OT Is anyone really surprised?

SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber
barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty
may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those
who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so
with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock

Which is a fancy way of saying its best to steer clear of
religious fanatics.

On Jan 25, 9:54*pm, "
wrote:
On Jan 25, 1:10*pm, SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:





On Jan 25, 12:47 am, "
wrote:

On Jan 25, 12:47 am, Ryan Cousineau wrote:

Let's just say that the totalitarian impulse can be summed up by the
phrase, "it takes a village to raise a child."

Oh come on. *Fascism was a basically nationalist
movement. *That's not "it takes a village."

He's talking about the background to the statement -- that is the
obfuscation. *It sounds good on the surface, of course, but is total
weasel language. *It is structured so that anyone who objects "hates
children." *I can't believe you swallow this retarded crap. *You are
focusing on a bunch of irrelevent superficial and peripheral crap so
you don't have to face reality. *This again is the birth-room of Ben
Franklin.

No, come on. *When one says "the totalitarian impulse
can be summed up by ...'it takes a village'," the implication
is that totalitarianism can be directly deduced from *"It
takes a village" without any other ideas. The only thing
lacking is presumably the army necessary to impose it.
This, I think, is silly. *It's like saying that everyone who
insists on the importance of individual rights is
necessarily an anarchist.

I would not have used 'it takes a village' myself, but is was
stylistically okay, really. After all, it is mere metaphor, and the
brilliant and resident french lawyer has alerted us to be... alert to
them. laughs.

The danger does not lie in a particular statement that can be regarded
as statist. The danger does not lie in Law A, B, or C that is passed,
increasing the power of The State. The danger is the gradual drift
that takes the chains off Frankenstein.

I'm warning you Dr. Frankenstein: don't create the monster. Do not
remove its chains. You'll be sorry, just maybe not today. I mean, it
could be tomorrows children that pay for your sins. Why do you hate
the children!? lol

Fascism, communism, and socialism all result in the same basic statist
structu rulers and the ruled. *Like Read pointed out, the
differences are merely incidental details.

You are a statist.

There are different degrees of statism. *

Oh, you are right. Cutting away mountains of ascii, my basic advice,
and jist, is to be suspicious and untrusting of power. That is the
general jist/character of the US government that was formed. You
can't, without being a hypocrite, complain about the Bush
administration breaking laws if you are merely selective on which laws
are okay to break. "Liberals" do exactly that. In fact, they paved
the road in the 20th century for good ole boy George to drive down.
It does not exonerate George, but it made his behavior possible. If
you believe in democracy, take the hard choice: insist that the
government obey its own laws, _all_ of them.

So that is in response to "degrees." While insisting the above (and
it does not guarantee justice/fairness), you can have your "relatively
better" situation.

Like David Friedman said back in the 80's: "I'd rather pay taxes to
Washington than to Moscow." Maybe you swap those, though.

Life under Stalin
was different from life in Britain pre-Thatcher and both
are different from life in Sweden. *

Yes, and "internal" liberal legal structures (liberty for the
individual) do not always amount to "external" behavior. A case in
point is Britain. It was there that the principle of individual
liberty was discovered (evolved) and practiced the most when it came
to the British subjects. That is, it was "internally" liberal. But
the British had a rather poor reputation as imperialists/conquerers
_externally_.

Just because things are good in the 'hood, does not give general
approval to the Authority. They might be tyrants/imperialists
elsewhere. So fund them minimally as a natural deterent.

Just as there are
different degrees of libertarianism. *Hillary and I are
both commies, but we have different ideas about where
the balance between responsibilities of guvmint and
rights of the individual should be drawn. *I think it's worth
preserving the distinction between guvmints that rule
you more than you like, and actual fascism or socialism.
IOW, I grew out of calling people fascists around the
age of 22. *Except for Pat Buchanan, maybe.

I think the right-left line has a few conceptual weaknesses. laughs

On Jan 28, 10:48*am, Donald Munro wrote:
SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber
barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty
may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those
who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so
with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock

Which is a fancy way of saying its best to steer clear of
religious fanatics.

I hear that C.S. Lewis was a christian.

SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:
I hear that C.S. Lewis was a christian.

Now that you mention it I do recall that and your favourite
encyclopeadia confirms it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis

I suppose it takes one to know one.

On Jan 28, 12:24*pm, Donald Munro wrote:
SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:

I hear that C.S. Lewis was a christian.

Now that you mention it I do recall that and your favourite
encyclopeadia confirms it:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis

I suppose it takes one to know one.

What does that mean?

In article
,
SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:

The phoney syllogism you imply goes a bit like this:
Murder is bad.
The State has a law against murder.
Therefore, The State is good.

You want to talk realpolitik?
The state owns the franchise for murder.
The state licenses murders.
The state decides when murder has not been authorized,
and holds a public trial to impose sanctions on unauthorized murder.
Hope I am not going too fast for you.

--
Michael Press

On Jan 28, 7:04*pm, Michael Press wrote:
In article
,
*SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:

The phoney syllogism you imply goes a bit like this:
Murder is bad.
The State has a law against murder.
Therefore, The State is good.

You want to talk realpolitik?
The state owns the franchise for murder.
The state licenses murders.
The state decides when murder has not been authorized,
and holds a public trial to impose sanctions on unauthorized murder.
Hope I am not going too fast for you.

--
Michael Press

You forgot that the State is held together through the threat of
violence, ask those who tried to secede.
Bill C

SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under
robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber
baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be
satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us
without end, for they do so with the approval of their own
conscience." - C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock

Donald Munro wrote:
Which is a fancy way of saying its best to steer clear of religious
fanatics.

SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:
I hear that C.S. Lewis was a christian.

Donald Munro wrote:
I suppose it takes one to know one.

SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:
What does that mean?

It takes a religious fanatic to know a religious fanatic.

On Jan 26, 1:14*am, Howard Kveck wrote:
" wrote:

IOW, I grew out of calling people fascists around the
age of 22. *Except for Pat Buchanan, maybe.

* *David Duke?

I think of him more as a racist. They're not exclusive,
of course, and I'm sure he's a nationalist, but I don't
remember what Mr. Dragon Duke's position is on
running the whole country as a centralized corporatist
authoritarian regime, which is usually a hallmark
of fascism (or Fascism Classic, as opposed to
New Vanilla Fascism, or Fascism Zero - same great
taste, but no calories).

I went to college with a girl who years later got a gig on
the Daily Show (pre-Jon Stewart), and late one night I
turned on the teevee and there was this (distant) friend
of mine interviewing David Duke, in a Baba Walters
style. That was weird. During the entire interview,
David Duke was holding and petting a tiny white (duh)
lapdog, straight from Opera Queen casting - or like
Dr. Evil's cat. That was weirder.

Ben

On Jan 23, 5:42 pm, "Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote:
"SLAVE of THE STATE" wrote in
The significant quote: "The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals
and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety,
which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to
disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia [was] the full,
actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that
Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has
to be or can ever be practiced." -- Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand is despicable heartless bitch that betrayed people who
trusted
her and her friends to McCarthy's House Committee on Un-American
Activities.
Hardly a person that any DECENT person would try to emulate.
And in the heart of every FASCIST like you lies deep fear of
complexity of
the world and desire to simplify it - bring it back to some imaginary
"kinder
simpler days of old". You people were raping the Constitution for last
7 yrs
it is time for you people to go back to obscurity where you belong.
You, Ayn
Rand, Bush, Cheney and all the evangelical Nazis. Americans can thing
for
themselves - they do not need you fear-mongering and you moron ideas
on how
to save freedom by killing it.