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The World Is Being Run by Sociopaths

Started by alvarezbassist17, Apr 19, 2012, 02:38 PM

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alvarezbassist17

I thought this was an incredibly interesting article and I feel like it'd evoke some interesting discussion, so hopefully you can all spare the time to read it and we can have a lovely chat about it.  I completely agree with everything in the article, what'd y'all think?

Sociopathy Is Running the US - Part Two (part One here)

I recently wrote an article that addresses the subject of sociopaths and how they insinuate themselves into society. Although the subject doesn't speak directly to what stock you should buy or sell to increase your wealth, I think it's critical to success in the markets. It goes a long way towards explaining what goes on in the heads of people like Bernie Madoff and therefore how you can avoid being hurt by them.

But there's a lot more to the story. At this point, it seems as if society at large has been captured by Madoff clones. If that's true, the consequences can't be good. So what I want to do here is probe a little deeper into the realm of abnormal psychology and see how it relates to economics and where the world is heading.

If I'm correct in my assessment, it would imply that the prospects are dim for conventional investments – most stocks, bonds and real estate. Those things tend to do well when society is growing in prosperity. And prosperity is fostered by peace, low taxes, minimal regulation and a sound currency. It's also fostered by a cultural atmosphere where sociopaths are precluded from positions of power and intellectual and moral ideas promoting free minds and free markets rule. Unfortunately, it seems that doesn't describe the trend that the world at large and the US in particular are embarked upon.

In essence, we're headed towards economic and financial bankruptcy. But that's mostly because society has been largely intellectually and morally bankrupt for some time. I don't believe a society can rise to real prosperity without a sound intellectual and moral foundation – that's why the US was so uniquely prosperous for so long, because it had such a foundation. And it's also why societies like Saudi Arabia will collapse as soon as the exogenous things that support them are pulled away. It's why the USSR collapsed. It's the reason why countries everywhere across time reach a peak (if they ever do), then stagnate and decline.

This isn't a matter of academic contemplation, for the same reason that it doesn't matter much if you're in a first-class cabin when the ship it's in is taking on water.

Economics and Evil

When I was a sophomore in college, I asked my father – a worldly wise man but one of few words – some cosmic question, as sophomores are famous for doing. His answer was, "It's all a matter of economics." Some months later I asked him another, similar question. His answer: "It's all a matter of psychology." They were unsatisfactory to me at the time, but those simple answers stuck in my mind. And I've since come to the conclusion that they comprehend most of what drives human action.

Let's look at the "matter of economics" only briefly, because it's covered at length elsewhere and because it's not nearly as significant as the "matter of psychology."

One definition of economics is: The study of who gets what, and how, in the material world. Unfortunately, it's been distorted over the years into the study of who determines who gets what, and how, in the material world. In other words, economic power has gradually been transferred from producers to political allocators. This has had predictably bad results, including not only the bankruptcy of the US government but of large segments of US society.

But what's happening today is much more serious than an economic bankruptcy; you can recover from financial woes by cultivating better habits. We're talking about psychological and spiritual bankruptcy. The word psychology comes from psyche, which is Greek for soul. When you look at the word's origin, it's clear that psychology is about much more than mental peculiarities. It's not just about what a person has or what he does. It's about what he is. The real essence of a man, his soul, is revealed by his philosophy and his beliefs.

In any event, it's rare that anyone goes bankrupt because of a single bad decision. It takes many missteps, and consistently bad decisions aren't accidents. Consistently bad decisions are the product of a flawed moral philosophy. Moral philosophy guides you as to what is right or wrong. The prevailing moral philosophy has so degenerated that Americans think it's OK to invade other countries that not only haven't attacked it but can't even credibly threaten to attack it. I'm not talking just about Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya – pitiful non-entities on the other side of the world. They were preceded by even weaker prey, closer to home, like Granada, Panama, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Not only that, but they think coercion should be used to steal wealth from the people who produce it, and give it to those who've done absolutely nothing to deserve it.

It's hard to pick an exact time America's moral bankruptcy started; perhaps the draconian Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were the first real breach in the country's ethical armor – but they were quickly repealed and subsequently served as an example of what not to do for many years. There were real moral problems that arose because of the Mexican War, the War between the States and the Indian Wars. There were early attempts to create a central bank, but they fortunately failed. But I believe the real change in direction came with the Spanish-American War, which resulted in the accretion of an overseas empire, particularly in the Philippines where 200,000 locals were killed. As Randolph Bourne said, "War is the health of the state."

Then came the creation of both the Federal Reserve and the income tax in the very unlucky year of 1913, which made it possible to finance the country's completely pointless entry into World War 1. From there, with the New Deal, World War 2, Korea, the Great Society, Vietnam and so on, the US has gradually descended into becoming a very aggressive welfare/warfare state. It now has an overt government policy of inflating the currency, which constitutes a fraud, and running up the national debt, which is a swindle because it will never be repaid.

