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Post by cowboy40 on Feb 28, 2018 12:43:25 GMT -7
My thoughts for the Day!
I have been thinking about all this talk about conservatives and liberals, as well as, the talk of socialism and fascism. I don’t really think that the people throwing out the terms really understand what they are.
If the liberals want socialism, they have to realize that this far shift to the left will lead to communists and so on. They want an equitable distribution of wealth and resources. The problem here is that once you achieve this on paper, what incentive is there to better yourself? What becomes of the rewards for personal initiative? What will it do to the drive of trying to better yourself? In the end, without drive or initiative, the society that this equal distribution of things will eventually stagnate, and to force this equalization of resources, it will force a committee and policing of things to make sure everybody has the share. That my friends is one of the tenants Leninism, also known as communism. This becomes a totalitarian dictatorship!
If the liberals are correct and the conservatives won’t be happy until we are the verge of fascism then we have another dictatorship! But, that isn’t the case, because the conservatives want less government control over matters of individuals. They want to inforce the rights of individual’s rights over the state, while fascism is the State controlling everything. What ultra conservative views will lead to is an anarchy that rewards the dog eat dog mentality. Eventually though, those who show that initiative and incentive to achieve will be rewarded greatly, but this runs to the risk of a few person running the society. This in turn leads to those being the leaders of the society, but this also runs the risk of becoming a dictatorship. Not necessarily fascist, but still a society ran by committee.
In the end, either on the left or right, society becomes a dictatorship, or doesn’t that make both the opposites of the same coin. Too few people running a society that has stagnated?
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RedRom
Lieutenant Junior Grade
1 eleven mark 14 Towards the Neutral Zone and Home
Posts: 66
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Post by RedRom on Feb 28, 2018 13:01:23 GMT -7
Reminds me of a joke I heard recently. What's the difference between socialism and capitalism? In socialism man takes advantage of man, in capitalism it's the other way around.
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Post by jeffwright on Feb 28, 2018 13:25:11 GMT -7
Two men are on an island, with one coconut.
Capitalism: I'll buy that coconut from you--how much.
Socialism: Let's share the coconut.
Communism: On man grabs the coconut, throws it away. "Now neither of us has it."
Fascism: One man hits the other man in the head with said coconut--throws it away--and eats the other man instead.
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Post by starcruiser on Feb 28, 2018 17:13:15 GMT -7
Liberal - Open minded, willing to listen to new ideas etc...
Conservative - Closed minded, tries to maintain the status quo etc...
Those are the very basic definitions of both. Neither quite fits those old molds anymore. Modern "Liberals" bear little resemblance to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. They range from honest Progressives to full on Communists. Never mind that communism does work on a small scale (basically all tribal cultures work on a similar model) but, has never been even remotely stable in a modern large scale civilization...
Modern "Conservatives" are still opposed to change but, also have fallen off the bandwagon on some crucial matters. They used to be very concerned about wasteful spending and a growing bureaucracy in government but, seem to spend the people's money like it's water and create new (often completely pointless) agencies just as often as the Liberals...
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Post by rabid on Mar 3, 2018 20:31:41 GMT -7
I think the definition of liberal is backwards. You can't disagree with liberals in public and stay employed, now conservatives are going to fight that way too. There are no liberals anymore if the reaction to trump winning is any example. ESP. Berkeley campus of late. But "liberal" sounds much more opened minded even if it's not the case. Liberals no-platform people all the time, Disagree with the wrong "liberal" and be called a racist/sexist/misogynistic/homophobe/bigot/nazi (henceforth RSMHBN for short).
That was short sighted because Conservatives are finally learning to couch the argument in purely moralistic (irrationAl) terms just like "liberals". I don't have a dog in this fight but dang it's fun to watch.
On the other hand Social conservatives haven't managed to "conserve" anything. If that's the case they have an astounding record of failure going back the last 30 years or so.
I think nowadays conservative more easily applies to a set of fiscal policies. I prefer "fiscal" conservative myself. I don't care about people's social choices, these days most conservatives have publicly shied away from those topics which means the left basically won.
Funny eh?
It's a shame, whatever happened to civility?
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Post by starcruiser on Mar 3, 2018 21:48:53 GMT -7
Civili...what?!?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means...
