the neoliberal vision of the future

[invisibleplanet]

onarchy's failure/unwillingness to provide references for his claims are enough to discredit him, in my opinion, and one might ask him what exempts him from the responsibility of such an honest and basic departure for rational discourse.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Actually, in pre-1933 Germany, the NSDAP and KPD did not compete for the same voters.

It is also the case that the few NSDAP attempts to appropriate socialist rhetoric /to garner urban working class support failed spectacularly, attracting instead the lower-middle class - the small businessman. Those elements of the NSDAP that did have any attachment (however tenuous) to socialist ideas were liquidated in "The Night of the Long Knives".

 

[rekil]

Strange how repeated analyses, from Evelyn Anderson's in the 1940s to Annika Mombauer's in the 1990s, with Mason in-between (the three exemplars of a wide swathe of analyses, IMO) say almost entirely the opposite - that the class composition of the NSDAP and Communist votes barely overlapped in any of the years before Hitler snuffed the Weimar republic.

But the history industry is infested with lefties.

Why have Nazis been called right-wing? Most history books were written by sympathizers of their fellow leftist rivals for power in 1930’s Germany—Communists and other Socialists.

 

[ViolentPanda]

There was really no famine in Ireland, there was a property crisis. Ireland is extremely fertile, yet from about 1800 and onwards large parts of fertile land simply lay there, unused, no-one farming it. (It was due to this that the Irish got the reputation for being lazy) Had this land been farmed there would have been no famine in Ireland.

So why was so much wonderful land simply unfarmed? A few hundred years earlier the protestant feudal England had taken Ireland and made laws so that catholics could not own land. As a consequence huge areas of land were expropriated by the state and given to the protestant nobility. The catholic irish then became de facto serfs, simply RENTING the land that they had owned and worked for centuries. Then in 1797 there was a currency crisis and as a consequence the rent rose dramatically, so much so that it was not profitable for the farmers to rent the land. During the entire famine food was being EXPORTED from Ireland to England.

After the famine the Irish started land reforms to return the land to the original owners that had been robbed of their land by feudalists. This largely rectified the problem. Sadly, however, people today believe that this perfect example of feudalism somehow had anything to do with laissez-faire.

More shaping of history to fit your thesis.

May I suggest you look at land grading (something every nation does, to delineate the best usage for land) for the island of Ireland. Much of what you call "fertile" is useful only as pasturage - that is, it's unamenable to the cultivation and rotation of arable crops on it. Only around 20% is useful arable land. This includes lands recovered from marsh in the last 2 centuries. As for use as pasturage, with modern herd transportation methods, full use can be made of the majority of hill and mountainside pasture. This was not the case back then. Ireland could only support it's population through the cultivation of an intensively-cropping staple such as the potato, and much of the land on which potatoes could be cultivated en masse was used to grow grain for export instead. This is why the potato mosaic virus was so devastating when it struck.

 

[onarchy]

You've fundamentally missed the point here. No one is suggesting that in order to have a right one must carry out certain duties. The point is that a right holder cannot exist without a correlative duty holder otherwise rights are just a metaphysical abstraction. Rights are meaningless unless there is somebody to enforce them against. This is not analysis that rests on feudal assumptions, it is a basic axiom of modern jurisprudence.

That rights must be backed up by physical force to have any meaning is quite obvious. But backing up something by force is not the same as imposing a duty. A duty requires activity, work, bearing a heavy load. That's indeed where the term "heavy duty" comes from. It is no coincidence that "duty" is a medieval word for toll. (to pay duties, duty free etc.) It is also no coincidence that toll -- the synonym for duty has given rise to idioms as "taking its toll." When people say "the disease is taking its toll on him" they mean that he is being worn out, losing his energy. So throughout the literature the term "duty" is strongly associated with heavy work, something that wears you out and exhausts you. In light of this let's consider the right, say, not to be raped. According to you it is then a DUTY to not rape anyone, which implies that it is really heavy work and something that takes its toll on you, wears you out. For your sake I really hope that's not true, because that would mean you are a monster.

The natural rights are rights that come naturally to people, that don't feel like a duty. I.e. normally natural rights requires zero effort, you do not think of them as duties. Let's check to see if this is correct:

the natural rights are the right not to be murdered, assaulted, robbed, raped, swindled, violated or threatened. To most humans NOT doing these things comes very easily to them. Most people don't wake up in the morning thinking: "what a drag! Another day that I don't get to murder anyone! *sigh*"

As it happens the natural rights are the ONLY rights that come naturally. All other rights require duty, forcing people to do something they really don't want.

 

[invisibleplanet]

One wonders if onarchy actually reads an entire post, or if he just picks out keywords and then uses those to construct the next agenda-bender

 

[ViolentPanda]

....just waiting for him to deny the Holocaust.....

Wonder if he has a poster of Vidkun Quisling on his wall?

 

[ViolentPanda]

You haven't got a clue, have you? Have you ever heard of the phrase "historical materialism"?

I'd recommend him reading a copy of Mehring's On Historical Materialism, but he'd probably call it "commie crap" without bothering to read it.

I suspect that this is where we differ. People like you and I read and analyse the writings of those we disagree with (at least those writings that aren't so immediately at odds with reality as to be discardable as toilet tissue), whereas Onarchy appears to merely read the blurb and the index, looking for key-words.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yes, you do refer to yourself as a "philosopher". Would you care to tell me which branch of philosophy?

Perhaps I'm reading about a different "Koloritt Forlag", but that looks suspiciously like a vanity publishing house.

 

[Idris2002]

More shaping of history to fit your thesis.

