Socialism is the ideal way to go. Change my Mind - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#15001103
SolarCross wrote:5. Socialists are horrible, horrible, people. I don't meant they are horrible because they are socialists I mean they are horrible people in their characters quite separately from the odiousness of their beliefs. Given that under the jackboots of socialism the socialists will be the overclass controlling everything then they really need to be saintly people for that situation to be even remotely tolerable. As it is none of them are, just the opposite.

I have spent years in partisan political trenches on both the left and the right, and can confirm that politically active socialists, at least, are generally people I would not choose to associate with. It's very interesting to me that the leaders tend to be very smart, but unscrupulous and dishonest in their pursuit of power over their betters, while the rank and file are distinctly unintelligent -- certainly less intelligent than the politically active rank and file on the right -- and unsuccessful in work and life.

I have concluded that socialism is actually driven by resentment of others' merit, and a desire to take away the success they have earned. Socialists harbor a special enmity for the self-made man, and are usually much better disposed to a rich but idle heir to wealth than to an industrialist who has earned exactly the same amount of money by his own efforts, starting from scratch. They also have a special love of taxing income rather than wealth, and have little interest in taxing unearned income more than earned income, or even in distinguishing between the two.

That said, I have also encountered many horrible people on the right -- often those very same successful business people -- who have no regard for others, especially those in difficulty, and can best be understood as high-functioning sociopaths, like Trump. These are often people who believe that anything that is legal must be right -- as well as a lot of things that aren't strictly legal, but they have found they can get away with. They are also utterly impervious to any suggestion that they may not have earned everything they have, and have instead largely been the beneficiaries of injustice. To their mentality, placing oneself in a position to profit from injustice is the same as earning profits by making a commensurate contribution to production.
#15001112
SolarCross wrote:It is slavery, plain and simple.

Slavery is defined as labor compelled by force. By that definition, both socialism and capitalism are forms of slavery, as they both forcibly deprive people of their liberty to support their own existence by using what nature provided, compelling them to labor for the owners' profit or starve to death. This is proved by the invariably slave-like condition of the landless in capitalist countries where government does not intervene massively to rescue the landless from enslavement by landowners, and by the overt enslavement or starvation of workers who don't toe the collective's line in socialist countries.
They call it "expropriation" or "collectivisation" but it is wholesale theft.

As is the appropriation of natural resources as private property in capitalist countries.
You just want a pretty excuse to kill and steal.

IMO the socialist impulse is not so much to kill and steal as to exercise irresponsible power over one's betters. They always reject policy solutions that would reduce the power of government officials, even when they would obviously work better than policies that fail because they rely on officials' honesty and competence.
We don't see that though, we see it in socialist regimes. They are the worst for it, always without fail.

I think you would be hard-pressed to show that socialist Cuba is worse than capitalist Guatemala.
Last edited by Truth To Power on 26 Apr 2019 16:19, edited 1 time in total.
#15001185
Guys can we keep this just between me and SolarCross please? Thanks.

Ok, now this might take a while to explain. Let me start with the most basic idea, and see whether you agree or not.

Firstly, philosophically speaking, socialism at its core is the idea that groups of human beings, which we call societies, work together to care for one another. In fact, this is the way that civilization has always been.

Do you agree?
#15001187
Agent Steel wrote:Guys can we keep this just between me and SolarCross please? Thanks.

Ok, now this might take a while to explain. Let me start with the most basic idea, and see whether you agree or not.

Firstly, philosophically speaking, socialism at its core is the idea that groups of human beings, which we call societies, work together to care for one another. In fact, this is the way that civilization has always been.

Do you agree?

I don't actually. Humans of course are social beings but those relationships are at their best when they are mutually voluntary. Socialism is better called anti-socialism because its agenda is the abolition of voluntary relationships and the imposition of wholesale slavery.
#15001202
You are part of a society. You do not live in isolation. No person does.

It is not slavery if it's to your benefit.

But I mean it's pretty much just a fact of history that all societies are built through group cooperation. You can't deny that you are part of this group.

If you'd like to opt out of this group then you have to show that you are wholly capable of surviving completely independently without any interaction with any other human being. You can't do that. So basically I would say you're not allowed to get out of paying the dues you rightfully owe to society. When you owe dues you must pay them. This is not slavery.
#15001245
Agent Steel wrote:You are part of a society. You do not live in isolation. No person does.

It is not slavery if it's to your benefit.

But I mean it's pretty much just a fact of history that all societies are built through group cooperation. You can't deny that you are part of this group.

