Hell yea on McCain's VP pick!

[marshallnoise]

You really have no reading comprehension, do you? I quoted your statement on the 'eye of the needle' being a real place and the origins of said parable being Christian, both of which were incorrect. I can assure you that it is you who is 'struggling' right now. You're way out of your league arguing origins of religion or Marxist theory with me, I'm afraid. You should listen to Phishmonkey and quit throwing out buzzwords you don't understand. Spend less time on here defending an argument you've already defeated without our help and more time figuring out why you're wrong....and I don't mean your political opinions are wrong because they differ from my own..I mean you're wrong on the basic definitions of the words you're using and the examples you're giving.

 

 

Jesus said the quote. It is in the New Testament. That makes the quote Christian with Jewish origins. You simply don't know if the "eye of the needle" was a real place or not. That resource you quoted is flawed at best.

 

Either way, you are still shirking the fact that the parable is not an admonishment of wealthy people. My explanation of the parable is no less valid if the "eye of the needle" existed or not. Even if it was fictional and really should be translated "rope" where camel has been placed, the parable's meaning has not changed.

 

So how are you owning me again? Why should I shut up and let a Marxist such as yourself tell me what I know about my own faith that you have no respect for in the first place?

 

You and Phish are of the same cloth. Neither one of you want to actually discuss the meanings of things, rather you want to pull the arguement into the corner that you are most comfortable. It's understandable, but it is a sign of weakness. You and Phish also derail comments and also insert phrases into people's mouths. Dark Angel called Phish on it time and time again. You still haven't argued the content of the parable with me, just the symantec.

[silverfacechamp]

Wait...there's a FOREST here? All I saw was a bunch of trees!

 

[silverfacechamp]

Also, after watching Palin on CNBC tonight....I'm thoroughly convinced she has absolutely no idea what's going on in her own state, let alone around the world.

 

Hutchison she is not. Clinton she is definitely not. She's a little leaguer trying to pitch in the major league.

 

[Sex Panther]

Or picking Joe Biden?

Last I checked, Obama wasn't giving him {censored} for his age. And Biden is younger.

[Phishmonkey]

Jesus said the quote. It is in the New Testament. That makes the quote Christian with Jewish origins. You simply don't know if the "eye of the needle" was a real place or not. That resource you quoted is flawed at best. Either way, you are still shirking the fact that the parable is not an admonishment of wealthy people. My explanation of the parable is no less valid if the "eye of the needle" existed or not. Even if it was fictional and really should be translated "rope" where camel has been placed, the parable's meaning has not changed. So how are you owning me again? Why should I shut up and let a Marxist such as yourself tell me what I know about my own faith that you have no respect for in the first place? You and Phish are of the same cloth. Neither one of you want to actually discuss the meanings of things , rather you want to pull the arguement into the corner that you are most comfortable. It's understandable, but it is a sign of weakness. You and Phish also derail comments and also insert phrases into people's mouths. Dark Angel called Phish on it time and time again.

 

What do you mean. I'm the one asking where you guys are getting your information. I'm the one asking for specifics about Obama's "Marxist" policies. Dark Angel's tried to change the topic of discussion and then didn't respond when I asked for some details. And you of course are projecting your flaws on everyone else and claiming that you're somehow above the discussion when you've yet to cite any facts or form a cohesive argument. I'm happy to discuss, just tell me

 

A- Where you're getting your definitions since I apparently can't rely on text books, biographies, or even primary source documents. Whose definition of Communism are you using?

 

B- Which policies you consider Marxist. Don't give me generic bs about welfare and punishing rich people. Go to the webpage and post a {censored}ing link

 

You still haven't argued the content of the parable with me, just the symantec.

 

:confused:

 

[jimwratt]

...finally a smart woman, A religious woman, with a state school education, a family, and not a career politician with ivy league school, and family ties, is at the table. Finally someone that could be anyone of us is in the race. If she wins or looses, we need more of this, and less lifelong bred politicians with unlimited bank acounts deciding on the fate of a nation of people who are the opposite.

 

 

see, this is what i don't understand. As a life-long east coast big city dweller, this all strikes me as somewhat anti-intellectual and backward:poke:.

