Thank you Tea Party!


Moderators: Omphalos, Freakzilla, ᴶᵛᵀᴬ

User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Freakzilla »

Omphalos wrote:Doesn't "Caucasian" refer to people whose ancestors are from the other side of the Caucasus then the swarthy folks?
Southern Caucasus:
The concept of a Caucasian race or Varietas Caucasia was developed around 1800 by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a German scientist and classical anthropologist. Blumenbach named it after the Caucasian peoples (from the Southern Caucasus region), whom he considered to be the archetype for the grouping. He based his classification of the Caucasian race primarily on craniology. Blumenbach wrote:
Caucasian variety - I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighborhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (birth place) of mankind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Or maybe the dog?

Image

:P
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Omphalos
Inglorious Bastard
Posts: 6677
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 11:07
Location: The Mighty Central Valley of California
Contact:

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Omphalos »

Mankind was born there because he found the Georgian men lovely to behold? And they say science has stopped advancing.
Image

The New & Improved Book Review Blog

Goodnight Golden Path!
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Freakzilla »

That was 1795!
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Omphalos
Inglorious Bastard
Posts: 6677
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 11:07
Location: The Mighty Central Valley of California
Contact:

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Omphalos »

Freakzilla wrote:That was 1795!
Whatever.
Image

The New & Improved Book Review Blog

Goodnight Golden Path!
D Pope
Posts: 1504
Joined: 14 May 2010 14:11
Location: Grubville

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by D Pope »

"the swarthy folks"
:lol: :clap:
Leto II is gone for good, except for OM. The "pearl" was just that; a miniscule portion of what Leto was, and not a compressed version of the whole. The pearl that the worms have do not make them Leto, or in any way similar to him.
-Omphalos
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Freakzilla »

The name doesn't have anything to do with the "race".
The term Caucasian race (also Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid) has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia (Middle East), Central Asia and South Asia. Historically, the term has been used to describe the entire population of these regions, without regard necessarily to skin tone.

...

In the United States the term Caucasoid is commonly associated with notions of racial typology and modern usage is generally associated with racial notions and therefore discouraged, as it is potentially offensive. The term "Caucasoid" is still used in certain disciplines such as craniometry, epidemiology and forensic archaeology. Even in a medical context, some scholars have recommended that the term Caucasoid be avoided in scientific writings because of its association with racism and race science.
In the United States, the term Caucasian has been mainly used to describe a group commonly called Whites, as defined by the government and Census Bureau. Between 1917 and 1965, immigration to the US was restricted by a national origins quota. The Supreme Court in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) decided that Asian Indians and Middle Easterners – unlike Europeans – were Caucasian, but were not white, because most laypeople did not consider them to be white people. This was important for determining whether they could become naturalized citizens, then limited to free whites. The court and government changed its opinion in 1946. In 1965 major changes were made to immigration law, lifting many earlier restrictions on immigrants from Caucasoid Asia.

The United States National Library of Medicine has used the term "Caucasian" as a race in the past, but has discontinued its usage in favor of the term "European".
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
Vislor Turlough
Posts: 13
Joined: 07 Nov 2013 05:25
Location: A sleepy market town in Wiltshire

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Vislor Turlough »

Like I said in another thread, I’m English, so the impression I get of the Tea Party is consequently a lot less detailed than it would be if I actually lived in America & was exposed to the nuances of American politics every time I watched TV, read a newspaper etc. All I – and probably most Brits – get is the idea that Sarah Palin is a megalomaniacal lunatic who’d like to nuke Iran & that the Tea Party are a bunch of far-right neo-fascist racist loons who’d like to return to segregation & are secretly members of the Ku Klux Klan. This, of course, is because of the marked left-wing liberal bias of UK TV news reporting, particularly the BBC.

It actually seems to me that in fact the Tea Party is, at root, a Libertarian movement that wants to:

1. Dismantle the excessive size, cost, and authority of the Federal State;
2. Sharply reduce all but the most essential taxes, thus emancipating both the private citizen & the commercial corporation from a crippling burden;
3. Encourage personal responsibility;
4. Wean society from dependence on the state as paymaster;
5. Dissolve the consequent moral authority of government over the private freedoms of the individual.

