Socialism does work

[Karl]

Hmm. The thing that can be said to have a 'self' must be inherently 'selfish' -- by definition...

 

Although there would seem to be a difference between a self that pleases itself without regard for any other self, and a self that pleases itself through pleasing others (aka "putting others first"). In both cases, without doubt the self is trying to gratify itself, and though it may not believe so, it must always either put its own needs first or die.

 

I would change the language a little, just to make it somewhat clearer / prevent circular arguments:

 

A self can be compassionate, or it can be indifferent to the needs and wishes of others.

 

Clearly (to me) at least in theory if people are honest about their 'selfish' needs and able to be compassionate, more people will benefit (be happier / harmed less) than if people lie about the fact that they must be selfish and/or are completely indifferent to the needs and wishes of others.

 

And moving swiftly on now that has been established.

 

The best way of providing for the material needs of others ( we shall get to the emotional element later on) is by satisfying their needs, whilst ensuring that you provide for your needs first.

 

I like the airline analogy of putting on YOUR oxygen mask BEFORE helping others. Your going to be no good to anyone, if you are unconscious and rapidly slipping into a coma.

 

 

[Karl]

And that's why your subjective opinions don't matter.  You are always wrong.

 

My opinions never matter. I do what I'm told-mostly.

[Marblehead]

<sigh>

 

http://thedaobums.com/topic/38933-when-the-banjo-player-sings/

Well, okay. some do sing.  But maybe they shouldn't?  I do love Abigail's four string though.

[Brian]

 

Well, okay. some do sing. But maybe they shouldn't? I do love Abigail's four string though.

While you are on YouTube, check out a few more of Shannon Whitworth's tunes. I think you will like her.

[Apech]

I'm already restless and distracted, but the railings are painted and the kettles on so its all good. I like you Apech, you will make a fine libertarian someday :-) your selfishness grows daily.

 

 

Railings!  You live in a dungeon.  You need more sunlight perhaps.

 

I think I am more of a contrarian than a libertarian .... though I did read that as librarian at first - which is another possibility.

[gendao]

Are you a poker player? There are certain poker rooms in Vegas where the players are so bad and which makes for easy pickings.

Are these where closet capitalists all go to greedily prey upon the uneducated proletariats?

 

Or do you redistribute all the winnings at the end to ensure income equality?

Edited July 23, 2015 by gendao

[Karl]

Railings!  You live in a dungeon.  You need more sunlight perhaps.

 

I think I am more of a contrarian than a libertarian .... though I did read that as librarian at first - which is another possibility.

 

Stately home. Railings to keep out the riff raft whilst I sup champers on the patio and shoot pheasant.

[Karl]

Are these where closet capitalists all go to greedily prey upon the uneducated proletariats?

Or do you redistribute all the winnings at the end to ensure income equality?

 

What is it with socialists ? Everyone I've met, including my friends, makes me seem like an altruistic Saint. They talk a good talk.

[Brian]

Railings! You live in a dungeon. You need more sunlight perhaps.

 

I think I am more of a contrarian than a libertarian .... though I did read that as librarian at first - which is another possibility.

LOL

 

I read it as librarian the first time, too, and was wondering about the connection.

[Brian]

Are these where closet capitalists all go to greedily prey upon the uneducated proletariats?

 

Or do you redistribute all the winnings at the end to ensure income equality?

If I recall correctly, he is going to give all his ill-gotten gains to some Hopis or Navajos (or something).

 

I could be mistaken about that, though.

[Green Tiger]

Bernie 2016! 

[soaring crane]

Bernie 2016! 

 

if this were a poker game, I'd see your Bernie and raise you one Mimi

 

You would have to call and raise me one Dean

[Brian]

I'd throw in a Jimmy McMillan. His Rent Is 2 DAMN High Party seems like a good fit.

[ralis]

If I recall correctly, he is going to give all his ill-gotten gains to some Hopis or Navajos (or something).

 

I could be mistaken about that, though.

 

 

Ill gotten? Poker is perfectly legal in Vegas and all who play do so of their own volition. Is poker immoral in your world view?

[Brian]

Ill gotten? Poker is perfectly legal in Vegas and all who play do so of their own volition. Is poker immoral in your world view?

Heavens no! Just found it kinda amusing that you posted about how you have been conducting yourself as a capitalist long enough and successfully enough to have amassed sufficient personal wealth to be able to live in comfort the rest of your days in one of the symbols of capitalistic excess, either gambling away money better spent on destitute tribal cultures or (hopefully) adding even more to your overflowing coffers. Perfectly fitting behavior for, what did you call it? A "reptilian lizard"? But not, I would have thought, for a champion of the little guy and an advocate for progressive redistribution. I just found the contrast interesting.