Again - what is called a "Liberal" today is NOT what a "Liberal" was over 200 years ago. Classical Liberalism was part of what brought us the country we Americans live in (USA! USA!). The Conservatives of that era were often the Tories - trying to stay with the King. It's important to know that Liberal and Liberty obviously share a common root.
Some (very few) modern Conservatives would come closer to a Classical Liberal than most of the modern Liberals do. It's actually quite shocking to see some of the idiotic things some Liberals push for, which would be very "protective" of their interests at the expense of anyone outside of their little circle.
In some ways, the Libertarians are close to Classical Liberals but, they have a fair amount of "nut-jobs" in the mix and sometimes take their form of Liberalism WAY too far to work in reality.
This has come up in another thread some time back but, we basically need a party that has the right combination of Fiscal responsibility, belief in true freedom to choose your own way in life - to succeed or fail - and the will to resist the desire to protect us from everything that supposedly threatens us - other than dangers that the people can't handle on their own.
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Post by rabid on Mar 4, 2018 1:12:05 GMT -7
Agreed. I've said before Democrats tax and spend...tax to give money to other people. Republicans tax and spend...to drop bombs on other people. It's not like that any more.
Neo-conservatism was the worst about that, and there are still old, dying neocons who are hella war mongers. After all, Who did Obama trot out when he wanted to gin up support for Syria? The commonality between democrats and republicans lately is a casually bellligerent tendency toward pre-emptive war. It's disturbing that a-hole Lindsey Graham has that in common with addlepated Nancy Pelosi. It would make me wonder who's pulling the strings if it wasn't so obvious. the defense industry is approaching total hegemonic domination.
Weird eh? Even weirder that Trump initially appeared to be on track to stop it. (Korea not withstanding because they will probably nuke us). Shit Hillary's Syria policy probably would have put us in a shooting war with russia. Funny position for someone who shaped her earlier candidacy on opposition to bush.
I mean, I agree with everything you just said. Just pointing out again how crazy it looks from over here. We deserve leaders with some savvy and intelligence. But when I watch Cspan it appears we released the asylum and empowered it to make laws.
(Also what's with all the bug-eyed Democrats? Looking at Adam Schiff and Tim Caine. What's with all the snot faced republicans? Lindsay graham and McCain...always look like they are taking a dump. I can tell the party affiliation from basic physiognomy. WTF is in the water up there?)
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Post by starcruiser on Mar 4, 2018 7:00:49 GMT -7
Why does that make me think of this?!?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2018 7:35:11 GMT -7
I believe many of you are confusing "Liberal" with "Democrat", and "Conservative" with "Republican". It has been my experience neither Liberal nor Conservative have any shortage of morons, idiots, imbeciles, jerks, jack-wagons, or nut-cases (in both the voting public and elected representation). It has also been my observation that a political party affiliation does not always accurately define the candidate's values (RINOs and Blue Dogs).
What I have observed is that Liberals have great ideas and want to implement them in order to make a better future, while Conservatives tend look to the lessons of the past to chart their course to a better future. One group wants to change the system because it does not work right, the other group wants to remove/repair the parts of the current system that are not working correctly. The end goal for both groups is the same; a happy, peaceful, and prosperous society. We need both sets of ideals in order to have a functioning and balanced society, but in order for that to happen, both sides of the argument have to accept that the other side is right about a few things. In 2018 USA, that ain't gonna happen.
What I find most frustrating in the last few election cycles was that everyone I talk to becomes a complete moron every four years. They pick a candidate and that's it. Nothing can change their mind, and if you don't like their chosen candidate you are suddenly a moron because that means you love the candidate they hate - which is stupidity, I can (and often do) dislike ALL the candidates equally.
I did not vote for Mrs. Clinton, and I did not vote for Mr. Trump. If a liberal associate asked me who I was voting for, I said "Hillary all the way." If a conservative associate asked, I said, "Trump, Baby!" I did this simply to step around a very tiresome and pointless argument that changed nothing, and lead to my friends saying really smart things like "I'm so disappointed in you," or "I thought you were smarter than that", or "But [insert candidate] will ruin the country for the following seven reasons I found on the internet." Pretty much everyone I talked to had their mind made up as soon as the primaries were decided. Since I voted for Mr. Sanders in my primary, I sat back and watched the circus that is our democratic process, read up on the candidates (not just Hillary and Donald), and came to my own conclusions (one being that both Clinton and Trump were going to have trouble governing effectively). I did not like everything about the candidate I selected, but it was the candidate closest to my own beliefs.