In short, they are pro-freedom. I wish there was a political movement of the same stripe here in the UK. Man, if you think Obama-care is socialism, get a load of the Labour Party – or, sadly, the Conservative Party – both of which are incapable of understanding/admitting that the public wouldn’t need a staggeringly expensive welfare system if only they didn’t tax us into dependency in the first place. The Tories tiptoe up to the edge of Libertarianism only to back down in the end; but this is the fault of the British public for being obsessed with rights & disdainful of responsibilities. They are bribed & they either don’t know it or are perfectly ok with it. Even the latter group are fools: they have at least 20% of their income stolen from them by the government, who then pay an army of bureaucrats to administrate the process of handing a reduced portion of it back to them as welfare benefits, which they are queuing up to apply for only because the government stole their money in the first place. Why do I have to constantly pay for the NHS even though I only use it intermittently? Out of compassion for others, those who couldn’t afford private health care? Well, you have to ask yourself why they can’t afford it: 1) because they’re still paying for the NHS 2) because the NHS exists there isn’t enough competition in the private health sector to drive down costs & make the option affordable.

Why can’t I be allowed to keep the money I earn? I just don’t think that the “compassionate imperative” as embodied in a welfare system funded by blanket taxation is a good enough justification – not unless you can de-couple it from all of the other gross excesses & abuses of state spending.
Cynicism is an idealists' word for realism
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Freakzilla »

:clap:

The problem here, it seems to me, is both parties, when in power, are esentially the same and actually do nearly nothing.

I think I'm going to vote independent/libertarian next election.
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Jodorowsky's Acolyte
Posts: 370
Joined: 10 Jul 2010 10:55

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Jodorowsky's Acolyte »

1. Dismantle the excessive size, cost, and authority of the Federal State;


That's a common claim from many Conserv Liberts. Those who claim this still become wasteful in money and very authoritarian.
2. Sharply reduce all but the most essential taxes, thus emancipating both the private citizen & the commercial corporation from a crippling burden;
Taxes are like mosquito bites to commercial corporations. They'll manage fine by paying just 30% taxes.
3. Encourage personal responsibility;
Agreed. Get the CEOs at IBM to go back to the time when they respected and valued their workers, instead of now when they've been throwing out their best employees in favor of cheaper outsourcing.
4. Wean society from dependence on the state as paymaster;
Good plan. Let us take away the health care services of all our politicians, and reduce their paychecks considerably. Some of the Tea Party and Republican politicians in my country will finally learn to be less dependable that way.
5. Dissolve the consequent moral authority of government over the private freedoms of the individual.
My government? Having moral authority? That hasn't been true since the time when The Articles of Confederation were drafted. Of course, we have a bulk of politicians were want to enforce certain moral authorities on numerous individuals, but the morals they want to impose usually don't involve sharing and cooperation.
In short, they are pro-freedom.
I don't doubt their patriotism or nationalism. I just doubt their sanity and sense. I have seen this kind of thing many times before, and no matter how noble it may seem on the outside, I don't like the color of it. I don't see the Tea Party as being representative of pure right-wing insanity: I just see them as an easily manipulated mob whose fire is misdirected at the wrong target. We tend to do that as Americans. We kvetch even after crossing the Red Sea, and we kvetch even at the base of Mount Sinai. It doesn't make us particularly bright.
'...all those who took part in the rise and fall of the Dune project learned how to fall one and one thousand times with savage obstinacy until learning how to stand. I remember my old father who, while dying happy, said to me: "My son, in my life, I triumphed because I learned how to fail."' -Alejandro Jodorowsky
Vislor Turlough
Posts: 13
Joined: 07 Nov 2013 05:25
Location: A sleepy market town in Wiltshire

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Vislor Turlough »

