Posted: 01 January 2007 02:17 AM   [ Ignore ]
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I still recall the line I wrote about having no voice:  If we don’t pay attention until people fly airplanes into buildings, then that is what will happen.

I am also convinced that this is a weakness of the human race, and if we’re unlucky, it will lead to a downward spiral out of which a few very well protected communities will emerge and they will have a second try at making a peaceful planet.  If we’re lucky, however, the lesson that violence is its own self-reinforcing pattern will spread fast enough to get us out of the spiral early.

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Posted: 02 January 2007 10:35 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 1 ]
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I’ll change my statement to “Both the government and the Jefferson and Adams families have no excuse not to repair.”

If the government had died out, if the Jeffersons and Adams were no longer in existence, which is to say that if America no longer existed, neither would have reason to repair. This is not the case. The government is always present. America is present. The Jeffersons and Adams happen to be present. So be it.

To say America’s government is not a living body when it has never been replaced, is to say that America doesn’t exist and neither does the US Constitution (Which I’ll agree with). That could be called “Selective presence.” Anyway, you’ll find that the government is very active in “reparations.”

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Posted: 02 January 2007 10:54 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 2 ]
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Though, I do confess, I am more of a Nat Turner than a Harriet Tubman, and I won’t turn the other cheek. I’m not a violent ignorant, I just know that there is more for an oppressor to gain in death than in life.

What convinced America that slavery wasn’t quite working was, first, that slaves were rebelling and white families were dying. That was ok, a little, because organizations just made sure to massacre hundreds more black families after each rebellion, but then, get outta’ here if John Brown doesn’t lead a slave revolt. Well, it’s all fine and dandy when blacks and whites are sitting up north writing abolitionist pamphlets, but if whites are now revolting too and dying for this black cause, slavery is going to be a little more difficult to control…

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Posted: 03 January 2007 12:05 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 3 ]
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I added this and some other things to my essay. I thought you should be apprised. “Also, I get the feeling Dave may not have read all of my comments or the comment I was responding to. If he had, he would have understood why I used the word “individually,” and he would not have taken my comment on politics out of context. In his haste to ridicule me, he has not considered that since I was responding to a reader’s comment, not to Mind Change, that I wrote to some inclusivity, taking into consideration that readers of my comment might find some good in politics. Not to mention that the philosopher I was referring to suggested that being political was a good thing. My response, therefore, was that humans could not possibly be political (If A is B is C, then A is C).  If the reader of Dave’s essay had the full picture, or if Dave would have represented the fully realized idea and not used pieces to serve his interest, the reader would understand that my comments have nothing to do with the purpose of Dave’s essay. If this was not Dave’s intention, which I’m certain it could not have been because I give him benefit of the doubt as far as being thorough, then ‘oh.’”

How would the government not charge people for services when that is the purpose of the government, to collect taxes and distribute them as services or ‘wherever they are needed,’ per se? The government does offer free programs; they are paid for by tax dollars, hence the complaint of Americans that they don’t want to pay for lazy, felony-convicted n*ggers, who do nothing but sit on their *ss*s and collect welfare. That’s what the government does. Where else would they get the money if not from the people? Government said it would do that from the beginning. Take your money and put it where it needs to go. At least, that’s what they say in America.

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Posted: 06 January 2007 07:51 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 4 ]
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First:  “...and Candide caressed his sheep” is a reference of which I’m very fond because it is Voltaire’s commentary about the situation he constructed for his characters Martin the Philosopher and Candide, who were arguing.  They were arguing, but while arguing, Candide was in a position to caress his sheep.  I bring this up because I am very pleased with the way things are unfolding between myself and Van der Reise.

...if Dave would have represented the fully realized idea and not used pieces to serve his interest, the reader would understand that my comments have nothing to do with the purpose of Dave’s essay. If this was not Dave’s intention, which I’m certain it could not have been because I give him benefit of the doubt as far as being thorough, then ‘oh.’

You are exactly right to characterize my contribution as using pieces to serve my own interest.  However, I get the sense (your language doesn’t seem to make it clear, but I don’t really listen to my right-brain, so maybe it is) that you find fault with that.  If you think it’s perfectly reasonable, and even expected, that others use pieces of your contribution to serve their own interests, that’s great!  If not, then I will continue working on you wink.

How would the government not charge people for services when that is the purpose of the government, to collect taxes and distribute them as services or ‘wherever they are needed,’ per se?

