tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post8223666951861103021..comments2024-03-28T14:32:19.334+00:00Comments on Who Would Have Believed The Singularity Would Be So Stupid?: Rome Didn’t Fall in a Day: an analysis of Western Europe’s cultural demisePastoriushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03169561459129778670noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-25708665221930142312007-11-11T23:23:00.000+00:002007-11-11T23:23:00.000+00:00Christians Against Leftist Heresy at http://christ...Christians Against Leftist Heresy at http://christiansagainstleftistheresy.blogspot.com/ is looking for more articles on Islamic expansionism. You should consider submitting your article!Faultline USAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06691318732494110768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-10563156061642282622007-11-10T19:14:00.000+00:002007-11-10T19:14:00.000+00:00Medaura,Like you, I'm a supporter of the free mark...Medaura,<BR/><BR/>Like you, I'm a supporter of the free market (within some limits), but I think it does the side of freedom no good to hide from the fact that the free market creates enormous resentment. Now, resentment is something universal to the human condition, and it exists only in tandem with love - if we didn't have one we wouldn't have the other. So there is no shame in saying we're all human, both loving and resentful in degrees. What is resentment? It is basically what we feel towards whoever or whatever it is that we think is alienating us from what is sacred. Resentment is universal because the sacred, in some shape or form, is universal or foundational to human anthropology. We are the only species that is organized in center-periphery relationships, a function of how our symbolic and transcendent language works to represent common centers of attention.<BR/><BR/>To suggest there was little resentment in America until the 1930s is odd. Was the energy driving the settlement of the continent simply love? Can you point to great America thinkers or artists - consider Thoreau, e.g. - and not see resentment towards the effects of industrialization and urbanization, even among those who were overall in favor of free enterprise? And as for the populist political movements, they were clearly informed by resentment of, e.g., "the robber barons". From whence comes the KKK? But as I say, a lot of people go into the marketplace driven by resentful energies and find in the market the means to recycle and eventually transcend their resentment. That's what keeps the system going, even in this day when the leading capitalists of New York, Boston, San Francisco, LA, vote disproportionately for the resentment peddlers in the Democratic party.<BR/><BR/>You're right that colonization was often a scene of racial violence and discrimination. My point was simply that if you consider racial ideologies from within the context of the overwhelmingly white European countries, you might conclude that the purpose of all that race talk was to serve political purposes internal to white on white politics. Most Europeans were not living anywhere near non-white people. So, those historians who are interpreting "the age of racism" as fundamentally about the White oppression of the Other, are grossly simplifying history. In fact many "racist" Whites of the past used racial thinking pretty much in the way that today's "progressives" do: to recycle their own resentments of life in modern, Western, market-driven societies.<BR/><BR/>The colonies were not such a great economic benefit. People would have done much better, from a strictly economic point of view, if a global free market, with participation from non-whites, could have evolved sooner. Just as today the "progressives" of the world tax themselves and the larger public to support "development" in the underdeveloped world, so did the colonialists tax their home countries to bear the (in the short to medium term, at least) the uneconomic costs of developing much of the world. We tax ourselves on behalf of the Other because our own system fills us with guilt/resentment.<BR/><BR/>The point I was trying to make about England and the American revolution is that the insular, nationalistic, "little England" mentality that I think you are trying to understand in this post is something deeply rooted. As America developed in the 17th and 18th C., the English had to decide whether their parliament in London would become home to American politicians. They never wanted that. There would be no specifically American representation in the highest reaches of imperial government because the English didn't want anyone telling them what to do at home. In this sense, the English precipitated the American revolution because they were, in fact, a lot like the Americans: interested in preserving a more or less decentralized form of local self rule. The British were never so committed to the empire that they would transform England to become a truly imperial culture instead of an insular nation. WHile it's true that FDR pressured Churchill to give up the empire - signing on to the UN utopia being essentially the price of lend-lease - even before WWII, there was a lot of talk of the inevitability of allowing for independence in places like India. The idea that the English would open their doors to Indian immigration as an alternative to independence would have been unthinkable before WWII. In a sense it is just as the empire crumbles that England becomes a "multicultural" imperial culture. That's what needs to be explaiend.<BR/><BR/><I>think people who enjoy history often mistake the trees for the forest, and really can't make any good sense of much, except through the narrative fallacy of hindsight bias. That's why a knowledge of economics, how markets work, and how various hindering measures can distort them, is very useful in really understanding what's going on.