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Does Democracy Really Work Since Only the Rich and Powerful are Satisfied?
Yes 12%  12%  [ 18 ]
Yes 12%  12%  [ 18 ]
No 21%  21%  [ 31 ]
No 21%  21%  [ 31 ]
I Am President Bush and You Have Violated the Patriot Act 17%  17%  [ 25 ]
I Am President Bush and You Have Violated the Patriot Act 17%  17%  [ 25 ]
Total votes : 148

Epimonandas
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30 Nov 2005, 7:36 am

Psychlone wrote:
Even in theory communism sucks because it involves the use of force. Not everyone wants their wealth confiscated and many will resist. That's why it becomes necessary to use force. You also cannot motivate people to work harder without a profit incentive, unless you use the threat of force, and all communist regimes to date have done so.

You cannot have Communism without force, therefore you cannot have a benevolent communism.


It also sucks, because it provides NO MOTIVATION, so basically, all workers eventually are encouraged to be as bad as the worst, slowest worker, since better performance would make no difference in income, or promotions.

and it generally ends up w/ a few privaliged ruling the many and living in luxury over the poor of the many. Economically, communism is not very efficient, even China has adapted some free market style measures, like Hong Kong.

In truth, there is not PERFECT government, democracy, has the ability to adapt and improve on itself, PROVIDED, ppl actually get up and do it and vote and such.
We should get rid of lobbyist and career politicians, since they are the real source of our misery, politically. a career politician doesnt want to lose his/her job, and fights to hold onto it, what we get are ppl that do it or the same position for 10, 20, or 40 years or so.
I dont believe the founding fathers meant that to happen, even Washington stepped down after two terms. Senators should have term limits, all offices should, save maybe courts, and house of reps, should have candidates drawn by lots, to weed out the career politics more so.



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30 Nov 2005, 7:46 am

Epimonandas wrote:
Psychlone wrote:
Even in theory communism sucks because it involves the use of force. Not everyone wants their wealth confiscated and many will resist. That's why it becomes necessary to use force. You also cannot motivate people to work harder without a profit incentive, unless you use the threat of force, and all communist regimes to date have done so.

You cannot have Communism without force, therefore you cannot have a benevolent communism.


It also sucks, because it provides NO MOTIVATION, so basically, all workers eventually are encouraged to be as bad as the worst, slowest worker, since better performance would make no difference in income, or promotions.


No, it does make a difference in income - if the economy fails, then EVERYONE, including those peeple, suffers, so if anything theres even more motivation.

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and it generally ends up w/ a few privaliged ruling the many and living in luxury over the poor of the many


Thats what happens in any other form of goverment or economy as well, and in PROPER communism, it cant happen, becos theres no way for any one person or any one group of peeple to get ahead of the rest.

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Senators should have term limits, all offices should, save maybe courts


No - courts are the most important to have term limits, paticly with a sistem like the one in america - a supreme court official, nowing his job was secure, coud mess around with the constitution all he (or in the case of the current situation, George Bush) wanted. Term limits wood go at leest SOME of the way to preventing that.


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anarkhos
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03 Dec 2005, 9:07 pm

Democracy doesn't work, regardless if the rich or masses are content. It ultimately leads to social bankruptcy at every strata and wallet.

Those interested may read "Democracy: The God that Failed" by Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

As for Communism, it doesn't work in theory. The fundamental problem isn't that people have no incentive to work. After all, politicians with guns will make you work, but how will they know what to make you do? Communism is just one giant vertically integrated corporation which ultimately fails because it is impossible to know what lines of production are economically viable. This is also why there is a limit to the size and scope of any company in a market economy without any need for so-called antitrust legislation.

Those interested in Communism may consider reading "Human Action" by Ludwig von Mises. Ludwig von Mises proved all forms of socialism cannot work on a theoretical basis back in 1922 when he published "Socialism." Much of this work went into his magnum opus "Human Action."[/url]



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04 Dec 2005, 8:17 am

anarkhos wrote:
Communism is just one giant vertically integrated corporation


Im gonna choose to ignore that...

Well, obviusly your a fascist, but i gess at leest, unlike some of the other fascists on this forum *cough* sean *cough* you actaully give sum reesoning for your views.


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04 Dec 2005, 2:43 pm

Assassin wrote:
Well, obviusly your a fascist, but i gess at leest, unlike some of the other fascists on this forum *cough* sean *cough* you actaully give sum reesoning for your views.


:lol:

A fascist? Moi?

You should consider reading "Human Action" as it i very critical of fascism. In fact the author had to flee Austria to avoid persecution by the Third Reich.