The purpose of government is NOT to take from those who have and give it to those in need.  That is called “socialist policy” (as well as “theft” by some people who aren’t brainwashed) and we do have a lot of that all around the whole world, unfortunately, but the purpose of government is to prevent bad behavior.  You may think that a perfect example of bad behavior is spending all of your own money in the ways you see fit (rather than letting someone else decide), but I do not.  I think each person who earns money should be allowed to choose whether or not they spend their money or give it to an institution that distributes it as services or ‘wherever they are needed’.  If government got out of the way, such institutions would flourish as citizens perceived no other way to alleviate the problem of poverty.  (Really, there is no other way, but socialist policy lets us think there is.)

The government does offer free programs; they are paid for by tax dollars, hence the complaint of Americans that they don’t want to pay for lazy, felony-convicted n*ggers, who do nothing but sit on their *ss*s and collect welfare. That’s what the government does. Where else would they get the money if not from the people? Government said it would do that from the beginning. Take your money and put it where it needs to go. At least, that’s what they say in America.

Americans, and citizens of other countries, and all other life-forms I can imagine, also do not want to pay for those people.  They also don’t want to pay for lazy, felony-convicted people who have little or no black ancestry who do nothing but sit on their asses and collect welfare.  Nor do they want to pay for industrious, upstanding people, regardless of their race.  In short, sentient beings don’t want to pay for anyone but themselves.  Oh, and sometimes they’re happy to help out anyone they come across who could use a boost.  But that happens a lot more when they aren’t forced to do it through taxation.

It sounds like you taxes are good because the government said it would do certain things that you think are good.  If that is the case, then let me tell you:  I, also, will take your money and put it where it needs to go.  If you’re not comfortable with me doing it, there’s probably a church or charity nearby that can take care of it or you.  I won’t hire a bunch of IRS agents to check your math or make sure you send me money though, and neither will any of the other decent institutions that provide that service.  Because that would make it extortion.

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Posted: 10 February 2007 05:11 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 5 ]
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But hey hey hey, PEOPLE!  There’s no point SHOUTING about this. 

I know, it’s frustrating.  But we must be as cool and calm as possible. 

I’m trying to identity the source of the dispute (or, the sources of some of the disputes) that we might have in discussing Dave’s favorite topic, Taxez. 

The first thing that I would like to do is take everyone horseback riding, on cynical horses.  The horses would just walk around in their delapidated states, their delegated circles, and all of the people from the Conference would realize that, “Hey. I’m sitting on a horse.  A really bored, but patient horse!” 

After having to go round and round and round and ROUND, for a few years, on a cynical, bored, but patient horse, the human might finally give up the whole thing and, go, “OK, horsie, I suppose you can have as many oats as you can get.” 

Faithful Horse tosses ‘is ‘ead, enthusiastically, and canters up the Way, but when he gets there, he finds that all the food is gone, having been et by the other horses, while he, Faithful Horse, was Doing the Bidding of Loudmouth the Human.  Some other horse got there first.  There oughtta be a Law!!!

I don’t think it happens so often that anyone is really lazy, or doesn’t want to “work”.  People (and animals) need to be encouraged,especially when young—so as to set them up for LATER years, when it gets even worse.  I have been thinking about this a lot since Dave (and I like and respect Dave, a lot), and I gotta tellya…

it’s fun to think! 

So anyway.

julianyway

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Posted: 12 March 2008 02:09 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 6 ]
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Note that nobody has replied to my post.

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Posted: 12 March 2008 02:17 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 7 ]
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reply.

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Posted: 13 March 2008 01:20 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 8 ]
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The main point of my life work, at least now, is that people don’t need to discuss things at length to find common ground.  They just need to write their stories (fact or fiction, philosophy or satire, poetic or polemic, drivel or brilliance) and vote wink.

Vote vote vote!  That’s what it’s all about.  Enlist your friends and family!  The more people participate here, the wider will be the appeal of the product we’re building, and that (someday) will prove financially and intellectually rewarding to everyone involved.  Trust me.  Or just think about it and you won’t have to trust me.

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Posted: 13 March 2008 01:52 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 9 ]
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Trust Dave.

University of Iowa is going “open source” with PhD/Master’s dissertations. All the writers are quite cranky about this (http://www.emergingwriters.typepad.com) because their work is going to be digitized. And people are suing.

But, WE are willingly posting… open sourcing… we are totally on the brink of cutting edge technology and WRITING.

wink

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Posted: 13 March 2008 11:58 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 10 ]
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UOI did it wrong, and they should be sued.  The right way to do it is to provide open access ONLY to those whose authors have filled out some other form that indicates that they’d like their thesis to be available to the public.  There was an obvious assumption on the part of thesis writers that their works were protected from copyright violation by the University, and changing things to break that assumption isn’t right.

Litmocracy, on the other hand, started out where everything posted could be seen, even by anonymous internet users.  Now, you have to be a member to read them.  I suppose I should add a field to the publish form so that if you wish non-members could see your submission, the “permalink” could be used to display it.  Hmm…

Dave.

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