I don't understand. What difference does it make whether it refers to all white people or just some? It definitely doesn't refer to me. I'm a northern white liberal — T Clark

Then again, why wear the shoe if it doesn't fit? Is it because you find them an underdog in need of a white liberal defense?

I don't think what the language describes is a "heritage." — T Clark

I do. In fact, many a southern bigot specifically defends their own stance as one of heritage. I get it from the following language: "Confederate flags . . . endemic voter suppression . . . Dixie . . ."

My heritage is destroying them, circa 1860s. Why aren't they all about my heritage?

:100: The "other side" would then begin to understand what is meant by the term "dog whistle" which they've been using in support of fascist nationalism and racism from Dear Leader. Fun when the shoe is on the other foot.

if I text were about white people, would it be acceptable. — T Clark

That's the thing, by the plain language alone, it would only be about some white people, not all. And, while I like the notion of "If the shoe fits, wear it", I like even better my own twist which is this: "If the shoe doesn't fit, why the hell are you wearing it?" Are you the accused? Or are you coming to the defense of the accused?

Another angle is the "All Lives Matter" mantra in response to BLM. As has been opined elsewhere, that's like walking across the street to your neighbor's house on fire and asking the fireman "Hey, what about my house?" Jeesh, take a seat.

Finally, when a heritage that you choose to venerate and hang on to is one of treason, slavery, racism, confederation, and anti-intellectualism, then you get to play the enemy of America. You probably don't want or need T Clark to come to your defense. Let the hate rain.

A shorthand comes to mind now (sort of borrowed from Rawls): oppression is socioeconomic inequality forced by stronger communities on weaker communities that does not benefit the weaker communities. — 180 Proof

:100:

This brings up the question of subjectivity: If the stronger community sells it to the weaker community as a benefit to the weaker community, and the weaker community actually swallows that swill, does it cease being oppression?

Back when Dennis Miller used to be human, he said something to the effect "If trickle down isn't fair warning you are about to get pissed on, then I don't know what is." I guess many of the proletariat are into golden showers, just like their Dear Leader.

Gots to have us a quadrinity and celebrate Judas. Without him, Christians ain't got shit.

Oppression occurs when the costs of an activity are externalized to those who did not agree, in an arm’s length, knowing transaction, to assume those costs for good and valuable consideration. This demands that we first consider the concept of property and the ownership thereof.

The things we need to survive are space, air, water, food, clothing, shelter, health, and protection from oppressors. When there is an overwhelming abundance of any of these things, then they are “free”. So long as anything is free, we have determined that, while one does not own all of these things to the exclusion of others, one does own what one avails himself of in the pursuit of survival. For instance, I don’t own all space, but I am accorded ownership of the space I occupy. Likewise, the air I breathe.

However, just because something is “free” does not mean it lacks value. All of these things are not only valuable, they are essential. Knowing this, some capitalists will endeavor to reduce the amount of a thing to a point where demand is such that a profit can be made on the sale thereof. Even if they don’t personally reduce the amount for mercenary reasons, the amount may be reduced naturally, or by others. In either case, the question is, how did anyone who claims ownership of anything for sale come into ownership of more than they personally need to survive? Usually they put “work” into gaining ownership. Work involves strength utilized in derogation of weakness. Strength utilized in derogation of weakness is oppression.

“First in time” often means “first in right.” Thus, you might work hard, but you may only be oppressing yourself if you are working for someone else who got there first, or who put in the work to take what you would work for. Might will make right if might makes right.

Sometimes might is in numbers. So, while I might own my next breath of air, the collective may have decided that it is okay for Cletus to pump tons of poison into the air without first having to negotiate with me for my next breath. The collective knows some stick-in-the-mud might refuse to sell, in which case Cletus couldn’t pump poison into the air and make money. So, the collective will tell me to go piss up a rope. That is might. Might will make it right with all kinds of gibberish excuses that the collective will swallow, hook, line and sinker. That is oppression.

With that foundation laid, let me try to answer the question:

A reliable and general way to assess a claim of oppression is to ask the person who claims they are being oppressed how much they would charge to assume the costs they are forced to assume against their will, for free, or for less than they want. The degrees of oppression can be measured in the difference between the dollars willing to receive, and dollars willing to pay. If there is an agreement, then there is no oppression. If there is agreement, we have free-market capitalism. It is ethical to measure that way, but might does not deem such measurement to be desirable. Might wants it's activities to be free to itself. Cost externalization is oppression and it takes might to oppress. Oppression is fascism, communism, monarchy, etc.

