By keeping scale small socialism can work. In our village if we get some sort of lazy bastard who loves the chow hall but won't swing a hammer we can get rid of him - harder to do on a large scale. By being good little socialist and sharing physical, insurance, data and labor resources between multiple families, (at non-compulsory levels individuals can adjust) even on the domestic scale the cost of operating each household drops increasing profitability for everyone. We can keep the price of living and production low meaning we can sell to the neighboring anarcho-capitalist at a low rate. Chances are they're reselling the results of our labor to make a profit, but that's fine, we make a good living and the other guy can do all the work of promoting and distributing our product on a larger scale. Not all that far removed from what happens when the Amish grow tobacco.
Never is my little socialist village a threat to capitalism, it contributes to it. Fascism is removed since participation is not compulsory. Theoretically in a true free market economy with other freedoms still in tact the landscape could easily become dotted with what more or less amounts to tribal city states each operating within their own micro economy in every economic system you can dream of. No one has to argue left or right anymore, you want to live in something left or right chose your village accordingly. What happens in each village is still protected by county, state and even federal law so it's not like the old days where neighboring tribes would go to literal war.
I don't see anything wrong with it, it's nothing more than a modernized tribal system. I used Vikings as an example because you can go watch How to Train Your Dragon or Beowulf on DVD and see what I'm talking about. Truth is similar systems exist in various religious facilities and even still existing tribal communities all over. On a really small scale some incredibly drama-queened up version of this exist in each camp on Survivor. (is that show still on?)
I worked at a company that could have done alright at low profitability and probably built from there and slowly streamlined. Instead the place would cut out vital organs to reduce costs, would make people pick up the jobs of others post layoff, by the time I was gone there wasn't anyone not doing what was formerly three jobs.
They lost that contract (after I was laid off).
As a matter of fact three out of my next five temp jobs were places that company previously held a contract but they had gotten rid of them because in a panic to keep stock-holders happy they destroyed their own ability to maintain a contract through internal layoffs. We had multiple furloughs during the perpetual crunch times since nobody would take vacation - they were scared of losing their jobs for asking - and vacation time was seen as a debt liability to the stock.
I got a settlement a couple of years after I left the company. They were making us work unpaid overtime and a class-action was filed. I only got about 10% of what I should have, but it was at a time I really needed it.
Despite it's proficiency at loosing one corporate contract after another due to layoff suicide this company not only still exist, it thrives. It's a huge government contractor. On government contracts it follows the same government contractor rules everyone else has to, it does as good of a job as any other big government contractor, it's gotten in trouble in the past for trying to do to government contracts what it does to corporate ones so they quit. They still cut every cost they can, but there's a fine line on government contracts when it comes to that.
I recall the meeting we had where they explained to us in detail how they were going to screw us (as employees) to get stock prices up. The only reason this company still exist is the government sector propping it up. Shareholder power was no myth at that place.
There's a flaw in your reply and in a sense you pointed it out yourself.
Wolves carnivorous predators and they eat the sheep or they die.
Cattle rustlers are people and they chose to rustle cattle.
Corporations are a lot like wolves in many respects.
Corporations make money or die.
A CEO's job is to make money for a company. A CEO would be negligent to his shareholders were he not to grease some politicians gears and do everything he could to make money for that company. The CEO is the polar opposite of the sheep dog. The CEO is the alpha predator. If the CEO fails to make money for the company the company or pack as a whole replaces the CEO with a new alpha, to the CEO his incarnation of the company died.
Here's the kicker. The American shareholder public wants the best alpha's they can find in their companies so their company makes money for them. Then they want the absolute best sheep dogs, or llamas they can to keep the CEO's from companies that aren't theirs from taking all the sheep.
Right now there's lots of fat happy sheep dogs clean pipes, lots of fat happy wolves, and the sheep have stopped breeding as fast as they used to and their numbers have dwindled.
I'm not saying don't do anything about the wolf problem, I'm saying do something about the guard dog problem first. It's going to be up to schizophrenic farmers decide between wolf skin coats and wool socks instead of trying to fuel both industries at once using everyone's sheep as the fuel.
On another note I'm against the protesters being broken up and swept away. Considering how long the protest has been going on relocating them temporarily may not be so bad, you gotta change the litter in the hamster cage occasionally, but I'll agree forcibly breaking them up is a bad thing.
The protesters really need to police their own a little better and remind their own if they want to be taken seriously instead of being labeled generic rabble shitting on police cars, stealing photographers cameras and raping one another probably isn't the best way to do that. On the other hand closing down bank accounts en-mass and boycotting are quite effective and more things along those lines will really get the message out.
