Slashdot Mirror
Library of Congress Opens Records of Anti-Comic Book Shrink
eldavojohn writes "Some light is being shone on comic book history today as the Library of Congress opens up the 222 boxes of a German psychiatrist's evidence and papers against comic books. Dr. Fredric Wertham is well known by comic book fans as the author of Seduction of the Innocent, a bestselling book linking comic books and juvenile delinquency — leading to a full blown congressional investigation (some say witch hunt) of the comic book industry. Wertham was long involved with criminal trials before campaigning against comic books and promoting industry and government censorship for children. Ars adds a little more context for the younger crowd and notes that he later tried to move against television violence but couldn't find the publisher backing he had against comic books."
As much as Dr. Dickhead and Congress should be excoriated appropriately, let's not forget that the Comics industry bent over backwards to censor itself. If they'd shown a little more backbone, imagine what Lee and Kirkby could have done with the "Marvel Way" in the sixties. Imagine not having that fucking glut of saccharine Archie products.
Mind you, we probably wouldn't have gotten Mad magazine if things had turned out differently, so it's hard to be judgmental.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I love how some of the most outspoken people against video games (as well as comics, porno, etc) are often the same people who are against government expansion. Government intervention is always bad...unless it regulates something these people don't agree with.
I'm looking at you, Mitt Romney...amongst others.
Living With a Nerd
Chief Counsel Herbert Beaser: Let me get the limits as far as what you put into your magazine. Is the sole test of what you would put into your magazine whether it sells? Is there any limit you can think of that you would not put in a magazine because you thought a child should not see or read about it?
Bill Gaines: No, I wouldn't say that there is any limit for the reason you outlined. My only limits are the bounds of good taste, what I consider good taste.
Beaser: Then you think a child cannot in any way, in any way, shape, or manner, be hurt by anything that a child reads or sees?
Gaines: I don't believe so.
Beaser: There would be no limit actually to what you put in the magazines?
Gaines: Only within the bounds of good taste.
Beaser: Your own good taste and saleability?
Gaines: Yes.
Senator Estes Kefauver: Here is your May 22 issue. [Kefauver is mistakenly referring to Crime Suspenstories #22, cover date May] This seems to be a man with a bloody axe holding a woman's head up which has been severed from her body. Do you think that is in good taste?
Gaines: Yes sir, I do, for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it, and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody.
Kefauver: You have blood coming out of her mouth.
Gaines: A little.
Dear Slashdot editors:
Regardless of whether you're right or wrong, the phrase "some say witch hunt" is a weasel-faced cop out. It's a device commonly seen on Fox news to to inject opinion into otherwise factual reporting. If "some people" say it, tell us who. Otherwise, let us know it's your opinion.
Regards.
Is Congress the new superhero, defending the rights of comic book readers everywhere? Um, no ...
...
Dr. Wertham is just an early predecessor to Jack Thompson. These idiots think that anything they don't understand or enjoy should be banned because "clearly it has no moral value". It's a myopic view of art and entertainment that would lead to everyone buying and enjoying the exact same things. Sure, the RIAA, MPAA and big radio would love that but it would kill creativity as we know it.
Comic books and video games aren't my cup of tea but that doesn't make me think they should be banned because those who enjoy them are delinquents and dangerous. If everyone who didn't share my POV was labeled dangerous
Damnit, you're not supposed to open the shrink wrap. Do you know how much value this has lost?
It's not Congress opening up these records, it's the Library of Congress.
"(some say witch hunt)"
For example, all of us.
--
I'd like to say you are wrong, so I will.
Worst story EVER!
Rest assured, I was on the internet within minutes, registering my disgust.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The only juvenile delinquency that comic books ever made me want to delve into was with the X-Ray glasses they always advertised on the back page of the comics. For a little boy, I apparently had quite the dirty mind. The thought of being able to see through girls' clothes held more awe and wonder for me than any amazing stunt Superman or Batman could ever pull off.
And why should an enemy of freedom such as this man not be demonized? The trauma this man has inflicted on American media culture -such that entire media are still seen, more than 50 years later, as fit only for children- should be viewed with no other lens than pure, unadulterated contempt. There is nothing wrong with demonizing a demon.
Those dang kids and their __________, it's ruining them!
Video games
Magic the Gathering cards
Dungeons and Dragons
Comic books
Rock and Roll
Jazz music and dancing
How far back you want to go?
Golden Age Comics has many of these pre-code comics in friendly formats (i.e. not pdf) and available free downloads. Registration is required, however, as they are quite strapped for bandwidth, especially considering a single comic can easily be 30-50mb.
They also have a donations page if you're feeling generous wrt the free service they provide.
So check out some of these pre-code comics, they vary in quality immensely, but it's an interesting look back at what was considered vulgar and damaging to children 50+ years ago.
Dear Slashdot editors:
Regardless of whether you're right or wrong, the phrase "some say witch hunt" is a weasel-faced cop out. It's a device commonly seen on Fox news to to inject opinion into otherwise factual reporting. If "some people" say it, tell us who. Otherwise, let us know it's your opinion.
Regards.
I wrote that summary and CmdrTaco posted it without editing so I guess some if not all of the blame should be on me. And I'll concede that the statement is not accurate. There were staged comic book burnings and during the testimony, Kefauver and Wertham (a German doctor no less) opened their testimony with statements calling Hitler a "beginner" when compared to the comics industry as well as flat out claiming comic books affected children to the same way Nazi propaganda indoctrinated children. Several books on the history of comics detail this testimony including Bradford Wright's Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.
... ? Also, you do know that after the reformation of the comic book industry, juvenile delinquency did not plummet, right? We can still purchase said comic books today. So it seems you have the public burnings to spread fear and you have the oddly selective nature of who is guilty but the "worse than Hitler" testimonial logic is probably more faulty than "weighs as much as a duck" so I don't know what the right label would be.
So I must confess I was wrong to use that phrase, clearly "a witch hunt" would have more sound logic than what was used in an attempt to have the government replace the parents in guiding their children. Tell me though, if you don't think it was a witch hunt, why did backing dry up when they tried to move on to television to clean up all the violence that children saw in the moving pictures? The unrealistic violence of Larry, Moe and Curly is okay because
Perhaps a better label would have been "insanity?"
My work here is dung.
Video games are corrupting our youth! Comic books cause delinquency! The internet is limiting our attention span!