However, when you look more closely, it turns out that black people commit a lot more crime - and so make up a larger proportion of arrests than their numbers in the population would suggest. I was on twitter at the time - and shared these statistics, and was banned from twitter for doing so. — counterpunch

I don't think you were banned for pointing out that black people commit a lot more crime. I think you were banned because so many people who raise that point refuse to have a credible discussion about why black people commit a lot more crime. There are two generally understood reasons posited: 1. Black people commit a lot more crime because they are victims of the left, liberal policies, Democrats, and Obama; 2. Blacks are inferior. No reasonable person would go down either road and thus, it's easier, smarter, and wiser to just ban the offender.

As I have argued before, if one is truly interested in a scientific analysis of a socially-touchy situation, and if they feel oppressed, or cancelled by ostracization, or consequences, in their pursuit of truth, they can proceed through a process of elimination. In the instant case, rather than pointing fingers and blaming the left for not treating people the way in which the right would treat them, and which treatment would make people good, honorable, upstanding, righteous citizens like those on the right; or, rather than arguing blacks are inferior, the logical choice would be to engage the oppositional left on their case; i.e. Disprove the reasons which the left posits for why black people commit a lot more crime.

There are many ways in which this could be done. For instance, the seeker of truth could subject him/herself to what black people have gone through and then see if they can bootstrap themselves out of it using white, non-criminal ways. That, of course, would be difficult due to the compounding growth for whites one way, and compounding loss for blacks the other way, but it could give some insight.

On the other hand, if the scientist was afraid to go down, subjecting himself to similar treatment, or could not find volunteers to do so, he/she could go the other direction by bringing black people up and see how that faired. The difficulty, of course, would be the compounding down (lack of equal treatment can compound down with lack of education, interest in education, no father, believing what you are told about yourself, crime as a way out, etc.). The scientist would have to overcome all that.

The other think the scientist would have to look out for is the anecdotal outlier. You know, some white criminal who grew up with it all, or the black success story who thrived despite the odds. After all, we are talking the social sciences here, and the norm. As scientists, we know how fundamentally stupid it is to run to a Chicago Welfare Queen as a stand in for black people, or even a Ben Carson for that matter. We wouldn't go to Dillon Klebold or Donald Trump for science on the matter of whites.

But if it turned out that the process of elimination did not work, then maybe the hypothesis that black people are inferior, or that the left is keeping them down, would shift the burden back to the left.

Imagine if, after the Civil War, this happened: All former slave-owning real and personal properties were given to former slaves; All children of former slave-owners were taken from their families and removed to a school in Carlisle, PA for re-education; All wives and old men of former slave-owners were shipped off to distant Reservations to become dependent wards of the government; All former slave-owning men were forced into indentured servitude under their former slaves for a period of years; All proven sympathizers of slavery and/or former slave-owners were subject to the same treatment; All those who resisted were hung.

Is the fact such did not occur, evidence of white privilege? I suspect we would not have people flying the Stars and Bars in the shadow of the First Amendment, nor would we still have statues glorifying Traitors? Racists would still be under the fridge and no one would be left to take pride in their treasonous, racist ancestors? Then blacks would have owned land (not forty acres and a stupid mule that were subsequently taken by Jim Crow). They would have plantations that became subdivisions and cities, lesser flight to the northern factories and poverty towns where they commit more crime than white people. They'd be more integrated and educated, etc.

So maybe the right has a point. Maybe the left did create all these contemporary problems by not killing all the racists when we had the chance. Stupid left, with their magnanimity in victory, and their exhaustion from war, taking a gentle stab at carpet bagging and then going home, just to let the enemy back in.

Hmm. I'll have to rethink that.

/

Reality is opposition.

"Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her." R.E. Emerson

Look I apologize for being rude. You very well might be a nice and helpful human.
But I'm so fucking over your ideology.
It isn't insightful.
It's lazy useless worthless ideology. There are millions of people spouting the same putrid garbage.
Grow the fuck up and take some responsibility. — Lif3r

I responded here, stooping to your level, deleted it, and will let it ride out of respect to those on here who try.

foolish fears — Lif3r

Yeah, that's what the fools said about the Carrier Pidgeon and et al.

