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Guest Post: Are Individuals The Property Of The Collective?
Submitted by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market blog,
Mankind has faced a bewildering multitude of self-made catastrophes and self-made terrors over the past few millennium, most of which stem from a single solitary conflict between two opposing social qualities: individualism vs. collectivism. These two forces of organizational mechanics have gone through evolution after evolution over the years, and I believe the long battle is nearing an apex moment; a moment in which one ideology or the other will become dominant around the world for well beyond the foreseeable future.
The assumption often made amongst academia is that the philosophy that appeals most to our “natural survival imperative” and caters to our desire for innovation will eventually win the day. That there is no “right or wrong” side; only the effective, and the less effective. The advanced and the outmoded. The transcendent, and the archaic.
It should come as no surprise then that most academics and prominent mainstream talking heads often sing the praises of collectivism as the inevitable champion in the war between cultural engines. Collectivism always presents itself with the flair and sexiness of the “new”, or the progressive, while individualism tends to wear the unpleasant battle scars of hard earned principles and heritage. Collectivism is the hot looking but mentally unstable bombshell blonde making promises of excitement and long term comfort she has no intention of keeping. She is so seductive not because she has any profound inner qualities, but because she has a knack for letting you believe she is exactly what you fantasize her to be. Only when it’s too late do you realize she’s a psychopathic pill popping man-eater…
Collectivism is, in fact, a bastardization of a more useful human condition; namely community. Inherent in all people is the need for meaningful connection with others, and thus, the world around them, without being forced to sacrifice their own identities and their own souls in the process. The best representation of this model is the idea of “voluntary community”, where individuals seek out each other and facilitate their own connections. However, if they can’t find meaningful connection, many people will settle for whatever they can get.
Collectivist structures thrive by shutting down free cultural avenues, manipulating public media, encouraging fear, repression, and bias, and destroying our ability to relate to others in a natural and voluntary way. Collectivism’s first goal is to distract and ISOLATE individuals from one another, so that honest community is difficult to build. Its second goal is to then offer a false community; a cardboard cutout or proxy that entices the public with fabricated and superficial connections that barely satiate our inner hunger for relationship with our fellow man (Facebook, anyone?). It uses our thirst for understanding against us, and lures us into a system of psychological enslavement where no understanding will ever be found.
Karl Marx is famous for stating that “religion is the opium of the people”, a belief that communists like Mao Zedong adopted. But, Mao was not opposed to “opiates for the masses” per say, only citizen organizations that could not be control. Mao simply replaced the various deities of the Chinese people with the religion of the collectivist state.
Like any opiate, collectivism instills addiction. The feeling of belonging to something bigger than oneself (even if it ends up being false) creates ecstatic euphoria, a euphoria that weakens as time passes unless the addict commits himself even deeper into the hive mind. Soon, every original aspect of the person’s character is forgotten and replaced entirely by his hyper-obsession with the collective. The whole of his identity becomes a shallow product of the state and he may even defend that state, no matter how corrupt, to the death. He now treats any criticism of the system as a personal attack on himself, because everything he is has been given to him by the collective. If the collective is a sham, then so is he.
Collectivism as a philosophy is a perfect tool for oligarchy. The men who dominate such systems rarely if ever actually believe in the tenets they espouse. They sell the idea of single-minded society as a nurturing light that will create group supremacy, prosperity, and perfect safety. But the truth is, they couldn’t care less about accomplishing any of these things for the masses. They are only interested in exploiting the promise to galvanize the population into a fraudulent community, a dystopia in which the citizens police each other in the name of the state, giving the elites total dominance.
The most vital aspect of the collectivist process is convincing the public that the individual citizen is not sovereign, but is actually the property of the group. Many readers have already witnessed this argument first hand in the statements of MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, who believes your children are not yours to raise, but products of the collective to be molded:
But this is only a taste of collectivist zealotry at work. Here are just a few of the most prominent disinformation tactics and methodologies used by centralization cultists to twist the fabric of nations and enslave individuals…
1) The Blank Slate
Blank slate theory stems from the Freudian model of psychology and has been adopted and refined by modern mainstream clinical psychiatry. The theory contends that all psychological processes and character traits of an individual are merely products of repetition and memory derived through environmental experience. Psychiatry extends the theory into biology in the belief that all human behavior is nothing more that a series of reactionary chemical processes in the brain that determine pre-coded genetic responses built up from the conditioning of one’s environment. The foundational assertion of blank slate theory is that human beings are born empty. That we are bio-computers; soft machinery, just waiting to be programmed.
The blank slate argument is essential to the philosophy of collectivism. If every person is born without inherent characteristics or spirit, and all people are manufactured by environmental conditions alone, then, collectivists contend, there is no such thing as true individualism. Programmed people cannot act, they can only react according to their conditioning. Therefore, they have no inherent ability to choose, or to determine their own destinies.
If a society can be convinced that this theory is fact, then the inner self (the source of individualism), no longer bears any meaning. The environment is then seen as the only determinant that people should care about. Environment becomes the sole master of their lives, and whoever controls the environment, controls them.
The problem is, blank slate theory has been proven time and time again to be absolutely false. From the work of MIT professor Steven Pinker, to the psychological studies of Carl Jung, to the linguistic studies of Noam Chomsky, as well as numerous studies in mathematics, quantum physics, and anthropology; every field of science has produced more than ample evidence that human beings are not born as blank slates. Rather, they are born with the very building blocks of thought, language, mathematics, and even predispositions towards certain personality traits.
The most important of all of these discoveries though is attributed to Carl Jung, who found that moral conceptions are in fact inborn. The existence of “psychological dualities” at birth (including an unconscious sense of good and evil) means that all people come into the world with the ability to CHOOSE. Environment only determines our lives if we allow it to. This is why the worst of men sometimes come from the most sheltered and safe environments, while the best of men often come from broken and terrible homes.
Collectivists have struggled desperately for ages to deny or destroy the concept of inherent individualism. They want us to believe that everything that we have was “given to us” by them. As long as we know they have given us nothing, they can never truly win…
2) Individualism Is The Same As Selfishness
Collectivists repeat this lie Ad nauseum. The suggestion is simple – even the smallest individual actions “affect everyone”, thus, everyone is culpable for the problems of the whole. And, if everyone is responsible for the problems of the whole, then everyone must take responsibility for everyone else. The job of society then, at least in the opinion of collectivists, is to keep every individual member of that society in line. One unruly cog could bring the entire machine to a halt. Anyone who refuses to submit to the directives of the group is bound to hurt the group, and is, therefore, selfish, or even criminal.
The insanity of this way of thinking should be obvious. First of all, it assumes that the directives of the group are always logically and morally sound. It assumes that because the majority of people have come to a particular conclusion, that conclusion must, by default, be correct. The fact is, history has shown that at any given moment the majority is wrong about something, if not most things, and these mass trespasses against reason and conscience always end up being stopped by a minority of individualists. The greatest social achievements of mankind are the result of the ingenuity and courage of individuals who in turn inspired others.
