Concerning global warming...
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KingRaptor
- Zero-K Developer
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- Joined: 14 Mar 2007, 03:44
Forb, I've seen both liberals and conservatives demand small government, personal freedoms, etc, etc while claiming the other faction has the opposite view. Liberal and conservative voters have the same damn political view these days. What they are railing against, the people who limit the free market because they don't think a free market really works (any unregulated area of society will turn into a de-facto tyranny, in this case monpolies) are called socialists and communists. Socialists believe that sometimes the right of the individual has to take a back seat to the prosperity of society. That is NOT liberalism, liberalism is codified egoism in my view (since they usually want to abolish anything that benefits people other than them) and pretty much the total opposite of socialism.
A huge, HUGE problem with telling people to take care of themselves is that the educational system is way too inadequate to make sure people actually understand the world. Telling people to go to private schools won't help, that just means again that the rich are more likely to survive than the poor because the poor can't afford that improved education. And the last thing democracy needs is a huge pool of dumb, easily influencable people (though it can be argued that politicians prefer 'em like that) as even a vegetable gets as much of a vote as a genius and he who knows how to control the vegetables will be crowned emperor.
A huge, HUGE problem with telling people to take care of themselves is that the educational system is way too inadequate to make sure people actually understand the world. Telling people to go to private schools won't help, that just means again that the rich are more likely to survive than the poor because the poor can't afford that improved education. And the last thing democracy needs is a huge pool of dumb, easily influencable people (though it can be argued that politicians prefer 'em like that) as even a vegetable gets as much of a vote as a genius and he who knows how to control the vegetables will be crowned emperor.
This dosn't make sense, if you want less dumb people, its good if they die off, not bad, yes?KDR_11k wrote:Telling people to go to private schools won't help, that just means again that the rich are more likely to survive than the poor because the poor can't afford that improved education. And the last thing democracy needs is a huge pool of dumb, easily influencable people
+1KDR_11k wrote:(though it can be argued that politicians prefer 'em like that) as even a vegetable gets as much of a vote as a genius and he who knows how to control the vegetables will be crowned emperor.
some kind of earn your vote(s) system would be interesting indeed. Maybe heinlien style... or buy them? or inherit... hmmm
Dumb breeds faster, much faster than dumbness kills them off because dumb jobs leave plenty of time for children. All those high-paying jobs the elite can take are usually so stressful that there's no time for procreation.Zpock wrote:This dosn't make sense, if you want less dumb people, its good if they die off, not bad, yes?
Also I'd like to add that killing or crippling dumb people is not the correct way to handle the issue, the correct way is to educate them. We need more educated people, the economy needs more educated people, everyone benefits from more money being put into education instead of liberating and pacifying (i.e. those "peace missions" that follow pretty much EVERY invasion into a less developed nation) foreign nations for no reason.
Also known as someone who thinks he's smarter than everyone else. I, however, want to put a person in charge of his own life. Only when a person has the right to screw up will he truly be free.Socialists believe that sometimes the right of the individual has to take a back seat to the prosperity of society.
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
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- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
@kdr - Liberals and Conservatives views are very far apart.
Liberals want the power to control nearly every facet to the populations lives and rights whereas conservatives fight to uphold the rights given to us by the constitution and set government to doing what it should as opposed to being where it doesn't belong.
BTW here's another liberal wonder of which I am involved in.
Immenient Domain
Means that the government takes away peoples personal properties so that cities and governments can make more money (it's a lot more than that but that's the short abridged version).
My house and my parents house are very close. We live in a very nice part of the city. Most of the houses along this main street have a lot of land, in my case, 1.3 acres. There is a chance that the government is going to take all the people houses away from them in a ten mile stretch, so that a developer can put in apartment complexes and duplexes because our land THAT WE OWN is a WASTE OF SPACE. We have essentially no way to fight it.
This is a liberal policy. Regardless of the fact that we own our properties, and have owned them for a long time, liberals think we don't have the right to own so much property.
I'mma stop, cause I'm starting to get mad. I despise american liberals for many, many more reasons, just that one affects me directly.
Liberals want the power to control nearly every facet to the populations lives and rights whereas conservatives fight to uphold the rights given to us by the constitution and set government to doing what it should as opposed to being where it doesn't belong.
BTW here's another liberal wonder of which I am involved in.
Immenient Domain
Means that the government takes away peoples personal properties so that cities and governments can make more money (it's a lot more than that but that's the short abridged version).
