The Smiley Smile Message Board

I leave for three days and you make a mess of the place....

But seriously. I live in New Cross, South London, but have been on holiday in Spain for the last three days. And I'm starting to get worried about these riots, and I know there are a couple of London SMiley SMilers here besides myself (although some haven't checked in in a while....) . So is everyone ok, what do we all think is going on, and everything.

My house is on Lewisham Way too, so I'm worried it might get in the way of the action simply  by virtue of being on the main road. I'm trying to find out what i can via the BBC and Twitter, but no-one seems to know anything.... I'm getting worried.

It is very close to home for me, very worrying...it is kicking off in Camden now apparently; my sister is there staying at a friends says she is inside and not near any shops.

A friends who is a special constable (voluntary policeman) has been called into to work this evening.

I am guessing you have seen the news...it all started over a fatal shooting by the police in Tottenham but clearly the events of the last two nights have nothing to do with that any more.

West Ham have cancelled tomorrow night's Carling Cup clash with Aldershot.

These rioters really must not know they are born  :-\

how did somebody get shot? I thought UK police were not allowed to carry guns as a tradition?

No, they can - It's become more prevalent since the 7/7 bombings, in my experience. and certainly around central London. It gives me the creeps.

So I'm finding out now. The majority of my close friends have either gone home anyway, or are staying in with a lot of beer and keeping an eye on the news. No-one seems to be able to get in touch with my friend who is quite into his protesting (not a vandalising arsehole, rather an idealist) and it doesn't help he's fairly bad with his phone and he's not on facebook/twitter....My friends in Deptford and Hackney have worn the worst, it would seem.

Your sister should be ok - hope your friend stays cool, Sam_BFC.

It's just spiralled out of control, and Twitter is a bloody mess of rumours and semantics. The BBC are really under-reporting it, and Sky are being horribly sensationalist about i (no surprises there). I just want to know what's happening....

I live in the United States, but if you can't find any info on the riots, you can check youtube for raw video to see whats going on.



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Sam, it would appear that the Electric Ballroom in Camden was attacked last night, but nobody was hurt.

It seems to be over now, thankfully.

Isn't Sky owned by Murdoch? If it's anything like Fox "News" I could just imagine what they're saying.

It's tough to be a libertarian socialist with right-wing crypto-Nazi nonsense on Fox and Sky "news" that so many people take oh so seriously.

Fox News just exists so people get angry and distracted over issues that are really not important, while real issues stay unsolved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29lmR_357rA&feature=related

This was actually aired on that evil network.

True.

Now, who said: "Keep them doped with religion, and sex and TV"?

John Lennon.

Hi Real Beach Boy,

The Nazi's were socialists. NAZI is an acronym or nickname for National Socialist and they were a political party. I believe it was Goebbels even wrote or said that there was very little difference between communism and Naziism. The only real difference I can see is that they did everything for Germany and in the name of Germany, hence the use of the term National. Here is a quote by Goebbels: "As socialists, we are opponents of the Jews, because we see, in the Hebrews, the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation’s goods." which leads me to believe that they did not kill the Jews because they were Jewish, but because they were capitalists. They killed anyone who didn't fall into the Socialist Utopian line and the Jews are deeply entrenched in tradition.

I heard some interviews of the people on the street doing the damage in London. In their own words they stated they wanted to show the rich they could do whatever they want and that includes attacking their neighbors and destroying their businesses. That they deserve what the so-called rich have and if they can't have it they will destroy it.

I'm not a political person or anything like that, but I see the misuse of the term Nazi and decided to throw my two cents in.

Peace.

Stay safe in London to those who live there.

If Hackgate has taught me anything, it's the workings of News International. Murdoch owns a 40% stake in Sky. He was trying to buy it outright until the fact his organisation uses criminal means to obtain stories somehow meant he could not proceed. Funny, that.....

FWIW, London is about as safe as usual.

The press here is being as disgusting as usual wrt the 'real reason' - single mothers, multiculturalism.....

What's your point? As of now all I see is a bunch of rambling. Where did I even give any kind of reference to anything related to Judaism beyond the use of the word "Nazi"? I use the term "crypto-Nazi" the same way Gore Vidal did. Perhaps I should have used "crypto-fascism."

Not your fault, RBB, but lets not get into the Nazis? Please?

I wasn't.

Any social stance the riots may have initiated was soon offset by yobs looking for any excuse to cause mayhem and help themselves to a 40" HD TV. Most of them would struggle to spell the word Marxism, let alone put it's principles into action.
Amazingly there were reports of 9 and 10 year olds involved in the looting. May I ask WHERE THE f * c k WHERE THE PARENTS WHEN THIS WAS HAPPENING? What parent would let their children be out on the streets when this mayhem is going down?
Unfortunately you reap what you show and the English Government has only itself to blame here. For years now it has allowed every undesirable from the four corners of the Earth to migrate over here, while giving our lower class scum every engagement and financial incentive to breed like the rats that they are.

For a second, I believed you  :lol

I imagined that same thing being said by Clark W. Griswold and then it made sense to me.

If you lived in this country it would make perfect sense to you.

Not the BBC, I hope.

The BBC and other TV news providers (I'm not sure how exempt Sky News is from it as it's not universally available to anyone with a telly) have a public service obligation to be impartial. Such regulations are not in place for the press, and the right-wing have been having a field day with this. Essentially it's the multi-cultural, homosexual, liberal, ignorant, underclassed single mothers among us to blame, from my abroad self can make out.

Right-wingers = Christian fascists

Oh no doubt The Daily Mail is having a field day with this one.

But may I say as Duggan was a crack dealer, gang member and carrying an illegal handgun, he basically got what was coming to him. Or do the Cops have to wait until he's shot a few of them before they are justifed to open fire?

I don't care if he was fucking Satan. You don't just shoot him. Or anyone. He's entitled to a trial, not to be gunned down on sight.

Perhaps. But I see fascism, naziism, socialism, marxism, statism, and communism as the same thing. Using the term Nazi does evoke an emotional response, but I used that quote to illustrate that it wasn't about the Jews. It was about socialists targeting a group of capitalists. You could replace Jews with "businessman" or "corporation" or "little kids selling lemonade in their front yard". "As socialists, we are opponents of little kids selling lemonade in their front yard, because we see, in these kids, the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation’s goods."

Yeah that was an interesting exchange during that Buckley/Vidal debate.

I watched the vid of the Mr. Rogers thing. The news station was only reporting the story and in an almost sarcastic fashion. They camped it up. It was a Louisiana college professor that created the study and made the statement regarding Mr. Rogers, the news station only reported it.

Here is a story that popped up a few months earlier that year. Talk about messed up.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=3553475
An example of leveling the playing field.

