No that's not "Socialism" that's Social Democracy.
Socialism - the 100 year old ideology is a Hydra that encompasses from Communism to Fascism. Basically a group of elites ruling the masses and having a major hand in commanding the economy via bureaucracy rather than the bottom up "unfair" method of demand. The one thread that joins the whole spectrum is Mussolinis famous quote "Everything inside the state, nothing outside the state".
That's Socialism the ideology in a nutshell, as opposed to western social democracy.
Of course it's far more complex than I can be bothered going into here but you are *not* describing Socialism when you use the term Socialism in your post.
There's a pretty big difference that most people don't seem to realise when talking about Socialism...
So using him as an example really means nothing, just because he said he was a Libertarian it's by his actions he should be judged. And working for the money regulator AKA the US Federal Reserve pulling strings to alter the economy as he saw fit speaks volumes to what he truly is and believes.
Nobody is going to trade food or a car which takes an enourmous amount of effort and labour to create for "poetry".
The "poetry" commune is going to be living in mud huts and scratching out a living trying to sell their 99% useless wares...oh that sounds like a class system! And let me guess, your "system of allotment" would revolve around a central bureaucracy telling people a,b and c that they're going to do the shit jobs based on some arbitrary rules and x,y,z get the plum cushy jobs like sitting around all day writing "poetry".
And what if we all want to sit around writing poetry rather than actually you know, working our arses off doing boring shit that makes a society function. Oh that's where your handwaved "society" comes in...undoubtably with legislation and threats of imprisonment for anyone who doesn't turn up for work and do their "fair share". This is old ground you know, pick up a world history book sometime.
And this line is just perfect: "Sure you have to work out a system of apportioning work allotments so that one person is not being ask to provide a disproportionate of labor, but that is up to the society to figure out."
Well a hundred "societies" have tried, millions have died of starvation and disease because of the failures of "alloting" and we're nearly all back to free market demand driven economies again. That's like saying it's easy to travel faster than light, we've just got to figure out how to do it.
Well...duh, the problem is nobody can figure it out because maybe it's *just not possible* given the constraints of reality. Yes, *reality*. That place where Communes inevitably end up falling apart when the peons get sick of the "core group" living lives of absolute luxury while they work their arses off.
Democracy and Communism *are* mutually exclusive, in a democratic "commune" who the fuck would choose to do the shit jobs by choice?
Of course you could just as as honestly have written "There is no "contract of employment". You agree to be paid what they want to pay you and then you abandon them at will.
And then take the knowledge they paid you to get on the job to a competitor."
There's "socialism" that exists in the minds of the comfortable middle classes, then there's "Socialism" the 100 year old ideology that idealogues espouse, confusing the two is dangerous.
Here's a hint: the nation state you describe with its standing army and infrastructure has nothing to do with the Socialist ideology.
You would do well to learn what exactly Socialism is. Especially once it leaves the text books in universities and union halls and hits the real world, it most definitely isn't about utopia or other rubbish, we've seen that clear as day for the last hundred years.
1. He wasn't a socialist he was a social democrat.
2. He didn't go to Spain because he was a "Socialist" he went to fight the Fascists purely to fight the Fascists. It was while in Spain he noted th workers organising where he fell in love with a sort of Anarchist ideology, an ideology where he placed trust in the average working man to organise his own life without any government *at all* (funny sort of "Ardent Socialist"). Though he soon realised that such a society is completely unsustainable and at the mercy of any organised group so he prarmatically moved onto some parts of Socialism as the next best thing but...
3. Despite leaning toward socialism, he railed against socialists and socialism as though he hated both. He though it was necessary evil at the time because he believed capitalism would never lift the bottom out of the abject poverty he saw while researching his first book (which of course it has so he was rather incorrect).
4. He saw the unending potential for totalitarianism and the desire in the hearts and barely covered disgust at the average man in most of the left wing "intelligentsia" who constantly agitated for Socialism under the guise of "social justice, etc, blah blah". When really all they wanted to do was to rule said average men Bolshevik style - nothing has changed in the last 50 years.
5. I say again, he absolutely *hated* the left wing intelligentsia champagne socialists,a group that 90% of the white upper middle class college educated individuals on the internet who advocate for Socialism this day in age fall into.
6. Animal farm was most definitely a warning against the trap of Capitalism morphing to Socialism morphing into Communism then into Totalitarianism as all ideologies are made by men and though sound good on paper once they hit the real world fail miserably. We've got 100 years and 50+ countries that tried and failed to implement various types of Communism and "Pure Socialism" all failed, now every successful country leans heavily toward capitalism and free markets compared to Socialism and no, having roads is not in any way shape or form "Socialism" as described by the official ideology.