America is not the first to start with moral failure and move on to economic failure. In all the examples history provides, economic bankruptcy and political tyranny are invariably preceded by moral bankruptcy. It's bad enough that these things have happened. But it's even worse that they're celebrated and taught to students as triumphs. That guarantees that the trend will accelerate towards a real disaster. Most people accept what they're taught in school uncritically.

The pattern is no secret to historians. Machiavelli noted in his Florentine Histories (1532): "It may be observed that provinces, among the vicissitudes to which they are accustomed, pass from order to confusion, and afterwards pass again into a state of order. The way of the world doesn't allow things to continue on an even course; as soon as they arrive at their greatest perfection, they again start to decline. Likewise, having sunk to their utmost state of depression, unable to descend lower, they necessarily reascend. And so from good, they naturally decline to evil. Valor produces peace, and peace repose; repose, disorder; disorder, ruin. From ruin order again springs, and from order virtue, and from this glory, and good fortune."

This isn't the place to deconstruct Machiavelli, but he makes a couple of points that are worth pondering. Does "good ... naturally decline to evil"? In politics (which is his subject) it does, because politics necessarily attracts evil people, and evil necessarily brings ruin. Then order reasserts itself, because people despise chaos. And from order virtue arises, and from that good fortune. Machiavelli is right. Virtue does bring good fortune, and evil brings ruin. I believe it would be clear to Machiavelli that in the US virtue is vanishing and evil is on the rise. And Machiavelli would predict that things aren't going to get better at this point until they "sink to their utmost state of depression, unable to descend lower, they necessarily reascend."

In general, he's correct. But sometimes it takes quite a while for a society to reset. After the collapse of Rome, real civilization didn't return to the West until the Italian Renaissance, which was when Machiavelli lived. Interestingly, culture in Italy started a rapid decline in the 1490s, and the peninsula became a backwater – a quaint theme park at best – for hundreds of years. You can argue Italy is still headed downhill today. Perhaps it simply has to do with the nature of entropy: all complex systems eventually wind down, no flame can burn forever. But that's another subject. It would have been nice, though, to keep the flame of America burning for longer than turned out to be the case.

Moral and Intellectual Bankruptcy

One element of moral bankruptcy is intellectual bankruptcy, to wit, belief in the effectiveness of statism and collectivism. This is one reason why I counsel kids who are thinking of going to college (unless it's to acquire very specific knowledge in science, engineering, medicine or the like) to do something more intelligent with their time and money. The higher education system is totally controlled and populated by morally and intellectually bankrupt instructors who are believers in socialism.

It's said Obama is a socialist. I don't doubt he's sympathetic to socialism but, to be true to the meanings of words, he's a fascist.

Let's define these terms and two others with a little help from Karl Marx. His recommended solutions are part of the world's problems, but his analysis of conditions was often quite astute. As Marx pointed out, political systems are all about the ownership and control of goods, whether consumer goods (houses, cars, clothes, toothbrushes) or capital goods (farms, factories and other means of production). Although he didn't break it down this way, his analysis gives us four possible economic systems – communism, socialism, fascism and capitalism.

A communist advocates state ownership and control of all the means of production and all consumer goods. That's a practical impossibility, of course, even in the most primitive aboriginal bands. The idea is even more absurd and preposterous for an industrial society. But that doesn't keep professors and politicians from pretending that it's a good idea, even if just in theory.

A socialist advocates state ownership of society's means of production but accepts private ownership (with state control) of consumer goods. While it's a big improvement over communism, socialism is also completely impractical and always either collapses or evolves into fascism. North Korea and (now to a lesser degree) Cuba are the world's only socialist states.

A fascist advocates nominal private ownership of both the means of production and consumer goods – but with strong state control over both. In other words, you can own mines, farms, and factories – but the state reserves the right to tax, regulate or even expropriate them. Fascism has nothing to do with jackboots and black uniforms; you can have those in communist and socialist states as well. It has to do with a corporate state and a revolving door between business and government, with each protecting and enriching the other. Fascism can be maintained for a long time but necessarily entails all the problems we now face. Almost all the world's states are fascist today; they differ only in degree and detail.

A capitalist advocates the private ownership of everything. An extreme capitalist may be an anarchist, who believes that anything people need or want should be, and would be, provided by entrepreneurs at a profit.

No country provides a perfect example of any of these four arrangements. But every government promotes one or the other as a theoretical ideal. In most places, certainly including the US, the "mixed economy" is put forward as a good thing; the "mixed economy" is a polite way of describing fascism. Nobody wants to call fascism by its name today because of its strong association with Hitler's "National Socialists." In any event, look and analyze closely before you use these words and attach any of the four tags to any country.

