Page 10 of 18 FirstFirst ...
8
9
10
11
12
... LastLast
  1. #181
    Void Lord Felya's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    the other
    Posts
    58,334
    Quote Originally Posted by Didactic View Post
    :P To be more correct, there are three possibilities.

    1) It was a one-world order with the pretense of war in order to consume resources and maintain the status quo indefinitely.
    2) It was as described, a tripolar system with states that had very little difference in ideology or goals.
    3) It was actually a small, isolated part of the world similar to a more extreme version of North Korea.
    I think reading Homage to Catalonia is required to understand the nuances of 1984.

    ---------- Post added 2013-05-17 at 04:18 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Didactic View Post
    Nineteen Eighty-Four remains one of my top ten favourite books of all time for this reason.

    If you read into it, Orwell's insight about self-perpetuating tyranny applies to the Catholic Church as an institution as well.
    Homage to Catalonia, he writes about the Catholic Church arming the fascist party during Spanish civil war.

    http://paulhartrick.com/wordpress/wp...ti-picasso.jpg

    I think the Spanish civil war is far more important than the time it gets in US.
    Last edited by Felya; 2013-05-17 at 04:23 AM.
    Folly and fakery have always been with us... but it has never before been as dangerous as it is now, never in history have we been able to afford it less. - Isaac Asimov
    Every damn thing you do in this life, you pay for. - Edith Piaf
    The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. - Orwell
    No amount of belief makes something a fact. - James Randi

  2. #182
    The Lightbringer fengosa's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Canada, Eh
    Posts
    3,612
    Quote Originally Posted by Rukentuts View Post
    Actually it is, since communism is state ownership / control. Privatization is the opposite of that. It's one of the many reasons why comparing the late USSR and the USA aren't applicable.
    This

    In capitalist America, bank robs you

  3. #183
    Quote Originally Posted by Kasierith View Post
    Really? I don't how you can attempt to draw a comparison between two countries without being bothered by that horrible inconsistency that is knowing next to nothing about the countries you are comparing.
    I'm not sure why you insist on focusing on differences that are only tangentially related to the topic at hand. This isn't about left vs right but top (authoritarian) vs bottom (anarchist).

    The US used to be quite centrist in that regard, but it has lately been moving towards the top where the USSR was. Do you deny this?

  4. #184
    Quote Originally Posted by Arctic Daishi View Post
    It's not really a slippery slope, as the government already has been violating the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

    The only part of the Bill of Rights they haven't breached yet is the Third Amendment.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lenonis View Post
    The implication that they will breach other parts of the bill of rights because of your perceived breaches of the others is exactly what a slippery slope is.
    @lenonis:
    so you are saying just because they violated ALL amandments but one until now, it's a "slippery slope" to implicate the last one will be violated, too. i don't think you are using the term the right way. not sure if out of ignorance or illiteracy.

    can you prove that what arctic daishi said is wrong? if yes do so - otherwise your "argument" looks very weak.

  5. #185
    Quote Originally Posted by Laize View Post
    The US used to be quite centrist in that regard, but it has lately been moving towards the top where the USSR was. Do you deny this?
    The USA hasn't really moved at all, just look at some of the Supreme Court cases and what people were charged for. If anything during the 1900s the USA relaxed a bit and is now trying to move back to "normality".

  6. #186
    Quote Originally Posted by Rukentuts View Post
    The USA hasn't really moved at all, just look at some of the Supreme Court cases and what people were charged for. If anything during the 1900s the USA relaxed a bit and is now trying to move back to "normality".
    Yes, warrantless wiretaps, stop and frisk and suspension of habeas corpus during peace time are all "normal". And yes, this is peace time. "War on Terror" is an extremely vague concept with no definitive ending. Like the War on Drugs.

  7. #187
    Quote Originally Posted by Laize View Post
    Yes, warrantless wiretaps, stop and frisk and suspension of habeas corpus during peace time are all "normal". And yes, this is peace time. "War on Terror" is an extremely vague concept with no definitive ending. Like the War on Drugs.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_..._the_Civil_War
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_...Reconstruction
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_...g_World_War_II

    In 1942, eight German saboteurs, including two U.S. citizens, who had entered the United States were convicted by a secret military court set up by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
    Imagine the reaction people would have with citizens being tried in "secret military courts".

    While they didn't have wiretaps back then, this is normal.
    Last edited by Rukentuts; 2013-05-17 at 01:43 PM.

  8. #188
    Quote Originally Posted by Rukentuts View Post
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_..._the_Civil_War
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_...Reconstruction
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_...g_World_War_II

    Imagine the reaction people would have with citizens being tried in "secret military courts".

    While they didn't have wiretaps back then, this is normal.
    It's normal during World War II or any major war. It's NOT normal during peace time!

