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(02-03-2018, 06:48 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (02-01-2018, 08:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've never called you a commie. I've associated you with having a similar belief system and a similar mindset. Whether you be fascist, communist, socialist or imperialist is unknown at this time.
I'm similar to a socialist in some ways, and in some ways not.
You are flat out a socialist. You just don't want to admit it.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises
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During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
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(02-03-2018, 11:25 PM)Galen Wrote: (02-03-2018, 06:48 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (02-01-2018, 08:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've never called you a commie. I've associated you with having a similar belief system and a similar mindset. Whether you be fascist, communist, socialist or imperialist is unknown at this time.
I'm similar to a socialist in some ways, and in some ways not.
You are flat out a socialist. You just don't want to admit it.
Socialism is one of those movements which are ill defined.
wiki Wrote:Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production, as well as the political theories and movements associated with them. Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, though social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.
I favor nodding respect to the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which acknowledges that certain minimum economic rights should be met, such as housing, food and health care. You might say governments owe the People a certain minimum. Some associate socialism with communism, with a planned economy, which failed in direct competition with capitalism. Socialism is many things to many people. For that reason, it makes a poor label to throw on somebody else. Because you believe in one idea, does that mean you have to defend another idea which you reject?
Fascism is another label which I consider grossly overused. Because one uses certain ideas which Hitler used, you have to carry all his baggage? Some folks spend an awful amount of effort trying to make a label stick, thus associate a person with ideas which are not embraced. That is not my favorite practice.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.
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(02-04-2018, 01:27 AM)nom Wrote: There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.
Bob Butler showed you demonstrably wrong in the post just before yours."Socialism" has been so much a peacock word in Germany that future Nazi war criminal Julius Streicher named his right-wing party the "German Socialist Party"... before it merged with Hitler's party as the National-Socialist German Worker's Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP and often shortened to Nazi Party. Hitler's inhuman, anti-proletarian party turned workers into serfs on behalf of rapacious plutocrats in Germany, which is inconsistent with either Marxist or democratic socialism. Paradoxically due to the despotism, expansionism, destruction of civil liberties, and mass murder Nazism has more in common with Stalinism than do any democratic-socialist parties.
Socialism as a word in the American political lexicon is a deprecation, probably because (1) America has had powerful elite who still treated employees (especially in the rural South) almost like serfs and sought to preserve that social reality long past the end of World War II, and (2) because Americans, less familiar with the more benign forms of socialism (especially social democracy) have confused socialism and Stalinism. This deprecation is so strong that left-wing pols have derided big-government policies in favor of extant elites as 'socialism for the rich'.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(02-04-2018, 07:53 AM)nom Wrote: https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/mark-judge/...socialists
It is still possible to have some measure of economic success without a graduate degree, or even a college degree, or even more than a high-school diploma. But not in academia. If one is to make heterodox statements and not get ridiculed, one had better have a college degree in the appropriate field, lest one take ridicule. Sure, Peter Jennings could be the long-time anchor of ABC Nightly News, but at least he turned his talents as a disc-jockey into those of a journalist. He knew what not to say. The last bit of basic knowledge that anyone came up with in science while not an academic or in some corporate-or government-funded laboratory was special relativity... from 1905, 113 years ago. Albert Einstein was an odd-ball, but he was quite careful in his writing.
Claiming that Adolf Hitler was a socialist while leader of the Devil's Reich is about as false as saying that Young-Earth Creationism is science. Yes, there were socialists in the Nazi Party, the people who like the brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser whose idea of socialism was to deliver the German people from the monopolistic exploitation of the Jews (the Jews were no worse than any others at that, which is another story. Yes, there were many socialists in the Nazi Party in 1933, the "roast-beef Nazis", brown on the outside and red on the inside. Hitler, who had become a stooge of industrialists and financiers before 1933 and would eventually privatize much of the Weimar economy, would kill or incarcerate the "roast-beef Nazis" who didn't take the hint and emigrate as did Otto Strasser. Gregor Strasser was murdered during the Night of the Long Knives. Otto Strasser founded his variant of Nazism, Strasserism that melded socialism with Jew-hating. Other socialist movements (except perhaps Ba'athism, which has much in common with Nazism in its tyranny, expansionism, and contempt for the value of human life, and whose identification as socialist is shaky) are typically more strictly humanist (socialism without humanism quickly degenerates into tyranny in which the 'socialism' is nothing more than the formation of Big Government using its power to oppress and regiment people) and anti-racist. Social democrats have no use for white supremacy and antisemitism, and recognize racism as a demeaning tool for exploiting and degrading people who deserve better.
