As it happens, I came quite close to studying for a PhD in Russian history. Nowadays, I wish I had. So I do know a little about that country, its history, and how its people think. (Even though I used to enjoy Tom Clancy's melodramas about the wicked communists, before his writing became flabby and stereotyped).
You say that RT "are beholden to different masters". Different, I take it, from the masters of our own Western media. Whatever the official story, the BBC is just as government-controlled as RT. For one thing, the licence fee which constitutes the great majority of its income is wholly at the government's discretion. For another, ever since the Dodgy Dossier affair, when heads rolled throughout the BBC right up to the Director-General, all BBC employees have clearly understood that they had better echo the British government line if they want to have any career prospects at all.
There is no longer any trace of independent mainstream media anywhere in the West. Fatuous, ridiculous, impossible government assertions are continually published with placid smugness - hardly ever does a journalist ask any properly pointed questions, and such scepticism almost never finds its way into print. Even if a journalist decides to risk her career by doing some investigative digging, her editor will spike the story - because he values his career.
Faced with such a situation, I now assess what I read based purely on its consistency with what I already know to be true - and untrue.
So, you are a British history graduate and a member of Mensa and yet an idiot if you truly believe any Russian news agency is more trustworthy than the BBC. Sorry.
And I am supposed to accept your verdict based on what evidence? Your say-so?
I don't believe that "any Russian news agency is more trustworthy than the BBC" simply as an item of faith. I believe it because day after day, literally for years, I have heard the BBC offer slanted, biased, one-sided stories. I have heard them cover stories about Palestine in which the views of the Israeli ambassador were balanced by the opinions of Jewish (but British) "analysts" - and whenever anyone represented the Palestinian side of the story, it was always someone who spoke rapidly in broken English with a strong foreign accent. (The advocates of Israel, of course, always sound impeccably educated and speak with either an upper-crust British accent, or perhaps well-bred American tones).
Over and over, we are told that "Russia invaded Ukraine" - which is absolutely untrue in any sense of the words. Just recently, a row has blown up over Olympic medallists allegedly taking performance-enhancing drugs. And of course, what do the MSM immediately come up with? Apparently a dozen or so Russian athletes are the main offenders, so Russia may be prevented from attending the next Olympic Games in Rio. Funny that - I have heard of many US and British athletes who took drugs and were found out and punished. I wonder how many weren't found out? Yet once again it's all about the evil Russians.
Finally, why do you say that a Russian news agency is not more trustworthy than the BBC? What evidence do you have for that naive belief? Or are you one of those people who must always "support our side" and boo the "others"? It was an American Major-General, Carl Schurz, who said (soon after the American Civil War): "Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when wrong to be put right". No intelligent, educated adult can possibly think that his country is always right, and foreigners always wrong.
The country most aggressively spying on the USA is not China, not Russia, not the USA itself, it is France.
And how do you know that? A moment's thought will show that, to make that assertion, you must know (1) how aggressively France is spying on the USA; and (2) how aggressively all other countries are spying on the USA.
Moreover, it's by no means simple even in the case of France. Which agencies do you take into consideration? The obvious organs of state intelligence might have delegated the task to better hidden, or entirely private teams.
And, of course, if you know how aggressively France is spying on the USA, don't you think it possible that the FBI and the many other federal agencies whose remit includes counter-espionage might share that knowledge? And if they do, isn't it likely that they would have done something to make France spy less aggressively?
Since I gave up reading the MSM newspapers and listening to the BBC, because I realised that their foreign news coverage - and much of their domestic news - was a bunch of lies.
I am a British history graduate and a member of Mensa, with a strong interest in history and human affairs in general. I am careful to read widely and compare sources. On that basis, during the two years I have been following RT, I have not seen any obvious lies or distortion - about Russia or anything else.
On the other hand, if I want to see lies and distortion aplenty, all I have to do is turn on the BBC or scan through any British newspaper. Just this morning I received the latest issue of Private Eye, and on the very first page I found a cartoon insinuating that Putin was responsible for the destruction of MH17 and that therefore the destruction of Flight 9268 was some kind of payback.
I have spent many hours studying all the reports and analysis about MH17, and it is pretty clear that whoever was responsible, it was certainly not Russia. I have also spent a lot of time reading up about the present state of Ukraine, and it would be very hard to put any act - no matter how cruel or grotesque - past the gang of cynical hooligans who are currently ruling there.
