From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V14 #140 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, June 5 2005 Volume 14 : Number 140 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Pres Bush shat on from great height [Capuchin ] Re: Pres Bush shat on from great height [Capuchin ] Re: Pres Washington shat on from great height [James Dignan ] Re: Pres Bush shat on from great height [Jason Brown ] Re: Pres Washington shat on from great height ["Randalljr" ] Re: Libertarians [Jeff ] Re: Pres Bush shat on from great height [Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Pres Bush shat on from great height On Fri, 3 Jun 2005, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: > How many people actually don't want private property of their own? Personalty or realty? I can think of very few things I care to actually own. For the most part, I just want the use of certain goods. There is some personalty that is just generally easier to deal with as exclusively "owned", but it's usually stuff that nobody else would really want anyway... like my underwear or my bedding... certainly things that everybody could have without much jealousy or hoarding. And I can't think of any good reasons for giving someone exclusive dominion over realty. That's just short-sighted. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 17:34:02 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Pres Bush shat on from great height On Fri, 3 Jun 2005, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: > How many people actually don't want private property of their own? And to be even more clear, consider the COST of maintaining the small benefits of property. * armed mercenaries patrolling our streets 24/7 * hoarding, opulence * poverty, hunger * threats, violence * loss of resources for future generations I could go on. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 12:40:35 +1200 From: James Dignan Subject: Re: Pres Washington shat on from great height > > I mean, "technically" George Washington was a criminal - I'm pretty > > sure he broke a few colonial laws along the way there... > >Many would say he was a criminal for having owned slaves, but they are >also probably in favor of reparations... I suspect that in living in a colony and leading an army against your colonial governors it "technically a crime". As much (or as little) as you can equate current and historical movements, if it had happened within the last few years the actions of the Continental Army would probably equate to the actions of ETA, the PLO, or the IRA. James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 13:22:44 +1200 From: James Dignan Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V14 #139 >Now, if Jason had written "monkeys can help people better their own >lives," that's a piddle-maker. Hey - no picking on Bubbles! After all, he's got to testify shortly. James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 18:25:07 -0700 From: Jason Brown Subject: Re: Pres Bush shat on from great height On 6/3/05, Capuchin wrote: > On Fri, 3 Jun 2005, Jason Brown wrote: > >> Personally, I'm a big fan of public agencies and not so much a fan of > >> government. > > > > Care to explain that idea further? Because it sounds rather ass-headed. > > Can't imagine why. > > Government governs -- guides, controls, steers, etc. > > Public agencies administer the public will. > > You don't have to govern to administer the public will. Helping folks get > medical care is not government. Stopping folks from eating a meal without > paying is government (and is often handled by armed thugs). Fair enough. So the Seattle Public Library is good and the Seattle police Department is bad? But what if the public will is that people that don't pay for food and take it without permission of the supposed owner of that food should be stopped? What if the public will wants black socks to banned? What if the public will for guiding and steering and control? Is the public stupid in your book or what? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 18:45:15 -0700 From: Jason Brown Subject: Re: Pres Bush shat on from great height On 6/3/05, Capuchin wrote: > On Fri, 3 Jun 2005, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: > > How many people actually don't want private property of their own? > > And to be even more clear, consider the COST of maintaining the small > benefits of property. > > * armed mercenaries patrolling our streets 24/7 > * hoarding, opulence > * poverty, hunger > * threats, violence > * loss of resources for future generations While it would be nice to do away with such things, is there any real practical way to be rid of them? Private property may not be innate but its hear and people have lots of it. Is there anyway to stop people from being greedy assholes? I don't think so. We can only try limit the bad effects. Is there any other economic system besides capitalism that can efficiently distribute goods and services on a grand scale? The 20th century proved that Communism and Socialism are ultimately doomed to failure. At its core any sytem will have be to based on capitalism. If the answer is tostop working on a grand scale, well its too late for that, bub. Way too late. However, techonology is always the great leveler and I suspect by the end of this century things will be whole lot more equal globally. Although it remains to be seen if the rest of the world will rtise to the curent standard of living in the west or if we'll all meet in the middle. Interesting times to live for sure. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 23:15:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Benjamin Lukoff Subject: Re: Pres Bush shat on from great height On Fri, 3 Jun 2005, Capuchin wrote: > Government governs -- guides, controls, steers, etc. > Public agencies administer the public will. And who decides what that is? And what if the public will is burning witches at the stake? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 23:23:00 -0700 (PDT) From: Benjamin Lukoff Subject: Libertarians While there may be problems with the Statement of Principles, at its core can anyone really argue with the principle of "do what you will but harm none"? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 06:44:06 -0700 From: "Randalljr" Subject: Re: Pres Washington shat on from great height From: "James Dignan" >> > I mean, "technically" George Washington was a criminal - Of course, there's that tiny little matter of the murders of innocent civilians, even though they be Indians, when he was a young soldier. Vince ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 11:56:32 -0500 From: Jeff Subject: Re: Pres Bush shat on from great height On 6/3/05, Jason Brown wrote: > Is there any other economic system besides capitalism that can > efficiently distribute goods and services on a grand scale? The 20th > century proved that Communism and Socialism are ultimately doomed to > failure. This is more of an aside than an entry into this discussion, but...why is it that even though any number of capitalist environments have failed grossly (although many seem to have succeeded, depending on your measure of success), no one ever says that those failures "prove" that capitalism can't work - whereas the failure of a couple systems that called themselves "communist" or "socialist" supposedly proves any such systems' ineluctable, permanent failure? And while I wouldn't want to defend every aspect of Castro's regime, the fact is by most of the measures used by the 'capitalist' world, Cuba is far ahead of the rest of Central American nations (education, health, etc.). If I were to explore this further, I might start by speculating that the failure of the Soviet Union was more a matter of its leaders *betraying* the better aspects of Marxism, whereas the failure of capitalist regimes resulted from applying its principles *too* thoroughly. I say "might" because, uh, I don't really want to jump into a huge, history-based argument here. (That is, please, don't ask me to write twenty paragraphs on this...) - -- ...Jeff The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 11:59:12 -0500 From: Jeff Subject: Re: Libertarians On 6/4/05, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: > While there may be problems with the Statement of Principles, at its core > can anyone really argue with the principle of "do what you will but harm > none"? I thought that was Wicca - hey, Libertarian Wiccans unite! Anyway: no, I don't argue with the principle...but that's not the issue. The issue is that in application, things aren't that simple - and libertarianism tends to keep pushing back to its simplifications rather than recognize that, just maybe possibly in some situations, government can be helpful rather than harmful. - -- ...Jeff The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 10:21:46 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Pres Bush shat on from great height I've barely been skimming the politics thread, but this caught my eye (probably because I saw Cuba mentioned -- I've long been bemused by the weirdly large degree of slack that many American liberals cut for Cuba). > This is more of an aside than an entry into this discussion, but...why > is it that even though any number of capitalist environments have > failed grossly (although many seem to have succeeded, depending on > your measure of success), no one ever says that those failures "prove" > that capitalism can't work - whereas the failure of a couple systems > that called themselves "communist" or "socialist" supposedly proves > any such systems' ineluctable, permanent failure? Well, the ratio of failure to success for Communist systems is much higher than for capitalist systems. You could say that capitalism is the only system that's shown it *can* occasionally work. > And while I wouldn't > want to defend every aspect of Castro's regime, the fact is by most of > the measures used by the 'capitalist' world, Cuba is far ahead of the > rest of Central American nations (education, health, etc.). Well, technically Cuba is a Caribbean nation, not a Central American one. Anyway, even *before* the revolution, Cuba was already richer and more advanced than most nations in either the Caribbean or Central America. So if Cuba is doing better than some of these nations now, Marxism-Leninism-Castroism doesn't necessarily deserve all the credit. The achievements of the Cuban revolution can basically be summarized as universal education and healthcare. Those are real achievements, sure, but they were largely achieved thirty or forty years ago. Not much in the way of new achievements since then. Oh, and income inequality has been reduced, but they managed to do that mainly by chasing out or impoverishing the rich more than by increasing the wealth of the poor. > If I were to explore this further, I might start by speculating that > the failure of the Soviet Union was more a matter of its leaders > *betraying* the better aspects of Marxism, whereas the failure of > capitalist regimes resulted from applying its principles *too* > thoroughly. I say "might" because, uh, I don't really want to jump > into a huge, history-based argument here. (That is, please, don't ask > me to write twenty paragraphs on this...) Okay, but since you brought it up I'll just ask: is the above just speculation, or did you have any specific aspects of Marxism in mind? No need to write twenty paragraphs, two sentences would do. I'd agree that capitalist failures often come from being too thoroughly capitalist. Capitalist successes (at least in the already developed countries) generally seem to come when business is regulated and there are good public services and some sort of safety net; in other words, under the conditions that free-market fanatics think will inevitably lead to failure. - --Chris ps: Music is cool! ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V14 #140 ********************************