In that light, it's funny how the Chinese are still referred to as communists, even though communism was tried only briefly, under Mao. In fact, up to the mid-'80s, China was a socialist state. Now it's a fascist state. China's Communist Party? It's just a scam enabling its members to live high off the hog.

Sweden is usually referred to as socialist, but it's always been a fascist country. All of its means of production – businesses, factories, farms, mines and so forth – have always been privately owned but heavily taxed and regulated. The presence of lots of "free" welfare benefits is incidental. People often conflate a welfare state with socialism, but they're two different things. Socialist states necessarily become too poor to provide any welfare. Fascist states can better afford it and usually offer some in order to help justify the government's costly and annoying depredations.

There is no truly capitalist state in the world today; perhaps Hong Kong comes closest (although not very close).The early US came quite close in some regards. In fact, the West as a whole was quite free in the century from the fall of Napoleon in 1815 to the start of World War 1 in 1914. Almost everywhere taxes were low and regulations few; there was no inflation because gold was currency everywhere; there were almost no serious wars and passports hardly existed, which enabled most anyone to travel almost anywhere without permission. It's no accident that, in percentage terms, the 19th century saw far greater and wider advances in prosperity than any time before or since. Capitalism is both natural and ideal – but, oddly, it doesn't exist anywhere. Why not? I'll explore that shortly.

One sign of intellectual bankruptcy in the US is the absence of serious discussion about capitalism (except in small, specialized forums). Nearly all political debate is about how to fine-tune a fascist system to best suit those who benefit from it – or who think they do. Almost everyone in the public eye is a political statist and an economic collectivist. Those who start attacking the heart of the matter, like Andrew Napolitano or even Pat Buchanan, are quickly evicted from their bully pulpits.

In reality, there's little philosophical difference between the Republicrats and the Demopublicans; they're really just two wings of the same party. The left wing of the party claims to believe in social freedom (but doesn't) and overtly disbelieves in economic freedom. The right wing says it believes in economic freedom (but doesn't) and overtly disbelieves in social freedom. The right wing uses more aggressive rhetoric to build the warfare state, and the left wing talks more about the welfare state. But the net difference between them is minuscule. That's because they share the same corrupt intellectual and moral views.

What made America unique was its foundation in a philosophy of freedom. That word, however, has become so corrupted that the younger Bush was able to use it two dozen times in some of his early speeches without being laughed off the stage or targeted with shoes and rotten vegetables. Perversely but predictably, Bush is today presented in the mainstream media as a free-marketeer, in order to pin blame for the current depression on the free market. This is as much of a hoax as calling Hoover a supporter of the free market. One is forced to acknowledge a bit of respect for Obama's intellectual honesty, in that he almost never speaks of "freedom" or "liberty."

But pointing out the sad state of the world today serves little purpose. It's rare that an intellectual argument changes anyone's mind. Opinions are mostly a matter of psychology. But it's almost impossible to change someone's psychology and the attitude with which he views the world, simply by presenting facts and arguments. A person's beliefs have much more to do with his character and spiritual essence than anything else.

You'll hear some of the candidates for the upcoming elections talk about "American exceptionalism." The phrase makes me wince because it's so anachronistic. In the first place, America was only incidentally a place, a piece of geography. In essence, America was an idea, and an excellent one, that was unique in world history. But now America has morphed into the US, which is essentially no different than the other 200 nation-states that cover the face of the planet like a skin disease.

It's funny, actually, to see how quickly and profoundly things have changed in the US. Back in the '50s and '60s, kids used to say, when one of us did something the others didn't approve of, "Hey, it's a free country." I'll bet you haven't heard that expression for many years. Back in the '70s, there used to be a joke: "America will never have concentration camps. We'll call them something else." Guantanamo, and the long rumored FEMA detention centers, are proof that it wasn't a joke after all.

It's all a matter of mass psychology, which is to say a moral acceptance of collectivism and statism. These systems actually aren't serious intellectual proposals, despite being doctrine at almost every university in the Western world. They're psychological or spiritual disorders on a grand scale.

It's important to gain an intellectual understanding of why freedom is good and collectivism is bad, why freedom works and government doesn't. It's important – but it doesn't strike at the root of the problem. The root of the problem is psychological, not intellectual. Do you think for a moment that if you could make Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or any of the other sociopaths who control the state sit down and listen to intellectual arguments, it would change their attitudes? The chances of that are Slim and None. And Slim's anorexic.

