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State take Fingerprint; Is it right?
Topic Started: Jul 16 2008, 09:17 AM (766 Views)
Union
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Pyrenees Republic
It is only through a collective effort, TC, that we will evolve. The greatest advances to humanity come not in isolated incidents, from an individual here, or an individual there, but from whole societies - The Mesopotamians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Italians, the British, and forward. The next great advance will not come from some Joe living on a ranch, but from the collective effort of dozens of people collaborating together to make something truly great, from a government that fosters creativity and innovation, in a society where it is rewarded, not in material, but spiritual rewards.
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Tristan da Cunha
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How does a security camera on every street corner ennoble the spirit? ID cards, cameras on the streets - what do either of these measures have to do with some Joe living on a ranch, or with dozens of people collaborating to make something truly great? Fascism offers cheap spiritual rewards to commoners and to the mediocrities, but offers nothing to the geniuses.

Ultimately the people are the problem, not the government. Government is a symptom of the people; sound government indicates sound people, and a sick government denotes a sick people. Western European civilization (which of course includes America) has not produced a morally viable people in hundreds if not a thousand years.

Today, in the United States, the vast majority of those who oppose fascism come from the same wellspring of evil inspiration as the people who support fascism - much like how two streams of pus, of two different colors, can spring from a same fleshy growth.

Finally it is true that people are not tools for the state, nor is the state a tool of the people. The state is rightfully the tool of the leaders - the visionary, superior personalities - to lead the followers - the passive, the common, the mediocre, the confused, the disorganized.

And I myself have no problem with admitting I am not in the former class of man. :lol:
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Paradise
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Ulgania
Jul 21 2008, 05:13 PM
Technically... wouldn't liberals be more pro-fingerprinting? I mean, That's a sign of expanded government and all that.

Eh... I really think the general definition of these things have been dulled over the past several decades.
The political left, in democratic countries at least, is not usually associated with social authoritarianism.
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Union
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Pyrenees Republic
Meh. I vote Democrat, if it makes you feel better, Ulg.

:lol:

Quote:
 
How does a security camera on every street corner ennoble the spirit? ID cards, cameras on the streets - what do either of these measures have to do with some Joe living on a ranch, or with dozens of people collaborating to make something truly great? Fascism offers cheap spiritual rewards to commoners and to the mediocrities, but offers nothing to the geniuses.


They do not. They are an attempt to fix the symptoms of spiritual cheapness that plauge our society. Hopefully, in time, they will be simply reminders of a darker, more ignoble past. But for now, its necessary.

Furthermore, I feel the people best serve themselves through serving the state. Hopefully, in time, we can reach a technocracy, and all this will be a moot point anyway. But we gotta get there first.
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Comrade Queen
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Hispania
Jul 21 2008, 11:27 PM
Meh. I vote Democrat, if it makes you feel better, Ulg.

:lol:

Quote:
 
How does a security camera on every street corner ennoble the spirit? ID cards, cameras on the streets - what do either of these measures have to do with some Joe living on a ranch, or with dozens of people collaborating to make something truly great? Fascism offers cheap spiritual rewards to commoners and to the mediocrities, but offers nothing to the geniuses.


They do not. They are an attempt to fix the symptoms of spiritual cheapness that plauge our society. Hopefully, in time, they will be simply reminders of a darker, more ignoble past. But for now, its necessary.

Furthermore, I feel the people best serve themselves through serving the state. Hopefully, in time, we can reach a technocracy, and all this will be a moot point anyway. But we gotta get there first.
No it's not "necessary", as the government is criminal.

And the citizens should never serve the state. The state serves us. It's job is to regulate common agreed law and nothing more.
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Tristan da Cunha
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Hispania
Jul 21 2008, 11:27 PM
Meh. I vote Democrat, if it makes you feel better, Ulg.

:lol:

Quote:
 
How does a security camera on every street corner ennoble the spirit? ID cards, cameras on the streets - what do either of these measures have to do with some Joe living on a ranch, or with dozens of people collaborating to make something truly great? Fascism offers cheap spiritual rewards to commoners and to the mediocrities, but offers nothing to the geniuses.


They do not. They are an attempt to fix the symptoms of spiritual cheapness that plauge our society. Hopefully, in time, they will be simply reminders of a darker, more ignoble past. But for now, its necessary.

