John Henry

I am a hypocrite. Politically, I subscribe to the Marxist philosophy (or maybe it was Engels, I'm ignorant too) that everyone should work according to their ability and recieve according to their need. However, in reality this is superceded by my personal philosophy that shit happens and I'd rather it happened to somebody else.

Anyone here got a political philosophy that's any good and/or consistent with their personal philosophy?

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"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."

ARTelevision

Yes.
I am a realist.

I'll expound on this later.
For now, my focus on what is realistically achievable, pragmatically doable, and practical has solved all of the problems in my life that were caused by idealistic thinking.

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create evolution

John Henry

I'll go with that. Idealism isn't flexible enough to deal with unanticipated situations.

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"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."

4thTimeLucky

I would say I was a socialist, but it's not easy and I don't think I'm very good at it. Ways I am/will try to act on my beliefs:
1) Turned down high paying city job to work for the government (though that was mostly motivated by how much more enjoyable government work would be).
2) Am English so will pay high-ish taxes
3) Am not a christian, but think tything is a good idea (though I don't know what percentage yet).

A more tricky problem is what *moral* philosophy to follow. Logical analysis tells me utilitarianism, but the moral burden that puts on me is almost unsupportable. Or am I just being selfish?

Any thoughts.

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I've been 4thTimeLucky, you've been great. Goodnight and God bless!

John Henry

I think you just have to sit on fence, between being comfortably rich and being comfortably moral. If you get to a situation where your own behaviour disgusts you, then change it, because you won't be enjoying it anyway. Otherwise, as you were.

I've just started a thread on moral philosophy in the discussion board. Jooooin us joooooooin us.

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"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."

hiredgun

Liiiiiiink us Liiiiiiink us. You know how lazy we are.

John Henry

Et voila!

Morality

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"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."

Mad_Gecko

Damn,
Just found this thread after like a 12 pack..
Not gonna make much sense but here goes (I'll try again tomorrow)

I'm basically a dyed in the wool capitalist but on a meritocracy principle and as long as you don't f*ck up someone else deliberately. I concede that I may take away something from someone but that may happen to me, and its up to me to move on and improve myself.

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[color=bright blue]W[/color]e Stick To Glass

"If three of us travel together, I shall find two teachers."
Confucious

sapiens

My political philosophy is screwy. I'd have to go with a capitalist system/meritocracy. I definitely do not subscribe to the idea of "from each to their ability to each according to their needs." How about "From each according to their ability to each according to their ability?" I can't stand social loafers (People who can help themselves, but don't). Still, I have a soft spot. Taxes don't bother me too much as long as they are used responsibly. (Helping people who can't help themselves). I can't stand it when I see people who could succeed, but are held back by circumstances truly beyond their control.

JoeReckless

Socialism doesn't work. A republic is the way to go.

Republic vs. Democracy

Rule by Law vs. Rule by Majority

Just after the completion and signing of the Constitution, in reply to a woman's inquiry as to the type of government the Founders had created, Benjamin Franklin said, "A Republic, if you can keep it."
Not only have we failed to keep it, most don't even know what it is.

A Republic is representative government ruled by law (the Constitution). A democracy is direct government ruled by the majority (mob rule). A Republic recognizes the inalienable rights of individuals while democracies are only concerned with group wants or needs (the public good).
Lawmaking is a slow, deliberate process in our Constitutional Republic requiring approval from the three banches of government, the Supreme Court and individual jurors (jury-nullification). Lawmaking in our unlawful democracy occurs rapidly requiring approval from the whim of the majority as determined by polls and/or voter referendums. A good example of democracy in action is a lynch mob. A more recent example was the failure of the US Senate to uphold their oath "to do impartial justice" and remove bill clinton from office. Those Senators should be removed themselves, for failure to uphold their oath and for aiding and abetting a known criminal.

Democracies always self-destruct when the non-productive majority realizes that it can vote itself handouts from the productive minority by electing the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury. To maintain their power, these candidates must adopt an ever-increasing tax and spend policy to satisfy the ever-increasing desires of the majority. As taxes increase, incentive to produce decreases, causing many of the once productive to drop out and join the non-productive. When there are no longer enough producers to fund the legitimate functions of government and the socialist programs, the democracy will collapse, always to be followed by a Dictatorship.

Even though nearly every politician, teacher, journalist and citizen believes that our Founders created a democracy, it is absolutely not true. The Founders knew full well the differences between a Republic and a Democracy and they repeatedly and emphatically said that they had founded a republic.

Article IV Section 4, of the Constitution "guarantees to every state in this union a Republican form of government".... Conversely, the word Democracy is not mentioned even once in the Constitution. Madison warned us of the dangers of democracies with these words,

"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths...",
"We may define a republic to be ... a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans and claim for their government the honorable title of republic." James Madison, Federalist No. 10, (1787)

"A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men." Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Our military training manuals used to contain the correct definitions of Democracy and Republic. The following comes from Training Manual No. 2000-25 published by the War Department, November 30, 1928.