If you will read the way I wrote that statement I wrote it to differentiate fascist versions of communism and socialism from non-fascist versions. Compulsory participation in those (and other) systems starts working it's way towards fascist and from some of the demands I've seen from the movement compulsory is a big part of it. Fascism exist outside of an economic system and is a trait that can be applied to one (also things other than economic systems). Dictionary definitions tend to change to suite those who wish them to change on occasion and right now there is a really big concerted effort from the left to change the definition of fascism to being a right wing ideology instead of a method by which any type of ideology can be implemented. The guardians of the Wikipedia articles on these subjects are very certain to make sure this effort gets carried out despite inconsistencies in the very articles that define the methods. This is being done in much the same way attempts have been made to redefine the word "Militia" to please certain political groups and how I've watched lawyers redefine the word "reasonable" to cherry pick compliance with laws and judges orders. Seriously, I've seen three pages devoted to subverting the definition of reasonable and justifying doing so in a legal document.
I never said they bore no responsibility, I said they were doing what they were supposed to do.
It's like wolves and sheep.
Wolves are supposed to eat the sheep, it's what wolves do.
So we put the sheep in a pen and have a sheep dog guard the sheep.
If a particularly nice looking she-wolf comes up and lets the sheep dog screw her in exchange for raiding the sheep-pen. Sure we shoot the wolf but we really don't blame the wolf, the wolf was doing what wolves do. We expect that. That's why we got the sheep dog.
It's the sheep dog that was the real problem here. The dogs job was to prevent that wolf from getting the sheep, not letting this particular wolf take a sheep while forbidding the others.
You take the sheep dog out, shoot it and replace it with a llama, turns out they do a pretty good job of protecting the sheep and they don't screw the she-wolf.
Unfortunately many of our bubbles come from the FED toying with the economy to begin with.
Right now I would like to stabilize the money supply.
Stop inflation and you stop a lot of government spending into the crony system. Yes, lack of inflation will occur and eventually deflation. Without the money shooting out of the void to the top the money at the top is eventually going to have to come down and start circulating. Only then with things begin to even out.
Yes bubbles will happen without inflation sustaining them, but they wont be able to grow as massive as the.bomb or the housing bubble burst and they will burst sooner allowing the burst to be absorbed into the economy around it unlike the types of burst the two I just mentioned had.
I'll give you that. I don't deny my definition being an over simplification.
Words cannot contain the complexity of the concepts they are meant to portray.
I tend to make up for this by getting wordy, as is evidenced in other parts of this thread. I've also learned on a personal basis doing so isn't the best of ways to make friends.
I mostly like your definition. Though fascist states do tend to follow your definition I wouldn't say expansionism was necessary for fascism to exist. You could theoretically have a fascist island nation that was perfectly happy to be a fascist island nation. You could also argue one of these exist off the coast of India. There is an island that is technically a part of India (Google it, it's getting close to my bedtime and I remember the facts but not the names), the indigenous people most certainly are not a part of India even if they are technically citizens. They are cannibals. They did allow people to visit for a time, but got fed up with those who didn't fit in and started eating them. The inhabitants of the island fit the definition you gave minus the expansionism part. I don't think they really care if the rest of the world considers them a part of India or not. The Indian government actually performs their census on this island via helicopter and is happy with a rough number of John/Jane Does. The fact it's a primitive culture doesn't necessarily exclude the application of the definition.
Perhaps you should read up on socialism? Socialism is a very broad spectrum. It can be a philosophy, it can be an economic system, it can exist under capitalism, libertarianism, fascism, democracy, or any other system. It can be small scale it can be large scale. It does not have to have the involvement of a "government proper" to exist, as in anarcho-socialism.
Not all forms of socialism are bad.
Not all forms of socialism are good.
The Wikipedia article covers all of that, but feel free to be too good for that socialist online encyclopedia if you like and read up on it in good ol' capitalist paper encyclopedias if you like.
From a slaves perspective, yes, I would say there was some fascism going on.
No, you are now using a false dilemma to support your point.
Exchange of resources in a trade is capitalism - hence the word trade.
Redistribution of resources within a social group is - wait for it - socialism.
Dad bought the bucket of fried chicken from KFC with a capitalist exchange. When he got home he had the exclusive market in fried chicken for the household. He redistributed the chicken through means of socialism to Mom and little Sally but Junior hadn't taken out the garbage like he was told. Junior ran and took out the garbage thereby earning his chicken, so Junior exchanged his labor for chicken. See what Junior got was a mixed bag, he didn't actually fully earn the chicken since it was partially his trash in the garbage can, but he did contribute by taking out the trash of others as well. Junior did for the whole of the family and in turn the family is doing for him, he's in a murky gray area between socialism, communism and capitalism at this point, but we're not going to argue which fits best, we're gonna eat some chicken.
