The painful reality of greed and selfishness...

I debated with myself to start this thread because I knew very few would make it to the end without making a judgement about my personal views...suffice to say, more than likely if you guess, you will be wrong. This is my opinion and I went about it in a specific way to get both sides of the false two party system to think hard (well I tried anyway).


I am a Libertarian with touches of anarchism so based on that…
I’ll be an equal opportunity offender…

The Republicans

You tout small government but plan to create laws and regulations about what people can do with their bodies and who they can marry. I’m sorry nutjobs…you have to hire people to enforce the ever growing body of “morality” code you want enforced…this position is hypocrisy. You can’t create new and broad reaching laws and not expect to hire more cops and “officials” to enforce them.

Want small Government? Drop some of the stupid regulations that stop people from earning a living self-employed. You know...the rules and laws your criminal friends paid you under the table to pass to lower or eliminate their competition.

As far as the poor and the sick and the homeless. Let's be totally honest with ourselves. You really don't want to listen to what Christ had to say. You would prefer that they all just "go away"...out of site and out of mind...in other words...you wish they would all just die and not be a burden to you and yours. Let's face it...if our country lost about 100 million people (about a third)...problem solved. Get rid of the poor and the uneducated and there would be plenty of jobs, homes and food for everyone...right?

Democrats

Stop the insanity! No one wants to be an unrecognizable face in an endless sea of faces. I am NOT majority…I am not “one of the mob” I am individuality! The mob must not EVER rule…that is the death of freedom to the few and the one. The “good of the many” is how Liberty is destroyed to cheers and applause. It must be the rule of law! Law that is equally applied to the rich, the poor, the many, the few and even the one.

Those of us that call for individual liberty are not heartless bastards! I don’t want to see people homeless or go hungry…I don’t want to see people sick and unable to get healthcare…but here is the rub. The Government is the single most inefficient executor of services in the world. Bureaucracy and corruption devour huge amounts of revenue and we end up with a much smaller pool of resources to work with.

Now face the facts. You really just want to take everyone's money, throw it in a pile and divide it up equally...which effectively means everyone gets to suffer equally...this is not an answer....and you know it. I think you just somehow want to take "everyone else's" money...but not your own...you somehow think that you will be spared the "equal suffering for all"

I said this earlier and I stand by it. Our problem is we are selfish and greedy. We “could” effectively handle this problem with poverty and sickness privately through public charities and non-profit organizations…but there is a rub to this as well.

People of both parties are selfish pricks…you won’t give unless someone makes you…the idea of removing it along with taxes is the only way to get some greedy bastards to let go of a dime. If Uncle Sam did not take it, your selfish ass would not give it. You’d use it to buy some cheap imported piece of junk you don’t need or buy a bigger McMansion…

I completely understand selfishness…I participate in it myself. Just pointing out the painful truth…the elephant in the room on these types of discussions that everyone ignores. But that is OK…you have been pre-programmed to be selfish and greedy and demand more for yourself and less for others…

Few people on either side really and truly care for others…they pretend to either to look good at church on Sunday or to be able to boast at the museum fundraiser dinners. But it is hollow…face it and move on. I do. I wish I knew how to fix it…but I don’t.

Want to help people really? Get the hell out of their way and let them make their own way they best they can. I don’t care if the sell cheap hot dogs on the side of the road, distill whiskey or make wine and beer, be a door to door masseuse, be a stripper, a prostitute, grow weed….whatever they can do to make some money. This will help people far more over quarreling whether or not you can take someone else’s money to accomplish what someone could do for themselves if you would just shut up and let them.

Rip away at me! I'm good for it!

I believe the answer is pure freedom...people free to do well...people free to do poorly...or somewhere in the middle. People free to live...people free to die...it's not as complicated as millions of raving lunatics on both sides have made this out to be.

Both are capitalist parties, both the same, different faces.

TPTB would never want the workers, the average man, to have control over their own lives. They want you be the exploited fly in the capitalists spider web. First they rap you up in their sticky chains then suck all the wealth and life out of you.

Vampire spider capitalists.

Your post is a good start to the title.

Here is how it works.

Control food, water and shelter. Control people by taking one of those away.

