Liberalism and why I despise it

I still may not be getting what you guys are saying so don't think I'm trolling here... Anarchy is nothing more than a temporary, transitional state because of human nature, not because of "society." The same drives that make us seek food, shelter, love, safety also drive us to organize, structure, and dominate even if that domination only serves to protect us from the domination of others. It is an inescapable human trait. Maybe you are meaning that on top of all that, a modern technological civilization could not continue to exist in a state of anarchy, but the former seems much more important because some are okay with the idea of a pioneer/agrarian society.

When you say a "a perfect world", that seems to be one in which you have chosen which traits of human nature are removed and which ones stay so it seems to be a theory that only fits a non-human model of people you have created. To me, that means the theory is as doomed as large-scale communism.

 

Anarchy in its unadulterated definition simply means without government. Nothing in the word suggests the amount of time in which it lasts or whether it's a transitional or permanent state.

 

Your own writings strongly imply a prolonged state of society where there is no government and you wish it to stay that way. You never speak of what the anarchy should be replaced with or what would follow so you imply that it can or should be a perpetual state.

 

I think you've misinterpreted what Pressed Rat has said. Perhaps it would be better to ask questions than to make accusations based on incorrect conclusions, which appears to happen more often than not on these forums.

 

I despise liberalism's over exploitation of the racism card. Hell, they use it on anyone who doesn't see eye to eye with them. For example:

"Hey Whitey, if you don't vote democrat, you're a racist!"
"Hey Blacky, if you don't vote democrat, you're an Uncle Tom!"

Yeah that's not racist at all, is it?

 

I hate how some people generalize the opinions of a few to the majority in order to perpetuate their divisive and uninformed perspectives.

Anything can be argued intelligently and anything can be argued stupidly... it depends on the individual. If you're going to get hung up on the cliches and stereotypes you're never going to be able to have an informed, intelligent discussion about anything.

 

As far as I can tell, PR doesn't really believe in anything... probably because believing in something would open him up to the same criticisms that he doles out to everyone else. The thing is, almost everything he says screams either libertarian or anarcho-capitalist, but calling himself that would leave him open to criticisms that he can't/isn't able to deal with.

Debating him is like fighting a guy who is constantly coming up, slapping you in the face, and then running away.

 

Gridlock is the main problem in politics right now. Congress is not functioning the way the founders wanted it too.

A core reason for the gridlock is the two-party system that makes each party adopting a broad policy platform that causes inner-party struggles.

There exists also a serious lack of good quality media reporting.

 

Libertarian and anarcho-capitalist are labels that support an artificial system based on money, which is nothing more than a means of control.

I find libertarians to be often more correct than liberals on a basic level, but I wouldn't call myself a libertarian now, though I did many years ago when I was still learning and waking up to things.

 

Money only becomes a means of control when the wealth gap is as big as it is. If you argue for a more redirection of government policy in the tax code, business tax code, and in other appropriations bills then perhaps policy can help change that.

But true libertarians, while in theory sound great, in practice totally don't work just because we know how human nature works.

Libertarians I've talked to, both in real life and on these forums, still can't address how an individual could successfully sue a company who has wronged them when the individual household doesn't have the same amount of personal wealth as a corporation does. (aka: the individual's legal counsel VS the corporation's legal counsel armada)

Who do you think is gonna win?

Therefore not equal, still exists a means of control, and even if you wanted to go so far as to get rid of money entirely and return to a barter system, you're still gonna see people leverage access to desired items and resources for social-political gain.

 

As the money supply is increased and our fiat currency devalues, the wealth gap will only grow. But to governments benefit, so will the tax revenue it collects, along with the GDP, and as a result a lower debt to GDP ratio, while the poor and middle classes will become 'made' more equal to one another as a result of increased government assistance.

 

Indie

LOL the problem on these forums is people like you and Rat so often refuse to answer questions in any meaningful or rational way.

We get rants, snide remarks, evasions and running away but little in the way of enlightenment so often all we have to go on is guess work based on what has been said or implied.

If you lot stopped evading we wouldn’t have to do that.

