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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (157984)	1/14/2003 1:18:32 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1580034

I don't think that the "early 21st century capitalist paradigm" is as good as it gets but socialism is in almost every way worse and belong on the trash heap of history. It might come back strong but that would be a very bad thing for everyone who had to live under the socialist system. If it "came back strong", then that would mean that the people living under that system are of a very different mindset than you. I was talking about cultural, not individual altruism. A culture is not a moral agent. It has no mind or will. It is made up of the interactions of people who have minds and wills. They can be altruistic or not. A culture could be said to be altruistic in the sense that many people in the culture are altruistic and the culture promotes altruism but a culture can not act in an altruistic way, the individuals act, and any altruism the culture has is a reflection of the altruism of individuals. I think you are too bogged down with semantics. A culture is made up of individuals and within that culture, there can be certain attitudes that are culture wide or culture predominate. Yet, there also can be some individuals within that culture who do not agree with the prevailing attitude. For an example, in the NW, environmentalism is a cultural phenomenon but some individals within the NW do not espouse that phenomenon at all. If the culture was a moral agent it still would not be altruistic by stealing from Mary to give to Bob. It isn't stealing....the majority have agreed that those who have the most must give up some of it to help those who have less. When that happens, the results are usually pretty good. For an example, the MPLS ST Paul area takes a portion of the taxes from each metro area community based on a formula and redistributes to those metro communities which have the greatest need. In spite of this socialistic approach to tax distribution, Mpls. St Paul metro area has one of the highest standard of living in the country and is one of the best places in the country to live. Humans are motivated by many emotions they hardly, if at all, are cognizant of.......many of the emotions were activated in early childhood and still control us from way back there. You would not be unique in this characteristic. True but unless I was seeing you as a therapist and probably even then I am in a better position to know my own emotions and philosophies and the sources for them. That's absolutely not true. Ask any psychologist......often times, the person in question is the last to know what emotions drive them. And even when they do have a clue, they usually project them onto others. That includes everyone including you and I. In the vast majority of cases where people in a political discusion start bringing up the sources for the other sides emotions they are not dealing with the issue but rather making an ad-hominem statement. And do you think that your comment that claims those opposing what you refer to as socialistic party planks because of their desire "for freedom and economic benefit to the country" is based on fact and is free of emotion. I, for one, don't think so mostly because the inverse of that comment does not result in less freedom and less economic benefit. Case in point is the one I gave you above...Mpls St Paul disses your argument almost perfectly. By your standard, Mpls St Paul espouses socialistic tendencies but the people there are more free of worry, hunger and poverty than they are in most other metro areas. Furthermore, it has one of the healthiest economies in the country and experiences a solid growth rate of both high and low paying jobs. Are things perfect? No. However, their socialistic tendencies have helped them, not hurt them.....particularly compared to more capitalistic cities like Dallas and Houston that boom and bust on a regular basis, causing all kinds of pain and restrictions for their residents. More often then not it is ad-hominem abusive where it is an attack on the other side rather then focusing on the issue but even when it is not abusive it is ad-hominem circumstansial. An example of that would be when a teacher argues that teachers should get paid more and gets the response that "you are just saying that because you are a teacher". The guess as to the motivation might be true but it doesn't deal with the argument (assuming that the teacher actually had an argument beyong "I wan't more money". Sorry....but after posting with you for over a year, your motivations tend to be tranparent. Gov't doesn't steal it from you. Extortion might be a better word. They take by threat of force. The only difference between gov't and corp. is that with gov't you are required to pay a certain amount each year for basic services and you don't have a selection from which to choose. Entitled to have a decent life in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. But they are not entitled to that, only to an oportunity at a decent life. When a rich society refuses to prevent starvation and homelessness for all its people, then it only weakens itself. Why do you keep reverting to the term, steal? Do you feel the gov't is "stealing" your money thru their collection of taxes? Yes. Its a necessary evil, but it doesn't stop it from being wrong or at least taking beyond a small necessary minimum is wrong. Its not wrong; its the law. And if calling the collection of taxes evil does not suggest some emotion behind that statement, then Iraq and the US are allies and the sky is green. Things are not very fair and equitable in LA. That was one of several reasons why they experienced riots in the early '90s. Things will never be totally fair and equitable, and the attitudes that led to the riots are a large part of what keeps the rioters from having a decent life. That's right.....the people in power do not want to share their power and/or wealth. And when the people not in power can't get a piece of the pie through normal means, they resort to violence. That given has been true as long as human society has been in existence. ted