If you'd like to opt out of this group then you have to show that you are wholly capable of surviving completely independently without any interaction with any other human being. You can't do that. So basically I would say you're not allowed to get out of paying the dues you rightfully owe to society. When you owe dues you must pay them. This is not slavery.


Which society? There are 2+ billion Christians in this world but somehow I bet you don't mean them. There are almost 2 billion muslims in the world; am I in a society with them? By their doctrine they want to kill me, nice society that, lol. There are just over 1 billion hindus in the world how about them?

You don't mean any of those people and nevermind that they are most of the human population on earth, "society" for the socialist is just a handful absolutely batshit crazy psychopaths: pol pot, stalin etc. That is the "society" I am supposed to be grateful for being enslaved to. :| Not gonna happen. :lol:
Last edited by SolarCross on 27 Apr 2019 03:16, edited 1 time in total.
#15001247
You live in a country. You live in a town. You are part of a society, whether you acknowledge it or not.

Again, would you be willing to live in complete isolation from society? No one lives in complete isolation. We interact with each other daily.

We are stronger when we work together. You can't tell me that you're entirely independent. No one is. Does any one person build a society? No. It just doesn't happen that way.

Socialism is very, very easy to make work if only you would be willing to put forth the absolute minimal effort.
#15001251
Agent Steel wrote:You live in a country. You live in a town. You are part of a society, whether you acknowledge it or not.

Again, would you be willing to live in complete isolation from society? No one lives in complete isolation. We interact with each other daily.

We are stronger when we work together. You can't tell me that you're entirely independent. No one is. Does any one person build a society? No. It just doesn't happen that way.

Socialism is very, very easy to make work if only you would be willing to put forth the absolute minimal effort.

You are making a strawman, you know what that means? I said this orignally:
I don't actually. Humans of course are social beings but those relationships are at their best when they are mutually voluntary. Socialism is better called anti-socialism because its agenda is the abolition of voluntary relationships and the imposition of wholesale slavery.


...and you flat out ignored what I said and started making up some shit about being a hermit or something.

Look you can be a socialist if you want but I don't choose to be in a society with people who are utterly contemptible like all socialists are. I choose other people.
#15001254
Since socialism is about removing the class system that creates economic exploitation, it is actually about stopping involuntary work.

If you define slavery as “work you did not volunteer to do” then capitalism depends on slavery.

Socialism is the struggle to emancipate the working class from this involuntary and coerced labour.

You may now continue with your factually incorrect ad hominem.
#15001256
Pants-of-dog wrote:Since socialism is about removing the class system that creates economic exploitation, it is actually about stopping involuntary work.

If you define slavery as “work you did not volunteer to do” then capitalism depends on slavery.

Socialism is the struggle to emancipate the working class from this involuntary and coerced labour.

You may now continue with your factually incorrect ad hominem.

All of that is nonsense*. You probably don't even believe it yourself. This is why I hold you and all your little hive buddies in complete contempt. It's the lies that get me. I wouldn't mind you half so much if you were honest pirates and slavers.

----------------

Last edited by noemon on 27 Apr 2019 18:01, edited 1 time in total. Reason: *edited
#15001369
SolarCross wrote:....ad hominens, insults, etc.


I sincerely doubt you can show that I am dishonest or incorrect.

In fact, i will be so bold as to predict that you will not support this “argument” in any way.

----------------

Again, the whole point of controlling the economy is to stop economic exploitation.

Capitalism profits off of sweatshops, and the people in the sweatshops have a rational and logical reason to embrace paradigms and ideologies that promise them freedom from such exploitation.
#15001375
Pants-of-dog wrote:I sincerely doubt you can show that I am dishonest or incorrect.

In fact, i will be so bold as to predict that you will not support this “argument” in any way.

----------------

Again, the whole point of controlling the economy is to stop economic exploitation.

Capitalism profits off of sweatshops, and the people in the sweatshops have a rational and logical reason to embrace paradigms and ideologies that promise them freedom from such exploitation.


You are never sincere.

Claim 1: that socialists want to remove a class system.
Refutation 1: in practice socialists want to impose a very brutal class system where only socialists have authority.

Claim 2: that socialists want to stop involuntary work
Refutation 2: mass forced labour is a feature only of countries ruled by socialists.

