Are these mingy little beasts really the champions of the working class? - Page 32 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#15080768
QatzelOk wrote:Yes, it is. But it's a very similar ideology as Christianity and Judaism,

In its religious or metaphysical aspects. Not politically.
with a very similar history and worldview.

No. Historically, Islam, unlike Judaism and Christianity, was spread almost exclusively by military conquest and forcible conversions, and its worldview continues to compass military conquest and forcible conversion of infidels as the preferred method of exterminating all rival ideologies. Christianity and Judaism no longer countenance such goals or measures, and haven't for centuries.
You are only separating this religion from your own worldview because your "race" is predominantly of the other two Abrahamic cults, all of whom believe that the planet was given to humans to eat, like a giant chocolate cake.

I have no allegiance to Christianity or Judaism, which are also not races; and Darwin tells us that the planet was never given, but is simply there, available for any and all organisms to eat in whatever fashion they can manage.
So it's really the "racial" differences that allow you to spew ignorance about what is almost the exact same ideology as that of your own partners-in-crime - your own in-group.

Christianity and Judaism are of no special importance to me, and have certainly had their evil history. If we can believe the Bible, Judaism's early history was particularly atrocious. But they went through the Renaissance and then the Enlightenment, and came out the other side quite civilized. Islam is still stuck in pre-literate Iron Age barbarism. It is in terminal conflict with science and modernity, a conflict it is absolutely certain to lose. The only question is how many millions it will kill in its death throes.
#15080771
You and I, and our worldviews, were fundamentally formed by the same memes as Islam.

To separate one of the three Abrahamic religions from the other is just divide-and-conquer. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny at all. Muslims are just "enemy of the week" because our greedbag leadership wants the oil under their carpets.
#15080774
QatzelOk wrote:Yes, it is. But it's a very similar ideology as Christianity and Judaism, with a very similar history and worldview.

You are only separating this religion from your own worldview because your "race" is predominantly of the other two Abrahamic cults, all of whom believe that the planet was given to humans to eat, like a giant chocolate cake.

So it's really the "racial" differences that allow you to spew ignorance about what is almost the exact same ideology as that of your own partners-in-crime - your own in-group.

I wonder how deeply racist a person has to be to view literally everything through the lens of race. Has it really never occurred to you that the racism you see all around is really just projected from within yourself?
#15080780
ckaihatsu wrote:You could have been more forthright / upfront with where you're coming from, politically / philosophically.

Really?? I don't see how.
Socialism, too, is based on the Enlightenment, so there's no friction on that aspect.

Correct. But socialism is in terminal conflict with the central post-Enlightenment philosophical advance: Darwin.
This is back to your typical facile idealism, though - - it's the 'Great Man' theory of history, thinking that elites somehow exist outside of larger society and all of its historical dynamics like that of class, technology, etc.

See? Socialism, being pre-Darwinian to its core, can never come to terms with the implications of evolution: that the roll of the genetic dice, the tiniest difference in nucleotides, can overturn all its pretended historical dynamics of class, technology, etc. The whole Industrial Revolution was based on machinery, which was based on the science of mechanics, which was created by Newton: the Great Man in spades. The irony here is that Marxism itself is based on -- could not have existed without -- its own "Great Man": Marx.
Nationalist leaders don't rise to power through the idealism of the Enlightenment - - they're there for particular *historical* reasons, often due to a power *vacuum* preceding it.

Nope. There is no inevitable historical development, any more than there is a direction to evolution. Marxism-socialism can never come to terms with that fact, and is for that reason essentially religious. Why a particular leader emerges is entirely contingent, a matter of "historical accident," but it would be difficult, even absurd, to argue that nationalist leaders like Jefferson did not rise to power through the idealism of the Enlightenment.
You're continuing to stereotype and overgeneralize - - not all branches of Islam are the same, yet you want to paint it all with a broad brush.