Of course, if you think there is some kind of dichotomy between Communism and fascism, you may be beyond hope.



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04 Dec 2005, 3:06 pm

If by "dichotomy", you meen you think I think if its not communist then it has to be fascist, then thats not what i ment. I was referring to your statement that democracy dosent work. You cant get rid of democracy without installing a dictatorship, and becos of a combination of Human nature and mortality, any dictatorship will inevitably turn fascist.

Unless of corse, your thinking about the alternative as anarchy rather than dictatorship, which i gess is at leest valid philosophically...


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anarkhos
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04 Dec 2005, 3:26 pm

Well democracy doesn't work, whether you want it to or not. They fail all the time, and just because dictatorships replace them doesn't mean people against democracy are for dictatorships. It is merely a realization that democracy will always fail as a system. It's a system of mass theft whereby we cannibalize ourselves and eventually bury ourselves in debt and regulation. It's a system where voting is given importance and impotency at the same time, and thus ruled by special interests as public choice theory explains. It's a system where political expediency and not economic reality determines how resources are directed.

Realizing this doesn't make me a fascist, far from it.



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04 Dec 2005, 3:32 pm

Ill reed it later, cba havin a debate rite now...

or talkin about anythin...

:cry:


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09 Dec 2005, 6:22 am

There seems to be some confusion between communism and stalinism/maoism. I have yet to see a communist state emerge in the world. I have seen some half hearted attempts but very little in the way of trying to pioneer a new way of thinking that may not neccesarily be the same as the style of communism that Karl Marx proposed.

Behind nations we have cultures, and each culture has differing values in what it considers important and something to have at all costs. Something the americains are struggling with when they are going by their long held ideology that democracy is something inate in all creatures. Democracy at its most fundamental principle is about tolerance, freedom of speach/expression is something which comes out of that but it is not the core part of it. They seem to have some identity crisis with what democracy can be.

The motives however are not of good will they are economically motivated. Don't get me wrong im not someone whos going to be screaming "BLOOD FOR OIL" for the camera's. We must all realise that our lifestyle is maintained, improved or decreases in quality by the capitalist economic system we have adopted. This system will always require new markets for growth, new resources to extract but it is not planned or controlled it is motived fundamentally by the greed of men.

It is in some respect a higher concioussness of ourselves our inate "Id" (see Siegman Freud) this economic beast that we have unleased, technology has increased its speed its efficiency to such an extent that the market is now an uncontrollable entity all of its own. The market answers to no one there is no responsibility, no stop switch. It manifests itself in our demands, our wants our personal and material needs it looks for. But this child knows no boundaries there is no vocabulary for the word "no" and this maybe can reflect our maturity as a species that we are all still out for number one after all the war and conflict of the last centuries.

The debate therefore is not to go back to arguments that are of a bygone era but to instead focus on the future, the market is here now and we need to examine how we are going to mature this innate child of ours we have nick named globalisation. It is here to stay and it is not going away. No one is looking to the future or to new ways of controlling this force or to raise this market child of ours into a responsible ethically balanced adult.

Man what aload of tree hugging hippy s**t i should get paid for that



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09 Dec 2005, 12:39 pm

anarkhos wrote:
Well democracy doesn't work, whether you want it to or not. They fail all the time, and just because dictatorships replace them doesn't mean people against democracy are for dictatorships. It is merely a realization that democracy will always fail as a system. It's a system of mass theft whereby we cannibalize ourselves and eventually bury ourselves in debt and regulation. It's a system where voting is given importance and impotency at the same time, and thus ruled by special interests as public choice theory explains. It's a system where political expediency and not economic reality determines how resources are directed.

Realizing this doesn't make me a fascist, far from it.


So, are you an anarchist, or an "extinctionist" (someone who thinks we shoud all just die :roll: ), or is there a 5th alternative that I havent thort of?


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09 Dec 2005, 12:50 pm

Laz wrote:
Man what aload of tree hugging hippy sh** i should get paid for that


On behalf of all the other "tree huggers" on this forum, Id like to let you no that I was incredibly offended by that last remark, wonder how you can say - and therefore must see the reesoning - all the things you sed without agreeing with them, and wood like a moderator to edit that post.


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Laz
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09 Dec 2005, 5:19 pm

As a person who has not suffered from a sense of humour bypass operation i would like to request that you lay back maybe take a moment to smoke some herbal produce of the carribean and realise wow its the internet its not all that important and not be too bothered what some complete stranger the other side of the world says to you.