 

Rock

Very, very insightful

I’ll give you some history on our dear Rat –

As he admits (and he knows I would bring it up if he tried to deny it) he used to call himself a libertarian - in this context a right wing libertarian - but as you cleverly deduced he couldn’t actually address the many criticisms of those ideas that show up its very deep flaws, so he started to claim he wasn’t libertarian but he followed a ‘third’ way that was both right and left wing while not being left or right wing. That didn’t hold up too well either since everyone could see that virtually all his ideas seem to lean to the right. So he stopped that and has been floundering somewhat since then – he has put forward a utopian agrarian ‘alternative’ model of society but it really was rather mad in my view, here it is –

You asked what my alternative would be, and I don't have a clear or fully developed idea of what that would be. But it would have to be something entirely different from the system we are living under now. It would require people abandoning the towns and cities and going back to nature. People would live in small communities where they would grow their own food, chop their own wood, and barter for goods and services. It would be similar to a TRIBAL system, where people would govern themselves and be self-reliant -- not rely on corrupt corporations and predatory government, believing it's their good shepherd and is there to serve and protect them.

I asked the obvious questions but he had no answer then and I’m guessing he has none now and as I suggested at the time, it seemed like a misdirection to try and convince people that he wasn’t just pushing right wing views.

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showpost.php?p=5172706&postcount=55

The other thing that is important in any understanding of Rats thinking is his deep seated belief in conspiracy theory, the last time I really listened he seemed to believe the world was run by a secret cabal of Lucifer worshippers but that was a few years back, I’m not sure what current conspiracy he’s into.

But in the end it all comes down to attacking anything ‘left wing’.

 

Indie

When the US was doing well economically and there was a huge rise in the number of the middle class was in the period from the end of WWII to the rise of neoliberal/free market ideas. During that period the top tax rate was much higher (94% in 1945) and the national debt was reduced from the war time high of 117% of GDP to a reasonable 32.5% in 81.

Then successive right wing and neo-liberal policies (tax cuts and anti-communist military spending) from the 1980 onward (although things were going that way before then) increased debt cumulating in the profligate spending and tax cuts of the Bush Admin.

At the same time the free market ideology (deregulation, hollowing out of manufacturing and a belief that the ‘new’ markets were safe) brought about a decline in manufacturing, a rise in private debt, a ballooning of the trade deficit and set up the financial sector for a fall and has caused the debt to rise to around 90% of GDP.

The problem isn’t ‘government’ the problem is a right wing, wealth supported, neo-liberal, free market ideology that hijacked the system. And is still holding on.

And so in the the thirty odd years of free market/neoliberal ideas there was a huge increase in the wealth of a few while the real term incomes of those below have either stagnated or fallen. While the policies pursued have also caused a ballooning of the national debt and brought about a social and political system where wealth has gained great power and influence.

Try - The Decline and Fall of the America Empire: Part One 1945-
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...?t=435209&f=36

Fall in top rate tax
1945 - 94%
1970 – 70%
1982 - 50%
1990 - 28%
2010 – 33%


Rise in top levels of pay
In the 1950’s CEO pay was 25-50 times that of an average worker that had risen to 300-500 times by 2007.
A bigger gap than any other developed nation.

Trade deficit
1960 – Trade surplus of 3.5 billion
2008 – Trade deficit of 690 billion
(The last time the US posted a trade surplus was in 1975)

Decline in manufacturing
1965 - Manufacturing accounted for 53% of the US’s economy.
2004 – It accounted for 9%
The Economist (10/1/2005) stated: “For the first time since the industrial revolution, fewer than 10% of American workers are now employed in manufacturing.”

 

Indie

Can you explain?

 

So your basically saying fear of "communists" really ruined the USA's budget solvency.

And if we had just accepted other foreign nation's choice to be communist without getting all offended by it, we've been fine budget wise.

Is that what your saying in a nutshell Bablus?

 

How could you possibly have gotten that out of what he was saying?

 

Yeah I really hate it too. Especially when it comes from the keyboard of someone like you who's post history is full of generalizations.

 

monkir

Basically no – but to a degree yes - as I’m sure you appreciate it is a lot more complex and would need several books to do it justice but I’ll try and lay out my thinking.

*

After WWII the US was the dominant power its main rival being Russia, at the same time there were rival ideologies in the world, ‘capitalist’ and ‘communist’. The US wished to hold onto its dominance in the world, promote its form of capitalism and ‘bring down’ its political and ideological rival.

In the US both Republicans and Democrats had seen parties of the left as rivals and with the help of wealth tried to suppress them, as in the first Red Scare of 1919-1921. After WWII there was another Red Scare 1947-1954, ‘communists became the ‘evil bogymen’ and many Americans seemed to countenance any action or support any person who they were told stood in the way of that evil. ‘Police actions’ would be cheered and bloody handed tyrants honoured.

