The Maelstrom of Violence

[Classic-Xer]

(09-30-2017, 04:19 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(09-30-2017, 03:36 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Too many stripes...

There are never enough stripes.  With you in general a line by line refutation is necessary.  This does not lend itself well to long form responses, and that is before we even get into how forums themselves encourage "striped posts".

Quote:I had a much better relationship with Mr. White Liberal Teaching Man.

Not surprising considering you are a white liberal where as I'm neither white nor liberal.  Identity informs culture which informs politics of course.

Quote:  Still, nether Thoreau nor Eric are particularly important writers to me now.

[quibble]I'd argue that Eric was never an important writer to anyone.[/quibble]

 

Quote:As I said, I reject one of Thoreau's basic assumptions.  The key is to understand how the mind gets turned off if the idea expressed don't mesh with your worldview.  Understanding one's own mind is far more important than understanding Eric's.  You are stuck in "I'm right, he contradicts, he must be wrong" mode.  I'm looking for how two essentially different ideas can be held and respected deeply at the same time.  There is a big difference.  

I'm not stuck in the "I'm right, you're wrong" mode.  That is just the way it is, Bob.  I am right and you are wrong.  As for understanding minds, well Eric doesn't have one to understand.  If you bother to read his posts you'd conclude that he became a vegetable sometime in the mid-1970s.  In his case it is a matter of the lights are on but no one is home.  As for my mind I understand it far better than you ever will, indeed I probably understand your mind about as well as any other person can understand the mind of an other.  

Quote:It is rather obvious that such a deep split in values and ideal happens regularly.

Only for people who don't know what their values are.

Quote:We will profess very different reasons for the firings.  There is a conflict between establishment and close to the base people in the White House.  Many firings are to get rid of the close to the base people, to give the establishment clearer access.  Bannon might speak to that divide... fighting for the base from the outside.  There is a parallel wave if the firings about Trump being the only one allowed to do scandals.  Price stands out there.  If you really look at the firings, you will find that pattern quickly.  Looking for levers?  That's a new one.  I often think you've created an idealized version of Trump.

I would say that we see differences in white house staffing choices because you are clueless and I'm not.  Spicer was not part of the base nor was close to it, he was Establishment.  Priebus was pure establishment.  Bannon resigned and it was known he was going to resign in about August or September of 2017 if Trump was elected (which he was).  Bannon himself said he'd probably stick around for a year or so.  His reasoning is that he is probably happier and makes more money running Breitbart.

As for scandals, as far as administrations go, Trump's has had incredibly few of them.  The man runs a tight ship.  As for an idealized version of Trump, that is unnecessary.

Quote:

(09-30-2017, 01:25 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Don't care.  Just because you're stuck in a time warp doesn't mean the rest of us are.

Really?  Lower taxes, a stronger military, less domestic spending...  The way to steal the Republican base is by promising the unraveling memes.  You should be aware of what Trump promised.

Huh?  Did you even listen to Trump's campaign speeches?  He ran on building a wall (more domestic spending), building up the infrastructure (more domestic spending).  Though you are right about having a stronger military.  As for taxes he seems to be more of the simplify first then lower if necessary (and considering how high business taxes are in comparison to other industrialized countries the taxes are too damn high).

So we're back to you either not paying attention or being stuck in a time warp.  I think it is the latter since you're not clearly seeing Trump as he is, or as he would have been labeled say 30 years ago--a New York Business Democrat.

Quote:

(09-30-2017, 01:25 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: I do listen to myself.  If you notice that when I post I rarely use mispelled words, and often have correct punctuation.  This means that when I post I take the time to proof read and make sure that I'm saying what I want to say.

Then you must have misspelled 'mispelled' deliberately.  Quite a touch.

I said I proof read my posts, not that I was perfect at that proofreading.

Quote:

(09-30-2017, 01:25 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: As for projection, is that you just projecting yourself onto others as you do incredibly frequently or is that you honestly see me as doing.  Obviously the previous sentence is a rhetorical question--I honestly don't care one way or the other, as demonstrated in previous posts you have little to no understanding of economics and thus have little to no understanding of anything else.