7. 1984 was a warning against totalitarianism in all forms but also a warning to himself that *all* ideologies including his own can become totalitarian and fevered ideolgues in general demand absolute capitulation to their ideals. OH and that totalitarianism is the inevitiable outcome for mankind.
8. Communism *requires* totalitarian control of the economy. How else are you going to control everything from the central beauracracy? How are you going to stop people from you know, creating private markets for themselves outside of the government mandated market as people naturally do. For example how are you going to force farmers to grow what you tell them to grow on their..sorry the "peoples" land that they reside on...at the whim of the government. What if they refuse? Will you throw them off? Send them to prison? Congratulations you just hit totalitarianism.
I have every one of Orwells books, including copies all of his known essays, reviews and letters on my bookshelf I think it's you who's lacking the education.
As they say a little education can be worse than none at all...
"My favorite example is a primary school teacher who happens to like BDSM sex. People who are into this adhere to the Safe, sane and consensual principle. (Note: NSFW image in Wikipedia article.) In short, whatever happens happens between consenting adults."
From that link:
"Other people in the BDSM community do not consider SSC to be an accurate term for these relationships/activities. The term Risk Aware Consensual Kink (RACK) is sometimes used as a substitute description."
You know western society has jumped the shark when buzzword bingo and mindless corporate doublespeak and pedantic arguments about meaningless acronyms has even managed to invade our bedrooms.
Also I'm just going to put it out there that I only clicked that link *after* reading that it had a NSFW image.
Because the group of individuals known as a government can't protect your "right" to health-care, basic food, shelter or a job without taking those things from other individuals under threat of imprisonment if they don't cough up. So a "right" to food means someone else has to grow it on their land and hand it over, either being paid with money that been taken from *other* productive members of the village or point blank stolen and handed over to the person asserting their "right". Some right ey?
The right to "basic food" means the right to take something that someone else has put a lot of effort in, what or who gives *you* that right just by virtue of being born? And what if ther people growing their food stop growing it and demand their rights too? Property rights are the core of all rights, without being "allowed" to own any singular item or piece of land how can one be at all free? Given the track record of societies that don't recognise property rights but *do* recognise the "right" to strike, housing, healthcare and food *cough*Eastern Bloc*cough* there's an extremely strong historical argument for the basis of what the libertarians are saying.
I'm not even nearly a "lie-bertarian" and even I understand that....
The hypocrisy and faux outrage of the left wing in the US is more than a little disturbing and starting to become a little overwhelming to the point that it's truly starting to taint my view of the entire movement. It's not like they don't remember 18 months ago when they were still doing the *exact same things* to the bush admin as is being done here. Calling them Nazi's, the underlying racism against Rice and Powell, calling Powell a pet, token black, etc (until he changed to their "side" that is), the photoshop fridays, etc.
"Incarceration is not for punishment or revenge; it serves 3 purposes to society:"
Just because you say something over and over doesn't make it so.
The vast vast majority of individuals in any society on the planet view prison as a punishment. End of story. Lilly white metro lefties delusions regarding prisons, "rehabilitation" (lol) and mainstream societies expectations of such is extremely limited in acceptance, and thankfully for the aformentioned people is not a view that is widely known by the vast majority. Which is unfortunate as it gives a beautiful insight into the bankrupt nature of much of the far lefts thought processes.
The thing that is always disturbingly missing from the general ideology that spawns such bankrupt posts like yours is any hint of justice for the victim of the criminals actions. As though it's only a matter between "society" and the criminal, the victim be damned. At best if the victim is mentioned the best they can hope for is to be told that what happens to the person who has harmed them or their family is of no consequence to them as "Justice is not punishment" and criminals are only put in prison to remove them from "society" which is nothing to do with them or their "barbaric" need for justice. The victim of the crime is quite irrelevant as it's offender who is the true victim in the matter so it would seem.
Time in prison is most definitely a punishment for individuals who wrong others. If it isn't and your disturbing ideal becomes mainstream be prepared for the victims own people to dish out their own punishment to achieve the sense of justice that is absolutely required by victim, family then general society (in that order) when someone harms one of their own.
And you give yourself away in the last sentence; you don't support state capital punishment within an accepted legal framework, but you do support state sanctioned murder...
How can the party that has expanded the size of government to a size never before seen in the entire western world which employs one in four people in the workforce, has allowed unfettered immigration in an open and cynical attempt to change the culture, waged open class warfare against the middle and upper class family AND created the biggest welfare state in the western world possibly be called "conservative".
Nu Labour are authoritarian LEFT. When they got in they ran to the extreme LEFT, not right.