Perhaps the best possible thing is for the machine to be sabotaged at times by “selfish individuals’. Perhaps individuals are actually more necessary to the survival of the group than the group is to the survival of individuals…
3) The Family Unit Cannot Be Trusted To Raise The Next Generation
In the quest for a collectivist system, all competing interests must be debased. The individual must have nowhere to turn for guidance or comfort but the system itself. Children become a highly sought after target, because their inborn personalities are easier to oppress, and because they are always dependent on someone for their survival already. The collective (usually in the form of government) desires to be that “someone” the child depends on, and so, the role of the parents has to be diminished.
Collectivists in the U.S. use the “It Takes A Village” approach in order to marginalize the family unit and paint parents as secondary figures in the development of their own offspring. Under this philosophy, each subsequent generation is seen as a kind of “commodity”, a resource that belongs to the group and that must be “protected” from the damaging ideologies of the parents. One has only to examine the extreme politicization of American public schools today to see this process in action. The goal is to push the idea of family into obscurity, while forcing children into indoctrination factories that instill specific behaviors through fear, shame, and propaganda.
No one, and no entity, however, has the capacity to care for any child more than that child’s own parents. Some parents do fail in their responsibilities, but what kind of role model does government really make in their place? Governments lie, cheat, steal, rape, murder, and mass murder in order to get what they want. Government has nothing worthwhile to teach anyone, including our children.
4) Global Problems Will Be Solved By Collectivism
I find in my examinations that the opposite is true. Most global problems are CAUSED by collectivism, not solved by it. The greater good is always subjective. The group will always be an abstract illusion held together by nothing more than the whims of the individual. And, in the grand scheme of things, only individuals make any difference in the course of human cultural development. The collectivist strategy requires the suppression of individualism, otherwise, they cannot obtain power. That means, the very bedrock of their philosophy is a threat to the security of the future. In their obscene quest to control tomorrow, they ensure that tomorrow dies.
They promise community, and they give you isolation. They promise prosperity, and they give you servitude. They promise safety, and they give you a land of perpetual terror. They promise purpose, and give you insignificance. They promise peace, and they foment war after war after war, reaping turmoil all around us, as well as within us.
Our only hope is to maintain the integrity of our heart, and our will. The proclamation that the individual is subject to the necessities of the collective is a con. There is no such prerogative. In the end, there is no power over us but that which we give away. The state doesn’t matter. The group doesn’t matter. The “greater good” doesn’t matter. All that matters is the life of the individual. Each individual. For when all men rediscover their individualism, only then will we be able to move forward as a whole.
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Now you don't have to stick an alien organism on someone's back to make them part of the Collective...just some abusive laws...
Every Lib's dream is to be a Puppet Master...
Every free man's dream is to be Master of his own destiny...
Why do these BORG quotes remind me of every Lib?
Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. ~Collective
Negotiation is irrelevant. You will be assimilated. ~Collective
Freedom is irrelevant. Self-determination is irrelevant.
You must comply. ~Collective
A neural transceiver is required for maximum communication,
we will work as one mind. ~Collective
We are the Borg. Resistance as you know it is over. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. ~Collective
You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. ~Hugh
You will become one with the Borg.
You will all become one with the borg. ~Locutus
Why do you resist?
We only wish to raise quality of life for all species. ~Locutus
I am Locutus, of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been, is over. From this time forward, you will service us. ~Locutus
I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. ~Borg Queen
You are an imperfect being, created by an imperfect being. ~Borg Queen
Human. We used to be exactly like them. Flawed, weak, organic. But we evolved to include the synthetic. Now we use both to attain perfection. ~Borg Queen
Brave words. I've heard them before, from thousands of species across thousands of worlds, since long before you were created, but now, they are all Borg. ~Borg Queen
Borg do not consider giving technology away, only assimilating it. ~Seven of Nine
When a drone is damaged beyond repair, it is discarded, but its memories contine to exist in the collective consciousness. To use a human term, the Borg are immortal. ~Seven of Nine
+1 to Decolat for the idea
Video translation =
White parents don't want to pay to 'educate' room-temperature IQ Africans, & neither do blacks. No point to the first group & no $$$ in the 2nd.
So use MSM lies that blacks are 'our responsibility' to guilt-white Lib's into paying quietly.
Or did I miss something?
Ya know, Joe, here's a bit o' truth.
Every year the USA ranks very low in all international tests. Boody hoody hoo! The cry is we need more money! WE NEEEEEED MOOOOOOOAR MONEY! Despite spending double and triple what some First World Nations spend, we just get worse.
Now here's sumpin' for ya ta noodle on...if you just look at White and Asian test scores, the good ol' USA ranks in the top 10...globally.
How the fuck about that?
Mix in Black and Hispanic scores...along with those new im-grants and those Somalis we import for some reason...and we suck. We pathetic. My God, we need to SPEND MORE MONEY AND RAISE MOAR TAXES!
Fact is, the avg. Black IQ is around 80. Don't feel like looking up the avg. Hispanic IQ, but you get the idea. Since no one will EVAH come right out and say that someone with an 80 IQ isn't going to score well...well, we will continue to piss money away and wring our hands. Wring wring wring.
So by all means continue pouring TRILLIONS down a rat hole that will NEVER return value. After all, it allows some to maintain their sweet, delicious false reality.
But never forget, there are other cultures who do not piss away resources nor glad-hand magical minority groups; and in the end, they will consume you and your reality. Simple Economics, and such basic Economics will not be denied.
Ask your mother why she fed and educated you like a collectivist instead of leaving you out in the woods to take care of yourself.
Knowledge is built upon another. Libertarians only shout freedom after they got lucky.
Collectivism saves a lot of reinventing the wheel when shared selectively.
we live in a republic not a democracy you stupid fuk!
She believes in slavery.
QED
Ironic, no?
Collectivism exists simply because this is what "works" for the powerful. That is why when collectivism inevitably fails (for the average man), it inevitably pops up elsewhere. The powerful remain and that is the model they want. As power gets more concentrated the urge for collectivism grows.
Academia is nothing more than a bunch of courtiers to the powerful. Their "stance" has nothing to do with "truth" or "beauty" or "the people". They are unctuous frauds who desperately seek out ways to please their masters and collect tokens like titles, diplomas and sinecures.
That f8cking b1tch should kill herself immediately if not sooner and if she wont do it she should be helped along by dr kervorkian. For Progressive pieces of shit like this witch one can only pray for the most heinous and painful outcomes. Forthwith and with feeling. War is the result of her bullshit. If you try to enslave you should expect resistance. Was she joking? God one can only hope so.
You do not live in a republic (window dressing aside) and you do not live in a democracy either . You live in a plutocracy/cleptocracy that is well on its way to a truly totalitarian society (its natural outcome).
Huxley-just another deluded drug addict.
More serious this time round. Fortunately, for his own safety, Huxely can vomit his crap from behind his avatar. If he threatened me, and my therefore my children, with this to my face he would be dead. PERIOD.
At least we know who Melissa Harris-Perry is. She should be a little more careful because if this does not end with HER side winning there will be consequences. She reminds me of that teacher chic in Serenity.
The 'Reavers' are coming for you Melissa.
any collective that want's me as a member, I would never join. never look for truth unless you understand the result is always suffering. evil always promises the end to suffering- with the end of truth.