I see from Julia Reda's article that she believes the main pressure for this cretinous measure is coming from publishers. They think, she says, that their income from advertising is shrinking too quickly.
It is immediately obvious that publishers, as a group, would be perfectly delighted if the Web were to vanish tomorrow. They are under continuous severe pressure from Amazon and Google - Amazon sells their books at far lower prices than they would wish, and has established something close to a monopsony where it is the only wholesale purchaser and therefore can set its own terms. Meanwhile, Google Books is exposing vast amounts of what publishers consider their property (they don't have a high opinion of writers) to public scrutiny, without charge. Worst of all, a whole generation has grown up in the earnest belief that books and magazines, as such, are unnecessary; everything worth knowing can (they think) be found, free of charge, on the Web. Of course this isn't true, or even nearly true, but - as they say in business circles - "perception is all".
The publishing industry is certainly going through hard times, and facing very difficult decisions. But taking the Web down with it is certainly not the answer. Everyone who is in a position to do so should let the EU know, in no uncertain terms, how frightful a proposal this is and just what its consequences would be, if implemented.
The only logical conclusion one can come to is this:
It's time to abolish the European Union. It has done untold harm, and very little good (if any). When a government body proposes such sheer, raving insanity, it is signing its own suicide note.
I appreciate the spirit of your suggestion, but I feel very strongly that it would be a terrible mistake to give a single inch in the face of this horrible, iniquitous, and unbelievably ignorant proposal.
Permission to follow links to a Web page is clearly implied by the decision to put up a Web page, and to allow access from the World Wide Web. Access to Web pages on a private intranet is forbidden by the same laws that forbid access to everything else on such a private network.
The World Wide Web has existed for about 25 years - quarter of a century. When it was first created, Tim Berners-Lee and his collaborators made a careful and considered decision to give the specifications away free (as in speech and as in beer). Not only was that the right thing, the ethical thing to do; it was in the spirit of the (then infant) FOSS movement; and last but not least, it was the best way to give the new-born Web wings and enable it to spread rapidly until it became truly worldwide.
Today the Web has, at the very least, 47 billion pages (based on Google statistics). How many links do you think the average page has? This proposed legislation would destroy all possible confidence in using any one of those links. It would be the Internet equivalent of magically removing the foundations of every building in New York City. The effect on the Web would be similar to the effect of 9/11 on the World Trade Center - except that it would affect over a billion people and virtually every business and government in the world.
If anyone does not wish to have people view his Web pages through links from other pages, he has a simple remedy: DON'T PUT UP A WEB SITE. If you do choose to gain the benefits of putting up a Web site, then DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT THE WAY IT WORKS.
Here is TBL's considered view of the status of links, posted in 1997:
TBL wrote: "The ability to refer to a document (or a person or any thing else) is in general a fundamental right of free speech to the same extent that speech is free. Making the reference with a hypertext link is more efficient but changes nothing else... Users and information providers and lawyers have to share this convention. If they do not, people will be frightened to make links for fear of legal implications. I received a mail message asking for "permission" to link to our site. I refused as I insisted that permission was not needed".
And here is his conclusion:
"There are some fundamental principles about links on which the Web is based. These are principles allow the world of distributed hypertext to work. Lawyers, users and technology and content providers must all agree to respect these principles which have been outlined.
"It is difficult to emphasize how important these issues are for society. The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, for example, addresses the right to speak. The right to make reference to something is inherent in that right. On the web, to make reference without making a link is possible but ineffective - like speaking but with a paper bag over your head".
What's liberal about kidnapping, imprisonment and abuse?
Is it a left thing or a right thing?
To ask that intelligent question is to see the answer: neither. It's a greedy, selfish, arrogant, cruel thing. You are governed by greedy, selfish, arrogant, cruel people. And they will call themselves "conservative" or "liberal" or anything else that gets them what they want, and fools you into quarreling among yourselves when you should be arresting and trying them. "Divide and conquer". It was known to the Romans, and you can bet it isn't exactly unknown to American politicians.
Those relics we vote for who represent us should fucking know better, because they aren't the ignorant youth.
Of course they "know better". They know better than to believe for one single moment that they need to give a rat's ass about the law or the Constitution, because they are in a position to do whatever they like - and nobody can stop them or exact any retribution.