Whatever. Save the children: brain-wash them to be "pure and innocent".. or the world will come to an end.
I know for a fact that I wouldn't be where I am today had I not had comic books when I was little, games like the Lucasarts point'n'click adventures when I was a teenager and the internet later on. I literally taught myself to read and write English and French (2nd and 3rd languages) through those things, and was given an incentive and the means to learn about computers and programming, which I happily and successfully make my living off today. There is no doubt in my mind that I would be a completely different person had Dr. Wertham and his minions deprived me of those.
So, I want whiners like that guy to just shut the hell up. I don't want them to censor my comic books, ban my video games or disconnect my internet, and I will fight tooth and nail to make sure my kids (if I ever have kids) will have unfettered access to all the stimuli I had when I was young (be those "good" or "bad" in Dr. Wertham's view).
I would go as far as to say, film ratings are stupid. What if a 12-year-old watches a 18+ movies instead of just Disney cartoons with rainbows and flying unicorns?
Good thing Dr. Wertham is already dead, because he would just HATE webcomics (omg, comic books on the internet! It's the work of the devil!)
He must have died watching TV.
I read these "so called" violent comic books in my youth, and I never became a violent person. If you keep saying so, I'll hunt you down and beat you to a bloody pulp!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Actually, it seems to me like that kind of idiots has an even bleaker view of it all.
They didn't just think that a violent comic or a violent game just "clearly it has no moral value", but rather that people and especially teenagers will mindlessly do whatever comics/games/tabletop-games/anything tells them to. Let's not forget that the book was called "Seduction Of The Innocent". And really that was the whole thrust. They think that if a 16 year old sees a comic cover where a guy with an axe is holding a woman's severed head, they'll go like mindless zombies and do a verbatim copy of the deed.
Or in more modern days that if some 16 year old spends an hour a day sniping in some FPS, next thing you know he'll climb on the school and snipe people, because he's just that mindless and unable to distinguish between reality and video games. Or that while a 17 year old may be old enough to be trusted to do that sniping (M rating is good enough there, see?) God forbid that he ever sees a boob, 'cause he's not ready for _that_ yet. He'll probably go on some rape spree than ends up with him giving the town council a facial shot. Or, really, dunno what.
And if you thought _that_ is stupid, well, at least one Chick Tract seems to be based on thinking that AD&D actually teaches children to cast real spells. But I digress.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
In 20 years, I hope to see Congress open up Lieberman's boxes of evidence linking video games with juvenile violence, only to find some MINT copies of the classics - MKII, Night Trap, Doom - man, you could sell 'em at auction and pay down the national debt!
This is just the unboxing article. Wait for the review, after someone has read through the papers. Or at least scanned them in.
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."
The Wealth of Nations,Book V, Chapter I, Part II, 775
If Government is stripped of all other functions save the defense of property, it is a tyranny of the rich. I believe that is why the rich nearly invariably favor small government. The more desperate the have-nots are, the more they will put up with and the less they will demand. Taking away social safety nets favors the rich employer who desires a pool of desperate, starving, cheap workers.
But the truly rich make up less than one percent of our population. Why do the non rich desire smaller government? Is it out of some philosophical principle? Well, if humans were commonly genius-saints, perhaps. But we aren't. Most of us start from our assumptions and reason backwards to find support. And most of the upper middle class assume they will be rich one day, despite the lack of any evidence that this is likely. The gap between an upper middle class person making $100,000 to $250,000 per year and an actual owning class person is tremendous. We do not have as much upward mobility in our society as we would like to believe, but everyone believes we do. Why? Simple: anyone who says they don't think they can make it is obviously a failure. Who wants to admit to being a failure? The myth says hard work will make you rich, what, are you lazy?
This is how the rich fool the middle class into defending the rich from the poor, even though the middle class has far more in common with the poor than the rich.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
David Hajdu's "The Ten-Cent Plague" gives a good, readable history of the reaction against comics including the events discussed in in the summary and TFA. The book becomes slightly polemical at points but overall is a good read.
Great post. It's funny how the people who tend to claim Adam Smith to their side the most clearly never seem to have actually read fully what he wrote.
Video games, television, music, comic books, and virtually every form of entertainment ever conceived is somehow 'linked' to violence. In other words, blame everything *but* the person doing the violent acts. It doesn't take a video game to show you that you can hit someone with a bat and hurt them. The people that would do these things likely would have done them anyway. Correlation doesn't equal causation. There's no such thing as a 'bad' word, as all words are merely strings of letters with meanings. What's offensive to some likely isn't offensive to others.
Censorship is truly worthless.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
As much as Dr. Dickhead and Congress should be excoriated appropriately, let's not forget that the Comics industry bent over backwards to censor itself. If they'd shown a little more backbone, imagine what Lee and Kirkby could have done with the "Marvel Way" in the sixties. Imagine not having that fucking glut of saccharine Archie products. Mind you, we probably wouldn't have gotten Mad magazine if things had turned out differently, so it's hard to be judgmental.
The problem with this is that you are applying modern behavior to events that happened over 50 years ago. Or to put it another way, what you suggest is kind of like going back in time to the 1950s and getting angry because nobody has a cell phone. (That's "mobile phone" to you non-North Americans).
I've read some books that talk about the era, which was before I was born. One of the problems is that people and American society were a lot less litigious back then. Sometimes people screwed you over and you didn't go to court over it. You just took it and moved on. People didn't run around suing each other over everything like they do today. I guess, in theory, Bill Gaines of EC and publishers of similar fare could have tried to stand up, but the reality was that the distributors wouldn't touch books that weren't blessed by the "Comics Code" and the Code was specifically written to put companies like EC out of business by forbidding them from doing exactly what they had done. And keep in mind too that plenty of publishers of what I will call "family safe" comic books such as Archie, various Disney comics (these are a lot better than many realize - look up Carl Barks for more info) and others were more than happy to play along with the Comics Code because they didn't do what it forbade and they were really happy to see competitors driven out of the business. Some people probably really did believe that comics turned kids into juvenile delinquents and those people thought that the Code was just doing a public service. There's always been a rumor that John Goldwater, the publisher of Archie Comics, was infuriated by Mad's (then a comic book not a magazine) parody called "Starchie" and he vowed to put EC out of business. Goldwater did substantial work for the Code and it's probably no coincidence that a lot of what the Code forbade applied to EC directly.