We could send all these [insert 'collective' race definition here] over to Israel, where I'm sure they'd be welcomed with open arms, schooled, fed, & given viable housing...
In a free and open society, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Mutually beneficial agreements between consenting adults will make sure that the wheel will be spread to everyone and the inventor of said wheel would be rewarded for his inginuity. . The collective would take the wheel from the inventor, mandate a certain amount of cheap low quality knock offs be made, and then have a terminally dysfunctional top down transportation system spread these faulty death traps to the public. Meanwhile the next great inventor who would be replacing the wheel with something better is taken from his parents, raised in a collectivist hell hole institution where his brain is warped and his body malnourished and his ability is sapped from him and replaced with his indoctrination. But it's ok though, everyone has a wheel straight from the top... Maybe. How many people were starved or murder in the ussr or commie china again?
Collectivists weak-point is that they must blame the individual for their failures. Collectivists are incapable of recognizing that their ideology itself is disaster, so they need the individuals to blame for their inability. Individuals only have themselves to blame.
Thus, collectivists in their cowardice must blend in so as to hide their weak ability. Individuals are strong, as they have nowhere to hide.
Bottom Line, Collectivists have this strange misfiring in their brain which gives them the illusion that they can blame their failures on an entity that has nothing to do with them.
Aldous
you are in a tough fight and I'm with you
Collectivism as a philosophy is a perfect tool for oligarchy. FUCK YOU you fucking tool bag dip shit muther fucker FUCK YOU
Now that I have that out of the way, let's be clear, as a student of Oligarchy, calling out collectivism versus individualism as the root of all evil, <which really is oligarchy>, is the SAME AS calling out dems versus repub's etc. Again this is code for divide and conquer by trolls and ALDOUS IS RIGHT, we live on a globe with soon to be 10 billion people. this means we have to work together to make it work and gosh darn it that could be labelled "collectivism" by some. Individualism is code word for "deregulation" and is exactly what got us to this complete fucking gongshow that is the 21st century financial meltdown. Individuals were allowed by the non restratint of LAW to FUCK YOU OUT OF YOUR LIFE SAVINGS, YOUR CHILDRENS AND THEIR CHILDRENS.
Collectivism is you and me <those who are fucked> getting together and fixing this bullshit. We need to collect or as individuals we have NO CHANCE and we are PERPETUALLY GOING TO BE FUCKED and so are your kids and their kids.
DO NOT TREAT COLLECTIVISM LIKE ITS THE BOOGEY MAN IT'S WHAT WE NEED TO DO TO TEAR THIS SHIT SHOW DOWN.
DON'T BE TROLLED BY INDIVIDUALISM
COLLECTIVIZE AND FIGHT THE ASS FUCKING YOU ARE GETTING EVERYDAY
Sorry Prain, but you affirm Smith's point about the personality being subsumed.
Smith might as well be addressing all Agenda 21 "sustainability" propaganda:
INDIVIDUALISM VS. COMMUNITARIANISM IN AGENDA 21 (c/o Rosa Koire, Post Sustainability Institute)
Today's indoctrinated youth are tomorrow's totalitarian greenshirts.
Fail bud but nice troll
you miss the point
we need to be collect to fight not divide to die, and you friend are on the front lines
you are sucking on the divide and conquer propoganda, but really you suck anyway, why bother? nut sauce
Prains you ignorant slut.
You are projecting - just like leftists do. And you are really nasty.
Individualism all the way.....
Prain
The best world is one where groups form spontaneously to fulfill a specific REAL, PRODUCTIVE objective and then go away. The worst people are those who work to prevent disbanding by inventing problems that never go away (e.g., war on terror, global warming, unsound money, entitlement culture, artificial scarcity). Think more about who benefits from oligarchical structures. THEY ARE NOT NATURAL. This is not a matter of choosing a particular flavour of collective. It's about taking power away from psychopaths so individuals of conscience can realize potential.
Fromm's Escape From Freedom is good reading.
"I want this country to realize that we stand on the edge of oblivion. I want everyone to remember why they need us!" - Sutler (collectivist control freak), V for Vendetta
Chuck Todd of NBC news defined the last election as a struggle bw collectivism and individualism. Or, the foundation of the USSR, etc vs the foundation of America. The candidates clearly represented each.
Liberals today are the "useful idiots" Lenin spoke of...The press is pushing it (msnbc, etc) and the schools are teaching it ( ask Huxley) . The USA (and freedom) are in deep yoghurt.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2012/07/20/chuck-todd-half...
Collectivisation is not the problem, Forced Collectivisation is the problem.
There is no problem if people get together to try and achieve an objective (be it in as a Company, a Union, an Association, a Charity or whatever), the problem is when people are forced to join certain collectives or laws are passed that give benefits to certain collectives.
There is a certain kind of propaganda that has pushed the idea that somehow Companies are good collectives but Unions are bad collectives. In reality in the US and due to the way laws and lawmakers have been bought, both large Companies and large Unions are usually bad.
"getting together to achieve an objective" is not collectivism.
Don't confuse collectivism with cooperation.
semantics
you guys are taking extremist hyperbole in the form of a video and projecting that onto a perfectly valid and necessary means to fight back against financial and political tyranny
call it what you want collectivism, community, cooperation my point is <now less the ten drinks> IS don't get buffaloed by crap videos that really are just propaganda pieces to divide and conquer
mayor Bloomberg our collectivist leader in nyc, want us to limit intake of salt. yet did you know in the western world the main source of Iodine is iodized salt? what happens when your thyroid is deprived of Iodine, it enlarges - look around you at the swollen necks - the listless, the constant complaints of tired worn out yet the apperance of fat overfed people..there is truth in this, I will let you dear ZH reader understand the impact of reducing Iodine from the modern diet.
Supplement with seaweed seasoning from your local health food store.
I don't understand Prain's preoccupation with the video. It's peripheral to what Brandon Smith is trying to say. And his lack of appreciation for the distinction between voluntary association and collectivism suggests a character flaw like ASPD or something similar (though I'm certainly no expert). Blurring the distinction is part of what makes cults, lobbies, communes and other social experiments successful. A sophisticated con is one that works so well that the patsies don't know they're manipulated.
Individualism all the way... I'll second that.
Waste of time 'Ronaldawg' convincing Huxley and Prains, those two collectivist, state worshiping tools are self-delusional retards who of course know better and would make things real different next time around.
Murray Rothbard was completely right in every way. The state in all its fucked up forms needs to be torched. Anyone is free to form their own self-funded fucking commune. However, get in MY way and you will take a .308.
By the way this is not some debate or conversation it's a warning.
A Fucked off 'Individual'.
Prains, you have confused collectivism with COMMUNITY. They are not the same thing. Collectivism subsumes the individual and turns him into a piece of the machine. Community respects the liberty of the individual and thrives through voluntary action.
Collectivism solves nothing. Community solves everything.
Sadly, there are many ignorant people out there who cannot tell the difference between these two ways of living, which is why we are in so much trouble today...
wow...completely asinine....
You got it wrong, it doesn't take an army to fight the said ass-rape, but only for a sovereign individual to say NO. At that point it forces them to use violence, exposing themselves to any sentient being as the fraud they truly are.
