Political Roll Call - Page 10

On January 30 2010 07:38 Zato-1 wrote:

Yeah, until you realize that Obama is not a being born of a superior race / social class / political class. He's a guy, like 300 million others. Sure, when there's that many people and power is concentrated in government, most of them have only a little political power (their vote, and those of whoever else they manage to convince). If you want more political power, there's no one stopping you from dedicating yourself to politics, however.

On February 01 2010 08:00 fox[tail] wrote:


DUDE WTF. Serbia has nothing to do with that propaganda bullshit you just said, Croatia during that time was fascist, Serbia was ultra-nationalist, Serbia has always been anti-fascist, don't mention something you know nothing about. Jean-Marie Le Pen is the far right in France now.
In actually ideology the differences between communism and fascism are very small. Programs enacted by the Nazi party and Fascisti in Italy were, guaranteed employment for all citizens, confiscation of WWI profits, shared profits of labor; expanded old age pensions, communalization of department stores, out lawing of child labor, universal health care and anti smoking programs, to name a few. None of these programs can be called right wing or anti communist. Hitler himself said " We have endeavored to depart from the external, the superficial, endeavored to forget social origin, class, profession, fortune, education, capital, and everything that separates men, in order to reach that which bind them together." To a communist the struggle is international and as Marx put it "working men have no country" to fascists they said that the dreams of communism can be made INSIDE a country, and did not need to be an international struggle. That was the principle difference, as all communist regimes have embraced corporatism in some aspect in their history. Hitler and Mussolini both wanted to create Volksgemeinschaft or "peoples (workers) communities." Communism and fascism are two sides of the same coin, with fascism not being as controlling to private business as communism was but still very totalitarian. Keep in mind the Nazi part was called the National SOCIALIST party, if that is any indication of their true leanings.

No i have apsolutly no idea who that Milosevic guy is, and i found your comments inappropriate, i dont want to argue but you just cant say something and have absolutely no proof whatsoever

On February 02 2010 04:56 Biff The Understudy wrote:

Tell everybody what extrem right did in Kosovo, in your country, hmm? :-)

Jean Marie Le Pen is a fascist, and is an nostalgic of Pétain. He is sued every six month for saying that German were not that bad after all and that gas chamber didn't exist.

You development on why Communism and Fascism are similar at the end are wrong. Read the Manifesto. And then read Mein Kampf. Compare. There is just no similarity whatsoever, they are absoluetely contrary ideologies.



Now on topic.

What makes left wing is a determinism which doesn't exist in right wing philosophy. For a right winger, hierarchy is good and natural and someone who deserve it will climb the ladder. For a left winger, someone who is in the shit didn't have luck in his life and need to be protected from exploitation. That's very summarized but that's the best synthetic definition I have found.

Deleuze, French philosopher was saying that the difference between right and left wingers is a question of perception, and that it was like the way you would read a postal envelop:

The right winger reads My Name, My Family, My Street, My District, My Country, My continent, and finally The World.

Left winger is opposite. He start with the Universal to come to the particular.

Voluntary socialism or communism leads into anarcho-communism.
Voluntary individualism leads into anarcho-capitalism.

On February 02 2010 04:56 Biff The Understudy wrote:

Tell everybody what extrem right did in Kosovo, in your country, hmm? :-)

Jean Marie Le Pen is a fascist, and is an nostalgic of Pétain. He is sued every six month for saying that German were not that bad after all and that gas chamber didn't exist.

You development on why Communism and Fascism are similar at the end are wrong. Read the Manifesto. And then read Mein Kampf. Compare. There is just no similarity whatsoever, they are absoluetely contrary ideologies.



Now on topic.

What makes left wing is a determinism which doesn't exist in right wing philosophy. For a right winger, hierarchy is good and natural and someone who deserve it will climb the ladder. For a left winger, someone who is in the shit didn't have luck in his life and need to be protected from exploitation. That's very summarized but that's the best synthetic definition I have found.

Deleuze, French philosopher was saying that the difference between right and left wingers is a question of perception, and that it was like the way you would read a postal envelop:

The right winger reads My Name, My Family, My Street, My District, My Country, My continent, and finally The World.

Left winger is opposite. He start with the Universal to come to the particular.

On February 02 2010 04:35 CharlieMurphy wrote:

That's what I was talking about. People only have the 2 choices selected by the electoral college, I never like either of them. No matter who becomes president, or mayor, or governor, or whatever, there is always things that I disagree with from either candidate. And also, it takes too much effort to figure out what exactly their views and policies are in the first place. Basically It doesn't matter to me who I vote for because I'm in no position to be effected by anything anyways.
So it's just a waste of my time to go down and vote.

