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Originally posted by nenothtu
Agreed. It wasn't so much an issue before the notion that America was a "democracy" got a toehold in the early 20th century. Ever since then, the progression towards socialism seems to have been accelerating, especially after the turmoil of the 60's as you observe.
In that case, the revolutionaries can't be faulted, their heirs are at fault.
Right, that's a large part of it, the cultural conditioning that is so ingrained and hard to fight. That is what causes the people to allow the feudalists to gain a foothold and exploit it, thereby moving towards centralization and eventually totalitarianism. That ingrained conditioning seems to lead them to expect a lord in the manor house to direct their lives. In America, the more urban the country becomes, the worse that sort of expectation seems to get.
You can dig those cases up if you like, but I think you'll find that all of them are on a small scale (such as the EZLN example, confined to Chiapas), which goes back to something about scale that I said earlier. There seems to be a certain class of person that, when they see all that wealth for the picking as the scale increases, feels a need to accelerate and strengthen the centralization, so they can take advantage of it. It looks to me like that's the way it worked in the communist examples, and I can see the same thing working right now in the American Experiment.
I'm at loss...
Thanks for those. I'll read and educate myself in the matter.
Takes all kinds, I reckon.
With the State eliminated altogether, who do you see doing the administrative work? How is it to run smoothly with no upper level coordination between factions, co-ops, communes, or whatever you want to call them?
That's a LOT of work that can generally be avoided. Still, they throw out an unreasonable tax, I'm going to get around it if I can, ignore it if I can't, and deal with the chips when they fall. Reference my stand on the insurance tax coming.
The whole "Stateless" thing is where my understanding of your concept breaks down. Are you talking about a "tribal" organization, say, at maybe what is now he US State level with "intertribal councils" at a higher level (maybe comparable to the current Federal level), but limited to mediation between lower level units rather than the regulation we have now?
I'll be looking for that.
I'm not sure that most can get beyond that concept of wealth. For a lot of people, it's the security blanket that holds their entire "reality" together. For example, I've had a couple of wives who decided money was more important than me, so I let them go, so they cold pursue it. No harm, no foul. It wasn't up to me to hold them down if that was their preference. There seem to be a LOT of folks like that around.
I personally place more value on the ability to do as I please, assuming that I'm not injuring anyone else, than money or comfort. That's just me though, and I can sort of understand the attraction that creature comforts hold for others. I'm just not willing to give up liberty in exchange for them. If others are, that's their prerogative, but why should I have to conform to their ideals? Likewise, I have no desire to force them to conform to mine - until they cross that line and step on MY toes.
That's a real problem. Unfortunately, the job draws power seekers like a slop jar draws flies, and the people most suited to governing in that manner want no part of the job they want neither the headaches nor the power. The American revolutionaries partially solved the problem with part time congressmen, who met for the session, then went back to their usual pursuits, rather than career congressmen as full-time employees of the State, just as a council would meet to discuss the issues at hand, then head back to the fields and woods. Term limits on governing officials helped insure that neither the burden of government nor time for corruption weighed to heavily upon them. The system that has evolved into now, with career politicians, makes a mockery of that intent, and allows the corruption to fester and grow. It actually draws the power hungry and fosters them, in a self-feeding cycle.
That cycle needs to be broken, and effective stops put in place, in order to defeat and prevent the centralization.
Originally posted by Wally Hope
It is those in power who are confusing the people as to what is good for them,
Originally posted by AdAbsurdum
I would like to say that from the perspective of a Communist: Obama is not a socialist, Obamacare is not socialist medicine, and we are far from becoming a socialist state. I just want to say that while "progressive" liberal politics do push left. "Liberalism" as an economic model is still where those politics are rooted. Thus, anything created by the state and therefore the people, will have corporate tie-ins murdering the idea in it's crib.
Well, when you are ruled over by the Eternal Patriarch, I'm pretty sure that's going to manifest in peoples day to day lives. It is my experience that when one rejects the notion of a personal universal supreme ruler they have no problem questioning the authority of those in power.
Well, it was a few cities and farming communities. The cities used money while the farming communities just used a gift economy... So I don't know how big of an example you'd like.
As far as that "certain kind of person", I think you are going to get those everywhere but a dog that turns on his own is insane and is quickly put down.
I'm at loss...
Yeah, that didn't come out too well. Currently our fiat currency is controlled by a private interest. There is no liberation in making that a collective interest as wealth is still being based on a flawed model, i.e. currency = wealth. We need a new system that doesn't allow for people to amass an item that allows them to take control. Labor is something that is intrinsic to man and so basing a currency off of that, I posit, is the solution.
Takes all kinds, I reckon.
If you have some free time you might wanna give this a whirl:
www.moral-politics.com...
I'm at the very top left. Hahaha. My views are based on this model because I think the Left-Right paradigm is lacking.
With the State eliminated altogether, who do you see doing the administrative work? How is it to run smoothly with no upper level coordination between factions, co-ops, communes, or whatever you want to call them?
Admin work? Like who does inventory?
Well, one way to do it is to create the upper-level coordination group collectively through a democratic process and then once the agreement is reached by both faction's coordinators their position is dissolved. If they refuse to dissolve than I believe the people have a right to kill them, personally. But I am sure a lesser punishment can be found that's suitable.
I personally believe that the State level is as high as it goes and that is for only warranted purposes that the individual communities themselves will have to decide on, aside from a few things involving military service, and following their agreements the councils are dissolved. The only time there should be a Federal type governing system in place is in self defense of our liberties governed by a war council. Federalism only seems to make sense when speaking militarily.
This way you would have a standing military in a sense because that standing military would be the entire collective armed to the teeth. Like Tojo said, "A rifle behind every blade of grass." Except I imagine this grass drilled in every tactic and tool they would ever need to not only defend against an invader but to overthrow any homegrown power seeking to imprison us.
I've experienced this as well, but I believe that this is weakness because of the weakening of the family unit, first and foremost, coupled with the lack of any social safety net and compounded by personal issues stemming from a lack of a tribal or collective identity.
I think that they have the same line of thinking, it's just that they see money as that vehicle to allow them to do what they please. They fall into the trap and are turned into wage slaves. The creature comforts are than purchased because, if you have to be a slave, at least you can be a comfortable one.
I think our system of checks and balances works fine, minus what you have stated. With the elimination of materialism I think the system would suffice just fine with the caveat of making it impossible to turn politics into a career.
That cycle needs to be broken, and effective stops put in place, in order to defeat and prevent the centralization.
I think that may come through my answer to the military. Anyone attempting any type of power grab risks destabilizing the entire confederation because everyone will be well armed and educated in the philosophies and doctrines of war.
If you are, can you not think for yourself to figure out what is good for you?
Originally posted by nenothtu
Huh? Are you not "one of the people"?
If you are, can you not think for yourself to figure out what is good for you?
If you can, why can't the rest of us?
Why do we need someone in power to do our thinking for us?
If we don't, how could those in power confuse us?
Originally posted by nenothtu
I became disenchanted with the left/right paradigm some time ago, and cut all ties to the Republican party, of which I was a member all my previous life. Just as a coin has two sides, yet is still the exact same coin, the left/right paradigm as exemplified by the Democrat and Republican parties is all one huge lumbering beast to my mind. For the life of me, I just can't see a farthing's woth of difference between the two.
It took being smacked in the head with George Bush to ram that realization home...
As I get older, and think more, I have less problems with either socialism OR capitalism. What I DO have a problem with is the power-tripping that uses both as a vehicle. We thought we had it so much better here, and in truth at that time we probably did. Not so much now. When I look around me now, I see what I assumed that I would have seen in the USSR then, minus the continual shortages. That's not a pretty feeling.
"Socialism", without the government middle man extorting from Peter and deciding on disbursements to Paul isn't such a bad thing in theory. Capitalism, using government to extort from Peter to enrich CEO Paul isn't such a good thing in practice. The commonalities there are "government" and "extortion". If left to my own devices, without that extortion, I can give as I please, where I think it will do the most good, without any help at all in the first case, and I can tell CEO Paul to bite me and do business with another, or none at all if I choose, in the second case. As purely economic systems, they are both harmless, and don't really look to be mutually exclusive to me. As political systems, they are both disastrous, and of course ARE mutually exclusive.
Government should be as neutral as possible, and in the matter of economics, regulate commerce between lower level polities, not regulate whatever system either chooses to use internally. What I'm getting at is that I believe any given level of government should STOP at the next level (up OR down), and deal only with those units - AS those units, leaving the still lower levels alone to be dealt with internally.
I also believe that governments in general, at whatever level, should be drastically limited in scope and power. This include limiting their funding in the form of taxation to what they actually need to operate. It doesn't allow room for them to bloat and create dependent class by means of "social programs". Regulating social values and administering social programs are not a part of government in my conception. For the most part, I would limit them to military and police matters (with no need for police above the state level, and not many there), mediation and dispute resolution between lower level polities, and dealing as a unit with other units at the same level, or one level higher.
I think what the US has now would be fine, IF each level of government were limited as originally conceived, and each politician were limited such that none could make a career of it.
I acknowledge a universal supreme ruler, personally, but I have no qualm whatsoever about differentiating between the spiritual and the corporeal.