</I><BR/>-I enjoy history but I also work in the free marketplace. I have some sense of what drives it and I would never suggest that economics can have primacy over political markets. A free market can only exist as a condition of a primary political compact to defend free markets and to mediate the limits and resentments of the marketplace. As for the discipline of economics, it can explain why things have happened in terms of laws of supply and demand; but it cannot explain why a given desire for a certain kind of product exists - e.g. why something, like a Nike swoosh, becomes more or less sacred and desirable at a given place or time - nor can economics explain what the market will do in advance, precisely because the market is free and discounts any and all good attempts at explaining what it will do. <BR/><I>I don't think Christianity per se has anything to do with it either. It's about natural law, and man centric ethics, classical liberalism, freedom as the core of moral values. <BR/><BR/>Christianity didn't sprawl free enterprise: John Locke was an atheist. He is the one who laid the foundations. The most prominent Founding Fathers (at least B.Franklin and T.Jefferson that I know of)were atheistic/agnostic.</I><BR/>-Well, a lot of the Enlightenment is a secular codification of ideas that have their origins in Judeo-Christianity. If you asked me what is the basic definition of a free market, I'd say it is the market in which everyone gets the same price: personal and political relationships have no bearing, except as a matter of the seller's free choice. I don't owe my landlord or my uncle's friend a better price than I owe a stranger. They cannot demand it of me at the price of my own security.<BR/>In other words, the emergence of the free market, historically, involved the substitution of the older ritualized systems of gift exchange - where I did owe my uncle's friend something as part of an intricate network of returning gifts that have been given to my family in the past, or in advancing gifts in anticipation of some future return - with a system based on potentially faceless <I>transactions</I>. How does the faith in a system of decentralized transactions first develop? How does one develop the faith that one can get a return from trade with a stranger half way around the world whom one's never seen? Well, long story short, I'd suggest it starts with a faith that, in following Christ, we can imagine others doing the same: i.e. attempting to maximize the networks of human reciprocity that allow us to put faith in strangers half way around the world. We also need the rule of law, but the law of the free market first emerges from the pre-existing good faith. One needs a faith that can make of a trader a responsible center in his own right, freed from ritualized loyalties to specific patrons, clients, guilds, etc. That was what Christianity eventually provided (it took 1500 years, the idea is so radical) and that's why the free market emerged first from the more or less Christian nations, and why it is even today very hard for a largely non-Christian people like the CHinese to develop a free market culture, even when they are fully committed to following the proven success of the global capitalist system.<BR/>The point about Europeans and Christianity is that in becoming very secular they have lost touch with one important thing. THe free market cannot entirely subsitute for the ethos of the previous system of gift exchange. As I say, the market only works by recycling the resentmetns it generates. IN Europe, the gift exchange continues in the form of the overbearing welfare state, the latter being a key means of recycling market-based resentments. But the welfare state is not a very satisfactory form of gift exchange. Where it fails is in the sense lacking from the present generation that they owe a gift to those who have come before them, an obligation to make a commitment to continue the nations, traditions, or gifts that they have received from the past. They don't see a need to reproduce themselves, physically and/or culturlaly, in order to live up to the gift they have received. The free market has no way of creating the sense of obligation to reproduce. There are some things the market cannot rationalize, just as there are some things in which a strictly secular intellectual life cannot show us how to put faith. This is why I think a religious sense of responsibility and faith is necessary as a supplement to the free market. And if the Europeans truly reject the Christian way of supplementing the market, they will sooner or later adopt, I imagine, an Islamic conception of faith, and in doing so quite likely destroy the free market and all the life it supports.<BR/>As for natural law, do you know that the Catholic church today basically says that everything it believes can be defended in terms of natural law? That Christianity can be shown to be true in strictly human, anthropological, terms? Read the Pope's Regensburg address, for example, where he is championing a secular anthropological reason to justify the Church's beliefs. The Pope is a radical, secularizing force, to a degree I find amazing, if laudable. But he is still a Christian because he recognizes that faith retains a place alongside reason. Faith provides us the motivation to act, to do what reason cannot justify in advance.truepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-48980626968853927722007-11-10T16:10:00.000+00:002007-11-10T16:10:00.000+00:00Well said Pastorius.Also, I am a newbie, so it's p...Well said Pastorius.<BR/><BR/>Also, I am a newbie, so it's probably not appropriate for me to say because I just got here, but you were telling that BNP supporter that maybe he should join and start posting, so the blog wouldn't be very one-sided.<BR/><BR/>It's mainly your blog, so your decision, but if you enable supporters of these groups on your blog, you might taint its reputation. <BR/><BR/>You know, free speech does not mean providing a pedestal for everyone. <BR/><BR/>I guess you got your taste when that anti-jihadi gone bad emailed you about "what was so wrong with the KKK and the Nazis?"<BR/><BR/>So, that's my humble opinionauthoresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13774513141691620920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-43422385137178954252007-11-10T15:56:00.000+00:002007-11-10T15:56:00.000+00:00So, all the BNP supporters can have their wet drea...So, all the BNP supporters can have their wet dream fantasies, but I don't believe you will succeed.