Interesting response, thanks. I could easily knock off a 2k word essay on this stuff, it really animates me at present, but I’ll try to be trenchant with a few quick observations & ripostes. In a nutshell, I think what we have in most 1st world countries today is a modern spin on feudalism. Instead of military & agricultural service to the lord of the manor in exchange for his protection, nowadays its taxes to the state in exchange for . . . social services that would’ve been cheaper if I’d paid for them myself on the open market . . . but this is just one of the ways in which the deal has been skewed vastly in favour of the “protector” instead of the “protected”. Instead of the State being a mutually respectful coming-together of equals under the social contract, it has now become an entity unto itself, well beyond the parameters of a Utilitarian definition of social value. In fact it does more harm than good & is more concerned with self-perpetuation & expansion than with the alienated interests of the citizens it was once synonymous with. It’s stopped being “. . . of the people, by the people, for the people” & become “. . . of the people, by the State, for the State”.
I think the danger of authoritarianism in any political system is an inevitable consequence of human nature in action; I’m reminded in that context of the most politically radical period in English history, the Civil War, and of Cromwell’s Commonwealth which followed; a kaleidoscope of different ideologies were proposed, tried, and rejected in short order, ranging from the Levellers to the Rump Parliament, but in the end the authority of the crown was restored with Charles 2nd – but real gains had been made, in that an autocratic monarchy was no longer possible and had been transformed into a constitutional one, eventually to become no more than the politically powerless constitutional capstone it is today.
Taxes may be mosquito bites to large multi-national corporations, but not to SMEs, which we should encourage with a low, preferential tax base to increase competition. I’d want to tax the mega-corps more than the SMEs, if only in the interests of competition & the avoidance of monopolies, but I would then plough that money not into state coffers but into, say, tax rebates for SMEs or their employees or some other method of passing the money back to consumers so they can go & spend it on the products & services of SMEs – and mega-corps. As long as the money is in the service of a free-market economy, that’s fine.
I’m not sure that I care if companies respect or value their employees, or if they prefer cheaper outsourcing. In a properly functioning free market the employees thus disadvantaged should be able to vote with their feet by moving to another employer, eager for their skills, and who is willing to wield the carrot, not the stick, to keep them, i.e. competitive salaries, working conditions etc, i.e. a competitive market place drives up productivity, drives down costs, reduces inflation, increases employment, increases wages.
Our politicians are paid very low salaries as it happens. The Prime Minister only earns £80k per annum (of course, he has other legitimate sources of income besides his official pay). Contrast with the average salary of the CEO of a state-run NDPB (or “quango”), about £200k. It’s the civil service mandarins who need to be brought down to earth in the UK.
OK, the 2k word limit has probably been passed . . . moral authority of the US government: not that badly dented from my perspective, despite Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo et al. I don’t go so far as to say the “special relationship” is worth the subordination of UK interests or our willingly being the junior partner, but I’d rather be allied to the US than the * spits * EU. Tea Party noble? I hope not! Libertarianism to me is admitting that selfishness is the default setting of human nature, which is why communism always fails. It ain’t beautiful, but to deny it I think is the root of all political folly. Boris Johnson (Mayor of London & wannabe Tory PM) has recently been savagely attacked here for pointing this out . . .
Cynicism is an idealists' word for realism
User avatar
DuneFishUK
Posts: 1991
Joined: 25 May 2008 14:14
Location: Cool Britannia
Contact:

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by DuneFishUK »

Selfishness isn't the human default - and if it is it's so wrapped up in other factors, it isn't the defining characteristic people make it out to be.

All the absolute ideologies are doomed to fail because good people help each other out and corrupt people know what they want.
Image
- http://www.kullwahad.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - http://dunefont.kullwahad.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; -
User avatar
Naïve mind
Posts: 388
Joined: 26 Aug 2012 05:58

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Naïve mind »

What amuses me most about the Tea Party is that they've named themselves after a protest against the British Empire lowering its import taxes.

Furthermore, it occurs to me that in every complex society, there's a persistent myth that there's a conspiracy to keep ordinary people like you and me from reaching the full economic affluence and potential that rightfully belongs to them. The left will say it's Big Business, the right will say it's Big Government, the Nazis used to say it was the Jews. And pretty much everbody hates the banks.

This probably goes back to our primate notions of fairness. Fairness is the glue for social co-operation. It's why you risk your life dancing in front of the tusks of that woolly mammoth--if you don't get gored, you'll get a piece of the meat.

But in any complex society, there is going to be unfairness. Slick lazy salesmen will make more money than hard-working labourers. Freeloaders with the right connections will be able to open doors that will remain closed to competent overachievers.

The best any society can do is make sure the distribution of wealth isn't completely disproportionate to effort and competence. But it is not society's purpose. And 'protest' movements, whether they're the Tea Party in the US, or UKIP in the UK, or even Die Linke in Germany, are very quiet about what they think society is for.
Vislor Turlough
Posts: 13
Joined: 07 Nov 2013 05:25
Location: A sleepy market town in Wiltshire

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Vislor Turlough »

