Exactly what is the definition of "Fair Share?"

[4est_4est_Gump]

You cannot be a radical right wing fascist. The ideologies are opposites.

Although the term right wing did not exist in those days, I am using today's definition, as one who desires a totally free market without government intervention at any level.

**

Also, which part of taking a business away from political enemies and giving control of it to a party member is consistent with Free Market politics?

A myth and a slander only engaged in by lesser and weaker minds.

Step up to the plate if you want to be a batting champion.

You only defined anarchy...

 

[LadyFairfax]

A myth and a slander only engaged in by lesser and weaker minds.

Step up to the plate if you want to be a batting champion.

You only defined anarchy...

OMG Somalia!!



I expect better from you, some of the time.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

OMG Somalia!!



I expect better from you, some of the time.

Going to stick with ad hominem.



That won't get Mr. Spalding over the fence...



Somalia is tribalism and anarchy.

 

[Bob Waters]

Right and left are entirely inadequate terms for describing the political climate today. They stem from the French Monarchy prior to the first revolution - the ministers on the right side of the aisle in parliament supported a strong monarchy and those on the left supported a weaker one with more power to parliament. The terms morphed into the right meaning centralized power and the left meaning decentralized. Economics got mixed in with it in the 20th Century so you had the Soviet Union being called 'left' when in actuality it was an absolute dictatorship - as 'right' as you can get - and the western nations being called 'right' when they were all constitutional democracies - in the scale of the original meaning of right and left decidedly Center Left.

In the US today you have the group that calls itself the Left advocating policies to increase the size and scope of the Central Government and those that call themselves the right advocating decentralization.

And you wonder why people get confused?

 

[LadyFairfax]

Going to stick with ad hominem.

That won't get Mr. Spalding over the fence...

Somalia is tribalism and anarchy.

I am not trying for the fences, I enjoy the bunt as much as the dinger.

So, using your interpretation of the definition I used for Right Wing - Somalia is a Right wing society. LovingTongue has been right all this time?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I am not trying for the fences, I enjoy the bunt as much as the dinger.

So, using your interpretation of the definition I used for Right Wing - Somalia is a Right wing society. LovingTongue has been right all this time?

Well, if one uses your definition, then one could make that comparison...

One would expect the government to enforce laws against violence, fraud and deceit.

 

[LadyFairfax]

Well, if one uses your definition, then one could make that comparison...

One would expect the government to enforce laws against violence, fraud and deceit.

Again, you swing for the fence and refuse to understand the stolen base also plays part in the game.

 

[eyer]

Geez...

...much of this thread reads like a group try-out for admittance to Newt Gingrich's political history camp for wannabes next summer.

 

[renard_ruse]

...The terms morphed into the right meaning centralized power and the left meaning decentralized...

Where did you come up with that? Source, link, anything?

 

[renard_ruse]

Right and left are entirely inadequate terms for describing the political climate today. They stem from the French Monarchy prior to the first revolution - the ministers on the right side of the aisle in parliament supported a strong monarchy and those on the left supported a weaker one with more power to parliament. The terms morphed into the right meaning centralized power and the left meaning decentralized. Economics got mixed in with it in the 20th Century so you had the Soviet Union being called 'left' when in actuality it was an absolute dictatorship - as 'right' as you can get - and the western nations being called 'right' when they were all constitutional democracies - in the scale of the original meaning of right and left decidedly Center Left.

In the US today you have the group that calls itself the Left advocating policies to increase the size and scope of the Central Government and those that call themselves the right advocating decentralization.

And you wonder why people get confused?

In the most narrow sense, Bob is right about the origins of the term being in the pre-revolutionary French Parlement, but in the broader sense I don't agree with his definitions.

The terms are vague and imprecise of course, but I would say broadly the "left" advocates using state power to make people "equal" (real or perceived) in whatever way it is defining that at a given time. The "right" supports maintenance of the traditional order to one degree or another instead of changing it to make people "equal" (in a real or perceived sense) because it sees either inherent value in all or some part of the traditional ordering of society or that worse evils will come from changing things in an attempt to make people "equal" (real or perceived), or simply it doesn't view real or perceived "equality" as an issue for whatever specific reason(s).