Politics, in America specifically, is a lie. Polarity is the basis. Red/Blue, Left/Right, same pole.

Greed and selfishness are go beyond religion, politics and nationalism for sure.

I agree that the capitalist system that we now have is not free market capitalism...it is some twisted and manipulated shadow of the idea. It is vampiric because it is filled with predation...some must have less so others can have more.

I wanted to put this into the bare knuckles ideology of the two parties...call them social conservatives/republicans and liberal/democrats/socialists.

When confronted with the proposal that maybe we should just exterminate the poor because they are non productive burdens on society...they will leap into their morality and say that is not what they want at all. That they want people to have the "opportunity" to do well for themselves. That everyone is created equal and everyone has the capacity to be a productive citizen and financially successful.

You flip over to the other side, the Liberals/Socialist would like to take all the money and divide it equally. Now the Republicans will quickly say that there is not enough to go around and everyone would suffer equally. That taking the wealth of others is "morally" wrong.

Here is where the system...in design...is broken and while it sounds all nice...if there is not enough money to be equally divided...there is not enough for everyone to be a prospering capitalist now is there?

This is where both sides generally leap into rampaging fits of irrationality...when confronted with the purest and rawest simplicity of their ideals...both break down.

But let's just consider this. IF there is not enough money and resources to be equally divided where everyone has a decent and modest life...then there is no way there is enough so that "all the poor" can be successful capitalists...someone MUST be the poor...someone must be...the prey...this flies in the face of the source of "moral human beings" beliefs. They believe in Christ or another higher being...or they just believe that humans are supposed to be dripping with kindness and compassion....when the very foundation and tools of the world they have built says that it is not possible.

So what is the answer...Print more money and currency? "NO! -NO! they will scream...that devalues it because then there is too much to go around! ...I won't even touch that in light of what I have presented above...

The only other answer is...and this is the painful part...if there is not enough to go around so that every human being can have a decent life without pain and suffering...then there is just too damn many people...or...someone somewhere is full of sh!t...

DEMOCRATS look out for the lower-class, and middle-class Americans...

REPUBLICANS look out for the SUPER WEALTHY Americans...

TODAYS CONSERVATIVES want all but the most powerful and wealthy to be slaves with a society that looks out for NOBODY other than the Slave Masters.

As per your title of this thread, "Greed and Selfishness", those are two words that describe Republicans and Conservatives to perfection.

Money runs the world, Banks run the money, universal suffrage is a joke on the public basically brought in when religion started to lose it omnipresent grip.

I think if people started to realise the vast similarities between an ant colony and our species then it is all very similar... ants are born for specific tasks, so are we.

There are born leaders, there are born warriors and there are born worker ants. Most are worker ants.

I can sort of see the analogy to an ant colony. I can see the underlying similarities in our modern world where most people are tasked with a specific chore that allows them to participate in the "greater colony".

The problem is no ant "feels" it is entitled to more or less than another ant. They all work together for the protection of the colony and the continuation of their species...which for ants is protecting the queen and feeding the larvae.

As humans, we have this odd trait that we are more deserving of "more" than then next guy...it is an animal trait. You can see it in lion prides and wolf packs...the strongest gets "the lion's share" (ever heard that phrase?).

However...as evolved, civilized, educated and social creatures...we were uniquely gifted with the ability to "not" behave that way. We decree that all men are created equal...then we do absolutely everything we can to have "more" than the next guy....why is that? Whay is it that we cannot overcome this basic animal instinct? I have ideas...but I would like to hear from you folks first.

reply to post by HTapoicos


Ants actually do what is best for their own people, humans don't.

It doesn't matter if the vast majority of people are "worker ants" and not leaders, (this really is probably just a part of social conditioning), it gives no excuse to exploit them.

reply to post by Jeremiah65


Free market capitalism could only work in like small non-corporate communes. Where everyone was actually willing to help one another if need be. When implemented on any large scale you get third world countries. I would never want to go back to the age of the robber baron in America.

NO THANKS.

You flip over to the other side, the Liberals/Socialist would like to take all the money and divide it equally.

Do not say liberals/socialists. They are two hugely different things.

Liberals = capitalists who believe in a social saftey net, regulations, etc.

