The lefts better argument

okay, you've strung 3 different replies i've made to 3 things of yours and linked them together with a whole lot of "seems".

How about we show how the conversation actually went:

Balbus said:

To which i replied:

that's better.

Now, what in particular have i said that needs clarification?
I don't like having to defend what i seem to mean, so lets discuss what i did type.

 

How about

“It's about individual autonomy with free association and the ability to defend one's person.”

But this seems to mean in plain language – “I owe you nothing, i owe government nothing, i owe my neighbor nothing. I am not responsible for the people in darfur, kosovo, france, china, n. korea, india, new orleans, new york city, boston, chicago, or anywhere else. They are responsible for their own survival, health, food, happiness, ect.”

To me that seems like “to hell with everyone else” I mean people are being raped and murdered in Darfur and you seem to be saying that if that was happening next door you would do anything?.

“Oppression exists because people allow themselves to be oppressed. i do not believe i have an absolute moral imperative to defend those who refuse to defend themselves”

I mean you are saying that if someone stronger impose their will on someone stronger that is the weaker person’s fault for being weak, so they deserve all they get?


**

As I’ve said you seem to be someone that doesn’t care, it’s all about your own self-interest and everything else can go hang.

Sorry I unable to be (and wouldn’t want to be) that detached from other people.

 

LOL, you repeated the same "seems"...

Stop cherry-picking when you quote me Balbus.

(example: “Oppression exists because people allow themselves to be oppressed. i do not believe i have an absolute moral imperative to defend those who refuse to defend themselves”

when what i said was: Oppression exists because people allow themselves to be oppressed. i do not believe i have an absolute moral imperative to defend those who refuse to defend themselves. But i retain the right to help any person or group of people i choose. Not only that, though i have no moral imperative to help anyone i don't want to, id have self-interest in fighting alongside those who are likeminded and who are oppressed. Their continued oppression puts me at a greater likelyhood of oppression myself.

So, i reject the notion that i have feed the homeless or care about the iraqi people, but i choose to.")

 

How about:


If I want to donate to a cause, I will, but dammed if I want some self-appointed re-distributor of my money putting himself in the middle and taking a cut. I don't buy the moral superioity of this middle man.

How about some respect for private property.
If the tax man takes and takes we will see our most productive members of society leaving, moving on and voting with thier feet, taking thier ideas and capital with them. It has happened so often in the past one wonders why its not apparent to all.

 

LOL

You really don’t want to discuss this do you man?

OK if you wish me to use the longer quote, it makes very little difference –

Oppression exists because people allow themselves to be oppressed. i do not believe i have an absolute moral imperative to defend those who refuse to defend themselves. But i retain the right to help any person or group of people i choose. Not only that, though i have no moral imperative to help anyone i don't want to, id have self-interest in fighting alongside those who are likeminded and who are oppressed. Their continued oppression puts me at a greater likelyhood of oppression myself.
So, i reject the notion that i have feed the homeless or care about the iraqi people, but i choose to.")

Are you saying that if someone stronger impose their will on someone stronger that is the weaker person’s fault for being weak, so they deserve all they get?

As I’ve said you seem to be someone that doesn’t care, it’s all about your own self-interest and everything else can go hang.

Sorry I unable to be (and wouldn’t want to be) that detached from other people

Why do you choose to “feed the homeless or care about the iraqi people”?

Are you saying that you wish to personnel chose who eats and who doesn’t, how do you choose whose deserving and who isn’t, what criteria do you use? How do you find out who needs help and who doesn’t, do you personally vet all the homeless people in you city, state, country, planet?

**

 

Pin

If I want to donate to a cause, I will, but dammed if I want some self-appointed re-distributor of my money putting himself in the middle and taking a cut. I don't buy the moral superioity of this middle man.

Are you saying that you wish to personnel chose those you help and who you don’t? How do you choose whose deserving and who isn’t, what criteria do you use? How do you find out who needs help and who doesn’t, do you personally vet all the people in you city, state, country, planet?