Claim 3: capitalism depends on slavery
Refutation 3: Capitalism, as defined on page 1, could potentially feature slavery, slavery has played a role in all over the world in all time periods, however it does not depend on it. And modern christian / western countries do not feature it at all. Socialism in practice is the pervasive practice of slavery as seen by EVERY SINGLE socialist country that ever existed. Socialism doesn't just feature slavery it actually does depend on it because without free exchange and proper renumeration nothing gets done without threats of violence and actual terrorism being visited upon the workers. Moveover every single socialist country has violently prevented people escaping.

Claim 4: the purpose of controlling (monopolising) the economy is to prevent "exploitation".
Refutation 4: "exploitation" here needs a definition because the implied definition in this claim is mutual benefit.

Implied claim 5: that "sweatshops" are a pervasive or defining feature of "capitalism".
Refutation 5: Clearly false, they flatly don't exist at all in any western country, and where they are found is in very poor underdeveloped countries suffering from poor governance and which are also very often socialist countries such as China and Vietnam.

Claim 6: that workers in sweatshops have a self interest in "paradigms and ideologies that promise them freedom from such exploitation."
Refutation 6: They should want to improve their circumstances but they would be foolish indeed to trust a socialist to deliver them because they are all proven liars and slavers by history. The sweatshop worker would be trading a low wage for no wage, the freedom to quit and do something else for total domination and enslavement.

Now tell another lie and tell me to my face that I will "not support this 'argument' in any way".
#15001423
SolarCross wrote:You are making a strawman, you know what that means? I said this orignally:


...and you flat out ignored what I said and started making up some shit about being a hermit or something.

Look you can be a socialist if you want but I don't choose to be in a society with people who are utterly contemptible like all socialists are. I choose other people.


Why are socialists contemptible in your view?
#15001427
SolarCross wrote:Claim 1: that socialists want to remove a class system.
Refutation 1: in practice socialists want to impose a very brutal class system where only socialists have authority.


Not always, and we have several historical examples of socialism rising from the people as a response to rapacious capitalism.

Do these responses sometimes use violence to stop the oppression? It is often necessary.

Claim 2: that socialists want to stop involuntary work
Refutation 2: mass forced labour is a feature only of countries ruled by socialists.


Really? When modern capitalism came into being, slavery was common in the western world.

Sweatshops are still common in the developing world, and are used by multinational corporations to make a profit.

So, there are historical and modern examples to disprove your refutation.

Claim 3: capitalism depends on slavery
Refutation 3: Capitalism, as defined on page 1, could potentially feature slavery, slavery has played a role in all over the world in all time periods, however it does not depend on it. And modern christian / western countries do not feature it at all. Socialism in practice is the pervasive practice of slavery as seen by EVERY SINGLE socialist country that ever existed. Socialism doesn't just feature slavery it actually does depend on it because ...bla bla bla more ad hominem.


Again, by your definition of slavery, anyone who is doing work they would not otherwise do is a slave. This would be a good description of anyone who has had to work a crappy job in order to make ends meet.

And modern capitalism depends on a large labour force willing to accept wages that they would not accept if they did not need to buy food, etc.

Claim 4: the purpose of controlling (monopolising) the economy is to prevent "exploitation".
Refutation 4: "exploitation" here needs a definition because the implied definition in this claim is mutual benefit.


The ways in which this economic leverage is exploited are many. Any time people are sexually harassed at work by their boss, or had to work in unsafe conditions, or not be able to take time off work for a birth or a death, or they get avoidably injured at work because the boss cut corners and they cannot work any more.

The list is long. You probably have experienced many of them yourself.

Implied claim 5: that "sweatshops" are a pervasive or defining feature of "capitalism".
Refutation 5: Clearly false, they flatly don't exist at all in any western country, and where they are found is in very poor underdeveloped countries suffering from poor governance and which are also very often socialist countries such as China and Vietnam.


Developing countries are capitalist according to your definition. And they have less regulation than developed countries, so according to free marketeers, these countries are better governed.

And I am fairly sure they do exist in western countries. New York City has a task force whose entire job is to try and get rid of the sweatshops currently operating there.

Claim 6: that workers in sweatshops have a self interest in "paradigms and ideologies that promise them freedom from such exploitation."
Refutation 6: They should want to improve their circumstances but they would be foolish indeed to trust a socialist to deliver them because bla bla more ad hominems.


Since this is just an ad hominem, you have not refuted the fact that it would be rational for sweatshop workers to want something other than the capitalism that led them there.
#15001482
Pants-of-dog wrote:Not always, and we have several historical examples of socialism rising from the people as a response to rapacious capitalism.