Mad became a magazine specifically to evade the Code. It was a huge gamble that worked. But many artists, writers and others in the comic industry lost jobs and had to scramble to find new ones thanks to the Code. I'm pretty sure that if Bill Gaines and others could have stood up to the Code they would have.
I find it odd the great champions of keeping children safe from sex, violence, drugs, etc... are all for
sex ed for 8 year olds,
defend newcasters right to show violence on the news and Nazis to march in jewish neighborhoods,
demand pot be legalized (yet wage war on smokers...),
and are all for giving every kid with energy a disorder, complete with medication.
Then again, I would have to care about the uber-wealthy. Honestly, if I manage to live a decent middle-class life, what do I care how much money they make, even if it's off of me? They REALLY don't intrude all that much on any freedoms I have - I can still go, do, and say pretty much anything I want in this country, and the most anyone else can do is complain.
We'd just have different problems if they all went away in any case; and, in America at least, if you really do work hard and hold down a decent job life really isn't going to be all that bad without a major health malady.
The problem is that, of all the economic growth over the last thirty years or so, almost all of it has gone to the top one percent. The owning class are actively redistributing wealth upwards. You may be alright being a slave, but I'm not. The working class creates wealth, by actually working, yet the wealth goes to the owning class, who thanks to socialism for the rich, don't even have the excuse that they are 'risking' their wealth by investing it in job creation. They get bailouts, even if the companies they own employ only minimum wage Indians and Asians and no actual Americans whatsoever.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
congressional investigation (some say witch hunt)
Mod story internally redundant.
Well, if humans were commonly genius-saints, perhaps.
And why not? This is the problem with most "socialists" that I meet. The idea is not that we should have a free and equal society. It is that all those OTHER people are too stupid to have a free and equal society, so the kind, wise and all knowing will force it upon them through a government of law (and appropriate actions to back it up).
I would rather give up universal heath care and place all that money into educating people to become "genius-saints". If the only reason an individual is giving to the poor is because the government will throw them in jail if they do not, then we have accomplished nothing as a society. We need less laws and more education.
But who in politics today is actually in favor of small government? A lot of politicians pay lip service to the idea of small government, but none of them actually do anything about it. The government continues to grow.
"I predict future happiness for Americans
if they can prevent the government
from wasting the labors of the people
under the pretense of taking care of them."
Thomas Jefferson
The funny thing about the middle class is they are the ones hurt most by all this hatred of the rich. When you start looking at the rich as evil bastards with too much money who don't care about the poor, it's real easy to let that magic income slide further down. The rich can deal with any amount of taxes and come out fine. If they pay over half their income in taxes (and they do) they are still far richer than anyone in the middle class.
But it doesn't stop there. The middle class ends up paying for it, and losing half your income at 75,000 yearly is a big deal.
You misunderstand socialism. The problem isn't stupid people, it's greedy, evil, selfish people. You see, we have government to protect us from those people. Socialism isn't about helping people who are too stupid to help themselves, it is about protecting those too weak to protect themselves.
History has shown us that we can not educate the vast majority of people to become genius saints, that is simply not human nature. In fact, the idea that we need to "educate" humanity to be genius-saints is pure Marxism. It didn't turn out so well.
Giving to the poor benefits society. In a more egalitarian society where everyone has a place, people work harder. They cheat and steal less. Social stability improves. Unfortunately, some people want these benefits without paying for them. They want you to pay to help the poor, so they don't have to. I don't approve of crooks like that, and fully support making them pay their fair share.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The nation continues to grow, even during this recession. Why shouldn't the government grow with it? If you could show that the government was growing faster than GDP was growing, I might be more concerned.
I don't think it is the size of government that is the problem. I think it is the waste, corruption, and all the pork barrel projects helping those who least need the help.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The fanboys have taken over the industry. It no longer even makes a token effort to appeal to the mainstream.
I make over that and don't lose half my income. And I really don't see your imagined slippery slope as a problem. There is a clear distinction between the owning class who make the majority of their income from gambling (or 'investment' as they like to call it) and the vast majority of us who actually work for a living.
Most countries in the world pay a significantly larger proportion of GDP in taxes than we do. In fact, taxes in America account for less than 20% of GDP. Yet many citizens in many countries that pay more in taxes actually consider the taxes they pay to be a great bargain in exchange for the services they get.
So the real question is, what are we doing wrong here in America? Why are we not getting a good bargain? I would say, that is thanks to the corrupting influence of the rich man's money on politics.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You have made quite an extrapolation from a very specific quote.
If your viewpoint really is that the middle and lower class should rise up and take from the rich because they have that power and it would benefit them (they have license to do so in a democracy), then I find your sig pretty ironic.
"And they do"
Bullshit. The rich pay less than 10% of their income in taxes. You are so full of it I am calling you out for trolling. The rich should pay 99% tax followed to a trip to the gallows. Being rich should be a scourge not something to desire.
Net worth over $100 million? That's a hanging right there.
I'm a bit confused what you're responding to. You seem to be coming from an already pre-conceived notion of what I mean when I say I'm a "small government" sort of guy.
Either that or you support such a large government idea that any sort of small government automatically triggers a "what, don't you care about the poor?" response?
You are not talking about small vs. big government; you are talking about fair government. I heartily support fair government. I even support some socialist things... because, frankly, we can get people to pay taxes better than we can get them to be charitable and help their neighbor.
I'm all for a fair government, and I think we should try to get one (not that we ever will get an non-corrupt or completely fair government, since it is, after all, run by humans). But you seem to be only arguing against a current system based on it being unfair. Is it fair to give lazy people money that I worked for, just because they are poor? Who determines what "poor" is? Who determines what someone is "entitled" to? If I endured schooling and training and now have a higher paying job than a high school dropout that did drugs and works in an auto-body shop... is that unfair or fair?
Those are ... huge ... gaping holes in the base socialist idea of spreading wealth. Yes, I do think there are holes that should be plugged. There are things that seem to favor a rich vs. poor distinction/gap. But the solution to that is not to simply take away a rich person's money and give it to a poor person ... or at the very least, not based simply on financial status. We have welfare programs and we can't even get all the people on those welfare programs to work or go to school as best they are able, how do you think we're going to do it for everyone?