"we live on a globe with soon to be 10 billion people."
No, we don't.
As populations rise (and concentrate themselves), average IQ's collapse. Go do your research before you attempt to flame me for stating fact.
American test scores are abyssmal because heavily populated URBAN US schools provide a statistical weighting bias to the downside that is unconquerable.
This discussion has nothing to do with Hispanics, Blacks, or anything else related to skin color, hair texture, or cultural bias.
FACT is that the collectivist mindset grows out of the increasing burden of population concentration and overreach (ie: urbanization).
So, we do not live on a planet with soon to be 10 Billion people. We live in a Universe, soon to be minus one intelligently populated planet.
The human race has reached the "swarm" stage of it's population growth, and just like the allegorical locust, the swarm will collapse when the field of grain is gone.
Those who remain will be the the ones most adapable to the rapidly changing environment.
If you do not feel like you are personally thriving in today's "chaotic" world, then you are already road-kill, and I don't give two shits whether you are a fucking Ph.D from the Ivy league or some "knockout game" playing retard from West Killadelphia...
Road-fucking-kill.
"Ask your mother why she fed and educated you like a collectivist instead of leaving you out in the woods to take care of yourself."
That verbiage alone makes your whole argument moot Huxley. Mother's feed and educate their children INDIVIDUALLY, and as a family, and are responsible for them. Has been that way for thousands of years.
We can't help that you appear to have been raised in some collectivist farm.....pity.
My mother taught me to read with a switch in the front yard because I have ADD. Today the collective would have her arrested and put me on meds. By the time I was 14 I had read every adventure novel and military history in the public library and had no clue that I had a disability.
The collective sits in New Orleans and waits. Individuals get to higher ground.
ADD and ADHD are scams. They were pushed by the psychiatry professsion starting in about the 1970s when that 'profession' was on the downslide. Big Pharma agreed to back the psychiatrists if theyd go along with 'brain chemistry' excuses to medicate people.
If you couldnt concentrate in school, it was likely due to the piss poor nature of 'schooling' designed to dumb down students since the 1890s-early 1900s. What intelligent kid could sit still for that ? You were also likely put in front of a t.v. since you were a little kid. The way t.v. 'programming' is put together is very 'jerky' and disjointed. This does not build the ability to concentrate. Your school made you sit down at a desk & shut up, when you were filled with energy and wanted to move & make noise. Later they rang bells between classes and made you raise your hand in class . . . . a kind of rat maze training.
Many people hear about the true nature of the ADD and ADHD scams and become angry. They 'identifed' themselves as victims of this bullshit 'disease or condition' all their lives, and its hard to let go of such an identity.
To learn more about psychiatry and ADHD/ADD research Jon Rappoport. To learn more about the nature of 'schools' research John Taylor Gatto.
Youre just fine as you are, and always were. 'They' tried to teach you different to disempower you, manipulate you, and exploit you.
ADHD was inventented to keep any future leaders "in-check". And furhtermore.... Hey! There goes a butterfly.....
Yep. God help any bright, free-thinking child who lacks vigilant parents. Ritalin is the great equalizer in a rotten mainstream school system.
AldousHuxley - Since its likely you were taught in a collectivist 'school', you have an excuse for not knowing what collectivism is. The goal of such schools is to dumb you down.
Human beings can work together on goals which they choose as individuals to pursue. This is no more collectivism than a football team.
In collectivism, the stated overall 'goal' is made bigger than the individuals pursuing it. Usually such stated goals are used by a small group to take advantage of the naive followers. So those hyping 'America's free market' set up monopolies that control the political process with bribes, and those hyping ' a new socialist state for the workers' live in posh villas, have limos, and have access to all the western goods they may desire.
Its a scam.
Gosh. How did mankind get to its current stage of technical and social development without continuous collectivism from the getgo?
Comparing a mother's love for a child to collectivism suggests you need to do a bit of research.
One of the numerous problems of collectivism is that it takes the healthy purpose and function of the family's natural cohesion and tries to repackage it in a coerced, artificial, and illusory manner that destroys human freedom, dignity, and propserity. That is its nature and purpose, and that has consistently been its historical path.
"Ask your mother why she fed and educated you like a collectivist instead of leaving you out in the woods to take care of yourself."
It always amazes me how liberals seem to never even hear the word "voluntarily" - My Mother raised me because she wanted to and recognized it was her responsibility to do so as a child lacks the skills and abilities to take care of its self.
The collective is based on "Coercion" - another word Liberals don't seem to understand. A collective is a place where people who are NOT your mother, and who don't WANT to care for you because you are an able-bodied adult capable of taking care of yourself ( if you were so inclined) , are forced to do so at gun point.
And no, success isn't luck - although luck can be a contributing factor. . Its something called "hard work" and "ambition" - You see, not everyone blames their failures in life on others or sits on the bridge in Katrina waiting for the Bus to arrive, but instead takes the initiative and personal responsibility for their own life and actions and FINDS A WAY (sometimes via luck, but not always) to provide enough value to others to pay for what he consumes via voluntary translations ( there is that word again) for his services. You, providing little or no value yourself, or playing advocate for those who do not provide value, because it makes you feel superior or because provides you with the power you crave over others, of course feel differently. The very idea of Freedom is meaningless to you - either because it invalidates your quest for power, or because it invalidates whatever alibi you have been using for your lack of success to this point.
You see no reason why it would be wrong to force people to belong to a group they despise, and then force them to serve the goal of that group as a slave in a system where freedom is what you have left over after self-righteous, narcissistic pigs hogging all the apples in the farmhouse have made their demands. Either because you want to be one of the pigs, or because you want a system that hides your inadequacy and inability to provide for yourself.
It's interesting that a black person thinks children are part of a public collective. That race HAS been collectivized. It fits all the tenets in the story above, especially the one about black families not being fit to raise the next generation. No wonder whites are so frustrated with the black community, it's like arguing with a borg.
Hispanics will be the next group to be collectivized, everything already dropping into place - free healthcare, housing, SNAP cards, etc. Whites after that, once the government steals their wealth.
It was easy to collectivize the black community in the US, they are raised and brainwashed with the belief that their existence as human beings and their human rights only came about only as a result of some piece of paper gifted from Uncle Sam, which is why most of them are nothing more a bunch of Uncle Toms gladly doing their State master's bidding.
What is more alarming are the vast swaths of other ethnic groups- who are not burdened with that relatively minor intellectual hurdle, and yet desire a social contract where the individual is effectively the property (slave) of the State. What's their excuse for such lunacy?
It's not as if the fascists predilection for burning books, or at least excluding them from the educational canon, has actually placed the great debates of the philsophes out of reach of the masses. But yet, the "educated" masses manage to walk away from the Cliff's Notes versions they are indoctrinated with having acquired the insane notion that SLAVERY is preferable to FREEDOM, unless, of course, you phase it that language that bare to one of mongrels.
Urban Redneck - your statement is filled with the kind of racist sentiment displayed by the controllers. They use such thoughts as an excuse for exploiting others . . . no matter their race.