Do these responses sometimes use violence to stop the oppression? It is often necessary.

"not always" :lol:

Leftie logic: getting paid or paying someone else is "oppression", but wholesale slaving, looting and murdering is "often necessary" to stop "oppression".

Pants-of-dog wrote:Really? When modern capitalism came into being, slavery was common in the western world.

Slavery has been a feature of human relations since forever, throughout all the world, only the western world specifically Christian Europe during the High Christian period from 900 AD to almost the present day, featured any kind of serious wholesale rollback on slavery. The industrial revolution (which lefties like to pretend is full scope of capitalism though it is not) occurred in a country that was the least offensive on that score. You are trying to make a correlation into a causation which doesn't work because the actual correlation is the opposite of what you are trying to decieve us into accepting. Western Europeans, like the British, were the least reliant on slavery for labour at the time of the industrial revolution.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Sweatshops are still common in the developing world, and are used by multinational corporations to make a profit.


Better in a sweatshop than a gulag. You have to talk down capitalism at least as much as you talk up gulags as being wonderful places of caring and sharing but even so all you have is "sweatshops" which are better than gulags by a country mile.

Pants-of-dog wrote:So, there are historical and modern examples to disprove your refutation.

No they don't because my claim is that capitalism does not depend on sweatshops, they are optional. What you are doing is a fallacious as this bit of faux logic:
Tobacco is a unhealthy product, some people consume tobacco and some people supply tobacco therefore capitalism depends on tobacco and will die of lung cancer.

Gulags (wholesale slavery) in contrast actually are necessary for socialism because without any private ownership there are no attractive incentives or meaningful rewards to do anything for anyone. All that is left to motivate people is terrorism. Without the carrot there can only be the stick.

Image

Sweatshops are where sometimes the carrots don't have to be too big to be sufficient to motivate. Socialism is where all carrots large and small are banned on pain of torture and brutal death.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Again, by your definition of slavery, anyone who is doing work they would not otherwise do is a slave. This would be a good description of anyone who has had to work a crappy job in order to make ends meet.

No you are deceptively pretending that metaphorical force is the same as actual force. So I am hungry, the gods or darwin made me a being that must constantly be shoveling food into my gob to stay alive and I do want to stay alive. Consequently I can say METAPHORICALLY that I am "forced" (by my own nature!) to do some work to get some food. This is not at all the same thing as one person threatening to physically torture another person if they do not work for free; this is ACTUAL slavery.

Pants-of-dog wrote:And modern capitalism depends on a large labour force willing to accept wages that they would not accept if they did not need to buy food, etc.


No it doesn't, in fact day by day the less work is actually done by people at all and is instead done by machines. The more modern the capitalism the less labour is needed and the more "work" is really just gently tapping a few buttons now and again. @Decky is probably the only person on this entire forum that actually does something like actual labour in the course of his trade the rest of us are just gently tapping buttons. How much labour do you think I do as a taxi driver? The car does all the work, I just control it. If a customer has a bag I might help throw it into the back but that is all I do.

Pants-of-dog wrote:The ways in which this economic leverage is exploited are many. Any time people are sexually harassed at work by their boss, or had to work in unsafe conditions, or not be able to take time off work for a birth or a death, or they get avoidably injured at work because the boss cut corners and they cannot work any more.

The list is long. You probably have experienced many of them yourself.

Just because life isn't a perfect utopia populated entirely by angels doesn't mean any of us deserve to suffer the hell of socialism.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Developing countries are capitalist according to your definition. And they have less regulation than developed countries, so according to free marketeers, these countries are better governed.

And I am fairly sure they do exist in western countries. New York City has a task force whose entire job is to try and get rid of the sweatshops currently operating there.

Regulations are not an automatic good. Sometimes they make things worse and sometimes they are just a stupid waste. If regulations are a potential good then to give that good the best chance of happening they should not be monopolised by a violent gang of ideological misanthropists such as the socialists.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Since this is just an ad hominem, you have not refuted the fact that it would be rational for sweatshop workers to want something other than the capitalism that led them there.

No the rational thing for sweatshop workers to want is for more capitalism not less. A sweatshop is not the path to fame and fortune but it is probably better than subsistence farming, begging or starving. And all are better than socialism.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 23

Pretty clear France will be taking a leading role […]

He is even less coherent than Alex Jones. My gu[…]

Yes, and it did not order a ceasefire. Did you ev[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

A new film has been released destroying the offici[…]