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Post by starcruiser on Mar 4, 2018 9:11:32 GMT -7
Well, that's no fun!
If both parties (Demoncraps and Repugnicans) would ACTUALLY act the way you described, the system would be functioning fairly well.
Sadly, they are all far to absorbed in their own "rightness" to even try to work together. Both sides have taken positions so completely incompatible with each other's and neither is willing to compromise on much of anything.
Bernie would have definitely shaken things up quite thoroughly but, I'm not sure he would be able to get anything done either.
The insane positions that the individual voters take has not helped at all. Everyone seems to think that "their man" (or woman) is right no matter what the obvious evidence says. And you are correct that too many people pay FAR too much attention to B.S. opinions on the internet.
The media don't get a free pass on this either as they often tend to skew or spin the story to boost ratings or to serve their own purposes. CNN and FoxNews, MSNBC etc.. all have to take some blame, right along with the various surviving newspapers and magazines that all love to report either one side of the story or just the bits that are interesting to them.
When you add in the meddling of the Russians (and I'm sure, others as well) we have a mess of a political system that is being constantly pushed and drug around.
When the founding fathers setup this country, they created an Electoral College to balance the popular vote with people they hoped would be smarter than the average voter. They were hoping to avoid the type of mess we have now (prescience?). The problem there is that many states have corrupted the Electoral College by insisting that the Electors vote according to the popular vote in that state. Either all for the candidate who won the state, or proportionally for the two leading candidates...
That completely undermines the whole idea and has made that system ineffective. Some people think it's unneeded anyway and now, I disagree. Donald Trump probably wouldn't have won his election if the Electoral College was allowed to function as designed.
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Post by rabid on Mar 4, 2018 11:42:47 GMT -7
I agree with any call towards civility here lately. I'm more that a little P.O'd that the FBI is the praetorian guard of the deep state, maybe more P.O'd that it was always like that and I didn't realize it.
Lol darn you @ironnerd and your eloquent call for reason. Hah I had a good rant planned.
Some things that make no sense to me: Capitalism: Economy can't boom forever. Socialism: It's impossible to feed everyone forever.
Why? Both for the same reason: There are finite resources. Unless some Orwellian controls are implemented on human nature itself, greed breaks both systems. I'm not naieve...I think the free market is the lesser of the two evils simply because it's abuses are easier to spot and in theory, the governing body isn't supposed to be in the system it polices.
How are you supposed to tell a greedy Bolshevik commissar he's stealing too much of the grain ration? You'll go to the gulag. Historically that always happens, look at what happens to critics of the neo-communist state of China. Unfortunately that seems to be unavoidable.
Conversely in capitalist enterprises how do you keep the companies from just buying out the lawmakers? How do you keep the heads of industries out of the regulatory bodies that control them? That to me seems unavoidable as well.
Democracy only has a chance when people are intelligent and pay attention. Socialism/communism only has a chance when people are kept intentionally stupid and their aspirations of success are blunted.
Isn't it like Maslow's Hierarchy of needs? Almost an inversion of it in both regards. In capitalism not everyone has the motivation to strive after basic needs are met. In socialist/communist settings then the people WITH the motivation are the problem, they will naturally want to acquire more resources.
I'll tell you one thing, you get a socialist (democratic socialist) elected, then that's the day I become a hard core socialist. I got kids to feed, in that situation the party is life.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2018 16:32:18 GMT -7
wait...
that's it?
We talked about politics and were all civil, and then the thread just ended?
...feels like a trap...
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Post by rabid on Mar 7, 2018 21:47:09 GMT -7
I️ don't know it seems like we agree more or less. You're right liberal/democrat and conservative/republican aren't mutually exclusive.
Maybe I'm too cynical to trust either party entirely. As for economies...To be fair don't think unfettered capitalism is any better. In that cAse the world is run by people like the Enron executives.