Authoritarian right is just as bad in different ways (shutting borders, looking after the upper class to the expense of everyone else, etc) but the current Labour party in the UK are the very definition of authoritarian champagne socialists.
I mean how far more left do you want them to go?? There's nothing more in the left wing ideology that they can possibly fulfil, every box has been checked, every government programme run and every aspect of every part of the country fiddled with, altered, over regulated or suppressed in an attempt to reshape it and control it as they see fit.
If you think the current labour party of not left wing I shudder to think what it is exactly that you want.
I'm getting mighty tired of these quite frankly disgusting comparisons between China and western liberal democracies (mostly the US) on sites like this by western middleclass individuals living lavish lifestyles in soft liberal democracies whenever China comes up.
It's not clever, it's not rational in fact it's offensive to the people who are suffering under the boot of whatever the hell China is these days (some sort of techo communist/fascist/authoritarian hybrid that we haven't seen before) simply for being so "evil" as to be pro-democratic or to have an opinion contrary to the local party official and/or state apparatus. Or pehaps even wanting to work in the city rather than being a peasant sorry to bad, no permit for you to leave your district.
Truly the white collar middle class have become like petulant children in the west. That you find yourself having to advocate for the free flow of images and video of babies and children being sexually molested in an attempt to find something to criticize about the US is pretty damn telling about A) How damned wonderful it is to live in our respective western countries and B) How absolutely morally and intellectually bankrupt you are that you cannot see that but rather prefer to believe that your freedom is somehow impuned to even within 0.1% of the average Chinese persons day to day existence is to be honest rather disgusting.
And putting legislation online at least five days before it's voted on.
And allowing congressmen enough time to read legislation rather than ramming it down their throats at 2am.
And ending backroom politics.
And get rid of the lobbyists - though perhaps I misheard him on that one and he actually said "I promise to hire as many lobbyists and absolute freaks and weirdos into my administration as I possibly can".
And and and.
He's done absolutely nothing that he said he would do, and in fact has been even *worse* than Bushco regarding midnight bills, etc. So why is the media not lighting a bonfire under his feet? When I watch your media (MSNBC, CNN, etc) it would appear that they're absolutely infatuated with him. He's a political figure not a monarch or religious icon fer the gods sake.
(And not much of an "orator" when he's just got to wing it either I notice)
And before the lefty mods come down on me like a tonne of bricks, I'm no right winger and actually believed he would be different and better. Stupid me ay?
So you won't mind me moving my pet grizzly bear that I've trained to be as aggressive as possible into the backyard next to yours then?
He's harmless, really, an absolute teddy bear and I *promise* he wont knock down your fence and tear you limb from limb as soon as you walk out the back of your house. He absolutely respects your high minded property rights being an animal and all.
Generally when dogs like that "cross the border from one persons property to the next" they maul some poor kid, another animal, etc. There are many animals banned from inside city limits, why should certain breeds of dogs which statistically are now the most dangerous animals to humans on the entire planet be exempt?
I'll do a deal though, you get to keep your savage dog in the city if I get to keep my grizzly bear as well.
Then again I could just take my $2000 plasma cutter, $500 generator and $6000 hilux and head up into the mountains and take down three or four high voltage towers and kill power to about 8 million people for a week or more and be home before nightfall. Just in time to laugh at all of you while you scream in hysteria demanding quadzillions be spent on protecting over hyped "attack vectors".
Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees...
But as long as it's protected by fancy sounding acronyms it appears the white shirts are satisfied.
I have five nice mod points I'd just love to use right now, but you will I've just got to reply to this...
The Federal Government exists only because it has the powers given to it by the legal contract between the states and itself. Without the constitution all those people sitting in Washington DC are just yet another toothless political activist organistion passing non-binding resolutions.
It's highly extraordinary and rather worrying that you regard demanding the US Federal Government limit itself to the legal powers that it was given and ALSO the restrictions that were placed upon it as nonsense just because historically it has ignored them (or more likely because you happen to like the current party in power - I wonder if you sang the same tune 5 years ago).
Your Federal Government also "gives you" extraordinary rendition, torture, military bases in every country in the world, the highest percentage of people in prison in the western world, undeclared wars, a rogue CIA, warrant-less wiretaps etc, etc, etc.
Perhaps if your Federal Government was forced to stay within the bounds of the very legal document that gives it ANY authority to exist at all your country and the rest of the world would be a hell of a lot better off.
Oh, but college kids get cheap loans via the Department Of Education so that makes it ok! The same entity that forced No Child Left Behind on every school in the country...
And if the Federal Government isn't bound by the law that creates it and gives it power over the people why should people be bound by it? Surely if it gets to choose, so does the individual.