In general, human beings are pretty much the same. NY state and NYC Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto taught throughout NYC in rich neighborhoods and in Harlem. Once he got past the external rough edges, he found that kids ability to learn was pretty much the same no matter where they came from. And in fact, he found that poor black kids actually learned more easily than priviledged white kids. The reason is that the rich white kids had everything given to them on a platter, and couldnt think for themselves.
Kids do poorly in schools, because schools are designed to dumb them down. This has been going on since the 1890s-early 1900s. Americans of the 1770s were better educated and better thinkers than people today, before mandatory 'schooling' was in place. Many kids from more wealthy areas have ready access to various toys that only make them more ignorant.
Perhaps you should look deeper.
Superficially, you are correct, but, superficially, many people claim not to live in fear/conformity/whathaveyou based on what other people think. And those same often people wonder why politicians offer superficial bullshit, instead of solutions. I'm not going to waste my time leading the blind to water, and in fact- since the path to salvation is painful I will intentionally use nomenclature that is painful to read.
As to education, I don't buy that socioeconomic circumstance outweighs access. For every poor kid actually struggling to escape the ghetto, there is a well off kid struggling to win in a competitive academic environment. It all comes down to where the kid places his or her priorities, which is more likely to be influenced by individual parents, teachers or peers, than by fungible dollars.
In the early nineties you could buy a next cube for $10,000 and they'd throw in a single CD with the collected works of William Shakespeare, or you could buy a hard-bound copy of the 2nd edition OED for a couple grand. Today, for less than a hundred devalued dollars that one spends on the latest piece of iCrap or designer book-bag/purse/jacket/shoes anyone can get a laptop with linux, find a place with free wifi access, and access more knowledge than any person could absorb in a lifetime, and yet the vast majority would prefer to facefuck themselves as opposed to actually broadening their minds.
Too bad the facefucked have no concern for the costs of their self-indulgence to the broader community, otherwise, they might have been worth saving. The shit has already hit the fan, and timelines required to provide salvation for the ignorant masses are history. Triage is about letting the walking dead die, identifying those who might be saved, and making hard decisions about the division of scarce resources amongst those who might make it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtEaR1JU-ps
" The pursuit of an unemotional, mechanical perfection is the Borg's only motivation. This is achieved through forced assimilation, a process which takes individuals and technology, enhancing and controlling them."
We are living someone else's dream...
.
Not yet we aren't, by the grace of God.
That woman in the video is sick.
The Borg were envisioned as the 24th century version of 'zombies', which themselves were an allegory for exactly what's happening now- making mindless slaves of people. Just that the infection process is a lot more dramatic in the movies. In reality the 'zombies' aren't aware they are zombies or that they even became infected at some non-specific point in their lives.
Right up until the point somebody says something like:
"They advance, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. No more. This ends HERE. This is where we say 'this far and NO further.'" <Jean Luc Picard> (Or words to that effect- that's from memory.)
Fortunately, we're not battling aliens with unlimited resources or unkillable zombies. Just other people with really fucked up ideas of how things should be run. They'll fall easier than the Borg. Not because we beat them back in a fair fight (we'll lose almost every battle) but because they'll fail from within. We don't have to beat them, we just have to beat their strategy. Survive long enough to outlast their food source. They are just parasites, after all.
If 7 of 9 were typical of the collective I'd join in a minute.
Resistance is futile.
Resistance is essential...
No, preparation is essential, as the system is collapsing upon itself.
I practice both, and other forms of dissent, all in a good days work...
"[The Alliance] will swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. I aim to misbehave."
+1,000,000 for the Serenity quote. Captain Malcolm Reynolds FTMFW.
Indeed.
And a small ode to THX-1138...
.
Chrome Robot: Everything will be all right. You are in my hands. I am here to protect you. You have nowhere to go. You have nowhere to go.
SRT: How shall the new environment be programmed? It all happened so slowly that most men failed to realize that anything had happened at all.
OMM: Let us be thankful we have commerce. Buy more. Buy more now. Buy. And be happy.
Female voice (over P.A.): Changeable. Alterable. Mutable. Variable. Versatile. Moldable. Movable. Fluctuate. Undulate. Flicker. Flutter. Pulsate. Vibrate. Alternate. Plastic.
OMM: Let us be thankful we have an occupation to fill. Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents and be happy.
+1 for the reference to that classic but little-known movie.
"Consumption is being standardized"
Great movie!
Recommend reading Jack Londons 'The Iron Heal' considered to be "the earliest of the modern Dystopian"
Dapper Dan
re: "Recommend reading Jack Londons 'The Iron Heal' considered to be "the earliest of the modern Dystopian""
I've had others elsewhere recommend that book to me as well, maybe it's time to get at it...
HTML:
The Iron Heel by Jack LondonOther forms(Kindle, plaintext, etc.) here:
http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1164
And at the time, I thought Maggie McOmie was so hot in that movie. Something about the haircut. But then Persis Khambatta came round and then I was definitely sold. Now would a hot chick with that type of haircut be an individualist?
I would rather live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep. Let the games begin.
The French are a pretty docile people, but when they couldn't take anymore shit, elitist heads started to roll.
The New Popsicle Treat
Heads on a Stick!
Be the first to show your friends you're a tough guy at treat time!
Funnily enough old style feudalism was way closer to anarcho-capitalism than anything we have today.
The French weren't necessarily docile surrender monkeys until after the First Empire (Napoleon) and the Third Republic (WWI) had decimated the gene pool, all which happened after the serfs had finished lopping off the heads of the ancien régime.
"The -insert continental european people here- are a pretty docile people" is an Anglo-American myth, imho
please count how many revolutions of different kinds the various continental peoples had in the last centuries
my favourite one is when 1989 the citizens of the German "Democratic" Republic went on the street chanting: "We are The People" - which was understood as "We are The Sovereign" and so brought down their socialist regime
when was the last time the Anglo-American countries had a revolution? basically, in the UK it was in the 17th century and in the US the 18th
In fairness, we had a good ol' revolution round abouts the middle of the 19th century. Unfortunately, the fascists won that round. It cost the lives of over 625,000 soldiers out of a population of 31 million, which was more blood then the US military spent on ww1 and ww2 combined (522,000)...
WW1 + WW2 Military deaths
UK - 1.3 million
France - 1.6 million
Germany/Austria - 8.7 million
Russia - 10 million
Throw in the civilian deaths, military and civilian casualties, and compare relative to population size and Europeans look like a bunch of campfire lovin' kumbayah singers (with a penchant for human sacrifice)...
I don't measure revolutions by the blood spilled, I measure them by the change they provoke
your civil war just pushed a confederation on it's way to become a federation further to an unitary state (you might be one of the few that understand the difference between those three)
from a constitutional point of view the change was... how many? two amendments? three?
it's nevertheless now USA version 1.27 , not USA version 2.0
"damn frogs" have French Republic version 5.0 build 1958, for comparison, and sometimes they discuss 6.0
and don't get me even started on the British, they are just patching up the Glorious Version build 1688 since then
of course, this is a very continental view
"your civil war just pushed a confederation on it's way to become a federation further to an unitary state (you might be one of the few that understand the difference between those three"
That's one of the most succinct descriptions I've seen.
