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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
On January 22 2013 11:13 sam!zdat wrote:
My point is that the kind of tyranny you should be worried about now is not the kind that comes out of a gun, it's the kind that comes out of your television set. Yes I believe that our current order is tyrannical. It's a very powerful tyranny precisely because it is so subtle, and it tells everyone that they are free, and they believe it. "War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength."
I think that's a rather naive outlook. Tyrannical? Not really. We are probably the most liberal civilization to have ever been on the face of earth (maybe not the USA exclusively, but definitely the class of nations of which the USA is part of).
I understand you think there is something wrong with someone being in power through money or democratic choice, but by what other means do you think someone should achieve power? Without stratification, there is no society, and you can't have stratification without some level of power disparity. Whether that power comes through political connections as in a communist structure, monetary power in a capitalistic structure, or military power in war, it doesn't really matter. You will still have an entity or group of individuals helping shape the opinions of the greater populace through their power. You cannot have "powerless" social structures, even within networked or decentralized governments. So if not democracy, what would you propose?
On January 22 2013 11:13 sam!zdat wrote:@radscorpion: I can't explain the full reasons for what I think in every post, it doesn't work like that. I'm sorry if you feel I'm being overly enigmatic. I think often the kind of "arguments" (edit: and definitely "links" and "videos") with which people purport to "prove" their points are more disingenuous than simply saying what you think without a reason. Some people just think I'm crazy and pretentious, and they can ignore me. Ok. Other people will hear me say things and wonder why I might think that. Perhaps that will lead them down some interesting paths of their own. edit: and I often give reasons for what I think, but I don't always think of the reasons until people challenge me on things. So I like to say what I think, often in a deliberately provocative manner, and let things go from there. This is actually part of the process of how I think about things - I learn from doing this. I don't have the whole argument sitting in my head in flow-chart form, just waiting to pounce on poor unsuspecting TLers  edit: also I don't want to go digging through books for citations all the time when I say stuff here, to me that's what WORK is edit: I thought it might be useful to specify that this is not a conspiracy theory. the tyranny organized itself (if you have ever studied dynamical systems theory or read Foucault you will know what I am talking about). That's why politicians are so banal - they are irrelevant. America is like a chicken with its head cut off, running around doing the same things over and over without thinking about it, without any conscious control, because that's what chickens with their heads cut off do.
I honestly think you do that because you can't back them up.
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On January 22 2013 13:07 BluePanther wrote:
I honestly think you do that because you can't back them up.
ok
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I tried to read samzdat comments hoping to understand it better after each reread, but the more I do so, the more I agree with bluepanther, that all you are saying is mindless blabber that you heard or read somewhere without actually understanding it. Namedropping Foucault just did it, even the baker in the bread shop next block to my house does it.
If you can't back this tyranny complex system shit up, keep out. Or beter yet, explain it using your own thoughts and words.
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On January 22 2013 13:14 neggro wrote:
I tried to read samzdat comments hoping to understand it better after each reread, but the more I do so, the more I agree with bluepanther, that all you are saying is mindless blabber that you heard or read somewhere without actually understanding it. Namedropping Foucault just did it, even the baker in the bread shop next block to my house does it.
If you can't back this tyranny complex system shit up, keep out. Or beter yet, explain it using your own thoughts and words.
What sort of amazing bakery do you go to in which the baker name drops Foucault?
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On January 22 2013 13:15 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2013 13:14 neggro wrote:
I tried to read samzdat comments hoping to understand it better after each reread, but the more I do so, the more I agree with bluepanther, that all you are saying is mindless blabber that you heard or read somewhere without actually understanding it. Namedropping Foucault just did it, even the baker in the bread shop next block to my house does it.
If you can't back this tyranny complex system shit up, keep out. Or beter yet, explain it using your own thoughts and words. What sort of amazing bakery do you go to in which the baker name drops Foucault?
Believe it or not, he "explained" Panopticon to me, seeing me in my police uniform and the recent headlines in the papers. I know right.