Hope I’m not outstaying my welcome, but I’m always grateful to have my views challenged; despite being a right-winger I always read The Guardian – you need a grindstone to keep the knife sharp.
I always read Thomas Hobbes’ version of social contract theory as an acknowledgement that self-interest is the root of social cooperation, but now I wonder if I was guilty of projecting my own convictions . . . but it still seems unlikely to me that compassion or selflessness could’ve predated group collaboration. Our hominid ancestors cared for their young not in response to any socialised ideals (love et al) but in obedience to the genetically hard-wired imperative to perpetuate the species. Later this gets to the homo heidelbergensis/neanderthalensis stage of hunting woolly mammoth, as you say, but I don’t see that fairness is the primum movens; I want a piece of mammoth-flesh because I’m hungry, I can’t get it on my own, but if we all cooperate in the hunt, then I will get my meal. The quid pro quo is I have to share the fruits of my labour. I could try the double-cross but then whose going to help me kill the mammoth next time? I think fairness is a consequence of social cooperation, but that self-interest is the trigger for that cooperation in the first place. Put it another way: fairness is the price we pay for the advancement of our own interests. Once it was with our eye on a mammoth stake; now we have our eye on a fatter pay-check.
Now I look at it afresh, it seems that Margaret Thatcher’s famous “no such thing as society” soundbite is actually far less nihilistically “selfish” than is often said. She seems to be arguing that our duties to others are of the utmost importance because they serve our own interests (ends justifies means?):
“And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation".
At this point, my drinking buddy starts to get red in the face. No Thatcherite he.
Naïve Mind, I fully agree with you that there is such a “persistent myth”; and that there is always going to be unfairness in any complex society. Re: “The best any society can do is make sure the distribution of wealth isn't completely disproportionate to effort and competence”:
“I've always doubted that the socialists had a leg to stand on intellectually. They have improved their argument somehow, but once you begin to understand that prices are an instrument of communication and guidance which embody more information than we directly have, the whole idea that you can bring about the same order based on the division of labor by simple direction falls to the ground. Similarly, the idea [that] you can arrange for distributions of incomes which correspond to some conception of merit or need. If you need prices, including the prices of labor, to direct people to go where they are needed, you cannot have another distribution except the one from the market principle. I think that intellectually there is just nothing left of socialism” – F. A. Hayek. As indeed the French are now (finally) discovering.
Cynicism is an idealists' word for realism
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Freakzilla »

Vislor Turlough wrote:Hope I’m not outstaying my welcome...
Nonsense!
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Naïve mind
Posts: 388
Joined: 26 Aug 2012 05:58

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Naïve mind »

Vislor Turlough wrote:Our hominid ancestors cared for their young not in response to any socialised ideals (love et al) but in obedience to the genetically hard-wired imperative to perpetuate the species.
I don't think we necessarily disagree here. For our welfare, we are dependant on a complex, highly specialized economy, which functions because of the rule of law. The rule of law is accepted because of the social contract, which says we and our families will be better off if we all participate. (Consider that policemen and enlisted soldiers, the strongest individuals in our society, don't make much money, nor do they have glamorous career prospects. Yet, instead of beating unarmed, unathletic IT guys like myself up for their lunch money, they instead put their lives on the line for my safety.)

When enough people feel the social contract sucks, the law falls apart, corruption thrives, and eventually, revolution. Hence the justification for democracy, which is an attempt by the strong to prevent the weak from ganging up on them and rolling out the guillotine.
Vislor Turlough wrote:Put it another way: fairness is the price we pay for the advancement of our own interests. Once it was with our eye on a mammoth stake; now we have our eye on a fatter pay-check.
Ha, and by mentioning the fatter pay check, you've put your finger on the sore spot. So much of our economic activity is aimed not at surviving and thriving, but at keeping up with the Joneses. This makes me suspicious of those who, living in first world countries, claim to be poor (what they mean is that they have a low social status, that they feel socially excluded by the tribe. Heartbreaking perhaps, but 'poor' in Western societies means nothing compared to the familiar statistics of the billion people surviving on less than a dollar a day).
But by the same logic, I have no time for Howard Roarks who feel that this social contract nonsense is getting in the way of their ... competing with the Joneses. Without the social contract they'd be competing with the Joneses' subsistence farm.

If you'll excuse me for wearing out your patience, let me get to my main point.

If you see the struggle between left and right as periodical re-negotiation of the social contract, the political struggles in every society seem far less threatening for their impact, but far more threatening for their myopia.

First example: The economic ascent of China and India means that the spending power of Sandeep the programmer in Hyderabad is fast converging with mine. It als means that the spending power of Mary the cleaning lady in Birmingham is fast converging with that of Mei Ling the cleaning lady in Shenzen. This isn't wingnut left-wing economic theory, this is fairly simple mainstream economics.

