What Political Persuasion Are You?

[KzinistZerg]

Exactly. Robert Heinlein wrote in his book, 'Expanded Universe,' that politicians will do ANYTHING to get elected.

 

Another example is from Douglas Adam's book So Long and Thanks for All the Fish (fourth book in the hitchiker's Guide series) when a UFO comes down and Ford Prefect explains where the ship came from, in short, it was a democracy where people elected lizards to rule them. They hated the lizards, but they voted for them anyway (the wrong lizard might get in if they didn't vote) and assumed that becuase they had voted in the government, it was the government they wanted. This was likely satire on the american system of government...

 

I bring it up because it seems to apply...

[Marxist ßastard]

...I'm just not seeing how anyone who argues for a push toward Communism is, and I quote, "either a moron, evil, or both."

Because there is no realistic way to create a working communist system in the forseeable future.... So anyone arguing for creating a real-world communist system in the forseeable future is ignoring both history and human nature. Whether they're a moron and don't know any better, or evil and want to use communism as another tool to gain power, who knows.

Agreed. The "quick fix" guys are really only good for telling you neat things to say when you're throwing bombs at people. However, the people who are simply suggesting the proletariat as a more reliable source of innovation than the "leisure class" that all their efforts are currently supporting -- IE, the incompetent bourgeois, whose animosity toward one another (which is just so quickly accepted and encouraged in the context of capitalist-style competition) utterly consumes most of their efforts, and whose discoveries are assured to be completely irrelevant due to the distance they place between themselves and the rest of society -- and stressing the working class's need for solidarity, autonomy, and equal access to the means of production are not the same as their explosives-chucking comrades. These people realize that a perfect Communist society simply isn't possible within the forseeable future, and instead strive to move towards such a system not with the intent of creating an "instant utopia," but instead with knowledge of the benefits provided by the progression toward such a society. They are not morons, and they are not evil, but they do argue the benefits of Communism.

 

Thus, what you said earlier was a gross generalization. It is good to see that you have corrected your stance.

 

Hmm... so who are the oppressed classes, exactly? And those 'masses' you speak of - who are they? I find the expressions 'oppressed classes' and 'masses' quite offensive...

Okay. From now on, the proletariat will be referred to as "Alice," and we will call the bourgeois "Bob," as per the suggestions stated by Frederick Engels in his preface to the 1883 English translation of Das Kapital.

[loveme4whoiam]

Hmm... so who are the oppressed classes, exactly? And those 'masses' you speak of - who are they? I find the expressions 'oppressed classes' and 'masses' quite offensive, and far more elitist than anything Peregrine may have said.

So you have your 'oppressed classes' and your 'masses' on the one hand... and then you have the more-equal-than-others ideologists to tell the poor exploited proletariat what's good for them...

I apologise for offending you Theta; I've never found anything to be amiss with those terms, but I guess they have different connotations for different people. That you think they are more elitist that what Peregrine said... ouch. As for who they are... well Marx et al tells us that they are the working classes. What I think is that the lines between classes have been blurred, and that more people, rather than less, fit into these categories. I consider the oppression of government to mean taking away the choice that people have in life to decide what is good for them. Political representatives *spits* represent nothing more than their own self-interest and are, as you say, artists in the field of human manipulation.

 

Then theres the still-huge gaps in standards of living, across the country and across the globe. Judging by my own experiences, there is STILL one set of rules for the rich and one for the poor but the mass consumerist culture that pervades everything these days blinds most people to the fact that they now have no say in the issues that are important.

 

Having said that, those issues are those that are important to me, and might not be to other people as you pointed out. It is an accusaton that can be leveled at many armchair communists. But I would say that just because the issues of today are not cared about by the average Alice (thank you MB) does not make them unimportant. When you talked about the individual being aware of the needs of the community, what needs did you have in mind? That is what I am talking about - society putting more emphasis on the things that should matter to a society, like the environmental issues about which you are so concerned Theta - would you not consider it a good thing if society and education placed more emphasis on them? I know I would, just as I would like people to wake up and see the inequality between us and most of the rest of the world. Just because it is something I (as an "equaler-than-others ideologist", an accusation that deeply offends) care about doesn't make it unimportant.