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see, why the fuck do you think I don't reference the reasons for things I think, you name one author and all the sudden you're the pseudointelletual antichrist. I don't even like foucault all that much
edit: the point is his notion of a "strategy." foucault doesn't really know the first thing about strategy, but he has a useful notion. The point is about how things arise as a consequence of the mechanics of the system (they exhibit spontaneous order) that is not due to secret machinations by any man behind the curtain.
edit: that is why every person in power can be a banal fool, and yet there is still a tyranny.
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On January 21 2013 13:54 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2013 13:17 Leporello wrote:On January 21 2013 12:18 Millitron wrote:On January 21 2013 11:52 radscorpion9 wrote:On January 21 2013 10:04 Millitron wrote:On January 21 2013 07:32 Nouar wrote:
Oh god, why can't we ever get out of this "guns don't kill, people do" argument ?!
Ok, guns don't kill people. But it eases the act of killing so much it's indecent. A normal guy can have a moment of madness, if at this moment, he doesn't have a firearm at his disposal, there's so much less chance he kills someone...
It's putting the wrong tools in the hands of the (potentially) wrong person.
Oh hey, nuclear bombs don't kill, it's the guy who launches it who kills ! So why can't everyone own his own nuke ? Hey, fair idea, right ? I absolutely hate the nuclear bomb strawman nonsense. If you have the money and connections to get one, you are responsible enough to have one. Being crazy and having the money and connections needed to acquire a nuke are mutually exclusive. I found this part of your argument a bit surprising. On what basis can you claim that people who have enough resources to acquire something are therefore responsible enough to have it? I mean if you're talking in general, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want someone like North Korea's leader to have a nuke because he's somewhat unstable. Or any other rogue nation, for that matter. Syria's "leader" Bashar Al-Assad could potentially unleash chemical weapons on his own population; clearly he's not responsible. If you're just talking about an American citizen, it still isn't clear why what you're saying is true. I just don't see the correlation between being powerful and being responsible. I think maybe if you define the people specifically as "crazies" then maybe you're right. But there are lot of people who may be brainwashed or have very warped thinking, that will with determination find a way to pursue their extreme agenda. Personally, I'd be ok with any nation having nukes. By this I mean I would not find it morally reprehensible. The US isn't some bastion of good will and justice when it comes to foreign affairs, so if we can have nukes despite our failings, why can't Iran or North Korea? I would prefer if they did not have them, but I don't believe I can say they should not be allowed to have them. But that's for another thread, or PM's. As for civilians, in order to become that powerful, you had to be reasonable. Remember, nukes are so hard to get, entire countries have trouble doing it. This is not the kind of task an irresponsible person is capable of. Any psycho can drive a car through a crowd of people, or shoot up some public gathering, but it takes just such a huge amount of money and connections, that even sane civilians would have trouble succeeding. In any case, regardless of my opinion on it, all this nuke talk is pretty blatantly just a strawman. It's not a strawman. It illustrates a valid point. "Arms" is a very generic term, which, given the extremely life-threatening capabilities of modern technology, has already been compromised on in regards to the 2nd Amendment. Thus, most of us can't own lots of various arms that the military uses, such as artillery. Or nukes. What happens when "arms" takes a new turn as it did when semi-automatic guns were invented? Most of the handguns today would devastate the common weapons of the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries. Are we to take this generic "objects don't kill people" approach into the indefinite future? There are guns today that can bring down airplanes. These are generally exceptional, hard to get, and hopefully tracked by government agencies. But perhaps the handguns (if they're "guns" at all) of future generations will be just as capable of such devastation. Should everyone have one? Should they be common household items? Will that save lives? Should the common sense of the time not override the ideology of the 17th century slave-owners? Guns in 1776, in Europe and America, were only just beginning to be commonplace. It was only just recently that armies began using them. They could have no idea where the technology would go. Guns were the best - and the only - weapon. Artillery, high-explosives, and the such did not occur to them. In 1776, America was actually forbidding itself a standing army. All they had was militia. And they had slaves