213374U

"SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK!"

Oh, I'll see your "troubles facing the EU", and raise you a "troubles facing your country" and "troubles facing you": Well, of course people are going to acknowledge the immigration and terrorism problems of the EU, because it's largely the EU foreign policy that has caused them, and therefore people see it as problems for the EU to fix. I don't know if you were purposefully being deceptive as I know you're trained as a social scientist, or you just fell for the lame Twаtter-style statistical equivocation. Doesn't matter either way; the Eurobarometer poll doesn't support your hypothesis that the biggest problem in people's minds is Islam, and therefore it makes no sense to blame the latest local political debacles on it. By the way, it's bad form to post figures without sources. Here: http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/STANDARD/surveyKy/2130

Hold up. Are... are you trying to make this into a safe space? Say it ain't so! Leave your verisimilitude and coherence out of Meshugger's unwritten cult hit scripts, please. (I'd watch it and probably buy a T-shirt too)

What exactly was it about immigration that some people were very dedicated to proving you wrong about? That it's going to "destroy our culture"? That in a generation there would be less ethnic French in France than second-gen Muslim immigrants? I ask because a lot of nonsense has been said regarding this "issue" and it wasn't so much proving anyone wrong as asking you and others to, um, substantiate your claims, so an actual discussion could be had. I'd also like to know when you say "it" has tanked governments, what exactly is "it"? Immigration? If so, being generous I'd say you're jumping to conclusions, and disregarding other important factors, such as, the huge-ass long-term unemployment in Italy and constant strikes and protests that have been going on in France for a while now, and that have nothing to do with immigration, being instead directed against PM Valls' labor reform pet project. Mind, if you want to play the card that immigration is the chief factor for what has been happening, you are actually pushing the "2016 the year of racism" narrative. Can't have your cake and eat it too. And well, the limp-**** right has been re-elected for another term over here after some embarrassing kowtowing by the limp-**** left, so I personally don't have much to say. Er... the more things change, the more they stay the same? ...I got nothing.

http://electionado.com/canvas/1479173071893 Another guy blacksplaining white working class. It's like me writing an essay "the third trimester and what to expect". I don't know about blacksplaining (ughhh) but between the annoying Twаtter greatest hits formatting and his extremely flimsy "research" (RT comments that take you to Vox pieces that link to WPost articles...), yeah. He's not going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced. Preaching to the choir much? Kinda allegorical in that sense, heh.

Hmm. What about those who _can't_ take care of themselves? Let's say, disabled veterans. Let's say, miners afflicted by silicosis from working towards *another's* "prosperity". Let's say, firefighters and ER personnel suffering from 9/11 sequels. Amputees? Retards? People with ALS? Autists? It's great to blather on about one's hard earned success when one has only had to face a fraction of the obstacles others have. It's only human to be narrow minded and extrapolate one's experience to the rest. But it's also basic human decency to admit that you are privileged just lucky in that regard. The idea that everyone's survival must be predicated upon their "economic success" is an aberration of neoliberal-social Darwinist dogma. Please explain using your own words why this should be so. Maybe when you look at how said "prosperity" is achieved, things aren't so clear cut. Once you realize that work is a scam, that private property is absurd and that the ability to sell money for more money is something that virtually guarantees that the effort-reward utopia you folks worship will actually never come to pass, the "prosperity" of others suddenly doesn't look so sacrosanct anymore. Oh, look. It's Marxism rearing its ugly head again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You are right. Cuba wasn't to be annexed, at least up until that point where Teller was amended or replaced, such as by Platt (Congress giveth, Congress taketh away). An arrangement like that of Puerto Rico would be more advantageous and likely, because enfranchisement isn't generally a good idea for your colonial subjects. Until then, a military occupation or the threat hereof, and practically puppeting the island's government would be sufficient. In this light, outright annexation incorporation to the Union as a fully fledged State like Texas or prospective one like Alaska sounds like a genuine improvement. I'll endeavor to use surgically precise terms in these informal discussions from now on, thank you.

Yeah, well. You might have a different view of what independence is worth if your country had just wrested it from a colonial power when the next one starts trying to annex you. I've spoken to a lot of Cuban expats and while their conditions were bad enough to force them to leave, none of them regarded annexation by the US as desirable. something something propaganda something something brainwashing Economically, Castro's regime was a failure in absolute terms. But it's not like he had much to work with. Cuba isn't natural resource-rich (read: no oil or gold), and sanctions from the US seriously hamper development in other venues. In relative terms though, right next door you have Dominican Republic and especially Haiti, which weren't doing so hot even before the quakes, despite (economic) FREEDOM. It's funny, because while the damage done by Castro to Cuba is almost a cliché in the West, not many people even know about Papa Doc, who was both a fierce anti-communist and far more sanguinary than Castro. Heh.