Nazism and fascism cannot and are not to be equated with socialism, communism, or Marxist theory; countries that are known to be "communist" or "socialist" or "Marxist" are none of the above, but rather totalitarian single-party dictatorships. Nazism was NOT socialism by any stretch of the imagination and if you think that way I'd suggest that you actually support your theories with grounded research.

Socialism is not some boogeyman, like certain plutocratic state-capitalist governments would have you believe. These same governments cite such horrible examples as the Soviet Union, East Germany, Vietnam, China, North Korea, Cuba, and Laos as "socialist" countries. None of these were or are true socialist nations.

Can you give me an example of a true socialist nation?

There has yet to be one. Lenin and Trotsky tried, but it didn`t really turn out too well.

Socialism and fascism go hand in hand. The United States today isn't really very capitalist, we have corporatism or social-fascism or whatever you want to call it. Of course we don't have genocide in the United States, so we aren't "Nazi"s per-say, but the United States is about a conglomeration of power, collusion between the State and Corporations. That same relationship was at the heart of the rise of European fascism, and the business leaders in Germany and Italy were very pleased at the time when over the rise of corporate-fascism. Oblio is perfectly right to point out that the Nazi's were National Socialists, because that's exactly what they were, they were socialists thru and thru.
Economically, there is no reason to believe that the Government can direct the economy or fix prices. Price fixing is never good, and the market will always do a better job of allocating resources via the price mechanism than Government will.
When someone says that the United States is socialist, most liberals will be angry at that assertion, mostly because it's very fashionable to blame all our woes on "capitalism", but in reality we are farther on the spectrum towards socialism/corporatism than we are free market capitalism. Government policy is what has so badly affected the housing markets and post-secondary education system. Liberals rarely recognize the link though, which is unfortunate. The federal government pumps money into the system, they say "everyone has a right to own a home" so they guarantee loans and give out gobs on money to banks for that purpose. Of course these programs are specifically designed to increase demand for housing, that's really their goal. What happens when demand goes up for a good and supply stays the same? Price goes up. And then you have the housing bubble forming right before your eyes. The government knew what banks were doing, and that's exactly what they wanted, and then when things broke down everyone points the finger at the banks, but it was really the fault of government policy. The same thing has been happening in health care and the college industry. That's socialism, and who benefits the most? The corporations. Who gets stuck with the bill? The people.

That's just my 2 cents, my formal education is in Econ, so I thought I'd chime in.

AMEN.Thanx for writing that, it was well said Sgt. Unfortunately, that knowledge is too often ignored.

My philosophy is simple: FREEDOM FIRST. Above all, Freedom. When the government steps into the market freedom automatically gets distorted.

A true socialist nation does not exist because none has ever been built on a proper socialist principle - the state has no place in socialism. Left anarchists (aka libertarian socialists) believe that all authority, regardless of importance, is inherently illegitimate and due to its refusal to be questioned or criticized (let alone made to be accountable), it must be dismantled. Socialism is supposed to be a movement with people first; why the hell would we want the STATE overseeing a socialist nation? State socialism is a dangerous thing. The state doesn't give a damn about you or me or anyone else beyond their own pocketbooks. Libertarian socialism means we're all in it together or we're not in it at all.

Of course, 99% of Americans looking at this thread are gonna balk at the phrase "libertarian socialism" and especially balk at how anyone could juxtapose those two terms together; how convenient for them that greedy white American conservative penguins have completely misused and abused the term "libertarian". If the same greedy white American conservative penguins actually read a book (quite a daunting undertaking for Americans in general), the true definition of the word "libertarian" would strike fear in their hearts.

...in a perfect world.

Kind sir, please understand that calling someonelike myself a Christian Fascist or a Greedy White American conservative penguin who never read a book only exposes a certain kind of hatred directed to your fellow man. I'm not rich. I don't really care one way or another about who you worship, sleep with, or feel the urge to say. I care about Freedom.

When you say, "The state doesn't give a damn about you or me or anyone else beyond their own pocketbooks", I say substitute "people" for the word "state". That is how it is in our world. We should have the Freedom to help out others who we feel deserve it before the taxman decides for us, and I think we can agreeon that point.

Still, to the many of us "Christian Fascists or a Greedy White American conservatives " who bust our butts working well over 40 hours a week struggling to make ends meet we do not need to be told we are greedy and stupid as we warn people of the dangers of losing our individual freedoms those who are smarterand know better than us with what to do with our time and money.

I will admit that the "Christian fascist" label was meant to antagonize, nothing further. I honestly could care less about religion. I could have easily used any religious denomination preceding the word "fascist" and my argument would have held just as much weight.

However, on the topic of beliefs, this is something that Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists believe - I agree with them that we should strive to make life a better place for all of humanity; we all strive for a world where humanity can develop in such a way to fulfill all of its capabilities and still keep its dignity. I'm an atheist (another word that frightens Americans). The life of Jesus is more worthy of study than fairytales about a man in the sky. Jesus was the greatest revolutionary of all time. He argued that we should give our love to other human beings. Socialists believe in that, as well.

You and I occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum but I have also been told that I am greedy and stupid by people who disagree with my own warnings the dangers of losing our individual freedoms. I also work over 40 hours a week so that argument is not flying.

To Sgt Smile: I don't have a formal education in Econ, but that is exactly what I saw happen. And then to make matters worse, so-called stimulus money was pumped into the housing situation to prop it up, but that only prolonged the problem. In some cases, banks were punished for not taking the stimulus money. The market was not allowed to reset.

I had to seek out the truth about who the Nazi's really were and yes they were socialists, in their own words, yet.

To noname: "...in a perfect world" - exactly. The world is not perfect and never will be. There is no such thing as perfection to begin with. The nature of this world is "dog eat dog" but we do our best to rise above it in spirit. Individual choice how to behave. Agreed. I had come to a conclusion about the song "Imagine". The title speaks for itself... the song isn't called Reality.
But, it is a song that delivers how a person can behave to make the effort worth it, but only if a person chooses that path in their own life and not a doctrine forced and enforced on a grand social level.

To Thought Police: Jesus was revolutionary in that he said individual salvation, not collective salvation, was the key to making it to heaven. What is heaven? What ever you want it to be, I suppose. I remember reading Yogananda's take on it and that the goal is to become part of the creative and positive force in the universe. You choose between light or dark. Again, an individual choice. Jesus also said that everyone makes it eventually by trial. By bearing your cross, making your mistakes(sin), and learning from it. Again, as an individual. You have to have something to bring to the table, not by force, but by choice. You can only do that by accumulating through experience and then you have something to offer. Can't squeeze blood from a sugarcube, right? Or a turnip... or whatever that saying is.