Not so different from the way it was here in the US a hundred years ago or so, I suppose. I'm assuming by "gift economy" you mean cashless barter, and I could be wrong about that. Back then, out in the countryside, hard currency was sometimes hard to come by, but you could always go to the smokehouse and get a ham, or go get a chicken, or some produce from your garden to trade for stuff you didn't have. In the cities the converse was the rule, since the space wasn't available for farm produce.
What a concept! Institute a draft, but for politicians rather than military!
You know I'm kidding about that, right?
Could be, but I haven't had a chance to read the links yet to make an informed comment. Off the cuff, I know that making money up out of nothing really isn't the way to go, because anyone with that kind of power rules all....
I tried it, and got thoroughly confused by the results, The terminology of the report threw me for a loop, and didn't match what I'm used to. For example, it said I was a "progressive" or "ultra liberal", leading to my strong urge to throw a coffee cup through my computer screen. In another place, however, it said that only 2% of the people tested were more "conservative" than I am. I haven't really puzzled the result out yet, but my dot showed up bending the bottom boundary out, just left of the centerline, in the "libertarian" area.
Permanent exile on Elba springs to mind as an alternative. Well, not Elba literally, but you get my drift. Give 'em a small island, one hatchet and a pack of matches apiece, and tell 'em the island is theirs to do with as they will. I really wouldn't care if they killed and ate each other. That's up to them.
I balk at a purely democratic process, though. That leaves minority groups (not necessarily ethnic minorities, just minorities) unrepresented, voiceless, and at the mercy of the pack.
Need some mechanism for dispute mediation between units (whether a trade or some other sort of dispute - like the Virginia-Pennsylvania boundary battles of the 18th century), and some sort of safe passage guarantee for folks just passing through for trade or just in transit between units not adjoining one another. Otherwise, it seems dangerously close to Balkanization.
I just chalked it up to pure greed. Kept it simpler in my mind that way.
See, the way I see it, "stuff" is nice to have and all, but if your whole world collapses because one day that "stuff" disappears, then you're a slave already, and just don't know it.
Agreed, but how does one go about eliminating materialism? In my case, I just weed them out of my own little corner, but that just makes them someone else's problem, it doesn't do a damned thing about the materialism present to begin with. Hoe do you go about changing a quality so ingrained in so many?
Yeah, that works, but as they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It's better to prevent it to begin with than to war over it afterwards. As you say, that eventuality risks destabilizing the entire confederation, an undesirable situation, and even if it didn't the death of even one individual in battle diminishes the whole (see? I still can't bring myself to use "collective"!). Sometimes battle is necessary, and when it is, folks will die. I think safeguards to prevent that as far as is humanly possible are called for. That needs to be addressed in a grand, overall theory.
Some folks will naturally try to weasel in occasionally and test those safeguards. THAT is when the arms laden populace steps in to convince them of the error of their ways. That is also where this current experiment has failed. The people were not jealous enough in guarding their liberty, and some really slick bastridges snatched it right out from under them. Therefore, the people would also need to be better educated (dare I say indoctrinated?) in the rights and responsibilities of a free people than this current crop has been.
Originally posted by sara123123
I think a lot of people in America don't remember constitutional liberity's meaning, ideology, way of life and values anymore. At the same time, liberals have manipulated history in public schools to ignore the real ravishing nature of centralized collectivist governments and to demonize the history and nature of constitutional America. I love my European friends and as an American, I am different becasue of my people's history and constitutional way of life. What feels safe and "smart" to Europeans in the elite's power, feels like control and oppression to me. I despise the idea of royality or elitism and being under their thumbs in the name of "care" and "sharing" gives me the willies. I would rather be under my own care and share my wealth (as small as it is!) as I see fit.
Social Security and Medicare were to be America's retirement safety net and we were all promised if we paid into it, the government would assure minimum benefits in our old age. So what happened with that?
Had it been a private investment firm using our retirement money for their personal gain, we could sue them and put them in jail for theft. But no one can sue the Federal government. They are theives and polluters and abusers we can not touch.
This is why socialism and communism stinks for America.
We have a third way for reform! Let's restore the constitutional republic and strip the theives and power mongers in Washington of their ability to be bribed by socialists, communists, globalists corporatists and foreign interests for the purpose of confounding our way of life in freedom and independence.
Originally posted by StlSteve
Who is going to keep Iran in check? Who is going to keep North Korea in check? The UK? The UN? I guess the bad old USA has to do this one too. Feel free to sit on the side lines, sip tea, and poke fun - just don't get in the way. Just like in WW2, brits are too prissy to make a difference about anything, by the way who's your queen these days, or do you just have to look in a mirror
Originally posted by StlSteve
reply to post by Wally Hope
You need to learn reality. Do you think a nuclear North Korea is good? How about Iran? Please tell, or shut up