Why am I so certain of that? It's not because these people have low IQs and can't understand the arguments. It's because most of the people at high levels of government are sociopaths. They're susceptible to reasoned argument against a police state to about the same degree that a cat can be convinced he shouldn't torment a mouse before killing it. People like Obama, Hillary or Cheney – which is to say most people with real power in Washington and every other government – do what they do because it's their nature. They're as cold, unemotional and predatory as reptiles, even though they look like people.

You may think I'm kidding or exaggerating for effect. I'm not. It's been said that power corrupts, and that's true. But it's more to the point to say that the corrupt seek power. A good case can be made that anyone who wants to be in a position of power should be precluded from it simply because he wants it. As a purely practical matter, the US would be far better off – assuming a Congress and a Senate are even needed – if their 525 members were randomly selected from a list of taxpayers. But that's impossible in today's poisonous environment because it would leave over half the population – those who only receive government largess and don't pay any income taxes – ineligible. This last fact is a further assurance that the situation in the US is now beyond the point of no return.

There are lots of ways to divide people into two classes: rich/poor, male/female, smart/dumb, etc. But from the perspective of political morality, I'd say the most useful dichotomy may be people who want to control the material world vs. those who want to control other people. The former are scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs; the latter are politicians, bureaucrats and assorted busybodies. Guess which group inevitably – necessarily – gravitate toward government? And I might also add, toward big corporations and the media. Big corporations are political arenas where the prize is economic power, and they're heavily populated by backslappers and backstabbers. The media specialize in a different type of power, manipulating opinion; one way they do that is by promoting an atmosphere of bad news, threats and general paranoia for which they imply government action is needed. Government, mega-corps and media – they are the triumvirate ruling today's world.

Stupidity

You may be thinking: Sure, I can see that Obama or Hillary or Cheney may be evil. But how about Bush or Vice President Biden or Prime Minister Cameron of the UK? It's sometimes hard to tell whether one is dealing with a knave or a fool. The fool does destructive things that may make him seem knavish. And the knave can do stupid things that make him seem like a fool. Isn't it a mistake to accuse someone of malevolence when Occam's Razor might indicate stupidity as a more likely answer? They seem more like fools than knaves. Pity the poor fools.

Stupidity certainly can account for many of the world's problems. As Einstein said, after hydrogen, stupidity is the most common thing in the universe. Unfortunately, the word "stupidity" is thrown about too carelessly, usually as a pejorative, and then often by stupid people. Let's define the word. It's important to be precise in the use of words, because if you're not, then how can you possibly say you know what you're talking about? A failure to define words properly invites sloppy thinking.

Most of the time people use "stupidity" to mean low intelligence. That's accurate, but it's a synonym, not an explanation. So it's not terribly helpful, because it doesn't really tell us anything we don't already know. Just look at how stupid the average person is (they're thick underfoot on Jay Leno's many "Jay Walking" segments) and then figure that, by definition, half of the electorate are lower than average.

It's helpful to use an example, and since we're talking about politics, let's pick a well-known political figure. George W. Bush was president recently enough that everyone can still remember him clearly. I've always said that the Baby Bush was stupid. Technically speaking, I believe he's actually a borderline moron. You may or may not know that a moron, an imbecile and an idiot are not at all the same thing – even though in common usage, the words are more or less interchangeable. In fact, these terms have clinical definitions.

Briefly, an idiot is so dim that he may have to be institutionalized. An imbecile functions at a higher level; he can get by in normal life, given some assistance. A moron does even better. He can conduct himself quite well in day-to-day society and even be liked and respected – a little bit like the character Chauncey Gardiner (who, as it turned out, was being groomed to become the president) in Peter Sellers' movie Being There.

A moron can carry on a conversation about the weather, the state of the roads, sports, TV sitcoms or even, with a bit of coaching – as Bush proved – the economy or a war. Bush seemed more or less normal, even though I suspect he only has an IQ of around 90. I'm not saying that just to be offensive to Bush fans. I believe I can back up that assertion, even if Bush could actually score above 100 on a standard test, by showing you some more practical definitions of stupidity.

Let me give you two of them. One is: an unwitting tendency to self-destruction. Another is: an inability to correlate cause and effect and thereby anticipate the consequences of an act. I would suggest to you that almost everything Bush has done, it seems his entire life, but absolutely while he was the president, would fit those definitions of stupidity precisely.

A moron can see the immediate and direct consequences of actions, even though the indirect and delayed consequences escape his understanding. At least to a cynic, that would seem to indicate that not only Bush but the average American voter is likely not just a moron but an imbecile. Such a deficit of intelligence almost guarantees that we'll see controls of all types – absolutely including foreign exchange controls – imposed as the Greater Depression unfolds. In fact, when the next 9/11-style incident, real or imagined, occurs, they're going to lock the US down like one of their numerous new federal prisons. It's going to be, as I've gotten in the habit of saying, worse than even I think it's going to be.