Because it has all the guns, tanks and army you say? Then what's the difference between it and every other despotic regime that's held power over the people through the barrel of a gun rather than the rule of law?
Stupid author who tries to make smug nerds feel more smug than they already are ends up looking stupider than the "unwashed masses" he implicitly tries to elevate himself above.
Looking in the Dashboard at what they "know" about for the last three years and it strikes me that it would be very easy for someone to draw some pretty outrageous conclusions about who I am, what I think and what I do.
Pray that governments never get open access to mine their database I say!
If you are an American, Englishman, Frenchman, German, Australian, Canadian or other western individual your country, civilisation and way of life depends 110% on keeping those barrels of oil flowing into your trucks, tractors, machinery and cars.
Without those barrels of oil your lifestyle will go back to 1900's style in many ways and quite a few of you will die. Coal of course can pick up the slack in many areas of energy production but then be prepared for the pollution and death that it brings...1900 style fogs of coal particles. Food production will decrease and the labour needed to produce it will go up by tenfold so without being alarmist millions of people in the less fortunate parts of the world will die without the wealth of cheap western food that much of that oil grows that keeps them fed.
As for the environment and CO2 emmissions without oil, what we're putting out now will be like a trickle compared to using coal.
It seems rather hypocritical to me to rail against Blood for Oil while living extremely comfortably in an advanced western society directly reaping the benefits of having that oil in the fuel tank of your car or providing power to your public transport or the plastic for nearly every type of luxury possible and fertiliser for your food that makes tomatoes and potatoes worth less than $1000 a tonne. Especially hypocritical is the western metro, urban left who have the more than anyone else on the entire planet to lose if the oil stops...
I guess it's easier to project the guilt onto the big bad rich white men. Kinda like how many junkies blame their dealers for the state of their own lives...
Really...because from what I read (rather than what you postulate) of the story it appears that the council members were trying to push through various commercial and industrial ventures that would benefit themselves privately (wow very "21st century"!) and the blogger was calling them out on it.
So it would be the blogger who was the "rural conservative" (apparently just about the worst person in the world in some areas of the Internet it would seem) and the council members who where in the "21st" century with their impropriety, open corruption, torching his car, etc...
Whats rather funny is how the reality appears to be completely the opposite that you claim it is, yet you're at +5 because you somehow make it sound like those nasty rural conservatives are the councilors and it's a cool twenty something urban dwelling blogger who's doing the good work to bring them down. Certainly in my mind after reading your post I had the Councilors pegged as old white "rural conservative" fat cats. A fantasy which suits the metro demographic of this site far better than the reality it would appear given the current moderation of your completely bullshit made up post.
Civil servants in the mother country have developed a disturbing sense of over entitlement to their positions and status. So no it wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear that a single blogger has been enough of pain for a couple of them enough to throw a hissy fit. In "nu england" where 1 in 4 workers are employed by the government a new class of individual has arisen: the over entitled, all powerful, low level, vindictive, civil servant.
The movie Brazil would have been better named "UK" because as they say, nobody does bureaucracy like the English - and they used to say that *before* the Nu Labour "revolution".
Off the top of my head from the last few months various councils have:
Sent men in black vans to rummage through individuals bins to make sure that they are sorting their rubbish properly (before sending to mass landfill anyway).
Started placing cameras *in* families homes - 20000 of them over the next few years.
Reduced bin collection to every *two weeks* AND reduced the size of bins.
Placed cameras in alleyways to ensure people are tying off their garbage bags properly.
Seized the pole from a barbers shop - that had been their for 30 years.
Impounded a mothers pram.
Arrested a man for leaving the lid of his bin open four inches greater than regulation allows.
Started using thermal imaging to send residents notices if they are allowing heat to escape from their homes.
Used anti-terror laws to conduct surveillance on people the council suspects of having un-approved structures...like a garden shed in the backyard.
So my dear American, best to not apply your own Occams razor - my own countries governance must be the same everywhere - fallacy on newly emerging post democratic totalitarian states.
What people can stay free, when one of them demands the other three pay him to regulate their lives?
Slashdot Mirror
Sigh.
No that's not "Socialism" that's Social Democracy.
Socialism - the 100 year old ideology is a Hydra that encompasses from Communism to Fascism. Basically a group of elites ruling the masses and having a major hand in commanding the economy via bureaucracy rather than the bottom up "unfair" method of demand. The one thread that joins the whole spectrum is Mussolinis famous quote "Everything inside the state, nothing outside the state".
That's Socialism the ideology in a nutshell, as opposed to western social democracy.
Of course it's far more complex than I can be bothered going into here but you are *not* describing Socialism when you use the term Socialism in your post.
