I think removing the desire to attribute characteristics to entire groups as if the group itself was an individual is a good place to start. That way lies stupidity and bigotry. There is too much diversity within groups than between them to come to any rational conclusion about this or that individual by referring to any classification.

Well Im not really making the PC point. Im not even really sure PC is at work in a significant way among the mods. They seem to be concerned about guidlines, as they should be. If PC was a problem in this forum, wouldnt NOS be banned?

Am I not PC enough?

It reminds me of a Thomas Sowell quote:

“If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago, and a racist today.”

This is why you must do whatever is possible to have the smallest government possible. Government is at best, treacherous, at worst, the Devil, Himself.

That used to be what it was like for people across the spectrum. For Engels the state machinery would necessarily whither away. For Thomas Paine the government was at best a necessary evil. But over time it has only become bigger, more entrenched, and its subjects have lost most of their power. The covid response proves their totalitarian aspirations, and the obsequiousness of today’s statists.

Biden’s treasure Secretary Janet Yellen made a speech to Citadel for $800,000, but hasn’t recused herself from advising old Joe regarding the GameStop affair and Citadel’s involvement. Refilling the swamp is easy. When asked about Yellen, press secretary Jen Psaki was quick to remind us that Yellen is a woman.

But it’s nice to have a press secretary who understands the details.

Biden has signed 30 executive orders in his first week, which to me is dictator status. Compare that to Trump’s 6 and Obama’s 5. Whatever he’s doing he’s doing it fast and with an iron fist.

Is skin-color not used as a marker of race? It is, as are other biological factors.

Let’s get this out of the way, then. Do you believe people should be discriminated against on the basis of race?

Clearly I was talking about race and race-based policy and medicine. I mistakenly thought you were as well, but I guess your entire argument was a red herring.

also, maybe stop equating skin colour with race, racist.

I have always been speaking about race, race-based discrimination and its institutional variations, and here you provide a study about the colors of skin and melanoma in an effort to prove the discrimination on the basis of skin-color is a good thing. I think it is you equating the two, racist.

I never said there is anything wrong with discrimination, so your point about bleach is a stupid one.

My point is that we shouldn’t discriminate on the basis of race, whether you choose to do so by looking at skin-color or some sort of one-drop rule.

Your advocacy of race-based medicine and diagnosis is utter bullshit, not a repudiation but a continuation of racism, and a mindset that has led to some of the worst atrocities in the history of medicine.

It is wrong because race, as fuzzy as it is superstitious, is no proxy for genetic susceptibility and actual biology. The use of racial discrimination in medicine is certainly no argument for it, especially given the history, the Tuskegee experiments for example.

It is racism. Racist societies have routinely set the state machinery to favor this or that racial group for no other reason than that they share the same shade of skin color. Your paternalism doesn’t absolve you of its stain.

how can I know that though? I have no way to confirm any of what you are saying, that others feel what I feel or even feel to begin with.

You can ask them. You cannot feel what they feel because you are a different human being, but you can share, relate and empathize with another.

Perhaps this quandary exists because for so long we’ve elevated the inner invisible world at the expense of the outer physical world, instilling in our thoughts a divide which does not exist. We cannot exist in both, so I suspect a sort of dissonance occurs.

Partisanship is not a fundamental feature of democracy; it is the fundamental corruption of democracy: suspending your own right to vote in your interest by instead subscribing wholesale to the views of someone else.

Without parties we get the single-party politics of fascism and communism. In democratic countries, at least one can choose to assemble with others of like mind and influence politics. He can also, like myself, remain independent of any single party.

Biden is about to set his administration to fighting systemic racism with his new executive orders. Susan Rice said this was about “racial justice and equity”, which implies fairness and impartiality, but in newspeak means instituting discriminatory racial policies that target people based on the color of their skin. This used to be known as “institutional racism”.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/26/politics/executive-orders-equity-joe-biden/index.html

But, from of the mouths of those who are unable to remove discredited and superstitious taxonomies from their thinking, looking for disparities between them becomes a motivating factor in this “whole of government approach”.

