@renatojj may i ask a question?
why is it every time someone disagrees with your position or offers a counter-proposal you take it personally?

re-read many of the posts here concerning your comment.
they are actually agreeing with you in many ways but they diverge when it comes to how they may go about rectifying the situation.

this is basic "politics 101".all politics is..to break it down to its most base definition is "what should we do".
thats all...thats it.

your solution is to limit government and ( i assume) give more powers back on a state and local level.
others have proposed a different approach.
i say let it all build to a head and implode under its own hubris while i sit on my lawn chair and watch it all burn.

who is right?
which is the best path that will benefit all?
well of course you think you are right,otherwise you would not think and perceive things the way you do.

but you appear to be allergic to any contrary ideologies to your ways of perceiving and that my friend is absolutist thinking and it is dangerous.

@aaronfr pointed out (quite correctly) your basic misunderstanding of socialism and i would add that you are using the title of "libertarian" in the bastardized and twisted media-induced definition that has propagated like a disease in america.

i tell people i am a conservative libertarian socialist just to watch their heads explode,and the funny thing is....you most certainly CAN be a conservative-libertarian-socialist.
but if you are weaned on american corporate opnion/commentray news that terminology would make absolutely no sense.which @cosmovitelli alluded to.

you can have a socialist democracy.
you can even have a communist democracy.
because one is a system of government and the other is financial.
here in america we have been bludgeoned into believing that capitalism and democracy go together like peas and carrots.

marx is a GREAT read,as is adam smith,and BOTH have been bastardized here in america because BOTH warned of the perils of communism and capitalism.

here in america we have a supposedly laissez faire approach but in reality america is a corporate socialist state.
where corporations take the risk to gain huuuuuge profits and dump the loss on the general public.
and that my friend is basic socialism.
to big to fail and too big to jail.

and here we come to my main point:
i dont think anyone here is disagreeing with you.
it appears they all see the broken system which favors the wealthy and powerful and are angered that money=free speech.
they just have a different approach on how to fix it,this does not make them stupid nor naive,just different.

i actually agree with you that trying to fix the broken system by using the very system that is broken seems counter-intuitive.
you suggest limiting government.
i suggest letting it burn.
others suggest enforcing the rule of law.
while others may deem it fit to vote a whole new legislature into office.

all different approaches to the same problem.

engage with those that disagree with you because it forces you to re-evaluate and defend your position often and sometimes you may find while in those discussions a new piece of information,a new way of looking at a problem that exposes the weakness in your argument.
the intelligent person will immediately dump the former to adhere to the newer and more succinct paradigm.
the fundamentalist will not and will continue to bang the gong for a defunct ideology.

so dont take it personally when someone disagrees with you.
nobody is here to dehumanize you nor dismiss you.
they may make assumptions based on your commentary but you can clear that up quite easily.

on a side note :@dag is one of the smartest and open minded people i know from the internet.dont judge him too quickly.

@cosmovitelli he can't have understood Marx if he can't tell the difference between Communism and Socialism, and he shouldn't bother either since Marx rarely makes any goddamned sense. He's better off learning socialism from anybody else.

You make statements loudly, but you don't make a point. Yes, we need governments, but like you said, they're not agents of the people, they're corrupt and selfish power hungry institutions. I agree with you. If that's the case, doesn't it logically follow that having LESS government is the way to reduce the amount of damage the "powerful" can do to us?

@aaronfr I won't argue whether you were pandering, just that the points you made were awfully cheap, had nothing to do with libertarianism, but with the obvious and laziest misinterpretation one can make of it. Starting your reply with "Libertarian nonsense" is the easiest way to get upvotes from the videosift scum of mindless socialists that can't be bothered to read a full post worth of innacurate statements.

@dag it makes me even sadder that you seem to believe government has your best interests at heart. The government is the agent of that very wealth inequality that makes you so angry. I see limiting government as the way to limit that blatant social injustice, the very institution that tricks suckers into thinking it is "redistributing wealth", when in fact it's been acting as an inverse Robin Hood all this time, taking from everybody, and wasting or giving to the disgustingly rich 1%. Don't dehumanize me, don't dismiss me as some shill for the wealthy, as a brainwashed second-handed thinker. Can't you seriously consider the possibility that government is not part of the solution, but part of the problem? Is that too unbelievable for you?