There's a pretty big difference that most people don't seem to realise when talking about Socialism...
Erm Alan Greenspan was the *ultimate* regulator.
He regulated money and he failed miserably.
So using him as an example really means nothing, just because he said he was a Libertarian it's by his actions he should be judged. And working for the money regulator AKA the US Federal Reserve pulling strings to alter the economy as he saw fit speaks volumes to what he truly is and believes.
Nobody is going to trade food or a car which takes an enourmous amount of effort and labour to create for "poetry".
The "poetry" commune is going to be living in mud huts and scratching out a living trying to sell their 99% useless wares...oh that sounds like a class system! And let me guess, your "system of allotment" would revolve around a central bureaucracy telling people a,b and c that they're going to do the shit jobs based on some arbitrary rules and x,y,z get the plum cushy jobs like sitting around all day writing "poetry".
And what if we all want to sit around writing poetry rather than actually you know, working our arses off doing boring shit that makes a society function. Oh that's where your handwaved "society" comes in...undoubtably with legislation and threats of imprisonment for anyone who doesn't turn up for work and do their "fair share". This is old ground you know, pick up a world history book sometime.
And this line is just perfect: "Sure you have to work out a system of apportioning work allotments so that one person is not being ask to provide a disproportionate of labor, but that is up to the society to figure out."
Well a hundred "societies" have tried, millions have died of starvation and disease because of the failures of "alloting" and we're nearly all back to free market demand driven economies again. That's like saying it's easy to travel faster than light, we've just got to figure out how to do it.
Well...duh, the problem is nobody can figure it out because maybe it's *just not possible* given the constraints of reality. Yes, *reality*. That place where Communes inevitably end up falling apart when the peons get sick of the "core group" living lives of absolute luxury while they work their arses off.
Democracy and Communism *are* mutually exclusive, in a democratic "commune" who the fuck would choose to do the shit jobs by choice?
Of course you could just as as honestly have written "There is no "contract of employment". You agree to be paid what they want to pay you and then you abandon them at will. And then take the knowledge they paid you to get on the job to a competitor."
Yes, because history has taught us time and again that when left to their own accords, the *government* can police itself.
Without controls they're THE SAME THING. Groups of people who can wield power and need to be kept in check.
There's "socialism" that exists in the minds of the comfortable middle classes, then there's "Socialism" the 100 year old ideology that idealogues espouse, confusing the two is dangerous.
Here's a hint: the nation state you describe with its standing army and infrastructure has nothing to do with the Socialist ideology.
You would do well to learn what exactly Socialism is. Especially once it leaves the text books in universities and union halls and hits the real world, it most definitely isn't about utopia or other rubbish, we've seen that clear as day for the last hundred years.
1. He wasn't a socialist he was a social democrat.
2. He didn't go to Spain because he was a "Socialist" he went to fight the Fascists purely to fight the Fascists. It was while in Spain he noted th workers organising where he fell in love with a sort of Anarchist ideology, an ideology where he placed trust in the average working man to organise his own life without any government *at all* (funny sort of "Ardent Socialist"). Though he soon realised that such a society is completely unsustainable and at the mercy of any organised group so he prarmatically moved onto some parts of Socialism as the next best thing but...
3. Despite leaning toward socialism, he railed against socialists and socialism as though he hated both. He though it was necessary evil at the time because he believed capitalism would never lift the bottom out of the abject poverty he saw while researching his first book (which of course it has so he was rather incorrect).
4. He saw the unending potential for totalitarianism and the desire in the hearts and barely covered disgust at the average man in most of the left wing "intelligentsia" who constantly agitated for Socialism under the guise of "social justice, etc, blah blah". When really all they wanted to do was to rule said average men Bolshevik style - nothing has changed in the last 50 years.
5. I say again, he absolutely *hated* the left wing intelligentsia champagne socialists,a group that 90% of the white upper middle class college educated individuals on the internet who advocate for Socialism this day in age fall into.
6. Animal farm was most definitely a warning against the trap of Capitalism morphing to Socialism morphing into Communism then into Totalitarianism as all ideologies are made by men and though sound good on paper once they hit the real world fail miserably. We've got 100 years and 50+ countries that tried and failed to implement various types of Communism and "Pure Socialism" all failed, now every successful country leans heavily toward capitalism and free markets compared to Socialism and no, having roads is not in any way shape or form "Socialism" as described by the official ideology.
7. 1984 was a warning against totalitarianism in all forms but also a warning to himself that *all* ideologies including his own can become totalitarian and fevered ideolgues in general demand absolute capitulation to their ideals. OH and that totalitarianism is the inevitiable outcome for mankind.
