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Why Liberals Can’t Think
Or, why it’s incoherent to be a liberal

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Why Liberals Can’t Think
unrealist42
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Posted 10/30/09 - 03:08 PM:
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#61
jaoman wrote:


These statistics are actually somewhat misleading. Yes, 10 percent of the worlds adults have 85 percent of the wealth. However, by far the greater part of that wealth is contained in banks. What this means is that, due to the way the world's economic system has come to be structured, this wealth is primarily fictional. By far the greatest part of it is composed of credit notes. The only way to maintain the illusion is for the wealth to constantly moving around.

It's kind of like a trick of the light. To use an example, imagine two people passing a ball back and forth. If they do this fast enough, to the outside observer it begins to look like both are holding a ball. If you have three people passing the ball at this rate, it look like three people are holding a ball. This way, one ball multiplies over and over. However, this only works so long as the ball continues to be in constant rapid motion between the people. If one person should need to hold the ball for a minute, it suddenly becomes obvious that rather than many balls, there is only one.

The world's economy system is very analogous to this. While 10 percent of the world's population owns most of the money, they know they can't hoard it. Once they do, the money suddenly disappears. They constantly need to have their money passing through other hands. Typically, this is done by paying workers, who then buy products. To have money, they always need to be passing it to you and rest.

This looks bad on paper – an indeed, many third world countries have terrible poverty (so, it's not completely on paper) – however, the fact of the matter is that while they make less, prices are also reduced to match. Everything from cars to food items is priced at a tenth of what it's worth in America.

The pretense is that this system is a means of making more money; however, the the reality is that it is rather a way to give citizens of certain countries privilege in the world market. While the larger percentage of the world's population earns and pays less, the exorbitant prices and relatively high salaries of the North America and other first world countries, balance it out in so far as the movement of capital.

The consequence of this is that a consumer revolution in North America, where it is affordable, would have a much more significant impact then a consumer revolution in Zimbabwe. For while the latter may buy more items, the former provides by far the greater amount of currency.



This is also misleading. More correct would be to say that 80% of the wealth is held by corporations. A fictional wealth in the hands of fictional individuals. The corporation are controlled by the top 20% percent, but it's not actually their wealth. The reason is the same as I said above. The wealth doesn't exist. The system is designed to work around it. The only way to work around that is to pay you and the rest of the 80% enough money to keep buying products, passing the wealth around such that it always comes back to the source. Which is way you feel overwhelmed by expenses. They really don't want you to have too much more money than you can spend. If you save, it messes with the system.

But you do have enough money to spend and if you demonstrate that you are more likely to buy a certain product that product will become cheaper and more abundant because you buying products, and getting paid for the making of products, is the only thing that keeps the system from spilling its guts out.

And since your 15k is worth about 25 third world citizens, you decision also have a great deal more impact world wide. They don't need the consumer revolution, you can do it for them.

Choose your cause and, as I explain to you, it will become affordable. Then choose your next cause. It doesn't have to be all at one. It just has to be all eventually. So, dig in.


In fact this wealth does exist. It exists in the exercise of power. It is the 10% who own 85% of the wealth who have most of the power in this world and control of its resources. It does not matter if it is corporate wealth or the wealth of individuals, the exercise of power is the same. In fact corporations allow the wealthy to leverage the wealth of others into even more power.

There is a reason for the third world, a reason why so many live below subsistence. It is because the owners of wealth do not need them. They see them as a waste of resources, a misdirection of wealth away from their hands for no return. So they leave them in poverty and let them starve to death.

There is also a reason for the first world and its gross consumerism. By surrounding themselves with people enamored with material gain, by seeming to share the wealth, they build themselves an unassailable bastion because they are the bringers of wealth. material gain. The consumerist nations worship these people. They are their gods.

There is also a reason for the "business cycle", the regular collapse of the economy and its subsequent recovery. It is the regular consolidation of previously shared out wealth back to the wealthy. The wealthy do not suffer from economic downturns, everyone else does. Governments go into great debt during economic calamities and it is the wealthy who profit from this debt, a direct transfer of wealth from the middle class taxpayer to the wealthy in the form of government debt payment. Economic recovery is a great part of this, it gives people hope, hope that they can improve their lives, which they can and do for a while. But the rug will always be pulled out from under.

There is also a reason for war. Nothing spurs an economy like war and the wealthy make great profits during war an wealth is spread more widely. In the economic collapse that invariably follow the end of war, the wealthy can consolidate the gains.

So, as you can see, the consolidation of wealth and the subsequent power it brings seems somewhat contradictory to the natural inclinations of the great mass of not-wealthy people.