**

How about some respect for private property.
If the tax man takes and takes we will see our most productive members of society leaving, moving on and voting with thier feet, taking thier ideas and capital with them. It has happened so often in the past one wonders why its not apparent to all.

When has it happened before and who ran?

Are you saying that you have no loyalty or kinship with your fellow citizens, I mean there have been many people who have given their lives for their country are you saying they were fools that should have just run away?

 

The difference is that when you quote my exact words, instead of cherry-picking a couple lines, there is less of a chance of my words being taken out of context.

No, that is a rather broad generalization.
Basically what i am saying is that in order for there to be a dominate there must be those willing to be submissive.

This is the core of Capitalism as well as State.
That is why we do not appeal to Capitalists and State to stop domineering, but to the (pardon the term) masses to stop being submissive.

Do you not agree that with our current top to bottom mode of governance and economics, the top dogs are top because of the majority holding them up?

How long would they be on top if those holding them up simply stopped?

As it is about your own self-interest, and the next person's. That doesn't automatically transslate to greed and selfishness. It is a philospical position that i take that all our motives are rooted in self-interest, consiously or subconsiously. This isn't about caring or not caring about another person. I'm not heartless. I just recognize basic human (and generally biological) motivations behind even the seemingly altruistic acts of human kindness.

Detached?

Not at all.

If anything i would say the opposite.
If i had a choice of a couple bucks being taken out of my paycheck every week to go to the united way or of buying one sandwich for one guy and sitting down to talk to that guy, my choice is #2.

It's not about who is deserving and who isn't.
It's about taken personal responsiblity for all your actions good or bad.
If i'm choosing to do an act of kindness and generosity, then why shouldn't i be able to choose who is on the recieving end?

Why should one part be seperate from the other?

How are you attached to the people of darfur?

And if you are, isn't kind of odd to concern yourself about the people of sudan, when there are those in your own community that you could help on a more personal attached one-on-one kind of way?

Unless you are Clark Kent, you already pick and choose who recieves your help and who doesn't. The people i choose are the ones i can make the most impact on and can be the most help to.

 

The difference is that when you quote my exact words, instead of cherry-picking a couple lines, there is less of a chance of my words being taken out of context.

LOL – so if you write a paper or penned an essay and you wished to quote something from a book you would just produced the whole book rather than a line or two, because that way there would be less of what you wished to quote been taken out of context?

Wow I pity whoever had to marked your school work!!!.

**

Quote:
Originally Posted by Balbus
Are you saying that if someone stronger impose their will on someone stronger that is the weaker person’s fault for being weak, so they deserve all they get?

No, that is a rather broad generalization.


Basically what i am saying is that in order for there to be a dominate there must be those willing to be submissive.
This is the core of Capitalism as well as State.
That is why we do not appeal to Capitalists and State to stop domineering, but to the (pardon the term) masses to stop being submissive.
Do you not agree that with our current top to bottom mode of governance and economics, the top dogs are top because of the majority holding them up?
How long would they be on top if those holding them up simply stopped?

So I’ll ask once again what would you do to make things better, I mean you say that people would have to look after “their own survival, health, food, happiness, ect.”

That every individual would have to look to their own self-interest. But that to me would seem only to lead to the domination of the strong over the weaker.

I believe in the community and collective decision making of the interests not just of the individual but also the group.

**
Quote:
Originally Posted by Balbus
As I’ve said you seem to be someone that doesn’t care, it’s all about your own self-interest and everything else can go hang.

As it is about your own self-interest, and the next person's. That doesn't automatically transslate to greed and selfishness. It is a philospical position that i take that all our motives are rooted in self-interest, consiously or subconsiously. This isn't about caring or not caring about another person. I'm not heartless. I just recognize basic human (and generally biological) motivations behind even the seemingly altruistic acts of human kindness.