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Post by cowboy40 on Mar 7, 2018 22:05:49 GMT -7
I know i don't trust any politician. Both want to improve our lives, just disagree on how to do it...but then again the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2018 4:30:17 GMT -7
rabid ► I think the unfettered capitalism route would be a nightmare. On the other hand, unfettered socialism (which at that point is communism) is also a nightmare. We have an "okay" balance here in the states (could be better). I don't really trust any of the multiple parties all that much. I've voted Independent, Green, Libertarian, Republican, and Democrat (Have not seen the new Bull Moose party on a ballot yet). cowboy40 ► As for the Politicians... I figure they all want to make THEIR lives better, not so sure about OUR lives though. I don't trust any of them. What's the old saw... "How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips move." I do wish we had some Asian politics over here though. When I was in Korea a fight broke out in their National Assembly (Senate and House of Reps all in one), and one representative was egged and floured by his angry constituents. That boost the heck out of C-Span's ratings. I also think it's pretty awesome that we can have a rational discussion on politics in this forum.
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Post by starcruiser on Mar 8, 2018 9:02:14 GMT -7
Yea - what's with this rational stuff anyway?!?
Let's get some good ol' fashioned irrational crap going, huh?
Some politicians DO start out trying to help but, once they get in that quagmire of Washington (I bet George would want his name removed from that by now!) they find out real quick that they have to compromise far too much to get anything really changed.
Basically, the only way we will see serious improvement is if both the Republican and Democratic parties were to fracture into multiple parties. Then, maybe people could see a moderate left, extreme left, moderate right and extreme right party to choose from.
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Post by rabid on Mar 9, 2018 6:54:02 GMT -7
Here l go about to ruin a good thing. Trump is different...I'm forced to reconsider my antipathy towards trump. North Korea wants to negotiate and this is amazing. If it works he will have flipped 1/2 a century of belligerence.
Or it could be a trap and we are all gonna die. But want to be optimistic and in that case, I have to admit he made a good play.
Without saying too much. Trump kept to his word. He didn't make deadlines or give endless conditions, capitulation or warnings.
He just presented the unmistakable menace of a massive military build up.
He kept it quiet, wonder if the average citizen even knew it was happening?
I'm finding myself open to the possibility of voting for him in 2020.
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Post by starcruiser on Mar 9, 2018 7:26:21 GMT -7
Only Nixon could go to China.
Only Trump could end the Korean War.
What the...?
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Post by cowboy40 on Mar 9, 2018 9:46:08 GMT -7
Hmmmmm....I have decided to keep quiet on this...
Will maybe not
rattles my sabre a little bit harder....
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Post by rabid on Mar 9, 2018 13:10:10 GMT -7
LOL Cowboy I may have guessed where you are spending the next 3 weeks. No one is more surprised about this than me, I could have sworn trump would flip to interventionist war-monger just like Obama. But his military actions so far have been concise and definitive. Despite what the pundits say my experience is very little 'bluster' on his part. The one purported to be the dumbest president ever is going to solve korea his sophomore year? WTF?? That and my 401K is blooming like after the monsoon. Not much to complain about really. Of course anyone is free to hate any of his other policies.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2018 5:40:16 GMT -7
If "The Comb-over" can end the 67-year conflict on the Korean peninsula, he has my vote in 2020. Just the fact that Kim Jong-Un met with Moon Jae-In is astonishing. I wonder what my old friends in Pyontaek think about it. I'm cautiously optimistic (the Kims can be rather duplicitous). Still, in about a year, Kim Jong-Un has gone form "We will destroy the United States!" to "We will talk to the United States." That's damned impressive.
Maybe Kim Jong-Un was just threatened by Obama's good looks...[shrug]
And my 3% pay raise (due to the tax cuts) and expanding 401k are also rather helpful. Maybe the extra spondulix in my wallet is crumbs to D.C. Democrats, but I have found them most welcomed - and trust me... I am not "Wealthy" by U.S. standards.
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Post by rabid on Mar 10, 2018 13:48:36 GMT -7
There's no problem he can't over-comb.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2018 15:31:15 GMT -7
There's no problem he can't over-comb. Arrrgggghhhhh...... LOL!!!
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Post by rabid on Mar 20, 2018 15:57:15 GMT -7
Ugh Ok another backslide. We get possibly peace in N. Korea (but I'm on stanby orders until we figure that shit out). That's good...
but then he opens up elephant ivory trading.
Nobody's perfect but honestly WTF.
But he has almost killed facebook so *Yay*.
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Post by starcruiser on Mar 20, 2018 21:04:20 GMT -7
Drumpf will be Drumpf... He has no actual clues folks.
Of course, both sides of the aisle in Congress have said that if it fires Mueller - he's toast. That probably won't stop him since he thinks he was elected King.
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