Based on your description of Libertarian Socialism, I suppose striking fear in the hearts of your fellow man will be the trend. I see that people who have money will be determined as greedy and what they have must be taken and spread around to those who do nothing to earn it. White people are out, too. If you are from the USA or believe in what the people of the country actually believe in, which has nothing to do with how it has been corrupted btw,.... these people are out too. If you are conservative, forget about it, even though conservative just means frugal and thoughtful about how you live your life. And if you are a penguin, I don't even want to think about what will happen to the penguins. Poor little guys ...or is it girls... maybe just the gay penguins will be allowed to thrive. Not sure. It's too confusing because there just seems to be too many rules who will be allowed to be in this new system. A system that has never existed other than in theory only. And when it is implemented or an attempt at implementation, the results are always the same no matter what -ism is chosen to describe it. People die. So you are correct in that it is about people - dead people and that has been proven time and time again throughout history. It's just not something I want to be involved in, but thanks for your thoughts on the subject. I was curious where you were coming from. I have one more question, though... what is the hidden agenda of Fox News? I see so many people saying they have a hidden agenda, but the agenda is never actually stated. Thanks.

I saw another interview with some of the looters in England... one guy got a whole Johnson Set for his kids and another guy got a High Definition TV. One kid even said it was just like any other day for him.

I don't really believe in the endless little pedantic attempts to differentiate political philosophies, it seems that's always just wishful thinking. In reality there are only two real philosophies when it comes to government, a government with more control or with less control. When you have a government with less control, you can make up all different names for it, anarcho-socialism or whatever, but it would likely just be capitalist. Capitalism has been going on for thousands of years, it's a very neutral process that represents more or less the natural state of things. Socialism with Government is no good, and Socialism without Government would just end up being free-market capitalism in practice, so I don't really get people who want to endlessly try to define their precise political position by some convoluted term.

I refuse to dignify the quoted passage with a response.

With all due respect, I charge that it is abundantly clear that you have no real interest in even providing a non-patronizing response; I would reconsider if a proper response was forthcoming. And that, for your information, IS the hidden agenda of Fox News. You disagree with them, you are patronized and bullied into phony agreement. I'll not have that, thank you very much.

I`ve always thought Fox`s agenda was pretty loud and clear. Parrot the Republican party line, dismiss moderate centrists as radical communists, and line Rupert Murdoch`s pockets.

Welcome to my world as a moderate centrist dealing with my fox-brainwashed family and extended family.

It's really too bad, I think fox news deserves better than it gets. That's not to say they're good, but they're just the same as all punditry from the left, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Jon Stewart etc. "Moderate Centrist" doesn't mean much, there's been a trend in recent years with people like Jon Stewart basically wanting to paint their own leftist opinions as being "moderate", making those on the so-called "right" nothing more than lunatics. Really democrats and republicans are the same. The voters, the pawns, think that they're representing different positions, but all the politicians from either party are more or less identical. "Democracy" in the United States is nothing more than a delusion. They're all in the same bag as far as I'm concerned, they all want more government, the only difference is what special interests they favor.

Pretty much. The only question on voting day is do you go for the evil party or the really evil party.

Agreed; the liberal media is just as bad.

Lumping Jon Stewart in there is grasping, surely? Does anyone actually watch The Daily Show for the politics of the thing? It'd be like saying Have I Got News For You is serious journalism in Britain.

The whole 'more government' phobia america has is really insane. Sure, maybe it might be justfied if you already had things like a universal healthcare system that the bureaucrats in DC could run amok with. Can someone phrase it better for me? All I hear is people claiming that they want 'less'  government. The cynic in me translates that as less taxes, selfish gits.

To Thought Police:
That bit was in response to this:  "greedy white American conservative penguins actually read a book (quite a daunting undertaking for Americans in general), the true definition of the word "libertarian" would strike fear in their hearts." ...and that statement actually illustrated my point regarding the targeting of a specific group or stereotype. You must admit, it is a bit of a harsh generalization. What is the proper response? Is there one?

Just so I have it straight... Rupert Murdoch is lining his pockets by using his news station to brainwash people using patronizing and bullying tactics to coerce people into phony agreements. Brainwashing techniques include parroting Republican talking points and dismissing moderate centrists as radical communists. .... Seriously? Think about that for a second. Deep down inside, do you really believe this?

Agreed all media could do a better job at remaining neutral.
Agreed the party system has become a distraction. The whole left vs. right thing takes attention away from the subject matter.

Also, Sgt Smile pointed out that free market is the natural order of things. Agreed.

John Stewart is a comedian. I liked the Daily Show with Craig Kilborn. The show was hilarious. The show now is just about John Stewart and his cheerleaders. Bill Maher is the same thing. It's Bill Maher and his cheerleaders. It just isn't very funny to me.

Less Government = productive happy lives. The US government was set-up with a basic set of rules. Like a message board. You have a community. A set of basic rules to determine etiquette. Moderators to govern. The Constitution starts out with "We the People..." not sure how much more social you can get than that.
 

No they weren't. Socialism means that proletariat have control of the means of production - period. In absolutely NO WAY was that the case in Nazi Germany. So to say that the Nazis "were socialists thru and thru" is either being purposefully disingenuous or incredibly ignorant in regards to both economics and politics. The fact that you are simply stopping short at looking only at the name of the party rather than the party's actions (which is a true measure of what someone is politically - we can call ourselves anything we'd like, but it what we do that actually determines our place on the political spectrum) speaks volumes. There were lots of reasons why the Nazi party came be named what it was - and none of those reasons had to do with Hitler's desire to hand the means of production over to labor. Hitler, in fact, disagreed with the title and then continued to use the name as it later became fashionable in the post-Depression era to associate one's self with labor.



Again, you don't know what you're talking about. First of all - to conflate socialialism and corporatism as you have done here is a prime example that you don't seem to know what socialism is at all. The very structure that a corporation depends on to exist is entirely opposite to socialist aims. In that sense, the statement that "we are farther on the specturm towards socialism/corporatism" is so bizarrely confused and entirely impossible in the realm of reality that it is, in fact, impossible to deal with it. You might as well try aguing for the existence of invisible fairies that swirl around our heads that only you can see - it's about as meaningful.


Again, you don't know what socialism is - and that undermines everything that you say as a consequence.


I think you need to go back for a tune-up.

Given what you've said on this board, what you really mean is that you don't believe in considering what actual political philosophies mean because that gets in the way of your tragically reductive worldview and your ability to concoct political situations that don't actually exist.


According to who? You? Thanks, but I'm not going to take your word for it.


Yeah, or whatever. A government "with less control" could never be called anarcho-socialism, which a quick look in an encyclopedia would tell you.


Speculative.


No it hasn't.


Which explains why it has been violently forced on just about every society where it exists. Right?  ::)


Meaningless value judgement.


Speculative.

What does that even mean? How does one "remain neutral"?


The left has been utterly disenfranchised in the United States. In fact, it is an illegitimate political position to take.