I sort of have a problem with that whole concept. I know that's the way it works and I agree with what you're saying to a degree, but I'm somewhat against the government deciding what corporations get to form and which ones don't.
The way I see it a college degree has little to do with intelligence or the ability to understand politics, especially where ethics are concerned.
I avoid the use of hard numbers. In most arguments there are no right number, if I find the most accepted numbers out there someone is going to produce another set of numbers that are theoretically more accurate. I do on occasion use demonstration numbers that aren't meant to be taken as 100% accurate, like the bad socialism post in this thread.
Also the way I see it I spell rather well for a phonetic speller with just a small touch of autism which memorizing hard "numerical" type data (which includes spelling) difficult for me. I have no problem with concepts and I've learned my way out of the social issues, I'm glad it's a very mild case. What I lack in ability to memorize data that isn't easily attached to a concept in a manner that can be derived I've more than made up for with the ability to see how systems work, where flaws in systems are likely and to predict outcomes to complex situations - even if I can't always attach hard numbers to it.
I also learn the ways people interact with one another.
One thing I have found is most college educated left wingers I deal with, regardless of where they went to school use a very rigid system of fallacy propped up by fallacy using their degree and references to other who are also followers of the same rigid system to as a sort of bullet proof barrier to any argument no matter the subject or validity of the counter argument. I trolled Yahoo with the intent of proving this one time. Most of the answers invoked the very fallacies and methods I outlined. You don't have to look far to find examples of the right wing guilt by association thing I mentioned as a counter point.
In my own defense I did not misspell many words. Had I misspelled a significant number of words and not a single one consistently coupled with the inability to use the shift and enter keys the spelling argument would have had more validity. The words I did misspell though not correct worked phonetically. Not basing an argument on fallacies, such as the appeal to ridicule, which is typically among the biggest reasons people on Slashdot and other forums are so quick to jump on spelling errors is an incredibly big bonus to any argument you might make - superficially. Use of fallacies should be a greater handicap to those who use them than my minor learning memorization disability should ever be but alas it would take a greater percentage of people who understood fallacies for that to work.
As a hard libertarian I agree with many key points from the left or the right the opposite side disagrees with. This has caused me to have a very diverse and often unstable (when in close proximity to one another) group of friends. I pick my friends from both the Left and the Right based on the content of their character and their ability to make good arguments for their positions without the standard issue rhetoric (full of fallacy), rather I agree with them or not. In other words people who can think for themselves and not nitpick minor quirks of others to get a quick cheap upper hand.
I've actually gotten people to shut up more so recently than I ever have. It's almost impossible to win an argument on the web since it's incredibly rare anyone concedes defeat but throwing up an incredibly good undeniable argument and getting no more responses is about as close as it gets. Unfortunately on that same note ceasing arguments with those who call name and throw forth massive amounts of fallacies could be taken by them as a victory.
Chicken/Egg, the problem of companies in one way or another benefiting politicians (which may not be money in all cases) in exchange for government benefiting companies by distributing funds to them that come from our pockets was a cooperative construct. Different political parties seem to be more friendly to different companies.
I'm actually very pro small government. I'm a minarchist, a true all around Libertarian. If I had my way These United States would be free market with as few taxes and regulation as we can get away with at a federal level. States would have power to regulate what happens within their borders (like the 9th and 10th call for) and hopefully smaller economies of various types could spring up within the greater overall whole.
I would love to live within a small socialist village that was contained within a free market economy. Compare it to a Viking village, only the industry doesn't involve rape and plunder. Community chow hall, you can eat at home if you want but the party is at the big chow hall and it's sociable. The well needs to be dug deeper? The men start digging, no payment is exchanged and it benefits everyone. The women and elderly of the town care for the sick. They're probably cooking in the chow hall too. (I know I'm using sexist whatever traditional wording of roles, I don't care, it's my village dammit) The community industry does well? We increase the bandwidth of the community internet connection, the entire village gets a speed increase at once! Newer bigger TV's in the chow hall! Everyone's personal cut increases!
You think the village is corrupt and some are benefiting more than others? Leave. Not an option at the national scale so many want, but it's find in a free market and this may be a socialist style co-op village, but the next village over is anarcho-capitalist (they're the ones who were buying all the whatever my village produced anyways) so why don't I go there?
For the second time this thread. I don't watch TV (see South Park caveat above)
I understand the concept of the NINJA generation you're referring to, at 34 I missed it, but no enough to be completely unaffected.