My house and my parents house are very close. We live in a very nice part of the city. Most of the houses along this main street have a lot of land, in my case, 1.3 acres. There is a chance that the government is going to take all the people houses away from them in a ten mile stretch, so that a developer can put in apartment complexes and duplexes because our land THAT WE OWN is a WASTE OF SPACE. We have essentially no way to fight it.
This is a liberal policy. Regardless of the fact that we own our properties, and have owned them for a long time, liberals think we don't have the right to own so much property.
I'mma stop, cause I'm starting to get mad. I despise american liberals for many, many more reasons, just that one affects me directly.
Ohhh this is interesting, who really owns the land? This ties in to the whole, might-makes-right stuff and all... Conlflicting interests... who is right?
Wheter you want to call to some kind of theoretical morals giving you the right... these dont matter in practice unless you can convince people to help you or something, In the end either you and other individuals are the stronger and force the government to keep off, by votes, lobbying etc or the slimey greedy government wins and kicks you out of there... and in the end noone will be questioning seriously the outcome enough to actually do something about it... like with the indians today
Wheter you want to call to some kind of theoretical morals giving you the right... these dont matter in practice unless you can convince people to help you or something, In the end either you and other individuals are the stronger and force the government to keep off, by votes, lobbying etc or the slimey greedy government wins and kicks you out of there... and in the end noone will be questioning seriously the outcome enough to actually do something about it... like with the indians today
hmm, these american liberals dont sound lefty liberal at all, to me they sound like far right conservatives.
To me I always saw it like the far rights such as the BNP with their racism and loutish behaviour, then near right, the conservative party/tories (Thatcher, john major etc), centre left labour party (tony blair gordon brown etc), and near left liberal democrats.
Uusally with the further right you get the more nationalist anti EU you would get, usually with policies such as lower taxs for the rich, and poor track records (such as black wednesday, the day that wiped billions of pounds fof of the stock market and plunged britain into economic depression for a decade because the conservative government wanted to keep the pound on the european exchange rate mechanism).
And the further left you get you would see things such as the welfare state, benefits, higher taxes, higher public spending, more reform, a focus on education and health, for example, the labour party announcing the welfare state and free healthcare with the NHS in the 50s, or education budgets rising by huge quantities every year.
What you describe forb sounds more like far right to me than far left liberalism.
As for education, I know where quatar is, and I know a lot of geographical things that most people dont know, and I find this stupid, watching americans on youtube put pins in australia thinking its Iran. I learned all of them little things from really looking at a map of the world when I was small for perhaps, 10 minutes? Most people arent even bothered that they dont know the most simple things in life.
My 18 month baby sister knows how to make a cup of tea, she points everything out, pulls out teabags and puts them in the cup, puts the sugar in, I just carry her around and then put ehr down when the kettles boiled and we have to use hotwater incase she touches it and gets scared, she tries to mix everythign together, she knows howto amke hot chocolate too, and she tries to do it all herself, whereas I know 18 year olds who still had their mums make their breakfast, dinner, and tea for them, stuff I was doing when I was 12, not because my mum was retarded or bad, but bcause I wanted to, because I prefered it, perhaps I would make a better dinner than she could or I prefered the way I did it. And there are many people who even at the age of 22 or 30 dont do it themselves still, and most dont even know how.
How can we expect the vast majority of people to be intelligent knowing things like that? A lot of people just arent bothered, another of my sisters learnt to read and write before she went to school at the age of 3 via one of those vtech computers, yet I can see people on these forums who lack some of those basic skills.
Even law, I know more about the american constitution than most average americans do and I've never stepped foot on the american continent, yet the vast majority of people I see simply arent bothered, a lot dont even know what the constitution is they just use the word every know and again, they may know there are 'constitutional rights' despite not knowing what a constitution is.
No matter how good we make an education system, there are a huge number of people who just arent bothered, and they wont bother to really learn stuff, once they leave school it all goes and the only stuff that sticks is what they use from day to day.
To me I always saw it like the far rights such as the BNP with their racism and loutish behaviour, then near right, the conservative party/tories (Thatcher, john major etc), centre left labour party (tony blair gordon brown etc), and near left liberal democrats.
Uusally with the further right you get the more nationalist anti EU you would get, usually with policies such as lower taxs for the rich, and poor track records (such as black wednesday, the day that wiped billions of pounds fof of the stock market and plunged britain into economic depression for a decade because the conservative government wanted to keep the pound on the european exchange rate mechanism).
And the further left you get you would see things such as the welfare state, benefits, higher taxes, higher public spending, more reform, a focus on education and health, for example, the labour party announcing the welfare state and free healthcare with the NHS in the 50s, or education budgets rising by huge quantities every year.