Big government is not inherently socialist. I remember my brother telling me of a book that he was reading that it held that Pharaonic Egypt had the tightest controls of the economy anywhere and at any time. "Even tighter than the Soviet Union?", I said.
"Yes!", he responded. "Even tighter than the Soviet Union". Pharaonic Egypt had a hierarchy in which the Pharaoh controlled everything through a hierarchy in which the common man got whatever was necessary to do his task and nothing more, and was sweated as much as possible to ensure that the Pharaoh and his associates could live in opulent splendor and be buried in the most grandiose tombs ever built (the Pyramids). It was close to slavery, but nobody needed any slave auctions to impress slaves about being owned. Getting out of Egypt was theoretically possible but practically difficult. Because some plutocrat (the Pharaoh) really owned everything, it was clearly not socialist as modern people would recognize socialism. There was no welfare system; if one was no longer useful to the system one starved to death.
Big Government can exist to enforce the will of economic elites, including plutocrats and executives, as in the USA, or to serve a dehumanizing racism, as in Nazi Germany or Apartheid-era South Africa. Socialism without democracy, most obviously leads to an order in which the executives and political hacks become an oppressive elite, as in the Soviet Union and its satellites. Yes, it is possible to have socialism without social justice, as one critic of the Commie regime in Poland before its collapse.
If we must have Big Government of any kind, then we had better have democracy and legal process as checks on political madness and humanistic values to guide the morals of the order.
Chuck Woolery is as right about Nazism being 'socialist' as Immanuel Velikovsky is about recent calamities among the planets of the Solar System and Erich von Daniken is about visitors from distant planets visiting and informing ancient peoples about technologies that made civilization possible. Both are cranks, and cranks contribute only garbage to intellectual life. Yes, the common man can discuss science and history, but the common man must cling to orthodox positions on science and history to maintain credibility. (OK, there are amateur astronomers, historians and archaeologists who have made discoveries -- but those respect the Establishment in their academic fields, and work on the fringes of details).
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(02-03-2018, 11:25 PM)Galen Wrote: (02-03-2018, 06:48 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (02-01-2018, 08:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've never called you a commie. I've associated you with having a similar belief system and a similar mindset. Whether you be fascist, communist, socialist or imperialist is unknown at this time.
I'm similar to a socialist in some ways, and in some ways not.
You are flat out a socialist. You just don't want to admit it.
And yet I was an independent business man for 16 years, without any government support.
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Whether the government gives a little money or a lot of welfare to the sick or to the healthy
doesn't matter because the government is BROKE.
The US cannot afford welfare or wars.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
http://www.ocala.com/opinion/20170521/pe...ncial-hole
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02-06-2018, 04:10 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-06-2018, 04:11 PM by Galen.)
(02-05-2018, 01:58 PM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (02-03-2018, 11:25 PM)Galen Wrote: (02-03-2018, 06:48 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (02-01-2018, 08:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've never called you a commie. I've associated you with having a similar belief system and a similar mindset. Whether you be fascist, communist, socialist or imperialist is unknown at this time.
I'm similar to a socialist in some ways, and in some ways not.
You are flat out a socialist. You just don't want to admit it.
And yet I was an independent business man for 16 years, without any government support.
I find that hard to believe.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises
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(02-06-2018, 04:10 PM)Galen Wrote: (02-05-2018, 01:58 PM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (02-03-2018, 11:25 PM)Galen Wrote: (02-03-2018, 06:48 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (02-01-2018, 08:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've never called you a commie. I've associated you with having a similar belief system and a similar mindset. Whether you be fascist, communist, socialist or imperialist is unknown at this time.
I'm similar to a socialist in some ways, and in some ways not.
You are flat out a socialist. You just don't want to admit it.
And yet I was an independent business man for 16 years, without any government support.
I find that hard to believe.