Socialism = the workers owning the means of production ie; the place they work at. This removes the possibility for a "head honcho" to exploit off the workers work.

reply to post by Jeremiah65


I'll SnF ya'!
(Happy Turkey Day btw)

As a new person to the Libertarian Party, I'd have to agreer that both parties have been lack-luster and have failed for different reasons.

Happy thanksgiving back at ya Beez and to everyone else as well!

What prompted this thought process that led to this thread was just me thinking. I was thinking about the problems facing our nation and the world and how neither party is offering any real or substantial solutions.

I am not talking about social disagreements...I am about as socially liberal as a person can get because...I do not care "how" other people live. People should be free to do to their body whatever they want. They should be able to make choices...they should be able to marry their mailbox...I do not care.

I DO care about "the quality of life" though. We all know something is wrong and no one can seem to put a finger on it...or they are just afraid to look at it...not sure which. I started considering the paradigms of the two parties and how neither of them really ever offer solutions. One will bark out an idea and the other gets it's panties in a bunch and screams..."You're wrong!"...and round and round it goes.

I decided to try and break this fiasco down to the absolute fundamental idealism's as best I understood them and then turn that around to show why both philosophies are broken...or at least extremely damaged.

I'm not trying to be on a pulpit here and preach. I wanted to toss out what i have thought long and hard about and some of the conclusions I have came to...as well as some of the inherent and embedded hypocrisies I have observed.

But I was not being completely facetious a few posts back...."IF" there is not enough wealth to equally divide...if there is not enough wealth for everyone to make a decent living...something somewhere is broken...it does come back to greed and selfishness. If we as a species cannot allow a fellow human being the dignity of a life free of suffering...we have a real problem as a species! Maybe there are just too many people for everyone to live decent...and by decent I do not mean extravagant...I mean food, water, clothing and shelter...that is not extravagance. But it is the foundation of decency.

So what do we do? Defy the capitalism decree and just print money for everyone and see what happens? Do we start concentration camps for the poor, hungry, homeless and sick?...for them later to be worked to death or "removed"?

I am asking a fundamental question fellow human beings...we have a growing population...more and more people are slipping into poverty and despair...sometimes by no fault of their own...we have rampant hunger and sickness in a world of plenty...all for greed...

So...how do we fix it? If we do not start asking the hard questions...damn...we will never find the answers will we?

You have to start somewhere...

Yes a shameless bump of my own thread topic!

second line

reply to post by Jeremiah65


The Native Americans had it right. Tribes. Like minded people getting along, surviving with no real power structure to speak of. What people were in charge were too busy smoking Peyote and getting spiritual to even begin thinking about controlling people through fear and war. There was enough distance between them all to where they knew of the other tribes, but far enough away to where they didn't have to care about what they did. That all changed when a bunch of European hillbillies ( Think Bubba goes to London) sailed over here because they didn't want to follow other peoples' rules and called the people HERE barbarians. Classy. These same people morphed, through just a few generations, into the people making the rules now.

I don't care what your political affiliation is. Your leaders are losers and fools and you're no better if you believe even one word that comes out their mouths. They have no clue what they're doing and the sooner people wake up, realize it, and start treating those "people" with the silent and unaware contempt they deserve, then the people are going to get what they deserve.

The fact is that the more people you have in a society and the more people you have trying to control things, the more screwed up it's all going to get unless there is an iron handed and unforgiving rule of law that dictates everything right down to the clothes you wear. If you think otherwise, get a grip because you're fooling yourself. I don't care how many ipads, laptops, cars, businesses, digits in your bank account or homes you have, humans are simple creatures who simply cannot handle complexities and too many choices productively. The simpler things are, the more productive they are. Look at how many people, laws, districts, states, religions, political parties, lifestyle choices, educational choices, and choices, choices choices you have in America. Now look at all the societal instability, political infighting, religious hypocrisy, crime rate, the Detroit-type ghettos, the unemployment, homelessness, national debt, bombs going off in other countries 7,000 miles away, and the average Americans impression that they're the most powerful nation on the planet ( Scary thought isn't it), and THEN come to the conclusion that they have their sh*t together and the amount of people in one country doesn't matter..