But stupidity is clearly only a partial explanation of Bush's character, just as it was only a partial explanation of Hitler's. Please don't misapprehend me on this. Bush wasn't in the same class as Hitler. Hitler was a criminal genius. But criminals, even so-called criminal geniuses, are basically stupid, according to our definitions – they show an unwitting tendency toward self-destruction. How stupid was it of Hitler to attack Russia, especially while he still had a front open with Britain? How stupid was it to declare war against the US shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor? How stupid was it to murder six million innocents in concentration camps? How stupid was it to throw the Wehrmacht's Sixth Army into Stalingrad? It's a long list.

Stalin provides another example. How stupid was Stalin to murder several million of the most productive farmers when Russians already lacked enough to eat? How stupid was it to liquidate half of the Red Army's most experienced officers and higher NCOs just before WW2? Or Roosevelt. How stupid was it of him to pour milk into the gutter and slaughter livestock in order to drive up prices while millions were hungry? How stupid was it to burden the US, in the middle of the last depression, with huge taxes and a score of new regulatory agencies?

A catalog of stupidities of these and most other famous political leaders fills libraries. As Gibbon said, history is little more than a chronicle of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.

There are different types of intelligence – emotional, athletic, mathematical and literary intelligence, for instance. A person can be a genius in one and an idiot in the others. The same is true of stupidity; it comes in flavors. I think a case can be made that liberty cultivates intelligence, because it rewards seeing the distant and indirect consequences of actions.

Conversely, statism and collectivism, by restricting liberty, tend to reward stupidity. Remember that political leaders are oriented toward controlling other people; they're clever about it, but they're basically stupid about the rest of reality. Nonetheless, their animal shrewdness is enough for them to gain and keep power over others. The immediate and direct consequences of that political power are gratifying for those who have it; the indirect and delayed consequences, however, are disastrous for everyone.

But wait. It sounds like stupidity is related to evil. Which it is. Stupidity is a signpost of evil. It's why it often takes a while, when things are going badly, to determine whether you're dealing with a knave or just a fool.

In that regard, Robert S. McNamara offers something of a counterpoint to Bush. When you look at the disasters he caused throughout his life – almost destroying Ford, then almost destroying the US with the Vietnam war, then doing immense damage to the world at large with the World Bank – one might say he was stupid. In fact, he had an extremely high IQ. McNamara underlines the often fine distinction between stupidity and evil. He was clearly a sociopath, but he's held in high regard among the ruling class. Henry Kissinger is a similar case.

Evil

I would like to suggest that what really distinguishes political elites from normal people is not just a predilection for stupidity but a real capacity for evil. Evil might best be defined as the intentional and usually gratuitous commission of acts that are cruel or unjust. A person who commits many evil acts is a sociopath. The sociopaths who are naturally drawn to government eventually come to dominate it. They're very dangerous people. They reset the social mores of the country they control. After a certain point, a critical mass is reached, and it's GAME OVER. I suspect we're approaching that point.

lostpilot

Dude, at this moment I have no time to read this all, but I WILL participate in this discussion because I find these topics interesting!
Just saying!

Jerry_Curls

#2
Definitely agree with this article. I've read a similar article that states the sane thing ; sociopaths are running the world.

I like the part where he defines what a fascist is and how most people are scared to use that word because of its association to Nazi Germany. And it SHOULD be scary to recognize that your leader is fascist because of where it can take us. Note all the unconstitutional Executive Orders Obama has been signing, the drones being able to fly over the U.S. soon (I believe next year), all the drills local police force have training for (civil disobedience,  urban warfare )... These sociopaths fear that we will (and are) awakening to fact that we aren't as free as we thought we were. Obama doesn't talk about freedom and liberty because that is what the government has been slowly taking away for decades, but have recently sped up their defended against its own people.

Call me paranoid, but being having paranoia is being able to connect dots. I'd rather be aware of the facts , be prepared,  and be called paranoid/conspiracy theorist than to just assume everything is OK. Because it isn't.
..Yeah don't go there,

I let you get to me

yeah yeah.

deftones86

Quote from: Jerry_Curls on Apr 21, 2012, 02:19 AM
Call me paranoid, but being having paranoia is being able to connect dots. I'd rather be aware of the facts , be prepared,  and be called paranoid/conspiracy theorist than to just assume everything is OK. Because it isn't