Furthermore, there's an even bigger hole in socialistic spread-the-wealth ideas: the people in charge of spreading the wealth are just as corrupt as any other human being. This has had real-life experiments in real countries, typically communist. Russia: a land of immense natural resources and an amazing people. They are hard working. They love music. They're talented. And they are remarkably poor, and were remarkably poor (and non-free) during the communist years, correct? Of course, the people "running" the communist country were pretty well off and quite rich... that is, those that were supposed to be in charge of spreading the wealth...
If a governmental system does not assume greed and corruption on the part of all humans, including those IN the government, it's going to fail... because humans ARE prone to corruption and ARE greedy.
As for your stated disparity between perceived upward mobility and actual upward mobility ... I'm going to say that's definitely a problem. I'm also going to say that the problem isn't necessarily the lack of "upward mobility." The problem is the perception. For what, half a century? We've had an ego-centered/self-esteem-centered schooling system that has pushed the idea that you deserve to succeed and that you can do anything you want. We teach kids that. We teach kids that if they don't succeed, it's someone else's fault. We teach them that they are a failure if they aren't rich.
No wonder so many parents care more about money than their children.
I'm going to say this is a social problem first. Unfortunately, when it comes down to it... due to pride, everyone likes this idea. It's massages my pride to think that I can do anything I want and if I can't, it's not my fault, it's someone else's fault. I'm not saying we should flip it and say that everything is my fault, either. I'm saying we need to have a clear perception of reality, not this ridiculous two year old mentality.
his is how the rich fool the middle class into defending the rich from the poor,
I was not defending the rich, nor the poor. I'm trying to encourage thinking and clear perceptions of reality. Knee-jerk reactions and automatic motive assignment blind people to reality and to rational thinking.
They get bailouts, even if the companies they own employ only minimum wage Indians and Asians and no actual Americans whatsoever.
Well, it sounds like we both disagree with some recent governmental actions, at any rate, hehe.
I commend your conciseness and excellent points.
Wow, that sounded ... exceedingly flowery...
Yes, and said distinction is that one of those groups exists entirely within your imagination.
The problem isn't stupid people, it's greedy, evil, selfish people.
It's both, and everyone is greedy and selfish to some extent. Extreme stupidity can be indistinguishable from malice and evil.
You see, we have government to protect us from those people.
It's too bad the government is filled with stupid, greedy, evil, and selfish people.
History has shown us that we can not educate the vast majority of people to become genius saints, that is simply not human nature
So here you are saying stupidity is the problem, it's just not a solvable problem.
Giving to the poor benefits society.
Sometimes, but not always. When it comes at the cost of trampling the rights of others simply because they are not poor it does not benefit society. The ends do not justify the means.
In a more egalitarian society where everyone has a place, people work harder. They cheat and steal less. Social stability improves.
If you mean a society where you remove economic inequalities from people, which is what you seem to be promoting, then I disagree. In a society where all people are forced to be economic equal then the most talented and hardest working are being cheated. They will see this and it will lead to social instability.
If you mean a society where all people are treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights, then I agree. But this is not what you are promoting.
Unfortunately, some people want these benefits without paying for them. They want you to pay to help the poor, so they don't have to. I don't approve of crooks like that, and fully support making them pay their fair share.
Indeed, you seem to be one of those people.
Another example of the extreme hypocrisy of the owning class: welfare for me, lassez faire capitalism for you. In fact, I think you will find that the most vocal supporters of the free market actually desire anything but.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
does anyone actually know is exposure to litterature/films... trivializing or glorifying violence leads to more violence ?
if yes, why is it allowed on TV ?
if no, what about sex ? should it be allowed too ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
> IIRC correctly, Seldane was the sinus medication prescribed by a
> doctor that could cause heart stoppage in a very small percent of users
Seldane (terfenadine) is a bad example, because it was discontinued because it became possible to use fexofenadine instead. Fexofenadine, being terfenadine's active metabolite, has all of the biological activity of terfenadine but without the cardiotoxic drawbacks.
The comic book was on the fast track to extinction after World War Two.
Mikey Spillane was in paperback and so, for that matter, was Dashiell Hammett. Trash or class for 25 cents. The kids were watching television.
The crime and horror comic was the stop-gap, quick-buck, solution.
Pretty much every commercial artist serves his apprenticeship in the sub-basements of his profession. The Civil War artist Mort Künstler churned out Nazi sex-slave bondage covers for men's magazines like Stag.
The problem is that critics weren't looking at what the comic book might become - but what old pros like Al Capp, Hal Foster and Milton Caniff and newcomers like Walt Kelly had made of the newspaper comic strip.
Without a ratings system in place, Tales From The Crypt could be sold off the same racks as Scrooge McDuck and Casper.
The comic book did not have an independent distribution channel but tended to end up in places like your neighborhood cigar store - a strictly male preserve, like the old time saloon, and often a front for pornography sales, bookmaking and the numbers racket. It was not a place you wanted to see a kid.
Call it guilt by association, if you like, but the connection hurt the comics industry and hurt it badly.
You have made quite an extrapolation from a very specific quote.
If your viewpoint really is that the middle and lower class should rise up and take from the rich because they have that power and it would benefit them (they have license to do so in a democracy), then I find your sig pretty ironic.
1. I'm glad you agree with my point.
2. We agree here, too. The rich favor big government for the rich, and small government for everyone else. As the rich make up only 1%, I'd say they generally want smaller government.
3. Are you simply noting the most obvious implications of what I said and repeating them in order to curry favor with me? Yes, this is exactly the major problem with wealth disparity, thanks.
4. My definition is not arbitrary. When the top 10% own 90% of the material wealth, I think that dividing line is crystal clear.
5. Taking something that someone originally stole from you is not wrong. The wealthy have been waging class war on us, and stealing the wealth we created.
6. Congratulations. You've made your first coherent point in the first half of this item. Which also negates the second half. If big government is no guarantee the poor will be helped, small government is no guarantee either. You say people argue that small government will help the poor, but on the most crucial point you remain silent: what are those arguments?
7. I agree completely, and let me add that I believe most people actually want to see excellence rewarded, even if they are not the recipient. We do not want excellence punished, but we do want unfairness punished.
8. I believe they are being fooled because they are acting neither according to any coherent principles they espouse, nor according to their own self interests.
The middle and lower class should rise up and take back what they created with their ingenuity and labor. Idly sitting in mansions investing money that you can not really lose does not create wealth. Work creates wealth.