These ‘anti-communist’ views had an impact on US policy both foreign and domestic.

Domestically it led basically to a purge of left wing thought, internationally it led the US into a number of actions and policy decisions that I think were mistakes.

One such mistake is one that is often overlooked and that is the agreement that was made at Bretton Wood which would cause so many economic problems later on (and which carry on today).

But in relation with other countries the US acted to hold onto dominance against its political and ideological rival by countering what it saw as any move others might make toward closer ties with Russia or communism. The problem in my view was that US politicians often saw anything ‘left wing’ as only one step away from Stalinist communism and something to be crushed at all cost.

So we come to your statement -

As said the problem was that not everything the US saw as ‘communist’ was communist - often if governments were socially progressive or reformists those with their own agendas could call them communist and get overt or covert assistance from US governments to attack them.

Take for example the elected government of Árbenz in Guatemala who was smeared as communist by the United Fruit Company. Or the elected government of Mossadegh in Iran smeared by oil interests or the elected government of Allenda in Chile smeared by mining interests.

In Vietnam the US had promised to back Vietnamese independence in exchange for help against the japs but then instead backed the French colonial claim. Ho Chi Minh was a great admirer of Americans and the US and spoke of it as a revolutionary model that Vietnam could follow as it too, fought for independence. On September 2, 1945, he declared the independence of Vietnam. He wrote to President Harry Truman asking for help. The Truman administration ignored him. And at that time although led primarily by Communists, the Viet Minh operated as a national front organization open to persons of various political persuasions. It was similar with Castro in Cuba, who claimed he wasn’t communist until he needed Russian help because of US belligerence.

In other places US ‘anti-communist’ policies have led to poverty dictatorial rule and bloody civil wars, along with consequences. The US interference in Iran led to the mad mullahs and in Afghanistan the Taliban and al Qaeda.

*

It put extra strains on the economy and pointed it indirections that were not always good to long term economic health.

High annual military spending, on top of expenditure on police actions and wars both overt and covert were the most visible signs. It led first to the so called military/industrial complex that many think morphed into the corporatism of today’s America.

But there were more subtle actions taking effect. At Bretton Wood the US had rejected the bancor in favour of the dollar, but that led strains on the US economy and the Nixon shock. But also there was the problem of trade US governments tried to tie the ‘free’ capitalist world together against ‘communism’ and one of the ways was through ‘free trade’ this became clear by the time of Kennedy and later morphed into Reaganism, the Washington Consensus and neoliberal globalization, the hollowing out of US industry and outsourcing (see trade deficit below)

And that is another part of the story the supposed ideological victory over ‘communism’ ‘socialism’ and left wing ideas generally that was trumpeted by many after the fall of the wall. There was no other way than all out capitalism and the ‘free market’ - greed was good, profit at any cost was good, inequality was good. Neoliberal deregulation, acceptance (even encouragement) of high levels of debt, and financial speculation taking over from real term investment.

Thing is that the USA was and still is an imperialistic power working in its own self interests, but the American people do not see themselves or America as such.

They see themselves as the good guys the ones in the white hats doing the right thing. So for governments to act as they want they need black hats, the bad guys. Evil communists filled that role well and allowed them to push their interests around the world since the fall of the Soviets we’ve had Drug lords and terrorists to fill the gap.

Just see how the neo-con faction in the Bush Admin tried to tie Saddam in with Al Qaeda to sell a policy to the American people that had nothing to do with terrorism but a lot to do with neo-con strategical thinking.

But the thing about imperialism is that it is expensive and can bring about things that are detrimental to society that deals in it.

*

Appendix

Trade deficit
1960 – Trade surplus of 3.5 billion
2008 – Trade deficit of 690 billion
(The last time the US posted a trade surplus was in 1975)

Decline in manufacturing
1965 - Manufacturing accounted for 53% of the US’s economy.
2004 – It accounted for 9%
The Economist (10/1/2005) stated: “For the first time since the industrial revolution, fewer than 10% of American workers are now employed in manufacturing.”

 

Oh right, I'm the one who is always going on and on about liberals and how they're ruining America.
What have I made generalizations about?

Or are you just mad that I totally schooled you on how ice works?