If you had all the answers to the worlds problems, what can an individual do to be impactful of such ideology? — Tiberiusmoon

Maybe not use it? What price would be paid? Could it be that a society free of crime is not a free society? There are dystopian stories about a future free of crime. The price to be paid for that is huge, and, in the opinion of many, not worth it. The same analysis could be applied to your hypothetical.

I'm not so sure about a world where the lion lays down with the lamb. Let's just cut to the chase and get rid of all lions? I don't want that. Unless I'm a lamb. In which case the grass is going to be looking at me next.

There is X and there is Y, and the simple fact that neither one matters itself does not matter, so they proceed apace as if they did, and that is all that matters.

It's everything and everyone's job to proceed apace. If we can do that without war, okay. But we need another outlet without a victim. If we can't do that, then, meh.

:up: I think I understand. It would be nice to put science to use trying to figure out why our society produces people like Adam Lanza. Maybe the "social sciences" could help us.

There is no point in human experience at which information exists unaffected, except as meaningless noise. — Possibility

Being affected does not render the inanimate animate. Nor does that render the inanimate meaningless. But it is people that make for the meaning, not the inanimate.

How do you think we distinguish between needed and unneeded information? — Possibility

Does the inanimate distinguish, or is it "we" who distinguish? You said "we distinguish." That is correct.

If science is needed information, how can it then be neutral? — Possibility

Science doesn't care. Science doesn't decide if it is needed. We decide if science is needed, not science.

Science is our limited capacity to reliably describe the ongoing distribution of attention and effort within a system, of which the observer is always the missing aspect. — Possibility

The operative words in that sentence are "our", "describe" "distribution" "attention" "effort" "observer". That's us, not science. Science is inanimate. It is nothing and does not even exist without us. It is a tool that we use. Like logic. Like religion. Like a gun. Like a car. I honestly don't understand what the difficulty is here.

That is in line much of the rhetoric from the gun lobby. — Banno

That's got to be argumentum ad sumptin', right?

If Hitler says one apple plus one apple makes for two apples, is he wrong?

Bye.

If science is the information needed to work out what to do next, then it is neutral.
— James Riley

...that just doesn't work. If it is going to help decide between our options, then it cannot be neutral towards them If it is neutral it cannot help us make a decision. — Banno

That does work. Information is not going to help decide. People help themselves to information and then people decide. People use information. Information is a tool and nothing by itself.

Other places do not give guns to children, nor have regular mass shootings in schools. — Banno

'Merica doesn't give guns to children either. And I've never seen a gun carry out a mass shooting.

Elsewhere guns are generally considered bad, or at best a necessary evil. — Banno

Everywhere else is illogical. Besides, it's not a popularity contest. It's an inanimate object.

Science is not neutral; rather it is the information needed to work out what to do next. — Banno

If science is the information needed to work out what to do next, then it is neutral. Like actionable intelligence, like the gun, needed information is just a thing, as is unneeded information, or wrong information. It all boils down to the people using or failing to use it.

I'm seeking out those who disagree with this proposition: Science is a good thing, to see what their arguments are. — Banno

I see science like I see a gun: It's a useful tool in the hands of people who have my sense of morality, and a horrible curse in the hands of everyone else. So, science is neither good nor bad. It just is. That's why I like to see STEM follow Liberal Arts; not lead it, and definitely not going it alone.

:100:

we are rare. Where is the other earth? Point to that. — Lif3r

We are not rare, and we aren't Earth. We are human beings of earth, and there are upwards of 7 billion of us, and we are destroying that which is rare (biodiversity).

But, if you want me to point to the other Earth, I just did. I stuck my finger toward the sky. Hopefully we don't go there and ruin that too.

What I find weird is the ability of a person to be intelligent enough to possibly know when someone else is more intelligent than they are without words. Should that even be possible? — TiredThinker

I don't have that ability.

I don't think the measure of man is the only worthwhile measure, but for those who think it is, I will tell you this: Man will get more out of a horse or a dog that's never been beaten.

It takes way more time and resources to train up an animal slow and gentle, but there is a greater demand, and value, for the end product.