 

Does our country really despise ivy league education so much that it becomes a negative attribute for a politician even if they don't come from an upper-crust background? What is wrong with getting into a selective university? does having an ivy league education make someone less qualified or less fit to be president? Are ivy league graduates so alien to people that they just can't see themselves relating to one of them? Do they really think they're all rich?

 

What do you mean by family ties? is her family somehow more familiar than the other candidate's? People keep hyping her as an all-American blue-collar hockey mom. What do those things have to do with being vice president and why are they so much better than being something else?

[Scarlet_Worm]

see, this is what i don't understand. As a life-long east coast big city dweller, this all strikes me as somewhat anti-intellectual and backward:poke:. Does our country really despise ivy league education so much that it becomes a negative attribute for a politician even if they don't come from an upper-crust background? What is wrong with getting into a selective university? does having an ivy league education make someone less qualified or less fit to be president? Are ivy league graduates so alien to people that they just can't see themselves relating to one of them? Do they really think they're all rich? What do you mean by family ties? is her family somehow more familiar than the other candidate's? People keep hyping her as an all-American blue-collar hockey mom. What do those things have to do with being vice president and why are they so much better than being something else?

 

 

i think it has to do with the fact that, for instance, you can know HOW you are supposed to do something, but until you actually do it you don't fully understand it. the candidates can say they know whats best for the american people, but 99.9% of politicians are and have been in wealthy families and ivy league educations.

 

with Palin you get a woman that knows the struggles of the average american, because she IS an average american. just IMO of course

[jimwratt]

 

i think it has to do with the fact that, for instance, you can know HOW you are supposed to do something, but until you actually do it you don't fully understand it. the candidates can say they know whats best for the american people, but 99.9% of politicians are and have been in wealthy families and ivy league educations. with Palin you get a woman that knows the struggles of the average american, because she IS an average american. just IMO of course

 

 

But who or what is the average American? How does Palin typify that? She's absolutely unlike anyone i've ever been around in my life except for a few people who were devastatingly stupid. Am i doing it (being American) wrong? Why is her supposed average-ness an asset? i, for one, would prefer a president who is exceptional. Are people saying that because she's from a remote area of the country, miles away from the most of the people who make up the bulk of the American population, that she somehow understands what those people really need? Does she understand what i or all the people i know need?

 

This whole "all-American" and "patriotism" thing has really been bothering me this election. Pundits bring it up as a way of casting liberalism as anti-American.

 

edit - the rest of my post just needed too much explanation. this forum doesn't take well to such things.

[Kuroyume]

Hear! Hear! Obama isn't an 'heir-to-be' aristrocrat raised in milky exhuberance (see GWB). He was raised in a single-parent family that struggled. And he rose above the creme by dedication (and falling and picking up). And he passed on cushy employment to devote time to solving problems for real people in politics instead of a law firm. He's not perfect, but Palin (not even sensual to me) is just another wide-eyed patriot (beauty pageants?) who moves through political circles to maintain focus on herself and attain more self-gratification (the calling card of Republican fundamentalists).

 

She may be overwhelmed by the nomination but it was surely well received on the aforementioned merits. NRA? Pro-life? Devout Christian? Creationist? OMG! How hick, reck-neck, ignorant, imbicile do you want to be in charge of a super nation of nearly 400 million people (of which less than 30% subscribe to this rhetoric)!!!???

 

Hockey got me - I like hockey. But she is a blemish on hockey afaiac. I'll have to love hockey despite the association. Oh well.

[Samnite]

It's a sign of the times that a lot of idiots in America actually see education as a negative.

[Scarlet_Worm]

It's a sign of the times that a lot of idiots in America actually see education as a negative.

I have no problem with education, in fact I want to be an educator, but I feel that education should also be self provoked, as in, do not take everything your professors spout off as fact, do the research, think for yourself, etc...

History is repeating itself all the time... I am a conservative, but do NOT confuse me with a republican. I believe in the Constitution of the United States and every single RIGHT that it confirms and protects (the constitution does not GIVE us rights, we always had them, common misconception). I do NOT believe in personal income tax. I believe in FREE market (which we can thank big government for abolishing), I believe that free market can do anything the government can do with 1000% more competence. Take Katrina for example, Wal Mart had hundereds of pallets of water and ice during the katrina disaster DAYS before FEMA did, yet the gov't turned them away for some reason ... {censored} big government.

[marshallnoise]

Blah.