  9. #189
    Quote Originally Posted by Laize View Post
    It's normal during World War II or any major war. It's NOT normal during peace time!
    So what about Reconstruction?

  10. #190
    Quote Originally Posted by Rukentuts View Post
    Seems to me that was in place because the states weren't adequately protecting black people's rights and the original KKK was an overt insurgency group which had killed US elected officials.

  11. #191
    Laize why do you post this crap on a wow forum instead of somewhere political where there might be at least half of a small fuck to be given? =/

  12. #192
    Quote Originally Posted by Laize View Post
    Seems to me that was in place because the states weren't adequately protecting black people's rights and the original KKK was an overt insurgency group which had killed US elected officials.
    And how is this different than right now? Because all those in Gitmo are similar.

  13. #193
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Ottawa, ON
    Posts
    78,909
    Quote Originally Posted by Laize View Post
    I'm not sure why you insist on focusing on differences that are only tangentially related to the topic at hand. This isn't about left vs right but top (authoritarian) vs bottom (anarchist).

    The US used to be quite centrist in that regard, but it has lately been moving towards the top where the USSR was. Do you deny this?
    I'd deny it, because it isn't true. The US has been, if anything, progressively moving towards less authoritarianism, over time. Nor are the points you bring up really tied to authoritarianism in the first place.

    Ask an elderly black man if he feels he has more or less rights and freedoms now, than when he was a kid in the '50s or early '60s. Nor is that an architect of a bygone era; the same issues that came up during the Civil Rights era of the '60s are coming up today, with regards to gay marriage and the like.

    Quote Originally Posted by Laize View Post
    Yes, warrantless wiretaps, stop and frisk and suspension of habeas corpus during peace time are all "normal". And yes, this is peace time. "War on Terror" is an extremely vague concept with no definitive ending. Like the War on Drugs.
    Again, they stopped the warrantless wiretaps. If you're going to bring them up, they disprove your argument, since while enacting them was a step towards greater government control, they reneged on it.

    And no; it isn't peacetime. The war in Afghanistan is still ongoing. The Iraq war, while active, was most certainly a "real" war. I don't even have to bring up the War on Terror to prove that the US isn't at peace.


  14. #194
    Quote Originally Posted by Lenonis View Post
    *sigh*

    are we really going to have to rehash the debate where that quote is taken entirely out of context and twisted around from the intended meaning?

    Also, it's hard to take your post seriously given your very very very significant bias.
    Regardless of what you think of Obama's statement, there certainly is a growing sentiment that "those evil fucking rich people" didn't work to get where they are.
    Last edited by Nakura Chambers; 2013-05-17 at 07:44 PM.

  15. #195
    Quote Originally Posted by Arctic Daishi View Post
    Regardless of what you think of Obama's statement, there certainly is a growing sentiment that "those evil fucking rich people" didn't work to get where they are.
    Like it or not, there's a growing wealth inequality in the United States, and it's hindering the economy. This is because the lower and middle (mostly middle) classes are the drivers of demand and discretionary spending.

    Do CEOs work? Absolutely. Do families succeed at keeping wealth passed through generations? Definitely. Uncle Sam needs to be hitting the proverbial reset button.

  16. #196
    Quote Originally Posted by Rukentuts View Post
    Like it or not, there's a growing wealth inequality in the United States, and it's hindering the economy.
    So why not "fix the problem," rather than spread vitriolic rhetoric against perceived enemies of society?

    Oh wait, that's what I do every day.

  17. #197
    Quote Originally Posted by Arctic Daishi View Post
    So why not fix the "problem" rather than pointing figures and spreading vitriolic rhetoric against perceived enemies of society?
    Because the solution would be a massive estate tax. Guess which party doesn't support that.

  18. #198
    Quote Originally Posted by Rukentuts View Post
    Because the solution would be a massive estate tax. Guess which party doesn't support that?
    Democrats?

  19. #199
    Deleted
    So what exactly are you implying?

  20. #200
    Quote Originally Posted by Arctic Daishi View Post
    Democrats?
    So Democrats paid homage to a lobbyist and vowed to never raise taxes?

    ---------- Post added 2013-05-17 at 02:50 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Kreeb View Post
    So what exactly are you implying?
    http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexin...unding_fathers
    With Thomas Jefferson taking the lead in the Virginia legislature in 1777, every Revolutionary state government abolished the laws of primogeniture and entail that had served to perpetuate the concentration of inherited property. Jefferson cited Adam Smith, the hero of free market capitalists everywhere, as the source of his conviction that (as Smith wrote, and Jefferson closely echoed in his own words), "A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural." Smith said: "There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death."
    I.E., Jefferson supported massive estate taxes.
    Last edited by Rukentuts; 2013-05-17 at 07:52 PM.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •