I have always said 'war-chester sauce' (omitting the 'shire' for no good reason).

Nailed it dude!

The only angle I feel hasn't really come up so far is the idea that private enterprise and public governance could easily be regarded as two manifestations of the same "real" social dynamic: Establishment/challenger (or master/slave if you want to get fully Hegelian about it)

Like, why do we even develop governmental systems in the 1st place?

I have yet to conceive a better answer than: "to curb the destructive excesses of private wealth/power."

Why would we champion personal freedom? I would say: "to curb the destructive excesses of public wealth/power".

Or something to that effect at the very least. The idea of a society with either absolute personal, or absolute collective sovereignty seems hellish to me. And probably unworkable to boot!

There seems to me a tendency in the history of societies for these two types of power to dance either side of equilibrium as the real power struggle unfolds i.e. between reigning establishment and challenger power groups/paradigms.

Right now the establishment is both economic and governmental. The corruption is mutually supporting. Corporations buy and control governments, governments facilitate corporations ruling the market and continuing to be able to buy them.

The circle jerk @blankfist IMHO is between government and private dynasty and moreover I strongly believe that in a vacuum, one will always create the other.

Pure collectivism will naturally breed an individualist challenger and visa versa.

People are at their best I think when balancing self interest and altruism. Too much of either tends to hurt others around you and diminish ones capacity to grow and adapt. (being nice is no good if you lack the will and capacity to get shit done)

It seems natural that the ideal way of organising society would always balance collective state power, with private personal power.

Libertarianism (even the superior non anarchist version) defangs the state too much IMHO. Some collectivist projects such as education, scientific research and exploration I think tend to be better served by public direction. But more importantly I expect the state to referee the market, just as I expect public transparency to referee the state.

Total crowbar separation between the three: public officials cannot legally own or control private wealth and cannot live above standard of their poorest citizens. Private citizens cannot inherit wealth legally, only earn and create it. The state cannot legally hold any secret or perform any function of government outside public view unless it is to prepare sensitive legal proceedings (which must then be disclosed in full when actioned).

In the age of global communications this kind of transparency may for the first time be a workable solution (it's already near impossible to keep a lid on most political scandals and this is very early days). There is also the possibility of a steadily de-monetised market as crowdfunding and crowdsourcing production models start to become more advanced and practical than traditional market dynamics. e.g. kickstarter style collective investment in place of classical entrepreneurial investment.

The benefits and dangers of both capitalism and socialism here would be trending towards diffusion amongst the populace.

And then there's the whole Meritocracy vs Democracy thing, but that's really getting into another topic and I've probably already gone on too long now.

Much love

Just in case anyone thinks newtboy is being mean for no good reason, Lionfish have become a serious problem as an invasive species.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterois#Invasive_introduction_and_range

All because some dumbass didn't want them in their aquarium anymore.

Dude I seriously recommend you redact that last comment.
Do not lower yourself to that level.
It also does you NO GOOD AT ALL in any kind of an argument and does not help any point you are trying to make.

I like that they haven't shown anything of the plot, or any of the good scenes.




...unless there is no plot, and no good scenes.

He's going to be incredibly seriously injured because he did something incredibly stupid. Whether he "deserved" to be run over or not, it occurred because of his actions; he placed himself in harm's way for no good reason. That doesn't deserve sympathy.

To my recollection, China has NO good samaritan law. If you get involved in someone else's accidental injury, you can be sued and often are (no insurance network). The Communists utterly destroyed Confucianism and left only a vestige of interest in the self.

No good? That was awesome, you rule nazi.

pfft, the rich have welfare, they just call it tax breaks, and they have the lobbyists to keep them.

No one wants those on foodstamps to use them for alcohol and other frivolous items. name me one non-foodstamp-using person who does? It's a strawman that the right obsessively cling to.

As with so many things, it's not about laws or bureaucracy, it's about enforcement. laws mean nothing without enforcement. I'm getting sick of seeing more and more panhandlers downtown where I live and I completely agree that handouts are not an efficient solution.

but you know what isn't a good solution either? negative reinforcement. We've been living under the conservative idea that if we just keep punishing the poor and making their lives more miserable, then obviously that will be motivation to not be poor.

IT DOESN'T WORK. maybe it works for a small percentage of people, but those people aren't poor then. so you have a group of people that are continually being punished and devalued for no good fucking reason because if they aren't motivated to not be poor under these kinds of conditions, then they never will be.

so again, we have this situation where there are two solutions that aren't really effective, but one is slightly less bad than the other. sure some people may use their foodstamps for alcohol and other shit...but many people do actually use their foodstamps for...food. shock.

Even if you had a much more equal distribution of wealth, we're still going to have poor people and people in poverty.

I think the issue is largely mired in health, physical and mental. Even with all our technology...mental health is still unreliable and some people are so physically impaired that they can't work or work well.

Despite largely claiming to be pro-life, the right would either secretly want them to die alone in an alley or make them indentured servants to some corporation if they aren't already. That, I submit, is no life, at least not a good and healthy one.

I don't have the answer, all we can really do is point out that many of the things we've tried aren't working and will never work, and even if there are some successes, it's still largely inefficient, but what's the alternative? if you are "pro-life" then an inefficient solution is still preferable to a solution that simply doesn't work. So I call bullshit on people who like to claim they have the solution. If someone out there has the solution, they certainly haven't demonstrated it yet.

