Messages

Polarizing Pat Mills has fans and detractors in about equal measure. Although his philosophy became more esoteric in the late 80's/early 90's his observational political polemic has been a feature of his work since at lest the 1970's. It could be argued that he needs a firm editorial hand, but sugesting he should be put out to pasture is going to gain no traction here. 

1.   Paul Moore - Nikolai Dante: superb line work.
2.   allistermac - Nikolai Dante: bold and characterful
3.   Adrian Bamforth - Romanov Crest: great composition

HM
Peter Rowe - Lulu Romanov
Alan Byrom - Nikolai and Jena
Albion - Nikolai Dante

Colour version of the Russian rogue.

Nice!

So, the bailiff has the "right" to steal my possessions. Ordinary people like you and I do not have the right to steal property, so how do we authorise others to do it for us?

The violence is in the threat - pay up or suffer. It makes no difference whether payment is being demanded (without any contract or agreement) for bandages or bullets; it makes no difference whether the money is going to be used for something good or something bad; it makes no difference whether the person refusing to pay up is right or wrong - it's not okay to extort money from people under threat of violence.

I cannot see the difference between defending your person or property against a burglar or mugger and defending it against a bailiff or other officer. Both are just human beings like everyone else with the same rights and responsibilities. The only difference between the mugger/bailiff and the victim/taxpayer is in power - the mugger may have a knife or a gun and the bailiff a gang of police officers with tasers and truncheons - which is more than the victim/taxpayer has. Payment is then made in both cases not because of the mugger/bailiff's rights but powers. In both cases, the victim/taxpayer pays up to avoid further harm, not because of lawful obligation.

(This is all in respect of government taxation where payment is simply demanded under threat for whatever reason and not in relation to the breaking of a lawful contract or agreement.)

I agree that humans are social animals and live in social groups, millions of years of evolution and instinct help us live this way. People understand this and help each other all the time with no need for coercion. What "government" does is exploit our instincts and drives and pretend that we're all really destructive and violent savages who need to be ruled and policed and charged for the privilege - holding up the few miscreants as examples of how utterly terrible we all are. We do not need that.

I dispute the idea that pushing policies which benefit the few at the expense of the many is hard. Look at quantitative easing as a prime example; the few all but destroyed the banking system, and with it financially crippled several countries, and were (and continue to be) bailed out by the majority - who are taxed to pay for the mistakes of the few whether they like it or not. The majority are also taxed for weaponry which the few could deploy to devastating effect for the many. The few also impose restrictive and protectionist rules, tariffs and regulations on the free market, increasing prices and restricting competition which affects everyone negatively. The few also write legislation, which they pass off as laws, which benefits the few at the expense of the many.

But this is all academic and concentrates on the bad aspects.

I think what we should be focusing on is the common ground. I don't think anyone here will be voting to cause harm to others but to do what they believe is best for themselves and their society. It's a shame, in my opinion, that both left wing voters and right wing voters want to do good but approach that good in different ways and don't seem to realise that "the other side" is actually the same side. This makes for groups of people who argue and argue and argue, each one afraid to concede that the other may have a point on some things, and are so afraid to be wrong themselves that the very idea of cooperation or compromise is regarded as disgraceful defeat.

Division, along with violence, is what "governments" do best.

Bailiffs do not steal property. They are court appointed agents who after a process (that is not always fair because, humans) are authorised to recover a debt that has been shown to be legally owed.

The next few paragraphs pre-suppose I accept that debt is false and rules/laws/society is equitable to violence. This has been discuses at length here before. I'm not bringing anything new to the discussion.

Humans are social animals they understand social groups of about 100. Even within those social groups there is conflict, allegiances and exploitation. Interaction between these groups is the root of the framework we have for society and governments. Bigger groups, like a society tend to need more impersonal, abstract thought.

You could argue that the banking bubble benefited the many and raised the quality of life (standard of living) across two continents. Buy bailing the banks out the governments chose to continue to prop up that bubble that will one day burst. From a perspective this is good for the many in the short team. You could also argue that saving the banks benefited the many. Although the rich few always benefit the most. What's good for the many is often counter intuitive and abstract.

I try to vote for what I think is best for society over what's best for me. But in the end what's best for society is probably better for me than any personal advantage I would gain by what's best for me.

A Bailiff could remove property. if you refuse with force then you would have instigated the violence. Violence in not inherent in the situation.

Violence is not limited to governments, neither is coercion. Governments are a form of control, that's true and that control can be negative or positive. Things that are positive for a larger group may be negative to some individuals. Humans  live in social groups that are now country sized, and will one day be world sized. maybe many worlds if we don't wipe ourselves out first.

Interestingly the EU, by being a larger group, by representing a more dispirit set of interests, tended to lean towards the common good as it's harder to push ideas that benefit the few at the expense of the many when those rules then have to be applied to a very large group of the many.

Fuck me Steve, that's wonderful!

I do my best

I don't like Nicolai Dante either but the piece by Steven Denton is really good. It has a touch of the Joe Kubert in there.