Furthermore, I feel the people best serve themselves through serving the state. Hopefully, in time, we can reach a technocracy, and all this will be a moot point anyway. But we gotta get there first.
What does a "technocracy" look like? Why is it desirable and how is it better than anything else?

Also, how do ID cards fix spiritual cheapness? ID cards are themselves causes of spiritual cheapness.
Edited by Tristan da Cunha, Jul 22 2008, 12:11 AM.
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Toussaint
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I fully disagree with all the hippies here, and totally agree with Hispania. The state exists to serve the people, sure- but that service is protection from outside threats. If the government needs to take a few fingerprints to ensure everyone is safe or accounted for, or to prevent someone from compromising that safety, then by all means, they must. It's their duty.

And, it's our duty to oblige in exchange for that protection. There's no reason that there can't be mutual service there. The government protects us. It is the natural order of the world that we obey its wishes. After all, it sets its laws as boundaries for our safeties.
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Comrade Queen
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Toussaint
Jul 22 2008, 12:05 AM
I fully disagree with all the hippies here, and totally agree with Hispania. The state exists to serve the people, sure- but that service is protection from outside threats. If the government needs to take a few fingerprints to ensure everyone is safe or accounted for, or to prevent someone from compromising that safety, then by all means, they must. It's their duty.
No. I shouldn't have to be treated like a criminal in my own country. It's their duty to protect us, sure, but not like a prison warden.

Edit: Btw, I'm not a hippy. Hippies are pacifists. I'm not a pacifist. I'm ready to clock heads when things get heavy, like when our government starts filing us into motherfuckin' camps just because we refuse to get chipped.
Edited by Comrade Queen, Jul 22 2008, 12:13 AM.
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Toussaint
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Scythirus
Jul 22 2008, 12:11 AM
Toussaint
Jul 22 2008, 12:05 AM
I fully disagree with all the hippies here, and totally agree with Hispania. The state exists to serve the people, sure- but that service is protection from outside threats. If the government needs to take a few fingerprints to ensure everyone is safe or accounted for, or to prevent someone from compromising that safety, then by all means, they must. It's their duty.
No. I shouldn't have to be treated like a criminal in my own country. It's their duty to protect us, sure, but not like a prison warden.
I don't see how its being treated as a criminal. So they took your fingerprint. Big deal. They didn't ask you to spend a week in a state penitentiary. They sure as hell didn't take you away from your family. All they'd've done by taking your fingerprint is knowing who you are IF you did do something.

If you never commit a crime, and they DON'T have your fingerprint, so what?
If you never commit a crime, and they DO have your fingerprint, I fail to see the difference.
If you were to commit a crime, and they DON'T have your fingerprint already on file, you might just get away.
If you were to commit a crime, and they DO have your fingerprint already on file, your ass is grass.

You really aren't being treated like a criminal, and nobody is accusing you of anything. These days there is no way of telling who is who anymore (see "Computer Programmer, or Serial Killer?" game to see what I mean). Better safe than sorry.
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Comrade Queen
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What are you not getting? The government has become corrupt and criminal. If I submit my fingerprint, and then later say something they don't like, they now have the power to frame me simply because I was "dissident." Fingerprinting is one of the ultimate way of manipulating events over people's lives.
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Toussaint
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The government is criminal?
That's paranoia if I've ever seen it.
Word on the street is YOU are their prime target.

What makes you think that you are that important in the scheme of things?

Even if the government would frame people, they'd be smart about it. They wouldn't go after random low-income people who said "lulz, the president looks like a monkeeeee." If you are talking dissent that is so hardcore they'd want to frame you, then you should be exported or imprisoned. Dissent compromises public safety. It is the duty of the government to protect against it.
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Comrade Queen
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Toussaint
Jul 22 2008, 12:28 AM
The government is criminal?
That's paranoia if I've ever seen it.
Word on the street is YOU are their prime target.

What makes you think that you are that important in the scheme of things?

Even if the government would frame people, they'd be smart about it. They wouldn't go after random low-income people who said "lulz, the president looks like a monkeeeee." If you are talking dissent that is so hardcore they'd want to frame you, then you should be exported or imprisoned. Dissent compromises public safety. It is the duty of the government to protect against it.
You are an absolutely horrible person that just doesn't get it. Without dissent, there would have been no woman's rights movement. Without dissent, there would have been no Afro-American rights movement. Dissent brings liberty. And right now the bastards in the government are trying to destroy the 4th Amendment utterly (some would say they've succeeded), and they're trying to go after the 1st, mangle the 2nd, and destroy the rest of the Bill of Rights. Dissent would end these attempts.

