The Political Thread

[Hawkmumbler]

The whole Nazi analogue in your last post is bullshit anyway, Sharky. Your forgetting that Germany was in deep shit at the time and people where naturally looking for someone to blame. That doesn't make it right, but the average Brit these day's is to lethargic to give a toss and most of the population is incredibly left and open minded.

[Steven Denton]

The whole Nazi analogue in your last post is bullshit anyway, Sharky. Your forgetting that Germany was in deep shit at the time and people where naturally looking for someone to blame. That doesn't make it right, but the average Brit these day's is to lethargic to give a toss and most of the population is incredibly left and open minded.

Hawkmonger you have fallen into the trap of being side-tracked. Shark likes to argue that a thing is bad thus all things he can connect to that thing are bad. So when arguing that governments are bad/illegitimate he will avoid the concept of government as the rest of us understand it and instead propose an anecdotal example of a bad government and say 'so if you support the [insert item] then you support this. often attached to an emotional appeal and a question such as. so if you support this concept you support bullying in schools, do you support bullying in schools?'

by changing the specifics from the idea of collective responsibility to Nazii Germanys use of collective responsibility the entire conisation shifts down an irrelevant cul de sac

[Hawkmumbler]

Which is why it's a bullshit example and can thus be discarded.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

and most of the population is incredibly left and open minded.

Erm ...who just voted David Cameron and his nasty Party into power? Not a bunch of leftists I hope? The Guardian, the Mirror and other left of centre papers sell about 1.5 million copies combined but the Daily Mail, Sun etc, right and right of centre papers sell over 5 million in combined sales. That strikes me as indicating a fairly right wing trend in the Country one that has been established over many decades. Upsetting maybe but that's reality. Englishmen in particular dislike large Governments and seem to vote continuously for Parties that promise smaller ones hence the Tory hegemony. I blame Cromwell !

[JPMaybe]

It's a genuine argument. Do you believe that might makes right? It's a simple enough question.

No consensus makes right - and however flawed, democracy is the best method we've come up with for gauging that consensus.

I think this is really the nub of the issue.  Most people recognise that there will be conflicts between the rights of an individual and the good of the collective, and where exactly you draw the line between them is the basis for most political discourse.  This approach acknowledges that even though the harm of a given action might not be evident on an individual level, its effects on aggregate can be deleterious to society: sequestration of wealth necessitating taxation, for example, or car emission standards and punishments for breaking them.

Shark doesn't seem to recognise any circumstances whatsoever in which the collective can truncate the rights of individuals for the good of the whole.  It's such an extreme position that I come across as some kind of Stalinist when I respond to him.  I think it's basically a childish, antisocial philosophy, that most people grow out of.

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

"Government" and society are not the same thing.

Well, that's perfectly true, but you rejected the right of a democratic society to elect a government on the basis it had no authority to do so. This is actually quite a right-wing position, more similar to the US  libertarians than to any progressive movement that I am aware of. This is possibly why I am reminded of Thatcherism by some of the things you say.

[Steven Denton]

Hi Jimmy Baker's Assistant, your wall of text including random parables and implications of complicity/tacit approval of abuse will be along shortly...

[Professor Bear]

The Guardian, the Mirror and other left of centre papers

Neither the Mirror nor the Guardian are left-leaning papers.  That is simply the PR spin they use to differentiate themselves from the other conservative dailies.

[The Legendary Shark]

My wall of text will be along in a few hours, when I get back from work! (I bet you can't wait, lol.)

[Goaty]

Any Yorkshiremen here? Do you hated us? As PM said this;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34222801

[Third Estate Ned]

Any Yorkshiremen here? Do you hated us? As PM said this;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34222801

Perhaps it's just a generalisation he made after spending time with William Hague. Actually, I'm from Yorkshire and I hate him too, so there's some truth in it.

[Modern Panther]

I hate anyone who doesn't worship the volcano god.

[The Legendary Shark]