If you do, you're beyond help. And if you don't based on your political belief, you're not paying attention and you don't have the intellectual wherewithal to be able to pay attention to this post. ( In other words, quit reading now before your head explodes)

Again.....tribal life is the way to go. It has a proven track record of success. The American way of life was an experiment that failed. Get over it.

All class based systems have always ended the same way and always will end the same, with an overwhelming number of lower class people rising up in revolt and tearing the system down.
a classless system is the only way to have a long term stable system, unfortunately human nature seems to find a classless system as an abomination unto the very heavens themselves.

I like most of your post what i don't like is the total freedom/ anarchy part, considering people are not starting out on the same platform. There are people in places of power that can abuse that power freely and harm those who can not defend against it. This can be an abuse of money or political policy. The rule of law should be equal for everyone regardless of social status or economic status.

You have some interesting ideas OP and I applaud your choice of words in explaining them.

Although It may not be such a good idea to evenly distribute wealth among the people. A world where some have enough money to feed the earth for a month while millions are starving with no end in sight??? I would not call it Greed, as much as a natural tendency to hoard which has been burned into our instincts since time began. It is becoming obvious to people everywhere that some balance has to come to the situation if we want to see our species survive into the future.

What you say about people being free to do what they want is good, but we have to take initiative and do these things already. Maybe this is as good a time to start as any, now that some of these things are coming to light. All of the freedoms that we have recently lost may just be the last convulsions of a dying beast.

Maybe we should all just start expressing these freedoms by doing the things that you say. All we really want is to be able to have the tools and freedom to make a good contribution doing the things we are good at. The "lazy" people out there would not be lazy if they had the tools to express their skills. Maybe if we stick to doing those things nobody could really stop us. The U.S. was founded on these ideas, maybe the freedoms in these ideas really can't be taken away from us at this point, even though we think that they may have been already. If people could start providing for each other on a more local level and stop feeding the huge corporations with money that just turns into landfill, we would be headed in the right direction.

The rights of Gay marriage and the new recreational laws in Co and Wa should be a clue to us that it is not so difficult for us to hold onto these freedoms, or to at least demand that they be given back.

reply to post by Trustfund


Something you said got me thinking that maybe the problem is that our corporate models are all wrong. I wonder if an alternative hierarchy could be achieved inside the corporations that would turn the balance. Would it be possible to create a different management model that would curb greed, encourage responsibility for the environment as well as the health, wealth and growth of it's employees? How would it work if large businesses had to have elections among their employees to choose who held the responsibility of big decisions or PR issues. Maybe workers should have the opportunity to OWN their work whatever it may turn out to be, and have a say about how it is exploited. Corporations are already considered as people under the law. Maybe the workers on the bottom rung should be held responsible for the practices of upper management on some level. Maybe then if the law held them accountable they would be forced to take initiative. You can bet that if every employee of BP was charged with manslaughter there would not be another oil spill in any other big oil company for a very long time.

One of these days our corporations are going to start warring with one another, they already have complete control of the Governments of the world. It very well could become a Dog eat Dog world in a much more sinister way than it is now. How do we make sure that the dogs doing the eating are the ones that are acting responsibly towards the earth and her future children? We have to do it from the inside out in order to retain good healthy business practices. It is our responsibility to keep our biggest companies in check in order to ensure that they don't do more harm than good. When we start seeing strong, environmentally friendly and employee driven companies competing with the big dogs then we will know that we are on the right path.

reply to post by Trustfund


As far as human beings not acting in the interests of others goes, I think Peter Kropotkin more or less destroyed that notion back in the early 20th century.

dwardmac.pitzer.edu...

The amount of evidence that points toward humans actually caring about each other is pretty immense. Human beings generally do get along just fine, and generally are cooperative, social, and altruistic when altruism is called upon. I don't believe that society could exist without an innate predisposition toward sociality.

I'm glad to see, though, that people in this thread aren't peddling that BS "socialism means State control" line that ignores every piece of socialist theory ever. It's a breath of fresh air, honestly.

I've always had this gift ( or curse, as it works both ways ) for seeing things in a different light than most others seem to. It's something of a trait of Asperger's and one that I tend to exemplify to the extreme. It is from this place of strange or uncommon perception that I address this issue...