<BR/><BR/><BR/>I love it ! That is the line of the week for me!WATCHER71https://www.blogger.com/profile/05288846801308445615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-22589647640274953972007-11-10T15:52:00.000+00:002007-11-10T15:52:00.000+00:00I think I will attempt, for once, to be wise, and ...I think I will attempt, for once, to be wise, and I will not throw myself into the middle of the discussion about Canada. That's not a subject I know much about.<BR/><BR/>With regards to the issue of the BNP and race, yes Medaura, your post made it clear that you are against Nationalist racism.<BR/><BR/>It seems to be that Nationalism does not have to be racist. Certainly, many Americans are very patriotic and in that sense we are Nationalistic. Europe has defined Nationalism as inherently racist. However, we do not have to allow Europe's definitions to define us, nor do we have to allow Europe's definitions define the future of Europe.<BR/><BR/>Honestly, we would be foolish to allow Europe to go down that path.<BR/><BR/>Having corresponded (behind the scenes) with various bloggers whom I respect, I'll tell you that there is already an intellectual battle building against Europe's Racial Nationalism. Just as America had to intervene in WWII to save Europe from itself, we may have to do so again. It won't matter if, this time, the nationalists are not represented by governments. Even if the nationalists are fighting a series of isolated Civil Wars against various governments across Europe, America will very likely intervene and put down said racist Nationalism.<BR/><BR/>So, all the BNP supporters can have their wet dream fantasies, but I don't believe you will succeed. <BR/><BR/>I believe Western Civilization has set itself on an inevitable course of self-improvement. We have done so by using reason guided by the Judeo-Christian morality. There is no turning back from this course of self-improvement. No matter how much various racialist factions may want to return us to our animalistic instinctual reactions of tribe vs. not-tribe, we will not and, indeed, can not succumb, because we are human beings with reason and morality. We are not animals, guided merely by instinct.Pastoriushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03169561459129778670noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-54815933171035668402007-11-10T15:47:00.000+00:002007-11-10T15:47:00.000+00:00Medaura, Well, the hangover is still there (guess ...Medaura, <BR/>Well, the hangover is still there (guess we had a couple or ten for ya!), we disagree on a lot but we strongly agree on the importance of keeping Nazi's, WP groups from capitalising on the counter Jihad movement....So for that ...KUDOS!WATCHER71https://www.blogger.com/profile/05288846801308445615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-6781810254118976862007-11-10T15:17:00.000+00:002007-11-10T15:17:00.000+00:00EPA, I totally feel you, no doubt about it... I th...EPA, I totally feel you, no doubt about it... I thought it was obvious from my post that I am strongly against this resurgence of fascism, as to me it indicates Europe's moral bankruptcy. <BR/><BR/>It makes me sick when people I assume are on my side (anti-jihadi, pro freedom) are actually so blinded by what they are against, that they forget what they are for. <BR/><BR/>Pamela of Atlas Shrugs sound so stupid to me! Along with these other simpletons who are airbrushing the elephant in the room about the BNP, Vlams Belang, etc. <BR/><BR/>Also as a Jew, I am more scared of the SS than the Muslims. The latter are such an inferior enemy, they can only win by default (aka when we appease them). The former are quite resourceful when they get in power, as the Holocaust proved.<BR/><BR/>I am completely with you. I am actually embarrassed that there's any debate over this, as if the anti-jihadi movement is contemplating, even if reluctantly declining an alliance with Neo-Nazis.<BR/><BR/>What a shame!authoresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13774513141691620920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-10250486508302827792007-11-10T13:57:00.000+00:002007-11-10T13:57:00.000+00:00You will NEVER find me next to the BNP, they are P...You will NEVER find me next to the BNP, they are PRECISELY what their heritage indicates, and if they WEREN'T .. they'd LEAVE THE WEIGHT OF IT BEHIND for just that reason and organize under some other banner.<BR/><BR/>You don't swallow cancer to kill a virus.<BR/><BR/>Alliance with forces such as the BNP, is to give to enemy the EXACT, and <B>morally and factually CORRECT TOOL to claim their opponents are RACISTS</B><BR/><BR/>BNP=KKK with another, practical face. BNP's current 'more tolerant stance' is no different than David Duke 'tolerating' being next to mud people in order to fight against the jews. He just came down on the other side, otherwise it is every bit as nauseating.<BR/><BR/>Nothing could drive me, and ALL THOSE LIKE ME, utterly, from this movement faster than this BNP, Vlams Belang thing.<BR/><BR/>They are racists with a spin for practical outcomes. <BR/><BR/>I will NEVER ally with them.<BR/><BR/><B><BR/>N<BR/>E<BR/>V<BR/>E<BR/>R<BR/></B><BR/>It would make me a tool for enemy claims of racism, in which they would be totally correct.<BR/><BR/>You feel me?Epaminondashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04811906954763827459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-74943877674131790862007-11-10T13:12:00.000+00:002007-11-10T13:12:00.000+00:00Hey, nice comment.Forgive my ignorance of the subt...Hey, nice comment.<BR/><BR/>Forgive my ignorance of the subtleties of British administrative constructs, as I assumed formally being under the Queen of England, and having a British governor or whatnot, made Canada a British dominion. I know the parliaments are completely separated, and whatever connection there is, is purely symbolic (I wonder if the Queen can pardon Canadian convicts??). So it's irrelevant, just syntax.<BR/><BR/>What I meant in the comment you quoted, is that England lost Empire all by itself, whereas watcher17 claimed "America made it do it."