Hate to break this to you but @shatterdrose seems to have read his Marx while you seem to have watched too much FOX.

A 'Government' WILL ALWAYS EXIST in EVERY HUMAN SOCIETY and WILL CONSIST OF THE POWERFUL (in modern parlance read: WEALTHY). This is true of towns in deep Africa, or nations, or in the future- planets of billions.

The idea that government is, of itself, fundamentally corrupt, or has any other predefining characteristic is a point of PHILOSOPHY and NOT THE ONE YOU ARE PUSHING.

The government is REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GOVERNED NEGOTIATING WITH THE POWERFUL.

The elimination of private property is an extreme reaction predicted by Marx and others AS A RESPONSE TO THE EVER INCREASING SHARE GOING TO THE OFFSPRING OF THE WEALTHY.

In theory, chinless entitled inheritees push the situation so much the people turn to violence to reset the system. As a comic side note, this has happened regularly and bloodily in EVERY HUMAN SOCIETY WE HAVE A RECORD OF including the relatively comfortable European countries shortly before they gave birth to the US. (In fact the Puritans on the Mayflower executed the English King for corruption and briefly ruled but upon taking power banned parties, christmas presents, janet jacksons nipples etc and were rapidly kicked out with the monarchy reinstated..)

The modern social philosophers were contemplating how to avoid repeating history over and over. And by modern I mean the 195 year old man whose ideas you are publicly struggling with.

The size of government is IRRELEVANT. Its success or failure in negotiating on your behalf with THE POWERFUL WHO OWN YOU is all you should be concerned with.

Either you are a smart young Rockerfeller-Rothschild type playing clever PR, or the sort of loudmouth whose narcissism and stupidity has sold his family into neo-feudal servitude. Either way you should really shut up.

Maybe it's just me, but a lot of people REALLY do not know the faintest concepts that they're claiming to be against or for.

Socialism IS NOT the same as Democracy. Where the hell did you ever get this idea? "If government = entire society to you, congratulations, you're a socialist. I'm not."

Socialism is the idea that the means of PRODUCTION is owned by the people, as opposed to Communism, where the means of production is owned by the State. The ideas developed by Marx, and can be seen widely today in protests, activism, and the Occupy Movement, is that once the Rich have become too rich, the Poor will revolt. You're seeing exactly what Marx feared would happen starting to happen today.

Government is not the entity that simply collects taxes and offers services. No wonder you have such a misconstrued idea of what things are. Government is a natural process in which communities help reduce the threats of of Nature and other states. Without them, well, history will show you very nicely what happens to those without strong governments. But then again, the fact that you don't know, is probably why you have such a skewed belief on what socialism, democracy, communism, free-market etc are.

If you have an issue with the efficacy of government, maybe you should follow the money, not the reason why government exists. Better yet, maybe you should take a look at why the founders wanted most of government to be slow and lumbering. Which again, this would be what Marx was warning against as well. The elimination of the Worker and the Producer cohabiting in the same environment.

You complain that most programs can be "disposable" (although, unless you really meant the wrong word) is actually a long drawn out response from the defunding and forced failure of programs so that those with deep pockets can clamor for "privatization". And yet, almost every case of a public service being privatized ends in either total failure, or a lucrative money making machine with no benefit to the people. For instance, the prisons that jail high school kids, extends their sentences for years, all over a minor truancy case. Why? It's easier to keep a A student in jail and have them behave than psychotic murderers. And since you get paid the same, why would you go through the expense of keeping a difficult and violent person when you can keep the cheaper to maintain one? It's all about the bottom line . . .

Anyway, I'm already at a wall of text here. Simply put, the majority of the people bitching on here are obviously oblivious to reality and are complete dumbasses spewing the same nonsensical rhetoric with their 5th grade education. So long as the majority fails to read at a 10th grade level and continue to worship violence and abhor the educated, they will continue to be sucked dry by the rich.

@renatojj
A government enforcing property rights and contracts and punishing fraud is a government intervening in the economy. Perhaps your pithy original comment wasn't meant to imply you actually wanted the government all the way out of the economy, but there was nothing there to stop me from reading it that way.

I don't think government is the whole society, but I also don't ascribe to your view of what government does. "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Must have been Marx who said that.

