very planet itself. All the while, we never asked ourselves the question, is using force right?

When being chased by a tiger, you can't ask that question. Even more so, it is the application of force that seems to drive the evolution on this planet forward. However, it only advances the flags in the due course of force. Any being that comes after HAS to play by these rules or be defeated before it can flourish. But is this the way it HAS to be? Does humanity find itself on the precipice of being able to change the entire course of evolution on the planet? Perhaps so. Slowly, we have taken the cunning, and brutal wolfs of the winter lands to being the noblest of companions. And cats, wait, never mind, fuck cats.

Humans might soon, within perhaps our children's, children's lifetime, find themselves in the unique position to change the rules of the game, for good. Weather or not we want to will be the only question. So the question is, why? What is so wrong with Democracy and the underlying shreds of managed force something to be concerned about? Let me bring on my final point.

The course of discovery seems to be without end for man. It seems inevitable, that in time, each human will have access to such a level of technology that any one person could end all life on the planet with little to no effort. Our only current solutions for it are that of liberty, which would only take one crazy person to end it all, or regulations, of which would have to be of the most extreme kind to protect against knowledge that is easy to acquire and use. It seems that the current rules that bind this planet along with mans advancement in technology have set us on a collision course with a cruel destiny. While not a certainty, I do believe it is certain that the tools of Democratic force will not save us from our own self imposed destruction.

While I have still not made all my points, like why I also think the democratic position is actually bad (perhaps even morally bad); in spite of that, I do suppose that it is insufficient to manage our path. It isn't that I want it to be wrong, it is that we truly need something else if we intend to survive past an infant species. If we lose the game, the cycle of force will most likely continue on without us, spawning forth new entities of force. But if we win, we will rewrite the rules for all existence on the planet. No longer bound to rules that keep up from being eaten by tigers, but by rules that extend us to the furthest reaches of our dreams.

I think it will all start by eating all the cats, because anything that will bite you in your sleep isn't fit in this new world. And I yield my time back to an audience that is most likely not interested in my thought processes that go to solving less than practical problems. I will only continue on request as to not come off as pedantic, well, more so.


edit, grammar

That's what they said about Jesus too..He said:

But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, "It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons."

Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.

If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?

And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges.

But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.



>> ^KnivesOut:
Hmm, maybe you're the demon!>> ^shinyblurry:
It's hard to say..they may or may not be saved. I believe the spirit of God dwells in all Christians but Catholics do a lot of things antithetical to the bible. Anyone calling upon the name of God has a good chance against a demon, but it could just be a denomic deception as well..making it seem like they have power over Satan when they are in fact impotent.

Hmm, maybe you're the demon!>> ^shinyblurry:

It's hard to say..they may or may not be saved. I believe the spirit of God dwells in all Christians but Catholics do a lot of things antithetical to the bible. Anyone calling upon the name of God has a good chance against a demon, but it could just be a denomic deception as well..making it seem like they have power over Satan when they are in fact impotent.

It's hard to say..they may or may not be saved. I believe the spirit of God dwells in all Christians but Catholics do a lot of things antithetical to the bible. Anyone calling upon the name of God has a good chance against a demon, but it could just be a denomic deception as well..making it seem like they have power over Satan when they are in fact impotent.