On February 02 2010 04:24 Yurebis wrote:

All you people who use the word anarchist on the internet without checking wikipedia: lolz

On February 02 2010 05:18 Yurebis wrote:

Couldn't a similarity be that both look at a state to establish (impose) their ideologies? I think that's what fox[tail] is getting at.
You mentioned the collective/individualistic inclinations (collective property v. private property), but what about the voluntary/involuntary implications?

Voluntary socialism or communism leads into anarcho-communism.
Voluntary individualism leads into anarcho-capitalism.

But since both fascism and socialism/communism use the state to manage property, it is really a social order where the ultimate owner and controller is... dun dun, the state.
The difference is one of focus of the government? I think in both situations, the state is looking to plan the whole economy, be it with the help of intellectuals or with corporatists, in the end, it's the same deal. A priviledged class who plans what to do with virtually everything they wish to regulate.
Made any sense?

On February 02 2010 06:07 fox[tail] wrote:


I'm sorry but fighting terrorism is not a crime, thats what Milosevic did (he was a left-winger by the way) READ:
http://www.kosovo.net/albterrorism.html and...
http://www.brasscheck.com/yugoslavia/directory/62399a.html

Hitler did not come up with fascism, and for the millionth time don't talk about something you know nothing about.
Oh wow look at what the extreme right in your country did to: Algeria (France killed a million and a half of Algerians from 1954-1962 During France's occupation of Algeria, large numbers of Algerians were forced into "tent cities" and concentration camps. It has been estimated that from 1830 to 1900, between 15 and 25% of the Algerian population died in such camps.), Indochina and practically all of your colonies in Africa. Lets all go araound calling all French people Fascist's, ESPECIALLY Charles de Gaulle because he was a right-winger (who cares if he claimed to transcend the left/right rift and leaned more to the left), and we allllll know what right-wingers are... thats right FASCISTS

As for fascist and communist simmularites:

fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory—that both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state—that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders—that under both systems, the poor are enslaved and the rich are expropriated in favor of a ruling clique—that fascism is not the product of the political “right,” but of the “left”—that the basic issue is not “rich versus poor,” but man versus the state, or: individual rights versus totalitarian government—which means: capitalism versus socialism.

On February 02 2010 06:19 Biff The Understudy wrote:

lol.

Communism and socialism have nothing in common. In Marxist theory, Socialism is a step towards communism. And Stalinism is a degenerated for of Socialism. Anyway.

That's funny, all people who commit war crimes / genocides / etc are "fighting terrorism". Milosevic ended up his life at the international tribunal. Guess why.

My country has been a colonial power, and has commited an incrdible amount of crimes, includiong in Algeria. But I don't see what's the point? You know who is the last one to say that we should have stayed in Algeria, that it should still be our? Le Pen. He was a soldier during the war, and it has been proven that he was torturing prisonners. And the faction of the army which was asking to continue this war were fascists, the OAS. And they tried to kill De Gaulle, who was absolutely not a ultra nationalist or any kind of far right (he was a Bonapartist right side, as is Sarkozy).

On February 02 2010 06:03 L wrote:
Why exactly does voluntary acceptance infer the lack of government?

I might voluntarily want to be a capitalist, but I also want someone to be able to enforce the bargains that I make, and I want that entity to be the state.

The focus on the state in your post rises from your creation of a false dichotomy.

Communism and socialism have nothing in common.

On February 02 2010 06:11 Biff The Understudy wrote:

No. You are very wrong, abouut everything you say for a very good reason, Communism is a society without state. And witout private property. :-)

I don't want to be mean, but people are using words they don't have any idea about. Is like "Oh yeah, Communism, so like USSR, so I can make a big theory that..." So before talking about Communism, why not starting by reading Marx? Manifesto is short and give you a good idea of what it is about.

Communism is the other word for Democracy, in a Platonician term. It is the generic word for an emancipated society, liberated from the hold of merchant relationship. It has never been achieved, and certainly not by what people abusively call "Communist" countries like China, USSR, Cuba, etc... which were all Socialist countries (with a strong state). You know whaat USSR means? Union of Sovietic Socialist Republics. It's not USCR.

By the way, Communism apart, if I had to chose a ruler, I would prefer the State than big companies as it is the case in the US. Socialism is a pretty bad system imo (not because of the Republican bullshit that OMG IT IS ALL A BIG PLOT, but because bureaucracy is damn inefficient), but it's 300 times better than letting the whole society being ruled by the greed and private interest of faceless multinational monsters.

On February 02 2010 06:09 cgrinker wrote:



I don't use Wikipedia because I'm a Anarchist and it's too much centralized power.