The two main pillars of socialism are social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy. I'm sure you don't agree with the first one, but if you want to remove government from the economy, wouldn't that require 'cooperative management of the economy'? So, can I assume you are at least a half-socialist?

>> ^bobknight33:

There is climate change then then there is Al Gore and the leftist man made climate change.

Man made climate change theory is pure BS. Only fools believe this.


To be honest, I don't care if a coalition between the Marx Brothers, Oscar The Grouch, and the entire hamlet of Troskač. A significant alteration in the biosphere is still all it would take to reduce modern civilization to a state of absolute ruin.

Rarely do I see emergency workers begin to investigate the cause of a fire as the building burns down around them.

The State will tighten the leash when this gets too popular.

The Aristotle avatar still has to be programmed. Who will do so, Karl Marx or Ayn Rand?

Professor Wagstaff!!

He's named after a Marx Bros. character!! (Thought President Wagstaff of Huxley College was Groucho's creation-

PS The economics theory of Karl Marx is about the only theory of macro-economics still standing. We may all not like the communist ideas that came from it, but his thoughts on capitalism so far have turned out to be spot on.

Occupy isn't fighting the security state. It is fighting the corporate state that is enforced by the security state. Occupy, as I see it, would not have a problem with political coercion so long as it was upholding the right values. As they see it the state is defending the corporate interests rather than the interests of its citizens. Corporations try to convince us that they are one and the same and they do so with much greater success in the USA than anywhere else. Occupy is represents Marx's proletariat while those who oppose Occupy are either the bourgeoisie or think that they are the bourgeoisie. To paraphrase John Steinbeck, most Americans don't consider themselves working class (which of course they have to be by definition) rather they think of themselves as embarrassed millionaires.

@dag @Fletch @LarsaruS

I think you're all forgetting that Hitler was a master of propaganda, and those statements affirming Christianity were just that. Hitler used a facade of piousness to cement his power with a predominantly Christian populace. Feel free to disagree, but then you have to deal with statements which he made to party loyalists, like these:

"National Socialism and religion cannot exist together....
"The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity....
"Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things." (p 6 & 7)

Night of July 11-12th 1941

"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure." (p 43)

October 10th 1941

"The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity."

19th October, 1941, night

Doesn't seem like such a warrior for christ now, does he? The cult of personality that fletch is talking about just makes my point. When man tries to get rid of God, he just replaces God with himself. Human beings have the natural desire to worship, whether it is something like money, or power, or celebrity, or themselves, everyone who doesn't know the true God has at least one idol in their life they pay homage too.

To say there is no connection between atheism and communism is absurd. Atheism was at the roots of it, and that according to the communists themselves:

"Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism"

"Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism"

Lenin

“With disdain I will throw my gauntlet full in the fact of the world and see the collapse of this pygmy giant. Then will I wander god-like and victorious through the ruins of the world. And giving my words an active force, I will feel equal to the Creator.”

Karl Marx

“The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion”

Karl Marx

So you see there is a connection between atheism and the atheistic regimes that committed uncounted atrocities. Fletch, you're even denial about the definition of atheism, which is the denial of any deity according to the dictionary. A famous quote says that "without God everything is permissable". And that is the logical connection, that a man unrestrained by any thought of ultimate accountability can justify any kind of moral action to himself. Consider this quote from Joel Marks, the professor of philosophy at the University of New Haven

“This philosopher has been laboring under an unexamined assumption, namely that there is such a thing as right and wrong. I now believe there isn’t…The long and short of it is that I became convinced that atheism implies amorality; and since I am an atheist, I must therefore embrace amorality…I experienced my shocking epiphany that religious fundamentalists are correct; without God there is no morality. But they are incorrect, I still believe, about there being a God. Hence, I believe, there is no morality.

Even though words like “sinful” and “evil” come naturally to the tongue as say a description of child molesting. They do not describe any actual properties of anything. There are no literal sins in the world because there is no literal God…nothing is literally right or wrong because there is no Morality"

Please note, I am not saying atheists cannot be moral; I am simply saying that an amoral viewpoint can be a causal factor in committing atrocities, just as much as any zealout. Psychopaths suppress what they know is right and wrong, and dictators ordain it.

It goes back to my original point. It is human nature that is the problem, the corruption of which I attribute to sin. A moral person will be moral in every circumstance, whereas an immoral person will be immoral in every circumstance. You cannot chop it up to specific beliefs of methodologies..they only diagnose the symptom and not the cause.