In the past thirty years, we've seen a dramatic increase in our ability to buy cheap stuff from China (an iPhone, fully produced, not just assembled in a first-world country, would probably cost upwards of $2000). In the next thirty years, this advantage is going to disappear again for the bottom 50% of the labour pool. No more cheap electronics for them, no more cheap clothes. This the kind of social change that facilitates the ascent of sunglasses-wearing leaders in white dress uniforms. Am I really supposed to be worried about unfair distribution of tax money now?

Second example: A more familiar one. Oil. Even if we switch to nuclear at a really fast pace, it's unlikely that we'll be able to catch up even to the demand currently filled by oil. Energy fuels an enormous part of our economic growth, and nobody disputes that oil is running out. Yet nobody seems to be worried about this.

We're like a society of hunter-gatherers, very good at killing mammoths and fighting over the spoils, but utterly uninterested in storing and curing meat for the coming winter. And this, more than anything else, is why I am so contemptuous of the myth of unfairness.
Vislor Turlough
Posts: 13
Joined: 07 Nov 2013 05:25
Location: A sleepy market town in Wiltshire

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Vislor Turlough »

“I don't think we necessarily disagree here”. Yeah, it seems that the bare-knuckle show-down we might have been vaguely expecting isn’t gonna happen. In fact we seem to be broadly on the same page all round!
“Hence the justification for democracy, which is an attempt by the strong to prevent the weak from ganging up on them and rolling out the guillotine”. That one caught my attention. I’m not sure if you’re American or British, generally left-leaning or right-leaning, so I guess I have to ponder that comment out-of-context in a sense & take it on its own terms. Most of my friends would want to swap the placing of “strong” & “weak” in that sentence. They wouldn’t stand for any criticism of democracy as a system, given the alternatives, but I’ve often thought to myself that democracy in practice quite possibly fits that bill. Dropping a marked piece of paper into a ballot box once every 4 or 5 years doesn’t endow me with any measurable quantity of power or influence over the decisions of my government, whether it’s the party I voted for or not. All I’ve had is a say in who will, effectively, control the economic & legal framework of my life; ‘though I have been able to express a preference for a particular ideological approach to the exercise of that control. I don’t suppose you’re indicating support for enlightened despotism? Or would you prefer anarchy (with a capital “A”?). Maybe you’re just decrying the failure in practice of modern Western democracy to live up to the ancient Greek ideal? This could be remedied by technology . . . the Demarchists in Alastair Reynold’s Revelation Space universe may be something to shoot for; e-voting in real-time with 24/7 participation on a 100% enfranchisement could iron out the bumps, if/when technology allows (i.e. implants).
“So much of our economic activity is aimed not at surviving and thriving, but at keeping up with the Joneses”. Check. ‘Though this was Boris Johnson’s point: keeping up with the Joneses (he actually used that exact phrase) is, he argued, one of the key spurs to economic activity (I guess he was thinking specifically of entrepreneurship) that benefit us all in the long-term (free-market competition again).
“ ‘poor' in Western societies means nothing compared to the familiar statistics of the billion people surviving on less than a dollar a day”. Check. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate a total disregard for those in need, we do need a system that lifts these folks out of poverty. I think we both agree that the argument is about how. I think I’m right to say that in the realm of international aid professionals, the argument has been won that its not good enough to just throw money at the dispossessed: you have to give them the means to become self-sufficient or to compete. Not “here’s a hundred bucks” but “here’s how to dig a clean-water well” or “here’s how to pool the village’s cotton harvest & sell it yourselves without being stiffed by the Corporate suits”. My beef is why can’t we apply the same principles to domestic policy here in the UK, instead of the welfare-dependency model (“here’s a hundred bucks” – well, quid). One tragic side-light on this is how Greece et al have been demoted to the dispossessed bracket thanks to the ideologically motivated wilful foolishness of the Eurozone (‘though the corruption & myopia of their own government sure as hell didn’t help . . . here we are, agreeing again).
I’d never heard of Howard Roark, so I Wiki’d him. He’s the lead character in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, right? I must check that out.
If I’m understanding you right, your two examples seem to be getting at the problems of switching up our parochial nation-state political concerns to a level that can get to grips with the economic challenges of globalization, with a side-order of the kind of long-term planning that Liet-Kynes would’ve been proud of. Maybe what we need to shoot for is a massive paradigm shift . . . here’s where the SF fan-boy in me takes over . . . I have a dream! To live in a post-scarcity Transhumanist culture exactly like, um, The Culture.
Unfairness is, in socio-economic terms, entirely our own creation, and the remedy must also lie in our own hands.
A couple of quick-scatter shots:
I’m 36. When I was born, Jim Callaghan was Prime Minister. I lived through the whole of the 80s but I was only 3 in 1980 and only 12 in 1989. So my views on Thatcherism (obviously the touchstone of my politics) are clearly held through rose-tinted glasses.
Right, I’m off for a bottle of Franziskaner, a pack of smokes, and Fringe on DVD. Back Monday . . .
Cynicism is an idealists' word for realism
User avatar
Jodorowsky's Acolyte
Posts: 370
Joined: 10 Jul 2010 10:55

