Or do you think that taking away 80% of ones labour is and giving it to freeloaders reflects "according to his work" fairly?Stalin's most famous use of the concept is in his 1936 Soviet Constitution. He writes that "The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."
be more considered and use a more civil language.Ayn Rand WAS a starving child under the communist dictator that took her father's business, you fucking psychopath.
Nino wrote:I gave you a quote of a socialist slogan and a link to wikipedia. Were you just not bothered to go there and readOr do you think that taking away 80% of ones labour is and giving it to freeloaders reflects "according to his work" fairly?Stalin's most famous use of the concept is in his 1936 Soviet Constitution. He writes that "The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."
Nino wrote:be more considered and use a more civil language.
How does Snodgrass saying communism is garbage make him a socialist? Not getting it. Your quote doesn't seem relevant.
He who does not work, neither shall he eat is a New Testament aphorism originally by Paul the Apostle, later cited by John Smith in Jamestown, Virginia, and by Lenin during the Russian Revolution.
You are in a public place so spewing obscenities is not unlike shitting in the middle of a street. If you dont understand it insulting to passer bys then really there is no point trying to tell you something is there? So for future referense *please* assume Im talking to Snodgrass and not you, ok?Uncivil as I am, I would never dream of correcting someone like their parent in that fashion, even if I knew the person personally.
Nino wrote:How does Snodgrass saying communism is garbage make him a socialist? Not getting it. Your quote doesn't seem relevant.
I was not referring to Snodgrass perception that communist is garbage, I was referring to his example of redistribution of products of labor (i.e. the tomato example) and I gave a quote of a famous socialist principle that states that fruits of the labour should stay with those who produced the labour. Idea that said fruits (and tomato is a fruit) should go to somebody who didnt put any labour in is very contradictory to that principle, or others of that kind .
Nino wrote:You are in a public place so spewing obscenities is not unlike shitting in the middle of a street. If you dont understand it insulting to passer bys then really there is no point trying to tell you something is there? So for future referense *please* assume Im talking to Snodgrass and not you, ok?
Guest wrote:Contrast with the USA's great depression. People went poor, broke, homeless, and some starved, but they did not starve in the millions and the whole country did not starve in such great extremes. Part of that was from charity, people lose money but some of them were willing to lose more to keep people from starving to death, times were hard but many people in the US made it through. Another part of that was from human kindness, which I think we all feel to some degree on this forum no matter which side we are on in the debate.
Guest wrote:After reading Ayn Rand's books I don't think she would let the ten children starve. Her deal is more to do with promoting exceptionalism and the individual, as a means to benefit society more than the concept of collectivism and the group, which in her philosophy actually drags a society down by smearing the most productive and talented people out of a sense of collective jealousy. Think about how many people you've heard talk shit about a public figure, celebrity, or role model you admire and you'll understand where she's coming from.
Guest wrote:There are issues and benefits to each system, and none of them are perfect. Well-read Freemasons know that Karl Marx admitted as much in his pamphlets he wrote that socialism is supposed to lead to communism, and communism was not meant to sustain a nation, but to destroy it, and from all the chaos and upheaval birth a fourth, new kind of system, in order to achieve utopia. He died before he specified what that utopia system would be like, and many equate communism to the utopia by mistake.
Guest wrote:Be civil, rational, and make an effort to be unemotional when debating this topic. The lives of billions of people worldwide ride on where we go with this, many people's own personal lives are at stake. It is easy to get heated in an argument, to get overly emotional, and to insult people. It is very hard to try to think of things from different people's points of views, to think critically, and to be fair to the opposing argument. But if we keep a degree of civility and rationality, while still leveling well-deserved critiques at serious issues, which do involve the lives of many many people, we will be able to reach new ideas and compromises sooner rather than later. Perhaps from those debates and the spread of information thereafter, someday someone will build reasonable solutions to our problems.
Guest wrote:As for the poorer person from a few pages back, I'm really concerned for you. Have you thought about starting a crowdfunding page to fix your car? I've seen people start those for all sorts of things like dental work and recovery from assault. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to do that in comparison. If you happen to be in the United States, you should be able to shop around for lower rates soon. Medicare enrollment is on oct 15th. Involuntary healthcare was supposed to pay for people like you for you to get back on your feet, not cause you such financial and emotional hardship.
Guest wrote: I really do not understand how the same people who claim to care about poor, starving children, could then laugh in your face and say such biting words to you. Children are valued because of their innocence. People forget they grow into adults, too, and lose empathy for their fellow adults.
Guest wrote:Astrogirl, what country did you grow up in? You've dropped hints, I'm guessing it was somewhere around eastern europe? Just curious.
Astrogirl wrote:JosieQ wrote:Um so, "I know you are but what am I?" is your defense?
I have no idea what that means.
JosieQ wrote:Astrogirl wrote:Potentially. Depends on how much you contributed to the tomatoes. The current real world where you keep 7.999 tomatoes and give the other guy 0.001 tomatoes is theft.
That's not capitalism.
JosieQ wrote:But since you've given me the date... (1st of July, 1990) And since you seriously, frighteningly seem to be saying your country was better off before, then all I can say to you is du bist mehr batshit wahnsinn than I originally hat gedacht.
JosieQ wrote:Astrogirl wrote:Your comment on that is only relevant if your grandparents' literal business and income came from growing tomatoes and selling them, along with chicken's eggs and pork, and your communist government didn't take any of that.
Depends on your definition of business. They both ate the stuff themselves and traded it with other people for hard-to-obtain things (mostly the eggs, tomatoes were not so high in demand to be useful for barter). My grandparents were also teachers, not sure my greatgrandmother had another job.