8. Communism *requires* totalitarian control of the economy. How else are you going to control everything from the central beauracracy? How are you going to stop people from you know, creating private markets for themselves outside of the government mandated market as people naturally do. For example how are you going to force farmers to grow what you tell them to grow on their..sorry the "peoples" land that they reside on...at the whim of the government. What if they refuse? Will you throw them off? Send them to prison? Congratulations you just hit totalitarianism.
I have every one of Orwells books, including copies all of his known essays, reviews and letters on my bookshelf I think it's you who's lacking the education.
As they say a little education can be worse than none at all...
"My favorite example is a primary school teacher who happens to like BDSM sex. People who are into this adhere to the Safe, sane and consensual principle. (Note: NSFW image in Wikipedia article.) In short, whatever happens happens between consenting adults."
From that link:
"Other people in the BDSM community do not consider SSC to be an accurate term for these relationships/activities. The term Risk Aware Consensual Kink (RACK) is sometimes used as a substitute description."
You know western society has jumped the shark when buzzword bingo and mindless corporate doublespeak and pedantic arguments about meaningless acronyms has even managed to invade our bedrooms.
Also I'm just going to put it out there that I only clicked that link *after* reading that it had a NSFW image.
Bit of a let down, just saying...
Because the group of individuals known as a government can't protect your "right" to health-care, basic food, shelter or a job without taking those things from other individuals under threat of imprisonment if they don't cough up. So a "right" to food means someone else has to grow it on their land and hand it over, either being paid with money that been taken from *other* productive members of the village or point blank stolen and handed over to the person asserting their "right". Some right ey?
The right to "basic food" means the right to take something that someone else has put a lot of effort in, what or who gives *you* that right just by virtue of being born? And what if ther people growing their food stop growing it and demand their rights too? Property rights are the core of all rights, without being "allowed" to own any singular item or piece of land how can one be at all free? Given the track record of societies that don't recognise property rights but *do* recognise the "right" to strike, housing, healthcare and food *cough*Eastern Bloc*cough* there's an extremely strong historical argument for the basis of what the libertarians are saying.
I'm not even nearly a "lie-bertarian" and even I understand that....
The hypocrisy and faux outrage of the left wing in the US is more than a little disturbing and starting to become a little overwhelming to the point that it's truly starting to taint my view of the entire movement. It's not like they don't remember 18 months ago when they were still doing the *exact same things* to the bush admin as is being done here. Calling them Nazi's, the underlying racism against Rice and Powell, calling Powell a pet, token black, etc (until he changed to their "side" that is), the photoshop fridays, etc.
So where was this fake outrage and Googles swift action when the internet hoardes were photoshopping Condoleezza Rice to look like an http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:official&um=1&q=Condoleezza+Rice&sa=N&start=105&ndsp=21 african native ?
Absolute hypocrites.
"Incarceration is not for punishment or revenge; it serves 3 purposes to society:"
Just because you say something over and over doesn't make it so.
The vast vast majority of individuals in any society on the planet view prison as a punishment. End of story. Lilly white metro lefties delusions regarding prisons, "rehabilitation" (lol) and mainstream societies expectations of such is extremely limited in acceptance, and thankfully for the aformentioned people is not a view that is widely known by the vast majority. Which is unfortunate as it gives a beautiful insight into the bankrupt nature of much of the far lefts thought processes.
The thing that is always disturbingly missing from the general ideology that spawns such bankrupt posts like yours is any hint of justice for the victim of the criminals actions. As though it's only a matter between "society" and the criminal, the victim be damned. At best if the victim is mentioned the best they can hope for is to be told that what happens to the person who has harmed them or their family is of no consequence to them as "Justice is not punishment" and criminals are only put in prison to remove them from "society" which is nothing to do with them or their "barbaric" need for justice. The victim of the crime is quite irrelevant as it's offender who is the true victim in the matter so it would seem.
Time in prison is most definitely a punishment for individuals who wrong others. If it isn't and your disturbing ideal becomes mainstream be prepared for the victims own people to dish out their own punishment to achieve the sense of justice that is absolutely required by victim, family then general society (in that order) when someone harms one of their own.
And you give yourself away in the last sentence; you don't support state capital punishment within an accepted legal framework, but you do support state sanctioned murder...
You are a hypocrite.
What extraordinary cognitive dissonance.
How can the party that has expanded the size of government to a size never before seen in the entire western world which employs one in four people in the workforce, has allowed unfettered immigration in an open and cynical attempt to change the culture, waged open class warfare against the middle and upper class family AND created the biggest welfare state in the western world possibly be called "conservative".
Nu Labour are authoritarian LEFT. When they got in they ran to the extreme LEFT, not right.