There are business-people wih a vested interest in the welfare system -- like grocers who have many food-stamp customers, physicians or dentists who rely heavily upon Medicaid and Medicare. Even people with high incomes such as school superintendents may be more concerned with a revenue stream through taxation than t hat they pay high taxes. Would you better off making $100K a year and paying $60K in taxes than I am making $20K a year and paying $5K in taxes? Only a fool would choose the latter.
Then there are people with high incomes such as film stars who are more concerned about people buying theater tickets than they are that they are paying income taxes at the maximum rate and paying 10% sales taxes on the purchase of a Mercedes-Benz car, Dom Perignon, and baubles from some boutique on Rodeo Drive. It's the common man who is making $20K a year who must choose between a night out to see a movie or do some casual dining at Bob Evans (yuck!) and would have an easier choice (both!) if he had more income who ultimately decides how well a film star can live.
Taxes are not a pure drain unless the government is wasting the money obtained either as tax revenue or borrowing. Government spending tends to go back into the economy.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(02-06-2018, 04:10 PM)Galen Wrote: (02-05-2018, 01:58 PM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (02-03-2018, 11:25 PM)Galen Wrote: (02-03-2018, 06:48 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (02-01-2018, 08:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've never called you a commie. I've associated you with having a similar belief system and a similar mindset. Whether you be fascist, communist, socialist or imperialist is unknown at this time.
I'm similar to a socialist in some ways, and in some ways not.
You are flat out a socialist. You just don't want to admit it.
And yet I was an independent business man for 16 years, without any government support.
I find that hard to believe.
You base your stated opinions solely on your beliefs and ideology, which is wrong.
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(02-07-2018, 01:03 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You base your stated opinions solely on your beliefs and ideology, which is wrong.
Don't you do much the same, with a different ideology?
The red complaint that blues don't listen is pertinent and nigh on universal. The instinct is to assume the other guy is wrong and repeat assertion.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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02-08-2018, 05:02 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-08-2018, 05:19 PM by Eric the Green.)
(02-08-2018, 11:23 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (02-07-2018, 01:03 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You base your stated opinions solely on your beliefs and ideology, which is wrong.
Don't you do much the same, with a different ideology?
The red complaint that blues don't listen is pertinent and nigh on universal. The instinct is to assume the other guy is wrong and repeat assertion.
No, I don't. Galen does.
I know the red side complains. People can listen to them, but there's little chance that anyone who is aware and concerned about life would agree with their ideologies. Therefore, they say we don't listen. But people are not all the same; not everyone on the red side is as narrow, rude and blind as Galen is. Sometimes they make good points. No doubt people who vote Republican or conservative libertarian have genuine concerns; they have just been mostly led astray about what to do about them politically.
But blues can respect the reds in many different ways. All people have virtues, talents, and are endowed with life, and as such deserve to be treated as we would wish to be treated, as best we can.
As usual, I point out that you too are no better than you assume me to be in these respects, so people in glass houses....
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(02-05-2018, 01:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (02-03-2018, 11:25 PM)Galen Wrote: (02-03-2018, 06:48 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (02-01-2018, 08:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've never called you a commie. I've associated you with having a similar belief system and a similar mindset. Whether you be fascist, communist, socialist or imperialist is unknown at this time.
I'm similar to a socialist in some ways, and in some ways not.
You are flat out a socialist. You just don't want to admit it.
And yet I was an independent business man for 16 years, without any government support.
You owned a non-profit business for 16 years. I've worked for various for-profit bussiness's for 16 years and I have owned a for-profit business for 25 years. Does profit matter to non-profit business's/ business man/ business owner? I've never been one ( a non-profit business man) or owned one ( a non-profit business). I've only sat/served on a few of their boards with a few different titles and served as an advisor or as a go between. Hint. Don't approach a business man as a salesman? Business men don't trust salesman unless you're a salesman who has been doing business them or a salesman who has been doing business for them for many years. Just so you know, I'm a bit of a salesman too.
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(02-08-2018, 11:23 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (02-07-2018, 01:03 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You base your stated opinions solely on your beliefs and ideology, which is wrong.
Don't you do much the same, with a different ideology?
The red complaint that blues don't listen is pertinent and nigh on universal. The instinct is to assume the other guy is wrong and repeat assertion.