Per chance? No clearly

I offer my souls to the moderators and pray for their forgiveness don't send me to the moderator gulag, please im REALLY scared of you and your oh so powerful delete button.



anarkhos
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09 Dec 2005, 5:55 pm

Laz wrote:
There seems to be some confusion between communism and stalinism/maoism. I have yet to see a communist state emerge in the world.


The first two years of Soviet rule attempted Communism in terms of aboishing the market economy, and it failed quickly. They had no clue how to allocate resources due to not knowing their relative scarcity, so they brought back a monetary system and fixed prices according to world commodity markets. This is similar to what a vertically integrated corporation has to do because without prices it is impossible to know how economic every level of production is.

Quote:

Behind nations we have cultures, and each culture has differing values in what it considers important and something to have at all costs. Something the americains are struggling with when they are going by their long held ideology that democracy is something inate in all creatures. Democracy at its most fundamental principle is about tolerance, freedom of speach/expression is something which comes out of that but it is not the core part of it. They seem to have some identity crisis with what democracy can be.



"americains" (sic) have not had a long-held ideology as you describe. The founding fathers derided democracy has the worst form of government ever tried. Consider these following americans:

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"

~ Benjamin Franklin, leader of the American Revolution

"We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy... It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity."

~ Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury to George Washington, author of the Federalist Papers

"Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

~ John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

~ Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States

"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

~ James Madison, 4th President of the United States, Father of the Constitution

"The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived."

~ John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States

"Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos."

~ John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 1801-1835

As for your claim that the fundamental principle of democracy is tolerance, I scoff and ask for your reasoning. Segregation was a product of democracy, after all.

Quote:

The motives however are not of good will they are economically motivated. Don't get me wrong im not someone whos going to be screaming "BLOOD FOR OIL" for the camera's. We must all realise that our lifestyle is maintained, improved or decreases in quality by the capitalist economic system we have adopted. This system will always require new markets for growth, new resources to extract but it is not planned or controlled it is motived fundamentally by the greed of men.



Our lifestyle, as you have defined it, is maintained by capital resources. These resources are created, not extracted, the manner of which cannot be planned in the manner you think it can. This is the fundamental problem with your rant. It has nothing to do with greed or man's base nature, which after all, is magnified a thousand fold by every politician. It has everything to do with the inability for any central planner to know how resources are to be distributed, nay created, for the benefit of all of us. Central planning results in populist resource allocation whereby the capital base shrinks, siphoned off by hidden debts which eventually end in catastrophe.

Motivations of man aren't determined by the system of coercion, but are merely taken advantage of by politicians and their guns. Greed, sloth, and an odd sense of entitlement (envy) not only exist under our interventionist system, they thrive.

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Man what aload of tree hugging hippy sh** i should get paid for that


Or billed.



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09 Dec 2005, 6:14 pm

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These resources are created, not extracted,


So Aluminium, Coal, Oil, Gas, Timber, Iron, Gold, Tin, Copper, Lead etc miraculously grow back after you dig them out of the ground as if by magic? Boxite grows back?

Well what a miracle i never knew ore and finite resources could regrow back



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09 Dec 2005, 6:18 pm

Laz wrote:
As a person who has not suffered from a sense of humour bypass operation i would like to request that you lay back maybe take a moment to smoke some herbal produce of the carribean and realise wow its the internet its not all that important and not be too bothered what some complete stranger the other side of the world says to you.

Per chance? No clearly

I offer my souls to the moderators and pray for their forgiveness don't send me to the moderator gulag, please im REALLY scared of you and your oh so powerful delete button.


...i gess i had that comming :roll: it wasnt SUCH a bad joke, if it was a joke, and i have to admit ur reply WAS pretty good


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anarkhos
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09 Dec 2005, 6:19 pm

Assassin wrote:
So, are you an anarchist, or an "extinctionist" (someone who thinks we shoud all just die :roll: ), or is there a 5th alternative that I havent thort of?


If you're searching for an -ist to label me, how about economist?

The bid idea is easy to debate endlessly because it doesn't deal with concrete issues. The whole democracy vs fascism discussion is hilarious given the current context of fascist democracies like France and the USA. Heck, the USA has been fascist since the 1920s when politicians and Wall st. (and their lawyers) were swooning over the big idea of government and business working hand-in-hand (so-called pro-business). Suddenly we had federal posts being filled with so-called generals in charge of power, forests, mail, agriculture, commerce, drugs, labour, housing, art, alcohol, marketing, radio, and virtually anything else you can think of.

Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that democracy saves us from fascism, or any other big idea. Better to live our lives as well as we can, keep out of other people's business, and treat those we know fairly. I don't know what kind of -ist that makes me.