Well, no. The public didn't really own it before someone appropriated it, but they could all use it if they wanted because, well, it's there. The whole concept of private property exists essentially to deprive everyone but the proprietor of the object in question. Whether the owner decides to keep it for himself or share it freely is immaterial, what matters is that property puts him a position to make that decision. Think about it. What would be the point of declaring ownership over anything if you were the only person in the world? Saying that the state owns it and not individuals is a cop-out. The state is the state, not the people. And if the state owns it and leases it, it's functionally, if not legally, the same as if someone owns it privately. At some point in the past, some clever mother****er figured that if he could own land, animals and all sorts of stuff, it was only "natural" that he could own people as well. A few thousand years later, it was finally understood* that the notion was not only morally unsound, but also economically inefficient. And so it was scrapped. Why not own the atmosphere? Sunlight? Earth's magnetic field? It's completely arbitrary. Regarding beans? I don't know. I guess they would be yours to do with as you please. But remember, it wouldn't be that many, because you couldn't employ others and then appropriate the fruits of their labor. I'm not a marxist. I don't really know how he envisioned that would work, but I do know the idea was to get rid of money as well, so no "selling" them off to pay the plumber or whatever. We're also fast approaching the point where all manual (and a good chunk of white collar) work will be done by machines, too. Robots don't eat beans. And no, we probably won't see eye to eye, but who cares. I'm not trying to sell you on marxism, because for starters, I'd need to buy into it myself, heh. *after killing a whole bunch of people who didn't "get" it, ofc. Par for the course.

In the early phases maybe, but over time we would become more and more independent from other humans that we'd have our own ships and mech crew to do literally everything for us. Basically we'd split up in a zillion different directions and conquer our own part of space. Some people would do better than others and claim more and more territory for their own until the entire universe is controlled by a handful of opposing people. One will be dramatically more advanced than the others and wipe out all independent life in the universe to claim personal control over all energy and matter. This person will then put itself into a permanent, blissful mental loop of experiencing something pleasant; only to have the memory erased and have the experience repeated eternally. Content that nothing in existence will ever take away the eternal paradise; this final master of creation will be the true end of history. Asimov fan, huh?

Fences were originally laid down to prevent cattle from wandering off, and to stop predators from eating said cattle and/or crops. The idea that the land itself "belonged" to a particular individual, as opposed to being the territory of the tribe, came later. At the very least, holding the right to landed property would require writing to have been invented, if not a political authority that would be capable of enforcing any such rights. So we're looking at, at most, 7,000 years. As I said, a recent (within the last 5%) development when looking at the time scales over which humans have existed. Definitely not "in our nature", but rather a cultural development. And no, you are certainly richer if you own more land, even if your account balance shows a smaller number or even negative, because that's a tangible, immovable asset, which while not always stable in value, it's nowhere near as volatile as the rest of the make-believe financial economy. If someone makes a million, the only reason why someone else isn't losing a million is because someone in some bank just decided they were going to pull a million from their backside. I don't need to explain to you how fractional reserve banking works. Overnight, your millions may not be worth the paper they are printed on. It has happened before and it may happen again. Again, make-believe. However, if you own, say a mountain that contains a copper mine, then yes, that very much means everyone else has lost collective ownership of that mountain. When talking about real world resources, a "zero-sum economy" is actually how it works. That's the kind of property marxism is concerned with, btw, not the clothes on your back, or your beans. @Gorth Yeah, good book, but disheartening message. Hence my previous comment. It's not funny to discover that you are nothing but an overly complex shell meant to improve the odds of survival of those damned "immortal coils", and that all selflessness is actually selfishness in disguise. Bah.

See, if you had said "survival", I would wholeheartedly agree. "Enrichment", however, means accumulating wealth, which in turn necessitates private property. That is a relatively modern concept. "Human nature", whatever the hell that is, predates any such concepts by ~200,000 years, which is how long ago the first anatomically modern humans (indistinguishable from you and me) appeared. So, no, the right to private property is certainly not "natural". I assure you, nothing in my "nature" compels me to "enrich" myself at the expense of everyone else. I honestly feel sorry for you if that's how you regard yourself first, and everyone else next. edit: I didn't mean for that to sound as condescending as it turned out, but oh well

Generally, when someone tries to school the audience on "human nature", I immediately tune out. Unless it's Richard Dawkins and he's talking from a genetics-based ethology perspective. Then I just want to kill myself. something something state capitalism something soviet communism something

OMG. You discriminating against hot people now? Are you suggesting that hot people have no right to be PM? You fiendish hot-shaming ****lord, you. But seriously, look at him. No homo, but DAYUM. He can kill me anytime. Twice on sundays.