Three amendments, but more importantly, a convenient meme and mechanism to demonize anyone who attempts to limit the growth of the leviathan in the innermost/federal circle of hell. There is an interesting clause that started appearing in Constitutional amendments at that time, that was never used previously, despite all the legislation pursuant to those previous Constitutional Amendments- Congress being the Federal legislature and all...
Amendment XIII
Section 1
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Amendment XIV
Section 1
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave. But all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Amendment XV
Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
WE DON'T NEED NO ED-U-CATION!
Individuals as property of other individuals is self contradictory. This is especially true of systems with such noble goals as egalitariansim, since being the property of another, implies ownership. If all individuals are created equal, how can some individuals be owners, while others are property? You get the picture.
More egalitarian contradiction:
1) People are all the same.
2) We need more diversity.
How can we get more diversity, if people are all the same?
Liberalism: It doesn't have to logical, as long as it's destructive.
We don't need no re-education! THERE FIXED IT FOR YOU.
This is the landscape of the Self-Absorbed finally infesting a critical mass of places of influence and control, nurtured by the equally self-absorbed sycophant who has attained their expectations.... there is dumbing-down, and there is a dearth of emotional intelligence, but in the end it is all about Control.
We are in for one helluva ride...
When the Collective Crumbles:
http://www.grandpappy.info/honehour.htm
And I wouldn't be too concerned about the Borg. Remember boys and girls, the Borg is largely helpless.
there is dumbing-down,
We are in for one helluva ride...
********
Agree-but the black sheep still have the ability and knowledge to drink upstream-
Now what we got here is a failure to communicate. And a case of reverse Darwinism.
nyet, tovarich.
We do not believe in the collective.
Sincerely,
Equality 7-2521
An Anthem fan. Very good reference.
May we all be "Transgressors".
I once read, many years ago, that "Equality 7-2521" was Ayn Rand's first phone number after she moved to New York City --- this was back in the days (really dating myself here) when the first two digits of a phone number were expressed by the first two letters of an "exchange".
The Fed already believes individuals belong to it. Just look at how they play with the time value of everyone to fund bad banks.
children of the statehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtjsD0gplHE&feature=youtu.be
This looks more and more like that conspiracy theory... new something ?
Excellent video.
Very effective. But how many will WATCH?
I guess I just don't get it. When the red headed chick at the end was ranting on about, " Blah, blah, oppressive patriarchy blah blah", all I could think of was how good her mouth would feel on my cock.
I'm bad. bad. Stupid patriarchistism. er. dude....
The Neomarxist onslaught is moving forward and everyone is asleep. Not a single coherent voice against the born again Stalinism, after the fall of the USSR. And this is sad, just sad, we truly deserve our fate. We have become complacent hiding behind principles and institutions that they are actively taring apart in front of our very eyes, meanwhile we still perceive their existence as self evident. We are truly handing them the rope to hang us with, It is a sign of decadence on our behalf.
Remember to keep a list of the names. When it comes crumbling down, don't let them walk away unscathed
History is repeating itself as dictated by the kondratiev grand supercycle; 70 years and the plutocracy have feathered their nests to nurture the next genertaion of blue-blood despots.
The wave began from the roaring twenties to lull the public into stocks so they could unwind their positions, the market crashed and a war followed, nothing beats a good war to splash water on the beached-flapping fish out of water, that is a dying empire.
Following wars, the state then creates work-houses to create a pool of labour.
Bourgeoisie
"The bourgeoisie’s ownership of the means of production enabled their employment and exploitation of the wage-earning working class (urban and rural), people whose sole economic means is labour; and the bourgeois control of the means of coercion suppressed the socio-political challenges of the lower classes, and so preserved the economic status quo; workers remained workers, and employers remained employers"
Much like Africa as one of the richest continents with their resources, they are kept in the lower echelons with an empires boot on their neck, so they never expolit their own wealth, so are the children of modern society - they must be repressed and indoctrinated with placidity via cultural servitude; never to question authority and accept what they're given.
So in answer to the question...yes, individuals are the property of the collective and resistance is futile.
"So in answer to the question...yes, individuals are the property of the collective and resistance is futile."
Your suffocating missive exposes you.
Sorry, Charlie Marx. Pre-European Contact Africa existed at the Neolithic Tribal level of cultural development. No written language, no architecture, no science-- not even the wheel. To exploit natural resources, one must have the intelligence to know there are resources and the work ethic to extract them. The "noble savage held down by evil, white, Christian, heterosexual, patriarchal oppressors myth" has got to go. The savage is not noble--he's just a stupid, superstitious cannibal.
And you need to start questioning your servitude & indoctrination to cultural marxism. Seriously.
there in lies the principle objection to libertarianism. the us constitution was a celebration of the unique american spirit, rugged individualism. libertarians understand this and fight to make people understand liberty is a personal right to defend oneself against group rights, collective rights. the usa .gov has turned that idea around so it now protects the group from individual rights. the most glaring example is the change of legal doctrine that protected the individual from the state in criminal matters. the state used to err on the side of the guilty lest the state convict an innocent person. today, every one of the first ten amendments have been compromised with the argument that the collective must be protected so individual rights are subordinate to their protection. of course, no one is protected from the state in the end by this reasoning, effectively negating the entire purpose of the constitution as an explicit protection of the individual against the power of .gov.
Communist
They sure as hell don't want me as part of their collective.
I am so glad that I do not watch TV much. Is that dippy broad spouting what passes as intellectual thought nowadays?
Where are the Goths?
pods
Ditched my cable service and got rid of my TV in 2006. One of the best decisions I've made.
awesome-bet you didn't miss it, in fact your life improved.
now try it with your car, smart phone ect.
then you will be livin the whole deal and laughing at all around you subsidizing your better life...
Had lunch with the collective at work a while back, instead of checking on ZH.
One of the topics at was what was going on with the shows. What shows did you DVR, are you current, etc.
I sat there quietly. Finally someone asked what I watch. I don't watch TV, except old reruns of the Brady bunch after dinner (nap really).
Silence.
Once you move away from TV, you see it for what it is and don't go back.
pods
Absolutely. Now 18 months free. You know how weird the commercials are on an old videotape? When I occasionally see TV now, that's how the current commercials seem
Precisely.
Unfortunately, whether a millennium of Western civilization can survive a century of that dastardly box is still TBD.
Electricity shortages should be quite interesting.
@ Pods:
They don't call it "programming" for nothing.....
"Once you move away from TV, you see it for what it is and don't go back."
I feel the same way about Facebook. Been Facebook free for over a year
Haven't had a TeeVee for 5 years. Keep on preachin' it, Freddie!
Awesome! I ditched my satellite TV in 2005. They didn't understand I didn't want to watch TV.
"... no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”
- R. Heinlein.
Never underestimate the depravity of humanity.
In the Rwandan genocide they didn't bother with bullets, instead they slaughtered 1million people in 90 days with machetes and raped women with broken bottles.
The hutus wanted to spread fear by slicing the breasts of women so a new generation would remember the horror.