Your mistake (I think) is to believe that, just because someone wins an election or is appointed to public office, they automatically become altruistic and unselfish in some mystical way. Look around you at your fellow men (and, increasingly, women) and ask yourself whether, given a choice, they would act in your interest or their own. Then understand that politicians are just like that.
I've said it before, and it apparently needs repeating. Voting for a candidate that CANNOT win is pretty much a stupid idea in a system where two parties generally are in control.
Yes, that's half of it - and perfectly true so far as it goes.
The other half is that if you vote for either of the two parties that are "generally in control", you will get more of what you have been getting. In particular, please tell me which of the two parties that are "generally in control" would stop the FBI's abuse of power and ill treatment of US citizens?
In case you are in doubt, the answer is, "Neither".
So there you have it. Vote for one of the two main parties, and things go on exactly as before. Vote for anyone else, and your vote is wasted. Ah democracy, how sweet is thy name! How would we get along without it?
can we please elect someone who can actually fix things????
You have put your finger accurately on the source of the problem. Unfortunately, the answer is, "No, you cannot".
Consider. US elections, at almost all levels but especially at the federal level, give citizens the chance to cast a vote for any of the official candidates. Aha, but who chooses the candidates? The official parties - namely Republicrats and Demoblicans. And they don't select any official candidates who don't toe the party line. The real party line, that is, not the carefully crafted set of lies published as party platforms or manifestos. (If you doubt that assertion, take a look at the platforms of George W Bush and Barack Obama, and ask yourself how many of those promises they kept). And the key fact is that, in all important respects, the real party lines of both parties are identical.
Clever, eh? In the USSR they had regular elections but we Westerners scoffed at their obvious fraudulence, as there was only one party and one candidate. How ridiculous! In the West today, a small technical tweak has been added: there are two parties, two candidates - but still no choice.
So your position is that, since the UK voters are dumb enough to elect rulers who are unscrupulous enough to pass laws like this, the answer is for the UK to be subordinated to an unelected bunch of failed politicians somewhere far away, who will supposedly stand up for the rights of ordinary British people?
"I'm not sure an idealized 20th century version of hunter-gatherers -- the usual pastiche of peaceful, family-centric, eco-friendly tribes -- is really any more accurate or less stereotypical than Hobbes' view".
Neither am I. So it's a good thing I didn't say anything of the sort.
Your post literally makes no sense to me. I have been reading a lot about Putin and Russia for a couple of years now - on top of a lifelong vague interest - and the thing that impresses me most is how much sense they make, and how I never catch them in a lie. In extreme contrast to public events in Britain and the USA.
Even Bill Clinton told CNN a couple of years ago that Putin was very smart and completely honest. 'Asked if Putin ever reneged on a promise, Clinton was categorical: “He did not... He kept his word on all the deals we made,” Clinton said'. Coming from an ex-US president of which the same could definitely not be said, this amounted to an admission that Putin was a better man than Clinton. Along with the praise there was, inevitably, some criticism; but the worst things Clinton could find to say were that Putin was "brutally blunt", "has a skewed sense of humour" (probably Clinton hasn't had much experience of Russian humour), and might be inclined to put Russia's success ahead of the welfare of individual Russians (quite unlike any US politicians, who always put the poor first).
When you write in a public forum that "the problem for me with putin and russia is... they are fucking batshit insane", the only conclusion the rest of us are likely to reach is that it is YOU who are insane - or, more charitably, ignorant and provincial. All human beings have strengths and weaknesses, and people from distant lands often behave in ways that puzzle us - but one of the great lessons of life is that, in the last analysis, we are all very much alike. And none of us are much better (if at all) than others.
Russia has about the same number (and power) of nuclear weapons as the USA. And, believe me, it is not the Russian nuclear arsenal that worries me. I am quite convinced that Russia's armed forces are for the defence of Russia only - even if that occasionally necessitates air strikes in Syria, or such places in the "near abroad". The only way in which Russia would ever be a threat to the existence of the West is if the West pushes Russia to the very brink of destruction.
You are right not to forget MH17, but you are wrong to blame Putin or Russia. There is literally no concrete evidence that even suggests Russia was responsible, and moreover Russia had everything to lose from the atrocity and nothing to gain. Thus the logical hypothesis is a false flag operation designed to discredit Russia. Read http://www.nakedcapitalism.com...
Good quotation; but please remember that in the 17th century no one knew anything about the true nature and behaviour of "primitive" man. There were lots of travellers' tales brought back by those who had been to the New World; but they were usually quite prejudiced, as they wished to take advantage of the indigenous people and therefore had every incentive to belittle them.