Sadly, by definition, the "left" is necessarily almost always driving the direction of the dialectic as it is the one generally advocating "change" thus over time it usually gets its way. "Fascism," in its day, was one effort to seize the offense from the left, to take the ball away from them so to speak, but sadly it went too far and committed lots of horrible crimes. You can find many other examples that fit into this pattern over the past 400+ years, when this paradigm really started (before that most conflicts would not fit this paradigm as systematically).

 

[eyer]

In the most narrow sense, Bob is right about the origins of the term being in the pre-revolutionary French Parlement, but in the broader sense I don't agree with his definitions.

The terms are vague and imprecise of course, but I would say broadly the "left" advocates using state power to make people "equal" (real or perceived) in whatever way it is defining that at a given time. The "right" supports maintenance of the traditional order to one degree or another instead of changing it to make people "equal" (in a real or perceived sense) because it sees either inherent value in all or some part of the traditional ordering of society or that worse evils will come from changing things in an attempt to make people "equal" (real or perceived), or simply it doesn't view real or perceived "equality" as an issue for whatever specific reason(s).

Sadly, by definition, the "left" is necessarily almost always driving the direction of the dialectic as it is the one generally advocating "change" thus over time it usually gets its way. "Fascism," in its day, was one effort to seize the offense from the left, to take the ball away from them so to speak, but sadly it went too far and committed lots of horrible crimes. You can find many other examples that fit into this pattern over the past 400+ years, when this paradigm really started (before that most conflicts would not fit this paradigm as systematically).

Looks like you're aiming for the free scholarship...

 

[patrick1]

Sadly, by definition, the "left" is necessarily almost always driving the direction of the dialectic as it is the one generally advocating "change" thus over time it usually gets its way.

That would be quite an unusual reading of the 30 years since Reagan and Thatcher came to power in the USA and the UK. The changes driven by them - notably in privatising great swathes of public utilities and other public sector bodies, and in deregulating business, particularly the financial sector - were consolidated, and not challenged, by Clinton and Blair.

Patrick

 

[Bob Waters]

Where did you come up with that? Source, link, anything?

Well here's a Wiki summary - far from authoritative, I know, but I'm too lazy to google a bunch of links for you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics


The quote you culled referred to the 19th Century into the early 20th.

 

[Unclebill]

For myself, I aim to be a scrupulous truth-teller, which includes following the evidence, even if it leads to conclusions I didn't expect or want.

Did you actually say this with a straight face?

Are you? I don't see any evidence for the propositions you are making here, e.g. 'The end result of collectivism has always been destruction', 'Collectivism always needs a scapegoat', 'Truth is anything that advances the agenda of the collective at the moment'. These statements are rhetoric not evidential.

One will never see the evidence one wishes not to see.

First: If the end result of collectivism is not destruction, name me a nation operating under a collectivist system which has succeeded? Look at the USSR, Communist China, Europe at large, et al. Collectivism throughout Europe is behind the economic disaster they have created for themselves through massive social welfare programs. Look at the deterioration of America as collectivism has been imposed here.

The recent economic success in China has been in areas where the economy has been freer and less controlled by the government. Collectivism strangles an economy, freedom feeds it.

Efforts by a few to roll back collectivism has caused some occasional resurgence here but invariably we return to some progressive/liberal government and collectivism once again continues it destruction. Chairman MaObama just happens to be the worst we have suffered yet.

Second, the scapegoat for Nazi Germany was the Jew! For Russia, it was the wealthy landowners and the bourgeois, in America, it is any of: the wealthy, the corporations, the 1% or anyone else who can be demagogued in collectivist efforts to turn one faction of America against another and Obama is a master of this communist concept demonstrating his excellence in it on his constant campaign tours.

Third, listen to any liberal politician and that becomes utterly inescapable if you choose to think even a little. One of the constantly recurring lies is that because they vote against certain things, Republicans/conservatives want dirtier air, dirtier water, old people to starve in the streets and other such lies.

If you are stupid enough or just determined enough to believe that, then you are never going to grasp the truth.