<BR/><BR/>I strongly disagree however, with respect to the note on how free enterprise generates resentment. There is nothing about it that intrinsically generates resentment. The US was very happy and proud of its laissez-faire ways until the Great Depression, which was touted as the grand failure of capitalism (this is another story, but it was government intervention through the Central Bank that actually caused the depression, not the 'system' itself. I know, I know, everyone thinks they know the cause of the great depression, it's kind of an arrogant thing to deliberate upon. But the school of thought I am citing actually PREDICTED it before it happened, so THEY should get credit, instead of all the pseudo-intellectuals/economists who "explained" it in hindsight)<BR/><BR/>What rancor/resentment are you talking about? The only one I can make out is the kind that's in people's heads, because of their pitiful sense of self, channeled through Marxist strife. It's a chicken and egg issue, and I am as sure as I can be that it was Marxist strife that generated resentment, not free enterprise.<BR/><BR/>I agree with your analysis of the second-hand pride or humiliation stemming from the knowledge that there were others lower/higher in the food chain throughout the colonies, but such psychological dynamics can only occur because of the administrative outline of the dominions:<BR/><BR/>Being white was not just a matter of prestige because of racist dogma. Most importantly, whites were institutionally primed for success: the oriental/Indian/black (in Rhodesia's case)natives had little to no legal rights in the Colonies!!<BR/><BR/>So colonialism meant exploitation: occupying these people's lands, and putting them in labor camps, or lower-manager type positions at most. <BR/><BR/>Blacks/Indians/Orientals couldn't get permits to start their own businesses so easily. That's not free enterprise, that's colonial cronyism.<BR/><BR/>Free enterprise started to generate in the would-be US colonies at first, with the populace being largely self-governed. Yeah, they had slaves still, but the whites there had to work at their own businesses, earn their own bread, instead of aristocrats in Rhodesia who would just use blacks like animals to dig them diamonds and sit on the dole all day.<BR/><BR/>When the populace is self-governed, and is earning a living through the fruits of its own labor, it resents paying taxes and bowing to London. <BR/><BR/>The Colonialist exploitators don't mind so much, because they are not even earning it anyway: they just get a permit or whatnot from England, make the native populace do the work, collect, and kick some payment up the chain to the king of England.<BR/><BR/>But when there's economic freedom and self-reliance, there is soon need for political freedom, because the British were not providing anything anymore: not permits (no need for permits in free enterprise), no land, no favors... They were just collecting, so the relationship ceased to be symbiotic.<BR/><BR/>Not having representatives in the British government HARDLY caused the American Revolution. Even if they did have representatives, wtf are they good for?<BR/><BR/>Under free enterprise, your representatives are largely superfluous, because the market does its own thing. The only public officials needed have to do with applying the law, policing the streets, night-watchman type of services. Those were all things that can not be provided by proxy from England. <BR/><BR/>So that had nothing to do with it. If anything, it did turn off borderline loyalists, so it played a negative role in the American Revolution as in.. it was one factor that failed to prevent it, but it hardly caused it.<BR/><BR/>I think people who enjoy history often mistake the trees for the forest, and really can't make any good sense of much, except through the narrative fallacy of hindsight bias. That's why a knowledge of economics, how markets work, and how various hindering measures can distort them, is very useful in really understanding what's going on.<BR/><BR/>I don't think recycling strife is a solution for Europe today, that's just a vicious cycle. Europe needs to get rid of its neurosis, of its inner strife, it needs to make peace with the fact that it fucked up, and look toward the future. The only bright future for it lies in mimicking what America is supposed to be. Anything less will fail, because it would be a fall-back to its existing idiocies, in one recycled form or another.<BR/><BR/>I don't think Christianity per se has anything to do with it either. It's about natural law, and man centric ethics, classical liberalism, freedom as the core of moral values. <BR/><BR/>Christianity didn't sprawl free enterprise: John Locke was an atheist. He is the one who laid the foundations. The most prominent Founding Fathers (at least B.Franklin and T.Jefferson that I know of)were atheistic/agnostic.<BR/><BR/>Revived belief in the judeo-christian God would be so regressive at this point. That doesn't mean secular ethics are subjective, nihilistic, and void.<BR/><BR/>God fearing people need to consider: if God was not interested in mankind's course, then what would our nature as humans nevertheless dictate to us?<BR/><BR/>That's what natural law is about, and that's where the foundations of freedom lay.authoresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13774513141691620920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-53195331098203942602007-11-10T07:26:00.000+00:002007-11-10T07:26:00.000+00:00Interesting post, Medaura.On behalf of my home and...Interesting post, Medaura.<BR/><BR/>On behalf of my home and native land, I have to quibble a little with this, however:<BR/><I>Uhm, the UK lost Canada (well, practically did, "formally" Canada is still a British dominion) without any American help: it was simply to expensive to run it</I><BR/><BR/>-Canada is no longer a British dominion. We still have Queen Elizabeth as our head of state, but she is such as the Queen of Canada. The parliament of the UK has no longer any kind of jurisdiction over Canada (something it gave up in stages during the 20thC.)<BR/><BR/>But if the UK "lost" Canada, it got much in return, as evidenced in the Canadian contribution to fighting both world wars. The UK stood basically alone with Canada in 1940-41 and may well have succumbed to the Germans without the North Atlantic lifeline.<BR/><BR/>But this takes us to the more interesting point about colonialism: was Canada "too expensive to run"? Among the many British colonies in the nineteenth and twentieth century it was surely one of the cheapest to run, because the colonists themselves were self-ruling to a great degree and they were economically productive. And when the various colonies that formed the Dominion of Canada in 1867 confederated, it was in part to take greater responsibility for their own defense.