Now we know a bit more about the way human beings lived before the agricultural revolution, and especially the "hunter-gatherer" way of life. Hobbes was relying almost entirely on his imagination and his powers of reason, which let him down heavily. Rather than his "state of nature", the "warre... of every man against every man", we now know that hunter-gatherers live in families, groups or tribes of from a dozen to a couple of hundred - more cannot usually find enough to eat as they move around their hunting grounds. Humans evolved to live in groups of such size, just as the other apes and many monkeys did. Their instincts allowed them to strike a pragmatic compromise between a war of all against all and a slavish conformity. Instead, you got the typical grooming, subdued competitiveness and desires for dominance that manifest themselves in the status hierarchy or "pecking order". Usually, there would be a single dominant male or female, whose supremacy would be recognized even by those who hoped one day to challenge it. There was very little concern for fairness or "human rights", but in return the tribe usually managed to survive.
That's going straight into my notebook! One of the best sayings I have ever seen. It's so true, and it's so VERY pithy. Another guy could have filled up a whole book saying little more.
"A government however cannot ever be punished through any criminal court, no government official will be blamed personally..."
And that, my friend, is exactly why governments are formed; and why the people who end up running them end up running them. How else can you rule the roost, tell everyone else what they may or may not do, kill them if they resist, enrich yourself, and never have to face justice or retribution?
"...there is no way to dissolve a government simply because it infringes on individual life, freedom and property".
Well, actually there is one way. The people who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution knew all about it. It's VIOLENCE. Of course, no government will ever allow, countenance or forgive violence against it... as long as it exists. But if the violence is carried through successfully - a difficult and complicated task, but far from impossible - it then becomes impossible to criticize or condemn it.
"Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason".
- Sir John Harrington (1561-1612) (Epigrams, Book iv. Ep. 5).
Slashdot Mirror
As it happens, I came quite close to studying for a PhD in Russian history. Nowadays, I wish I had. So I do know a little about that country, its history, and how its people think. (Even though I used to enjoy Tom Clancy's melodramas about the wicked communists, before his writing became flabby and stereotyped).
You say that RT "are beholden to different masters". Different, I take it, from the masters of our own Western media. Whatever the official story, the BBC is just as government-controlled as RT. For one thing, the licence fee which constitutes the great majority of its income is wholly at the government's discretion. For another, ever since the Dodgy Dossier affair, when heads rolled throughout the BBC right up to the Director-General, all BBC employees have clearly understood that they had better echo the British government line if they want to have any career prospects at all.
There is no longer any trace of independent mainstream media anywhere in the West. Fatuous, ridiculous, impossible government assertions are continually published with placid smugness - hardly ever does a journalist ask any properly pointed questions, and such scepticism almost never finds its way into print. Even if a journalist decides to risk her career by doing some investigative digging, her editor will spike the story - because he values his career.
Faced with such a situation, I now assess what I read based purely on its consistency with what I already know to be true - and untrue.
So, you are a British history graduate and a member of Mensa and yet an idiot if you truly believe any Russian news agency is more trustworthy than the BBC. Sorry.
And I am supposed to accept your verdict based on what evidence? Your say-so?
I don't believe that "any Russian news agency is more trustworthy than the BBC" simply as an item of faith. I believe it because day after day, literally for years, I have heard the BBC offer slanted, biased, one-sided stories. I have heard them cover stories about Palestine in which the views of the Israeli ambassador were balanced by the opinions of Jewish (but British) "analysts" - and whenever anyone represented the Palestinian side of the story, it was always someone who spoke rapidly in broken English with a strong foreign accent. (The advocates of Israel, of course, always sound impeccably educated and speak with either an upper-crust British accent, or perhaps well-bred American tones).
Over and over, we are told that "Russia invaded Ukraine" - which is absolutely untrue in any sense of the words. Just recently, a row has blown up over Olympic medallists allegedly taking performance-enhancing drugs. And of course, what do the MSM immediately come up with? Apparently a dozen or so Russian athletes are the main offenders, so Russia may be prevented from attending the next Olympic Games in Rio. Funny that - I have heard of many US and British athletes who took drugs and were found out and punished. I wonder how many weren't found out? Yet once again it's all about the evil Russians.