My sig is a reminder that freedom isn't free. It takes work, and sacrifice. It is more than just license. Freedom means defending those whose freedoms are endangered.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
We may not be genius saints, but we do have some principals, such as an innate sense of fairness. We do not take from other what we would not have them take from us if our positions were reversed. You don't have to assume that you will be rich someday to see that taking from them what they have earned is wrong.
There is very clear evidence that the top 1% in the US deprive the country of more than $100 Billion in tax revenue every year through the use of offshore accounts and other accounting tricks. They are not paying their fair share like the rest of us "little people" and yet they benefit the most from government policies and have a level of influence over the government that the rest of us "little people" don't have. Through out-sourcing of jobs, union-busting, and numerous other dirty tricks, the uber-wealthy class widened the gap between them and everyone else to the widest it has been since the Depression. Those are all acts of the wealthy taking away the wealth and opportunities of others while giving less and less back to the society that has made them so wealthy.
I, for one, don't think that taxing the hell out of the uber-wealthy is unfair in anyway what-so-ever. They will continue to use their accounting tricks, so it's really just a way of getting them to pay something closer to their fair share. If the government miraculously did away with all tax loop holes and subsidies, it would be easier to get everyone to pay their fair share. But that ain't gonna happen. So the game goes on.
I would say that it is fair to ensure that everyone gets at the bare minimum, clean water, enough to eat, shelter, and free medical care. If you want more than that, work for it. I don't think everyone should be rewarded equally, people who do more should get more.
But what is 'more?' If it were only tangible things like mansions and yachts, I would be fine with that. But what more really means, beyond a certain point, is more ability to control other people's lives, and that is not fair. Just because you are excellent at deciding what to invest in should not give you more control over other people's lives and livelihood.
You can't really use Russia as an example of socialism, as they didn't have that style of governemt. They were an oligarchy. Anyone can claim to be anything they like, for example, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is neither democratic, nor a republic. Why not use real examples of socialism, like most of Europe?
I'd say your theory about our education system is off the mark. I certainly don't recall schools teaching me anything like the lessons you claim they teach. I recall being taught that if you work hard, you will succede, but that does not appear to be true for most people. Hard work is important, but going to the right schools and knowing the right people will make you a success even without the hard work, and hard work without luck or contacts just leads to a long life slaving for someone else.
A government system must not assume corruption on the part of all human beings, lest it encourage just that. We must recognize that most people are not corrupt. In fact, most people value fairness and reciprocity over their own self interest. Only when they see that everyone around them is acting unfairly will most people begin to act unfairly themselves, in self defense.
The problem is and always has been the sociopaths who have faulty empathy and no capability for remorse. The vast majority of people do not need laws in order to be good people. They just need the ability to punish unfairness. And in a vastly unequal society, the poor simply don't have the ability to punish the rich when the rich act unfairly. They aren't even part of the same society. The rich can do whatever they like to the poor.
This is the problem. When some in society can impact the lives of others without being impacted themselves, they do not have to take the interests of the others into account. The power of the rich insulates them from even having to understand or empathize with the poor. The rich tell themselves a comforting myth, and no one has the power to stand up and make them understand that their myth is a lie: they did not achieve their position through excellence alone, but through systematic unfairness they took advantage of.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
No, in fact, most people are not greedy and selfish, recent economic experiments have shown that people value fairness and reciprocity over self interest.
If an elected government is full of stupid, evil, greedy people, who is really at fault?
How is taking taxes and giving some to the poor trampling your rights? Are you being held here against your will? Think of society like a retail establishment that sells package deals. You take the deal a society offers you, or you shop around for something better. You wouldn't walk into a Kentucky Fried Chicken and demand a Whopper for five cents, and then complain they were trampling your rights when they laughed at you, would you? If you don't like the deal, you are free to look elsewhere for a better one.
I don't want to remove all economic inequality, I want to remove economic inequity. Excellence and hard work should be rewarded, but fooling people into thinking you are excellent and hard working should not be. And why should pure luck be rewarded? Shouldn't good fortune be shared? Quite frankly, if you are selfish and don't feel like sharing your good fortune, how are you any benefit to society, and why should you be allowed to participate?
I think maybe we have different ideas about what 'fair' means. I don't think it is fair for 10% of the population to control 90% of the wealth, for instance. In such a society, there is no way that everyone is treated as equals and no way that everyone has the same political, economic, or civil rights. Would you or I have gotten the same light handed treatment that, say, Lindsey Lohan got for stealing an SUV, driving around intoxicated, and crashing it into an innocent bystander? Nope, justice really means 'just us rich folk.' How many Americans grow up with dozens of fabulously wealthy friends who are willing to loan us money for our loopy business schemes that have failed dozens of times in the past? You and I don't, But George W. Bush sure did.
We have two Americas now. The America of Wall Street CEOs that makes up 90% of the physical wealth of the country, and the America of the rest of us, a measly 10% split amongst the bottom 90%. They get bailouts and tax breaks, we get failing infrastructure.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
In fact, the idea that we need to "educate" humanity to be genius-saints is pure Marxism. It didn't turn out so well.
It's often the case that ideas attributed to Marxism are ideas that Marx specifically criticized.
In this case, from Theses on Feuerbach:
The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.
1. Then the quote from your original post was a pointless introduction.
2. You are equivocating and changing your statement. Before you said invariably that rich are for small government, but now they are for big government sometimes. I'm glad we agree. The point is that the poor want big government for the poor and small government for the rich. I.e. it is not a function of class, it is universal selfishness.
3. Then why did you say that the poor would be willing to put up with more?
4. It is a crystal clear dividing line, but it is still an arbitrary one.
5. This is the root of your argument, but what is your proof of this? Are you saying all rich have done this or that to be rich you must have done this? I'd say there are many people who have become rich by simply entering into agreements with multiple parties such that both parties felt they benefit from the agreement. This is not stealing. If someone has stolen, or done something else illegal then they should be prosecuted whether they have become rich by doing it or not.
6. There are many but I will not enumerate them here. I am not arguing for or against small government. I am arguing against stealing from the rich just because we can or because of some vague sense that "they stole from us first".
7. I agree completely, and let me add that I believe most people actually want to see excellence rewarded, even if they are not the recipient. We do not want excellence punished, but we do want unfairness punished.
8. You are arguing that the poor and middle class must be being fooled because they can not be for small government because it would not stand for their principals or be in their best interest. But they are for both small and large government depending on the situation. They have made their judgement based on their set of principals (e.g. those of fairness), and what is best for them.
The middle and lower class should rise up and take back what they created with their ingenuity and labor.
It wasn't created with solely their ingenuity and labor, it was a group effort. In general, people benefit proportional to the risk they were willing to accept, their talent, and their determination. Risks may be higher for those who have no capital to start with, but that is another discussion.
Idly sitting in mansions investing money that you can not really lose does not create wealth. Work creates wealth.
Even if this were true, it doesn't give you the right to take their wealth. However, good investment can and does create wealth. And it takes hard work to make good investments.
The rich, in generally, are rich precisely because they seek only license, not freedom. They care only about themselves and their position in the heirarchy.
Blanket statements such as this are pure bigotry. Such bigotry leads to the destruction of the freedom you claim to hold so dear. It is pitiable.
How did Marx feel about anarchists such as Proudhon? What does the word 'vanguard' mean in Marxist philosophy? Did he use it, or was that a latter invention?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
'Nuff said.
1. No, it wasn't because that is what I truly believe that the money behind the 'small government' movement wants, and that is the dead end road that 'small government' types are driving us down. That is the end result.
2. You missed the 'nearly' in front of 'invariably,' didn't you? Honest mistake, I guess.
3. People are not all alike. Some will put up with quite a bit before they start the revolution. Others think it fair to steal from someone making twelve cents an hour more than them. And the rich are not so concerned about theft, they are insured and protected by private security. It's the middle class who take the hit.
4. Plenty of things in life are arbitrary, but fair nonetheless. And arbitrary does not mean that it can be arbitrarily changed, I think you will find broad consensus that those making over a million a year are rich. And my definition, the top one percent, is not arbitrary at all. It's pretty concrete. You could claim the choice of 1% is arbitrary, but then we are getting into meaningless semantics. Words mean only what people agree they mean anyway, and you are basically arguing that the word 'rich' has no real fixed meaning. Take it up with Websters.
(more to come. I've got actual work to do...)
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
A government system must not assume corruption on the part of all human beings, lest it encourage just that. We must recognize that most people are not corrupt. In fact, most people value fairness and reciprocity over their own self interest. Only when they see that everyone around them is acting unfairly will most people begin to act unfairly themselves, in self defense.
This is a chicken-egg problem. A government should not assume corruption but should assume corruptibility... and I may have misstated that. I think all people have greed but not all people are actually corrupt in the "financial" sort of idea, or in the trample-on-other-people's-freedoms-to-get-what-I-want idea.
But I have to disagree that people value fairness and reciprocity over their own self-interest. I know very, very few people that would actually deny themselves something they really want and give it up so that someone else can have X, Y, or Z. Most people are all for fairness because they want to be fairly treated, themselves and they see that being fair is usually the best way to be treated fairly. It's sort of the ingrained "golden rule." But even that, at its core, is self-centered/greedy; I want to be treated fairly, and I have noticed that if I treat others fairly, they are more likely to treat me fairly.
That is the sort of thing a governing system has to take into account. People don't simply work out of altruism; very few do that. They are likely willing to work together if it gets them somewhere they otherwise could not go by themselves.
The problem is and always has been the sociopaths who have faulty empathy and no capability for remorse. The vast majority of people do not need laws in order to be good people.
That depends on how you define "good people," and which laws you are talking about.
They just need the ability to punish unfairness. And in a vastly unequal society, the poor simply don't have the ability to punish the rich when the rich act unfairly. They aren't even part of the same society. The rich can do whatever they like to the poor.
Again, it depends what you're calling "unfair." I get the feeling you're talking about the "very" wealthy, though.
This is the problem. When some in society can impact the lives of others without being impacted themselves, they do not have to take the interests of the others into account.
Exactly! Governmental systems have to take into account this fundamental fact: people are self-centered and greedy. If given the opportunity to get more money/stuff/power/whatever without hurting themselves, even if it hurts others, it seems that many people succumb to that temptation/corruption.
they did not achieve their position through excellence alone, but through systematic unfairness they took advantage of.
You assume.
And again, it depends who is "rich." The top 5% make $150k+ and the top ~1% make $250k+. I personally know a variety of folks above $150k and a variety above $250k. None of them, to my knowledge, took advantage of systematic unfairness, nor are all of them non-empathetic people.
In fact, many of them are in the medical field, and some of them went into that field for the express purpose of trying to help people. Some of them ended up going overseas, since they had enough money, and spending their own time and money to help the poor in other countries, etc.
And yet, it seems that you want to lump all rich people together. Or, and perhaps this is more probable, you're simply using "rich" to refer to very different groups of people at different times in your post. If that is the case, let's not say the top x%. Let's give the exact percentage of the actual wage-earners we're talking about. The "top 1.5%" catches everyone from $250k and up and the "top 10%" catches everyone, apparently, from somewhere between $100k and $150k and up. (source, of course, is wikipedia.)
Giving to the poor benefits society.
How about the problem of diminishing returns? At some point, we should stop giving more to poor people since the benefits no longer outweigh the costs, right? And I imagine most of the spending of any government doesn't go to poor people, whether or not it should. In the US, for example, the vast portion goes to entitlements that aren't means-based (hence, aren't directed to poor people) or government contractors (who may employ poor people, but someone would probably employ those people anyway).
We've had an ego-centered/self-esteem-centered schooling system that has pushed the idea that you deserve to succeed and that you can do anything you want. We teach kids that. We teach kids that if they don't succeed, it's someone else's fault. We teach them that they are a failure if they aren't rich.
The funny thing is that a lot of this was due in part to the pendulum swinging back from Ye Olde Protestant Ethic, where people deserve to succeed and that with hard work and faith in God you can do anything you want, and if you fail it's because you are a damned heathen sinner, not because you did something incorrectly or were simply trumped by someone who worked harder or had better luck.
Too bad we can't get people to accept personal responsibility for their failings while getting everyone else to accept that not everything can be personally accounted for. There can only be one first place, the person coming in second shouldn't be met with derision and scorn on those grounds alone.
I really _wish_ it were a parody.