DEMOCRACY:

A government of the masses.
Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression.
Results in mobocracy.
Attitude toward property is communistic--negating property rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether is be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
Results in demogogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.

REPUBLIC:

Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them.
Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences.
A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass.
Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy.
Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress.
Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world.
The manuals containing these definitions were ordered destroyed without explanation about the same time that President Franklin D. Roosevelt made private ownership of our lawful money (US Minted Gold Coins) illegal. Shortly after the people turned in their $20 gold coins, the price was increased from $20 per ounce to $35 per ounce. Almost overnight F.D.R., the most popular president this century (elected 4 times) looted almost half of this nation's wealth, while convincing the people that it was for their own good. Many of F.D.R.'s policies were suggested by his right hand man, Harry Hopkins, who said,

"Tax and Tax, Spend and Spend, Elect and Elect, because the people are too damn dumb to know the difference".

JoeReckless

Are We Living Under the Communist Manifesto?


"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known, and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor. He speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in hearts of men. He rots the soul of a nation. He works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city. He infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A Murderer Is Less To Be Feared." Cicero, 42 B.C.
The only difference between communism and socialism is its method of imposition. Communism is forced upon the people against their will. Socialism on the other hand is entered into voluntarily by the majority of voters.
Even though the goals are the same, socialism is much more dangerous because it gradually enslaves the people without the use of visible force, while artfully disguising its evil motives with a variety of so-called noble causes.
The evils of socialiam and humanism cannot survive exposure unless "good men and women do nothing".

The 10 planks of the communist manifesto written in 1848 by Karl Marx appear below.

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The Communist Manifesto


Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. Property tax paid annually prevents the outright ownership of property, because if property can be confiscated for taxes owed, it can never truly be owned. The application of our rents of land (property taxes)are used for public purposes as envisioned by Karl Marx.

A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. The income tax was imposed upon the people briefly after the War Between The Southern States and The dictatorial Federal Government. In 1895, The US Supreme Court abolished it with the words, "The income tax is indeed a direct tax and therefore unconstitutional". The Court understood that, "No capitation, or other direct Tax shall be laid,..." Art. 1, Sec. 9, of the US Constitution, means exactly what it says. However, in 1913 there were enough socialist in Congress to again foist the income tax upon the people with the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. The income tax is not designed just to raise taxes, which could be accomplished very easily with a national sales tax. Instead, its goal is to punish achievement, invade privacy, and control the people through fear and intimidation from the most gestapo-like arm of our government, the I.R.S.

Abolition of all right of inheritance. Our inheritance tax puts all rights of inheritance in jeopardy. Property tax, income tax, and inheritance tax, should be abolished because they are all direct taxes and they all violate our God-given property rights. They could be replaced with indirect taxes like sales tax, tobacco tax, alcohol tax, or gasoline tax. Some advantages of indirect taxes are:

They are indeed Constitutional.
Our privacy would be protected.
Everyone who spends money participates including the super-wealthy, foreign visitors, illegal aliens, drug dealers, and others now in the underground economy.

It is a pay as you go system - no April 15th.
The IRS and all associated collection cost would be eliminated.
Lower production cost will allow business to compete internationally.
Prices would come down more than enough to cover the sales tax increase.
Business would expand creating new jobs.
The money now in off-shore tax-havens would flood back into this country stimulating the economy.
Manufacturing would come back home absent the over-taxation and over-regulation that drove them to foreign countries.

Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. Our government does not normally confiscate property of emigrants, however, many laws and regulations have been passed in recent years which allow many government agencies such as the I.R.S., O.S.H.A., E.P.A., B.L.M., and drug enforcement agencies to confiscate property from citizens that are considered rebels. Much of this confiscation is achieved without due process of law.

Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. The Federal Reserve System was created in 1913. It is not federally owned and nothing is in reserve. It is a private corporation with the power to increase or decrease the money supply by changing the interest rates and the reserve requirements of its member banks. It can create money out of thin air, lend it to the government and then collect the principal and interest from the taxpayers. That is why its owners always have and always will promote war and socialism to create inextinguishable government debt.

"Permit me to control the currency of a nation and I care not who makes its laws" Baron De Rothschild, brainchild of the Federal Reserve Bank.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson


Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. Communication and transportation are controlled by a number of government agencies, e.g., The Federal Communication Commission (FCC), The Dept. of Transportation (DOT), The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Public Television is also a good example of state control of communication for the indoctrination of the concepts of socialism and humanism.

Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvements of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. Dan Smoot's book, "The Business End of Government" revealed that, the federal government owned 1165 different businesses like AMTRAC. The Bureau of land Management, The Department of Agriculture, The Department of Commerce, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), etc., all promote a common plan of more and more regulation and control from government with less and less freedom enjoyed by the people.