So "socialist" means "officially socialist at some point in its history irrespective of what it is now" sort of thing? Well then the aforementioned eastern European countries aren't socialist either. There has, for instance, never been an officially socialist country called the Czech Republic. Czechoslovakia, yes.

The Czech Republic is not socialist either. They replaced the word “socialist” in the name Czechoslovak Socialist Republic with the word “federal” back in 1990, shortly before the country dissolved. Their economy has been liberalizing since the Velvet Revolution.

In Slovakia, the same is true. It has also transitioned from socialist economics to the free-market variety and privatization, and it has faired much better now than during its socialist past.

Marx couldn’t predict this transition from socialism to capitalism. Everything from air quality to life span to wealth is better in Easter Europe than when it was back under communist rule.

Are there numbers for people trying to leave? Canada is pretty socialist. Is there a mass exodus or are Canadians restrained?

Well, Canada is not a socialist country. It is a constitutional monarchy, liberal democracy with a market-orientated economy. It has no reference to socialism in its constitution or founding documents.

Perhaps we have different conceptions of “socialism”. I’m speaking of countries, past and present, that explicitly or actively seek to achieve socialism, like Venezuela or Cuba or North Korea. When you say “socialism” do you mean state intervention?

I never said socialism leads to emigration. In fact emigration was mostly illegal and movement was restricted.

What I said was think more people try to escape from socialist states than move to them.

I guess I can’t expect good faith, though, can I?

Right, because "we've had enough of experts." But Sci-Pol isn't a technocracy per se. Rather, it's a political party built upon the philosophical belief that science now constitutes a highly coherent understanding of reality - we need to recognise as substantially true, and be responsible to in our decision making - to survive and prosper long term.

Though I agree with the belief, I do not see how it is applicable to politics. Not to mention, despite the principle, scientists are often wrong. Put a scientist in charge of producing more honey and he creates the Africanized Honey-bee. Put a scientist in charge of explaining homosexuality and he reasons it’s a mental illness. Put him in charge of governing, what then? Perhaps more important principles are required.

Who sits opposite and why?

An opposition might consist of anyone who opposes technocracy, which I wager would include some scientists.

And, again, the mass exodus from former communist states after the fall of communism in Europe tells the opposite story. And let's not neglect those rapist Mexicans. At best, you've hit upon an irrelevancy.

I’m not sure how that tells the opposite story. It tells the same story. People largely run from socialism, not towards it. The list of failed socialist states is vast, and the track record of socialism is reason enough to see why this occurs. The state never “withers away”, like Engles promised; it becomes bigger and more totalitarian, it turns to free market (capitalist) reform, or it collapses beneath its own mismanagement.

But as I mentioned, welfare states have trended upon the same course, getting bigger instead of withering away, to the point where the UN advocates offsetting this decline by importing a labor force from elsewhere. Japan’s familialism, on the other hand, may provide a different method.

To get immigration, you have to be a nation that is attractive to live in. If it were true that socialist states have more, that would suggest that the world's workers are betting on those states.

I think more people try to escape from socialist states than move to them. The Venezuelan refugee crisis and Cuban exodus give us reasons as to why this occurs.

Where was this sentiment years ago? A little too late, in my opinion.

As for me I have never once denounced partisanship, a fundamental feature of democracy, especially when it has finally become convenient to do so. I’d much rather participate in politics instead of avoid it. This is the world they created and I admit it’s satisfying watching them stew in it.

Welfare states will certainly suffer from declining birth rates. Declining birth rates imply a decline in the population, which also means a decline in the labor force, which means a decline in government revenue and a decline in the need for government services. This spells a decline in the welfare state itself.