I challenge, in fact, I DARE you or anyone to find a single instance of any (R)republican/(C)conservative saying any such thing (other than when they quote a liberal).

A classic example of such lies occurred at the end of the Clinton administration when Clinton's EPA arbitrarily changed the mandatory levels of arsenic in drinking water to some absurd level that would economically destructive to meet. The fact the the federal government has no such authority was inconsequential to Clinton as it is to most political thugs today.

When Bush took office his administration changed the level back to that from which the Clinton EPA changed it and the outcry among the liberal/Democrat liars was monumental and was carried by the press in their mindless attacks that Bush was for dirtier drinking water.

To point out one of Obama's biggest campaign lies yet, he recently told people that republicans say the country will be better off with everyone "doing their own thing and playing by their own rules".

Anyone who is familiar with conservative ideas knows immediately that his is a lie or a statement of massive ignorance. Not believing Obama to be stupid, rather understanding he maliciously anti-American, he knows that no conservative believes in "everyone playing by their own rules". That is anarchy [or elitism with liberals/progressives/collectivists being the only permissible practitioners] and conservative are hardly anarchists. In fact, some even believe in the nonsense of "regulated capitalism", an oxymoron at best. Regulated capitalism is essentially fascism.

Regulated capitalism is an oxymoron because capitalism is a free market. A regulated free market is a contradiction in terms.

Of course I don't deny the Holocaust or that Nazis used the word 'socialist'. The significance of this is far less than you claim. The left-wing anarchists of the 1900s and 1910s regarded themselves as 'libertarians'. That doesn't mean that present-day right-wing libertarians are tarnished with their brush.

Patrick

I agree with your point about libertarians. However, the fact that the communists in Germany saw the Nazis as someone with whom they could ally themselves with the objective of later 'taking over' and instituting communism in and of itself should provide the insight necessary to demonstrate clearly the parallels between the two variants of collectivism.

Taxing the bottom 40% at this point in history would just be ignorant. I mean we can do it if it'll make you feel better.

The truth is the exact opposite unless totalitarian collectivism is your goal. If EVERYONE who has income is taxed at the same level, they are far more likely to become smart enough to understand that taxation is harmful and would be less inclined to vote for Democrats/liberals/progressives who are the collectivist thugs who seek the vote of the non-taxpaying voters to stay in office. When you suffer no visible impact from tax increases, then why not vote for those who will impose them. Not being educated sufficiently to understand that a heavy handed, heavily taxing, heavily regulating government oppresses the economy and their freedom and prosperity along with it, they see no value in voting against these collectivist thugs. In fact, many are stupid enough to vote for them so they share in the plunder of these thugs. In which camp do you fall?

But we as a society have decided that people who make less than x amount of money deserve section 8 housing, food stamps and should they take advantage of it help with college. What's the point in taking money from them only to give it right back to them? At best they wouldn't learn anything you want them to learn, If I make 100 dollars, you take 10 dollars and give me 15 at the very least I didn't learn that a 10% tax is a bad thing. I learned that at 10% tax is actualy a 5% raise) and a worst they realize that at step one and exploit the shit out of it.

We as a society have not decided any such thing. There is no such thing as a collective mind, collective spirit or anything like that.

We have had collectivist politicians impose this crap on us at gunpoint and too many Americans being of a generous and charitable nature initially bought into the lies by people like FDR, Johnson, Obama, et al.

For the government to expropriate the wealth of one man who earned it to give to another man who did not earn it is anti-American; it is collectivism whether you want to call it communism, socialism or something else. The people who imposed this crap ignored the laws which specified the authorities they could exercise becoming themselves criminals violating the rights of the American citizen in so doing and are deserving of only contempt and disdain, certainly not praise and yet by too many in America today, they are lionized, touted as noble men.

If you want to segregate the honest from the dishonest, look for those who condemn them and those who praise them respectively. Your post gives some good insight into which group you likely belong.

Or, as in your case, a frantic effort to corrupt the truth.

...
Did you come to these conclusions whilst leaning on a bar somewhere?