I don't know why a body would expect people are any different. Build up trust and work for a mutual partnership. Give slack where it's due and when it's due. And understand the nature of the animal you are working with. People aren't horses or dogs, they are more complicated, and they aren't chattel (animals shouldn't be either, but that's another thread) or yours to make into what you want. But if you are not afraid of them, then give them access to education, resources, health, respect, dignity and honor. If you've treated them well, then you have no reason to fear them.

But if you've been treating them like shit, you can expect a surly horse, a sour horse, or a cowering horse. Don't be surprised if you get kicked or bit, or at the very least, won't get any good work out of them.

But for many people, this is exactly what happens: For a person born and raised into a religion, religion comes first. — baker

But does this hold for a person who was born and raised into a religion? — baker

Oh my goodness, I hope no one thinks that I think I'm going to convince a religious person of how wrong they are. I would never make so bold. You are absolutely correct, for them, the precedence of religion is exactly what happens, and the truth will never hold for them.

But just because they are wrong about something does not make them right about it.

I, myself, am a universal pantheist and, while my god is most likely different than their god, and while I agree god is the creator of our perception of good and bad and morality, there is no greater spread in the world than that which lies between god and religion. Religion is external to the heart of man, a manufacture of his brain, his cunning. God is in his heart and eschews religion.

"I had learned many English words and could recite part of the Ten Commandments. I knew how to sleep on a bed, pray to Jesus, comb my hair, eat with a knife and fork, and use a toilet. . . . I had also learned that a person thinks with his head instead of his heart." Sun Chief

I think it's called "capitalism". To them the commons is a tragedy. — unenlightened

:100:

They are not as important as they think they are.

Once upon a time there were old growth forests in the United States. These trees had grown for hundreds, if not thousands of years, through many types of weather and climate. They grew slow, with tight, hard, clear, straight grains, making the best wood for many different types of construction. But the best of all, for the trees themselves. Unlike the youthful trees, having grown with initial spirts of twenty or thirty years, with their soft wood, widely spaced, including knots from eager limbs, marring the best of what they would become, over and beyond, several hundred years hence, these old trees are the envy of some. The young ones are called, by the older loggers "toothpick timber."

A man, rich beyond all imagination, wanting the best, not because he knows the difference, but simply because he will ask another, an expert, “What is the best? I want it. Get me the best, I have the money, I have the demand. I deserve it! Our system says so.” This man is, irretrievably, a villain. He doesn’t think so, of course. And his defenders, and the defenders of the system that allowed him to be, will all try to justify his externalized cost, his demand. But think about it: Why should anyone who doesn’t know any better insist on settling only for the best? They will never appreciate the tree beyond mere money. They will insist the man who loves the old tree should outbid him, and make the tree his own, if he wants it to live.

Otherwise, cut it down, and build my deck! He will then show his deck to a few friends, describing it, pinky-finger extended from a glass of wine, over cheese and crackers. Once. And that will be the end of it. He will forget. He will be back to his other property, with deck forgotten. Tree, forgotten. The forest from which it came, forgotten. The people who wanted to save the tree, laughed at, and then forgotten.

He is not important. Fuck him. The system that would exalt him above a tree, above a forest, above others who love without money, fuck it. Die! Fertilize a tree with your rotting carcass.

Come, philosophers, and tell me: Why should I care about him and his system? Because they will have my back? Because they will charge me with hypocrisy for my failings? I’m sorry, but I don’t demand the best when I wouldn’t even know the difference. Why should I want to know, when less than best is more than good enough. I've no need to value a deck.

:100: Agreed.

In addition to guilt and punitive action, I would add reason. Sometimes the moral center makes sense to us, sui sponte, as reason enough on it's own two feet; and then there is the reasoning of others; an explanation of why it makes sense; a convincing that needs no god, no magic, no mystery.

And it seems entirely possible to me that religion and morality developed together - or at least affected each other. Can you give an argument as to why that isn't the case? — ToothyMaw

I believe animals have a sense of what is good and what is bad. Since we are animals, we too have that sense. If there is anything that separates us from other animals, it is that we consider what is good and what is bad. Consideration of what is good and what is bad is, or leads to, morality. I believe this occurred and occurs independent of, and not contemporaneous with, or after religion. Consideration itself is not a creation of religion. If consideration is a hallmark of philosophy, then cave men did indeed engage in it.