- the tract is very very real, as TheRaven64 already pointed out
- the accusation that comic books actually turn children into violent juvenile delinquents also was actually very real, and in fact the main thrust of the campaign against them. The muppet mentioned in TFA actually testified before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency that comics are the cause for juvenile deninquency, and actually convinced them. The hearing that William Gaines got, and which another poster quoted actually happened before the same Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency.
If it helps, remember it was also roughly the same age when America also believed such stupidities as the Domino Effect, or such stupid theories as that the Americans are more creative (measured in patents!) than the Russkies (which didn't have a patent office, actually) because the Americans have more pictures in their children's books. The ideas that basically "monkey see, monkey do" and that pictures somehow have some kind of magical power over the mind of youngsters, were sadly very very real.
Why even politicians believed such things... now that's a good question. Lead water pipes, maybe? ;)
- the accusation that video games are making teenagers shoot up the school... well, just listen to Jack Thompson or Joe Lieberman, really. Or at the rhetoric waved around each time some school shooting happened.
Really, I wish such things were just a parody of reality. But reality actually is that some people are that freaking stupid, and that eager to have some scape goat for everything wrong today. Whenever that "today" may actually be.
For an idea of how far back it goes... well, let's just say the main accusation that got Socrates executed was that his ideas are a corrupting influence on the youth.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The problem is that, of all the economic growth over the last thirty years or so, almost all of it has gone to the top one percent.
A similar problem occurs if we just compare physical performance results between couch potatoes and Olympic athletes. As the number of options, both good and bad, increases for everyone in our modern society. It only makes sense that this gap in outcomes of performance would widen over time.
And the real problem may be the expectation that an equality of outcomes should be maintained all the time. By the way, I also disagree with the bank bailout (so I think we're in agreement there). No bank is too big too fail in my book. In fact, for this system to work, we must allow for the failures of banks (that were too big to succeed) for them to be broken up and recycled back into the system.
There is no larger government than one which can sustain a system of chattel slavery - except the one which has the power to destroy it.
1. Ok, you're wrong for a bevy of reasons on this one. The world is not that simple. "the money" is a lot of different people with different agendas and opinions. .5% and the argument would have remained the same. Those are all concrete points, but they are arbitrary. The point I was trying to imply was that today's value of "rich" is likely tomorrows value of middle class and that is how they get the shaft.
2. Doesn't really matter.
3. I'd say the rich are very concerned about government sanctioned theft. I agree the middle class takes a lot of the hit, but I think that is because people claim they are only going to tax the uber rich but it slowly slides into the middle classes (see AMT)
4. The value you're choosing to call "rich" is arbitrary because you could have chosen other points 2%, 5%,
(can't wait, thanks for keeping me from my real work!)
How did Marx feel about anarchists such as Proudhon?
From what I recall, Marx and Engels were pretty critical of Proudhon, generally portraying his economic views as simplistic and romantic. To be fair, I don't really know Proudhon's side of the argument.
What does the word 'vanguard' mean in Marxist philosophy? Did he use it, or was that a latter invention?
Marx and Engels used it occasionally, to mean the best-organized and most politicized of the working class. My sense is that it was used interchangeably with "the revolutionary party," which didn't have as concrete and specific a meaning as it did in Leninism.
My sense is that it was specifically Leninism which went on about the vanguard being the means to overcome the paradox presented in that passage from Theses on Feuerbach, and made the vanguard needly equivalent to a specific, concrete political organization.
I should back up a bit here, and say that I'm trying to work out my views on Marxism. My current thinking is that Marx was generally on the right track, but he was excessively influenced by the French Revolution. That led to subtle biases that were amplified, disastrously, in Leninism -- and that this matter of the vanguard was exactly the problem.
That is, I think that Marx's fuzzy notion of a vanguard had the potential to contradict the point he was making, and that this contradiction was amplified in Leninism, where it was argued that the party resolved the paradox. But it doesn't -- that's just reasserting Feuerbach's idea, positing a revolutionary elite, which Marx criticized to begin with.
My sense is that a democratic socialism can only happen when most people want it to happen, and that's a long, gradual process that, ironically, the Russian Revolution set back.
I bought it in book form due to the movie's presence (especially since I heard knowing the book was useful to understanding the film), even though I never got around to actually watching Watchmen.
Was quite impressed. No wonder it's rated so highly, even amongst regular novels
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
In a world where everyone sacrifices themselves to "the greater good", by mandate, people would be miserable.
Mandated charity is not charity, but slavery.
Government spending as a percentage of GDP.
Sorry about the delay, Networking factory reset all our NetBotz so they could get in and change the IP addresses on them, and didn't tell us, and I had to reconfigure them all... SNMP trap receivers and community strings, ftp server to transfer motion captures to, users, gah! [shakes fist at sky] NETWORKIIIINNNNGGG!!! Why must you task me so?
1. Google 'cheap labor conservative.' It's a well known phenomenon. If they aren't actively working towards it, it must be an amazing coincidence that all their policies have 'cheap, desperate, frightened labor' as a side effect.
2. Words matter. Especially when you claim I said 'never' and I didn't.
3. You keep calling it theft when the policies mean money goes to the middle class or the poor, but not when the policies mean money goes to the rich. Why the double standard?
4. I could have chosen to use the word 'wealthy' as well, but I didn't. I defined my terms, and they mean what I say they mean. Yes, it is arbitrary, but all words are arbitrarily defined, as long most people agree what they mean, that doesn't matter.
Let me be clear that I am not advocating simply seizing the assess of the wealthy, but enacting policy that reverses the policies of upwards wealth transfer they have purchased for themselves.
Yes. When the poor have a really crappy little apartment, enough boring, bland and nutritious food to eat, clean water, and medical care, that's all they get without working for it.
If people do not have those things, guaranteed, then they are not free. Anyone who has those things to offer can control them. Before we domesticated ourselves, anyone had a decent shot of making it on their own. Not anymore, we need society. So, society must provide for us, as it has usurped our ability to hunt and gather for ourselves, and we simply can't go back to that without killing off 90% of us.
If we give people all the basic necessities, guaranteed, then all transactions really are voluntary. Otherwise, transactions relating to survival are coercive. "Do what I say or starve" is no different than "Do what I say or I pull the trigger."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Google 'fairness reciprocity economic experiments' or look up games theory on wikipedia. I'm not talking out my ass here, I'm basing my ideas on recent scientific evidence.