No surprise, it was a Rothschild who laid out these "principles of wealth" some 200 years ago.
itinerant
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Posted 10/31/09 - 09:13 AM:
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#62
Thanks for that, unrealist42. Unequal power-relations are entailed by inequalities in wealth and property/capital ownership, and result in unequal control of production and distribution, as well as political processes. And, these power-relations (and what's entailed by them) can only be changed by mass, coordinated action against them. Changing our purchases or trying to tweak the tax code or labor laws simply keeps the same system in place.

Philosophy should be more than an apology for capitalism
DonVoghano
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Posted 11/04/09 - 01:06 PM:
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#63
I agree... The left has somehow accepted a secondary role and bought the TINA idea, so basically there is nothing it can do but offer insignificant answers to systemic problems. Note that this is a fault shared with the intellectuals who are either not actual left (and so relish in the status quo) or too scared to propose systemic solutions.
itinerant
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Posted 11/04/09 - 01:46 PM:
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#64
DonVoghano wrote:
I agree... The left has somehow accepted a secondary role and bought the TINA idea, so basically there is nothing it can do but offer insignificant answers to systemic problems. Note that this is a fault shared with the intellectuals who are either not actual left (and so relish in the status quo) or too scared to propose systemic solutions.

What I don't get is that it's intellectually quite easy to come up with systemic solutions. Abolish inheritance and private property, or raise taxes to eliminate profit, or etc. etc. The much harder part is finding ways to implement such solutions given the system.

Philosophy should be more than an apology for capitalism
123savethewhales
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Posted 11/04/09 - 03:47 PM:
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#65
I think the problem with discrimination is the process of deciding what needs to be be protected, to what extend, and ultimately who pays the price.

For example, take equal right laws to protect people with disabilities. Surely it is great that people with disabilities are now able to always find a parking spot, and have a ramp to go on. At the same time though those who get hurt the most are not the large corporations that people associate with as "immoral", it is the small community businesses that are struggling to survive. In the end, government can't "give" right, they simply choose to discriminate one group (small businesses) in favor of another (people with disabilities).

So we are always in the jiggling game between who to and who not to discriminate, usually with many unintended consequences. This make reduction in discrimination not so strait forward.

Another example would be the "bicycle lines" being build in NYC. Again it's not because I have something against people who ride bikes. My question is again, should the mass amount of motorists be penalized for the "right of the bikers"?

I think the question involving "why the rights of x amount of one group should out weight y amount of another group" are often ignored by both the left and the right.

So in regard to "organic food", I would have to ask who exactly is paying for all the production cost, and who gets the worst end of the stick in the end.

Keep it simple.
unrealist42
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Posted 11/05/09 - 01:07 PM:
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#66
123savethewhales wrote:
I think the problem with discrimination is the process of deciding what needs to be be protected, to what extend, and ultimately who pays the price.

For example, take equal right laws to protect people with disabilities. Surely it is great that people with disabilities are now able to always find a parking spot, and have a ramp to go on. At the same time though those who get hurt the most are not the large corporations that people associate with as "immoral", it is the small community businesses that are struggling to survive. In the end, government can't "give" right, they simply choose to discriminate one group (small businesses) in favor of another (people with disabilities).

So we are always in the jiggling game between who to and who not to discriminate, usually with many unintended consequences. This make reduction in discrimination not so strait forward.

Another example would be the "bicycle lines" being build in NYC. Again it's not because I have something against people who ride bikes. My question is again, should the mass amount of motorists be penalized for the "right of the bikers"?

I think the question involving "why the rights of x amount of one group should out weight y amount of another group" are often ignored by both the left and the right.

So in regard to "organic food", I would have to ask who exactly is paying for all the production cost, and who gets the worst end of the stick in the end.


You are confusing privileges with rights. There is no right to have a business, it is a privilege granted by the state with many underlying requirements. It is the same with automobiles. No law or statute says that auto drivers have a "right" to drive anywhere they please at the inconvenience of others.

So, the handicapped do have rights and the bicyclist has a much right to the road as the auto operator. The failure of society to make accommodation for these needs in the past does not preclude its obligation to do so.

Requiring access for the handicapped is a universal requirement for business so there really is no discrimination against businesses. It is just tightwad business owners trying to gain an unfair and illegal advantage over other businesses that have spent the money to make the required accommodations. In fact there are grants and low interest loans for small businesses to add handicap access. Small business owners have a long list of spurious complaints against the rules of doing business. If we were to accommodate them all, taxpayers would be subsidizing small businesses a lot more than they do now.