One of our biggest problems is we've come to value the college education so much we've almost made it mandatory, in doing so we've made them so prevalent they've lost their value. In the IT field I feel that degrees are all but a waste and certifications are where it's at. Sometimes I regret having gone for my associates, it slowed my entry into the field since I was messing with school instead of working the assembly line a few extra hours. Granted that doesn't work in every field and I'm not really sure if having that piece of paper was a make it / break it criteria or not when it came to getting hired.
Personal background on me. Paper route at 12 off and on until 16, picked cantaloupes with migrant workers (the jobs Americans wont do) at 14, worked as a janitor at a cafeteria at 16, chopped weeds and washed cars at a car lot at 17, video store at 17-18, security guard 18-19, assembly line 19-20, project implementation tech at 20, deployed generalist at 20-21, running an internet support call center at 21 - 23, working at an advanced help desk for satellite communication 23 -26. Then I hit my down turn. 26-28 I was semi-employed with a temp agencies, sometimes doing great sometimes leaching off of family, worked lots of places and wore lots of hats during that time. Went to work at NASA at 28 here I am at 34, I also moonlight through a friends company for special projects and my own company for other special projects, but I don't have to. How many of these people do you think ever turned in a job application until after the age of 20?
I really think a lot of the Gen Y types want to go straight to running something, or at the least start above my assembly line equivalent. Also you have to be willing to move to where the work is. I left West Texas for Phoenix since there's not shit but oil field in West Texas and not even that all the time. I left Phoenix for Houston because Phoenix was great for assembly line and a little over, was great for engineers, sucked for in between (late 90's things may have changed).
BTW, at the age of 34 I've worked under Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. I saw that the bubble starting to burst under Clinton. Then 9/11 happened and Bush did accelerate cronyism to new heights and insured not only did the tech bubble burst but he pumped up the housing bubble to replace it. Obama is simply trying to swap one group of cronies for another and he supports the worst parts of the "shadow agenda" the OWSers are pushing.
I don't think we've had a really good president since the 19th century. I'm not sure when the last good congress was but I'm sure it was before that. The supreme court held up rather well with a few slips here and there until FDR threatened them with court packing and they haven't recovered since.
The worst thing about our free market economy is it's not free market. Pulling money out of the ether and the existence of so many government contracts prevents that from happening. The amount of government expansion that occurs simply to feed cronies is sickening. The fix? More regulation which requires more agencies and more cronies to run them.
Seems like I struck a chord and invoked the "shit as the universal word" protocol.
Nazism is generally accepted as a special form of fascism. The Nazis were the national socialist and did have a socialist agenda along with their other agendas.
I would argue McCarthyism was capitolist fascism.
I would argue China has fascist communism, though they are loosening that grip.
Once again, I don't watch TV, including Fox news. Okay, fine I watch South Park every week on the web, but, sure.
Yes, I do know and the first thing to recognize is that none of the definitions are universally recognized, especially fascism.
Here are my definitions of the words:
Fascism - compulsory submission to a philosophy - a very simple definition but it doesn't agree with the one on the Webster website.
Communism - the government is the only employer - this works at various scales
Socialism - the redistribution of resources within a group.
Fascism is bad. Communism and socialism can be good without fascism, unfortunately most movements towards the other two philosophies involve fascism under the pretense that everyone must participate for it to work, but at least it works for all.
An example of good communism: The historic Iroquois tribe. The tribe lived in their shared long houses, everyone hunted, cooked and fished for everyone, you did not for yourself that wasn't done for the tribe. You were free to get pissed off and leave, go loner or possibly join another tribe therefore participation was voluntary.
An example of good socialism: The Amish today. If your neighbors barn burns down you help to rebuild it. If you have nails but he doesn't you bring your nails, your other neighbor brings wood, and another brings horses to help pull the frame up. You don't have to help, but the others would do it for you and not helping sort of makes you look like an asshole.
An example of Bad socialism: Most US social programs that by the time the money gets through the IRS, the Treasury, the agency in question, the contractor, and the sub contractor my $100 in tax money pays $15 towards a grant to research the breeding habits of the woodchuck.
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Thank you, that's the whole idea.
By keeping scale small socialism can work. In our village if we get some sort of lazy bastard who loves the chow hall but won't swing a hammer we can get rid of him - harder to do on a large scale. By being good little socialist and sharing physical, insurance, data and labor resources between multiple families, (at non-compulsory levels individuals can adjust) even on the domestic scale the cost of operating each household drops increasing profitability for everyone. We can keep the price of living and production low meaning we can sell to the neighboring anarcho-capitalist at a low rate. Chances are they're reselling the results of our labor to make a profit, but that's fine, we make a good living and the other guy can do all the work of promoting and distributing our product on a larger scale. Not all that far removed from what happens when the Amish grow tobacco.