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Jodorowsky's Acolyte »

“ ‘poor' in Western societies means nothing compared to the familiar statistics of the billion people surviving on less than a dollar a day”. Check. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate a total disregard for those in need, we do need a system that lifts these folks out of poverty. I think we both agree that the argument is about how. I think I’m right to say that in the realm of international aid professionals, the argument has been won that its not good enough to just throw money at the dispossessed: you have to give them the means to become self-sufficient or to compete. Not “here’s a hundred bucks” but “here’s how to dig a clean-water well” or “here’s how to pool the village’s cotton harvest & sell it yourselves without being stiffed by the Corporate suits”. My beef is why can’t we apply the same principles to domestic policy here in the UK, instead of the welfare-dependency model (“here’s a hundred bucks” – well, quid). One tragic side-light on this is how Greece et al have been demoted to the dispossessed bracket thanks to the ideologically motivated wilful foolishness of the Eurozone (‘though the corruption & myopia of their own government sure as hell didn’t help . . . here we are, agreeing again).
In order to get the dispossessed to become self-sufficient, you got to help and teach them how to get there. I don't know how skilled you are financially in comparison to most of the people out there who don't have the means to help themselves, though I doubt that it's because you are the better equipped to help yourself. Not all people are the same, and not all environments are created equally. My Dad only became a savant in financial expertise because he had the benefit of really good professors, and the reason his family did alright was because his mother was more business savvy than his father in order to take care of five children, and she became as smart as she was because she was the only one who asked the question "why" so she could understand everything. Even Kwai Chang Caine from KUNG FU had to show all the people he met how to cope with various extremes so that they could know how to better survive, and he knew how to be self-sufficient because the Shaolin Monastery showed him how to withstand extremes in weather by helping tap into his inner strength. George Bailey from IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE knew that it was impractical to leave many of his townspeople struggling without homes or financial security, and kept going at his father's Building and Loan Association at the cost of the things he wanted to do. If you seen the movie, you know that when he sees what the town looks like if he is never born, its a economically deprived, draconian dystopia full of extremely bitter people.

The point is that not everyone can be self-sufficient, and most of the various Conservatives who want them to be self-sufficient don't really don't understand the hows and whys. i'm sure that there are Liberals in England who don't know either, but we a few in the U.S. who do know what the hell they're talking about. You have to have teach many of the people the hows and whys in order to help them be self-sufficient. However, its more beneficial when you have an organization or system which understands the hows and the whys of financial assistance to help most of those people live their lives. Remember the lesson left by Duke Leto: caring more about your workers than about the Spice inspires loyalty.
I’m 36. When I was born, Jim Callaghan was Prime Minister. I lived through the whole of the 80s but I was only 3 in 1980 and only 12 in 1989. So my views on Thatcherism (obviously the touchstone of my politics) are clearly held through rose-tinted glasses.
I couldn't resist the response for this line: YOU AND YOUR EIGHTIES! Your precious eighties. YOU KNOW IT WOULD'VE CONTINUED TO BE THE SEVENTIES IF NOT FOR YOU!

I was only 1 years on in 1988, so I have as much to blame for that decade.

'...all those who took part in the rise and fall of the Dune project learned how to fall one and one thousand times with savage obstinacy until learning how to stand. I remember my old father who, while dying happy, said to me: "My son, in my life, I triumphed because I learned how to fail."' -Alejandro Jodorowsky
User avatar
Crizius
Posts: 90
Joined: 20 Nov 2011 13:55

Re: Thank you Tea Party!

Post by Crizius »

Of Course it was realy necesary to mention realigion and gay minorities... But overal this video brought nothing new to the table.
Remember the alamo!
Post Reply