the neoliberal vision of the future
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littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Sorry. He is wrong about pretty much everything. But not only that, he is wrong in bad ways – intellectually dishonest ways. He doesn't have a strict view of things. He has a mistaken view of things.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
It's part of the oddness of Belgium. The more you get to know Belgium, the odder it appears. Of course, there are reasons for all these things, and I think it is probably linked to the fact that they still make thousands of different kinds of beer. They haven't homogenised in the way most places have. The people just don't mix with each other very much.
Ye, I know. Also, I know this other guy who is defined to be having Downs. Nice guy that too. Weird ideas, but he is really funny.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
There is little sense of national identity. The French and Dutch speakers just do not mix at all. And as I said, even between themselves, the Dutch speakers don't seem to mix either. It's kind of healthy in some ways and destructive in others.
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
Hey hey, LBJ, how many languages did you speak today?
Awesome derailed derailed thread is awesome!
I think it's a bit sad the way Onar has degenerated the last couple of years. He used to be a more interesting read, challenging me to refine my own views on individualism vs. collectivism. Now I think he's mostly lost it. The framework of concepts he's created for himself is utter bollocks, and where he used to have real arguments, now all we get is propagandeering.
Anyway, thanks for the laughs. Seems like a good forum you have here. I just might stick around
I think it's a bit sad the way Onar has degenerated the last couple of years. He used to be a more interesting read, challenging me to refine my own views on individualism vs. collectivism. Now I think he's mostly lost it. The framework of concepts he's created for himself is utter bollocks, and where he used to have real arguments, now all we get is propagandeering.
Anyway, thanks for the laughs. Seems like a good forum you have here. I just might stick around
invisibleplanet
porter des cornes
How did you find us, where are you from and what's your political position?Awesome derailed derailed thread is awesome!
I think it's a bit sad the way Onar has degenerated the last couple of years. He used to be a more interesting read, challenging me to refine my own views on individualism vs. collectivism. Now I think he's mostly lost it. The framework of concepts he's created for himself is utter bollocks, and where he used to have real arguments, now all we get is propagandeering.
Anyway, thanks for the laughs. Seems like a good forum you have here. I just might stick around
And welcome to urban75, btw. Have a hobnob and don't lend anyone a fiver
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
How did you find us, where are you from and what's your political position?
And welcome to urban75, btw. Have a hobnob and don't lend anyone a fiver
I'm guessing a sixty-oner.
invisibleplanet
porter des cornes
What's one of those?
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
Like a sixty-niner, but only half the fun.
I stumbled upon you through Onars blog, I'm Norwegian. My political position is that of a slightly confused humanist leftist liberal, coming from a much more radical position when i was younger. Don't put too much emphasis on the order i put that in, except confused that has to come first.
I'm a reluctant statist now that I'm approaching 40, shamefully comfortable in our little oil-driven paradise that we have up here, currently going through a phase where I'm reexamining my political stance. Environmental issues, freedom of speech, rights to privacy and freedom from both governmental and private oppression are some of the issues I care most about. The growing science-denial movement makes me furious, sad and fearful for the future of my kids. Luckily for my mental well-being I am a great believer in humanity and our potential, we just need to get our act together. Some of my friends think I am naïve because of this. They might be right, but I'm happier than them so I win anyway
I'm a reluctant statist now that I'm approaching 40, shamefully comfortable in our little oil-driven paradise that we have up here, currently going through a phase where I'm reexamining my political stance. Environmental issues, freedom of speech, rights to privacy and freedom from both governmental and private oppression are some of the issues I care most about. The growing science-denial movement makes me furious, sad and fearful for the future of my kids. Luckily for my mental well-being I am a great believer in humanity and our potential, we just need to get our act together. Some of my friends think I am naïve because of this. They might be right, but I'm happier than them so I win anyway
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
I stumbled upon you through Onars blog, I'm Norwegian. My political position is that of a slightly confused humanist leftist liberal, coming from a much more radical position when i was younger. Don't put too much emphasis on the order i put that in, except confused that has to come first.