Which branches of Islam have renounced forcible conversion of the infidel, or capital punishment for apostates? Those core principles of Islam are effectively an admission that all Muslims have always known that Islam was a false religion and Mohammed a false prophet.
You don't have to be condescending, and it doesn't matter if bigotry from you is expressed by race or by religion - - you're still Admin Edit: Rule 2, and you'd rather slur outgroups and people according to your biases and prejudices.

Again: taking people at their word cannot honestly be described as bigotry or prejudice when they have amply demonstrated their sincerity. You could read some Ayan Hirsi Ali to advantage.
#15080781
QatzelOk wrote:You and I, and our worldviews, were fundamentally formed by the same memes as Islam.

No. We were not. If you had had any extensive contact with Muslims, as I have, you would know that.
To separate one of the three Abrahamic religions from the other is just divide-and-conquer.

? :lol: :lol: :lol: Do you really claim religious kooks need any help dividing themselves into murderous rivalries???
It doesn't hold up to scrutiny at all. Muslims are just "enemy of the week" because our greedbag leadership wants the oil under their carpets.

I agree that the oil is the central problem -- i.e., the fact that without its unearned oil wealth, the Muslim world would still be the poor, ignorant, illiterate, stagnant, and irrelevant -- though admittedly rather amusing and picturesque -- backwater of humanity it had been for centuries before the oil was discovered.
#15080789
SolarCross wrote:I wonder how deeply racist a person has to be to view literally everything through the lens of race. Has it really never occurred to you that the racism you see all around is really just projected from within yourself?

No, it hasn't. The racism I see around me is "not just in my head."

I have studied Race and Ethnic Relations, and Orientalism, and this is why I put "race" in quotation marks. To demonstrate what a fake concept it is, just like any money-making lie.

And racism against Muslims has been fabricated by Judeo-Christian Europeans for a thousand years because this particular group of foreigners is right next door to Europe, and thus, the easiest foreigners to rob.

Truth To Power wrote: If you had had any extensive contact with Muslims, as I have, you would know that.

I live with a practicing Muslim.
I studied Arabic for two years.
I have read the Quran in two languages.

Of course, if you've been hunting Muslims for longer than I've been hanging out with Muslims (25 years)... then you definitely do have a unique perspective on that particular branch of Abrahamic Thought.
#15080818
Truth To Power wrote:
Really?? I don't see how.



What I mean is that, from all of our scores of exchanged posts, this is the first time you're mentioning the Enlightenment. You *prefer* to just disparage whatever you *don't* like, and only now are you indicating what you positively support, philosophically.


Truth To Power wrote:
Correct. But socialism is in terminal conflict with the central post-Enlightenment philosophical advance: Darwin.



What?? You're spouting off nonsense. Socialism is *in line* with Darwin's evolution, since it has an empirical scientific basis.


Truth To Power wrote:
See? Socialism, being pre-Darwinian to its core, can never come to terms with the implications of evolution: that the roll of the genetic dice, the tiniest difference in nucleotides, can overturn all its pretended historical dynamics of class, technology, etc. The whole Industrial Revolution was based on machinery, which was based on the science of mechanics, which was created by Newton: the Great Man in spades. The irony here is that Marxism itself is based on -- could not have existed without -- its own "Great Man": Marx.



You're counterposing Marxism / socialism to *eugenics*, and you're *dismissing* Marxism for not being eugenicist. *You're* the eugenicist, and it explains your racist - - possibly unwittingly, but I doubt it - - worldview, as regarding Islam. You don't see the contributions of Marxism and other *social sciences*, to our understanding of the nature-nurture question. You subscribe to the eugenicization of Darwin, or 'survival of the fittest' within civilization / society, leading you to view any prevailing 'Great Man' nationalist leader as logically being the most 'genetically suited' to that leadership role.

Just *give it up*. It's a bad habit, it's scientifically incorrect, and you wind up with unsound conclusions from it. Political power is a *social* thing, and has *nothing* to do with genetics - - just look at the rise of Napoleon, for example, as a counterargument to your skewed beliefs.