I blame Madison Ave and Hollywood. In fact I honestly think that these combined forces have either accidentally or deliberately altered human psychology in a profound and deeply disturbing manner - one that threatens to change the course of the evolution of our species.

Sound hyperbolic and a tad insane? I don't blame you for thinking that. Even I take a step back from these thoughts and have the same reaction. But that doesn't negate my feelings that I am right on the money.

Advertising is an art based upon deception, and an understanding of very base human impulses. I mean, there is a reason why Carl's Jr makes commercials for hamburgers that mostly focus upon nearly naked young females usually engaged in activities like washing their cars. Nothing to do with burgers - everything to do with creating a false emotional association between eating fast food and optimal sexual gratification.

Hollywood is an industry that simply builds upon the advertising model and ( when we're lucky ) throws in a story or some pretty special effects while they're convincing us that ordering a Heineken will obviously make every member of the opposite sex, who happens to be in the same bar as we are that night, fall deeply into lust with us.

Oh, and money - money is sexy. Money buys mansions, sports cars, diamonds, hot tubs... Oh and peace. The rich are always portrayed as being above the daily grind. Rich people don't get sad - they hire servants to be sad for them - all while they eat their Carl's Jr burgers in diamond studded hot tubs with sexual partners who turned eighteen exactly FOUR seconds ago....

Even movies with highly positive, socially aware, heart following role models are usually twisted and portray the "do gooder" as an insane person. Robin Williams made quite a career out of playing such characters... the deeply flawed and pain riddled Samaritan. This ( again accidentally or by design ) gets folks to thinking that kind hearted people are a bit out of sorts. They are eccentric. I mean, they're not eating burgers in hot tubs with nubile young women. Not ever.

Of course this is all for entertainment value and the good guys are flawed because we like them to be. If I made a movie about how Bill Gates gave umpteen billion to charity - let's just say it would go straight to the $3,00 bin at the local salvage store and nobody would ever see it.

The problem is that we live in a media driven society now. One that literally takes it's cues from media, rather than the reverse, which was once the case. Art no longer imitates life, it dictates it.

And in media - greed is good. Greed is optimal. I may be wrong here, but I cannot think of a single rap music video that featured the artist donating their time in a soup kitchen. I have, however, seen a LOT of Bentleys, Cristal, and private jets in such videos.

These images have a profound effect upon those who are constantly exposed to them. I'm old enough to see such things and recognize that sort of hedonistic, and affluent life as the exception. But younger people, especially, seem to see it as reality. A clear cut message that "Taking care of number one at all costs is the only thing that matters. Period.

This over idealized version of life - this fantasy - is now considered by many as "normal". Wealth, as some see it, is the rule, and not the exception. Stunning beauty, of course, if far more common than the unattractive or average.

We've become a narcissistic society, so lost in self that, just as Narcissus himself, we see only our own reflections and we devote our resources to making that reflection as perfect as possible. The means of doing so? Material wealth.

The real shame of it is that most people are better than this and don't realize the trap they've fallen into by subscribing to the superficial beast of a society we've created. All it would take is to get folks to look away from their own reflections, even for a minute - and so many would truly see it all for what it really is. A lie. An illusion.

The point is that ideals and fantasies are beautiful things - but when they lack a moral message? They're simply paths to the dark places that we currently see our world heading.

In the end, it is not what we think of ourselves that matters. It is how others think of us that defines us. And, speaking in the truest of terms, the way one treats the lowest among us is really the only mirror required for us to see the truth of ourselves.

Have compassion, show mercy, give the Golden rule a try - and see what true beauty looks and feels like.

~Heff

Originally posted by Trustfund
reply to post by HTapoicos

 

Ants actually do what is best for their own people, humans don't.

It doesn't matter if the vast majority of people are "worker ants" and not leaders, (this really is probably just a part of social conditioning), it gives no excuse to exploit them.

Much depends on the society. China, Japan or other eastern countries are fundamentally different from the west, they are driven by the good of the 'colony' more than the individual.

The hair splitting and incessant chatter is fine but the basic reality is that people are born for certain tasks and most are worker ants; the fact they like to discuss the semantics or think they are more is immaterial imo.