to control - not a slight problem in the least. So guns were it. They were the only weapon that mattered, and they were the defense of our nation. I don't mean to lecture, but it's pretty obvious that the mentality of that early America is almost completely irrelevant. We have a standing army now, to say the least, which is something our ancestors considered sacrilege. We've compromised on the concept that everyone can own whatever weapon they want. They can't. You can't own any weapon you might wish for, such as nukes. There are limits, and perhaps we should create some more, as our technology continues to develop. This nuke thing is really angering now. Firearms protect individuals (the Bill of Rights is dedicated this idea). Nukes protect nations. That is the difference. A citizen cannot protect himself with a nuke, but a nation can protect itself with one. That applies to all of these ridiculous comparisons. Comparing fusion/fission and combustion is not fair, anyway. Well, considering you have't proposed any other way of determining what is ok and what is not, I say stick with that ideology, especially since it is still applicable. Also, I have no idea what the ad hominem attack was for (slave owners? How is this relevant?). You give them so little credit, anyway. They knew technology would advance. They knew things would become more advanced, that a militia or army would never be just a group of farmers. Instead of performing a form Chronological Snobbery, why don't you engage their points. I am saying you are performing a fallacy because I see you are from the US, so you SHOULD know the rational for the second amendment, and how it had nothing to do with how many people a gun could kill. If they only meant (and only thought) in terms of muskets, they would have used the word "muskets." I guess criminals should have the latest glock while the good guy is restricted to a past era pistol? US Constitution: article 2, section 2: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States,...." They didn't object to armies, far from it. Your post is filled with little things which serve no purpose than to cast those in favor of gun rights as crazy, stupid, or outdated. You can't dismiss pages and pages and hours and hours of debate, discussion, and study with the phrase "common sense." Please stop. It's funny though, as gun control has no record of success, continuing to demand it seems more ideological than anything else.
This post is a couple pages old, but I have to respond upon seeing it. It isn't an "ad hominem" attack to point out that our nation was founded by slave owners, and that being a slave owner meant you needed a gun.
The fact that you see that as an insult is very telling. I didn't even try to make it sound insulting. It's just a piece of historical context. Slave owners needed guns.
My post was very civil, moreso than yours. I do not call anyone crazy or stupid (at least not in that post, huehuehue).
But your response is not surprising.
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On January 22 2013 13:24 sam!zdat wrote:
see, why the fuck do you think I don't reference the reasons for things I think, you name one author and all the sudden you're the pseudointelletual antichrist. I don't even like foucault all that much
edit: the point is his notion of a "strategy." foucault doesn't really know the first thing about strategy, but he has a useful notion. The point is about how things arise as a consequence of the mechanics of the system (they exhibit spontaneous order) that is not due to secret machinations by any man behind the curtain.
edit: that is why every person in power can be a banal fool, and yet there is still a tyranny.
The US is not a tyranny. Don't be stupid.
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On January 22 2013 14:26 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2013 13:24 sam!zdat wrote:
see, why the fuck do you think I don't reference the reasons for things I think, you name one author and all the sudden you're the pseudointelletual antichrist. I don't even like foucault all that much
edit: the point is his notion of a "strategy." foucault doesn't really know the first thing about strategy, but he has a useful notion. The point is about how things arise as a consequence of the mechanics of the system (they exhibit spontaneous order) that is not due to secret machinations by any man behind the curtain.
edit: that is why every person in power can be a banal fool, and yet there is still a tyranny. The US is not a tyranny. Don't be stupid.
I don't think it is either, but it's a bit of a subjective term. Ask Jose Padilla. But what we are seeing is that if our government does bend to influence, it is to outside, monetary influences. Tyranny can come from private enterprise as well as from within the government itself. Who're we supposed to kill when we feel the righteous cause to fight tyranny, like our forefathers wanted us to?
And frankly, we have been tyrannical in the past. I shan't dare mention slavery again *cough*, but there are numerous instances of our government breaking its own rules to the detriment of free people.