Truth To Power wrote:
Nope. There is no inevitable historical development, any more than there is a direction to evolution. Marxism-socialism can never come to terms with that fact, and is for that reason essentially religious. Why a particular leader emerges is entirely contingent, a matter of "historical accident," but it would be difficult, even absurd, to argue that nationalist leaders like Jefferson did not rise to power through the idealism of the Enlightenment.



Marxism doesn't *claim* to make scientific predictions over this-or-that specific personage - - it deals with *macroscopic* dynamics like class (see my 'History: Macro-Micro' diagram). It doesn't say that any given historical trajectory is *inevitable*, but it does look at the balance of power between inherently opposing class forces, for any given historical period. It's not a *hard science* that makes concrete *predictions*, like chemistry or whatever, it's a 'soft science' that can provide *explanations* for why things happened the way they did in the past, by including a material class analysis.

So, no, Marxism is not a religion, and, btw, you're *contradicting* your previously stated eugenics-type belief system with this *material* analysis of Jefferson in relation to Enlightenment ideals as a manifesting social force.


Truth To Power wrote:
Which branches of Islam have renounced forcible conversion of the infidel, or capital punishment for apostates? Those core principles of Islam are effectively an admission that all Muslims have always known that Islam was a false religion and Mohammed a false prophet.



I'm admittedly not that well-versed around Islam, and I also have no interest in defending religion whatsoever, but some of your past statements have civil-liberties implications which is why I've been critical of your generalizations about Islam.


Truth To Power wrote:
Again: taking people at their word cannot honestly be described as bigotry or prejudice when they have amply demonstrated their sincerity. You could read some Ayan Hirsi Ali to advantage.



Sincerity is not related to matters of bigotry or prejudice. I was objecting to your *condescencion* and generally shitty attitude, but since I'm not allowed to call you a dickhead, I won't.
#15080850
QatzelOk wrote:I live with a practicing Muslim.

My condolences.
I studied Arabic for two years.
I have read the Quran in two languages.

Then you know I'm right. Why deny it?
Of course, if you've been hunting Muslims for longer than I've been hanging out with Muslims (25 years)... then you definitely do have a unique perspective on that particular branch of Abrahamic Thought.

It's a stretch to call Islam "thought." Buddhism has its Eightfold Path, and so does Islam:
Don't think, just pray.
Don't question, just obey.
Don't understand, just memorize.
Don't debate, just threaten.
Don't examine, just believe.
Don't produce, just steal.
Don't work, just enslave.
Don't negotiate, just kill.

After the Islamic schools opened in Kuwait, the students' IQ scores went down.
#15080853
ckaihatsu wrote:What I mean is that, from all of our scores of exchanged posts, this is the first time you're mentioning the Enlightenment. You *prefer* to just disparage whatever you *don't* like, and only now are you indicating what you positively support, philosophically.

No, I've stated more than once that I advocate liberty, justice and truth, and the equal individual rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.
Socialism is *in line* with Darwin's evolution, since it has an empirical scientific basis.

Darwinian evolution has an empirical scientific basis, yes; socialism does not. In fact, it directly contradicts indisputable empirical fact.
You're counterposing Marxism / socialism to *eugenics*,

No, I haven't mentioned eugenics. Marxism is indelibly pre-Darwinian, as it cannot admit differences in constitution cause differences in contribution, which rightly yield differences in reward.
and you're *dismissing* Marxism for not being eugenicist.

The fact that it contradicts the fact of evolution is just one reason to dismiss it.
*You're* the eugenicist, and it explains your racist - - possibly unwittingly, but I doubt it - - worldview, as regarding Islam.

Absurd. Islam is not a race, let alone a genetic deficiency.
You don't see the contributions of Marxism and other *social sciences*

Marxism is not a social or any other kind of science, as its hypotheses are not falsifiable.
to our understanding of the nature-nurture question.

Marxism denies the role of nature because Marx was a pre-Darwinian and consequently had zero (0) understanding of human nature.
You subscribe to the eugenicization of Darwin, or 'survival of the fittest' within civilization / society,

No, I only observe that that is in fact what happens, and that it is as pointless to oppose it as to command the tide to retreat.
leading you to view any prevailing 'Great Man' nationalist leader as logically being the most 'genetically suited' to that leadership role.