 

Just as a little sidenote about RedStar, it's interesting that you've come to that conclusion about him, as there are loads of people on those forums who agree with you. Well, I say on those forums, they've all left now. As you probably noticed there are loads of articles on that website, answering lots of different questions people ask about Communism. I suppose I used his stuff as a clearer explanation than my own because on the truly nitty-gritty detail of things, I'm still relatively vague. I'm not wise enough on economics, civil administration, or any number of issues which I would need to be to give a decent answer to hypothetical "give me a proposal" questions. Of course they are just one man's opinion, so could be wrong. But at least they get people thinking.

 

You are definitely on to something about thinking better about the dirty jobs. I use that phrase all the time when I'm trying to get my sisters to do some work - "Do it because it needs to be done". I guess I never applied that to my thoughts on society, although the concept of shared responsibilty I mentioned briefly a while ago would fit with that. Still, right now people DON'T do the dirty jobs that need doing because there has been some poor *censored* assigned to do them for everyone else (who is apparently stupid and unambitious) - that needs to change. Of course, that could just be me saying that, which would make it wrong, and nothing needs to change.

 

That's a cracking bit of commentary KzinistZerg - I haven't read his books, but I really want to. Theres a good quote by Terry Pratchett, my very favourite social commentator - "A thinking tyrant had a much harder job than a ruler raised to power by some idiot vote-yourself-rich system like democracy. At least they could tell the people that he was their fault".

 

I agree totally with MB, quick-fix people are mainly interested in the violent aspects of a so-called glorious revolution. I would hope that, rather than being one of those equaler-than-thou ideologists, I am one of those people that MB talks about in his first paragraph.

[KzinistZerg]

Which one? Heinlein or Adams?

 

They're boht great. I find Heinlein's stance on government to be very well thought out and I agree in its entirety.

[Alanador]

Megaceph, chosen to serve the State

In the halls of legislative debate,

One day with all his credentials came

To the capitol's door and announced his name.

The doorkeeper looked, with a comical twist

Of the face, at the eminent egotist,

And said: "Go away, for we settle here

All manner of questions, knotty and queer,

And we cannot have, when the speaker demands

To be told how every member stands,

A man who to all things under the sky

Assents by eternally voting 'I'.

 

Author Unknown to me...

[loveme4whoiam]

Both ;D I like the Douglas Adams one, it explains a lot about the current "democratic" political system. There's another great one by Terry Pratchett which I love:

 

"As soon as our politicians get elected we throw them in prison."

"Why?"

"It saves time."

 

I like the poem Alanador's posted, its new to me but again says a lot about party politics.

[Stampede]

I am conservative in many respects. I save my political points of view for discussions outside of these forums though. :) I'm sure none of you want a right wing moderator on the loose.

[KzinistZerg]

I wouldn't object... :)

 

Nice poem, Alanador.

[phawk69]

I voted far right, but would not say fascist, but defenitely 'red-neck' right which is right of right :)

 

Very interesting debate on communism, although I'm not sure it's what the thread started as, but loveme was right, any discussion of politics will eventually break down into a debate :wacko: 8)

 

I agree that communism works on a small scale, but how do you run a 'one-person-one-vote' system on a planetary level when your population is over 6.6 billion people and climbing? (link to World Population I'm not sure if this is the best clock or not, but there are other links there, and it all seems more statistical than real to me anyway - how do you truly do a census on the whole world at one time?) As soon as you introduce representation, you open the system to abuse.

 

A true barter system also works on a local level, but how do you get surpluses from Kansas (just a random point) to Dheli? And what does Dheli offer Kansas in exchange?

 

It looks good on paper, but in practice it suddenly becomes a nightmare without some form of government, and once you have a position of power, whether real or perceived, you have the possibility of abuse of that power, and as Peregrine has said, though maybe not in these exact words, "The pond scum always rises to the top" so those that see an opportunity to get ahead will migrate toward any possition they perceive is higher than the one they already have.

[loveme4whoiam]

I voted far right, but would not say fascist, but defenitely 'red-neck' right which is right of right :)

 

Heeheehee :D That made me smile in the morning :).

 

Meh, I'd agree that with the system of voting we have now, performing some kind of massive planetary vote for the President of Earth is a bit unfeasible. But there are ways and means of getting around that problem - of course, once people can vote the problem is defeating the apathy and getting them to :dry: And you are indeed correct, if you have representatives, you add manipulation and politics into the equation, and that leads right back to where we are now.

 

As for the economic exchange stuff, as I said I'm not very knowledgeable about that. All I've picked up is one or two tiny morsels of knowledge wilst reading the enormous debates of others, but that's not enough to answer you question, my apologies. I can point you in the right direction if you do fancy learning about it though; PM me if you want links and stuff.