Finally, why do you say that a Russian news agency is not more trustworthy than the BBC? What evidence do you have for that naive belief? Or are you one of those people who must always "support our side" and boo the "others"? It was an American Major-General, Carl Schurz, who said (soon after the American Civil War): "Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when wrong to be put right". No intelligent, educated adult can possibly think that his country is always right, and foreigners always wrong.
Erm... which part of the TSA make you feel all warm and fuzzy?
And which part of *you* does it make feel all warm and fuzzy?
The country most aggressively spying on the USA is not China, not Russia, not the USA itself, it is France.
And how do you know that? A moment's thought will show that, to make that assertion, you must know (1) how aggressively France is spying on the USA; and (2) how aggressively all other countries are spying on the USA.
Moreover, it's by no means simple even in the case of France. Which agencies do you take into consideration? The obvious organs of state intelligence might have delegated the task to better hidden, or entirely private teams.
And, of course, if you know how aggressively France is spying on the USA, don't you think it possible that the FBI and the many other federal agencies whose remit includes counter-espionage might share that knowledge? And if they do, isn't it likely that they would have done something to make France spy less aggressively?
Since when is RT considered news?
Since I gave up reading the MSM newspapers and listening to the BBC, because I realised that their foreign news coverage - and much of their domestic news - was a bunch of lies.
I am a British history graduate and a member of Mensa, with a strong interest in history and human affairs in general. I am careful to read widely and compare sources. On that basis, during the two years I have been following RT, I have not seen any obvious lies or distortion - about Russia or anything else.
On the other hand, if I want to see lies and distortion aplenty, all I have to do is turn on the BBC or scan through any British newspaper. Just this morning I received the latest issue of Private Eye, and on the very first page I found a cartoon insinuating that Putin was responsible for the destruction of MH17 and that therefore the destruction of Flight 9268 was some kind of payback.
I have spent many hours studying all the reports and analysis about MH17, and it is pretty clear that whoever was responsible, it was certainly not Russia. I have also spent a lot of time reading up about the present state of Ukraine, and it would be very hard to put any act - no matter how cruel or grotesque - past the gang of cynical hooligans who are currently ruling there.
I see from Julia Reda's article that she believes the main pressure for this cretinous measure is coming from publishers. They think, she says, that their income from advertising is shrinking too quickly.
It is immediately obvious that publishers, as a group, would be perfectly delighted if the Web were to vanish tomorrow. They are under continuous severe pressure from Amazon and Google - Amazon sells their books at far lower prices than they would wish, and has established something close to a monopsony where it is the only wholesale purchaser and therefore can set its own terms. Meanwhile, Google Books is exposing vast amounts of what publishers consider their property (they don't have a high opinion of writers) to public scrutiny, without charge. Worst of all, a whole generation has grown up in the earnest belief that books and magazines, as such, are unnecessary; everything worth knowing can (they think) be found, free of charge, on the Web. Of course this isn't true, or even nearly true, but - as they say in business circles - "perception is all".
The publishing industry is certainly going through hard times, and facing very difficult decisions. But taking the Web down with it is certainly not the answer. Everyone who is in a position to do so should let the EU know, in no uncertain terms, how frightful a proposal this is and just what its consequences would be, if implemented.
The only logical conclusion one can come to is this:
It's time to abolish the European Union. It has done untold harm, and very little good (if any). When a government body proposes such sheer, raving insanity, it is signing its own suicide note.
When did they "make a lot of sense"? I missed it! I must have been in the bathroom.
I appreciate the spirit of your suggestion, but I feel very strongly that it would be a terrible mistake to give a single inch in the face of this horrible, iniquitous, and unbelievably ignorant proposal.
Permission to follow links to a Web page is clearly implied by the decision to put up a Web page, and to allow access from the World Wide Web. Access to Web pages on a private intranet is forbidden by the same laws that forbid access to everything else on such a private network.
The World Wide Web has existed for about 25 years - quarter of a century. When it was first created, Tim Berners-Lee and his collaborators made a careful and considered decision to give the specifications away free (as in speech and as in beer). Not only was that the right thing, the ethical thing to do; it was in the spirit of the (then infant) FOSS movement; and last but not least, it was the best way to give the new-born Web wings and enable it to spread rapidly until it became truly worldwide.
Today the Web has, at the very least, 47 billion pages (based on Google statistics). How many links do you think the average page has? This proposed legislation would destroy all possible confidence in using any one of those links. It would be the Internet equivalent of magically removing the foundations of every building in New York City. The effect on the Web would be similar to the effect of 9/11 on the World Trade Center - except that it would affect over a billion people and virtually every business and government in the world.