Now you are just makin' $#!+ up again. People obtain positions of power for many reasons, of which merit is certainly not the most important.
It's a bad habit, it's scientifically incorrect, and you wind up with unsound conclusions from it.

Nothing I've said is scientifically incorrect.
Political power is a *social* thing, and has *nothing* to do with genetics - - just look at the rise of Napoleon, for example, as a counterargument to your skewed beliefs.

Do you really imagine Napoleon had no exceptional genetic gifts??
Marxism doesn't *claim* to make scientific predictions over this-or-that specific personage - - it deals with *macroscopic* dynamics like class (see my 'History: Macro-Micro' diagram).

But is completely wrong, as history continues to prove.
It doesn't say that any given historical trajectory is *inevitable*,

Yes, of course it does.
but it does look at the balance of power between inherently opposing class forces, for any given historical period.

Marxism doesn't even correctly understand class.
It's not a *hard science* that makes concrete *predictions*, like chemistry or whatever, it's a 'soft science' that can provide *explanations* for why things happened the way they did in the past, by including a material class analysis.

And always gets the analysis wrong, even in hindsight.
So, no, Marxism is not a religion,

It is essentially religious, as its core hypotheses are not falsifiable.
and, btw, you're *contradicting* your previously stated eugenics-type belief system with this *material* analysis of Jefferson in relation to Enlightenment ideals as a manifesting social force.

If that meant anything (it doesn't), it would be wrong.
Sincerity is not related to matters of bigotry or prejudice.

Of course it is. It is not bigotry to say that Naziism is murderous because Nazis proved they were quite sincere in wanting to murder Jews and others. If they hadn't, it might be bigotry or prejudice to say they were murderous.

GET IT???
#15081010
Truth To Power wrote:Buddhism has its Eightfold Path, and so does Islam:
Don't think, just pray.
Don't question, just obey.
Don't understand, just memorize.
Don't debate, just threaten.
Don't examine, just believe.
Don't produce, just steal.
Don't work, just enslave.
Don't negotiate, just kill.

After the Islamic schools opened in Kuwait, the students' IQ scores went down.

These are outrageous claims for which you have provided zero references.

If they're just your own personal prejudices in prose form, then you are manufacturing hatred.

Don't produce, just steal.

I think we will soon know which nations-religions actually PRODUCE something of value to other humans.
#15081014
Truth To Power wrote:
No, I've stated more than once that I advocate liberty, justice and truth, and the equal individual rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.



Whatever. I don't recall it. By stating that you're philosophically in the tradition of the Enlightenment means that you're basically anti-clerical, which is a *good* thing in my book. Unfortunately you're *bourgeois*, though, so there's still that discrepancy of historical appropriateness, especially relative to *socialist* ideals and goals.


Truth To Power wrote:
Darwinian evolution has an empirical scientific basis, yes; socialism does not. In fact, it directly contradicts indisputable empirical fact.



Socialism recognizes and acknowledges that *industrial* production is how modern commodities get produced, while *your* politics is stuck in the agrarian-only past of the 18th century.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, I haven't mentioned eugenics. Marxism is indelibly pre-Darwinian, as it cannot admit differences in constitution cause differences in contribution, which rightly yield differences in reward.



Marxism is a 'big picture' *social science*, and does not concern itself with the individual. You think that capitalism is perfectly meritocratic, and that workers are appropriately rewarded for their labor contribution, by the piece of the total production 'pie' that they receive, when this is *not* the case. Ownership is disproportionately rewarded, and that's why we have billionaires who don't produce *any* goods or services while those who *do* produce goods and services receive meager wages, barely enough to live on.


Truth To Power wrote:
The fact that it contradicts the fact of evolution is just one reason to dismiss it.



Marxism doesn't dispute the theory of evolution, and your invocation of the reactionary 'social Darwinism' interpretation of evolution is apples-and-oranges with what Darwin was describing. People should receive from society's productive output according to their *needs*, and not according to their individual labor inputs - - this principle has been *in practice* and working for the rich for centuries now.