People always say I'm crazy for thinking the world is going to be completely locked down. But it's the truth and it scares the shit out of me. But its true the sociopaths  that run the government and media want complete control over everything we do. I read about those drones too the FAA says 30,000 will be flying around  by 2020. They spent the first 50 years of the 1900's understanding how populations minds work, and the last 50 implementing that knowledge.  And really I don't think we can stop it. I don't believe in the voting system especially since its become digitized. And when there is a candidate worth voting for the mainstream media completely ignores him (Ron Paul).  We live in a Fascist empire that wants to spread its brand of Fascism around the globe. It's just insanity. And its all accelerating faster than anyone could have imagined.  I hope I'm wrong. I hope the world isn't ruled and regulated by a handful of people who want ultimate control over the world and its resources. I hope that government officials realize the cost of war on society. I hope I'm wrong, but thats just a fantasy.

lostpilot

I want to introduce an element of consumer market goods into this discussion. However, I am not from US so this discussion might be a little off for me personally. But I do easily get what the author of both articles is saying and I do agree wholeheartedly.

So. Google. Facebook. Apple.
Leading the customers to unified way of consuming.
Dumbing the consumers down.
Unified products, unified services, sheep, sheep, sheep.

Information security. Just saying :-)

Variable

Look. You're all fucked until I enter the white house.  just get over it.

BillyNo.9


blondie

Quote from: Variable on Apr 27, 2012, 08:25 AM
Look. You're all fucked until I enter the white house.  just get over it.

hey! <3

Variable

Oh what up blondie? What's hot in the street?

blondie

Quote from: Variable on Apr 28, 2012, 03:47 AM
Oh what up blondie? What's hot in the street?

oh, nothing much. got a crate of bolivian flake coming in this week, 2 more next week. 25 a key. tell your friends.

Variable

Oh that's what's up. But I don't think my Bolivian friends will be very impressed.

I just actually looked at this thread and noticed my friend wrote an article and was trying to share. Maybe I shouldn't joke here. Sorry Cory.

alvarezbassist17

Haha dude, I don't really give a shit; I'm no thread nazi.  I didn't write that article, but I wish I did.  Got any thoughts?

Quote from: lostpilot on Apr 21, 2012, 08:11 PM
I want to introduce an element of consumer market goods into this discussion. However, I am not from US so this discussion might be a little off for me personally. But I do easily get what the author of both articles is saying and I do agree wholeheartedly.

So. Google. Facebook. Apple.
Leading the customers to unified way of consuming.
Dumbing the consumers down.
Unified products, unified services, sheep, sheep, sheep.

Information security. Just saying :-)

Could you be more specific?  I am for totally free markets and having the government's sole function be to protect the property of its citizens, so I might disagree with you in some respects. 

But I think that government schools and the attitudes that our economic policies have engendered in the populace have a lot more to do with how fucking stupid and immoral people are than just the greater availability of consumer's goods.  We've taken Darwin's natural selection of behavior - by having to deal with the consequences of your actions - completely out of the equation, and we wonder why people are so shitty these days.

lostpilot

Point is, I just see many wrong things going on with the "systems", "consumer systems", "planned consumer systems"..

Idea is that corporations limit the choice for the consumer, they control the consumer fully, starting to monitor him etc.
Paranoid ideas.



Sorry, after a long day at work (fucking irony, I work at an Apple Store), I can't think straight.
Just listen to A Perfect Circle - Pet.
This is what the machine does.

alvarezbassist17

But it's not the corporations limiting the choice for the consumer, it's the government limiting the consumer's choice in corporations.  A corporation can't legally force you to do anything unless they have the power of the monopoly of force of the government on their side.

Nebontha

Fucking profligates, degenerates like them belong on a stake
QuoteKKK=Good?


Motherfucking racists.

Jerry_Curls

Awesome topic at the prisonplanet forums. Actually, most of Geolibertarian's topics are amazing.

------------------------------

Elite Eugenicists Call For Mass Depopulation, Drastic Reduction In Energy Consumption

Royal Society study yields unsurprising results, Ecoscience co-author calls for "move to population shrinkage as humanely and as rapidly as possible"


Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
April 27, 2012

The Royal Society, an organisation made up of renowned eco-fascists and depopulation fanatics, has released a "major report" calling for the "stabilization" of global population and reductions in consumption in developed countries.......

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=230780.msg1354477#msg1354477
..Yeah don't go there,

I let you get to me

yeah yeah.

Variable

#16
So it only took me 3 months, but I finally finished this!

First, this is totally off subject but I want to say it, this guy sounds like a douche. Whether I agree with him or not, I felt like he was talking down to me the whole time. It's true what he said, about when you write you should use very specific and clear words to avoid confusion. It's also true that you don't want to insult your reader's intelligence. I don't need simple shit explained to me. This whole article was largely a rant that tried to define shit I already knew. It could have been a lot shorter. Anyway.