Thanks, I have been reading some Joe Kubert latlely so his work is fresh in my mind.

Man, Steven that's a great piece of work and about a character, I don't really care for. Really bloody good!

I enjoyed watching him grow and age, but most of all I loved the art.

I remember making the point that the Holocaust, being legislated for and undertaken by a perfectly legitimately installed government, was entirely legal and that to accept government rights/power is to accept the possibility of legal crimes against humanity occurring but accepting the possibility is in no way equivalent to condoning it.

Without whishing to open a can of worms.

The collapse of the political system in Germany before the second world war is still a hotly debated topic. To gain power the Nazis essential had to dismantle the system so their legitimacy is an elected sense is up for debate.

It was, until after the second world war, entirely, internationally legal to inflict as much damaged as you liked on your own people. As a direct result of the Holocaust that ceased to be the case. No government Legitimate or otherwise can legally commit 'crimes against humanity'. The repercussions for such crimes depends on the scale and risk/reward for intervention.

It's possible for any group or individual to inflict harm and suffering on others. Democratic governments are, at least in part, an attempt to mitigate that danger. results may vary.

The cold reception is a little vexing when you put 5 years of very limited free time into drawing the lead strip.

Much as I love the Hellboy Films they didn't do that well. I thought Heroes was terrible, I'm not that keen on Neil Marshall and I don't really see why Hellboy needs an R rating*. I suspect I'm not the audience this film is after. never the less it will be interesting to see what the new team do with it.

*although after the success of Deadpool and Logan I'm not surprised.

Thanks for listening to me, I can't help feeling like it's self-indulgent moping but I don't really know where else I can share it.  Who would have thought a website about a sci-fi comic could provide such support?

A website about a sci-fi comic is exactly where I would go for support. Most of us are cut from a similar cloth.

I'm going downhill again. I hate it.  I was romantically involved with a woman for precisely 2 weeks (though we have had a flirtatious, affectionate kind of friendship for over twenty years) and it hasn't worked out, and I feel ridiculous for being hit so hard by it. She made me feel more alive than I had been in years and now it's over I see how empty my life has been for so long.  How would I react if it had been a long-term relationship? These are the reasons I normally don't get involved.  Relationships have always led to pain and misery for me.
So far this year my best friend has died and so has my baby niece, and only this tiny relationship breakup has led me to true depression.

It doesn't sound like a tiny breakup to me.

Dating is emotionally unforgiving, I have been surprised by how hard the sudden rejection of women I don't even really know after a couple of dates has hit me, even if I'm not that interested! I spend weeks wondering what I did wrong, if there is something fundamentally unattractive about me as a person, if I'm too old for dating, if I'll ever find any one. It's an over reaction and it tends to subside relatively quickly.

You have had a terrible year and emotions are cumulative not compartmentalised. what you are feeling is likely the sum total of your grief and depression. Emotional peaks and troughs don't follow logical rules so you should never beat yourself up about being more upset over something than another thing.

I think I might have seen that one before.  Also, having just started with Citalopram for anxiety I've discovered that one of the things that they do is ..... wait for it ..... increase your anxiety!  And don't get me started on some of the other side effects.   

I was prescribed Citalopram and after it settled in (took about two weeks) it actually seemed to do me some good.

I have thought about it, yes, even tried planning and plotting one out a few times but my ambition has always outstripped my talent, coming out either stupid and simplistic or pompous and impenetrable. I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged very much and regret losing my copy to "The Event."

Maybe one day I'll be up to doing justice to the subject but, in the meantime, I'm happy to be writing scripts for Zarjaz, DogBreath and Paragon - which are much more enjoyable!

I am far more likely to read Zarjaz, DogBreath and Paragon, but I am at once not your audience and very much your audience. And just because I'm not your audience doesn't mean I wouldn't encourage you to write your own 'Atlas Shrugged'. 

Thanks, IP. Although there's very little we agree on, I do enjoy our arguments ("arguments" in the classical sense) and appreciate the fact that you take the time to present counter-arguments instead of just hurling scorn, ridicule and insults.

Not long ago, someone said I was unpleasant to argue with. That upset me and I have, I hope, taken that criticism on board. That's not the person I want to be. I, like you and almost everyone else here, argue for a better society. That's my motive, not the belittling, ridicule or contempt of others. That we don't agree is probably a good thing because no one person can possibly have all the answers and the future must be comprised of many voices.

Now, I'll let you statists get back to arguing about which idiots to put in charge... ;-)

Things in here seem relatively cordial to me.

Shark, Have you considered writing a book based on your idea for the ideal future society, by which I mean your Ideal in the near future? your own Atlas Shrugged, if you like. (I'm  not trying to compare you to Ayn Rand, it's just that Atlas Shrugged is the only example I can think of.) Debates on a message boards are by necessity expressed in short chunks and as soon as you walk a longer path that a few steps from the news the ideas become to complex to break down into bite size chunks.