Equal liability of all to labor and the establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. Heavy taxation, over-regulation, and other economic problems caused by our government's adoption of socialism has forced women to labor equally with men. Our industrial army is the Social Security System which requires membership at birth.

Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equitable distribution of population over the country. We are not living under this plank totally. However, we do have many large agriculture corporations who have combined all levels of production from the farm to the consumer. It appears that the goal of this plank is to reduce the number of family farms making it easier to gain control of all food and fiber production. This goal is fast becoming reality.

Free education for all children in public schools.... Communist and socialist have long recognized the value of indoctrination through a free educational system. And, it has produced a people with no understanding of the vast differences between the Free Enterprise System and socialism. During our Bicentennial celebrations (1986), a national poll of school children revealed that 46% of them believed that "From him with the most ability - to him with the most need" was part of our Constitution. Today all socialist, all liberals and most democracts believe the same thing.

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Would it surprise you to learn that "The Democractic Socialist of America" are alive and well in the U.S.A.. Its "Progressive Caucus" list 58 members from the U.S. House of Representatives. All are democrats except their chairman, Benard Sanders, who ran on the socialist party ticket. You can find the list at: Democratic Socialist of America



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"Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds." Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850).

i8one2

If it sounds to good to be true, they're lying..

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LEATHER, LATEX and LACE "SSC"
"Nothing That Gives Pleasure is Bad"

Quality is for those who know
what they want and are at peace with what they have.

"S/M is about emotion; the erotic tension between my impulse toward something and my resistance against it."-- Virginia Barker

josobot

As an ex-Marxist, let me explain why. Remember the Who song :Won't get fooled again...? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. To function, every system needs "those in charge". Unless those in charge are democratically elected they should never be trusted with anything. And if democratically elected they never deserve more than qualified trust. Marxism itself is just one of many theories used to take property from indigenous peoples. A moderated Existentialism is good, see Merleau-Ponty.

Willravel

"Permit me to control the currency of a nation and I care not who makes its laws" Baron De Rothschild, brainchild of the Federal Reserve Bank.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson

This is one of the most relevant posts I've ever seen. Bravo. To be honest (and not the least bit alarmist, heh), this is probably one of the largest threats we face. Everyone knows that the Rothschilds own the worlds largest bank. We also know they are often named by consipracy theorists as the head of the great consipracy for Satan.

Religious fanatisism aside, they do pose a bit of a threat. This family does have a questionable history with good buisness practice and buisness ethics in the past. At present, more than 90 percent of the world's wealth, in a world of six billion people, is controlled by less than 10,000 individuals, mostly from two dozen families who can trace their bluebloody lineage back many hundreds of years. At the head of the line is the Rothschild family. It has been estimated that the aggregate Rothschild wealth is at a minimum 5,000 times greater than the annual gross national product of the United States. Between the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, they literally own most the U.S. money supply, the Federal Reserve, and all the major banks of the Western world. That rubs me wrong. I like the idea of poweer being evenly distributed, as it makes it less likely to lose freedom.

flstf

In my head I'm a Libertarian.
In my heart I want a utopia.

Mephisto2

You're confusing socialism and communism.

It's entirely possible to have a socialist republic. There are quite a few out there, even if a lot of them don't officially call themselves such.

Even America's greatest ally (if we believe the current spin), Tony Blair's Britian, has an ostensibly left-wing government with socialist ideals.

Me?

I'm a democratic socialist.

I believe in the state has an obligation to its members.
I believe in universal and free education.
I believe in universal and free health care.
I believe in state assistance in employment sourcing and a social welfare system.
I believe the state should own or control portions of transport, media, production and social services.
I believe in protectionist trade practices.
I believe in universal suffrage and democratic principles.

This is not idealism. This is just an alternative socio-political framework than that extant in the US. It exists in many countries today and it works.

Which ever one is "better" is simply a matter of opinion.



Mr Mephisto

Yakk

I'm a democratic market socialist.

I believe property is a useful tool.
I believe that markets solve hard problems.
I believe markets are imperfect.
I believe that capitalism exists in a dynamic tension with democracy.
I believe that societies who simply attempt to maximize the sum of wealth are not ideal.
I believe in trade.
I believe that morality and law are not the same thing.
I believe that the amount of police, war, prisons and digging holes and filling them going on in a or by a nation does not add to the nations productivity.
I believe that my beliefs could be wrong, and bets should be hedged.
I believe 'majority governments' are dangerous.
I believe in paying as you go.
I believe in incentives.
I believe in negative and positive externalities.
I believe in the mathematics of monopoly power.
I believe in fettered democracy.
I believe that government should always function by the consent of the governed.

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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

Willravel

On that, I think a LOT of us agree.