I wrote a letter to the editor of my local paper on this very subject. We're in a period where taking sides is expected. I have friends who are mystified that I'm not 100% Trump or 100% anti-Trump/GOP/RW/add-to-suit. I lean strongly left, but I'm more than willing to listen to reason. Doing stupid things for ideological reasons doesn't make then less stupid.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(02-09-2018, 03:43 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (02-05-2018, 01:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (02-03-2018, 11:25 PM)Galen Wrote: (02-03-2018, 06:48 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (02-01-2018, 08:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've never called you a commie. I've associated you with having a similar belief system and a similar mindset. Whether you be fascist, communist, socialist or imperialist is unknown at this time.
I'm similar to a socialist in some ways, and in some ways not.
You are flat out a socialist. You just don't want to admit it.
And yet I was an independent business man for 16 years, without any government support.
You owned a non-profit business for 16 years. I've worked for various for-profit bussiness's for 16 years and I have owned a for-profit business for 25 years. Does profit matter to non-profit business's/ business man/ business owner? I've never been one ( a non-profit business man) or owned one ( a non-profit business). I've only sat/served on a few of their boards with a few different titles and served as an advisor or as a go between. Hint. Don't approach a business man as a salesman? Business men don't trust salesman unless you're a salesman who has been doing business them or a salesman who has been doing business for them for many years. Just so you know, I'm a bit of a salesman too.
I've owned a non-profit for 20 years. I also referred to in my reply above to the for-profit business I owned for 16 years.
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(02-09-2018, 02:32 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (02-09-2018, 03:43 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (02-05-2018, 01:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (02-03-2018, 11:25 PM)Galen Wrote: (02-03-2018, 06:48 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: I'm similar to a socialist in some ways, and in some ways not.
You are flat out a socialist. You just don't want to admit it.
And yet I was an independent business man for 16 years, without any government support.
You owned a non-profit business for 16 years. I've worked for various for-profit bussiness's for 16 years and I have owned a for-profit business for 25 years. Does profit matter to non-profit business's/ business man/ business owner? I've never been one ( a non-profit business man) or owned one ( a non-profit business). I've only sat/served on a few of their boards with a few different titles and served as an advisor or as a go between. Hint. Don't approach a business man as a salesman? Business men don't trust salesman unless you're a salesman who has been doing business them or a salesman who has been doing business for them for many years. Just so you know, I'm a bit of a salesman too.
I've owned a non-profit for 20 years. I also referred to in my reply above to the for-profit business I owned for 16 years.
So, you're familiar with both of them. I'm very familiar with one of them. I'm in the process of becoming more familiar with the other one. How did you fare with the for profit? Did you fare pretty well or did you find yourself struggling to stay in business for 16 years? I've fared pretty well for the most part. I had a few very tough and lean years. But, all in all, I'd never consider giving it up or switching business's.
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(02-10-2018, 02:46 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (02-09-2018, 02:32 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (02-09-2018, 03:43 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (02-05-2018, 01:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (02-03-2018, 11:25 PM)Galen Wrote: You are flat out a socialist. You just don't want to admit it.
And yet I was an independent business man for 16 years, without any government support.
You owned a non-profit business for 16 years. I've worked for various for-profit bussiness's for 16 years and I have owned a for-profit business for 25 years. Does profit matter to non-profit business's/ business man/ business owner? I've never been one ( a non-profit business man) or owned one ( a non-profit business). I've only sat/served on a few of their boards with a few different titles and served as an advisor or as a go between. Hint. Don't approach a business man as a salesman? Business men don't trust salesman unless you're a salesman who has been doing business them or a salesman who has been doing business for them for many years. Just so you know, I'm a bit of a salesman too.
I've owned a non-profit for 20 years. I also referred to in my reply above to the for-profit business I owned for 16 years.
So, you're familiar with both of them. I'm very familiar with one of them. I'm in the process of becoming more familiar with the other one. How did you fare with the for profit? Did you fare pretty well or did you find yourself struggling to stay in business for 16 years? I've fared pretty well for the most part. I had a few very tough and lean years. But, all in all, I'd never consider giving it up or switching business's.
I did pretty well, after a slow start, but returns got leaner toward the end, and I switched to a smaller scale non-profit approach.
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