There seems to be no argument from anyone against the idea that one person has no right to force another person to act against their will. It's only when we apply the same logic to a group of people acting in the name of "government" that some form of mysterious alchemy occurs. Might does not make right unless, it seems, a government claims it to be so. Nobody seems to know how the population passes on rights it doesn't have to a tiny subset of deluded and self-serving individuals but are happy that it does.
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Instead we get a lot of frothing about it being for our own good, it's democracy, and how nothing would work without "government." If this is the case, why don't we put the buses, trains and taxis under "government" control? Let it run the trains and lorries and aircraft and ships as well. Put it in charge of all the farms and shops, all the factories and cinemas. All the drains and ditches and cesspits. All the churches, mosques and synagogues. Give it sole control of the courts, the police and the armed forces. Let it manage all the football clubs, rugby teams and cyclists. Let it be in charge of everything - heck, let's even give ourselves to it because nothing, not even our own families or our own selves, can run properly without the direct or implied threat of violence.
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Never mind the fact that everything, including departments and other bodies created in the name of "government," are all run by people who would still be perfectly capable of running the same things without "government." Never mind that children have been educated for thousands of years without "governments." Never mind that caring for the sick, the dispossessed and the hungry has been the province of human charity for millennia before "governments" monopolised welfare. Never mind that inventors have been inventing, painters painting, sculptors sculpting and writers writing for all recorded and prehistoric history without "governments" telling them what to invent, paint, sculpt or write. Without "government," there would be no creativity.
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Without "government" standing over them with a big stick, scientists wouldn't see the worth in curing cancer, exploring the cosmos or researching new materials. Without "government" standing over them, teachers would not see the need to teach, nurses would not see the need to nurse and firefighters would not see the need to stop buildings burning down. No, without "government" forcing people to do things, nothing would get done or, if it was done, it would be done in a dangerous and half-arsed way.
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Nobody would pay taxes without "government" to force them - because taxes are such a self-evidently useful and magnificent thing that only coercion can extract them. Voluntary taxes or fees for specific services just wouldn't work because nobody wants to pay for anything.
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Only "government" can oversee banking, because without oversight there might occur the most catastrophic banking crisis in human history, bringing entire countries to their collective knees whilst transferring trillions of dollars/pounds/euros to the culprits and ensuring that not one of them is held accountable or goes to jail.
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Without "government" in charge, people wouldn't be able to marry or drive or watch television. All trade, industry and innovation would cease. Law and order would cease to have any meaning whatsoever. Society would collapse under the weight of its own incredible complexity. Apocalypse!
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Well, I think that's all bollocks.
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I think - I know - we can do better.

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

Hi Jimmy Baker's Assistant, your wall of text including random parables and implications of complicity/tacit approval of abuse will be along shortly...

Well indeed that's exactly what happened.

I know there's no point in arguing, though, and I look forward to the Labour leadership result tomorrow, at which point the topic of this thread might revert back to politics!

[JPMaybe]

I know before I even start on this that answering anything you say point-by-point will just generate an even longer stream of even more fractally wrong gobbledygook. I guess I'm a masochist.

There seems to be no argument from anyone against the idea that one person has no right to force another person to act against their will.

Yes they do.  You said it yourself in your comments about a police force, whose sole purpose is to curtail the actions of another.  Wanting a state and a government just extends that principle to forcing people to act against their will when what they want to do would harm the collective.

Never mind the fact that everything, including departments and other bodies created in the name of "government," are all run by people who would still be perfectly capable of running the same things without "government." Never mind that children have been educated for thousands of years without "governments." Never mind that caring for the sick, the dispossessed and the hungry has been the province of human charity for millennia before "governments" monopolised welfare. Never mind that inventors have been inventing, painters painting, sculptors sculpting and writers writing for all recorded and prehistoric history without "governments" telling them what to invent, paint, sculpt or write. Without "government," there would be no creativity.

Yeah, that's what lolberts like you want us to revert to.  Relying on the patronising munificence of charity for healthcare and education.  You obviously know that the majority of children throughout human history weren't given any education whatsoever, and what they did get was utter shit, before state intervention.  Ditto healthcare.  You know this- you must- but you still claim the opposite to defend the idea of your dream plutocratic hell-hole.

Without "government" standing over them with a big stick, scientists wouldn't see the worth in curing cancer, exploring the cosmos or researching new materials. Without "government" standing over them, teachers would not see the need to teach, nurses would not see the need to nurse and firefighters would not see the need to stop buildings burning down. No, without "government" forcing people to do things, nothing would get done or, if it was done, it would be done in a dangerous and half-arsed way.
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Nobody would pay taxes without "government" to force them - because taxes are such a self-evidently useful and magnificent thing that only coercion can extract them. Voluntary taxes or fees for specific services just wouldn't work because nobody wants to pay for anything.

Yeah, yeah, zero understanding of human psychology.  As always with you.  No concept of your own or other people's intellectual limitations.

Only "government" can oversee banking, because without oversight there might occur the most catastrophic banking crisis in human history, bringing entire countries to their collective knees whilst transferring trillions of dollars/pounds/euros to the culprits and ensuring that not one of them is held accountable or goes to jail.

Yep, the answer to the shameful lack of state oversight of the banking industry is no state oversight at all.

Well, I think that's all bollocks.
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I think - I know - we can do better.

No you don't.  Your Randian utopia would be a living hell in which people like you would be the first casualty.