Dissent is good. Questioning the government is good... and patriotic. The criminals in charge don't like this, and they shouldn't be allowed to have their way.

Edit: Oh yes... maybe it's because it's currently late in the hour, but I can't believe I forgot this.

Without dissent... we wouldn't even have had the American Revolution.

But then again, that should have been obvious anyway.
Edited by Comrade Queen, Jul 22 2008, 01:06 AM.
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Toussaint
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Scythirus
Jul 22 2008, 12:41 AM
You are an absolutely horrible person that just doesn't get it. Without dissent, there would have been no woman's rights movement. Without dissent, there would have been no Afro-American rights movement. Dissent brings liberty. And right now these bastards are trying to destroy the 4th Amendment utterly (some would say they've succeeded), and they're trying to go after the 1st, mangle the 2nd, and destroy the rest of the Bill of Rights. Dissent would end these attempts.

Dissent is good. Questioning the government is good... and patriotic. The criminals in charge don't like this, and they shouldn't be allowed to have their way.
I'm not going to voice my opinions on the women's rights movement and the Afro-American rights movement. I don't want to stir up a whole separate debate :l

All dissent brings is instability. I've got some opinions that most on this board would think of as horrid, or terrible, or whatever. I'm personally very far right, and I'll openly admit to that. I believe the government should control society, and that the state is infinitely greater and more important than the individual.

Questioning the government is most certainly not patriotic. Part of patriotism is faith in your country, and part of the country is the government. Now, the arguments that you are throwing at me aren't valid to me like they would be to some people. I am not a constitutionalist. I don't believe in separation of powers. I don't believe in "checks and balances." I'm admittedly quite authoritarian.

So, we're not going to be able to agree not matter what is said. I'm a die-hard authoritarian, and you're obviously not.

In any case, there's nothing to fear if you've done nothing wrong, or don't plan to do anything wrong. If you want to disturb the peace, that counts as doing something wrong. Inciting riots generally counts as doing something wrong. Spreading hatred against the government is definitely something wrong.

But yeah. That's just my point of view. We could argue it further, but I'd rather not.
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Comrade Queen
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Toussaint
Jul 22 2008, 01:05 AM
Questioning the government is most certainly not patriotic.
Then you clearly do not know what that word means.

Having faith in your country does not mean having blind faith. Having faith in your country does not mean blindly trusting the government. Government is a fallible, finicky thing always trying to seek more power. Government is a corrupt creature. If it was a person, you wouldn't trust it in the least; and don't forget, citizens are part of the country too, and I don't think you trust all of them. So clearly your definition of patriotism is shit.

Patriotism means having faith and pride in what your country is suppose to represent, and the U.S. is suppose to represent liberty. When the government threatens that liberty, it is patriotic to question the government because it's attacking your faith.

If you want to live in a dictatorship, there's plenty of them out there. Me? I'll continue fighting for what we used to have in the Constitution and Bill of Rights until the day I die.
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Toussaint
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Scythirus
Jul 22 2008, 01:36 AM
If it was a person, you wouldn't trust it in the least; and don't forget, citizens are part of the country too, and I don't think you trust all of them.
You're right, I don't trust them. In fact, by proportion, I trust people in government thousands of times more than people in the general citizenry. Which is exactly why their rights need to be rationed. Give any jackass a gun; or the right to create some weird, freaky Chupacabra-worshiping cult; or the right to call for the overthrow of the only thing that keeps us all safe; and you have a problem.

If you'd like to see the consequences of what happens when government goes bye-bye, take a look at Somalia. Shit sux. People can not be trusted. I know personally far to many people that abuse their rights, or talk of what's "guaranteed to them," to the point that it disrupts others. That is certainly not what we need.

We need government, because the average joe is an idiot jackass. Sure, if we all proved to be responsible, rational people, then I'd be for all sorts of things, because we wouldn't have to worry about them being abused. But the reality is, 98% of everyone can not handle themselves. We need a strong government to keep us in line- and if people are kept in line because the government has their fingerprints, and they are afraid they will be punished for wrong doings, then that is a good thing.
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Filo
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Me too, as socialist, belive that single is the corner stone of the society...but as socialist i belive that the single have duties toward the others that forbid him to act as he please.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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Hispania
Jul 21 2008, 10:20 AM
As does yours. Armed militias. Gun ownership for every common criminal. Your paranoia knows no bounds.