 

Of course, you then go on to insinuate that right-wingers want to rape the land and, by extrapolation, that only left-wingers don't want to rape the land -- despite the fact that greed and callousness seem to be ambidextrous. Not to mention that much of the "public land" you wish to protect are unconstitutional in the first place. States are free to do with land as their individual citizens authorize but the federal government is only granted permission to purchase land with the permissions of the legislatures of the individual states, in accordance with Article 1, Section 8 ("To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings"). Ain't nothing about "national parks" in there but a Republican President over a hundred years ago didn't seem to care.

 

Now, in my neck of the woods, the amount of land committed to state parks and locked up in private trusts and conservancies is steadily growing. Individuals and groups are establishing perpetual land conservancies to ensure large swaths of private properties are protected from future development and are giving or selling land to the state for inclusion in state parks, like the Mount Mitchell State Park (established in 1915) or the recently formed Grandfather Mountain State Park.

 

That website gives access to all the state parks in North Carolina but I referenced those two because of my intimate familiarity with them. I currently live about a dozen miles from the peak of Mt. Mitchell and I lived for 18 years in my youth even closer to Grandfather Mountain, back when the multimillionaire (and really nice fella) Hugh Morton owned it and operated it as a private tourist destination. I've hiked all over both of them!

[Marblehead]

Just think how many Nature Preserves and Conservancies Bill Gates and Warren Buffet could establish.

[Karl]

Just think how many Nature Preserves and Conservancies Bill Gates and Warren Buffet could establish.

 

Warren Buffets hair is kind of a nature preserve.

[Brian]

Turns out, socialism does work!

 

 

 

Right up until the point when you run out of other people's money.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/23/venezuela-mothers-idUSL1N10027Y20150723

 

Her belly bulging, Hilda Angarita hauls herself to five different drug stores in the sweltering Venezuelan city of Maracaibo until she finally finds post-cesarean patches.

 

"I'm giving birth tomorrow and here I am in the street. I want to go home," says the teacher, 37, fanning herself as she rests on a bench the day before her scheduled delivery

 

...

 

"Everything is an obstacle," says Angarita, who now regrets voting for late socialist president Hugo Chavez.

[Apech]

Turns out, socialism does work!

 

 

 

Right up until the point when you run out of other people's money.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/23/venezuela-mothers-idUSL1N10027Y20150723

 

 

Huh!  the CIA has been actively destabilising Venezuela for years.   

[Marblehead]

Huh!  the CIA has been actively destabilising Venezuela for years.   

Hehehe.  Good (and true) response.

[Apech]

Something to ponder ...

 

 

“Spectres reign where no gods are,” Schiller wrote, deploring the atrophying of the “sacral sense” into nationalism and political power. Fear of moral and spiritual diminishment, and social chaos, was also a commonplace of much 19th-century British writing. “The rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer; and the vessel of the state is driven between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and despotism,” Shelley wrote in 1821, blaming inequality and disorder on the “unmitigated exercise of the calculating faculty”. Coleridge, denouncing “a contemptible democratical oligarchy of glib economists”, asked: “Is the increasing number of wealthy individuals that which ought to be understood by the wealth of the nation?” Dickens did much with Carlyle’s despairing insight into cash payment as the “sole nexus” between human beings. DH Lawrence recoiled fruitfully from “the base forcing of all human energy into a competition of mere acquisition”. Proximity to British arguments helped shape Marx’s vision of a proletariat goaded by the inequities and degradations of industrial capitalism into a revolutionary redemption of human existence.

 

The actual revolutions and revolts, however, occurred outside Britain, where liberal individualism, the product of a settled society with fixed social structures, seemed to have no answers to the plight of the uprooted masses living in squalor in cities. Its failure first motivated cultural nationalists, socialists, anarchists and revolutionaries across Europe, before seeding many anti-colonial movements in Asia and Africa. In an irony of modern history, which stalks revolutions and revolts to this day, the search for a new moral community has constantly assumed unpredicted and vicious forms. But then the dislocations and traumas caused by industralisation and urbanisation accelerated the growth of ideologies of race and blood in even enlightened western Europe.

 

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/24/how-to-think-about-islamic-state

[ralis]

The Joker's statement on money.

 

Edited July 25, 2015 by ralis

[Karl]

Huh!  the CIA has been actively destabilising Venezuela for years.   

 

That's a big map full of pins right there.

[Karl]

The Joker's statement on money.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMkkfuSizc4

 

Oh, you're that Ralis...

 

[Apech]

Picture for Brian ...