As for the economics, that I understand well enough.  It is the voodoo school I object to when people claim the voodoo works.  There are many schools of economics that avoid voodoo.  Trying to use them doesn't result in collapse.  I will leave it to others to say why in more detail, but it has been said often enough.

I don't think you do understand economics at all or you'd likely be more of the Austrian school.  As for voodoo economics, well we can essentially class all forms of socialism as that--it has failed everywhere it has been tried.

Quote:For the rest, you'd have to move beyond 'I am right, he contradicts, so he mist be wrong.'  That's OK.  Almost no one does.

I can't move past that until you stop being wrong.  It is a condition that often afflicts debate with people who are wrong.

Quote:

(09-30-2017, 01:25 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: I'm glad to see that particular hobgoblin has crept in and boggles your tiny mind.

Hmm.  Maybe I should encourage you to believe that absolute opposites can be reconciled.

Absolute opposites rarely, if ever, are reconciled.  Much like matter and anti-matter cannot be reconciled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilation

Quote:

(09-30-2017, 01:25 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: As to anarchy, I mean anarchy in the sense that a state is absent.  The state is a more recent invention of mankind arising around the time of the agricultural revolution.  While humans may be political animals, isolated tribes in the amazon do not have a state just like the pygmies of the Congo also lack a state.

Since both are in as close to a state of nature as is observable, then it becomes clear that anarchy is the natural state.

I structure through four ages of civilization, hunter gatherer, agricultural, industrial and perhaps post scarcity, the last sometimes called information.  There are things to be learned from studying the hunter gatherer pattern.  I'm not going to unlearn them.  The books on the subject won't be unpublished.  

I won't ague that a hunter gatherer tribe such as amazon or pygmies are very different from a modern well adapted industrial state.  I'll just warn you that if you wait for mankind to revert to his 'natural' state of anarchy, you will have a long wait.  There is a peer bond, family bonds, a leader, usually a shaman, a set of rules, territory, etc...  The difference between the hunter gather period and later is that the leader is usually familiar with the entire tribe, thus the peer bond is much more involved.  There is a basic structure built in, and ignoring that structure is ill done.

Yes, there was a romantic 19th century idea that hunter gatherer people lived in anarchy which was somehow superior or even utopian.  Karl Marx had a notion that the state would wither away given a chance.  Thoreau's thinking was a little akin.  I have an opposing theory that the elite will seek power given a chance.

If you define 'anarchy' carefully, you might say some lived in a state of anarchy, but humans will still be a political animal.

This entire passage just indicates that no matter what you have read you clearly did not understand it.  The difference between anarchy and having a state is the presence of a state.  This concept is so simple a toddler can understand it, surely you are smarter than the average toddler.

Peer bonds, spouse bonds, familial bonds, tribal bonds are inherent to humanity being a social creature by nature, and political by nature only in that all social settings inevitably develop a political process of one sort or an other (office politics and etc).  The state however is not a natural phenomenon, it is necessary only once a society advances beyond the hunter gatherer stage, though it is arguable it may be also unnecessary in a post scarcity society as well.  However, conjectures on such a society are as fruitless and pointless as asking Thomas Aquinas about the year 2000.

However, no matter how long as recorded history seems to be, some 6000 years or so, humans existed on the planet for some 2 million years and it is only the last 6000 or so that states have existed.  If we compressed all of human existence into a single day only the last 4 hours 19 minutes 12 seconds have been in the presence of a state.

As such we have to conclude that it is the state which is a social construction and not its absence.

As for elites seeking to maintain their power, there is no argument there.  In Marxian terms it is in their class interests.

I can understand his issues with understanding me, my views, what I'm saying and so forth. I have piss poor writing skills, obvious issues with grammar and I'm not nearly as well read. I can't understand his issues with understanding you, your views and so forth.