So once again, explain why it has been violently forced on just about every culture that has it.


That's interesting, because you can have less government on the far left - in fact, that's really the only place where you can have no government at all, in the usual sense.


Except that even then only certain people constitued "people" in the eyes of the founding fathers.

Two words, anger management.

I'm afraid we fundamentally disagree on a lot, my roundheaded chum. But you can never win an argument about politics, but what the hell.

I can't believe you can look at the sheer economic shithole America is barely creeping out of and tell me that not only is the free market right, it is 'the natural order of things'. It may be natural, but it is fundamentally unfair to huge swathes of the population. Bank bonuses in face of recession. Government conceding to Wall Street or The City in spite of their sheer stupidity in trading. Then they tell us normal folk to be austere (Twas the line of the British govt not so long ago). I mean, yeah that's nice. How can you say that's the point of government - bending spinelessly to monied interests who are only looking after profit lines?

(I know, I know. This is all getting a little rhetorical)

Am curious. What do you do for a living, Oblio? Or indeed, Sgt Smile? Myself, I'm a student, in spirit of full disclosure. Disgustingly middle class, btw.

How in the absolute hell does less of a government equate to a happier life?! Do less benefits equate to happier lives? Does your lack of a healthcare system equate to a happier life? Do less taxes- Oh wait, see your point.

I do think Americans lack a real sense of social responsibility in that regard. I'm happy to pay taxes even off my meagre wage packet (and I know the government gives me student loan - it just about covers rent and books, btw) - It pays for my grandmas rest home, my cousins jobs in education, my sisters school, my mums medication, the police (who you kinda appreciate in South London, despite it all), and benefits for those who need them. I don't think anyone of those is mooching off my hard work. It just seems really self centred and tight-fisted.

Also, what happened to my thread?!!  :lol

Anyone who is actually serious about politics should be angry about you flagrantly spreading misinformation for a start, and also about your absurdly reductive assertions that are entirely groundless.

Be thankful to the people who fought extraordinarily hard for you against both the state and the business world so that you only had to "bust your butt" for 40-60 hours a week. The fact that you have leisure time at all is thanks to labor, not to the goodness of the state or the business world. A bit more of an understanding of the history of labor and business in the US and indeed throughout the world for that matter might restore some of your faith in humanity.

  :spin

1. just tell me the facts without bias
2. the "left' disenfranchised themselves by calling themselves "left"
3. All tribes thoughout time have engaged in trade of goods and services
4. I want Government. It is needed. Just stop meddling.
5. It was only few states that didn't want to give up their servants/slaves, whatever you want to call it. The USA was designed to make all men equal. In order to declare independence from England a compromise was made in Congress.
The founding fathers realized that the situation they were born into was unacceptable. Slavery was England's way at that time.
So they designed a government that would free everyone, but they couldn't get everything they wanted. Chipping away little by little and along comes Abraham Lincoln. I believe he even stated that it was the founding fathers who freed the slaves.

The rich are really hated right now, so I don't blame you for getting on board the blame train. But America had its chance to get rid of all the bad blood, but we didn't. Those banks that we all complain about are all still in business because of our government. When the Federal Reserve injects "liquidity", or when Congress approves bailouts, that's how the rich make their living. All those policies only increase wealth inequality, they benefit investors on the stock market the most, who enjoy free money and no-interest loans. If it wasn't for Government banks would have gone out of business and the people who made bad decisions would have lost their jobs. Instead the Government paid for their errors. That's not Capitalism I'm afraid, that's big government, that's what you get for your tax dollars. The fundamental error of many people in assessing our economic woes is that they don't realize this relationship.

It's very hard for people to wrap their head around what exactly "capitalism" is, and today people just think that whenever a banker makes money that's capitalism. Capitalism is not wallstreet, we don't have capitalism today.


I don't agree that the government can just spend whatever money it wants and always have a good effect. Americans tolerate too much taxation, across the board people aren't just paying pennies, they're getting squeezed, state, local, federal, property taxes, fica, excise taxes, sales tax. People end up working 25%-50% of their entire year working for the government. When the income tax started out it was 1%, I don't understand how people allow themselves to be convinced of their "duty" to give so much to the government. Americans shouldn't be so complacent.
The government just blows money out of its ass. We're constantly told that our income tax is a vital contribution to our society, that its unfair and selfish to want to pay any less. Half of that tax is just going to the Defense Department. Just something like air conditioning for installations in Iraq and Afghanistan costs more than NASA's budget. The Defense Department costs more each year than all other executive departments combined. Then we waste hundreds of billions on things like the war on drugs. We just fritter away money like there's no tomorrow on thousands of subsidies and corporate handouts, and an endless parade of failed social engineering programs. we could stand to spend a lot less, and we could stand to not have an income tax.

Which facts? Who decides what constitutes a "newsworthy" fact and what doesn't? What order should those facts appear? How much airtime or space should a story get? These questions and many others require bias. So how would you propose overcoming that?


And how, prey tell, did they do that? How can calling yourself "left" get you disenfranchised if it weren't already illegitimate to occupy that position on the political spectrum? And furthermore, the whole range of political beliefs on the left aren't filled with people who call themselves the left - there have been a variety of political parties and political positions on the left that have been eliminated.


Maybe, but that's not the same thing as saying that "All tribes throughout time have engaged in free market capitalism." You can have a trade of goods and services under many economic models.


I don't want government. But I agree - the government in the US is undeniably tipped towards favoring the wealthiest citizens and anyone with the slightest concern for democracy or human rights should oppose that.


Funny you should think that I was talking about African-Americans - but either way, your explanation is absurd. The United States were stuck with slavery because it "was England's way"? If that's the case, why did the US hang on to slavery for another thirty years after England eliminated it?

When did we "have capitalism"?

1. I do not propose to overcome it. I propose to sift.
2. Call yourself "left"... now call yourself "right" do you feel any different? now call yourself "left" again. any difference?
3. nuts and berries were the capital in ancient times before the mining began.
4. a democracy is only as good as the people in it... ice cream vs. milk in a dirty glass... pick one. Human rights does not include my right to someone else's fruit. But if I pick the fruit, chances are I would pick enough for everybody because that is my nature. It's an individual characteristic.
5. I didn't think that... slaves come in 5 colors.

I think you misunderstand. I mean, since you're calling for an unbiased media, I am asking how one in the media would overcome such questions that would require their bias.


This is ridiculous and it has absolutely nothing to do with what we were talking about.

Until you are prepared to give an adult response, I will assume that you are incapable of responding to the fact that the left has been disinfranchised in the United States.


The quotation is enough to conclude that you don't have a clue about "ancient times" and I'm skeptical about your knowledge of capital.