Fuck that. If the state feels someone is acting in a subversive way, with the goal of undermining the government, this is treason, a criminal offense, and that individual should be aprehended. If the state is acting incorrectly, public outcry will do enough to force the state to release them. It happened in South Africa, it can certainly occur in the USA.

We differ ideologically, is all. You see the state as a vehicle for the people. I see the people as tools for the state. We're all cogs in the national machine. Individuals can't do shit. Individuals did not build the Hoover Dam, individuals did not get us on the moon. It is only through a collective effort that we can come together, and that requires a peaceful, stable, organized, and safe society/environment. The state needs to do all it can to provide that by doing all it can to reduce crime, treason, and war. If that requires national ID cards, and cameras on every corner, so be it.
Because it was groups of people working together that invented fire, the lightbulb, the steam train...

Think what you like. Opinions are like assholes - everyone has them, and they all stink.

Individuals. Masses. Team work. Genius.

Phoonie.

Sometimes people need to work together to get ahead. Sometimes they need to work against each other and thrive in competition.

Stability is good for innovation.
Necessity is the mother of invention.

Two heads are better than one.
The masses exist to exaltate the exceptional.

War is good for business.
Peace is good for business.

For every rule saying one thing, there's an equal and opposite rule saying another. Except where there isn't.

Ultimately everyone is wrong. But if you're taking South Africa as an example of a Good Thing(TM) and think that the individual isn't worth a damn as part of a great super-state... I know I don't agree with you. :D
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Union
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Pyrenees Republic
Quote:
 
No it's not "necessary", as the government is criminal.

And the citizens should never serve the state. The state serves us. It's job is to regulate common agreed law and nothing more.

This view on the world is wholly modern. It has not been that way for millennia, and is not the natural order of things. People exist, and have always existed, as individuals within a greater collective. Your rights are nothing more than what the collective has agreed to give you, and the rights of the collective are the only rights without limit.

Quote:
 
Having faith in your country does not mean having blind faith. Having faith in your country does not mean blindly trusting the government.


I agree with you there. The worst thing about democracy is that stifles facts in favor of opinions, and only allow whats popular to be known, not what is necessarily right. Dissent is necessary - in the form of free press, free speech, free religion, and the right to gather in public. Dissent is not necessary in the form of armed militias trolling around the interstate.

Quote:
 
What is Technocracy?


It is an economic model and structure dealing with society once it develops into a period of natural abundunce, and there is no scarcity. The modern system artificially promotes and creates scarcity where there is no need too.

In the 1920's a well respected non-profit research group called the Technical Alliance noticed after years of researching industrial and technological progression in North America that it was technology itself that could not only solve the problem of scarcity, but indeed already had. North America no longer had a natural scarcity, but instead became the first area on Earth to acheive a state of natural abundance. The real problem now was that both these countries (Canada and the US) were still using economic systems designed for scarcity environments, and were thus imposing an artificial scarcity on the area. This, they concluded, would cause severe economic problems as technology replaced workers, creating more products (supply) and lowering purchasing power (demand). Since both these factors lower price, the result would be an economic crash (a small example of this can be seen if you ever tried to sell normal air to someone; you can't, it's too abundant). Hence they had predicted the Great Depression within 6 months of when it actually happened (they predicted early 1930).

Having all this data at their disposal, they were in a unique position to develop a completely scientific solution to the problem, for they found that if the tools of scarcity (politics and money) were to try, the results would be harmful, even disasterous. Their plan was one that enabled all North Americans to live at a quite high standard of living, with no poverty, very little crime, no waste, no pollution, no economic instability, no "social classes" and more freedom than encountered in even our so-called democracies.

However, since economic and political domination and exploitation would no longer be possible by anyone (their tools having been taken from them), the leaders of the day decided that Technocracy's plan would not be acceptable to them. They instead implimented several plans to rejuvenate the economy and take people's minds off of what would end their corrupt rulership. What resulted was a lessening of the symptom's of the problem, while the underlying factors that caused the initial collapse remained to grow, and continue to grow today. Their plans required things such as continuous and exponential growth, horrendous waste of natural and other resources and other environmentally destructive habits, an ever-growing impovershed class of citizens, ever-increasing debt, imperialistic interferance with other countries, as well the the occasional war. (Any of this sound familiar?)

http://www.technocracy.ca/simp/begin.htm

Quote:
 
think that the individual isn't worth a damn as part of a great super-state... I know I don't agree with you.