A mans mind may be free, but if his eyes have been tainted with his wife being raped and mutilated, then his own existence will be anything but free.
Red flags go up whenever I hear of stories of widespread rape and violence against women. That is one of the most visceral emotional triggers for men to stop thinking.
I am sure it happens, but more times than not, rape is a psyops campaign to sway opinion.
pods
I, like many here, don't underestimate. Hence, I am (and they are) well armed. This may not prevent my own death, but like the sting of a bee or of a scorpion, it may make others reconsider any planned fuckery involving my involuntary participation.
I've got a neighboring 5 acres free if you ever need it.
You'd rather live a long life as a slave than to die as a free man. The slavemasters used to rape the wives of their male slaves. Being a slave doesn't mean that your family will be safe
i think collectivism is a result of increased productivity-excess for plunder by people to stupid to know it is temporary(the good times) 100 years ago one worked sun up to sun down to meet your basic needs-survival. we get ultra productive via oil/carbon complex and these excesses are shared via consfication to a whole class of parasites. they become the ruling class by shere numbers and overwelm the system. get ready for the great reset-perfect storm of human demise. water, monsanto crops, oil depletion, envirnmental instability and chaos all converging to the great purge of the 21 st century. beam me back in 2101.
Everyone that's ever collected anything knows that feeling of emptyness once everything they wanted to collect has been collected.
My collections are now mostly collecting dust, to the best of my recollection.
My collections are now mostly collecting dust, to the best of my recollection.
*************
If a person studies too much and exhausts his reflective powers, he will be confused, and will not be able to apprehend even that which had been within the power of his apprehension. For the powers of the body are all alike in this respect.
Maimonides
-Guess what Ma, I dumped my family and now I'm married to the government!
-It's not like it's all about me, it's about all of us, the community and they, well, he knows what's best for us...
-Oh, he's in charge of "us".
-Well, guess what, I've been selected for the top breeding program because of my exceptional...
-No, I don't ever get to be on top but...
-Yes those other times were sex too but not the procreative kind...that part of the anatomy wasn't exactly involved...at least not mine but...
-...well then they go off to be raised by the community of course and....I get to go on a special vacation!
-Yes, just like her, my friend I told you about.
-No, no I never saw her again...
"Even an Epsilon…" Lenina suddenly remembered an occasion when, as a little girl at school, she had woken up in the middle of the night and become aware, for the first time, of the whispering that had haunted all her sleeps. She saw again the beam of moonlight, the row of small white beds; heard once more the soft, soft voice that said (the words were there, unforgotten, unforgettable after so many night-long repetitions): "Every one works for every one else. We can't do without any one. Even Epsilons are useful. We couldn't do without Epsilons. Every one works for every one else. We can't do without any one…" Lenina remembered her first shock of fear and surprise; her speculations through half a wakeful hour; and then, under the influence of those endless repetitions, the gradual soothing of her mind, the soothing, the smoothing, the stealthy creeping of sleep.…
Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too-all his life long. The mind that judges and desire and decides-made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions... Suggestions from the State.
-Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, 1931
So The CAKE really IS A LIE!
Communism is never meant for the "jew", ahem, Communist himself, of course.
The controlled "collective". I've been meaning to touch on this again...because it pisses me off.
What these ignoramuses fail to see always is that at some point and time the "collective" will turn on them through their own appointed leaders.
Who gave the authority to demand by law that some broke-ass kid coming out of college HAD TO BUY health insurance for the good of the whole?
Who gave the authority to demand by law that some sawed off runt mayor from NYC could impose HIS eating & drinking habits on everyone under him?
Who gave the authority to demand by law that I pay a national debt I fought tooth & nail against?
Who gave the authority to demand by law that WE go even deeper in debt & debase the currency in shit like Fisker, A123, Solyndra, windmills, algae, "saving & creating" worthless paper pushers, Cash for Clunker-Caulkers?
By what right, derived under what authority, do you deign to impose yourself on the rest? Because at some point in time you were a majority, the pinnacle of "democracy", merely popularity?
You threw away the law, its meaning of fairness & equality for ALL in your drunken collectivist zeal...you've reaped the whirlwind.
Don't cry over your creation.
You're confused. The government is us, remember? And you're part of us, right? So whatever the government does, is you doing it too!
So this 'fighting tooth and nail' against national debt... you must be imagining things... how can you fight tooth and nail against yourself?
Unless you are mentally ill. Here, you come with us, comrade.
"The government is us, remember? And you're part of us, right?"
No, now THAT would be confused...lol.
The government is them. I have never told someone what to eat, drink, smoke, written a traffic ticket, told them where to stand, where to cross, what to read, speak, see or hear, imposed a tax, fine, levy, fee or sent armed men in riot gear...paid for by those I oppressed into a less-than-nothingness state of being, to take those fees/taxes from them.
Take me to my padded cell now, paid for, by them ;-)
@ nmewn:
Take THEM to their padded cells.
Better yet, why don't we put them on a Carnival Cruise ship; It only costs $38/day now, so it would work out to be a major savings for us.
We can cut costs even further, by sending the ship on a cruise to the Sea of Japan, with a big series of concentric red circles and the phrase "Shibal nom, Geseki" painted on the port side.
Take THEM to their padded cells or the gallows ;-)
Nice Korean phrase, Mon. "Lick my rim Kim" might work also...
The government is "them." "US" LMFAO. Newman's right, for once.
Ya know, and I mean this, bitchez. I don't agree with all of you, but we should all be in agreement this place has seen some better days.
And I'm asking this of all you hardcore libertarians out there, and the rest of us... If we aren't careful... This place seems a heartbeat away from going Rush freaking Limbaugh.
When EVEN the libertarians around here stop calling BULLSHIT on the NEOCONS that are showing up... this will be the type of shit we're gonna get around here. Nothing thought provoking.... Bill O'Reilly type "MY GRANDPA SAID....
It happened when "growth" was first mentioned around here... Now with automation.... and EVerything else lately it seems.
Everybody's a fucking "comrade." Even newman now for FCS.
When newman's being called comrade... we have problems, people. And I don't even like newman. He can attest. ;)
You have upvotes for this bullshit.
CASE AND FUCKING POINT, bitchez.
And what is the problem with going "Rush freaking Limbaugh"?????
Absolutely nothing for too many people in this place.
So, was it my comment of the broke-ass college kid being forced to buy health insurance by the collective or the destruction of the very foundation of equitable law that prompted your comment? ;-)
What were you saying against the collective when these two very much connected issues (or any of the above) hung in the balance?
I know exactly what I was saying and why.
Bah, I was defending you for some drunk reason.
The argument was.. is it "We the People?" Or is it "It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it."
Government is "them" , not "us"
I'll stick with Carlin... while I await the day Rush is a "Guest Post" or "contributor" and somehow viewed as a credible source around here. A scary thought that wouldn't shock me.
"Bah, I was defending you for some drunk reason."
lol...I guess I need to fine tune my sarc antenna then ;-)
...Everybody's a fucking "comrade." Even newman now for FCS.
When newman's being called comrade... we have problems, people.
LOL, I see irony hasn't quite managed to inveigle its way into your consciousness.