I'm a reluctant statist now that I'm approaching 40, shamefully comfortable in our little oil-driven paradise that we have up here, currently going through a phase where I'm reexamining my political stance. Environmental issues, freedom of speech, rights to privacy and freedom from both governmental and private oppression are some of the issues I care most about. The growing science-denial movement makes me furious, sad and fearful for the future of my kids. Luckily for my mental well-being I am a great believer in humanity and our potential, we just need to get our act together. Some of my friends think I am naïve because of this. They might be right, but I'm happier than them so I win anyway
Think yourself lucky.
At least you don't have bjork.
TruXta
tired
It may interest you very little, but those who are respectful, open-minded and try to be objective find that I can argue quite well. The problem is that I have some 20 years of experience with socialists, and what I have discovered is that the vast majority of them argue along two lines:
1) they have a fair understanding of what the liberals want (i.e. decide over their own life, liberty and property so long as they grant others the same freedom) but say with a smile "I understand, but I disagree. I don't want that." Which is the upper class way of saying "shut the fuck up, cunt. Obey me or I'll smash your face in."
2) the others (which make up the majority) say lots of really weird things, like "oh no! I'm not a socialist! Absolutely not! But of course we can't let there be a jungle out there. There has to be SOME rules. We have to have a public school of course, and public health care, and public roads, and public pensions, and public social security, and redistributive taxes, and of course we have to regulate all industry, and of course we have to have tolls and subsidies to protect our local industry..." Then there are those who flagrantly deny that they are using force. "Force? What do you mean force? I'm not using force on you." And after a long and contortious debate about police they end up agreeing that they do use force, and THEN they smile and say "Ok, now I understand, but I disagree. I don't want you to be free." Which again is the upper class way of telling a slave to shut up and obey.
My meeting with this type of obfuscation followed by a mind blowing power arrogancehas certainly shaped my way of debating. I understand that there is absolutely NOTHING I can say to an average socialist that will change his mind. The reason is very simple: even if I can prove without a shred of doubt that capitalism exterminates poverty, and that everyone is better off in a capitalist system in all ways, a socialist would STILL just shrug it all off as irrelevant. All he has to do is to find ONE person in the whole world who for some reason was unlucky in the world and was not able to pay for his medical expenses or take care of his family, and that will justify a complete toppling of the capitalist system, and let the politicians and technocrats take over and regulate and tax people and industry until they cringe. It doesn't matter if this has all sorts of bad effects and that people will be dying or suffering in government waiting lines, because that is irrelevant to a socialist as long as the misery is spread equally. The socialist puts an EXTREME burden of proof on liberals to prove with a supernatural level of precision that capitalism is not only the BEST system but also PERFECT in a supernatural sense. That's the kind of burden of evidence they require for PEACEFUL activity. Yet, the burden of evidence they demand from using government FORCE (i.e. threatening people with jail) is very close to zero. All it takes in fact is that the socialist FEELS that it is right or that it has the right intentions or if some cherry picked anectdote can be used to support their contention.
Why do they have so lax standards for their own actions but extreme demands for all others that disagree with them? It is definitely a form of altruistic narcissism. Socialists don't think of this as a reversed form of burden of evidence (i.e. guilty until proven innocent). Oh no, they just think that THEIR worldview by default is the innocent one and that anyone that disagrees with them by default is guilty. In other words, they think they are the center of the moral universe and that they can use their own emotions and intuitions rather than logic as the basis of making judgments. This is not only true of average socialists, but it is especially true of the intellectual socialists.
Now, you may of course say that I am wrong (of course you will, you are socialists) but this is just my observation of how socialists behave.
That they disagree with the communists is pretty obvious, but that doesn't mean that they aren't socialists. Why do they state that their party philosophy is "A Socialist Democracy" if they don't mean it? Apart from this I would say that they are far more nationalistic than they are socialistic. Nationalists are typically methodologically pragmatic, whereas socialists often are more idealistic. Socialists prefer their ideals to the truth, and try to fit reality to their philosophy, not the other way around. Precisely because of this nationalists are typically more market oriented than socialists. Nationalists understand that a free market economy is good for the country as a whole and for most people, because this has been proven beyond a shred of doubt. We see this tendency in most nationalists. Look at what happened to Mussolini when he had an epiphany about national unity: he turned rightwards from the left to the center and became more friendly towards industry. (He proposed his famous centrist "third way" alternative between liberalism and communism) The same is seen in Hitler as well. He hated the communists, because he understood that government ownership of industry would not be in the best interest of the NATION, and as a nationalist he therefore saw them as a threat. (He also regarded their internationalism as such a threat).