Not quite. Individuals exist only within the greater collective. They are worth a damn to the many people that know them, and as a member of the collective. I'm sure your father gives a damn about you, or your cousins, or your girlfriends.
Edited by Union, Jul 22 2008, 07:42 AM.
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Tristan da Cunha
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Hispania
Jul 22 2008, 07:30 AM
Quote:
 
What is Technocracy?


It is an economic model and structure dealing with society once it develops into a period of natural abundunce, and there is no scarcity. The modern system artificially promotes and creates scarcity where there is no need too.

In the 1920's a well respected non-profit research group called the Technical Alliance noticed after years of researching industrial and technological progression in North America that it was technology itself that could not only solve the problem of scarcity, but indeed already had. North America no longer had a natural scarcity, but instead became the first area on Earth to acheive a state of natural abundance. The real problem now was that both these countries (Canada and the US) were still using economic systems designed for scarcity environments, and were thus imposing an artificial scarcity on the area. This, they concluded, would cause severe economic problems as technology replaced workers, creating more products (supply) and lowering purchasing power (demand). Since both these factors lower price, the result would be an economic crash (a small example of this can be seen if you ever tried to sell normal air to someone; you can't, it's too abundant). Hence they had predicted the Great Depression within 6 months of when it actually happened (they predicted early 1930).

Having all this data at their disposal, they were in a unique position to develop a completely scientific solution to the problem, for they found that if the tools of scarcity (politics and money) were to try, the results would be harmful, even disasterous. Their plan was one that enabled all North Americans to live at a quite high standard of living, with no poverty, very little crime, no waste, no pollution, no economic instability, no "social classes" and more freedom than encountered in even our so-called democracies.

However, since economic and political domination and exploitation would no longer be possible by anyone (their tools having been taken from them), the leaders of the day decided that Technocracy's plan would not be acceptable to them. They instead implimented several plans to rejuvenate the economy and take people's minds off of what would end their corrupt rulership. What resulted was a lessening of the symptom's of the problem, while the underlying factors that caused the initial collapse remained to grow, and continue to grow today. Their plans required things such as continuous and exponential growth, horrendous waste of natural and other resources and other environmentally destructive habits, an ever-growing impovershed class of citizens, ever-increasing debt, imperialistic interferance with other countries, as well the the occasional war. (Any of this sound familiar?)

http://www.technocracy.ca/simp/begin.htm
This is the root of the problem. Modern man is obsessed with material plenty.

There is nothing on earth more spiritually ennobling than simplicity and material poverty. The technocrats' love of "universal high standards of living" is fundamentally the same as the capitalists' love of economic and political domination and exploitation. That is, we crave and lust after "high standards of living", and all these ideas - whether communism, capitalism, technocracy, etc. appear superficially different, but are all just the same schemes to satisfy the same underlying and futile cravings. By rejecting high standards of living, accepting and even desiring material poverty, true spiritual progress is made. Then there will be no need for democracy, no demand for communism, capitalism, and technocracy.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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As farfetched as the idea of a Technocracy is... I like it. It'll never happen in our lifetimes, but the fundements aren't bad. Sort of like The Culture (which is infinately more preferential to Asimov's grim Perfect Capitalist society evidenced in the Robot series of books).

****

Quote:
 
This view on the world is wholly modern. It has not been that way for millennia, and is not the natural order of things. People exist, and have always existed, as individuals within a greater collective.

Hermits. But carry on.
Quote:
 
Your rights are nothing more than what the collective has agreed to give you,

True.
Quote:
 
and the rights of the collective are the only rights without limit.

False. The rights of the collectigve are the rights the individuals give it. Case of point: every revolution ever.

****

The fact is this: rules are meant to be broken.

That's why we have revolutions.
That's why you have ammendments to your consistution.

Because things change. They advance. They evolve.

Change is good.

To clamp down on change and cry "security" is to stiffle society.

I speed. I steal and cheat and break the law.

So long as I can get away with it... it is right for me to do so. If enough people do it, the law will change.

Remember the second law of thermodynamics: systems without input advance towards destruction.

Crime - like greed - is good.

To an extent.
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New Harumf
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Paradise
Jul 21 2008, 03:52 PM
New Harumf
Jul 21 2008, 10:32 AM
Hispania
Jul 21 2008, 10:20 AM
As does yours. Armed militias. Gun ownership for every common criminal. Your paranoia knows no bounds.