Lyrics in English, more or less:

Magnificent, magnificent
You were magnificent, I was pathetic,
we were magnificent,
magnificent,
you were magnificent,
I was pathetic,
we were magnificent.

Hey, baby, oops : young lady,
I swear I won't hit on you,
I am single and since yesterday, damn it,
I cannot have children, but anyway that's not... Hey, come back here!
Just a few minutes, come on, I did not insult you, I have my manners,
and I'm quite a bit plastered and for guys like me
you have other things to do, you could have seen me yesterday,
when I was

Magnificent, magnificent
You were magnificent, I was pathetic,
we were magnificent,
magnificent,
you were magnificent,
I was pathetic,
we were magnificent.

Hey, take a look at yourself, think you're Mr Handsome
just because you got married?!
This is but a ring, man, don't get carried away,
she'll dump you like they always do,
now about the other girl, did you tell her?
I can tell her if you want, that will settle the matter,
and I'll tell the kid too, if you have children,
you just wait for 3 or 7 years, and then you'll see
how it's

magnificent, magnificent
You were magnificent, I was pathetic,
we were magnificent,
magnificent,
you were magnificent,
I was pathetic,
we were magnificent.

Eh girl, oh, sorry: boy,
you know, in life there are no good and bad guys,
if Mom is a pain, that's because she's afraid to be a granny,
if Dad cheats on Mom, that's because Mom is getting old, what else?
Why the blush? Come on, come back, boy,
and what's wrong with you all
staring at me like I was a monkey, eh?
Sure, you're such a bunch of saints,
you bunch of apes!
Give me a baby monkey, he will be

magnificent, magnificent
You were magnificent, I was pathetic,
we were magnificent,
magnificent,
you were magnificent,
I was pathetic,
we were magnificent.

This was a common tactic in the first world war, and where the name 'land mine' comes from. Kinda surprised anyone would do it in this situation. I guess it worked, though.

It's really depressing how things are going down in Syria. There can be no good ending to this story--at least, not for a long, long time.

Yep, but as the video says, all of those potential risks (urinary tract, stds, etc) are better managed by simple hygiene or the use of a condom.

If there are legitimate medical reasons for a particular individual to be circumcised, then of course you should do it. But that's the rub for me. It is a surgical procedure that involves removing part of your body. It shouldn't be done just because some puritanical flake merchant hated sex.

Put it this way. We're all born with an appendix. It's utterly useless and every now and then, just straight kills you for no good reason. Surely every child should have this dangerous organ removed? Well, it turns out that's really not a good idea, because that would ultimately do more harm than good.

We don't go around doing random medical procedures for anything else, and the vast majority of the world gets along just fine with their dicks intact.

My last word on this is that I will continue to call it barbaric, because I'm trying (in my own tiny way) to change attitudes on this. Using milquetoast terms doesn't help that. I'm not going to change this myself, but hopefully I'm contributing to a gradual shift in attitudes where infant boys are not mutilated (even "harmlessly") on the whims of their parents.

edit: really really last word. Kudos to all involved for a thought provoking discussion. You can have a rational argument on the internet!

A medical procedure to address a medical problem is fine. I wouldn't advise healthy women to have mastectomies on a whim...

However, the majority aren't for medical problems. The following video is an ad about people who do an unnecessary procedure to infants and children out of ignorance. I tried to sift it but the embed is broken or something, so be warned, while only stills, it's NSFW and somewhat graphic.

Let me know how you feel about genital mutilation for no good reason after you watch it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-t93r4ejlE

That's a very firm categorical statement but in fact there are valid medical reasons why a parent might consider circumcizing their newborn.The following is from MedicineNet.co:

"Boys who are not circumcised as newborns may later have circumcision for the treatment of phimosis, paraphimosis, or balanoposthitis. When done after the newborn period, circumcision is considerably more complicated."

My grandfather, father, and my son were all circumcised in their teens because of balanoposthitis. Why it seems to run in the family I don't know, maybe it's just random, but my father swore that no son of his would go through what he went through. Accordingly myself and three brothers were all cut and for myself I can say that my sex life has not suffered as a result. However, when my son was born we decided there was no good reason for circumcision. As it turned out we were wrong.

As for circumcision for any reason other than valid medical considerations, Ya, you're probably right.

OK, if you KNOW there's no good reason for it and do it to your child anyway, that's more barbaric. If you believe, because of misinformation, it's a good thing for the child and is safe, to me it's much less barbaric. People do harmful things all the time trying to do the right thing, intent and level of understanding should be considered when judging others, that's all I'm saying.
and in your analogy, I would be semi OK with that (if there's a male equivalent so it's not just sexist mutilation) because the social issues of not being accepted are far worse than having only one nipple, totally OK with it if it's by choice at the accepted age of choice or 'adulthood' (even if the other choice is leave the tribe).

EDIT: same hypothetical, is it OK if it's explained that they have to remove the nipple because otherwise they can't use the tools available needed to hunt without constant, often deadly bloody and infected hardcore nipple chafing, and so they would either likely starve or would likely be killed at birth because the tribe couldn't support them?

I'm 100% OK with the rituals of the 'alligator people' in Africa that cut themselves to look like they have alligator skin, done in adolescence or later by choice as I understand it, and that's certainly 'barbaric' by most standards.