Image searching for "liberal cuck" returned this: I figure that explains previous comments much better than an in-depth discussion of his politics ever would. edit: I didn't even enter his name

You new here or something? We ain't big on them "specifics" and "facts" 'round these parts. Shoo!

Perhaps you respond to (material) incentives. Don't assume that everyone does, and don't assume that without them, everyone would turn into a slob overnight. What limited research there is into basic income seems to point in the direction that, in fact, that wouldn't happen to any significant degree. See, the funny thing about you wrote is that it also perfectly applies to how the current scheme of upwards wealth redistribution by means of runaway debt issuance, is hurting the majority. It doesn't only rob people of material "incentives", it robs them of their very future.

Wow. That's certainly not something I'd expect from you, though perhaps I'm simply not fully understanding your meaning. What you're saying is if a sufficient* amount of your fellow Americans agreed to impose a social transformation that is anathema to you, on everyone including yourself, you'd just shrug and bend over? Why not simply ask for, nay, demand the right to opt out of a social contract whose terms are being radically redefined? Seems to me that you either undervalue your own core beliefs, or place an undue importance on "legality". Laws, like markets, money and all that, are man-made things, meant to serve humans. Not the other way around. *remember: governance 101 is about making sure you have the necessary "majority" to get away with whatever. Jurisdictions, voting calendars, quorum, judicial obstructionism, and so on and so forth. It doesn't take legitimacy, just political savvy.

My thoughts exactly. So, um. Good luck.

Well, maybe look harder then. The common element is their longing for a return to a past they see as better, characterized by blind discipline, nationalism (with or without racialist tints), little tolerance for deviation from the social norms, political authoritarianism in diverse forms, etc. It's important to note that this representation of the past may or may not be accurate, but accuracy is less important than the feels from romantizicing the past. In short: reactionarism. The necessary and sufficient condition to be considered part of the alt-right.

Yeah, and? The German media didn't have a political boogie man to call the actual Hitler to get the masses that terrified. No, they had an actual bogeyman who was in power right next door (literally Hitler Stalin), and a unified, organized and most importantly, unabashedly militant, radical left-wing movement that had already tried to overthrow the democratic Weimar regime. By the time Hitler got elected, commies and nazi shocktroopers were openly duking it out on the streets. Unlike today, the "media" back then didn't need to make stuff up. Just reporting on stuff was enough to get people scared. Problem is today the corporate media are so corrupt and have been doing shock therapy for so long, that what we're seeing is a sort of "the boy who cried wolf" effect. Not saying there is a problem presently, but when there is, you won't see it coming.

You may not have noticed, but violence is all coming from one side. Sure is mate, sure is. https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656?m=1 Ha ha ha ha. http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/11/10/police-muslim-student-fabricated-hijab-grab-trump-supporters/ Hold up. So one reported incident was fabricated, therefore the implication you are making is that ALL of them are, right? I don't even, so I'm just going to quote your own immortal words:

I thought: what the hell, two threads? And this one is already 14 pages long? Then I saw Alanschu. Well played.

You may not have noticed, but violence is all coming from one side. Sure is mate, sure is. https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656?m=1

Where did you get that idea? Fascism doesn't advocate for the breakdown of the traditional family as the indivisible unit of society -- more like the opposite. Mussolini actually encouraged strong traditional family values (women chiefly as procreators and housekeepers, no contraception) to appeal to conservatives and, most importantly, the Catholic Church. Same thing with Franco's regime in Spain, even though he was more an ultraconservative autocrat than an actual card carrying fascist. It's hard to understand the influence that the Catholic Church still has on the cultural and social fabric of Mediterranean countries even today, not to mention in the 1920's. The incomplete and late mobilization of women by Germany is one of the reasons that contributed to their war production never being able to keep up with the Soviet Union's, too. Socialism doesn't specifically advocate for the phasing out of traditional families either, unless by traditional you specifically mean keeping women out of the workforce. Beyond the idea that capitalism doesn't serve the majority of the community and that the fruit of labor should benefit everyone, the different variants of "socialism" have little in common with one another. Which is why you have the so-called "socialist countries" which are for all intents and purposes military dictatorships with a centrally planned economy on one end of the spectrum, and on the other some weaksauce Social Democracy movements whose apparent goal is to beat around the bush perpetually and make sure not to step on anyone's toes while they're at it, with everything ranging from post-recession Iceland to 1970's Libyan Jamahiriya in between. The ultimate goal of anarcho-communists is the abolition of the state and money, go figure. Which one is truly "socialist"? Of course, if you live in a single-party police state, differences are going to seem academic, but that's more a thing with totalitarian regimes than whatever philosophies they use to justify themselves. So, socialism is statist, except when it's not. Fascism is revolutionary except when it's not, and neither really seeks to abolish families and replace them with subservience to the state, because its not either/or.