Fuck that. If the state feels someone is acting in a subversive way, with the goal of undermining the government, this is treason, a criminal offense, and that individual should be aprehended. If the state is acting incorrectly, public outcry will do enough to force the state to release them. It happened in South Africa, it can certainly occur in the USA.

We differ ideologically, is all. You see the state as a vehicle for the people. I see the people as tools for the state. We're all cogs in the national machine. Individuals can't do shit. Individuals did not build the Hoover Dam, individuals did not get us on the moon. It is only through a collective effort that we can come together, and that requires a peaceful, stable, organized, and safe society/environment. The state needs to do all it can to provide that by doing all it can to reduce crime, treason, and war. If that requires national ID cards, and cameras on every corner, so be it.
Methinks we best agree to disagree. I am too much of a Jeffersonian to accept the concept of the individual not being important - I think the individual is the reason for the State's existance, to protect his/her rights, thoughts, freedoms and choices. I see no other reason for the State to exist. I dispise with a passion the notion of collectivism, the hive concept gives me hives. Perpetuating the State is the very furthest thing from my mind at all times. Limiting the State's authority over individuals should be the number 1 reason for governments to exist. If there is crime, I will see to the protection of myself and my family. If it is cold, I will see to the warmth of myself and my family. If there is hunger, I will feed myself and my family.
Why do you vote Republicans then? It doesn't make any sense to vote for a party that attacks civil rights.
I vote republican because they are NOT democrats. In general, despite current observations, the republican party is the one that will defend civil rights and be for less federal government while the democrats will defend civil rights while wanting to expand the federal government. Also, both are fairly selective as to what civil rights they will protect and defend - republicans will tend to defend the right to religious observation, self-determination, property, wealth; the democrats will tend to defend the rights of the criminally accused, minority, speech, organization and association. Sometimes it is a coin toss, but in general I will support the candidate that supports less government, even though most times it is the lesser of two evils. With the death of Bill Buckley the republicans may have lost their policeman, and we may never have the right candidate again in my lifetime.

[Edit]

As to what some of you are talking about, i.e., the righteousness of the state over the individual - I've always had a fear that eventually we might have a generation that actually bought into this, that might actually believe the state can always be right, and it has been my biggest worry about the future, because once we, as a society, buy into this, it's all over, baby! "Logan's Run", "Wild in the Streets", "F. 451", "1984", etc., etc. These are warnings of the shape of things to come.

See, here's the problem I see - you say "If you don't commit a crime, then it makes no difference if they have your fingerprints.", but who defines the crime? The State. Subversion? Treason? Boy, those are subjective, aren't they? Not singing "The Horst Wessel Song" could be treason. Reading "Atlas Shrugged" could be treason. Owning a Bible or Koran could be treason. You seem to think the State would always be logical.

You. Scare. Me.

Please, consider the dangers and the abuses possible. I would rather live with fear of crime from individuals than with fear and crime from the State.
Edited by New Harumf, Jul 22 2008, 08:50 AM.
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Union
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Pyrenees Republic
Quote:
 
Modern man is obsessed with material plenty.


Only because he knows what it is, and knows he does not have it. Once men reach a certain level of wealth, material plenty seems to be the last thing on their minds - they become the Warren Buffets of the world.

Under a technocratic society, material plenty will be so pervasive, technology so overabundunt, that the process of acquiring more and more loses any meaning, and men return to a spiritual, philosphical, and artistic way of life.

Quote:
 
False. The rights of the collectigve are the rights the individuals give it. Case of point: every revolution ever.


Government is merely the head of a collective. Sometimes they change. One man, however, isn't a revolution.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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The Devil's Advocate

Hispania
Jul 22 2008, 08:44 AM
Quote:
 
False. The rights of the collectigve are the rights the individuals give it. Case of point: every revolution ever.


Government is merely the head of a collective. Sometimes they change. One man, however, isn't a revolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqKzjNUDx-0&feature=related

[Edit]

A to quote something much less entertaining, a little less serious and a little more tongue in cheek:

Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.
Edited by Nag Ehgoeg, Jul 22 2008, 10:05 AM.
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New Harumf
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Bloodthirsty Unicorn
I was looking for that!! :D :love:
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Union
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Pyrenees Republic
One man can spark a revolution. One man isn't a revolution. There is a clear, and very important, difference.

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