The problem we run into, as I have said before, is that religion has an insidious habit of claiming a moral high ground to which it is not entitled. Religion lays claim to that which it deems good and eschews that which it deems bad. So naturally it will say it came first, or at least contemporaneous with morality. It will say we can't live without religion. Of course it says that. It is a liar that must perpetuate itself.

Hell, the space we occupy, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the clothing we wear, taking care of the young, the wounded, the ill and the old, all these are good so they must be gifts of god. But all those things existed before and in spite of religion, as did the contemplation thereof.

It is only later, when someone asked "Why?" and another, who did not know the answer, but who felt knowing the answer was more important than the truth, decided to pull some shit out of his ass and said "Because god said so" that we have religion. The guy who said "I don't know, let us contemplate on it" was the first philosopher. I think he was a cave man. Anyone who contemplates without lying to themselves is a philosopher. But the morality, the contemplation of good/bad, was not a child of religion.

Personally I think nobody should own land that is considered "holy" or of religious historic value. Not lived on. Just held as a tourist destination without current financial interests. — TiredThinker

That's how I feel about the commons. Wilderness "untrammeled by man" is sacred, holy, to me.

At the very least it seems to me religion was an attempt to codify our moral intuitions, — ToothyMaw

Yes.

so I wouldn't say that religion copies morality, — ToothyMaw

I would.

but rather that religion depends on morality on a fundamental level — ToothyMaw

Yes.

but not the other way around. — ToothyMaw

I agree.

I'm only speaking of "religion" as I understand the term. If philosophers are using it as some term-of-art that I'm not privy too, then maybe we are talking past each other. For me, it is beyond comprehension that religion came first. It's just an organized, cultish way of trying to explain mystery. But, like science, it followed curiosity and appreciation of the mystery; it didn't give rise to it. We had the moral intuitions first, and only became curious about the mystery of them later.

Whenever one feels like they are between a rock and a hard place, they should stop and ask "How did that hard place get so hard, and is there something we could do about that?" The only reason there is a dilemma in your imagined (?) scenario is because people are not educated. But understanding that fact doesn't do us any good in the instant case. It's too late now to send everyone back to school to teach them science, calculation of odds, relative threat assessment, etc.

So, what to do?

If we don't tell them and word gets out, then it just provides more ammo to the anti-vaxers. If we do tell them, the unenlightened self-interested might keep us out of herd immunity.

I think the answer is to tell them the truth and then do what some jurisdictions are doing: Appeal to the self-interest by paying people to get vaccinated, hold lotteries, give beers, have hot chicks or dudes administer the vax in their underwear.

Dummies will gladly drive tons of Detroit steel, hurtling down a highway at 70 miles per hour, mere feet from a thousand others doing the same thing, some going the opposite direction, risking their lives because Power Ball is up and they want a ticket. Or to get to the strip club, or to work in a cubicle for the man. Whatever. So they will gladly take a vaccine, especially when they don't personally know anyone who ever died from it. People are stupid so all you have to do is use that for them.

Then think, "How can we avoid this in the future. Oh yeah! School!"

What? They are pretending to the morals of humanists? Really? Humanists and the religious disagree on so many things, so vehemently. While it appears that morality precedes religion according to some anthropologists, and people are likely to discard religious commands that go against their moral intuitions, the religious have very different values than most humanists. — ToothyMaw

There is something in me that defaults to an assumption that someone is disagreeing with me when they respond to my posts. But search as I might, I don't think you are disagreeing with me. My post was really just saying religion did not come first and it does not have a monopoly on good.

Disagreement on what is good and what is bad does not prevent religion from claiming as it's own that which it, subjectively, deems to be good. There are interreligious disagreements that are greater than the disagreements between the humanist and the religious.

What the humanist, or the atheist should always do is refuse to allow religion to abscond with the consideration of what is good. Just as Americans should never let some Americans make them feel un-American, or like the flag is not theirs, or like they "don't support the troops" if they question the morality of a war, or a thousand other stupid Republican wedges.

Religion can be bad even if it thinks it is good.