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, the important historical point is that so much of European colonization in the 19th and 20th centuries was not primarily an economic project, in the sense that the colonies often cost a lot more than they returned in revenues. In some cases, there was a necessary cost to gain access to strategic resources and geography. But in other cases, the expense of the colonies is perhaps only well explained in terms of the Europeans' need to export some of the tensions associated with industrialization at home. The colonies offered careers to some of the disaffected losers of the middle and upper classes. They also gave a certain pride to workers who remained at home but could imagine themselves as not the lowest rung on the imperial totem pole. Indeed, Europeans used much of the racial language associated with imperialism not as a way of lording it over non-white people (whom most rarely met) but as a way of demanding their rights vis a vis those who ruled over them in the difficult times of industrialization: to be white was to have a certain status and so, for example, one's boss had better not act like some Oriental despot if he wanted the workers' loyalty.<BR/>If this kind of interpretation is correct, then we can see that a place like Canada would have had minimal symbolic and political value for the British, even if it was one (or several, before 1867) of the more economically prosperous colonies. Canada being a white settler society, in large part, could not play the same role in deferring the resentments caused by industrialization: it was too much like Britian, as it industrialiized itself: no, or few, plantations for the third sons of the aristocracy to run; no significant population of natives for the workers to feel superior in relation to. In fact, Canadian workers and business class might look down on the English, seeing them as economically less productive people. <BR/><BR/>Furthermore, Canadians being largely white people, the ambitious among them might have expected to have a claim on careers in London, like in government. But the English never wanted London to become a site for a truly imperial governing class or federation. The English always wanted to control their own parliament and government, and keep it English (and a little Scottish and Irish) which was perhaps the prime reason for the American revolution, and a contributing factor to the mutually satisfactory (for both English and Canucks) evolution of Canadian independence.<BR/><BR/>If this analysis has something to it, we could see empire as an early and incomplete stage in the development of the modern, more or less free, marketplace. The free market succeeds at the cost of creating historically unprecedented levels of resentment that it has to find a way to recycle back into the system, without destroying itself, by becoming more productive. The empire, the welfare state, the consumer culture are all parts of this recycling, historically. The problem with Europe today is that is is not finding ways to successfully recycle its resentments of the global free market system. Instead, it is eating away at itself, refusing even to reproduce itself by having children. It seems to me that a revival of Christianity - the religion from which the free market springs - is its best hope. There are various reasons for this opinion, but I've got to stop somewhere...truepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-25788460974248131972007-11-10T01:14:00.000+00:002007-11-10T01:14:00.000+00:00Ha, thanks! I am aggressive in my thinking, but th...Ha, thanks! I am aggressive in my thinking, but that is just the way I am, even (especially) when discussing among friends. It is absolutely fine to disagree. I don't agree with anyone 100%, I am the only one I fully agree with all the time, and that's a statistically certain indicator that I must be wrong at least on a few counts: what are the odds of me being 100% right about everything, while everyone else is wrong at least on their point of disagreement with me?<BR/><BR/>That's why I am humble about everything I think I know, and I respect my freedom to investigate my ideas, challenge others' and grow as a person.<BR/><BR/>I did not for a minute think you were a radical leftist. You certainly wouldn't be part of this forum if you were: you would be seething with the Daily Kos kids. <BR/><BR/>So all the best, and we'll keep talking and have plenty of interesting ideas to debate in the future. That's the beauty of freedom of thought, and that's what we are all in it to preserveauthoresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13774513141691620920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-17472204355247760712007-11-10T00:32:00.000+00:002007-11-10T00:32:00.000+00:00Medaura, I'm off out on the lash but you've given ...Medaura, I'm off out on the lash but you've given me and the guys a lot to talk about in the club tonight. I don't agree with a lot of your assertions, as there is a lot of grey in between the black and white(why provide for my fellow Britons? Frankly if I could I would provide for all, I would!.., but since my government doesn't have jurisdiction over Africa the question is Mute,the African question is in the hands of the global community not a single small nation state like Britain!LOL!), but I think that it's great that you're engaged and thinking about this stuff. Understand that I am not a dogmatic leftist. I have no little red book that I am reciting chapter and verse, just life experience and I too am at University, working towards my Masters so I know life is a journey! I'll never stop learning or listening, the guys say Hi and greetings to Albania, we'll have a couple of drinks to you tonight!It's certainly been entertaining and interesting!WATCHER71https://www.blogger.com/profile/05288846801308445615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-55041781858929144912007-11-09T23:59:00.000+00:002007-11-09T23:59:00.000+00:00Re: affirmative action.there is a difference betwe...Re: affirmative action.<BR/><BR/>there is a difference between being allowed to, by law, to vote, go to university, etc, and affirmative action.