Well...I think democracy itself is a principle to strive for. The fact that you can like what the people decide or not like what the people decide, based on your own subjective views on what makes an ideal society, does not undermine the principle. In that sense, to say that there are good democracies and bad democracies is absurd to anyone who genuinely supports democratic values.

More over, what do you mean, that sharing "is your nature"? Do you mean you were born with this characteristic that is inherent to your being? If so, what evidence do you have for that? It seems to me that individual characteristics are formed by immediate surroundings, culture, etc. This is why, for the most part, we have managed to entirely eliminate some of our most barbaric qualities - because we have the capacity to improve ourselves, not because of some inherent inner qualities.
 

I wasn't thinking just about slaves either.

1. If you are biased, you should get out of the news business.
2. It has everything to do with it. You have to join the camp before you are concerned about it's state.
3. I'll trade you some nuts and berries for a drink at the well.
4. Democracy is a mechanism used to decide an outcome. I have no idea why I am the way I am, I just know that I am.
5. what else could you mean? explain, please.

The US wasn't the US until it broke free from England. England didn't eliminate it.

That's understandable, and I think our differences in opinion are v dependent on where we live. My taxes pay for different things than yours, such as the NHS. If the defense budget was slashed, would you be happy to pay more tax? Do you pay any tax atm? Which is why I wanted to know what you did, if anything, for a living.... I'm being nosy, aren't I. But people's life experiences do tend to be the root of political leanings, no matter how much of a theorist you wanna be. It's so subjective.

Wrt to banks and bailouts, we absolutely made the wrong decision - Both sides of the Atlantic. But shutting down the banks would have caused bedlam in countries as large and as financially complex as ours, so whilst it was the wrong decision it's completely understandable for that decision to be made on a political, will-we-be-popular?l basis. When I have my thinking hat on (and some time) I'll read into Iceland, and how that did it 'right' - It let the banks collapse and is now more stable than most, if i do recall?

The way it appears in Britain is that certain interests whose owner rhymes with Burdock have undue sway via the Tabloid Press, and if i cast my mind to the heady days of the recession the government followed their advice as whoever has the backing of a certain paper wins Elections. I would not call that sway 'big government', i'd call that something else. Extortion, if i was being crude.

I don't have the time to contribute a fully thought, coherent response to this thread - Pub beckons! - but we're in agreement in a lot. But the whole free-market thing works better in theory than in practice, I'l surmise at that.

In that case, what you are calling for is the abolishment of the "news business" since, as you yourself have demonstrated, it is impossible to not be biased when presenting news. Since being biased is inevitable, I suppose the only answer for you is no news at all.

The above was my attempt of getting us out of the circle you got us into.


Honestly, what are you talking about? Do YOU even know, at this point? The left is not a "camp". It is a space on the political spectrum that is made up of a variety of political points of view, none of which are tolerated at the political level in the United States, and none of which are articulated in mainstream discourse. Can you explain to me what on God's green earth does this have to do with joining the camp before being concerned about its state - aside from it being a boring deviation that has little to nothing to do with what I'm talking about.


Phewf - thank God! Because it is damn near impossible for anyone but you to find the nuts and berries around here in ancient times.

Seriously, please stop embarrassing yourself with this obscenely reductive description of previous economies.


No. Democracy is a system of government that is run as a consequence of universal equality and universal access to political decision. Again, this is fundamentally a value and a principle.


And I just know that you're not that way because of inherent, essential qualities.


Maybe the culture that was entirely displaced and then treated to a terror campaign as a result of America's call for independence?

England didn't eliminate slavery? That's surprising - maybe some slave owners from England could speak about it on this message board.

  The US declared all men equal when it broke free from England. That better?

What did I say to give you any indication that I didn't know that?

1. Um, when did I exhibit bias while delivering news? I am not in the news business. Circle?
2. Do you consider yourself on the "left" of the political spectrum?
3. It's all I had room for in my pouch. I'll find someone else to trade with.
4. The US is a republic.
5. Ah you mean manifest destiny! gotcha... yeah bad stuff that there.. agreed. It didn't just happen to the Native Americans.
But I didn't make that decision. I know it's wiki, but what the heck. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson
His followers created the modern Democratic Party.

when you said supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.... kind of gave it away.  I think you are taking your anger out on the wrong target. I just wanted to understand where Real Beach Boy was coming from and make sense of why so many people think that a stinkin' news station is brainwashing everybody.  Change the channel!

You are truly incapable of following a simple thread of discussion and it is becoming increasiningly infuriating having any sort of discussion with someone who refuses to actually read what I'm writing. Here's a simple task: try actually responding to what I write. Once you do that, you'll find that this conversation will be a bit more productive. With that in mind:


I asked you to explain how someone in the news might overcome bias (Which facts? Who decides what constitutes a "newsworthy" fact and what doesn't? What order should those facts appear? How much airtime or space should a story get? These questions and many others require bias. So how would you propose overcoming that?). You proved immediately that you couldn't, since when I provided a series of questions of problems that a journalist would be faced with when attempting to eliminate bias, you chose not to answer it. You still haven't. Even when I cleared up the question the first time around, you didn't answer it. Consequently, I take your consistent refusal or inability to answer the questions I posed roughly ten posts back as a demonstration that bias cannot be overcome.


Yes. I can't wait to see where you're going with this one.


Good luck. Nuts and berries are pretty easily accessible.


It's also a democracy. These terms are not mutually exclusive. Regardless, so what?


Thanks - that took a long time.

Furthermore, to say that the modern Democratic Party as it exists now is the same one created at the beginning of the 19th Century is so laughably ridiculous, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

1. I did answer it the first time. It doesn't matter how it is delivered, only how it is received. Key word: SIFT
2. That is why you care about it. If you are on the left you will oppose the right. if you are on the right you will oppose the left. It's a set-up. Already laid out for you. I recommend trying the middle and focus more on problem solving instead of towing a party line.
3. And crunchy, too.
4. It is a republic using democratic mechanisms to decide outcomes. I never liked gangs even when my family lived on a street with two rival gangs. We moved, eventually.
5. That is because you are smarter and better than me.

The democratic party is not the same and it changes depending on who is in it.

He's right the democratic party today is much different, you have FDR to thank for that, to quote Mencken:

"Nevertheless, and despite all Hell's angels, I shall vote for the Hon. Mr. Landon tomorrow. To a lifelong Democrat, of course, it will be something of a wrench. But it seems to me that the choice is one that genuine Democrats are almost bound to make. On the one side are all the basic principles of their party, handed down from its first days and tried over and over again in the fires of experience; on the other side is a gallimaufry of transparent quackeries, puerile in theory and dangerous in practice. To vote Democratic this year it is necessary, by an unhappy irony, to vote for a Republican. But to vote with the party is to vote for a gang of mountebanks who are no more Democrats than a turkey buzzard is an archangel."