Truth To Power wrote:
Absurd. Islam is not a race, let alone a genetic deficiency.



The terminology is *beside* the point because you're continuing to single-out a particular monotheistic religion for your opprobrium, Islam, while ignoring the historical barbarities of the *other* monotheistic religions, particularly Christianity.


Truth To Power wrote:
Marxism is not a social or any other kind of science, as its hypotheses are not falsifiable.



Marxism *isn't* a 'hard science' so it's not subject to this criterion. The social sciences, including Marxism, must adhere to *empirical* realities, and so they begin by acknowledging real-world facts and dynamics, like class.


Truth To Power wrote:
Marxism denies the role of nature because Marx was a pre-Darwinian and consequently had zero (0) understanding of human nature.



You're trying to hold Marx and Marxism to the skewed genetic standards of your eugenicist 'social Darwinism'. Darwin was *not* a 'social Darwinist'. Marxism doesn't recognize any fixed or idealist component of 'human nature'. We're *all* *socially* determined, for the most part, due to the prevailing class regime of commodity-production.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, I only observe that that is in fact what happens, and that it is as pointless to oppose it as to command the tide to retreat.



Darwinism, a 'hard' science of genetic determination, doesn't translate to the 'soft', *social* sciences of how human society operates. Human society is *not* genetically determined, either from individual activities or otherwise. 'Social Darwinism' is *not* a science, either 'hard' or 'soft' - - it is a socio-political *ideology*.


Truth To Power wrote:
Now you are just makin' $#!+ up again. People obtain positions of power for many reasons, of which merit is certainly not the most important.



So then what does *genetics* have to do with political (nationalist) leadership, according to your subscribed eugenicist theory?


Truth To Power wrote:
Nothing I've said is scientifically incorrect.



You indicated that genetics determines the full personality of an individual, so it follows in your cockeyed ideology that those in leadership positions of power must be *genetically predisposed* to such, but you haven't specified *how*.


Truth To Power wrote:
Do you really imagine Napoleon had no exceptional genetic gifts??



Okay, now you're back on track - - this is what I mentioned in the preceding segment.

It's your cockamamie theory, so maybe *you* should be the one to describe how genetics works in a known personage like Napoleon.


Truth To Power wrote:
But is completely wrong, as history continues to prove.



What has Marxism said that is historically incorrect?


Truth To Power wrote:
Yes, of course it does.



No, again, Marxism's strength is not in any purported *predictive* power (that's the *hard* sciences), but rather its power is in its *descriptive* abilities, like pointing out class rule throughout the millennia.


Truth To Power wrote:
Marxism doesn't even correctly understand class.



Marxism is what *identified* class, although others did prior to Marx.


Truth To Power wrote:
And always gets the analysis wrong, even in hindsight.



Again, you should be typing all of this *offline*, and not posting it here, because you're just making vacuous assertions without providing any reasoning or backing for them.


Truth To Power wrote:
It is essentially religious, as its core hypotheses are not falsifiable.



You're expecting the social sciences to be as precise and exacting as the *hard* sciences - - and they *are* very robust in analyzing society - - but they do not presume to make detailed predictions over very complex, messy social dynamics, the way the hard sciences do over predictable, consistent physical materials.


Truth To Power wrote:
If that meant anything (it doesn't), it would be wrong.



I'm saying you would be better off sticking to recognizing *social* factors, like the Enlightenment ideals influencing the election of Jefferson, rather than using your *geneticist* premises for an analysis of the same - - since you're *not* using eugenics to analyze Jefferson’s political power, it looks like you're smart enough to at least not-believe your own bullshit.


Truth To Power wrote:
Of course it is. It is not bigotry to say that Naziism is murderous because Nazis proved they were quite sincere in wanting to murder Jews and others. If they hadn't, it might be bigotry or prejudice to say they were murderous.

GET IT???



I'm not *trying* to 'get you', I'm just trying to *refute* all of your bullshit, and to keep my head above water.

