One vs. the Many

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

Western society has been founded on the mass slaughter of indigenous populations only to bleat about property rights for the procured land. The extractive and exploitative system built upon slavery and genocide across the entire planet is couched in moralizing terms while anyone who questions the basic symptoms of that culture is accused of advocating rape and murder.

This system crushes lives and the beneficiaries love those benefits. It is criminal for one person to own millions of fallow acres of land while others cannot feed themselves. Yet we are told property is sacrosanct. Pardon me if I think human life is more important than property. The notion that property trumps human life is a might makes right attitude. The only natural law is the law of tooth and claw. Society creates the rest. Property rights are law of the jungle with a moralizing veneer.

Your property was taken by rape and murder at some point.

All civilizations were carved out with a blade or a gun. It is a common confusion to see essential aspects of human social nature that are unkind to individuality as being sins specific to one's own culture. That's really the key to it: what you see as evil is really just unkind to individuals. The advent of Christianity as a universal religion led directly to the ruin of countless now-forgotten individuals and minor cultures. But from a broader standpoint, it was more important that the cathedrals got built than that any of those people lived a few years longer. Similarly, from a certain standpoint, it is far more important that the nation-state system of human governance, and modern technological civilization came into flower, than that the American Indians continued to exist. This isn't meant to be racist or chauvanistic: there will come a time when the broader evolution of humanity will smash its way through America and Christianity, leaving them in the dustbin of history, and it will seem like the end of the world to people who care about those things.

[noddy]

somewhere in between absolute collectivism and absolute ownership is the reality - so what are we talking about in specific when its not these hyperbolic theoretical extremes.

if we are speaking of triggers for murder and mayhem, i love private property and having a little space of my own that isnt up for discussion by lowest common denominator busy bodies.

i also think its important to have public spaces and commons and housing for those who cant get a private space... so .....

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

somewhere in between absolute collectivism and absolute ownership is the reality - so what are we talking about in specific when its not these hyperbolic theoretical extremes.

if we are speaking of triggers for murder and mayhem, i love private property and having a little space of my own that isnt up for discussion by lowest common denominator busy bodies.

i also think its important to have public spaces and commons and housing for those who cant get a private space... so .....

noddy inserting reason, as usual.

The fact of the matter is everyone, from Ayn Rand to Kim Jong Il, is in favor of collectivism when it is "necessary for the public good" and individual liberty when there is nothing at stake.

[Ibrahim]

Though you have defended the ethics of killing people and destroying their houses on this forum. Your only quibble on that front can be contextual. Which people killed, which house burned.

You disagree with this?

With what? That this is correct in principle or which people you are happy to kill/burn?

I take it this is a concession that my characterization of you is correct.

[Ibrahim]

Western society has been founded on the mass slaughter of indigenous populations only to bleat about property rights for the procured land. The extractive and exploitative system built upon slavery and genocide across the entire planet is couched in moralizing terms while anyone who questions the basic symptoms of that culture is accused of advocating rape and murder.

Absolutely correct, but its the classic moral double-standard of the in-group and the out-group. People belonging to the in-group have rights that need to be respected, others aren't fully human and don't. This is why most moralizing falls apart with even a cursory glance at history. Still, I thought the point of this discussion was about freedom and legal restraints within a given society, i.e. within the in-group.

This system crushes lives and the beneficiaries love those benefits.

Who belongs to the in-group and out-group are usually defined in this way. If I want to take something that belongs to somebody else, or simply get personal satisfaction from seeing people being harmed, then I consign them to the out-group and there is no problem. Child in Afghanistan? Wrong-colored teen walking too close to my house? Not only will I kill them for my own satisfaction, but I will call it morally right. Whatever excuse people need to indulge their most base and primitive instincts while pretending that they are behaving in a civilized manner, they will do.

In fact nothing demonstrates my argument that ethics and law are designed to constrain freedom better than this. People will still try to obey the form of the law while violating it.

The most interesting thing to me is that, when confronted with this, many people will use it as an excuse in itself. In essence saying "people are/have always been shitty, therefore there is no reason for me to choose to act otherwise." This pseudo-justification is even being attempted in this thread.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

Though you have defended the ethics of killing people and destroying their houses on this forum. Your only quibble on that front can be contextual. Which people killed, which house burned.

You disagree with this?

With what? That this is correct in principle or which people you are happy to kill/burn?