If you take a philosophy of pure self-interest to its logical conclusion it would seem inevitably to lead to greed and selfishness (or worse) how can it not?

If you tell someone that the only thing of any importance is their own desires, wants and wishes then why shouldn’t they just shot people in the back to take their money or drug women so they can rape them? I mean you even tell them that it is not they at fault it is the victims for being so weak and submissive in allowing themselves to be raped or murdered.

**

If i had a choice of a couple bucks being taken out of my paycheck every week to go to the united way or of buying one sandwich for one guy and sitting down to talk to that guy, my choice is #2.
It's not about who is deserving and who isn't.
It's about taken personal responsiblity for all your actions good or bad.
If i'm choosing to do an act of kindness and generosity, then why shouldn't i be able to choose who is on the recieving end?

So you do believe that you should chose who is feed and who isn’t? So what is your criteria for choosing that guy and not that woman, or that guy or that child or that man or that woman or that kid or that baby or that other guy or…..

And what if the person doesn’t want your sandwich what if they want training to get a job, or medication for their schizophrenia or transport money to get to a place where they can get work, or they need an operation or addiction counciling or…..

**

How are you attached to the people of darfur?

They are fellow human beings.

**

And if you are, isn't kind of odd to concern yourself about the people of sudan, when there are those in your own community that you could help on a more personal attached one-on-one kind of way?

I’m concerned about the people in the Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Afghanistan, Tibet, Tuvalu etc etc etc and even in the US in fact I’m concerned about any fellow human that is threatened or suffering.

**

Unless you are Clark Kent, you already pick and choose who recieves your help and who doesn't. The people i choose are the ones i can make the most impact on and can be the most help to.

Do you mean that unless I have superpowers I can’t help people in many different places? If you were you’d be wrong, I do help people in many places and many I’ve never meet and not likely to. The money I pay in taxes goes toward programmes that help many people in the UK and around the world. The money I give to charity does the same. It helps pay for goods and services that I could never supply as an individual. It helps people that need training or education, it pays for medication for such things as schizophrenia, it allows the state to give money to people so they can travel to places where they can get work, or pays for operation or addiction counciling, as well as many other things.

Are you saying that you personally and completely by your self could fulfil all of those needs and if you can’t doesn’t that mean that in reality what you can do is very limited?

 

Hey there Balbus

Peace

 

To me that seems like “to hell with everyone else” I mean people are being raped and murdered in Darfur and you seem to be saying that if that was happening next door you would do anything?.



Darfur, Sudan is a terrible situation, but not a tradgey its opression on a grand scale. The UN has proved ineffective in protecting the refugees. The Sudaneese goverment has powerfull sponsors. Nations who seek to exploit Sudaneese natural resources.

Is it possible to help the opressed by striking at the opressors ? That certainly not a Hippie sentiment, but its here on the table ?

 

Originally Posted by Balbus
Are you saying that if someone stronger impose their will on someone stronger that is the weaker person’s fault for being weak, so they deserve all they get?



Its nobodys fault. The above is an example of Darwininsm, its not nice but its how the planet works all the way down to the plankton in the oceans.

Its nice to be utopian. Lets focus on achivable goals.

 

Are you saying that if someone stronger impose their will on someone weaker that is the weaker person’s fault for being weak, so they deserve all they get?

Its nobodys fault. The above is an example of Darwininsm, its not nice but its how the planet works all the way down to the plankton in the oceans.

So you think humans are just like any other animal? But no other species of animal has build and programme computers let alone use them to discuss politics on the web. No other speices of animal as far as we know is as aware as human, we alone are able to decide about what is the better coarse of action or discuss the morals of any action.

So who decides some people believed that black people were inferior and only fit to be slaves, others that Jews were inferior and needed to be exterminated.

Are you saying that in your opinion those views were right and that to you the Nazis thinking was not at fault and that their behaviour was perfectly natural?