Never is my little socialist village a threat to capitalism, it contributes to it. Fascism is removed since participation is not compulsory. Theoretically in a true free market economy with other freedoms still in tact the landscape could easily become dotted with what more or less amounts to tribal city states each operating within their own micro economy in every economic system you can dream of. No one has to argue left or right anymore, you want to live in something left or right chose your village accordingly. What happens in each village is still protected by county, state and even federal law so it's not like the old days where neighboring tribes would go to literal war.
I don't see anything wrong with it, it's nothing more than a modernized tribal system. I used Vikings as an example because you can go watch How to Train Your Dragon or Beowulf on DVD and see what I'm talking about. Truth is similar systems exist in various religious facilities and even still existing tribal communities all over. On a really small scale some incredibly drama-queened up version of this exist in each camp on Survivor. (is that show still on?)
I worked at a company that could have done alright at low profitability and probably built from there and slowly streamlined. Instead the place would cut out vital organs to reduce costs, would make people pick up the jobs of others post layoff, by the time I was gone there wasn't anyone not doing what was formerly three jobs.
They lost that contract (after I was laid off).
As a matter of fact three out of my next five temp jobs were places that company previously held a contract but they had gotten rid of them because in a panic to keep stock-holders happy they destroyed their own ability to maintain a contract through internal layoffs. We had multiple furloughs during the perpetual crunch times since nobody would take vacation - they were scared of losing their jobs for asking - and vacation time was seen as a debt liability to the stock.
I got a settlement a couple of years after I left the company. They were making us work unpaid overtime and a class-action was filed. I only got about 10% of what I should have, but it was at a time I really needed it.
Despite it's proficiency at loosing one corporate contract after another due to layoff suicide this company not only still exist, it thrives. It's a huge government contractor. On government contracts it follows the same government contractor rules everyone else has to, it does as good of a job as any other big government contractor, it's gotten in trouble in the past for trying to do to government contracts what it does to corporate ones so they quit. They still cut every cost they can, but there's a fine line on government contracts when it comes to that.
I recall the meeting we had where they explained to us in detail how they were going to screw us (as employees) to get stock prices up. The only reason this company still exist is the government sector propping it up. Shareholder power was no myth at that place.
There's a flaw in your reply and in a sense you pointed it out yourself.
Wolves carnivorous predators and they eat the sheep or they die.
Cattle rustlers are people and they chose to rustle cattle.
Corporations are a lot like wolves in many respects.
Corporations make money or die.
A CEO's job is to make money for a company. A CEO would be negligent to his shareholders were he not to grease some politicians gears and do everything he could to make money for that company. The CEO is the polar opposite of the sheep dog. The CEO is the alpha predator. If the CEO fails to make money for the company the company or pack as a whole replaces the CEO with a new alpha, to the CEO his incarnation of the company died.
Here's the kicker. The American shareholder public wants the best alpha's they can find in their companies so their company makes money for them. Then they want the absolute best sheep dogs, or llamas they can to keep the CEO's from companies that aren't theirs from taking all the sheep.
Right now there's lots of fat happy sheep dogs clean pipes, lots of fat happy wolves, and the sheep have stopped breeding as fast as they used to and their numbers have dwindled.
I'm not saying don't do anything about the wolf problem, I'm saying do something about the guard dog problem first. It's going to be up to schizophrenic farmers decide between wolf skin coats and wool socks instead of trying to fuel both industries at once using everyone's sheep as the fuel.
On another note I'm against the protesters being broken up and swept away. Considering how long the protest has been going on relocating them temporarily may not be so bad, you gotta change the litter in the hamster cage occasionally, but I'll agree forcibly breaking them up is a bad thing.
The protesters really need to police their own a little better and remind their own if they want to be taken seriously instead of being labeled generic rabble shitting on police cars, stealing photographers cameras and raping one another probably isn't the best way to do that. On the other hand closing down bank accounts en-mass and boycotting are quite effective and more things along those lines will really get the message out.