If anyone does not wish to have people view his Web pages through links from other pages, he has a simple remedy: DON'T PUT UP A WEB SITE. If you do choose to gain the benefits of putting up a Web site, then DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT THE WAY IT WORKS.
Here is TBL's considered view of the status of links, posted in 1997:
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues...
TBL wrote: "The ability to refer to a document (or a person or any thing else) is in general a fundamental right of free speech to the same extent that speech is free. Making the reference with a hypertext link is more efficient but changes nothing else... Users and information providers and lawyers have to share this convention. If they do not, people will be frightened to make links for fear of legal implications. I received a mail message asking for "permission" to link to our site. I refused as I insisted that permission was not needed".
And here is his conclusion:
"There are some fundamental principles about links on which the Web is based. These are principles allow the world of distributed hypertext to work. Lawyers, users and technology and content providers must all agree to respect these principles which have been outlined.
"It is difficult to emphasize how important these issues are for society. The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, for example, addresses the right to speak. The right to make reference to something is inherent in that right. On the web, to make reference without making a link is possible but ineffective - like speaking but with a paper bag over your head".
...after all, programming humans via socializing is way more fun than programming computers.
Although much, much harder.
Exactly right.
What's liberal about kidnapping, imprisonment and abuse?
Is it a left thing or a right thing?
To ask that intelligent question is to see the answer: neither. It's a greedy, selfish, arrogant, cruel thing. You are governed by greedy, selfish, arrogant, cruel people. And they will call themselves "conservative" or "liberal" or anything else that gets them what they want, and fools you into quarreling among yourselves when you should be arresting and trying them. "Divide and conquer". It was known to the Romans, and you can bet it isn't exactly unknown to American politicians.
Those relics we vote for who represent us should fucking know better, because they aren't the ignorant youth.
Of course they "know better". They know better than to believe for one single moment that they need to give a rat's ass about the law or the Constitution, because they are in a position to do whatever they like - and nobody can stop them or exact any retribution.
Your mistake (I think) is to believe that, just because someone wins an election or is appointed to public office, they automatically become altruistic and unselfish in some mystical way. Look around you at your fellow men (and, increasingly, women) and ask yourself whether, given a choice, they would act in your interest or their own. Then understand that politicians are just like that.
I've said it before, and it apparently needs repeating. Voting for a candidate that CANNOT win is pretty much a stupid idea in a system where two parties generally are in control.
Yes, that's half of it - and perfectly true so far as it goes.
The other half is that if you vote for either of the two parties that are "generally in control", you will get more of what you have been getting. In particular, please tell me which of the two parties that are "generally in control" would stop the FBI's abuse of power and ill treatment of US citizens?
In case you are in doubt, the answer is, "Neither".
So there you have it. Vote for one of the two main parties, and things go on exactly as before. Vote for anyone else, and your vote is wasted. Ah democracy, how sweet is thy name! How would we get along without it?
can we please elect someone who can actually fix things????
You have put your finger accurately on the source of the problem. Unfortunately, the answer is, "No, you cannot".
Consider. US elections, at almost all levels but especially at the federal level, give citizens the chance to cast a vote for any of the official candidates. Aha, but who chooses the candidates? The official parties - namely Republicrats and Demoblicans. And they don't select any official candidates who don't toe the party line. The real party line, that is, not the carefully crafted set of lies published as party platforms or manifestos. (If you doubt that assertion, take a look at the platforms of George W Bush and Barack Obama, and ask yourself how many of those promises they kept). And the key fact is that, in all important respects, the real party lines of both parties are identical.
Clever, eh? In the USSR they had regular elections but we Westerners scoffed at their obvious fraudulence, as there was only one party and one candidate. How ridiculous! In the West today, a small technical tweak has been added: there are two parties, two candidates - but still no choice.
"Yes, that's why the morons want out".
So your position is that, since the UK voters are dumb enough to elect rulers who are unscrupulous enough to pass laws like this, the answer is for the UK to be subordinated to an unelected bunch of failed politicians somewhere far away, who will supposedly stand up for the rights of ordinary British people?
And *you* use the word "moron"...
"I'm not sure an idealized 20th century version of hunter-gatherers -- the usual pastiche of peaceful, family-centric, eco-friendly tribes -- is really any more accurate or less stereotypical than Hobbes' view".