Bigotry and racism, as from the Nazis, is *apparent*, and, on the mass scale, doesn't *require* sincerity. Plenty of people went along with Nazism at the time, despite personal reservations, because that was the prevailing set of ideas at the time - - 'the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of its ruling class' (paraphrasing).
#15081017
After Truth to Power suggested that killing-instead-of-producing was an Islamic text, I wrote:I think we will soon know which nations-religions actually PRODUCE something of value to other humans.

As California looks in horror at the fact that Mexicans and other Latin American workers (useful, productive) will not be allowed to cross the border and harvest all the food they need to survive, all they can do is throw up their flabby arms while sitting next to dirty pools and unmaintained lawns, "working from home" by hammering away on keyboards for the junk-mail marketing firms they slave away for.

Stealing rather than producing anything of value for anyone else.
#15081037
QatzelOk wrote:These are outrageous claims for which you have provided zero references.

And you claim to have read the Qu'ran twice??
If they're just your own personal prejudices in prose form, then you are manufacturing hatred.

Hatred is the appropriate emotion to feel in response to evil.
I think we will soon know which nations-religions actually PRODUCE something of value to other humans.

I'm sure of it. We actually know already which nations produce, and which only charge others for permission to extract what they did not produce. Muslims had 1400 years to extract the oil they were sitting on, but it's still Western technology that extracts it.

Did you or did you not read in the Qu'ran and Hadith Mohammed's instructions for how to apportion the booty from bandit raids?
#15081042
Truth To Power wrote:And you claim to have read the Qu'ran twice??


As a third party I have a question, because I have never read Qu'ran. I would be most grateful if the verses (positions) in Qu'ran where those eights things were mentioned could be provided.
#15081063
ckaihatsu wrote:Whatever. I don't recall it.

But I recall you claiming that was Stalinism.
Unfortunately you're *bourgeois*, though, so there's still that discrepancy of historical appropriateness, especially relative to *socialist* ideals and goals.

Marxist woo-woo.
Socialism recognizes and acknowledges that *industrial* production is how modern commodities get produced, while *your* politics is stuck in the agrarian-only past of the 18th century.

Garbage unrelated to anything I wrote. I am not responsible for your refusal to know the fact that just as production and population have moved from rural to urban, so has land value.
Marxism is a 'big picture' *social science*,

It is a religion, not a science.
and does not concern itself with the individual.

Like I said: not a science.
You think that capitalism is perfectly meritocratic,

No. I have stated many times that I oppose capitalism, and that it is not meritocratic. It is merely -- faint praise -- better and more meritocratic than socialism.
and that workers are appropriately rewarded for their labor contribution, by the piece of the total production 'pie' that they receive, when this is *not* the case.

No. I have stated many times that capitalism robs workers in several different important ways:
1. By making them pay private landowners for permission to use what nature provided for all;
2. By taxing their production and consumption to fund subsidies for the privileged;
3. By denying them the opportunity to produce and benefit from desirable public services and infrastructure that could be provided to the community if their value were not all taken by private landowners;
4. By removing their liberty right and options to sustain themselves, thus placing them in a disadvantageous bargaining position vis-a-vis employers;
And under modern finance capitalism,
5. By making them pay interest to private bankers on the money supply they have to use to participate in the economy;
6. By making them pay IP monopolists for permission to use knowledge and ideas that would otherwise be in the public domain;
Etc.
Ownership is disproportionately rewarded, and that's why we have billionaires who don't produce *any* goods or services while those who *do* produce goods and services receive meager wages, barely enough to live on.

You again, like all socialists and capitalists, refuse to know the difference between ownership of what one CONTRIBUTES and ownership of others' RIGHTS.
Marxism doesn't dispute the theory of evolution,

It just ignores it.
and your invocation of the reactionary 'social Darwinism' interpretation of evolution is apples-and-oranges with what Darwin was describing.

I did not invoke social Darwinism, and you cannot accurately describe my interpretation of how evolution affects social science.
People should receive from society's productive output according to their *needs*, and not according to their individual labor inputs - -

No, they should receive rewards commensurate with their contributions and pay costs commensurate with their deprivations of others because that is justice, which gets the incentives right.
this principle has been *in practice* and working for the rich for centuries now.