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Padilla was treated unfairly, but he is pretty much a traitor, I have little sympathy for him. Can we do a little better for evidence of tyranny than one guy who was denied a trial for a while and... "kind of" (far worse things have been done to people) tortured? He did get his trial, just not a speedy one. Plus his story has nothing to do with outside monetary influences that I can see.
If you can't figure out who is oppressing you, I don't think you're oppressed enough to go killing anyone. I also don't see running off and killing people who maybe are vaguely connected to some oppressor as super effective. The Syrians don't have to wonder.
We are doing far better than the founding fathers did in matching their rhetoric to reality, Look at the horrible shit Jefferson said about Africans. Women's suffrage took a damn while too. Let's try to avoid idolizing those people. (A hopeless request in America, I know.) Even though Jefferson would have said Martin Luther King, or any black man was: "in reason much inferior... and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous." I would much rather embrace King's philosophy when it comes to fighting oppression in a Republic like ours over the warmongering of Jefferson, in his defense though, he was, trying to escape from the yoke of a real tyrant.
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If we talk about this, my dear friend Blue Panther, you're gonna have to talk about those "word" things you love so much.
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On January 22 2013 11:44 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2013 10:33 smokeyhoodoo wrote:
A militia can be organized like a modern army and deployed by congress. Congress could even provide for a lot of the expensive equipment. The difference is it couldn't be deployed outside the country, and would be made up of ordinary citizens who stand up to defend their country when needed, and go back to their lives afterwards. The point of this is there wouldn't be a permanent standing army congress can use for various stupid, immoral, and costly endeavors they like to get involved in without thinking. Yes, this system would compromise our defense somewhat. It obviously could not be deployed as rapidly as an army already there and ready to go, and the soldiers wouldn't be as adequate as professionals, a problem exacerbated by the specialization needed for modern equipment. However, I think it would be adequate for our defense, and worth what we would gain. *taps buzzer* "What is the National Guard?" Correct!
They can be deployed outside the country, and my whole argument was that we don't need nor should have an army. You've made a fool of yourself.
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On January 22 2013 19:49 smokeyhoodoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2013 11:44 Jormundr wrote:On January 22 2013 10:33 smokeyhoodoo wrote:
A militia can be organized like a modern army and deployed by congress. Congress could even provide for a lot of the expensive equipment. The difference is it couldn't be deployed outside the country, and would be made up of ordinary citizens who stand up to defend their country when needed, and go back to their lives afterwards. The point of this is there wouldn't be a permanent standing army congress can use for various stupid, immoral, and costly endeavors they like to get involved in without thinking. Yes, this system would compromise our defense somewhat. It obviously could not be deployed as rapidly as an army already there and ready to go, and the soldiers wouldn't be as adequate as professionals, a problem exacerbated by the specialization needed for modern equipment. However, I think it would be adequate for our defense, and worth what we would gain. *taps buzzer* "What is the National Guard?" Correct! They can be deployed outside the country, and my whole argument was that we don't need nor should have an army. You've made a fool of yourself.
I would love to see a militia operate aircraft carriers. And I do think it wasn't that bad of an idea to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan. But if you want to propose an isolationist stance I'm not sure if this is the thread for.
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I still believe people have the right to defend themselves. I would feel pretty helpless if I was in a situation where I knew I would get shot. Would be nice to be able to pull my gun out and attempt to save my class(If I was a teacher).
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On January 22 2013 18:57 sam!zdat wrote:
If we talk about this, my dear friend Blue Panther, you're gonna have to talk about those "word" things you love so much.
I don't think you can call it a tyranny when only a few people out of several hundred million could realistically claim that. It's not a tyranny when 99% of the subjects concede to the rulers. Nobody is "oppressed" in the USA. I think I know where you're going with this (rich oppress poor), but you can't just say that's true tyranny if the poor are continually re-electing the same "rich ruling class" to be their government. They are clearly OK with that, and therefore your claim of tyranny is bunk.
Not getting elected because your ideas are bad does not a Tyranny make.
