She's Almost Gone....... Forever!

[eric]

Welcome to the forum!

I don't think there is some big communist conspiracy, but I definitely agree that the government is overreaching, and through a multitude of methods has continued to seek to undermine, inadvertently most likely, the very liberties from which we should bestow upon people on the earth.

Sending people to jail for non-violent crimes, creating and enforcing laws which undermine the will of the people (MPAA, RIAA, etc...), banning gay marriage and abortion, etc... are all ways in which the government has failed.

But, it's not such a drastic situation, and there is no need for a rallying call or anything of the sort. Just a calm, collective, recognition that many of the practices that we engage in are more or less not concurrent with the ideas and values from which liberty and freedom are built upon.

With that being said, I think it's important that here in this country we start by winning small battles, in some of the previously mentioned areas, before we work our way into social security or obamacare or whatever. You have to begin with things that you can get a lot of people to agree on. Fighting over some of these seemingly, though not actually important issues just detracts from goals that could be accomplished.

[Mogli]

[eynon81]

a fine first op, but it's an awful lot to try and respond too.

back in college I was most certainly a libertarian: republican co-eds admired my passion and democratic co-eds found me dangerous...it was a win/win.

but now that I'm older and a bit wiser I've grown to like collectivism a bit.

It's given us some pretty neat things: the homestead act, the interstate highway system, the apollo program, the public university system, etc.

is your beef ideological or practical?

[uebermann]

Howdy,

Thanks for the post but this post doesn't follow the guidelines for posting in General Discussion. Moving the thread to The Soapbox (where an article and quote from the article are not required).

[Dobby]

I love you guys and your American politics. If it goes one way it's communist, the other it's fascist. Honestly kills me.

[Hyperion]

The dynamic between individual rights and collective rights is a false one. The state is an instrument of the prevailing class and any policies that benefit or protect the ladders of wealth and power are always the most likely to succeed. This is less often an asserted effort - a common thread of interests is simply shared by these people (and more importantly the companies they run) that gets expressed in the state. Sometimes capital opposes capital, as we saw with the Iraq War when oil tycoons prevailed to the detriment of others - but in the end it is their voices that dominate. The choice in Democrat or Republican is often a choice of which capital you want to define policy-making the most. Public assistance is more of an afterthought for correcting the societal consequences of capitalism more than legitimate solutions. The quest is always to reduce poverty rates and not actually address the underlining causes of underemployment and inefficient market mechanisms.

Capital simply has no fear of retaliation after the progressivism of the 1960s collapsed. That is the main issue. The United States had a comparatively robust, fluid government structure during the Cold War era because the newly enfranchised population practiced a level of civil disobedience that marred its image. On top of that, because we were competing against an alternative model to the American lifestyle that kept up with and sometimes exceeded our own, politicians couldn't simply defend the status quo on grounds of philosophy. The state has simply learned how to adapt to PR movements and non-violent expressions.

"Rights" are always expressed with a message of force behind them. The distinction between individual and collective rights is arbitrary at best and distracting in almost all circumstances. There is a prevailing attitude amongst those who do try to engage in these debates that the economic operation of life is written in our DNA when in fact it is the product of Man. The real issue is one of preferential power and wealth - this is the anthesis of collective rights because it puts one segment ahead of another. This is an issue that requires radical reform in the way we think about human society, starting with the very notion of 'work' we have begrudgingly accepted in the last 500 years even though it goes against our psychological and psychological welfare. But to start down that road we must first accept the mutual benefit of individual and society.

[Dobby]

[Dobby]

And yes I am a socialist (sorry).

[eynon81]

[eynon81]