:roll: No, it self-evidently and indisputably hasn't. In what sense have people or the rich been receiving output according to their needs?? You are talking utter nonsense.
The terminology is *beside* the point because you're continuing to single-out a particular monotheistic religion for your opprobrium, Islam, while ignoring the historical barbarities of the *other* monotheistic religions, particularly Christianity.

No. I'm fully aware that Judaism (if we can believe the biblical accounts) and Christianity have been atrocious and barbaric. I'm singling out Islam only because it is still barbaric.
Marxism *isn't* a 'hard science' so it's not subject to this criterion.

Yes it is.
The social sciences, including Marxism, must adhere to *empirical* realities, and so they begin by acknowledging real-world facts and dynamics, like class.

But Marxism -- like capitalism -- fundamentally misinterprets class by ignoring the difference between owning one's own contributions and owning others' rights.
You're trying to hold Marx and Marxism to the skewed genetic standards of your eugenicist 'social Darwinism'. Darwin was *not* a 'social Darwinist'.

I haven't advocated eugenics or social Darwinism, just scientific realism.
Marxism doesn't recognize any fixed or idealist component of 'human nature'. We're *all* *socially* determined, for the most part, due to the prevailing class regime of commodity-production.

That IS the fixed, idealist component: economic determinism. And it is anti-scientific claptrap.
Darwinism, a 'hard' science of genetic determination, doesn't translate to the 'soft', *social* sciences of how human society operates.

Yes it does, just in a very complex way that we can't expect fully to understand.
Human society is *not* genetically determined, either from individual activities or otherwise.

Its tendencies and limiting parameters are determined by the genetic make-up of its members, not how production is organized. That fact is fundamental to any genuine empirical science of society.
'Social Darwinism' is *not* a science, either 'hard' or 'soft' - - it is a socio-political *ideology*.

And one that I have not advocated.
So then what does *genetics* have to do with political (nationalist) leadership, according to your subscribed eugenicist theory?

It determines people's potential, and a large part of their personalities, attitudes and choices. Google "University of Minnesota Twins Study" and start reading.
You indicated that genetics determines the full personality of an individual,

It sets the limits of how one can develop. Obviously there are also environmental factors.
so it follows in your cockeyed ideology that those in leadership positions of power must be *genetically predisposed* to such, but you haven't specified *how*.

We know there is a large genetic component in personality, including intelligence, extroversion, narcissism, conscientiousness, emotional resilience, agreeableness and openness, and that people at the tops of hierarchies tend to be intelligent, extroverted, conscientious, emotionally resilient, narcissistic, and disagreeable.
It's your cockamamie theory, so maybe *you* should be the one to describe how genetics works in a known personage like Napoleon.

As with other gifted military commanders, genetics gave him exceptional intelligence, charisma, creativity, emotional resilience, conscientiousness and narcissism.
What has Marxism said that is historically incorrect?

That capitalism would turn into socialism, and socialism into communism.
No, again, Marxism's strength is not in any purported *predictive* power (that's the *hard* sciences), but rather its power is in its *descriptive* abilities, like pointing out class rule throughout the millennia.

But Marxism gets that completely wrong, and merely misinterprets historical events to make them fit the Marxist narrative.
Marxism is what *identified* class, although others did prior to Marx.

No, Marxism misidentified class by associating it with ownership rather than privilege.
You're expecting the social sciences to be as precise and exacting as the *hard* sciences - - and they *are* very robust in analyzing society - - but they do not presume to make detailed predictions over very complex, messy social dynamics, the way the hard sciences do over predictable, consistent physical materials.

Genuine, empirical social science would have predictive power. Marxism doesn't.
I'm saying you would be better off sticking to recognizing *social* factors, like the Enlightenment ideals influencing the election of Jefferson, rather than using your *geneticist* premises for an analysis of the same - - since you're *not* using eugenics to analyze Jefferson’s political power, it looks like you're smart enough to at least not-believe your own bullshit.