<BR/><BR/>Of course racial segregation was disgusting, and done away with, when the laws that enabled it were brought down.<BR/><BR/>Even in women's case, yes, 100 years ago I was not allowed to go to University. But now I am! That's enough! I don't need the universities to change their quotas to make it more likely for me to get into any specific program or faculty!!<BR/><BR/>What I get should be because I deserve it, as a person, as an intellectual, not as a woman! I initially went to university under the engineering department. I wasn't worried: I know I deserved it because my grades and SAT scores were top notch. But discrimination was rampant. All this crap about "empowering" women. It was just very humiliating, as if being a woman was a handicap, that we needed special help to make it.<BR/><BR/>I found it very demeaning. I can only imagine how pissed I would be if I was black and brilliant, and employers saw my academic record with suspicion, not being sure whether I got to Yale/Harvard/wherever because I deserved it, or because I was black.authoresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13774513141691620920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-82267948815379478722007-11-09T23:52:00.000+00:002007-11-09T23:52:00.000+00:00This is very interesting to me, as I completely un...This is very interesting to me, as I completely understand where you are coming from: it is reprehensible to let someone die of starvation, or get sick from malnutrition, or be denied treatment for disease because he/she can't afford it.<BR/><BR/>I completely feel for such people, and if compassion was exclusively a Leftist trait, I guess that would make me a Leftist, but it isn't, and it doesn't.<BR/><BR/>I guess I didn't make my point clear on the previous comment: If YOU believe that health-care is a human right, but everyone else is selfish and doesn't care, yet you somehow manage to impose taxation for universal health-care on your fellow citizens, then you are being tyrannical, since you are imposing on everyone else what ONLY YOU think is right.<BR/><BR/>Now on the other hand, your country is a "democracy". Democracy literally means "majority rule", so if universal health-care is institutionalized, that means that the majority of the country, voted to elect leaders that would impose it on everyone.<BR/><BR/>That means that the majority of the country is not selfish! It means that the majority of the country does not succumb to the chaotic "all-against-all" state of human-nature, because they freely elected their officials, and told them they wanted to extend coverage to anyone.<BR/><BR/>So my question is, since the MAJORITY of the country believes it right, then why don't they just do it themselves?? If the majority (51% of UK citizens) just donated to charity, private hospitals funds for the poor, etc, then the poor would be taken care of! There would be no need to make it a matter of decree!!<BR/><BR/>Don't you see how paradoxic that is??<BR/><BR/>The truth is that there is an immense difference in the following scenarios:<BR/><BR/>95% of the population decides to tax itself to help the bottom 5%. This is an oxymoron, because taxation is not needed. The 95% could do it freely just as well.<BR/><BR/>A and B form a coalition deciding to tax C with the alleged purpose of helping D, with a lot of it ending up in the pockets of A and B in the process.<BR/><BR/>For a democratic country to tax itself for "human rights" type services, is very hypocritical. Democratic means majority rules, so if the majority deems something proper, why don't they just do it themselves? <BR/><BR/>I also think it is a very cynical view of human nature to think that people would not freely engage in acts of kindness. That a benevolent dictator (government) is needed to keep the citizenry moral.<BR/><BR/>The truth is that because of the convoluted tax code and the obfuscated special interests, no one knows who is paying what for what... Everyone feels someone else is picking up the tab, because of "progressive" taxation (aka the rich paying a higher percentage in income tax) and everyone likes to think they are poor, hence on the benefiting side of the redistribution scheme. The reality is that everyone loses.<BR/><BR/>More deregulation is needed, not more regulation. Leftism makes people selfish, because everyone assumes everyone else is being taken care of by the nanny state, so it hinders private individual initiatives.<BR/><BR/>Look at the stats on Canada and the US. Americans are likely to donate to private charity an astonishing 9 times more!!! So much for Selfishness.<BR/><BR/>In fact, the 19th century, before the regulatory initiatives that started with the New Deal, when everything was laissez-faire, saw an UNPRECEDENTED rise in private charity in the US. Almost all hospitals were run through private charities. <BR/><BR/>When people started to get taxed through their asses, they got stingy. <BR/><BR/>Another point: where does the base of people end, with respect to welfare rights??<BR/><BR/>Why provide only for your fellow Britons? What about all the starving kids in Africa, India, Asia?? They are so much poorer. Why shouldn't you tax yourself to take care of them? If it's a human right, it knowns no boundaries of nationality. It would be racist to confine it within your own country, no?<BR/><BR/>It quickly gets out of hand, as you can see.<BR/><BR/><BR/>I hope that brought up some questions.authoresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13774513141691620920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-48577473125468894252007-11-09T23:49:00.000+00:002007-11-09T23:49:00.000+00:00Just finally on this health care funding, personal...Just finally on this health care funding, personally I really don't resent paying in a small portion of my income to ensure that I, my entire family and some stranger who is also putting in has access to health care. funding health care can also be creative. A large portion of funding for the NHS actually comes from a sales tax on cigarettes and alcohol. I think most of you probably disagree, but I draw some comfort from knowing that if I need an operation it's taken care of, I just need to worry about getting better, not about paying my hospital bill. Works for me....but different strokes for different folks!WATCHER71https://www.blogger.com/profile/05288846801308445615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-48574682367320452062007-11-09T23:29:00.000+00:002007-11-09T23:29:00.000+00:00sorry ! Dumbass spelling! That should read 'two si...sorry ! Dumbass spelling! <BR/><BR/>That should read <BR/><BR/>'two sides to a coin'<BR/><BR/>need more tea!WATCHER71https://www.blogger.com/profile/05288846801308445615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-76045548635624501142007-11-09T23:28:00.000+00:002007-11-09T23:28:00.000+00:00Re that hairdresser story, yes I caught that too, ...Re that hairdresser story, yes I caught that too, Insane! Working as a hairdresser when you cover you hair!