Neither am I. So it's a good thing I didn't say anything of the sort.
"The Russians want to control what's said on the net, and that's worse".
Er, any evidence?
Your post literally makes no sense to me. I have been reading a lot about Putin and Russia for a couple of years now - on top of a lifelong vague interest - and the thing that impresses me most is how much sense they make, and how I never catch them in a lie. In extreme contrast to public events in Britain and the USA.
Even Bill Clinton told CNN a couple of years ago that Putin was very smart and completely honest. 'Asked if Putin ever reneged on a promise, Clinton was categorical: “He did not... He kept his word on all the deals we made,” Clinton said'. Coming from an ex-US president of which the same could definitely not be said, this amounted to an admission that Putin was a better man than Clinton. Along with the praise there was, inevitably, some criticism; but the worst things Clinton could find to say were that Putin was "brutally blunt", "has a skewed sense of humour" (probably Clinton hasn't had much experience of Russian humour), and might be inclined to put Russia's success ahead of the welfare of individual Russians (quite unlike any US politicians, who always put the poor first).
When you write in a public forum that "the problem for me with putin and russia is... they are fucking batshit insane", the only conclusion the rest of us are likely to reach is that it is YOU who are insane - or, more charitably, ignorant and provincial. All human beings have strengths and weaknesses, and people from distant lands often behave in ways that puzzle us - but one of the great lessons of life is that, in the last analysis, we are all very much alike. And none of us are much better (if at all) than others.
Russia has about the same number (and power) of nuclear weapons as the USA. And, believe me, it is not the Russian nuclear arsenal that worries me. I am quite convinced that Russia's armed forces are for the defence of Russia only - even if that occasionally necessitates air strikes in Syria, or such places in the "near abroad". The only way in which Russia would ever be a threat to the existence of the West is if the West pushes Russia to the very brink of destruction.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bU3...
You are right not to forget MH17, but you are wrong to blame Putin or Russia. There is literally no concrete evidence that even suggests Russia was responsible, and moreover Russia had everything to lose from the atrocity and nothing to gain. Thus the logical hypothesis is a false flag operation designed to discredit Russia. Read http://www.nakedcapitalism.com...
Good quotation; but please remember that in the 17th century no one knew anything about the true nature and behaviour of "primitive" man. There were lots of travellers' tales brought back by those who had been to the New World; but they were usually quite prejudiced, as they wished to take advantage of the indigenous people and therefore had every incentive to belittle them.
Now we know a bit more about the way human beings lived before the agricultural revolution, and especially the "hunter-gatherer" way of life. Hobbes was relying almost entirely on his imagination and his powers of reason, which let him down heavily. Rather than his "state of nature", the "warre... of every man against every man", we now know that hunter-gatherers live in families, groups or tribes of from a dozen to a couple of hundred - more cannot usually find enough to eat as they move around their hunting grounds. Humans evolved to live in groups of such size, just as the other apes and many monkeys did. Their instincts allowed them to strike a pragmatic compromise between a war of all against all and a slavish conformity. Instead, you got the typical grooming, subdued competitiveness and desires for dominance that manifest themselves in the status hierarchy or "pecking order". Usually, there would be a single dominant male or female, whose supremacy would be recognized even by those who hoped one day to challenge it. There was very little concern for fairness or "human rights", but in return the tribe usually managed to survive.
That's going straight into my notebook! One of the best sayings I have ever seen. It's so true, and it's so VERY pithy. Another guy could have filled up a whole book saying little more.
"A government however cannot ever be punished through any criminal court, no government official will be blamed personally..."
And that, my friend, is exactly why governments are formed; and why the people who end up running them end up running them. How else can you rule the roost, tell everyone else what they may or may not do, kill them if they resist, enrich yourself, and never have to face justice or retribution?
"...there is no way to dissolve a government simply because it infringes on individual life, freedom and property".
Well, actually there is one way. The people who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution knew all about it. It's VIOLENCE. Of course, no government will ever allow, countenance or forgive violence against it... as long as it exists. But if the violence is carried through successfully - a difficult and complicated task, but far from impossible - it then becomes impossible to criticize or condemn it.
"Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason".
- Sir John Harrington (1561-1612) (Epigrams, Book iv. Ep. 5).
I didn't know Putin was backing Obama now. Where did you hear that?