No one seriously believes the Nazi’s were anything other than a right leaning, authoritarian, fascist regime.

Woof!

Despite all the smoke and fog, if you check some factual sources, you will find that fascism is not a feature of the right, rather it is also a leftist form of totalitarianism. It is a philosophy that marries the utterly absurd notion of private property rights and government control. The fascists established the most advantageous system for the totalitarian thugs because they well and fully understood that the name on the title of ownership or deed meant nothing: what truly counted was who made the decisions and the fascists in government bureaucracies made the decisions making them the de facto owners. The magnificent advantage they created was that having the facade of private ownership, when their political meddling caused destruction as is the inevitable end, they could blame the man whose name was on the deed or title leaving themselves exempt from any tangible responsibility or accountability to continue their destruction.

You see fascism manifest in America today in the tens of thousands of pages or bureaucratic regulation [and that's only at the federal level] of private enterprise or in outright government takeover of companies, General Motors being a clear example.

Hey, Unclebill, North Korea is democratic, right? I mean, it says it is right in the name.

Absolutely: democracy at its finest. Every citizen is free to vote for the dictator in power at the moment. Sorta like Iraq, huh? Another magnificent example of democracy in action!

Well, maybe 'free' to vote for the current dictator is a bit much; more like forced to vote for him! Didn't Saddam Hussein routinely get re-elected by about 98% of Iraqis? Viva democracy!

If you check I believe you will see its name is "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)". Did you happen to notice it is also a republic? "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

It's a totalitarian state despite the facade you wish to erect.

 

[Sean]

Absolutely: democracy at its finest. Every citizen is free to vote for the dictator in power at the moment. Sorta like Iraq, huh? Another magnificent example of democracy in action!

Well, maybe 'free' to vote for the current dictator is a bit much; more like forced to vote for him! Didn't Saddam Hussein routinely get re-elected by about 98% of Iraqis? Viva democracy!

If you check I believe you will see its name is "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)". Did you happen to notice it is also a republic? "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

It's a totalitarian state despite the facade you wish to erect.

Ah, now I understand, you're a moron.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Ah, now I understand, you're a moron.

Yeah that's pretty much the short version. Where is Amicus. I can only deal with one wordy retard at a time.

 

[miles]

Uncle Bill: 437

Lit Libs: 0

 

[Ishmael]

Son of a gun, how ya doing UB? Haven't seen you in ages.

Some of the rationalizations in this thread certainly stretch the threshold of credulity.

Ishmael

 

[unregistered]

 

[Ishmael]

I agree with your point about libertarians. However, the fact that the communists in Germany saw the Nazis as someone with whom they could ally themselves with the objective of later 'taking over' and instituting communism in and of itself should provide the insight necessary to demonstrate clearly the parallels between the two variants of collectivism.

Amplifying on this particular point that UB has made.

Fascism and Communism are nothing more than two branches from the same trunk. That trunk was nurtured by Hegel, the foremost of the German philosophical Idealists. Hegel conjured up the notion that the state is the highest manifestation of God on earth. His rationalization was one supportive of the Monarchist form of government and directly in opposition to the school of philosophy practiced by the British Empiricists. His students formed into two groups, the school of the left of which Karl Marx was a member and the school of the right. The school of the right gave rise to Fascism and the school of the left Communism. Both were state centric totalitarian philosophies firmly rooted in the same core philosophical thought.

The core philosophy of the conservatives of today have nothing in common with any school of thought derived from Hegelian philosophy.

Ishmael

 

[Sean Renaud]

Firstly Uncle Bill isn't winning. Secondly if he can be perceived as such it's only because he has 70 years worth of copy and paste that hasn't been sufficiently slandered and in America the idea that you deserve anything has been completely thrashed. It's not a difficult concept even if it's difficult to verbalize.

I suspect a good starting point would be expanding the anti-trust laws to say that no company should be allowed to grow large enough that they can single handedly threaten the economy of the nation as a whole. Lets start there and then maybe tie CEO pay to the average pay of an employee. Lets say 100x the pay of the average worker? It would never hurt a small business owner but it would stop what's happened in America. We can work on "fair" in a number of ways but the reality is that we have a problem and it needs fixin.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Ishmael]

Firstly Uncle Bill isn't winning. Secondly if he can be perceived as such it's only because he has 70 years worth of copy and paste that hasn't been sufficiently slandered and in America the idea that you deserve anything has been completely thrashed. It's not a difficult concept even if it's difficult to verbalize.