Haha, whatever. Your post reads like an excuse simply to use the word. "Comrade" is the way simple minds like yours add validity to your own ridiculous comments.
AND if YOU aren't a NEOCON, you're about the closest thing we have to it around here these dayz.
Hell, I thought you it was your schtick to relay FOXNEWS talking points. You do it well, and often.
Not who, but what: the innate behaviors by which people determine how they, and by extension, others, should survive.
"An organism is a collection of problem solving devices - adaptations - that were shaped by natural selection over evolutionary time to promote, in some specific way, the survival of the genes that directed their construction." Symons, 2005
The collectivists are wired to survive as collectivists, the individualists are wired to survive as individualists, and both rightly consider their survival to be threatened by the other. Hence, the desire of the former to control the latter, and the desire of the latter to escape the control of the former.
Hehe,
The biggest problem with the collectivist types is that they will never accept your premise that they should fuck off and go play somewhere else.
They don't root for Steve McQueen...They root for the Blob.
That's why I consider the collectivist mind to be the psychopathic spectrum mind.
It operates as if it were still in the animal world.
As always, the pic that accompanies this article is fantastically apropos.
Children of the Damned, the only thing creepier is our reality.
I like your Banana Splits pic.
The idea of individualism vs collectivism is a false dichotomy. They aren't at odds, but part of the same thing. They are both '-isms'. Neither one will do anyone any good.
Sticking to an ideology means that you are elevating one principle over another. In the case of individualism, it's elevating the concept of the individual over the masses. In collectivism, the concept of the masses over the individual.
We're all human. We are social and like living within a community. When it's forced upon us, it becomes false community. This turns nasty because a bunch of people who don't actually like eachother are forced to act like they do.
We're all human. We are inherently individual and self interested. We don't have to hold onto some concept on individualism to be that.
I think that accepting either means you've decided that your own human nature is not good enough.
It also probably means you have some idea of progress; some direction society ought to go. Are we (humans) happier today than when we were living in caves simply because of the fact that we have the ability to prolong our lives into the dementia-plagued triple-digits?
Maybe because we have weapons that can kill millions, rather than ones that can kill just one or two at a time? Or perhaps because we can remained glued to a tiny, glowing screen for hours at a time under the pretense that we're being 'productive'.
Or maybe it's that we have lower depression rates nowadays the ability to perscribe perscription drugs to sad people to make them persistently and homicidally happy?
Enough of this. I get annoyed when people preach about the 'right way' to move 'forward'. One of those phrases that makes me tic, you know?
/rant off
Ralph,
'We're all human. We are inherently individual and self interested. We don't have to hold onto some concept on individualism to be that.'
If everyone understood this we would not need to talk about it. But since most people don't, we need to give it a name.
I think you should read the article again. You obviously missed something. Individualism means that each individual has a choice of what he wants to accept or believe it does not mean that " your own human nature is not good enough." Also " we don't have to hold onto some concept on individualism to be that," you have to have some sort of concept in your brain or you're not thinking. Try not thinking about anything for long enough and you are either dead or you have reached nirvana or both. Try thinking something intelligent, Ralph.
Your definition of individualism seems a bit off to me. I would argue that being an individual, which we are by nature, regardless of whether we are thinking or not, is what means "each individual has a choice of what he wants to accept or believe".
Individualism is an ideology, and I hope you would agree with my saying that. If it is an ideology, then it would be a belief that "each individual has a choice of what he wants to accept or believe" . Nothing is wrong with this on it's own, but let me give you an example of a similar ideology that has gone awry:
Collectivists are people who believe that "each individual is benefited by the success of the group". While I think most people would agree that groups are important to human survival (and sanity), collectivists take it to another level. Their belief in this fact gives way to worship of this fact. Some of these people become so rabid about their beliefs that they are ok with killing people in order to achieve their ideal.
Now I do not know if individualists would do the same thing, as I have never really seen that happen. But I do know that throughout times many ideologies (religious, political, philosophical), regardless of how honestly the people who hold them are striving for good by them, are potentially dangerous.
They are dangerous because they usurp our own human desires for happiness in a pursuit of a (likely unattainable) ideal.
So I would say it is better to hold no ideologies at all than hold an ideology that, right now, is very relevant. And it's relevant because people (collectivists) have forgotten that it's part of our nature, and they want to villify it.
Let me make one more analogy:
If your little brother is purposely trying to annoy you, what is the best way to get him to stop? You can either retaliate, or you can be more mature, ignore him, and move on.
Using individualism as a tool to combat collectivism only strengthens the latter.
I think that you just missed what I was trying to say. I hope I have communicated my point better this time.
Goodnight!
Ralph - you keep tripping over all the strawmen you put in your way.....
Aside from the collective versus the individual, everything else is a false dialectic. Collectivism is the centralized control of everything by the State, including your life! Collectivism is not warm and fuzzy, it is murder, mayhem and tyranny. Its poster children include the likes of Stalin and Mao. Don't be one of their collectivist bullshit-spewing useful idiots, be a self-determined individual for fuck's sake.
So you support panarchism, where people are free to choose whatever government they want, like they are free to choose their religion? Belief in government is no more important than belief in religion.
Panarchism is a political philosophy emphasizing each individual's right to freely join and leave the jurisdiction of any governments they choose, without being forced to move from their current locale. The word "panarchy" was invented and the concept proposed by a Belgian political economist, Paul Émile de Puydt in an article called "Panarchy" published in 1860.[1] The word "panarchy" has since taken on additional, separate meanings, with the word "panarchism" referring to the original definition by de Puydt.[1]
De Puydt, a proponent of laissez-faire economics,[1] wrote that "governmental competition" would allow "as many regularly competing governments as have ever been conceived and will ever be invented" to exist simultaneously and detailed how such a system would be implemented. As David M. Hart writes: "Governments would become political churches, only having jurisdiction over their congregations who had elected to become members."[2]
Panarchism has been embraced by some libertarians and socialists, including some of those promoting secession from existing states and those advocating creation of new micronations. Max Nettlau in the early 1900s and John Zube in the latter part of the century wrote extensively on the concept in articles found on Panarchy.Org.
Two similar ideas are "Functional Overlapping Competing Jurisdictions" (FOCJ) advocated by Swiss economists Bruno Frey and Reiner Eichenberger and “multigovernment” advocated by Le Grand E. Day and others.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panarchism
I had never heard the term. It seems like something I might be open to. Actually I think a lot of ZH readers could possibly be interested in this sort of thing.
Thanks for bringing this to the table.
Other people are not my property, I have no 'right' to control them.
Defend myself from them, yes.
Turn the rant back on/
Function determines individualism and will to rise to evocation, where destiny or circumstances, defines those of the collective; there is no real connectivity or direct link between the roles, only probability and milieu.
It is either Man the Accomplished or man the unaccomplished.
It is what the Sepher of Moses, the first book of the Bible is all about - not that you would believe that from all the manipulated translations. Francic Bacon knew... read your Shakespeare.
http://verbewarp.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/waiting-to-die.html
http://verbewarp.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/beyond-genesis-revolution-of-mi...
The problem is that the lack of Risk is the Cause of "denial".
Excellent stuff
Ho hum