I take it this is a concession that my characterization of you is correct.

If your characterization of me is that I think it is OK to kill people in some situations but not in others, then yes, it is correct.

[Enki]

Western society has been founded on the mass slaughter of indigenous populations only to bleat about property rights for the procured land. The extractive and exploitative system built upon slavery and genocide across the entire planet is couched in moralizing terms while anyone who questions the basic symptoms of that culture is accused of advocating rape and murder.

This system crushes lives and the beneficiaries love those benefits. It is criminal for one person to own millions of fallow acres of land while others cannot feed themselves. Yet we are told property is sacrosanct. Pardon me if I think human life is more important than property. The notion that property trumps human life is a might makes right attitude. The only natural law is the law of tooth and claw. Society creates the rest. Property rights are law of the jungle with a moralizing veneer.

Your property was taken by rape and murder at some point.

All civilizations were carved out with a blade or a gun. It is a common confusion to see essential aspects of human social nature that are unkind to individuality as being sins specific to one's own culture. That's really the key to it: what you see as evil is really just unkind to individuals. The advent of Christianity as a universal religion led directly to the ruin of countless now-forgotten individuals and minor cultures. But from a broader standpoint, it was more important that the cathedrals got built than that any of those people lived a few years longer. Similarly, from a certain standpoint, it is far more important that the nation-state system of human governance, and modern technological civilization came into flower, than that the American Indians continued to exist. This isn't meant to be racist or chauvanistic: there will come a time when the broader evolution of humanity will smash its way through America and Christianity, leaving them in the dustbin of history, and it will seem like the end of the world to people who care about those things.

Bottom line is we oppress people who have no property. We actively spend money to employ people to punish them for having nothing.

[Ibrahim]

Though you have defended the ethics of killing people and destroying their houses on this forum. Your only quibble on that front can be contextual. Which people killed, which house burned.

You disagree with this?

With what? That this is correct in principle or which people you are happy to kill/burn?

I take it this is a concession that my characterization of you is correct.

If your characterization of me is that I think it is OK to kill people in some situations but not in others, then yes, it is correct.

More specifically, you think it is ok to kill people who have done nothing to harm you or anyone else, and destroy their homes. If, as you believe, their death benefits you in some marginal way.

[noddy]

yep cut my taxes in half and spend all of the remaining on public housing/food/education .. bugger the entitled ones, they can make themselves useful to me on a consent based system or use the free public stuff like the rest of the poor.

sorry, back to work.

[Ibrahim]

Bottom line is we oppress people who have no property. We actively spend money to employ people to punish them for having nothing.

Ah, now this is another interesting philosophical product of civilization. People resent the poor, hate them for existing. People want them to do the one thing they cannot do: not exist. The best we can do is prevent them from bing in inconvenient places, so if they stand in the wrong place, like the downtown commercial and shopping district, they are punched and clubbed until they put themselves someplace acceptable, like under a bridge.

Not only does the out-group consist of swarthy foreigners or adherents to the wrong flag, the consist of members of our own nationality who do not meet certain wealth criteria.

[Enki]

I take the same position that Thomas Paine took in 'The Rights of Man', that the property owners have an obligation to help provide subsistence to those who do not own property for the privilege of owning property. Society is based largely off of this principle, Minarchist Conservative fantasies of a system that has never existed anywhere in the world notwithstanding.

The most clear illustration of the fallen nature of this world is wealthy people calling poor people on welfare moochers. If anything it is the wealthiest among us who are the moochers. Those who live off of nothing but dividends through a system of ownership that entitles them to the fruits of other people's labor. But not only that, legally entitles them to dictate to those on the other end just how much or more specifically how little of the fruits of their own labor they get to keep. Billionaires complaining about paying 15% tax rate, when they are only paying their employees $ 8.50 an hour. They complain about welfare but refuse to pay people a living wage.

This cuts right to the heart of the individual versus the collective. Those who have benefitted the most from the collective want to reciprocate the least.

What they do not understand is that if the social contract is no longer to my benefit I have no incentive to play the game of 'lets pretend you own that piece of land.'

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

Western society has been founded on the mass slaughter of indigenous populations only to bleat about property rights for the procured land. The extractive and exploitative system built upon slavery and genocide across the entire planet is couched in moralizing terms while anyone who questions the basic symptoms of that culture is accused of advocating rape and murder.