 

Are you serious?
It's only after we starting concerning ourselves with what the next guy is doing and how he lives his life that domination of one group of men over another starting to become the status quo.

You can't have collective decision making without the group domineering over the individual.

Allow someone freedom and they'll always abuse it? That's your arguement?
Kind of weak, guy.

Just as an atheistic belief doesnt automatically translate to hedonism, neither does a recognition of core human psychology translate to shooting people.

You are trying to make it seem as if i'm saying people should do what's in their best interests, when what having been saying is that people always do what's in their best interests. at least what they percieve to be in their best interest. Unfortunately modern civilization, with it's emphasis on currency, consumerism and workerism, has led to a pathological need to control our fellow man, our surronding environment, and the creatures who co exist on this planet.

Recognition of the true motivations behind your actions and mental conditioning are one step to true autonomy.

You're still not getting it, Balbus.
I'm not advocting a system type.
i never said I should choose who gets fed and who doesn't, i said i should be able to choose who I feed and who I don't.

What i'm saying is that unless you have superpowers you can't help everyone, everywhere. As an individual you (at this moment) are choosing who gets your aid and who doesn't. When you give your money in taxes, they get to choose. Ultimately there is a choice made as to who is helped and why. You can't save everyone and you can't control everything. To believe otherwise is to accept the pathological sickness that creates the inequalities you claim to fight.

People die, people must die. It is a naturally occuring part of life for every organism that has ever existed. That doesn't mean that dying is good or bad. Placing moralistic terms on a naturally occuring act is part of the pathology.

When you stop trying to control your environment, your fellow man, and the other animals you share your resources with, you effectively end oppression. True revolution is the rejection of that control, not only the control that is forced on you but also the control that you force on others.

 

That's the problem i have with lefties.


They really are not interested in even a new system, in a revolution, only in a reformation, only in reforming the same pathological eating machine.

Only in chastising the system into living up to the utopian dream. The realization of a collectivized and monolithic world-view based on morality.

What will be missing will be the most essential: Personal autonomy and the ability of being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the life-and-death issues of one's existence; food, clothing, shelter and defense against whatever threats there may be in one's environment. True autonomy means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one's own life.

Which allows them to control their own lives.

But leftist morality will never allow that.
Leftism can never lead to true freedom, only to further conformity and to eventual annihilation.

I am responsible for everyone and everyone is responsible for me, right?

The complete destruction of personal autonomy.

Their equality is that of the fictional "borg".

One race, one color, one religion, one morality, one gender...

One glorious flawless humanity speaking with one voice and one mind.

And how does it stay united?
How does it stay "one"?

They same way that the system has since the agricultural revolution: By killing, distorting, controlling, infiltrating, and neutralizing any and all deviance from that goal.

Make no mistake about it, the current U.S. administration is just as leftist as the rest, despite their "neocon" persona.

Think about the term "rogue states" for a moment...

Through increased expansion of the Industrial-Technological machine eventual we'll be too controlled, mind warped, and modified to even know what we are missing, or who we are.

What Balbus represents is a future for none of us.

A future of mindless controlled biological robots who (through either fear, pressure, new drugs, propaganda, genetic modifications or lack of opposition) have long since lost the will to even rebel, let alone win.

So i say, fuck the lefts arguement.

 

Shane is a true Leftist.



As is everyone who has ever stood-up and questioned the authority of Patriarchal Hierarchy.



The further to the Left one is, the more one will be critical of the many compromises that we ourselves, like the Left itself, is forced to make for everyday survival in our Global Patriarchal Civilization.

Spartacus was neither the first nor the last to stand-up, only to discover that you can't change old slavish behavioral patterns over-nite.

Spartacus didn't have the Roman Legions to fight, but 400 generations of slavish submissive obedience to Patriarchal Authority to struggle against.