Separate lanes for bicyclists in NYC is not something that has come about on a whim or without compelling reason. It is the result of many decades of failing to get motorists to share the roads with bicyclists amid a steady increase in bicycle riding. If motorists wish to complain about the implementation of separated bicycle lanes they have only themselves to blame. Besides that, most residents of NYC do not even own a auto so giving up a few lanes of road for bicycle lanes is supported by many of them.

When regarding discrimination and rights, determining who has rights and who is trying to claim some right that does not exist or weaseling out of some universal requirement is a good place to start.



Eaglo
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Posted 11/05/09 - 04:53 PM:
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#67
I too have noticed many differences between liberals and conservatives, but one thing is for sure (I'll use the food topic to stay on track) everyone wants to eat. Everyone wants to live their life, they both have different priorities.

Democrats(liberals) seek to raise taxes and control to offer for more "protection" through social programs.
Republicans(conservatives) seek to keep taxes lower, and leave people to their own demise.

In being a liberal you are TRUSTING all people, in saying the government knows best for your family, and trusting the public mass to elect those officials you're putting your life into the hands of many people. There are ALWAYS more stupid and poor people, than wealthy and smart people.

In being a conservative you are basically saying, "leave me and my family alone". In doing this you lack trust in the mass of people and you raise the capability in yourself and your own family.
________________

For all you liberal democrats out there, there is an easier way to figure out how you need to vote, in the form of a little story...


The democrats were traditionally a working man's party, for the people who were of the UNDER(no un)educated. Basically factory workers, the proletariat, the majority.
The republicans were traditionally the rich man's party, the party reserved for the wealthy, the educated, and over educated, and those who had money, property.
Now... you ready philosophers... Who would you trust with the direction of YOUR nation, the poor, undereducated masses, or the wealthy.

Logically in a democracy you would want more people to be in your party so you would always get elected, logical enough...
So wouldn't that further you to feel that democrats would make you poor or undereducated, and republicans would try and make the most people wealthy.


How does (N)Obama look now?

The only answer that matters is whether the right answer really matters, or is it?
123savethewhales
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Posted 11/06/09 - 02:23 PM:
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#68
unrealist42 wrote:


You are confusing privileges with rights. There is no right to have a business, it is a privilege granted by the state with many underlying requirements. It is the same with automobiles. No law or statute says that auto drivers have a "right" to drive anywhere they please at the inconvenience of others.

So, the handicapped do have rights and the bicyclist has a much right to the road as the auto operator. The failure of society to make accommodation for these needs in the past does not preclude its obligation to do so.

Requiring access for the handicapped is a universal requirement for business so there really is no discrimination against businesses. It is just tightwad business owners trying to gain an unfair and illegal advantage over other businesses that have spent the money to make the required accommodations. In fact there are grants and low interest loans for small businesses to add handicap access. Small business owners have a long list of spurious complaints against the rules of doing business. If we were to accommodate them all, taxpayers would be subsidizing small businesses a lot more than they do now.

Separate lanes for bicyclists in NYC is not something that has come about on a whim or without compelling reason. It is the result of many decades of failing to get motorists to share the roads with bicyclists amid a steady increase in bicycle riding. If motorists wish to complain about the implementation of separated bicycle lanes they have only themselves to blame. Besides that, most residents of NYC do not even own a auto so giving up a few lanes of road for bicycle lanes is supported by many of them.

When regarding discrimination and rights, determining who has rights and who is trying to claim some right that does not exist or weaseling out of some universal requirement is a good place to start.


I am sorry I am a realist, and as such, believes that rights and privileges means exactly the same thing; rules and regulations enforced by a body of power. For handicap at least there's the moral argument that they can't get basic necessities otherwise. For biking, you would need to justify what makes getting a open lane to bike on in every street a right to begin with.

Keep it simple.
unrealist42
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Posted 11/06/09 - 02:24 PM:
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#69
Liberals think beyond their front yard and recognize that a better life for everyone makes for a better and safer neighborhood, city, country and world. Republicans think no further than the country club, they have theirs and screw everyone else.

It is a matter of whether or not you are capable of thinking beyond yourself. Republicans definitely have a problem with that. So really, it is not that liberals can't think, it is that republicans don't.

unrealist42
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Posted 11/06/09 - 02:30 PM:
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#70
123savethewhales wrote:


I am sorry I am a realist, and as such, believes that rights and privileges means exactly the same thing; rules and regulations enforced by a body of power. For handicap at least there's the moral argument that they can't get basic necessities otherwise. For biking, you would need to justify what makes biking a right to begin with.


I said that bicyclists have as much right to the road as motorists. It would be up to you to explain how motorists have more rights to the local roadways (which are not supported by fuel taxes but by more general local taxes) than bicyclists.
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