If you will read the way I wrote that statement I wrote it to differentiate fascist versions of communism and socialism from non-fascist versions. Compulsory participation in those (and other) systems starts working it's way towards fascist and from some of the demands I've seen from the movement compulsory is a big part of it. Fascism exist outside of an economic system and is a trait that can be applied to one (also things other than economic systems). Dictionary definitions tend to change to suite those who wish them to change on occasion and right now there is a really big concerted effort from the left to change the definition of fascism to being a right wing ideology instead of a method by which any type of ideology can be implemented. The guardians of the Wikipedia articles on these subjects are very certain to make sure this effort gets carried out despite inconsistencies in the very articles that define the methods. This is being done in much the same way attempts have been made to redefine the word "Militia" to please certain political groups and how I've watched lawyers redefine the word "reasonable" to cherry pick compliance with laws and judges orders. Seriously, I've seen three pages devoted to subverting the definition of reasonable and justifying doing so in a legal document.
I never said they bore no responsibility, I said they were doing what they were supposed to do.
It's like wolves and sheep.
Wolves are supposed to eat the sheep, it's what wolves do.
So we put the sheep in a pen and have a sheep dog guard the sheep.
If a particularly nice looking she-wolf comes up and lets the sheep dog screw her in exchange for raiding the sheep-pen. Sure we shoot the wolf but we really don't blame the wolf, the wolf was doing what wolves do. We expect that. That's why we got the sheep dog.
It's the sheep dog that was the real problem here. The dogs job was to prevent that wolf from getting the sheep, not letting this particular wolf take a sheep while forbidding the others.
You take the sheep dog out, shoot it and replace it with a llama, turns out they do a pretty good job of protecting the sheep and they don't screw the she-wolf.
so you may have read TFA but did you read any of the other replies to my post that covered everything you just said?
Unfortunately many of our bubbles come from the FED toying with the economy to begin with.
Right now I would like to stabilize the money supply.
Stop inflation and you stop a lot of government spending into the crony system. Yes, lack of inflation will occur and eventually deflation. Without the money shooting out of the void to the top the money at the top is eventually going to have to come down and start circulating. Only then with things begin to even out.
Yes bubbles will happen without inflation sustaining them, but they wont be able to grow as massive as the .bomb or the housing bubble burst and they will burst sooner allowing the burst to be absorbed into the economy around it unlike the types of burst the two I just mentioned had.
I'll give you that. I don't deny my definition being an over simplification.
Words cannot contain the complexity of the concepts they are meant to portray.
I tend to make up for this by getting wordy, as is evidenced in other parts of this thread. I've also learned on a personal basis doing so isn't the best of ways to make friends.
I mostly like your definition. Though fascist states do tend to follow your definition I wouldn't say expansionism was necessary for fascism to exist. You could theoretically have a fascist island nation that was perfectly happy to be a fascist island nation. You could also argue one of these exist off the coast of India. There is an island that is technically a part of India (Google it, it's getting close to my bedtime and I remember the facts but not the names), the indigenous people most certainly are not a part of India even if they are technically citizens. They are cannibals. They did allow people to visit for a time, but got fed up with those who didn't fit in and started eating them. The inhabitants of the island fit the definition you gave minus the expansionism part. I don't think they really care if the rest of the world considers them a part of India or not. The Indian government actually performs their census on this island via helicopter and is happy with a rough number of John/Jane Does. The fact it's a primitive culture doesn't necessarily exclude the application of the definition.
Full circle to the appeal to ridicule.
Perhaps you should read up on socialism? Socialism is a very broad spectrum. It can be a philosophy, it can be an economic system, it can exist under capitalism, libertarianism, fascism, democracy, or any other system. It can be small scale it can be large scale. It does not have to have the involvement of a "government proper" to exist, as in anarcho-socialism.
Not all forms of socialism are bad.
Not all forms of socialism are good.
The Wikipedia article covers all of that, but feel free to be too good for that socialist online encyclopedia if you like and read up on it in good ol' capitalist paper encyclopedias if you like.
And here come the "-1 I disagree" mods, or perhaps it's the "-1 you blew my cover" mods?
From a slaves perspective, yes, I would say there was some fascism going on.
No, you are now using a false dilemma to support your point.
Exchange of resources in a trade is capitalism - hence the word trade.
Redistribution of resources within a social group is - wait for it - socialism.
Dad bought the bucket of fried chicken from KFC with a capitalist exchange. When he got home he had the exclusive market in fried chicken for the household. He redistributed the chicken through means of socialism to Mom and little Sally but Junior hadn't taken out the garbage like he was told. Junior ran and took out the garbage thereby earning his chicken, so Junior exchanged his labor for chicken. See what Junior got was a mixed bag, he didn't actually fully earn the chicken since it was partially his trash in the garbage can, but he did contribute by taking out the trash of others as well. Junior did for the whole of the family and in turn the family is doing for him, he's in a murky gray area between socialism, communism and capitalism at this point, but we're not going to argue which fits best, we're gonna eat some chicken.
I sort of have a problem with that whole concept. I know that's the way it works and I agree with what you're saying to a degree, but I'm somewhat against the government deciding what corporations get to form and which ones don't.
The way I see it a college degree has little to do with intelligence or the ability to understand politics, especially where ethics are concerned.
I avoid the use of hard numbers. In most arguments there are no right number, if I find the most accepted numbers out there someone is going to produce another set of numbers that are theoretically more accurate. I do on occasion use demonstration numbers that aren't meant to be taken as 100% accurate, like the bad socialism post in this thread.
Also the way I see it I spell rather well for a phonetic speller with just a small touch of autism which memorizing hard "numerical" type data (which includes spelling) difficult for me. I have no problem with concepts and I've learned my way out of the social issues, I'm glad it's a very mild case. What I lack in ability to memorize data that isn't easily attached to a concept in a manner that can be derived I've more than made up for with the ability to see how systems work, where flaws in systems are likely and to predict outcomes to complex situations - even if I can't always attach hard numbers to it.
I also learn the ways people interact with one another.
One thing I have found is most college educated left wingers I deal with, regardless of where they went to school use a very rigid system of fallacy propped up by fallacy using their degree and references to other who are also followers of the same rigid system to as a sort of bullet proof barrier to any argument no matter the subject or validity of the counter argument. I trolled Yahoo with the intent of proving this one time. Most of the answers invoked the very fallacies and methods I outlined. You don't have to look far to find examples of the right wing guilt by association thing I mentioned as a counter point.
In my own defense I did not misspell many words. Had I misspelled a significant number of words and not a single one consistently coupled with the inability to use the shift and enter keys the spelling argument would have had more validity. The words I did misspell though not correct worked phonetically. Not basing an argument on fallacies, such as the appeal to ridicule, which is typically among the biggest reasons people on Slashdot and other forums are so quick to jump on spelling errors is an incredibly big bonus to any argument you might make - superficially. Use of fallacies should be a greater handicap to those who use them than my minor learning memorization disability should ever be but alas it would take a greater percentage of people who understood fallacies for that to work.
As a hard libertarian I agree with many key points from the left or the right the opposite side disagrees with. This has caused me to have a very diverse and often unstable (when in close proximity to one another) group of friends. I pick my friends from both the Left and the Right based on the content of their character and their ability to make good arguments for their positions without the standard issue rhetoric (full of fallacy), rather I agree with them or not. In other words people who can think for themselves and not nitpick minor quirks of others to get a quick cheap upper hand.
See fallacy - appeal to ridicule.
None of my simplified definitions disagree with the more complex dictionary ones, they're simply broken down for those like you to understand.
Doh!
Fascism - compulsory submission to a philosophy - a very simple definition but it doesn't disagree with the one on the Webster website.
I've actually gotten people to shut up more so recently than I ever have. It's almost impossible to win an argument on the web since it's incredibly rare anyone concedes defeat but throwing up an incredibly good undeniable argument and getting no more responses is about as close as it gets. Unfortunately on that same note ceasing arguments with those who call name and throw forth massive amounts of fallacies could be taken by them as a victory.
Chicken/Egg, the problem of companies in one way or another benefiting politicians (which may not be money in all cases) in exchange for government benefiting companies by distributing funds to them that come from our pockets was a cooperative construct. Different political parties seem to be more friendly to different companies.
I'm actually very pro small government. I'm a minarchist, a true all around Libertarian. If I had my way These United States would be free market with as few taxes and regulation as we can get away with at a federal level. States would have power to regulate what happens within their borders (like the 9th and 10th call for) and hopefully smaller economies of various types could spring up within the greater overall whole.
I would love to live within a small socialist village that was contained within a free market economy. Compare it to a Viking village, only the industry doesn't involve rape and plunder. Community chow hall, you can eat at home if you want but the party is at the big chow hall and it's sociable. The well needs to be dug deeper? The men start digging, no payment is exchanged and it benefits everyone. The women and elderly of the town care for the sick. They're probably cooking in the chow hall too. (I know I'm using sexist whatever traditional wording of roles, I don't care, it's my village dammit) The community industry does well? We increase the bandwidth of the community internet connection, the entire village gets a speed increase at once! Newer bigger TV's in the chow hall! Everyone's personal cut increases!
You think the village is corrupt and some are benefiting more than others? Leave. Not an option at the national scale so many want, but it's find in a free market and this may be a socialist style co-op village, but the next village over is anarcho-capitalist (they're the ones who were buying all the whatever my village produced anyways) so why don't I go there?
In general it means that once you start playing those cards (which are fallacies) I'm not really inclined to continue to debate you.
For the second time this thread. I don't watch TV (see South Park caveat above)
I understand the concept of the NINJA generation you're referring to, at 34 I missed it, but no enough to be completely unaffected.
One of our biggest problems is we've come to value the college education so much we've almost made it mandatory, in doing so we've made them so prevalent they've lost their value. In the IT field I feel that degrees are all but a waste and certifications are where it's at. Sometimes I regret having gone for my associates, it slowed my entry into the field since I was messing with school instead of working the assembly line a few extra hours. Granted that doesn't work in every field and I'm not really sure if having that piece of paper was a make it / break it criteria or not when it came to getting hired.
This is what I'm seeing from the movement. You have to start at the bottom most of the time, many of these folks are too good for that. I would say this is almost universal through all the various rallies.
Personal background on me. Paper route at 12 off and on until 16, picked cantaloupes with migrant workers (the jobs Americans wont do) at 14, worked as a janitor at a cafeteria at 16, chopped weeds and washed cars at a car lot at 17, video store at 17-18, security guard 18-19, assembly line 19-20, project implementation tech at 20, deployed generalist at 20-21, running an internet support call center at 21 - 23, working at an advanced help desk for satellite communication 23 -26. Then I hit my down turn. 26-28 I was semi-employed with a temp agencies, sometimes doing great sometimes leaching off of family, worked lots of places and wore lots of hats during that time. Went to work at NASA at 28 here I am at 34, I also moonlight through a friends company for special projects and my own company for other special projects, but I don't have to. How many of these people do you think ever turned in a job application until after the age of 20?
I really think a lot of the Gen Y types want to go straight to running something, or at the least start above my assembly line equivalent. Also you have to be willing to move to where the work is. I left West Texas for Phoenix since there's not shit but oil field in West Texas and not even that all the time. I left Phoenix for Houston because Phoenix was great for assembly line and a little over, was great for engineers, sucked for in between (late 90's things may have changed).
BTW, at the age of 34 I've worked under Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. I saw that the bubble starting to burst under Clinton. Then 9/11 happened and Bush did accelerate cronyism to new heights and insured not only did the tech bubble burst but he pumped up the housing bubble to replace it. Obama is simply trying to swap one group of cronies for another and he supports the worst parts of the "shadow agenda" the OWSers are pushing.
I don't think we've had a really good president since the 19th century. I'm not sure when the last good congress was but I'm sure it was before that. The supreme court held up rather well with a few slips here and there until FDR threatened them with court packing and they haven't recovered since.
The worst thing about our free market economy is it's not free market. Pulling money out of the ether and the existence of so many government contracts prevents that from happening. The amount of government expansion that occurs simply to feed cronies is sickening. The fix? More regulation which requires more agencies and more cronies to run them.
Just a couple examples of the corruption that needs to be exposed.
Seems like I struck a chord and invoked the "shit as the universal word" protocol.
Nazism is generally accepted as a special form of fascism. The Nazis were the national socialist and did have a socialist agenda along with their other agendas.
I would argue McCarthyism was capitolist fascism.
I would argue China has fascist communism, though they are loosening that grip.
Once again, I don't watch TV, including Fox news. Okay, fine I watch South Park every week on the web, but, sure.
Yes, I do know and the first thing to recognize is that none of the definitions are universally recognized, especially fascism.
Here are my definitions of the words:
Fascism - compulsory submission to a philosophy - a very simple definition but it doesn't agree with the one on the Webster website.
Communism - the government is the only employer - this works at various scales
Socialism - the redistribution of resources within a group.
Fascism is bad. Communism and socialism can be good without fascism, unfortunately most movements towards the other two philosophies involve fascism under the pretense that everyone must participate for it to work, but at least it works for all.
An example of good communism: The historic Iroquois tribe. The tribe lived in their shared long houses, everyone hunted, cooked and fished for everyone, you did not for yourself that wasn't done for the tribe. You were free to get pissed off and leave, go loner or possibly join another tribe therefore participation was voluntary.
An example of good socialism: The Amish today. If your neighbors barn burns down you help to rebuild it. If you have nails but he doesn't you bring your nails, your other neighbor brings wood, and another brings horses to help pull the frame up. You don't have to help, but the others would do it for you and not helping sort of makes you look like an asshole.
An example of Bad socialism: Most US social programs that by the time the money gets through the IRS, the Treasury, the agency in question, the contractor, and the sub contractor my $100 in tax money pays $15 towards a grant to research the breeding habits of the woodchuck.
Enforcement of existing laws prevents that anyways. Changing laws to match what companies want is cronyism and falls under my version of things.