May I suggest you look at land grading (something every nation does, to delineate the best usage for land) for the island of Ireland. Much of what you call "fertile" is useful only as pasturage - that is, it's unamenable to the cultivation and rotation of arable crops on it. Only around 20% is useful arable land. This includes lands recovered from marsh in the last 2 centuries. As for use as pasturage, with modern herd transportation methods, full use can be made of the majority of hill and mountainside pasture. This was not the case back then. Ireland could only support it's population through the cultivation of an intensively-cropping staple such as the potato, and much of the land on which potatoes could be cultivated en masse was used to grow grain for export instead. This is why the potato mosaic virus was so devastating when it struck.

One argument for the spread of communal Rundale land tenure in pre-famine Ireland is that it provided a means of recruiting large numbers of people to settle on and reclaim what would otherwise be marginal and relatively unproductive land. Rundale disappeared in most places after the famine, but it survived up to the 1950s in a few very remote - and very marginal and unproductive - areas, in the extreme west.

 

[ViolentPanda]

But we shouldn't waste much more time on him. He thrives on discussions with “irrational people” and won't change his mind

And to think that you used to scold me for saying the same of Rachamim!

 

[Idris2002]

And to think that you used to scold me for saying the same of Rachamim!

Good times, good times.

 

[ViolentPanda]

onarchy, there are lots of Irish people and people from an Irish background on this board. Are you sure you want to debate Irish history with them? I for one have never, ever, heard the claim that Ireland in 1845 possessed huge areas of fertile but unfarmed land. What's your source for that claim? Or do you not have one?

Current estimates for arable (i.e. cultivable and croppable) land in the island of Ireland as a whole are 20-24%, depending on whose figures you use. That's now, after two centuries of drainage and land recovery.

 

[Idris2002]

I wonder does he make this stuff up off the top of his head, or is there some libertarian disinformation unit somewhere that churns out falsehoods for every occassion?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think Fergal Keane mentions something about the exporting of food to England in The Story of Ireland... not sure about vast areas of fertile land...

A majority of the arable land was used to grow grain crops for export, although "exporting to England" is misleading. The landowners were exporting it to the British market, where it might actually end up on a ship to Archangel or Trieste.

AS for "fertile land"< that depends on how you define fertile. less than a quarter was suitable for crops, most of the remaining fit only for pasturage.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I wonder does he make this stuff up off the top of his head, or is there some libertarian disinformation unit somewhere that churns out falsehoods for every occassion?

Who knows? I prefer to trust publications and historical texts that I can test against the record, but Onarchy's mileage obviously varies, given how often his "data" isn't factual.

 

[Idris2002]

Quite, it's got boring now, though I have learnt some new things.

 

[butchersapron]

I wonder does he make this stuff up off the top of his head, or is there some libertarian disinformation unit somewhere that churns out falsehoods for every occassion?

Established stuff for these people. Big circular OCD evidence base. You don't think he does the nutty research himself?

 

[invisibleplanet]

And to think that you used to scold me for saying the same of Rachamim!

That was different. Essentially, Rachamim's presence helped us to strengthen our pro-peace position by providing us with the classic ultra-rightwing historical arguments/myths that were used to continue the war.

Good times, good times.

Indeed. Good times.

 

[Idris2002]

Established stuff for these people. Big circular OCD evidence base. You don't think he does the nutty research himself?

I thought maybe he still carried a torch for the kindergarten teacher who told him to 'use your imagination'.

 

[rekil]

Quite, it's got boring now, though I have learnt some new things.

I found out that Leif Kjemperud, an 88 year old member of the Norwegian communist resistance group Osvald-gruppen, refused the country's highest honour last year in protest at involvement in 'Stan.

 

[Idris2002]

Three cheers for the octogenerian commie.

 

[butchersapron]

...and this cunt, who thinks he's actually living in a concentration camp does what?

 

[Kizmet]

Why did the government of the day not implement effective relief efforts? Because the laissez-faire ideology of the time specifically prohibited any government interference in the free market.

I think it was little to do with laissez-faire and more to do with racism and a lack of care or understanding. While it might be tempting to draw on the continuing of exports as an example of 'free markets'... Ireland status as a conquered land makes that a bit of a nonsense.

 

[TruXta]

...and this cunt, who thinks he's actually living in a concentration camp does what?

...grows fat on that exquisite Nordic fascismo-welfarism, no doubt.

 

[Idris2002]

I think it was little to do with laissez-faire and more to do with racism and a lack of care or understanding. While it might be tempting to draw on the continuing of exports as an example of 'free markets'... Ireland status as a conquered land makes that a bit of a nonsense.

Please tell me you're not representative of the 2011 crop of undergrads, Kizmet.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Why you chose only that particular quote. I don't recall Onar mentioning any particular party.

Foolish me. I thought that as we were discussing what Idris said, that were were discussing...you know...what Idris said.

Dispute away, but know that bluster rarely serves as a convincing argument.

If only you'd take your own lessons to heart.

Fact is - you don't know but are acting like you do.

No, the fact is that I'm happy to admit that I don't know. I'm making the point that nobody does.

 

[invisibleplanet]

I wonder does he make this stuff up off the top of his head, or is there some libertarian disinformation unit somewhere that churns out falsehoods for every occassion?

Yes, there is. PM me for details

 

[Kizmet]

Is it possible that Kismet doesn't understand the difference between a 'high office of state' and 'leadership of a political party'?

Please feel free to explain it to me in this context.

 

[butchersapron]

Idris, it was just one of those juvenile paradoxes i mentioned earlier - meaningless. Content free.