Basically the republicans became the de-facto democrats because of FDR.

I read that. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that you weren't contradicting yourself. If you are saying that it doesn't matter how news is delivered, why are you so stridently opposing bias? If it didn't matter how news was delivered, clearly it wouldn't matter if there was bias.


You have just wasted a substantial amount of my time deviating entirely from the subject. I stated that the left was disenfranchised at the political level in the United States. Instead of responding to that (either agree, or disagreeing with facts) you have spent the better part of the last ten posts trying to convince me that I only see that way because I'm on the left. I trust then that you are entirely incapable of responding to my claim?

More over, by ineloquently dodging my point, you made a staggering amount of ridiculous assertions. Such as:


My guess is that by tangling up this discussion as much as you have, you don't even know what "it" even means anymore. Do I care that one half of the entire political spectrum has been eliminated from political legitimacy in the United States? Yes, and so should anybody with the slightest concern for democratic values. This has absolutely ZERO to do with where I stand politically. If I stood against the disenfranchisement of black Americans, would that have automatically made me black? Would I have to be? According to your mangled logic, yes. But since history is full of people who have stood in favor of marginalized groups whether they belong to that group or not, I fail to see how your suggestion regarding my political leaning as being anything other than entirely groundless.


Or, if you live in reality, if you are on the left, you hold particular view points that are in keeping with some of the views held on the left.


You don't understand the political spectrum. I highly doubt you really mean "try the middle" - which would mean, going a bit more to the left of the Democratic party, embracing the political and economic positions of social democracy. Since trying the middle would still mean "towing a party line" particularly in societies that have a vibrant social democratic political party, I can only assume that this is not what you mean. What I think you mean is embrace the status quo - which is typically what is meant when people who don't quite understand economics suggest when they say that one should try the middle. Unfortunately, I understand enough to know that the status quo is not something I am at all interesting in maintaining or preserving. If this is the middle, no thank you. And by the way, the status quo is just about the most set up, already laid out for you, position you could ever take.


What does this have to do with democracy?


The democratic party is now almost entirely controlled by corporate interests. It doesn't really matter who is in it - apart from some minor variations, it mostly expresses the interests of big business.

1. I only stated what I wanted. I want unbiased neutrality in the news that is delivered. I know that doesn't happen in reality, therefore I sift. In my opinion if you are biased and you deliver news and use your bias to influence public opinion, you shouldn't be in the news business. I am talking about news, not opinion.
2. What facts? You haven't presented one fact. You are not specific about anything actually. You play guessing games and hurl personal attacks like I am responsible for your victim status. You say you are on left and the left is completely disenfranchised. Stop playing the victim and get out of the left so you can get to the middle and see the big picture. Why do you want to be on the left if you feel you are being held down? Why put a label on yourself? It's such a general description isn't it? Same thing if you called yourself right. Isn't disenfranchised a term a capitalist would use anyway? From my perspective left and right are words only. Hence... by calling yourself left, or right, you have taken yourself out of the whole. I know there is a mystery full of meaning here. Find it. I can't do it for you.
3. I guess someone else will get the nuts and berries if you don't want them. I'll just give them to Real Beach Boy for free. Are you sure you don't want some?
4. rule of man vs. rule of law
5. the government has become a business, agreed... and they need customers. one problem... they also make the laws. we are all screwed, it isn't just you.

In the USA the original intent and main purpose of our Gov't is to protect our freedom's, not to provide us with "benefits".

While the rest of the world was rioting in frustrations over cuts in Gov't "benefit's", the people of the the USA protested peacefully while asking for less Gov't.

It all boils down to freedom.

When the Gov't provides everything, one's freedom of choice is automatically diminshed or lost.

If you feel that the Gov't of your country can provide health benefits, education, and senior care better than private enterprise then by all means vote for those that will give you that.

However, if you feel those same benefits can be recieved at a lower cost and better quality with more options by the Gov't staying out of the market and letting entrepeneurs and consumers take care of themselves, then by all means vote for those who you feel will ensure that.

One more thing..

Why won't all of the people who want Socialized Medicine and other Gov't programs just move to those countries that provide them, instead of trying to ruin it for those in America who vehemently oppose that?

After all, what happens when America loses the freedom's it was founded upon? Where else can we go? Last I checked we have millions of people trying to get into the land of opportunity each year whether legally or not because of the opportunity that exists America, economic downturn or not.

Another one more thing...

When a political party passes a Gov't program that provides something or another, it is essentially a way to buy votes. Hence as the realization manifests that said particular program can't be maintained, that same political party can campaign saying, "Look, they are trying to cut your program...therefore vote for me."

All the while the blame, IMO, should be put on the party that started the program in the first place. Such programs cannot be maintained in the long term and when the citizens are informed that those "benefits" they felt entilted  (Key Word) to are on the chopping block, it is likely there will be riots...

I am of the opinion that if people weren't hooked on thoe gov't programs in the 1st place much of that Bull Crap could've been avoided.

It doesn't happen in reality because it is impossible for it to happen in reality. Unbiased news is a myth concocted by organizations intent on maintaining the status quo.


Again, back to square one - how does one in the media avoid being biased?


Well, actually, what I said was if you disagree with my assertion then provide facts to back up your disagreement.

Regardless, that the left is disenfranchised at the political level is a fact. Can you name a politician who represents mostly left wing positions that has had any chance of holding office? Furthermore, you are aware that there were once significant labor parties in the United States that are now almost entirely off the map. There was once a very vibrant socialist party that no longer exists. These are all facts - care to disagree?


Again, you don't understand the political spectrum. The "middle" is roughly the position held by social democrats, who are to the left of the Democratic party. Why would switching my political beliefs help me see the big picture? How would supporting a labor-centered government in a capitalist framework help?

I'm not playing the victim. I'm simply saying what is exactly true - the left is completely marginalized from political legitimacy in the US. If you believe the answer to marginalization is simply giving up and adopting the status quo, then you couldn't be a bigger sucker. I'm afraid I care too much for democratic values and freedom to simply join the group that has worked to eliminate my voice from mainstream discourse.


Because I have principles.


Yes, it is. Of course, in this discussion, I never actually announced my position on left. You were forced to ask me, and when I answered honestly, you have held to it. If anyone is ardently attempting to put a label on me in this discussion, then, it's you, not me, and much hunch is that you have to do that since you simply cannot actually respond to my actual points. Of course the left is a general description. If you want to go deeper, I'm a libertarian-socialist and believe in anarcho-syndicalism. And if you believe that THAT is still putting a label on myself, then, I hate to tell you, but you exist somewhere on the political spectrum as well. You may realize it or you may not, but the fact is, you're there. And it seems to me based on what you've said so far, that you can be quite easily placed - though you may still surprise me. Either way, you are ardently in favor of supporting the status quo, which in all honesty, speaks to your desire for an unbiased media. In fact, the very idea that you believe that such a thing is possible speaks to your level of indoctrination toward the status quo. What you mean when you say you want an unbiased media is that you want a very heavily biased media that is slanted entirely towards the status quo - something that adheres to the accepted beliefs and truisms of your culture to such a strong degree that it appears to be completely objective.