But people also were farmers who owned their farms and sold their stuff for money and the government didn't take the things they produced away nor their means of production. There was a lot of social pressure to join a co-op (once a month someone came by and talked to you about how nice it is in the co-op, that you work only 40 hours and get 25 days of vacation and you don't have to worry when there is a bad harvest or your animals get a disease), but it was not legally required.
Cool story, but irrelevant as fuuuuuck.
JosieQ wrote:I'm actually starting to feel really sorry for you
JosieQ wrote:if we can go back to my now decades-old desire to agree to disagree and stop talking, that'd be suuuuper.
Astrogirl wrote:JosieQ wrote:Astrogirl wrote:Potentially. Depends on how much you contributed to the tomatoes. The current real world where you keep 7.999 tomatoes and give the other guy 0.001 tomatoes is theft.
That's not capitalism.
Is not? What is it then? I'm reasonably certain that is exactly what capitalism is.
Astrogirl wrote:You may want to run that through Google translate again, telling someone they are Wahnsinn is actually quite a high compliment. Yeah, idioms are weird.
Astrogirl wrote:I'm still curious what you needed the country for. In the case of East Germany you reacted with calling me crazy (well, trying to call me crazy). And in the case of some other socialist/communist country you ... would have reacted differently? Which country would that have been and what would the reaction have been?
Astrogirl wrote:JosieQ wrote:Cool story, but irrelevant as fuuuuuck.
You don't seem to have a firm grasp on what is relevant or not. This is 100% apropos.
Astrogirl wrote:Anyway, forcing people to buy health insurance is right and good, and it should be around 7% of one's income and be required to cover insulin.
Astrogirl wrote:Guest wrote:Astrogirl, what country did you grow up in? You've dropped hints, I'm guessing it was somewhere around eastern europe? Just curious.
East Germany.
Astrogirl wrote:JosieQ wrote:Astrogirl wrote:Potentially. Depends on how much you contributed to the tomatoes. The current real world where you keep 7.999 tomatoes and give the other guy 0.001 tomatoes is theft.
That's not capitalism.
Is not? What is it then? I'm reasonably certain that is exactly what capitalism is.
JosieQ wrote:I believe that the more you allow people to keep what they earn, and the better off they are, the more charitable they become. I seem to recall a study I read in college where it pointed out that when taxes were lowest in United States history, charitable contributions were higher. People like to give when they are given the choice. People obviously do not like to give when forced, because of course that is not giving it is theft.
That's the thing about people who think communism is good. In admitting that, they're also admitting that they think people are garbage who need to be FORCED into caring about other human beings. And if that's the case, if humanity will only help one another at the point of a gun, then we are doomed anyway. If you're gonna force a lion at gunpoint to be a vegetarian, it is against his nature and you will fail, and he will either die or beat you and start eating meat again. You're not going to win that fight by force, you're not going to forcibly change the nature of man.
I don't believe we are inherently monsters though.
I've been poor most of my life and had things taken from me, but rarely ever given. As such, I don't give to charity or panhandlers, because I can't afford to and also I am in a constant state of bitterness from having been constantly stolen from. In the very few times where I've suddenly had some kind of windfall and gained a bit of money so that I actually have some breathing space, I immediately become more giving, and will hand a dollar to a guy on the street with a sign that very day. And it's not even sensible, because I should be saving it, because next week there's a catastrophe and I'm poor again and I really need that dollar.
But I believe human nature is to want to help each other, when we don't feel constantly taken advantage of.
JosieQ wrote:Great point. It's always funny to me how my country has always lauded capitalism (until recent years, where it's sliding into socialism on the way to communism), how people en masse will brag that in the US you can be anything, you can do anything, you can work and be rich if you try hard enough! But then they casually and automatically hate anyone with money, and people on news will say facts about something like a person's income in a tone that it's an indicator that being rich means he's somehow a piece of garbage. Always hated that contradiction. XD
JosieQ wrote:I did not know this and I find it very interesting.I watched a lot of "Star Trek TNG" as a kid, so there's a utopian society as I envision it. How do we get there though? Well, it's my contention that technology is being artificially held back, in addition to capitalism being artificially tanked, and people being artificially forced into poverty, so basically I think the solution is just to stand back and get out of the goddamn way. We need to overthrow our evil overlords, whose admitted purpose is to reduce the population and widen the gap between rich and poor, with a wealthy elite and a giant, poor underclass. Get rid of them and I think humanity by itself will find its way. How to do that though hmm...
JosieQ wrote:Valid point, and I can be very rational when arguing. But I don't see the point of it when someone's passive-aggressively insulting me, or insulting me outright. I can easily keep my temper when someone with wildly different worldviews doesn't agree with me, if they're civil about it. Because I'm not losing my temper so much as escalating by choice when someone's trying to be a dick as I don't agree with pandering to douchebags. I see people stay calm, and get insulted, and stay calm and debate, and get insulted, and stay calm, and it's just sad. It's like watching someone get slapped repeatedly and pretend its not happening. I'd rather, if you slap me, punch you in the face. To bystanders I look like a crazy, enraged psycho, like omg that reaction didn't fit the circumstances!! But it did. It's infinitely more honest. The hypocrite wanted a fight so why shouldn't I give it to them?
(Except that they don't want the fight I give them, really they didn't want to fight at all but just wanted to cowardly say shitty things to people and get away with it, meh I don't like playing that game.)
JosieQ wrote:
That's still me and ohhh I actually DID! ...
JosieQ wrote:
This is a fantastic, fantastic thing you've just said. It seems like it should be obvious to people but it isn't. I constantly talk about this hypocrisy, how our society is all about "The children, the children, help the children! Oh what you're 18 today, fuck you got nothin' for you go die now." But when I try to express this, simpletons just take away "Oh so you hate kids." DX
Good post, Guest. Good read. I kinda didn't mean to say so much but you got me babbling. [o~o]
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