What you describe forb sounds more like far right to me than far left liberalism.
As for education, I know where quatar is, and I know a lot of geographical things that most people dont know, and I find this stupid, watching americans on youtube put pins in australia thinking its Iran. I learned all of them little things from really looking at a map of the world when I was small for perhaps, 10 minutes? Most people arent even bothered that they dont know the most simple things in life.
My 18 month baby sister knows how to make a cup of tea, she points everything out, pulls out teabags and puts them in the cup, puts the sugar in, I just carry her around and then put ehr down when the kettles boiled and we have to use hotwater incase she touches it and gets scared, she tries to mix everythign together, she knows howto amke hot chocolate too, and she tries to do it all herself, whereas I know 18 year olds who still had their mums make their breakfast, dinner, and tea for them, stuff I was doing when I was 12, not because my mum was retarded or bad, but bcause I wanted to, because I prefered it, perhaps I would make a better dinner than she could or I prefered the way I did it. And there are many people who even at the age of 22 or 30 dont do it themselves still, and most dont even know how.
How can we expect the vast majority of people to be intelligent knowing things like that? A lot of people just arent bothered, another of my sisters learnt to read and write before she went to school at the age of 3 via one of those vtech computers, yet I can see people on these forums who lack some of those basic skills.
Even law, I know more about the american constitution than most average americans do and I've never stepped foot on the american continent, yet the vast majority of people I see simply arent bothered, a lot dont even know what the constitution is they just use the word every know and again, they may know there are 'constitutional rights' despite not knowing what a constitution is.
No matter how good we make an education system, there are a huge number of people who just arent bothered, and they wont bother to really learn stuff, once they leave school it all goes and the only stuff that sticks is what they use from day to day.
Ignorance is a bliss, why learn lots of crap you dont need to know?AF wrote:No matter how good we make an education system, there are a huge number of people who just arent bothered, and they wont bother to really learn stuff, once they leave school it all goes and the only stuff that sticks is what they use from day to day.
Its different when you think the japanese only have to walk for 50 minutes to get to cuba, or when you cba learning howto make a glass of orange juice by opening a carton and just pouring it in and drinking it, or not being able to stick cereal in a bowl, pour milk over it and then start eating all by yourself, or even not knowing that the earth is older than 6000 years old.
yeah that's what the parties are supposed to represent. too bad it doesn't work like that at all - what really steers politicians' agendas is money.Forboding Angel wrote:
Liberals want the power to control nearly every facet to the populations lives and rights whereas conservatives fight to uphold the rights given to us by the constitution and set government to doing what it should as opposed to being where it doesn't belong.
Forb, you sound like the US ever had a liberal in the government. Don't confuse Democrats and Liberals. Liberals are what you say a conservative is (and their values are much closer to those of the conservatives than the democrats/lefties/whathaveyou). Liberals are NOT lefties. Left is socialism which is incompatible with liberalism. The only liberal parties are third parties that don't stand a chance to be elected due to the US election system and many of their followers are former conservatives appalled by the behaviour of the current conservative party.
Deci, it's not about being smarter, it's about preventing damage. I certainly don't want every idiot with a driver's license to decide for himself what an appropriate speed limit on inner city roads is. Neither do I think paying taxes, contributing to social security or funding education/healthcare to make it accessible to everyone in need rather than just the people with enough money to pay for it is something that should be left to the individual because the individual who pays for it usually could afford a private solution which still leaves the people who can't afford it out to slice open a few richies to afford the treatment for their kids.
Deci, it's not about being smarter, it's about preventing damage. I certainly don't want every idiot with a driver's license to decide for himself what an appropriate speed limit on inner city roads is. Neither do I think paying taxes, contributing to social security or funding education/healthcare to make it accessible to everyone in need rather than just the people with enough money to pay for it is something that should be left to the individual because the individual who pays for it usually could afford a private solution which still leaves the people who can't afford it out to slice open a few richies to afford the treatment for their kids.
All of these definitions you are debating over are relative. Your discussion of them is both inherently worthless and instrumental in perpetuating the vain belief that your own positions are absolutely true.
Do not measure by label if you are going to discuss this, measure by action and stance on issues. If nothing else, the discussion will be less overtly corrupted by the manipulation of rhetoric and culturally relative terminology.
Do not measure by label if you are going to discuss this, measure by action and stance on issues. If nothing else, the discussion will be less overtly corrupted by the manipulation of rhetoric and culturally relative terminology.