You see, we've spent the last 100,000 to a million years killing or shunning non cooperators. Won't play along? You don't get to breed. And so, cooperating is evolutionarily advantageous. We are born with that innate sense of fairness because it is a danger sense. Our genes tell us, if you don't act fairly, someone is likely to kill you.
I define 'good people' very simply, by the golden rule (or the platinum rule if you prefer: do unto others as you would have them do if you were in their shoes. That formulation takes into account, say, masochists who might like things I don't.)
I'm playing it safe and talking about people who make over a million a year. Actually, since I'm concerned with money's ability to control other people's lives, I'm not so concerned about income, but wealth. If you are in the top 1% of wealth holders, then you are 'wealthy' in my book.
In my opinion, most people don't need laws, but a few people really, really need them, and society has to perform a balancing act between limiting the freedoms of the basically good majority, and protecting them from the small minority of human predators.
If everyone in the world had food, shelter, clean water, and medical care, I would not care how much more some had than others. Until that time, the wealth inequality we have is absolutely obscene.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I do not believe in equality of outcome. Some people are more productive than others. People actually enjoy seeing real excellence and hard work rewarded, when the rewards are proportional to the risk and effort.
But we should ensure that everyone has the basics: clean water, food, shelter, and medical care. We can't be hunter gatherers anymore. We need to live in society. Since we do not have the option of simply running off into the woods and fending for ourselves, society owes us that opportunity it took away from us, basic survival. If people do not have that guaranteed minimum, then any transaction relating to survival becomes coercive, and people become unfree.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I think that Marx's fuzzy notion of a vanguard had the potential to contradict the point he was making, and that this contradiction was amplified in Leninism,
That was why I brought up the point. :)
My sense is that a democratic socialism can only happen when most people want it to happen, and that's a long, gradual process that, ironically, the Russian Revolution set back.
There is no other way. The trick is to explain to the current elite why it is in their best interest to stand as equals with the rest of us. When you are among equals, you don't have to constantly watch your back.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Yes. When the poor have a really crappy little apartment, enough boring, bland and nutritious food to eat, clean water, and medical care, that's all they get without working for it.
One of those isn't like the other. Medical care can be quite expensive (especially as it is practiced in the US), to the point that it costs more than a person makes in a lifetime. I don't think it should be guaranteed until the price of the desired level of care goes down to the point that it can be afforded by society.
Drop medical care and for almost all people, the above list is already achievable with a job.
Let me try to clarify my point: we no longer have the option of going off into the wild and saying 'Sayonara, suckers!' to society. That was our ultimate defense against coercion and tyranny, anyone could make it all on their own. We can not do that anymore, society has usurped all the available hunting/gathering lands. And so, because society has not left us with any options besides being members of society, it must see to our basic needs or stand accused of being based on tyranny and coercion.
The idea that, sans medical care all the basics are achievable with a job completely misses the point. If the vast majority of people must work for someone else in order to survive, society is based on coercion, "You'll take the job we offer and like it, or you'll starve."
Yes, we have an incredibly inefficient medical system here in the US. We spend twice as much per capita as the next most expensive system. And for that astronomical sum, we get very mediocre health care outcomes. We're about 37th worldwide, which places us squarely in second world territory and not amongst the other industrialized nations at all.
However, denying health care to our citizens until this is fixed is not a workable solution. It just hides the true cost. We need to make it painfully obvious how bad things are so that people will try to fix things. If we can't afford health care for everyone, we have a serious problem. It is obscene for so called healers to demand huge profits for their services, it is tantamount to holding a gun to someone's head and saying, pay me, or I might pull the trigger. Or I might not. Or maybe, you pay me and I still pull the trigger. You never know. But you still have to pay me. There is simply no way for a free market to arbitrate a transaction like that in a manner that is equitable and fair to both parties, the imbalance of information is simply too large for the free market to work.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
And so, because society has not left us with any options besides being members of society, it must see to our basic needs or stand accused of being based on tyranny and coercion.
The idea that, sans medical care all the basics are achievable with a job completely misses the point. If the vast majority of people must work for someone else in order to survive, society is based on coercion, "You'll take the job we offer and like it, or you'll starve."
And is there a problem with this? Sure, presented this way, the PR doesn't look so hot. But I'm interested in results not in PR. This society results in a place where people can be happy and free, if they want to be. It doesn't matter to me whether a sophist can cast it as tyranny.
The myth that America is a place where anyone can be happy and free if they want to is simply a self serving excuse. It is a myth successful people tell themselves. No one wants to believe they got where they are through unfair advantage. Everyone loves to think they got where they are through excellence. For some people, believing the myth seems to work, and they can not understand why others do not believe the myth. Others don't believe it because the myth did not work for them. They are not members of the dominant culture, and so the myth can not work for them. One of the prime advantages of being in the dominant culture is that the dominant culture's myths do work for you, and no one in the dominant culture is going to question the myth. When subcultures question the myth, the dominant culture simply tells them it didn't work for them because they are inferior.
Anyway, I'm glad the myth worked for you and you will accept no questions regarding its efficiency for others. Sounds like you have a happy and fulfilling life, that's great. I don't want tot take that away from anyone. I would just like it to be available to everyone. Systematically, it isn't.
We need people doing the shitty jobs in our system. If everyone successfully followed the American Dream, society would collapse. We would have all owners and no workers. In order for the myth to work for some people, it absolutely must fail for others.
Welcome to the kinder, gentler tyranny.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The myth that America is a place where anyone can be happy and free if they want to is simply a self serving excuse.
The "myth" also happens to be correct. The rest of your words wasted my time. Happiness has nothing to do with how many silver spoons ended up in your mouth especially if you suffer from envy (there's always someone with more silver spoons than you). It is an attitude that you can choose to cultivate, if you desire. The charm of the US is that it is easy, not just possible, easy for anyone to be happy, if they so choose.
Let's review, Sure, we can claim that people are "forced" to work. But the basic necessities don't cost that much, especially if you choose to live in a low cost of living place. That means, if you don't want to work hard, you don't have to. Merely having to work (as has been the case since the dawn of time) doesn't mean you can't be happy anyway.
And freedom is pretty obvious. I'm not forced to work for anyone. Nor is anyone else outside of the military and prison. That's just a fact. Given that work can't impose on your freedom in any other way, that's the end of your arguments.