I suspect a good starting point would be expanding the anti-trust laws to say that no company should be allowed to grow large enough that they can single handedly threaten the economy of the nation as a whole. Lets start there and then maybe tie CEO pay to the average pay of an employee. Lets say 100x the pay of the average worker? It would never hurt a small business owner but it would stop what's happened in America. We can work on "fair" in a number of ways but the reality is that we have a problem and it needs fixin.

Of course you've verified that C&P, right?

Starting with the anti-trust portion, just how big is that and who makes that determination? Is that a fixed number or a number that floats in relation to a percentage of GDP? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Lovely, Wage and Price controls. That's worked so well in the past. So the avg. Gm worker is compensated at somewhere in the neighborhood of $70/hr. Obviously under your formula the CEO should be compensated at $70,000/hr. Thus bringing his compensation to $142,800,000.00/yr. I can see a LOT of CEO's jumping your band wagon.

How about a guy that's started his own plumbing company that pays his skilled employees an avg. of $25/hr. Under your formula he should be paying himself $25,000/hr.

Of course your retort will/should be, "Silly Ishmael, the 100x is an absolute cap, not a cast in stone law." Fine, does this law include ALL forms of compensation? Would a company founder have to surrender stock in order to meet your limits should the value of the company increase to the extent that those limits were exceeded? Who should he surrender his stock, private property, too?

Ishmael

 

[Ishmael]

Of course you've verified that C&P, right?

Starting with the anti-trust portion, just how big is that and who makes that determination? Is that a fixed number or a number that floats in relation to a percentage of GDP? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Lovely, Wage and Price controls. That's worked so well in the past. So the avg. Gm worker is compensated at somewhere in the neighborhood of $70/hr. Obviously under your formula the CEO should be compensated at $70,000/hr. Thus bringing his compensation to $142,800,000.00/yr. I can see a LOT of CEO's jumping your band wagon.

How about a guy that's started his own plumbing company that pays his skilled employees an avg. of $25/hr. Under your formula he should be paying himself $25,000/hr.

Of course your retort will/should be, "Silly Ishmael, the 100x is an absolute cap, not a cast in stone law." Fine, does this law include ALL forms of compensation? Would a company founder have to surrender stock in order to meet your limits should the value of the company increase to the extent that those limits were exceeded? Who should he surrender his stock, private property, too?

Ishmael

No answer from the 'big idea' guy with no consideration for detail consequence.

He's an idiot.

Ishmael

 

[patrick1]

<<I wrote:

For myself, I aim to be a scrupulous truth-teller, which includes following the evidence, even if it leads to conclusions I didn't expect or want.

UncleBill wrote:

Did you actually say this with a straight face?>>

I just don't understand the need to be rude like this. How does it help the debate? You don't know me except through these words: I am not a Marxist, philosophically I am one of those 'British empiricists' who is contrasted by a later poster with the Hegelians. What evidence do you have that I'm not a truth-teller?

I felt my appeal for evidence didn't draw much evidence from you. You instead issue challenges to me to produce evidence, which feels like a rhetorical trick to me, but here I go.

One challenge, to find a politician who advocates dirtier water, air etc., seems pointless: what politician in their right mind would advocate such a thing, even if that were the implications of their actions?

Another challenge was: 'If the end result of collectivism is not destruction, name me a nation operating under a collectivist system which has succeeded? Look at the USSR, Communist China, Europe at large, et al. Collectivism throughout Europe is behind the economic disaster they have created for themselves through massive social welfare programs.'

Germany and the Scandinavian countries would be a place to start. They are as affluent as the United States and have higher average life-expectancy. They have much lower government debt as a % of gdp than the USA. As I understand your definitions, they're 'collectivist'. Explain to me in what way the end result of collectivism for them has been destruction.

Patrick