Now with the weight of 500 generations of slavishly organized obedience holding back the struggle, I am amazed to find any struggle, and I admire those struggles no matter how clumsy or compromised.

 

A clumsy and compromised struggle is an ineffective and doomed struggle.
The reason: the system doesn't stumble, it keeps growing and expanding through unnatural evolution.

m6m, i'm curious, what do think of the concepts of anarcho-primitivism? or of primitivism in general?

It seems that a lot of times you and i are on the same wave-length and other times i have no idea where you are coming from.

 

Well in the words of the Philosopher Yogi Bear “It's deja vu all over again…”

Shane we’ve been here before and I said then what I’ll say now – wonderful soundbites and great rhetoric but it doesn’t mean anything since you admit you don’t know how it will work or even if it could work. Which really limits anyone’s ability to actually discuss the issues with you.

**

“i never said I should choose who gets fed and who doesn't, i said i should be able to choose who I feed and who I don't.”

“True revolution is the rejection of that control, not only the control that is forced on you but also the control that you force on others.”

“Personal autonomy and the ability of being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the life-and-death issues of one's existence; food, clothing, shelter and defense against whatever threats there may be in one's environment”

“True autonomy means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one's own life”

**

What do these statements mean and how do they translate into the real world? I don’t know but what’s clear is that when I asked you don’t know either.

“The nature of the organizations and such are left upto those who live in that anarchist sytem, they will work out what's best for them, it doesnt do me any good or them any justice to try an lay out an ideological formula that they must adhere to in order to be anarchist.”

When pushed on this you made it clearer

“I can't tell you what a world full of anarchists will be like since no one's ever seen one”

Imagine someone said – “in the future everyone will live in floating palaces or pure diamond and dine on moonpie and ambrosia, and there will be no war and no illness”

And you asked – “how does this come about”

And they replied – “I don’t know it’s never happened before”

Would you say ‘OK it will be great” or do you think that this is just so much…how do I say…empty rhetoric?

**

Then we come to your rhetoric of attack.

“Leftism can never lead to true freedom, only to further conformity and to eventual annihilation.

I am responsible for everyone and everyone is responsible for me, right?

The complete destruction of personal autonomy.

Their equality is that of the fictional "borg".

One race, one color, one religion, one morality, one gender...

One glorious flawless humanity speaking with one voice and one mind”

(An aside: you do mean the really scary Borg of ‘Who Q’ not those wimpy Queen led lot that Voyager ran rings round don’t you?)

And of course the classic misdirection of “Make no mistake about it, the current U.S. administration is just as leftist as the rest, despite their "neocon" persona.”

**

That’s it the neo-conservatives are really left wing socialists and I’m just a mindless drone of an evil collective that has come to assimilate all of you and turn you into ‘one gender’ (one gender Shane, where in you fevered brain did that come from

Come on, with these types of outbursts you’re beginning to sound more like Rat.

**

I have to go my Cube is double-parked.

Residence is futile

Balbus of Borg

 

LOL, yeah the Voyager Borg sucked ass...

 

Balbus, what is your vision for the world? Whatdoes the future according to Balbus look like?

World peace? Religious tolerance? Nuclear disarmament?

The world has seen none of that and doesn't appear that it will any time soon, but does that make it empty rhetoric?

You have never lived or experienced the world you envision, so how can you possibly know it will be better?

You can only take the evidence around you and promote what you percieve to be the ideaology with the best possible chance of realizing the future that you envision.

You can guess what your world would be like, but you have no way of knowing for certain, any more than i do.

So, feel free to debate the particulars of what i promote, but to claim that your vision is workable and mine is rhetoric when neither has been realized in the modern world (though mine did enjoy existence at one point in history, unlike yours) is..... well you get the idea.

 

Oh, and the one gender comment is about the lefts brilliant idea to ignore even the basic differences between the sexes. Even going as far as drugging little boys to make them more feminine and docile (A.D.D. my ass).