<BR/>....Did you hear the one about the Muslim bar man who couldn't serve alcohol...?<BR/><BR/><BR/>On affirmative action....we never had it here. Seeing a black Police officer is very very rare. Don't jump to only the negative and dismiss any of the positive. in days past as a female you wouldn't have been allowed to go to university etc....there is always to sides to a coin, not simplistic good and evil.WATCHER71https://www.blogger.com/profile/05288846801308445615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-37760916152040397362007-11-09T23:19:00.000+00:002007-11-09T23:19:00.000+00:00Well in the ideal world I would want comprehensive...Well in the ideal world I would want comprehensive health care for all.<BR/><BR/>In the real world I guess the level is defined by the amount that is affordable, but my aspiration would be to see comprehensive care. <BR/><BR/>I'm not comfortable with seeing somebody dieing a slow malingering death when treatment, perhaps even preventative treatment could have avoided this. This is why the NHS, much as we struggle, has my support.WATCHER71https://www.blogger.com/profile/05288846801308445615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-413318350096252242007-11-09T23:15:00.000+00:002007-11-09T23:15:00.000+00:00yea Canada was a great loss! India was all ready i...yea Canada was a great loss! <BR/><BR/>India was all ready inevitable pre war, but wider Empire...the loss of resources alone....But I don't get bogged down in this! I'm not here to defend Empire for christs sake!<BR/><BR/>And Britain, Europe also have the right to self interest. Insofar as ungrateful, my family fought in both American and British forces in WW2 and I could never dismiss or devalue what they did.<BR/><BR/>Europe and America should have a strong and equal relationship, as partners for stability in the world and that means the ability to exchange views and ideas equally as partners. I don't know so much about Albanian history so <BR/>I can't comment, I do recall some Greek friends of mine certainly being engaged with Albania, unfortunately other than the cold war period Albania is a blank to me so I'm listening.WATCHER71https://www.blogger.com/profile/05288846801308445615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-85501529104873211572007-11-09T23:13:00.000+00:002007-11-09T23:13:00.000+00:00Watcher71,What level of health care is a right?Watcher71,<BR/>What level of health care is a right?Pastoriushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03169561459129778670noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-23115914776148947842007-11-09T23:03:00.000+00:002007-11-09T23:03:00.000+00:00No , demonizing America !ME!?No way! Not at all!Se...No , demonizing America !ME!?<BR/><BR/>No way! Not at all!<BR/><BR/>Self interest isn't a sin.<BR/>On charity and helping those less fortunate, well personally i think that things like for instance medical care are a human right and thus the organisation of the state to gather and organise the resources and man power in order to effect (for example ) health care is necessary. If it were for example left to charity or individual whims to (for example) help the sick then chaos would ensue, just human nature. Humans are by instinct selfish, impulsive etc. Even a privatised healthcare system needs organisation.<BR/><BR/>Ps of course Dudette it is! My bad for making an assumption!WATCHER71https://www.blogger.com/profile/05288846801308445615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-25175848236503317042007-11-09T23:02:00.000+00:002007-11-09T23:02:00.000+00:00Uhm, the UK lost Canada (well, practically did, "f...Uhm, the UK lost Canada (well, practically did, "formally" Canada is still a British dominion) without any American help: it was simply to expensive to run it.<BR/><BR/>It lost India without any help.<BR/><BR/>Rhodesia, and all that?<BR/><BR/>Whatever else America ordered it to give up, I am damn glad it did.<BR/><BR/>A United States of Europe would need a Constitution. Anything other than Life, Liberty, and Property, enshrined in stable institutions, will not do: it will be a gray area, susceptible to mob rule and tinkering by corrupt politicians.<BR/><BR/>I think TODAY's European right is at the left of the US democrats, but that's largely because the US cannot afford to go much more to the left, because it's constitution doesn't allow for it. Even as far as things have been allowed to escalate today, is largely due to mis-interpretations of the constitution by liberal judges.<BR/><BR/>In countries with nothing written on stone, or with very inconsistent documents, that pretend to care for citizens' both positive and negative rights (a logical impossibility), everything will be a gray scale, subject to manipulation.authoresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13774513141691620920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-45486060636544464962007-11-09T22:51:00.000+00:002007-11-09T22:51:00.000+00:00HAHAHAHa!I deny it all!Comrade!HAHAHAHa!<BR/><BR/><BR/>I deny it all!<BR/><BR/>Comrade!WATCHER71https://www.blogger.com/profile/05288846801308445615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-5900174225487790792007-11-09T22:50:00.000+00:002007-11-09T22:50:00.000+00:00Ha, first of all, I am a Dudette, not a Dude. A lo...Ha, first of all, I am a Dudette, not a Dude. A lot of people assume that I am a man from my writing, and in a way that's a compliment, and I take it to mean that I don't have any weird neurosis oozing out of my ideas, like so many women are so twisted by feminism, that they cannot just talk, they have to talk like "women".