Now, Singapore's PAP grew out of the centrist democratic socialist tradition (i.e. they are a labor party, and member of the socialist international until the mid 70s). The proper denomination of PAP is national socialist (not to be confused with Nazi), with an emphasis on nationalism. This means that methodologically they are highly pragmatic, which in turn means that they are highly market oriented since the market and private property is the best way to create prosperity for all. In fact, what characterizes the Singaporeans is that they are very, very competent. Within their own idealogical platform (mostly nationalism, some socialism) they pursue the best strategies for wealth that the world has to offer and that is capitalism.
To claim that Peron, Hitler and Mussolini were really just "pampering" to industry interest is a "just so"-rationalization that has been conjured to artificially place them on the politically right. Sure, they were to the right of the extreme left, but they were centrist, as all fascist movements naturally are. Hitler's reason for banning free labor movement was that he was anti-communistic (he regarded communism as a false form of socialism concocted by evil Jews to gain world dominance) and he wanted to eliminate all communistic elements of german politics. The communists were in his view (and correctly so) a major threat to peace, stability and prosperity. Wherever they were allowed to do so the communists would create violent conflict and revolution. Hitler (as well as all other centrists) saw them as extremely dangerous. But Hitler did not regard peaceful industrialists as a menace. As long as they were just making products and organizing industry he had no quarrels with them. He regarded the industrialists to be working in the best interest of the nation (which indeed they were) and therefore he allowed private property to exist in a limited form.
As a moderate example of an anti-communist centrist social democratic party is the Norwegian Labor Party which was deeply inspired by the Nazis. They even had the same slogan in the 1930s "city and land, hand in hand" (land here meaning, the rural province). During the cold war the Labor Party was the ruling party most of the time, and they were extremely anti-communistic working closely with the CIA to spy on communists. After the war it was the "national father" (landsfader) Einar Gerhardsen who became the prime minister, inspired by the Führer-principle.
So the very same reasoning that lead the highly authoritarian Hitler to ban communist unions in Germany lead the Norwegian labor party to spy on communists. In norway banning the unions never became an issue because the biggest one ("the national organization") was and still is controlled by the centrists. It therefore becomes highly disingenious to make up stories about Hitler's motivation for banning free labor unions to make him fit into the right.
Trøgstad?You're definitely showing your age, mann. Ta deg sammen a gett!
They are both white, spherical and used in competitive sports. They are both balls. They aren't both footballs and no amount of saying they are will make them so.
Louis MacNeice
Actually I liked this comparison. Clearly you think that fascism is about as similar to social democracy as a billiard ball is to a football. In other words, apart from being round, not very similar. But I would dispute this. A more appropriate comparison would be between a hard, synthetic football and a softer leather football. The shape and function of the balls are identical, but some think that the synthetic footballs are a little too hard and want a softer version. In a similar way social democracy is a softer version of Nazism and Fascism, but apart from the softness/hardness they are virtually identical, both in practical politics and in ideology.
In other words, a social democrat cannot accept that there is a secret police that comes at night and throws people into concentration camps with poor living conditions without a trial. The social democrat will ultimately throw people into concentration camps if they don't obey (prisons), but they will not do so without a trial and they will try softer uses of force first, like fines and warnings. And a social democrat cannot accept a minority dictatorship (even if it is popularly elected by a majority), but they DO want a dictatorship, namely a majority dictatorship. This is softer and at all times a majority dictatorship secures that only a minority is being oppressed, so such a type of system always enjoys popular support. But this IS still dictatorship. The minority that is being oppressed don't see any difference between whether the laws are made by a Fuhrer or by a majority.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Sure, death camps are a totally trivial difference.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
I can understand why he leaves death camps out though - they're perfectly acceptable so long as its the "right" (or rather left) people who are murdered. The pinochet loving sack of shite.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Oh good point. I guess from his point of view death camps are value neutral, the morality of the act depending on whether you're torturing and killiing capitalists or collectivists, wheras say public health care is objectively evil.
Shouldn't that be the DORK side?
I know exactly what Rodin's 'Thinker' is thinking.
It goes something like. "Blimey this is really uncomfortable resting your right elbow on your left knee, and chin on hand. How the hell am I going to get out of this one."
Whoops, that picture is a lot bigger than it looked on the web!
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