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On January 23 2013 02:59 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2013 18:57 sam!zdat wrote:
If we talk about this, my dear friend Blue Panther, you're gonna have to talk about those "word" things you love so much. I don't think you can call it a tyranny when only a few people out of several hundred million could realistically claim that. It's not a tyranny when 99% of the subjects concede to the rulers. Nobody is "oppressed" in the USA. I think I know where you're going with this (rich oppress poor), but you can't just say that's true tyranny if the poor are continually re-electing the same "rich ruling class" to be their government. They are clearly OK with that, and therefore your claim of tyranny is bunk. Not getting elected because your ideas are bad does not a Tyranny make.
So how many dirt poor politicians are there on the ballot for me to vote on? Would love to try and not elect the same rich ruling class some time.
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On January 23 2013 02:59 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2013 18:57 sam!zdat wrote:
If we talk about this, my dear friend Blue Panther, you're gonna have to talk about those "word" things you love so much. I don't think you can call it a tyranny when only a few people out of several hundred million could realistically claim that. It's not a tyranny when 99% of the subjects concede to the rulers. Nobody is "oppressed" in the USA. I think I know where you're going with this (rich oppress poor), but you can't just say that's true tyranny if the poor are continually re-electing the same "rich ruling class" to be their government. They are clearly OK with that, and therefore your claim of tyranny is bunk. Not getting elected because your ideas are bad does not a Tyranny make.
I don't think you get what he is saying. I might be wrong because he is not too clear, but what he seems to be hinting at is that the tyranny he speaks of comes from the system, not any individual or even group itself, and it has no "intent", it just exists as a property of the system. It is not purposefully implemented or used by those in power. Again if I understand him correctly, he is saying that since tyranny is kind of opposite of free society with free choice and since our freedom is completely illusory, due to the fact that so much of what we do and even think is subtly forced by the system, it is in all but a name tyranny.
Cannot say I agree with that view (assuming it is actually close to what he says) and I think we live in time and place with the most freedom ever in human history. Funnily enough I consider US pretty low on that list compared to some other first world countries due to the fact that I also include societal pressures as limiting personal freedom and in that some parts of US are rather oppressive. Anyway, I see also kind of the point of the above point of view. It puts in perspective how free we actually are from philosophical perspective.
But I see absolutely nothing the guns have to do with it. There is absolutely no correlation between presence of guns and lack of tyranny. The societal developments that cause the lack of tyranny are economic wealth, education, stability,... Tyranny comes when big groups of people in society have more to gain then to lose by supporting the ones promising whatever in exchange for support. In wealthy stable countries this is not the case. And in the others guns are of no consequence. They might slightly move the breaking point, but that is not worth it considering all the other negative things they bring just on the off chance that they will prevent tyranny in that 0.01% situations.
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"It's the economy, stupid"
edit: we're being tyrannized by the fantasy of 3 percent compound growth and the "innovation"-fetish and economic pseudo-science and citizens united and our own greed and the gerrymandering and the pollsters and the political strategists and ohio and the corporate media and the 2party system
for someone who's not a complete idiot you're such a stooge sometimes, blue
edit: corporations have more political power than the people, that's tyranny pure and simple
edit: it's tyranny not because a despot is in charge, but because nobody's in charge, and our civilization has lost the power to act rationally in its own long-term interest. we're slaves to the short-term variable reinforcement of market fluctuations. we are literally addicted to making money, and we're destroying ourselves. basically we're being ruled by a bunch of gambling addicts
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Hope this shooting at Lone Star College in Houston turns out to not be too bad, the campus this is happening at apparently has about 16k students.
Initial reports say at least three shot, one person possibly in custody, possibly another suspect on the loose. But you can never really trust such early reports.
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On January 23 2013 04:12 Saryph wrote:
Hope this shooting at Lone Star College in Houston turns out to not be too bad, the campus this is happening at apparently has about 16k students.
Initial reports say at least three shot, one person possibly in custody, possibly another suspect on the loose. But you can never really trust such early reports.
Yep, hope it won't get any worse than it already is.
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