Authoritarian right is just as bad in different ways (shutting borders, looking after the upper class to the expense of everyone else, etc) but the current Labour party in the UK are the very definition of authoritarian champagne socialists.
I mean how far more left do you want them to go?? There's nothing more in the left wing ideology that they can possibly fulfil, every box has been checked, every government programme run and every aspect of every part of the country fiddled with, altered, over regulated or suppressed in an attempt to reshape it and control it as they see fit.
If you think the current labour party of not left wing I shudder to think what it is exactly that you want.
I'm getting mighty tired of these quite frankly disgusting comparisons between China and western liberal democracies (mostly the US) on sites like this by western middleclass individuals living lavish lifestyles in soft liberal democracies whenever China comes up.
It's not clever, it's not rational in fact it's offensive to the people who are suffering under the boot of whatever the hell China is these days (some sort of techo communist/fascist/authoritarian hybrid that we haven't seen before) simply for being so "evil" as to be pro-democratic or to have an opinion contrary to the local party official and/or state apparatus. Or pehaps even wanting to work in the city rather than being a peasant sorry to bad, no permit for you to leave your district.
Truly the white collar middle class have become like petulant children in the west. That you find yourself having to advocate for the free flow of images and video of babies and children being sexually molested in an attempt to find something to criticize about the US is pretty damn telling about A) How damned wonderful it is to live in our respective western countries and B) How absolutely morally and intellectually bankrupt you are that you cannot see that but rather prefer to believe that your freedom is somehow impuned to even within 0.1% of the average Chinese persons day to day existence is to be honest rather disgusting.
Educate your self a little you ignorant hick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China
CNN - "Oooh he gives me a tingle up my leg".
*shudder*
Apparently that's the standard that Fox is supposed to be aiming for.
And putting legislation online at least five days before it's voted on.
And allowing congressmen enough time to read legislation rather than ramming it down their throats at 2am.
And ending backroom politics.
And get rid of the lobbyists - though perhaps I misheard him on that one and he actually said "I promise to hire as many lobbyists and absolute freaks and weirdos into my administration as I possibly can".
And and and.
He's done absolutely nothing that he said he would do, and in fact has been even *worse* than Bushco regarding midnight bills, etc. So why is the media not lighting a bonfire under his feet? When I watch your media (MSNBC, CNN, etc) it would appear that they're absolutely infatuated with him. He's a political figure not a monarch or religious icon fer the gods sake.
(And not much of an "orator" when he's just got to wing it either I notice)
And before the lefty mods come down on me like a tonne of bricks, I'm no right winger and actually believed he would be different and better. Stupid me ay?
You just re-invented flash...
So you won't mind me moving my pet grizzly bear that I've trained to be as aggressive as possible into the backyard next to yours then?
He's harmless, really, an absolute teddy bear and I *promise* he wont knock down your fence and tear you limb from limb as soon as you walk out the back of your house. He absolutely respects your high minded property rights being an animal and all.
Generally when dogs like that "cross the border from one persons property to the next" they maul some poor kid, another animal, etc. There are many animals banned from inside city limits, why should certain breeds of dogs which statistically are now the most dangerous animals to humans on the entire planet be exempt?
I'll do a deal though, you get to keep your savage dog in the city if I get to keep my grizzly bear as well.
Then again I could just take my $2000 plasma cutter, $500 generator and $6000 hilux and head up into the mountains and take down three or four high voltage towers and kill power to about 8 million people for a week or more and be home before nightfall. Just in time to laugh at all of you while you scream in hysteria demanding quadzillions be spent on protecting over hyped "attack vectors".
Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees...
But as long as it's protected by fancy sounding acronyms it appears the white shirts are satisfied.
I have five nice mod points I'd just love to use right now, but you will I've just got to reply to this...
The Federal Government exists only because it has the powers given to it by the legal contract between the states and itself. Without the constitution all those people sitting in Washington DC are just yet another toothless political activist organistion passing non-binding resolutions.
It's highly extraordinary and rather worrying that you regard demanding the US Federal Government limit itself to the legal powers that it was given and ALSO the restrictions that were placed upon it as nonsense just because historically it has ignored them (or more likely because you happen to like the current party in power - I wonder if you sang the same tune 5 years ago).
Your Federal Government also "gives you" extraordinary rendition, torture, military bases in every country in the world, the highest percentage of people in prison in the western world, undeclared wars, a rogue CIA, warrant-less wiretaps etc, etc, etc.
Perhaps if your Federal Government was forced to stay within the bounds of the very legal document that gives it ANY authority to exist at all your country and the rest of the world would be a hell of a lot better off.