So, yes, I can say where I stand politically precisely because I am honest with myself.


I didn't realize that economists were entitled to words in the dictionary.


Well, they're not. The left represents a wide range of multiple political positions, as does the right and I think it would benefit you enormously to acquaint yourself with the political spectrum.


I don't know what you're talking about. I hold political views that happen to put me on part of one side of a political spectrum. The view that I have are part of a rich historical tradition. The fact that you think that it shouldn't matter if this entire historical tradition were abandoned for the sake of being like other people who hold other views that have their own tradition is absurd to the point of hilarity.


The law is something that is imposed by force and is therefore illegitimate as far as I'm concerned.


I didn't say the government has become a business. I said it is controlled by business interests.
[/quote]

That is patent nonsense. Sure there was a lot of lip service paid about freedom, but this came at the entire expense of the freedom of the people whose land was being dispossessed in the name of this new nation. Meanwhile you had central framers of the US system like John Jay stating that the people who own the country ought to govern it, and everyone else should just stay out of it.


Unlike in a system of monopolies.


 :lol :lol :lol

Can you name anyone who has suggested providing universal health care who has had the power to make that happen?


The US health care system is the most expensive in the industrialized world and consequently the most inefficient.


[/quote]

noname, you do realise that 'IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT HERE, MOVE' is not a rational political arguement right?

Welcome to the United States. ;D

[/quote]

1. Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why. Not a myth. Not a concoction by status quo. What is status quo anyway except the state something is in which changes? It's a generalization. You can't presume to know what is in the hearts and minds of every individual.

2. I have said before I am not political. I am not on the political spectrum. Politics is greasy. So middle means "peak" so I can look down both sides of the mountain, or cross-section. A step back position. The Labor parties and socialist parties are unwanted by the people. I don't disagree they existed. I think people woke up and realized they could make it on their own. No one is eliminating your voice... your voice is here and I hear it and I am not trying to shut you down, am I? You can talk all you want or spread your message, but if people disagree with you or don't like what you say, you can't get all bent out of shape about it. I care about human values and freedom, but freedom from what exactly? You can never escape yourself, so that's where the effort should go.

You didn't force me to ask you about your political position. I asked to establish why you cared. The only reason to care is if you are in it. It's important to you and I get that. Can you be honest with yourself un-politically? Off the ride? I really don't get why you feel the need to be legitimized politically. Is it because you think you will have all-encompassing power to do whatever you want? You talk about culture and history. I say hold on to as much of that culture as you can. But if you want revenge for what happened in the past, the people who committed the dastardly deeds are long gone. And if you think the general population is unaware of what happened to the Native Americans, you need to re-think. Nothing can be done about it now because we are all trying to stay alive ourselves. At least you have a rich history to look back on. I am 3rd generation from other countries and can only go back so far for my roots. records lost and what-not, but so what. Is it frustrating? Sure, but all I have is now and what is before me. Pretty much everyone in this country comes from some form of displacement.

I think you need to take a step back and take a longer look. Get pissed off as hell if you want, but don't repeat the same mistakes. I was told by a friend once that man doesn't live long enough to learn from his mistakes. If you want to be pissed at someone, you have the Spanish to blame for their destructive ways long before Andrew Jackson. But again, that is in the past.

If you need a spectrum, how about the light spectrum? Light or dark? Positive or negative? Creative or destructive?

3. boy, these nuts sure are good. (straight man line, run with it)

4. The law is to protect people from people who crap on other people's porches.

5. The government should remain as moderate as possible and keep their hand out of the cookie jar.

You are living in a dream world if you believe that this produces unbiased news. Who decides the "Who's" and the "What's" that makes the news? There is a limited amount of space in both television and print - so there's always something that gets in and something that gets left out. Some "Who's" and "What's" are considered worthy for a news story and some aren't - how do you make that decision objectively? Furthermore, are all those stories given equal weight or do some deserve more space than others? How do you decide that? Even if magically, all the stories were given equal weight, which stories go on the front page and which ones end up on page 9? What story is given the "lead spot" and which one is given just before sports? How do you decide those questions objectively?

As far as the "Why" is concerned - there's a big problem for you. The "Why" demands analysis - an analysis means interpretation. And there's no way to get past subjective bias when you are interpreting something.


I suggest you read what I wrote. I never said that unbiased news was "a concoction of the status quo" - I said it was a concoction by organizations (like, say, General Electric) intent on maintaining the status quo.


 ??? Status quo means keeping things the way that they are.


No. It's a word with a precise definition.


And what makes you think I do?


 :lol

Sorry - but saying you are "not political" is precisely the same thing as saying you are political and your stance is in favor of the status quo. If you wanted to change the system, you would have to take a firm political stance and since you don't, then I can only conclude that you are happy that things basically stay the way they are. You might like to see one party get in over another (perhaps, on occasion) but this is the extent of your opinion. I'm afraid to be the one to tell you this, but that's just as political a stance as the one I take - it's just more offensive since you can't be honest with yourself and admit how political you actually are.


 :lol

You think there isn't room for people on the spectrum who pretty much like things the way they are in the particular society in which they live?


The political spectrum isn't about day to day activity on Capital Hill. It's about where you stand on economics and where you stand on power. And your posts thus far, incidentally, have made it perfectly clear that you have very firm ideas on both matters. Since you are clearly in favor of both some form of capitalism (perhaps laissez-faire free market enterprise) and in favor of some kind of government, and in favor of the law (you have pretty much said all of these things) then this really narrows down exactly where you stand on the spectrum.

I think you may flatter yourself by truly believing that you stand outside of politics but you fail to realize that no matter what you do, you can't escape it. The very things you have said have shown just how narrow your political stance really is.


Thanks for making up your own definition of what middle means. In reality, the middle of the political spectrum is pretty much made up of social democrats - something that you're not.


Bullsh!t. The Socialist Party of America had decent showings throughout United States history but struggled because of things like their leaders being thrown in prison. Then by the 1950s, the party died out because the government began accusing citizens of disloyalty, treason, and subversion if they happened to associate with anyone who may have had some kind of vague link to communism. Careers were destroyed, and people were imprisoned. Is it any wonder that people stopped voting for the Socialist Party? Of course not - they were being intimidated and it's no coincidence that the party died at the height of the intense Salem-esque hysteria of the 1950s. Then between 1956 and 1971, the CIA was used as the national political police in very much the same way that Stalin used his own police squad, to illegally spy, infiltrate, discredit and disrupt "subversive" organizations - the vast majority of which happened to be socialist and communist groups - under a program called Cointelpro. The program worked and, in many ways, succeeded, in undermining both the Communist Party USA and the Socialist Workers Party.