<BR/><BR/>Anyway, as far as economics/politics goes, I am not familiar with what Thatcher did on an intimate level, although a lot of the things you mentioned that she did wrong, actually make sense to me, economically. Like I said, I'm not very knowledgeable of the details, so I could be wrong, but in any case, as far as that side of the discussion is concerned, I would STRONGLY recommend you read Economics in One Lesson, a great common-sense freely-available book.<BR/>http://www.mises.org/books/onelesson.pdf<BR/> <BR/>But that's economics. That aside, I think Socialism is incompatible with freedom, but a lot of people don't seem to value the kind of freedom I am talking about nearly as much as I do, so I'll try to bring my point closer to everyone's heart, by restating it in the stronger form: Socialism is incompatible with Democracy (people seem to hold Democracy more at heart than Freedom)<BR/><BR/>How so? Well, if the issue was educating the poor, providing health care or welfare to those in dire need, then why wouldn't an altruistic society freely do that on its own? If the majority of people cared about the very small minority in dire need, why wouldn't it freely donate to take care of it?<BR/><BR/>Why would it need to elect representatives, to involve the State in executing its democratic will?<BR/><BR/>I think it is very hypocritical of a democratic society to not have the moral spine necessary to freely implement its collective priorities. If you need to elect officials to FORCE you, and everyone else, into obeying what your own morality dictates (e.i. helping the poor), then you must be a morally bankrupt society.<BR/><BR/>I am not at all against helping those in need, and that's why when I make my own money (right now I'm still a university student) I will donate to charity. Charity by decree is immoral and corrupt.<BR/><BR/>It also creates a permanent underclass, of people who grow so dependent on the system that they stop trying to be self-reliant, and thus cease to have any respect for themselves. I would gladly give to various causes, so long as the benefactors don't think I OWE it to them. When the latter relationship is institutionalized through leftist policies, then a great deal of rancor begins to develop. <BR/><BR/>For those from the US, they might know what I'm talking about if I give them a more concrete example: Affirmative Action. It robs away blacks' pride and self-reliance, and it builds unspeakable rancor.<BR/><BR/>The Left creates leaches out of people who would otherwise be productive and proud. I was raised in Albania since the age of 17, and know of people so poor by your standards (and US standards) who live with such pride! Who do not take handouts, and don't feel like leeches.<BR/><BR/>And don't forget the impact on the Islamic community. Read this story:<BR/>http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23420128-details/Hairdresser+sued+for+refusing+to+hire+Muslim+woman+in+a+headscarf/article.do<BR/><BR/>The Muslim slut is suing this woman for not hiring her as a hairdresser. This is absurd! It should be well within the rights of the OWNER of her business to refuse to hire whomever for WHATEVER reason. She wears a headscarf, why should she even care to cut hair if she thinks the most proper thing to do with one's hair is to cover it?? <BR/><BR/>As if the patrons of the Salon would not be turned off by that obvious implication!! But that's not even the point: she is suing for unspecified monetary damages. This only makes sense in a Leftist culture, where jobs are considered something the business-owners OWES to his/her employees. That is morally disgusting and it is left unchallenged.<BR/><BR/>No one OWES you a job, or welfare, or health care. But especially jobs... I mean come on! An employment contract is something both parties enter through according to their own free will, and that's how anything is done under free enterprise: mutual voluntary exchanges, no coercion, no intimidation, no rancor.<BR/><BR/>Muslims subvert the Leftist disposition of the UK for their own gains. A lot of them are welfare recipients, and use that money from taxpayers, as a cushion from reality checks, as a way of not integrating with the English community, of not having to mingle with the natives. Welfare for them just creates ghettos, and isolation, and rancor.<BR/><BR/>The list goes on and on.<BR/><BR/>As far as America goes, and its involvement in the world wars, I think your position is very ungrateful. <BR/><BR/>You are not justified in playing devil's advocates. I am not saying the US had no self-interest in stepping in, but self-interest is not a sin: it should actually be a rational guide to our actions.<BR/><BR/>The US had followed an isolationist foreign policy since its founding. The Founding Fathers hated old-continent strife, and they instructed the US to stay out of it. So with its intervention, the US broke its historical commitment to neutrality, because it saw what was at stake.<BR/><BR/>The US didn't gain from the world wars in absolute terms, only seemed so to Europe by comparison, because Europe itself emerged so destroyed, that the US seemed incredibly prosperous by comparison. Not cronyism, but trade, and free enterprise, are what made America prosperous. <BR/><BR/>And its role as an arbiter was AMAZING, not selfish and tainted by anything less than moral principles, as you seem to imply. <BR/><BR/>The "Great Powers". including the UK, wanted to split Albania up to please their regional vassals (Serbia and Greece) after the War, but president Wilson defended its right to exist at the peace conference, along with other small nations' rights. There was no self-interest involved whatsoever. America was just advertising its political ideology of freedom and self-determination, upon which it was founded. The US also supported the creation of the Jewish state.<BR/><BR/>Europe has a lot of humbling up to do, and it needs to stop demonizing America, and actually be grateful for all it has done for it.authoresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13774513141691620920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19209018.post-65661286557540588952007-11-09T22:31:00.000+00:002007-11-09T22:31:00.000+00:00Watcher71,Sure, go ahead and deny, deny, deny.Watcher71,<BR/><BR/>Sure, go ahead and deny, deny, deny.Pastoriushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03169561459129778670noreply@blogger.com