But, as we’ve seen, rather than reduce the welfare state or better focus its spending on an aging population, the welfare state will seek to protect itself and move to replace its declining labor force through policies such as immigration.

A soft despotism is a despotism nonetheless.

Not at all. I see real kindness in individual acts, not in the advocacy of this or that policy.

Not really.

No, it’s awesome because the Democrats spent a lot of time dismissing their activity and feigned outrage whenever it was suggested to bring in the national guard.

Maybe you missed that way over there in Wherever, Europe.

The staging of soldiers (not the two definitions of staging here) inside the Capitol is similar window dressing as putting an armed guard or tank at a busy intersection or next to a tourist attraction. The major reason is to show people that "security has been raised".

“Optics”. A return to the public relations politics of Bush and Obama, where a politician can get away with anything so long as he utters nonsense about “unity” and “healing”. I doubt it will work this time around.

Yep. So a free society takes measures to secure the basic well-being of it's citizens.

I disagree. Kind, paternalistic people such as yourself should secure the basic well-being of your fellow citizens and have the freedom to do so. Some will even desire your help. Others will prefer to pass on that, or otherwise refuse when someone wishes to tinker with the conditions of their well-being.

We won't have free people unless we look after well-being. This isn't a moralistic insight.

I completely disagree.

At worst he held a rally told people to exercise their first amendment rights. Not quite my idea of a dictator.

and the end of his presidency proved it to be the case.

That’s right. Despite the fear mongering, the comparisons to every dictator from Mao, to Mussolini, to Hitler, he never once seized dictatorial control. When presented with the greatest opportunity, such as a global pandemic, it turns out lockdowns, the seizing of economies, police states, curfews, arbitrary punishment is the modus operandi of countless other politicians, none of whom the fear mongers warned us about. How wrong they were.

I think it’s a good argument. I’m not keen on the literature, but I’ve never heard it before.

Personally I would depart from the argument at the premise one should feel morally responsible for suffering by creating life, but it might be convincing to those who are able to reduce life to suffering.

I do not, no, and his presidency has proven that to be the case.

No. Are you?

Thanks for the clarification.

I would say liberalism allows such an approach, though, to the point of it becoming institutionalized or even generally accepted.

It is true that a certain level of well-being is required to enjoy autonomy, and there is a strong moral argument that we should care for the well-being of others. I also agree that one must secure his freedom, with force if necessary.

But these to me are moral considerations, best left to the decisions of free people. Just as people such as yourself should have the freedom to act on your moral beliefs, others should have the freedom to do otherwise, and for the same reason.

Thanks for the read.

“Every adult should be able to make as many effective decisions without fear or favour about as many aspects of her or his life as is compatible with the like freedom of every other adult.”

It's an excellent definition of liberalism. For my part I might replace "freedom" with "welfare", but the basic theme seems undeniable, given basic rational concerns of coherence and consistency.

I’m curious why you would replace “freedom” with “welfare” when the root word of “liberalism” suggests one but not the other. It seems to me that limiting one’s freedom to only that which is compatible with the like welfare of others is not liberalism, perhaps something more like “welfarism”.

The Washington Post Tried To Memory-Hole Kamala Harris' Bad Joke About Inmates Begging for Food and Water

No wonder it’s readers believe the way they do.

This is so good.

Can Someone Please Open the Door?

It was the culminating moment of a transfer of power: President Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, walked up the driveway to their new home on Wednesday, ascended the steps to the North Portico, waved to the crowd as a military band played “Hail to the Chief,” turned to head inside — and came face-to-face with a closed door.

As the world watched and a small crowd of Biden family members came up behind them, the first couple waited.

...

For one, there was no chief usher to greet the Bidens when they arrived. Although it is unclear exactly what caused the delay with the doors — which are normally opened by Marine guards — the chief usher of the White House, who manages the residence, had been fired less than five hours earlier.

This is awesome. I wonder how the Biden media will play this now that Antifa opposes them.