So, no, people did not "wake up and realize they could make it on their own." Rather, socialist and communist groups were actively and persistently dismantled, discredited, delegitimized, persecuted, and shut away for decades. The groups and the people in it were made perfectly aware that their very security and their livelihood was in danger by holding these political views. The inevitable consequence was that a once vibrant community was basically reduced to a shell of what it was. This was exactly the intention of the US governmental organizations that were constructed precisely for this purpose - to disenfranchise the left from the political mainstream.


This is not mainstream discourse, is it? Thousands of posts on a message board is in no way a threat to the status quo. Where you don't hear a voice like mine is in the mainstream press or in mainstream history. If you did, you would know a fraction of the information I gave you above, rather than simply make the utterly groundless and hysterically embarrassing assertion that the reason why there is no longer a viable socialist alternative at the political level is simply because the people stopped wanting it. You're a fine product of a system that has absolutely eliminated dissenting voices.


You asked to manufacture a reason why I cared. If you really wanted to know why I cared, you would have asked the question: "Why do you care?" as opposed to asking, "Are you on the left?" so that when I said, "Yes", you could tell me that that's the reason why I cared. It was intellectually dishonest then and your pretense now that you were doing it to "establish why I cared" is only further evidence of your lack of credibility.


I honestly think that it's disturbing that you are trying to tell me why I care about something, especially after I already made it crystal clear to you why I care.


Can you even pretend to explain what that means without blowing a ton of smoke?


Since the beginning I have been talking about the left, not about me. If you could actually read for comprehension, you would have seen that.


Yes. That's exactly it. That's the goal of every anarcho-syndicalist.  ::)


It took about ten posts for you to even remember that they existed in 1776. In this case, I am less concerned about the general population.


Yeah, I can imagine how your day to day struggle to stay alive would really get in the way of the government making reparations of past injustices.  ::)

Regardless, I wasn't even asking for anything to be done about it. I made a brief reference to Natives in the late 1700s and you suddenly got defensive about how you had nothing to do with it. Here's a little something you may have missed in the fine print: I NEVER ACCUSED YOU OF HAVING ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT. In fact, my reference to the Natives had diddly squat to do with the present circumstances or even their circumstances pre-contact. My only reason for bringing them up was to illustrate how they, along with other groups, were fine examples of how the freedom brought to the "people" in the United States, did not include all the people. That's all I said and it was precisely true - even by the late 19th Century, the US government denied the legitimacy of the Natives as people in the constitution.


Uh huh. Now explain to me why the law changes when the power structure changes. Why, for example, were new laws created once the United States became a country? If the sole purpose of the law is to protect people from other people, you'd figure that it would have stayed the same, no?


In other words, you are staking out a very obvious position on the political spectrum.

Has it been established yet that OBLiO is the Phil Cohen of this thread?  :lol

Just another target to demonize. Leave Phil out of it. It's not the first time Real beach Boy has crapped on someone's porch spewing hate and paranoid delusions.

The law is there to protect people from people who crap on other people's porches.

"You agree, through your use of this forum, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, adult material, or otherwise in violation of any International or United States Federal law. You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright or you have written consent from the owner of the copyrighted material. Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also forbidden on this forum."

If it's ok with hypehat, I'd like to ask the other moderators here to leave this thread up without removing any posts in order to show how Real Beach Boy and rockandroll, by their own example, proved my point regarding what a true socialist nation looks like and why it will always fail.

Sorry your thread was crapped on there hypehat, I tried to help you clean it up.

 

For the record, I am also known as The Real Beach Boy on here (I change my name on here every so often although most often I go back to The Real Beach Boy). I'd like to know what exactly in this thread is indicative of me "crapping on someone's porch spewing hate and paranoid delusions."

As far as the Phil reference, that was as far as it was going and it should have been obvious (hence the smiley) that I was joking.

No one is going to delete this thread as it's quite obvious that only a half dozen or so people really care about it, and, it's not really to a point of anyone really throwing stones; we're just in a state of mutual disagreement.

This is exactly, perfectly and abundantly clear to anyone who's seen more than 15 minutes of "Fox News".

It's all about disinformation.  Pure and simple.  Why would anyone debate this?

"Keep them doped with religion, sex and TV."

Let's enumerate all those "freedoms that America was founded upon" for black people and women.

zero = 0

Freedom to be a slave.

Case closed.

If only it was that easy. If it was up to me, I'd be in the Netherlands right now. Unfortunately, I don't have that option right now.

Mr. noname, with all due respect, the "if you don't like it, leave" argument represents the last resort of an individual whose ideologue has been discredited by others in this discussion. One can love the fatherland of the United States but disagree most strongly with the government of the United States, as I certainly do on both counts. I hear Americans who say "if you don't like it, leave" and I envision sheep being led off to slaughter. And when sh*t hits the fan, they all say "have faith in the government, the government will help us all"; unbeknownst to them, they're never going to be protected from anything. It is misguided patriotism to a point beyond being pathetic.

Besides, this discussion was already over when Godwin's law was proven yet again.

So noted. Although applicable, I am not entirely convinced that's what derailed the thread.
I need to do a little research... not sure if what I am looking for exists, yet. I'll let you know.

I cite the comparison to Phil Cohen as unfair, in that, I have never declared the non-release of the Smile Sessions. I know it will be released. Joke noted.

The reference to spewing hate and paranoid delusions refers to comments regarding a news station.
Remember, when I started a thread about the Beach Boys charity work for tornado victims?

As a private citizen of the Smiley Smile community, I recommend the citation of the paradox corollary of the Wilcox-McCandish law of online discourse to the governing body in order to bring the thread back to it's original subject matter.

Did you catch the story on Kanye West turning Godwin's Law on himself last week?

The idea of "anyone who doesn't like what is here now should go elsewhere" is ridiculous, in that it assumes that the way things are is either (or both of) a) the way things used to be, or b) the way things ought to be. Neither of which is ever true unless you live in an unchanging photograph or a utopia. So, for example, the suggestion that Americans who believe a single-payer healthcare system should leave the country rather than try to change the America in which they live, this assumes that Americans who believe otherwise are the truer, more correct Americans who have distilled the nature of Americanness. The rest of us are leeches, imposters, or whatever. We should leave so you can have your America. All well and good, right? Except what if I said the same thing? You should leave so I can have [/i]my[/i] America. See? It's, uh, what's the word ... fucking retarded. There are a lot of us. We disagree on most things, most of the time. We have to work out solutions that are as least distasteful as possible, and that's it.