Perspective: Overdetermined and Underestimated

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>Overdetermined and Underestimated

By Charles cameron, Senior Analyst, The Arlington Institute, Principal Researcher, the Center for Millenial Studies at Boston University.
chasc@arlingtoninstitute.org


[snip]
Conclusion? That human existence is more complex than scapegoating would make it seem. That neither FEMA nor the Branch Davidians nor kids who happen to wear trench coats should be written off as evil and attacked or ignored. And - perhaps there's a suitable irony here - that we should not jump too readily to conclusions.
[/snip]

This July 5, 1999 perspective can be viewed or downloaded from:

PDF format - http://www.home.earthlink.net/~hipbone/ColoFin.pdf

Critt

-- Critt Jarvis (critt@critt.com), August 30, 1999

Answers

It's also in html format at:

ht tp://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/article/Overdetermined.htm

-- Critt Jarvis (critt@critt.com), August 30, 1999.

I notice they didn't mention revolutionary Marxism's utopian and pseudoscientific "dialectical materialism" as a prime example of an "apocalyptic belief system." This despite the fact that it's been responsible for over 100 million executions. And once again, the fact that Hitler's Nazism was Socialism ("Nazi" being short for the National Socialist Worker's Party) is conveniently ignored. No, better to focus on superficial propaganda efforts when categorizing that little bump in the road.

The author tips his hand when mentioning Falun Gong as without including the fact that over 10,000 have been imprisoned solely for their beliefs, and their books burned. No, they are merely depicted as "anti-government."

Is anyone waking up to this?

Liberty

-- Liberty (liberty@theready.now), August 30, 1999.


Liberty,

A little historical clarification is in order here.

Hitler did not create the Nazi Party. At a low point, after an unsuccessful coup attemp, Hitler quickly rose to dominate the Party. It was original socialist in nature, but by the time Hitler became Chancellor, there was very little left of socialism. Private business did not sacrifice their profits to the state. All an entrepeneur had to do, to keep his money, was swear an allegience to the party. Also many socialists made their way to the oven, during the Nazi era.

Socialists can be dictators (as in Joseph Stalin), but not all dictators are socialists.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), August 31, 1999.


Bokonon,

I suspect you know better than this. Was all industry nationalized, or not? It was. Nazism was, and remained, socialism. "Socialists" went to the gas chambers (along with religious "whackos") because they were Marxist/Leninists, like Stalin - or Trotskyites, or some other competing brand. The German socialism was racial, and nationalistic, but it was socialism nonetheless. THE STATE CONTROLLED EVERY ASPECT OF INDUSTRY, though ownership on paper may not have been altered in every case. That is socialism. Modern leftists can't face up to this fact; they want to believe it's not "really socialism" unless all the children of the world join hands in equality and harmony - when in fact that's windowdressing. Does the State own you and your property? It does? You're country is socialist. Do you and your freely-contracting neighbors have ownership of you personal property, and ownership of your government which is "of, by, and for the people?" You do? Then you are living in a free and open society.

Liberty

-- Liberty (liberty@theready.now), August 31, 1999.


"Modern leftists can't face up to this fact; they want to believe it's not 'really socialism'"

Modern "libertarian" ideologues cannot face up to the fact that "socialism" and "capitalism" are vague terms having practically no specific meaning (but they carry on blindly as though they DO....)

"Does the State own you and your property? It does? You're country is socialist. Do you and your freely-contracting neighbors have ownership of you personal property, and ownership of your government which is "of, by, and for the people?" You do? Then you are living in a free and open society."

How about if me and you and a few of our neighbors get together and decide that a newcomer doesn't have the right to piss in the lake that we all use for drinking water, even if the newcomer "OWNS" that lake? Does that make us "socialist" statists?

-- alan (foo@bar.com), August 31, 1999.



Liberty, don't take Bonkerson too seriously. He is just trying to out-Flint Flint, who is his idol. It will never happen, because nobody can outdo Flint when it comes to asinine hair-splitting and lame rambling. Noooobodddyy.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), August 31, 1999.

alan:

Yes. If you own the lake, it's your private property. Nobody has the "right" to drink from your lake without your permission. If they do it anyway, they do so at their own risk -- it doesn't belong to them. They do NOT have the right to band together to tell you how THEY have decided what you should do with YOUR property. If they try to do so anyway, you should be able to shoot them.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 31, 1999.


King Of Spaniels,

Thank you, for that oh-so-close to amusing interruption.

Liberty,

By the definition your using, however, there are only two economic systems - capitalism and socialism - which means that everyone who is not a capitalist, is a Nazi. That paints a bit too much of a black and white picture. The Scandinavian countries are to one degree or another socialist (I'd have to hit an encyclopedia to be sure, but I believe Sweden is the most so), and I think they'd take high umbrage at the comparison.

The fundamental tenent of socialism is that wealth is redistributed. In the Nazi state, wealthy industrialists kept their profits, just ask the Krupps or the Benz family.

Alan has a point about names. Not that long ago, everyone in the west chuckled over the tendency of Soviet satellite states, to call themselves the "Peoples Democratic Republic Of Whatever"

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), August 31, 1999.


Flint,

If you own a lake that the general public gets it's drinking water from, then there would obviously be some sort of covenant involved. In other words, you have sold or leased the water rights. Even though your property may completely surround the lake, you have ceeded at least part of your rights, when you entered into the covenant. One can only assume that there would not be any example of such a contract, where the owner would have retained the express right to piss in the lake, at will.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), August 31, 1999.


Bokonon:

You raise an interesting issue here. No mention was made of any specific contract granting or withholding any specific rights. Indeed, I interpreted the question as I thought it was intended -- as an issue of just how private you think property really is, and the degree to which the privacy of your property ought to depend on the wishes of "the group" (read Big Brother).

Certainly, if you of your own free choice ceded certain rights in exchange for certain recompense as specified in some contract, then presumably neither side can violate the terms of that contract without mutual consent (and implicit or explicit renegotiation of the contract).

I suppose you could make a good case that in the absence of ANY contract, any rights and privileges accrue to the group with the most guns. But that's a practical definition, not a goal.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 31, 1999.



Bokonon,

You're deliberately misrepresenting me now. There are not "only two systems, capitalism and socialism." There are many systems, the free system for free people, capitalism, and the various other systems, for slaves and their masters: feudalism (masters are kings, barons, etc.) tribalism (masters are chiefs, witchdoctors) socialism (masters are bureacrats who "redistribute wealth," - taking only a little off the top) communism (master has 500ft portraits everywhere, power more absolute than that of a king). The slaves are the same in every system. Same boot on your neck, same knock at the door. Without THE system that recognizes INALIENABLE RIGHTS -as opposed to rights granted by the supreme authority of the State- you will end up in slavery eventually. That's because inalienable rights, including the right to property, are not just rights that you have a government ticket punched for; they are part of you, they are WHO YOU ARE. I don't give a shit if the Swedes are offended at my assessment of them. They aren't free. They may be comfortable in their chains, but their property isn't their property - it's belongs to the bureacrats, to "redistribute" as they see fit. I know some Swedes, who went to school there: kids who really achieve academically are ostracized; because of the levelling of economic status, excellence is seen as corruption, selfishness. This is why such hive-societies are stagnant and incapable of innovation. People work, and invent, and create for the brass ring, and the right to show it off, to say "look: I made this, from my own initiative and sustained effort." That is our natural condition, and when you take away man's right to win his fortune, you take away his humanity and make him an hive-bound insect. Liberty

-- Liberty (liberty@theready.now), September 01, 1999.


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