This system crushes lives and the beneficiaries love those benefits. It is criminal for one person to own millions of fallow acres of land while others cannot feed themselves. Yet we are told property is sacrosanct. Pardon me if I think human life is more important than property. The notion that property trumps human life is a might makes right attitude. The only natural law is the law of tooth and claw. Society creates the rest. Property rights are law of the jungle with a moralizing veneer.

Your property was taken by rape and murder at some point.

All civilizations were carved out with a blade or a gun. It is a common confusion to see essential aspects of human social nature that are unkind to individuality as being sins specific to one's own culture. That's really the key to it: what you see as evil is really just unkind to individuals. The advent of Christianity as a universal religion led directly to the ruin of countless now-forgotten individuals and minor cultures. But from a broader standpoint, it was more important that the cathedrals got built than that any of those people lived a few years longer. Similarly, from a certain standpoint, it is far more important that the nation-state system of human governance, and modern technological civilization came into flower, than that the American Indians continued to exist. This isn't meant to be racist or chauvanistic: there will come a time when the broader evolution of humanity will smash its way through America and Christianity, leaving them in the dustbin of history, and it will seem like the end of the world to people who care about those things.

Bottom line is we oppress people who have no property. We actively spend money to employ people to punish them for having nothing.

I'm not defending that. There are lots of things we do that I think are unjust, that we agree on. I just don't always understand where you draw the line between giving priority to individual liberty and community interest. It seemed like it was drawn in the same place that it is drawn for most people: your own self-interest. With most people, that wouldn't bother me, because I just accept that most people are that shallow, but with you it didn't strike me as being right, which is why I always press it. Anyway, your last explanation helped some.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

Though you have defended the ethics of killing people and destroying their houses on this forum. Your only quibble on that front can be contextual. Which people killed, which house burned.

You disagree with this?

With what? That this is correct in principle or which people you are happy to kill/burn?

I take it this is a concession that my characterization of you is correct.

If your characterization of me is that I think it is OK to kill people in some situations but not in others, then yes, it is correct.

More specifically, you think it is ok to kill people who have done nothing to harm you or anyone else, and destroy their homes. If, as you believe, their death benefits you in some marginal way.

You don't? I hate to get all Mr Perfect here, but you had trouble holding onto your pom poms over our intervention in Libya.

[Ibrahim]

Though you have defended the ethics of killing people and destroying their houses on this forum. Your only quibble on that front can be contextual. Which people killed, which house burned.

You disagree with this?

With what? That this is correct in principle or which people you are happy to kill/burn?

I take it this is a concession that my characterization of you is correct.

If your characterization of me is that I think it is OK to kill people in some situations but not in others, then yes, it is correct.

More specifically, you think it is ok to kill people who have done nothing to harm you or anyone else, and destroy their homes. If, as you believe, their death benefits you in some marginal way.

You don't? I hate to get all here, but you had trouble holding onto your pom poms over our intervention in Libya.

The Libyan intervention had specific goals, which were achieved, at which time the intervention ended. Moreover, the intervention was requested and supported by the majority of the population. Or, to put it more simply, Libya was a revolutionary war against a dictator, and it succeeded. I supported it as a war that had a point, and thought the intervention was on the right side.

Your support for the drone campaign is very different, in that there is no discernible point or goal, you have no idea who is being killed, or why, you are simply trusting the government that they know best, and you not only don't care about civilian casualties, but boast about how much you don't care about them as though this gains you some sort of stature. You love this idea so much you even argued that there was nothing objectionable about declaring that nobody cared.

As I observed, this is a series of attempted justifications for immorality. There is no rational reason for your support, nor any moral or ethical justification. Simply the personal enjoyment of something, perhaps an enjoyment heightened by the fact that it is supposed to be some sort of taboo. But you try to frame it as within a coherent military tradition or history that makes it something other than a next-gen snuff film. "People have always killed people, only the dead have seen the end of war" etc, therefore there is nothing wrong with you supporting the murder of children on the other side of the globe for no rational purpose. Except, as I said, that you think maybe it might marginally benefit you by making you infinitesimally safer. So your fallback position is self-interest.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

How does it go? Oh, right:

[Ibrahim]

How does it go? Oh, right:

Too much for you to handle, eh? That's alright, better luck next time.

[Mr. Perfect]

So what are my natural rights? Just give me the ones that cannot be abridged by a cougar.

All of your rights can be taken away in a whole host of ways. Don't get mad at a cougar.

[noddy]

when it comes to oppressing the poor its the government in collusion with the middle class of both left and right wing flavours.

from protecting house prices to protecting jobs or sheltered vanities, its all 100% driven by the mainstream and you cant blame billionaires or conspiracies.

the car industry is a wonderful subset of the larger problem with left wing unions protecting workers and left wing fear worshippers demanding state of the art safety and emmissions standards combined with right wing investors protecting their profits

policeman then get instructions to take all the poor peoples cars off the road and punishing them for not being rich enough to buy a late model car - its not a conspiracy, its the fact that the left and the right want the same thing, just for different reasons.

same with houses, democrat voters are every bit as fanatical about increasing house prices out of reach for the poor as republican ones, they just dress it up in "safety standards" and such.

sucks to be poor in the modern west, the right is openly disinterested, the left confuses you with sugary words and then just fucks with you via social engineering experiments, leaving you in a situation that you prefer right wing indifference.

which is why the poor whites vote republican actually... its not the mumbo jumbo theories about worshipping rich men.

[Mr. Perfect]

I take the same position that Thomas Paine took in 'The Rights of Man', that the property owners have an obligation to help provide subsistence to those who do not own property for the privilege of owning property. Society is based largely off of this principle, Minarchist Conservative fantasies of a system that has never existed anywhere in the world notwithstanding.

Your system has never existed anywhere in the world (except maybe the SU, Mao's China, NK and Cuba) so I'm not sure why you bring that up. Property rights OTOH are a nearly universal human practice going back thousands of years including real estate. So good luck to you there.

I like the US gov size from 1776 to right before the Fed was established, I like that government size right there.

The most clear illustration of the fallen nature of this world is wealthy people calling poor people on welfare moochers. If anything it is the wealthiest among us who are the moochers. Those who live off of nothing but dividends through a system of ownership that entitles them to the fruits of other people's labor.

Sounds pretty good, wonder why more people don't do that. Sounds easy.

But not only that, legally entitles them to dictate to those on the other end just how much or more specifically how little of the fruits of their own labor they get to keep. Billionaires complaining about paying 15% tax rate,

Can't find a single billionaire doing that.

when they are only paying their employees $ 8.50 an hour. They complain about welfare but refuse to pay people a living wage.

Hardly anyone gets $8.50 an hour, employed by a billionaire or otherwise. Dramatic innumeracy.

This cuts right to the heart of the individual versus the collective. Those who have benefitted the most from the collective want to reciprocate the least.

I don't know almost everyone I know that has a good job is employed by a rich person.

What they do not understand is that if the social contract is no longer to my benefit I have no incentive to play the game of 'lets pretend you own that piece of land.'

Go ahead and do something about it, let me know how it goes.

[Ibrahim]

when it comes to oppressing the poor its the government in collusion with the middle class of both left and right wing flavours.

Absolutely. Below a certain threshold the poor cease to be people. Different economic classes can fight over their share of the bill, working class and middle class and the wealthy. But the poor annoy all of them and are looked down on by all of them. Plus they disproportionately suffer from mental illness and addiction, so the prospect of doing anything substantial to help them is very off-putting from a financial and return-no-investment point of view. So everybody above the cutoff is equally responsible, assuming you believe that anyone is responsible at all.

Worth noting that while the poor do better in systems with socialized medical care than they do without, they are still woefully neglected in those states as well.

[Mr. Perfect]

Western society has been founded on the mass slaughter of indigenous populations only to bleat about property rights for the procured land. The extractive and exploitative system built upon slavery and genocide across the entire planet is couched in moralizing terms while anyone who questions the basic symptoms of that culture is accused of advocating rape and murder.

This system crushes lives and the beneficiaries love those benefits. It is criminal for one person to own millions of fallow acres of land while others cannot feed themselves. Yet we are told property is sacrosanct. Pardon me if I think human life is more important than property. The notion that property trumps human life is a might makes right attitude. The only natural law is the law of tooth and claw. Society creates the rest. Property rights are law of the jungle with a moralizing veneer.

Your property was taken by rape and murder at some point.

And?

Barack Obama signed off on several trillion in STPN, how come there are still poor people?

Human life depends on property. YHWH said "thou shalt not steal". Take it up with him.

[Mr. Perfect]

Bottom line is we oppress people who have no property. We actively spend money to employ people to punish them for having nothing.

Ah, now this is another interesting philosophical product of civilization. People resent the poor, hate them for existing. People want them to do the one thing they cannot do: not exist. The best we can do is prevent them from bing in inconvenient places, so if they stand in the wrong place, like the downtown commercial and shopping district, they are punched and clubbed until they put themselves someplace acceptable, like under a bridge.

Not only does the out-group consist of swarthy foreigners or adherents to the wrong flag, the consist of members of our own nationality who do not meet certain wealth criteria.

This just shows how out of touch many people are, ie homelessness=poverty. Homelessness, vagrancy, that's a hole different ball of wax. The working poor or unemployed poor in houses is a different situation.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

Bottom line is we oppress people who have no property. We actively spend money to employ people to punish them for having nothing.

Ah, now this is another interesting philosophical product of civilization. People resent the poor, hate them for existing. People want them to do the one thing they cannot do: not exist. The best we can do is prevent them from bing in inconvenient places, so if they stand in the wrong place, like the downtown commercial and shopping district, they are punched and clubbed until they put themselves someplace acceptable, like under a bridge.

Not only does the out-group consist of swarthy foreigners or adherents to the wrong flag, the consist of members of our own nationality who do not meet certain wealth criteria.

This just shows how out of touch many people are, ie homelessness=poverty. Homelessness, vagrancy, that's a hole different ball of wax. The working poor or unemployed poor in houses is a different situation.

Correct. Homelessness has more to do with mental illness and our society's difficulty in dealing with those afflicted. There are two other classes that involve completely different policy issues: the chronically unemployed (ie - multi-generational welfare families and neighborhoods), and the working poor. These all require different approaches. The homeless, IMO, are primarily a medical issue. Virtually all of them suffer from dramatic PTSD and other issues and ought to be cared for as medical invalids. The chronically unemployed welfare queens require policies that change the relative incentives of breeding/working/etc. The working poor demand and deserve policies that allow them access to better education and skills training, and support in transition periods if they happen to be caught up in a dying industry and require re-training. This class is massive in America and the west in general, and one of our primary concerns should be helping these folks through what is turning out to be a very important and difficult time.

[noddy]

when it comes to oppressing the poor its the government in collusion with the middle class of both left and right wing flavours.

Absolutely. Below a certain threshold the poor cease to be people. Different economic classes can fight over their share of the bill, working class and middle class and the wealthy. But the poor annoy all of them and are looked down on by all of them. Plus they disproportionately suffer from mental illness and addiction, so the prospect of doing anything substantial to help them is very off-putting from a financial and return-no-investment point of view. So everybody above the cutoff is equally responsible, assuming you believe that anyone is responsible at all.

Worth noting that while the poor do better in systems with socialized medical care than they do without, they are still woefully neglected in those states as well.

socialised healthcare does mean better statistics in some cases - not all - because many of the crustier people just flat out ignore the system.

the truth of it is that without all these rules that enforce the middle class, a large percentage of the white working class would join the tropical aborigines in the master plan of sitting by the beach and fishing your daily meal and then spending your meagre dollars on piss n smokes... when you run out of space you have a little war and get the numbers back down again, just like all the tropical groups do.

hanging out with family and friends and then ignoring the world and enjoying your day.. bugger the statistics on lifespan.

the upper middle class dream of it aswell, hence noble savage myths - however they have intellectualised their way out of it through constant reinforcement of why dragging yourself to a boring repetitive office job is the best thing and the future of mankind and everyone wants it and needs it, they must, they must, its the advancement, the future, the perfected civilised human etc.

which is why they cant help the aboriginals in australia - they must be denied that lifestyle for fear of the message it would send the working class whites.

the poor are only fit for social engineering into working class, anything else is unacceptable, if the poor dont want that then they have mental health problems.

[noddy]

The working poor demand and deserve policies that allow them access to better education and skills training, and support in transition periods if they happen to be caught up in a dying industry and require re-training. This class is massive in America and the west in general, and one of our primary concerns should be helping these folks through what is turning out to be a very important and difficult time.

can you turn rough and ready physical labour types who enjoy bawdy humour and practical jokes into mincing politically correct office types ?

this is part of why they have focused so much on bloody housing construction, its one of the last labour intensive things we have left and even if the factories "come back" they will never provide the mass employment that they used to do.