You are just pushing a false dichotomy fallacy. Both personal gifts and Enlightenment ideals were necessary to Jefferson's election and successful leadership.
Bigotry and racism, as from the Nazis, is *apparent*, and, on the mass scale, doesn't *require* sincerity.

Nonsense. They couldn't have done much if they hadn't been sincere.
Plenty of people went along with Nazism at the time, despite personal reservations, because that was the prevailing set of ideas at the time

No, they went along because they were afraid they would be physically attacked if they defied them.
- - 'the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of its ruling class' (paraphrasing).

But few would have guessed in 1930 that Germany's ruling class had such ideas -- because they didn't. They supported the Nazis only because they assumed it would be an expedient way to get rid of the communists, not because they believed Hitler's nonsense.
#15081079
Patrickov wrote:As a third party I have a question, because I have never read Qu'ran.

It's not a very pleasant, interesting or coherent read (though apparently it's quite poetic in Arabic), but if you want to understand Islam, you have to read it.
I would be most grateful if the verses (positions) in Qu'ran where those eights things were mentioned could be provided.

It's an impression put together from reading many different verses -- it's very repetitive -- but these are some places to start:

Don't think, just pray: Surah 28:24

Don't question, just obey: Surah 4:59

Don't understand, just memorize: This is not in the Qu'ran AFAIK, but is commonly practiced by Muslims, especially those who do not speak Arabic.

Don't debate, just threaten: Surah 9:5

Don't examine, just believe: This is an attitude emphasized throughout the Qu'ran, and is shown by Muslims attributing everything to Allah without looking beneath surface appearances, as when they say, "Allah hu akbar" after any success.

Don't produce, just steal: Surah 4:94, 8:40 and 8:68-9, 48:19-20

Don't work, just enslave: Surah 33:50

Don't negotiate, just kill: Surah 2:191
#15081167
Truth To Power wrote:Don't negotiate, just kill: Surah 2:191



I am only interested in this so I search the quote.

The verse actually asks for killing when being attacked, which I think I agree.
#15081189
Likewise, Lies-to-Power, 28:24 doesn't say "Don't think, just pray."

It says:
28:24 wrote:So he watered [their flock] for them. Then he withdrew toward the shade and said, ‘My Lord! I am indeed in need of any good You may send down to me!’

You're just trolling by misquoting a holy book that you want people to believe is "evil" so you can convince them that all those millions of people that your country killed in the last two decades were "bad guys."

Killing bad guys belongs in the illiterate Middle Ages. And so do your lies about THE OTHER'S religious texts and what they mean.

Truth To Power wrote:And you claim to have read the Qu'ran twice??

That's not what I said. I said I had read it in two languages: English and French.
In French, because the translation is written in Religious French, it looks like the Bible, which makes it harder to understand. In English, the translation was in a more neutral language that reads like simple parables - much easier to grasp the fundamental ideas.

Shouldn't someone interested in politics be reading things like the Quran, Michel Foucault, Kapital, etc.? Or is it better to not read these books so other people can lie about what they say?
#15081206
QatzelOk wrote:Killing bad guys belongs in the illiterate Middle Ages.

It is a common myth that most people in the middle ages were illiterate. This was a narrative invented by modern non-historians and just assumed to be true. Actually there is a lot of evidence that very many people, including "peasants", were quite literate at least in their own language if not "educated" languages like Latin or Greek.

People with low-esteem especially like these kinds of narratives as it makes them with their basic literacy acquired after an absurdly long time in state schools feel very wise and powerful. Our ancestors make easy marks for such people because by being long dead they can not offer direct refutation.
#15081366
Patrickov wrote:I am only interested in this so I search the quote.

The verse actually asks for killing when being attacked, which I think I agree.

No. That claim is based on deliberate mistranslation. The word in question is "fitna," which is disingenuously rendered as "oppression" or "persecution," when in this context it actually refers to open, defiant profession of non-Muslim beliefs in the presence of Muslims.
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