 

 

Collectivism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Collectivism is a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human interdependence and the importance of a collective, rather than the importance of separate individuals. Collectivists focus on community and society, and seek to give priority to group goals over individual goals.[1] The philosophical underpinnings of collectivism are for some related to holism or organicism - the view that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts/pieces. Specifically, a society as a whole can be seen as having more meaning or value than the separate individuals that make up that society. [2] Collectivism is widely seen as being opposed to individualism. Notably these views are sometimes combined in systems.

 

 

Politics

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[marshallnoise]

Criticism of collectivism

There are two basic objections to collectivism, which come from the ideas of liberal individualism. One is that collectivism stifles individuality and diversity by insisting upon a common social identity, whether it's nationalism, racialism, feminism, or some other group focus. The other is that collectivism is linked to statism and the diminution of freedom when political authority is used to advance collectivist goals.[15]

 

Criticism of collectivism comes from individualists, such as classical liberals, libertarians, individualist anarchists, and Objectivists. Perhaps the most notable modern criticism of collectivism is the one put forward by Friedrich Hayek in his book The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944 and translated into approximately 20 languages.

 

Ayn Rand, founder of Objectivism, was a particularly vocal opponent who believed the philosophy of collectivism led to totalitarianism. She argued that "collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group," and that "throughout history, no tyrant ever rose to power except on the claim of representing the common good." She further demonstrated that "horrors which no man would dare consider for his own selfish sake are perpetrated with a clear conscience by altruists who justify themselves by the common good."[16] (The "altruists" Rand refers to are not those who practice simple benevolence or charity, but rather those who believe in August Comte's ethical doctrine of altruism which holds that there is "a moral and political obligation of the individual to sacrifice his own interests for the sake of a greater social good.").[17]

 

Anti-collectivists often argue that all authoritarian and totalitarian societies are collectivist in nature. George Orwell, an advocate of democratic socialism[18], believed that collectivism resulted in the empowerment of a minority of individuals and oppression:

 

"It cannot be said too often - at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough - that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of."[19]

 

Marxists criticize this use of the term "collectivism," on the grounds that all societies are based on class interests and therefore all societies could be considered "collectivist." Even the liberal ideal of the free individual is seen from a Marxist perspective as a smokescreen for the collective interests of the capitalist class.[citation needed] Social anarchists argue that "individualism" is a front for the interests of the upper class. As anarchist Emma Goldman wrote:

 

"'rugged individualism'. . . is only a masked attempt to repress and defeat the individual and his individuality. So-called Individualism is the social and economic laissez-faire: the exploitation of the masses by the [ruling] classes by means of legal trickery, spiritual debasement and systematic indoctrination of the servile spirit . . . That corrupt and perverse 'individualism' is the straitjacket of individuality ....[it] has inevitably resulted in the greatest modern slavery, the crassest class distinctions driving millions to the breadline. 'Rugged individualism' has meant all the 'individualism' for the masters, while the people are regimented into a slave caste to serve a handful of self-seeking 'supermen.'...Their 'rugged individualism' is simply one of the many pretenses the ruling class makes to mask unbridled business and political extortion." [20]

 

Ludwig von Mises wrote:

 

On the other hand the application of the basic ideas of collectivism cannot result in anything but social disintegration and the perpetuation of armed conflict. It is true that every variety of collectivism promises eternal peace starting with the day of its own decisive victory and the final overthrow and extermination of all other ideologies and their supporters. ... As soon as a faction has succeeded in winning the support of the majority of citizens and thereby attained control of the government machine, it is free to deny to the minority all those democratic rights by means of which it itself has previously carried on its own struggle for supremacy. [21]

 

==========================================================

 

"Our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation."

Barak Obama

 

"In America,

[jimwratt]

^^^You forgot to include "We the people..."

[marshallnoise]

^^^You forgot to include "We the people..."

 

 

Completely different a the Wiki article discusses. "We the people" came together to preserve the individual right. This is exactly where the similarity stops.