You've been trolled!

On February 02 2010 04:24 Yurebis wrote:
I don't think communism by itself implies statelessness, that would be anarcho-communism as I said b4, but I won't argue semantics and instead I'll agree with that, the ends of communism may be an anarchical society after all and that's great.
Edit: By that's great, I mean, it stops there. At the ends. Because every means that use state force fail in my book, by my subjective principles... I don't use historical interpretations as premises for anything.
You lost me where you said that a society can be ruled by greed. Tell me, how can you discern between a greedy person and a non-greedy person? And how can you discern someone that has self-interest for one who does not?

Because you see, I don't see any difference. Greed and egoism to me are inherent characteristics of rational beings, for they cannot be, feel, or think what others do. He can only be himself. Even the most altruistic person is only acting on his own perception of what is the world he is trying to help. He can only estimate what others want, only guess what they need. I think a better criteria that would separate the "greedy" for the "non-greedy" the popular way, is someone who's short-sighted versus long-sighted. I think the more "altruistic" people realize that in the long run, collaboration trumps defection (prisoner's dilemma, etc.) and so they work for that future, while the more "greedy" ones might just see short term goals and forget that people are able to retaliate, hold grudges, ostracize him back.

A second point is that, how can someone you deem to be "non-greedy" possibly be justified in enforcing that which is good for the common good through statist violence? If that which is good for the common good was really good for everyone, then how come everyone isn't already up-in-arms against the bourgeois, or the state already? It would be anarcho-communism as is. Well, forget it, it's too much praxeology aka libertarian bullshit for one post...

On February 02 2010 07:36 Biff The Understudy wrote:

Sorry but you don't know what you are talking about. It's not about "I think that Communism is". Communism is an invention of Marx. Go read Marx. If you haven't, don't tell someone who has read it all what Communism is or is not. Communism is society without class and without state. Period. And it ahs nothing to do with anarchy.

Now, greed and self interest are not "inherent to a rationnal being." They are inherent to what human is at his lowest state.

That's precisely why Sartres said (excuse me if it's offensive, i'm not responsible here) Tout anti communiste est un chien: Every anti communist is a dog. Because if we are only ruled by egoism, self interest and greed, we don't worth much more than animals.

What you say is what French revolutionary called Corruption. Corruption was not an illegal transaction, but precisely the society rules by greed, ruled by self interest. And in this way, Capitalism is the summum of Corruption.

There is much more to life than making money, and thinking about you and what you owe and how you could owe more. I know that it is the dominant ideology, and I am truely sorry for everybody who has suh a nihilistic approach of life.

On February 02 2010 08:32 Yurebis wrote:

But an anarchy is exactly that, the absence of a state... so there must be something in common with marxism's ends? Which are as you say a "society without class and without state". That's one out of two, the second part being the "communist" in "anarcho-comunist".

And damn, I heard of Sartre before but did not know he was a communist until you mentioned him... that blows lol. Any sympathy I had for him is gone...

I'm not going to pick on your collectivism too much. Just one point. You can't know what the 'common good' is. You know why? Because you are only yourself. You as a member of a collective, still can only evaluate what you want, and only approximate what others want. The planner as well. He's only the planner, and the planner can only approximate what he thinks the common good needs and wants. These approximations get exponentially (non-mathematically speaking) immeasurable as the common good grows.

This is one aspect where the free market completely beats even the purest and best leaders of socialism or communism. In the free market, these systems of decisions are incredibly disperse, and every "greedy" person's evaluations are valves and meters for the system. That is the price control system, and no single leader or artificial hierarchy of leaders can beat the free association of people, regardless whether you think private property is right or not. Though it is certainly the case that if you think it is wrong, then the whole utilitarian argument shouldn't appeal you at all and I defend you there. If you think that's wrong, that's k. I have my own set of "wrong" things to complain about.

However, do not ever, ever come to me saying that your system is the most efficient (edit: not saying you did, I'm asking beforehand because I'm that presumptuous), or the one that elevates the standards of living the most, because that would be a lie sir, a pure lie. It cannot come to be, at any medium to large scale of production, because no single person can plan that which the market does dispersedly. Only an immeasurable number of "greedy" producers, attempting to provide for "greedy" consumers acting voluntarily, buying from the efficient and ostracizing the inefficient can incentivize everyone to do their very best. That level of efficiency I argue, cannot be brought about by a system without unhampered price controls, be it due to the absence of private property or the abuse of a state. Oh my god that was a load of libertarian bullshit right here.

Edit: That is why, between a voluntary communist society, and a voluntary capitalist society, I would choose the latter, for pure utilitarian reasons... when it's right past the non-aggression principle.