I agree with some things and totally disagree with others. He really started to lose me when he started calling Obama a Fascist. It's bad enough I have to hear people call him a socialist. But now he's a Fascist? Geez. Whatever happened to just calling someone a liberal? I mean, I'm not political science expert, but I'm pretty sure I would have noticed if I lived in a fascist country. So I looked it up. I found that there really isn't a clear definition of Fascism (like he tried to present) But multiple schools of thought with overlapping themes. (according to wikipedia anyway! don't knock my laziness!) So what were the MOST COMMON themes that I noted?

An authoritarian state - I know it can seem that the US is an authoritarian state, but by true definition it's not. I know many of you feel it will eventually be that way. But for today, it's not.

Heavy HEAVY Heavy taxing - Yeah taxes suck and should be lowered (AFTER THE BUDGET IS BALANCED, NOT BEFORE!) but it's not like they are taking 80% of your check. And you do get goods and services for your taxes. I'm not saying we spend our money wisely as a nation. But the government doesn't control what I do with my money. The majority of it anyway. I liked this definition of fascism

"Fascism is a system in which the government leaves nominal ownership of the means of production in the hands of private individuals but exercises control by means of regulatory legislation and reaps most of the profit by means of heavy taxation. In effect, fascism is simply a more subtle form of government ownership than is socialism. "

Let's be 100% honest, it's not THAT bad.

Then some type of extreme nationalism and superiority. Like Hitler's Aryan race and NAZI party - Uh, yeah, I think it's perfectly normal to think of Hitler when you hear the word fascists because him and his boy Mussolini were self-declared fascists. It only makes sense. I can see how we have an abstract ruling party of elite's in this country and one can make a comparison. But, in true fascists nations, this usually is a cry back to "the way it was" instead of the way it's going. And this superior class is the traditional population and culture. Sooooo, unless Obama thinks America should only be ruled by Western European Protestants..... I think we're good there.

take this for example "a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism" ..... there's nothing revolutionary about what's going on in America right now........ now you give some Ron Paul Republicans their way, and oh boy, start the revolution. I'm not talking shit about Ron.....just being ironic

Which is ironic though. Because I could see a lot of what this guy was writing in the definitions of fascism. Like, look at this definition of fascism..

"a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

Now....was any of that advocated in the article I just read? hmmmm.... Obsessive preoccupation with community decline? Check! Victimhood? Check! Traditional Elites? Check! Call for internal cleansing? Check!......hmmmmm

Sounds to me like this guy needs to come out of the fascist closet!

So ill let my fascism rant end there. Unless you guys want to talk about it more.

Look, democracy is a great thing when your side wins and you get your way. It seems to be a horrible thing when your side doesn't win and you don't get your way. But calling leaders evil, stupid, and fascists..... just because they don't agree with what YOU think.... that's a little immature.  And it's more tyrannical than anything Ive seen Obama do. Viciously opposing anyone who doesn't think like you and calling them really offensive names and (not in this case but many) calling for their death even though they are elected officials? Yeah, that's way worse than someone just being a liberal.

I don't trust government for shit and I fear what will happen if it gets too much power too. BUT WE NEED IT. I swear, just trust me on this, we need government. The extent of just how much we need, well that's up for debate. And we can all sit here and agree with each other. But you know what, there are some pretty smart people that would disagree and say we need MORE government. And they all have pretty legitimate points. And they aren't stupid, evil, or fascist. They are just people that think something different than this guy.

Oh, and since he want's to appeal to "the good old days" when shit was better. Well I wonder if he has ever actually read John Locke's "the second treatise of government and a letter concerning toleration." You know, the philosophical book that defines social contract theory which inspired Thomas Jefferson's declaration of independence and was cited by many of the other founders of America as their inspiration.... that book. Because I have, and as I thumb through it again, I don't see anywhere in here where he states we don't need government or government powers should be GREATLY limited. I mean, he was speaking against the feudal system....so that's a pretty strong central government compared to what we have today. So keep it in context when Locke wants to limit government powers. He just didn't want the king to keep chopping peoples heads off.

But, the founders wrote the constitution (excluding Jefferson and Adams), and it has worked out pretty well so far. This guy probably gets a giant boner every time he reads the constitution. But if it's so perfect, why do so many people disagree on its interpretation? Why doesn't it limit government power as clearly as this guy thinks it does? Why did we ever have to change any of it?

I mean, even Thomas Jefferson expanded the Presidential powers when he was President. OH OH OH AND! He started the first foreign military campaign (see the Barbary Pirates for more). So trying to say "Oh the founding fathers bla bla bla" is such a bull-shit cop out. They didn't agree on a damn thing. And we got the best compromise they could come up with. The original constitution didn't even give rights to women or non-whites for Christ's sake. Let's tone down the constitutional rhetoric.