[marshallnoise]

I have no problem with education, in fact I want to be an educator, but I feel that education should also be self provoked, as in, do not take everything your professors spout off as fact, do the research, think for yourself, etc... History is repeating itself all the time... I am a conservative, but do NOT confuse me with a republican. I believe in the Constitution of the United States and every single RIGHT that it confirms and protects (the constitution does not GIVE us rights, we always had them, common misconception). I do NOT believe in personal income tax. I believe in FREE market (which we can thank big government for abolishing), I believe that free market can do anything the government can do with 1000% more competence. Take Katrina for example, Wal Mart had hundereds of pallets of water and ice during the katrina disaster DAYS before FEMA did, yet the gov't turned them away for some reason ... {censored} big government.

I agree with this except that as originally intended, the U.S. Government was designed to only facilitate free commerce and protect us from FOREIGN enemies.

[Sardocasm]

You're all missing the biggest question... Does she have noodz?

[jimwratt]

where did obama say he was for the truncation of individual rights?

[marshallnoise]

where did obama say he was for the truncation of individual rights?

[Phishmonkey]

Collectivism =/= Marxism. Did you actually read any of that?

"collectivism has found varying degrees of expression in the 20th century in such movements as socialism, communism, and fascism . The least collectivist of these is social democracy, which seeks to reduce the inequities of unrestrained capitalism by government regulation, redistribution of income, and varying degrees of planning and public ownership. In socialist systems collectivist economics are carried to their furthest extreme, with a minimum of private ownership and a maximum of planned economy."

Communism and Fascism are two completely different ideologies. Even if your out of context quotes actually proved that Obama believed in a total abolition of individuality for the sake of the state, that still wouldn't back up your claims that he's a Marxist or Communist. It could be interpreted in so many different ways.

And as that article pointed out, collectivism is an essential part of a social contract. Without it a government cannot exist. Working for the benefit of the public doesn't mean you have a Communist government, it means you have a government. Those quotes don't mean anything

I'll ask again, go the webpage and find something that you consider Marxist. But as far as I know Barack isn't planning to nationalize the nations agriculture and heavy industry to return the means of production to working class

[jimwratt]

[marshallnoise]

Collectivism =/= Marxism. Did you actually read any of that? Communism and Fascism are two completely different ideologies. Even if your out of context quotes actually proved that Obama believed in a total abolition of individuality for the sake of the state, that still wouldn't back up your claims that he's a Marxist or Communist. It could be interpreted in so many different ways. And as that article pointed out, collectivism is an essential part of a social contract. Without it a government cannot exist. Working for the benefit of the public doesn't mean you have a Communist government, it means you have a government. Those quotes don't mean anything I'll ask again, go the webpage and find something that you consider Marxist. But as far as I know Barack isn't planning to nationalize the nations agriculture and heavy industry to return the means of production to working class

 

 

A Marxist is a Collectivist dude. A Collectivist doesn't have to be a Marxist, but a Marxist HAS to be a Collectivist.

 

Once again, you are using Collectivism in two different ways. There is Collectivism as in a political ideology and there is collective as in we collectively came together to form this nation. Collectivism (capital C) is not the means by which a government exists. It is collective authority that makes the government exist. This should be the very first thing that your civics class taught you; all governments are given authority by the citizens.

 

I understand there is no deivering of information to you, so I will bid you a good night.

[Phishmonkey]

A Marxist is a Collectivist dude. A Collectivist doesn't have to be a Marxist, but a Marxist HAS to be a Collectivist. Once again, you are using Collectivism in two different ways. There is Collectivism as in a political ideology and there is collective as in we collectively came together to form this nation. Collectivism (capital C) is not the means by which a government exists. It is collective authority that makes the government exist. This should be the very first thing that your civics class taught you; all governments are given authority by the citizens. I understand there is no deivering of information to you, so I will bid you a good night.

 

 

Yes, I know what a social contract is. That was my point. All your quotes do is highlight moments where Obama stressed the importance of the group, which is an essential part of the contract. Individuality is sacrificed for the sake of security. Saying that we must come together as a nation, promising to bring people economic security, or working towards a common good does not make someone a Communist. My language may have been unclear, but w/e its late and I'm tired. It even seems that you agree with me, working as a collective doesn't necessarily make a Collectivist form of government

[DyeMusica]

That alone sounds pretty communist to me.
Only thing you forgot is "redistribute the wealth":cop:

[Help!I'maRock!]

That alone sounds pretty communist to me. Only thing you forgot is "redistribute the wealth":cop:

 

 

people working together to make a better place is communist?