I get your point, I'm just saying that America has this irrational antipathy towards the name Marx, the label Marxism, and socialism and the like. All people know of it is the evil caricature and the demagoguery, and nothing about the real ideas behind it, thanks to the way it's been erased from our culture through 1984-style propaganda and demonization.

The Fight Club/Marx connection only really clicked for me when I watched this clip, and I wanted to try to use that realization as an opportunity to say "here, buried in your fondness for Fight Club is what Marxism is really about" in an effort to deprogram my fellow countrymen...

Or instead we can just focus on how wrong it was for me to dare try to label people, even as a rhetorical gambit to start a deeper conversation.

>> ^criticalthud:

Yes, I guess my point is, while i agree with most of what someone named jesus christ supposedly said, calling me a "Christian" wouldn't be terribly accurate, and would have a tendency to associate me with something more than just ideas.
and Karl Marx wasn't the first, present, or last person to think rationally.
perhaps Marx should sue for copyright infringement. ?

Yes, I guess my point is, while i agree with most of what someone named jesus christ supposedly said, calling me a "Christian" wouldn't be terribly accurate, and would have a tendency to associate me with something more than just ideas.

and Karl Marx wasn't the first, present, or last person to think rationally.

perhaps Marx should sue for copyright infringement. ?



>> ^NetRunner:

The main premise of the movie was the alienation inherent in capitalist societies.
The quote isn't "we are not our labels", it's:

You are not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

That's Marxism in a nutshell.
I'm always confused by the people who worry about "labels." They seem to think that if any label applies to them accurately, it's something bad. Well, being smart, kind, human, attractive, etc. are all labels too. For that matter, every aspect of who you are that could be conveyed in spoken or written language is by definition a label.
But fair enough, I'm mostly just trying to be provocative. People demonize "Marxism" in America so much it's silly. Nobody even knows what it is, because it's a taboo topic. Technically you aren't a "Marxist" unless you buy into the Marxian alternatives to capitalism (I don't), but it leaves you with some understanding that Karl Marx wasn't the anti-Christ, either.
After all, the philosophy of Tyler Durden is almost entirely based on Marxist critiques of capitalist society, and a lotta people dig Tyler Durden.
>> ^criticalthud:
So if we agree with a main premise of the movie that "we are not our labels" then we are necessarily labeled marxists?

@dystopianfuturetoday I guess the word Marxist still scares the bejeezus out of people.

Yes, it's more complex than an anti-commercialist screed, but then so is Marx's critique of capitalism.

Yes, by the end it's clear that this philosophy has led a band of proletariat men to wage a violent revolution against the hierarchy that enslaves them...again, just like Marx said they should.

To a younger me, the way I would have described the theme of the movie is freedom. We're not talking about bogus libertarian freedom, but that left-wing style freedom, the kind borne from the insight that "things you own end up owning you."

To a decade older me, it's not just a vague philosophy without a name anymore, it's the Marxist critique of capitalism. And the stuff at the end about violent revolution led by a charismatic (and fake!) dictator seems like a screenwriter's critique of the rest of Marxism.

It's been a while since I've seen Fight Club, but I kinda remember that Eddie Norton looked horrified at the very end, not triumphant. I think he'd finally had his dreams shattered, by the very act of realizing them.

The main premise of the movie was the alienation inherent in capitalist societies.

The quote isn't "we are not our labels", it's:

You are not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

That's Marxism in a nutshell.

I'm always confused by the people who worry about "labels." They seem to think that if any label applies to them accurately, it's something bad. Well, being smart, kind, human, attractive, etc. are all labels too. For that matter, every aspect of who you are that could be conveyed in spoken or written language is by definition a label.

But fair enough, I'm mostly just trying to be provocative. People demonize "Marxism" in America so much it's silly. Nobody even knows what it is, because it's a taboo topic. Technically you aren't a "Marxist" unless you buy into the Marxian alternatives to capitalism (I don't), but it leaves you with some understanding that Karl Marx wasn't the anti-Christ, either.

After all, the philosophy of Tyler Durden is almost entirely based on Marxist critiques of capitalist society, and a lotta people dig Tyler Durden.

>> ^criticalthud:

So if we agree with a main premise of the movie that "we are not our labels" then we are necessarily labeled marxists?