Oh, but college kids get cheap loans via the Department Of Education so that makes it ok! The same entity that forced No Child Left Behind on every school in the country...
And if the Federal Government isn't bound by the law that creates it and gives it power over the people why should people be bound by it? Surely if it gets to choose, so does the individual.
Because it has all the guns, tanks and army you say? Then what's the difference between it and every other despotic regime that's held power over the people through the barrel of a gun rather than the rule of law?
I think you're being a little easy on him...
Stupid author who tries to make smug nerds feel more smug than they already are ends up looking stupider than the "unwashed masses" he implicitly tries to elevate himself above.
Looking in the Dashboard at what they "know" about for the last three years and it strikes me that it would be very easy for someone to draw some pretty outrageous conclusions about who I am, what I think and what I do.
Pray that governments never get open access to mine their database I say!
Even so, just looking at what's there, all in one place there's only one word for it faaaaaark.
It's like a time machine where I can look into my life for the last 3 and half years and see what my state of mind was at any point in time.
Sometimes it was not pretty, things we forget over time ey?
Also at what point did the search tracking automatically become opt-in? Last I heard it was only voluntary when did they sneak that change through?
If you are an American, Englishman, Frenchman, German, Australian, Canadian or other western individual your country, civilisation and way of life depends 110% on keeping those barrels of oil flowing into your trucks, tractors, machinery and cars.
Without those barrels of oil your lifestyle will go back to 1900's style in many ways and quite a few of you will die. Coal of course can pick up the slack in many areas of energy production but then be prepared for the pollution and death that it brings...1900 style fogs of coal particles. Food production will decrease and the labour needed to produce it will go up by tenfold so without being alarmist millions of people in the less fortunate parts of the world will die without the wealth of cheap western food that much of that oil grows that keeps them fed.
As for the environment and CO2 emmissions without oil, what we're putting out now will be like a trickle compared to using coal.
It seems rather hypocritical to me to rail against Blood for Oil while living extremely comfortably in an advanced western society directly reaping the benefits of having that oil in the fuel tank of your car or providing power to your public transport or the plastic for nearly every type of luxury possible and fertiliser for your food that makes tomatoes and potatoes worth less than $1000 a tonne. Especially hypocritical is the western metro, urban left who have the more than anyone else on the entire planet to lose if the oil stops...
I guess it's easier to project the guilt onto the big bad rich white men. Kinda like how many junkies blame their dealers for the state of their own lives...
Really...because from what I read (rather than what you postulate) of the story it appears that the council members were trying to push through various commercial and industrial ventures that would benefit themselves privately (wow very "21st century"!) and the blogger was calling them out on it.
So it would be the blogger who was the "rural conservative" (apparently just about the worst person in the world in some areas of the Internet it would seem) and the council members who where in the "21st" century with their impropriety, open corruption, torching his car, etc...
Whats rather funny is how the reality appears to be completely the opposite that you claim it is, yet you're at +5 because you somehow make it sound like those nasty rural conservatives are the councilors and it's a cool twenty something urban dwelling blogger who's doing the good work to bring them down. Certainly in my mind after reading your post I had the Councilors pegged as old white "rural conservative" fat cats. A fantasy which suits the metro demographic of this site far better than the reality it would appear given the current moderation of your completely bullshit made up post.
Civil servants in the mother country have developed a disturbing sense of over entitlement to their positions and status. So no it wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear that a single blogger has been enough of pain for a couple of them enough to throw a hissy fit. In "nu england" where 1 in 4 workers are employed by the government a new class of individual has arisen: the over entitled, all powerful, low level, vindictive, civil servant.
The movie Brazil would have been better named "UK" because as they say, nobody does bureaucracy like the English - and they used to say that *before* the Nu Labour "revolution".
Off the top of my head from the last few months various councils have:
Sent men in black vans to rummage through individuals bins to make sure that they are sorting their rubbish properly (before sending to mass landfill anyway).
Started placing cameras *in* families homes - 20000 of them over the next few years.
Reduced bin collection to every *two weeks* AND reduced the size of bins.
Placed cameras in alleyways to ensure people are tying off their garbage bags properly.
Seized the pole from a barbers shop - that had been their for 30 years.
Impounded a mothers pram.
Arrested a man for leaving the lid of his bin open four inches greater than regulation allows.
Started using thermal imaging to send residents notices if they are allowing heat to escape from their homes.
Used anti-terror laws to conduct surveillance on people the council suspects of having un-approved structures...like a garden shed in the backyard.
So my dear American, best to not apply your own Occams razor - my own countries governance must be the same everywhere - fallacy on newly emerging post democratic totalitarian states.
What people can stay free, when one of them demands the other three pay him to regulate their lives?