If the constitution is so clear, why can't the supreme court agree on anything? I mean, they agree on some small issues. But they can't even figure out if Obama Care is constitutional or not! It was a tie vote with a wild card that played it safe! Jesus, if the smartest legal minds and constitutional experts in the country can't even agree..... how the hell does this guy know so well?

See, the answer, is that the constitution was written vaguely on purpose. So we could grow and change with the times. And we have. Some people get their feelings hurt about that because they have a misconception of history and "how it used to be." But trust me, in some ways, we are a lot better off than at the birth of this nation.

Now I liked what he had to say about war. I'm not really sure what he REALLY meant by morality. But if it was that it's immoral to sit around and watch your country decay by creating endless wars while the large mass is more interested in reality TV than in the world around them and the consequences of their nations actions.....then I agree.

And I'm not like woo hoo I love Barrack. But he's not all bad either. He's....muh. Better than Romney I guess. I love libertarianism and what it stands for. But it's not ALWAYS correct, or practical. I think it's a good place to start and imagine how the world COULD be. Then set out and walk closer to reality and try to make the world as close to that imagination as possible, without fucking everything up. Nobody, even me, is right 100% of the time. Libertarians are no exception. You can't just follow the doctrine blindly, you got to ask some questions, hear some other sides, and really decide what the best choice is for EVERYTHING.

I love Ron Paul. The man changed my life and inspired me more than most people ever will. But I would be terrified if he ever got carte blanche to do whatever he wanted with this country. Because, not ALL of his ideas are good ideas or practical ideas in reality. Good philosophy, bad practical application. It's just extremely obvious to me the more I think about it.

Not all government is bad and inefficient. And the free market can't fix EVERYTHING. There has to be a balance. Are we balancing correctly at the moment? Hell no. But there's also a lot of Rand Paul's in the congress and senate that will veto every fucking thing no matter what. Seemingly to gridlock our government so nothing can get fixed, everything fails, and they say "ha ha I told you so."

We will never be on a gold system again. Not in our life anyway. I know it sounds so nice, but we're WAY too established in this fiat system for that the be a serious answer. We would have to make one bad solution first, then fix it a few years later, then fix it again, and 100 years later maybe we would have cleaned up the financial system enough to go back to gold. But in the mean time, it's not a logical answer. So.... give one. Stop wasting time on HUGE things what will never change and give me some small stuff that we can change. Maybe not to perfect, but better, and that will actually happen.

Don't tell me "no new taxes" when we are TRILLIONS in debt and have no way to fix the problem. Cutting spending wont matter if you cut revenue too. Hint, cutting taxes just makes the deficit larger. Let's stop the myth. Taxing millionaires at the same rate as the middle class is not class warfare or punishing the rich. If asking the rich to pay the same as the middle class is punishment to the rich, then what do you call asking the middle class to pay more than the rich? Doesn't make sense.

First, raise taxes where American's truly can afford it without causing a recession. Then, slowly start cutting spending. Another hint, if you cut too many government jobs too fast you also lower jobs, raise unemployment, and lower revenue because you lost those jobs. So cut wisely. And as the deficit shrinks, inflation lowers (I know, I know that's not very realistic either, but fuck it), and the financial system stabilizes. Then maybe we can afford to raise some more taxes on the whole country, if needed. Or shit, maybe we can cut them. Especially if the budget gets balanced or if somehow we run a surplus.

Medicare, Social Security, and The Department of Defense consume 80% of the national budget. So talking about anything else is really just silly and a waist of time. The U.S. Spends more on it's annual defense budget than the next 15 countries COMBINED (including Russia and China) is that really necessary? Hell no. We have...11 or 12 (sorry I always fuck that up).... nuclear powered aircraft carrier groups. THE ONLY OTHER COUNTRY THAT HAS ANY OTHERS IS THE UK AND THEY HAVE 1! That's excessive! and the shit ain't cheap to maintain. We could ABSOLUTELY lower our defense budget and be just fine. A good place to start, the global war on terror. Stopping that would save how many billions a year? A shit ton. And yes, that's a scientific term. And return how many liberties to us?

We can make liberals and libertarians unite! Stop the War on Terror...... and Drugs! Because they are both fucking stupid, costly, and do nothing for us but get us in more trouble.

Anyway, those are some of my solutions on how to help instead of just bitching and saying "it's all going to fucking crash and burn and then ill fix it because ill know the way!"

You guys have any thoughts? :)


Variable

Wow. That's a lot longer than I thought. You guys are junkies if you read that.

tarkil




If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face.

Variable

Good. I feel like a douche for writing something that long. I didn't mean to. It all just kind of came out (that's what he said). Oh well. Maybe someone will be bored enough to read it.