Like I said earlier, there are fundamental differences between the humanist and religious worldviews. — ToothyMaw

Indeed there are. "Next to the atrocity of the demagogues, the stupidity of the moralist, or their total absence, is the chief cause of the division that today afflicts the human community. There is greater confusion than ever with regard to the norms which ought to govern the relations between men, to say nothing of those which could orient and regulate our treatment of the other realities present in our environment: the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal." J.O. yGasset

The idea that something is moral or immoral was indigenous to man
— James Riley

How do you know that? — baker

Because morality is nothing more than consideration of what animals have. Animals know good/bad. We just happen to consider it. It didn't take religion to reduce good/bad to consideration. The idea that contemporary non-religious people came to their morality on the coat tails of religion is just religion trying to appropriate a good thing: consideration. A thing deemed good by most. Anything good will fall victim to this.

Another distinction should be drawn in this thread, and that's the one between religion and spirituality. Most folks think of religion as an organized institution among people, or socialized spirituality. The first rock art in a cave somewhere will get the religious pointing and saying "Yeah, that's good, that's us, that's god moving through us." The artist is like "WTF are you talking about?"

I don't accept the premise of the OP. It is not only possible to conceive of morality without reference to religion, the religious who claim to be moral are merely pretending to the same moral values as the atheists and humanists. Religion is merely copying some of the moral principles from atheists and humanists and citing a god as their source. The religious idea of moral behavior was first modeled by man, before and without religion. The religious idea of moral behavior is superficial and external to man. Religion is just copying morality, and is not the source of it.

This is par for the course with religion, claiming all that which is good, is them. Any who who act immorally are just deemed to be wayward or lost, or misinterpreting religion or, worse yet, not them. It's not unlike a certain political bent claiming a flag, or a high ground, or a patriotism that is either not theirs, or not theirs alone. They deem the lack of any push-back as proof of the righteousness of their beliefs. The religious, in their failure to persuade, will adopt, and adapt, and forfeit in order to appeal, until the religion itself has morphed into something other than what it was. It will then claim eternity.

The idea that something is moral or immoral was indigenous to man, like the idea of feeding and taking care of the young, the sick, the wounded, the elderly. Religion, even if it arose simultaneously, was not the source of, nor did it precede morality. It just claimed it, as it always does.

I'm no expert, but I hear Portugal has had phenomenally positive results.

Rather than what is commonly assumed to be time, have you ever considered the very entity of time itself? — Tiberiusmoon

Thoughts? — Tiberiusmoon

I know 180 and physicists want to slap me when I say stuff like this, but that's okay. I think time can indeed be an entity, and I think it can convert to energy and matter and back again. Maybe dark energy is the future on it's way, dark matter is the past on it's way, and the now is the conversion point as it passes by us; we see here light energy and light matter.

Now, back to now. Carry on.

A vacuum being filled by another power (Russia? China?), and U.S. national security and/or strategic interests, are usually cited as reason for the U.S. maintaining a presence in the region. If the U.S. is weaning itself off the tit of big oil (with the rape of it's own resources, and a shift to renewables), then why else is it even there? Why doesn't the U.S. just pack it's bags and go home, and quit sending money to anyone over there? "Here China, Russia: Have fun."

I saw a picture on FB from Michael Moore's page. It had an elderly Palestinian couple out on the sidewalk looking up at the home they used to live in. Staring (smugly?) back down at them was a couple from Brooklyn, NY who was now occupying the home. WTF? I did not vet the photo, but it moved me. Realizing my helplessness, and the fact I live on Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho land (and I see their ghosts looking at me in the same way), makes me want to quit caring.

I remember when I was young, guys would say: "Turn the whole place into a glass bead and call it peace." But why even do that? Surely there is something worth saving over there? Mountain gazelles, wild boar, foxes, jungle cats, Nubian ibex and the rarely seen leopards, hyenas, jackals and wolves. Now them there is some good people, every one. And the real underdogs.

Another question: If you took DNA samples, who over there has more Neandertal blood?

:100: :up:

But Thatcher did not tell the voters what they wanted to hear. What is fascinating is how neoliberalism has made people vote against their own interests, through ideas such as her paragraph above. It isn't in anyone's interests to minimize community. But the ideas grab hold of people. — Tom Storm

I think you are confusing what people want to hear with what they need to hear. People like to think of themselves as rugged individualists, risk-taking, bootstrapping, captains of daring-do. And even if they are content, they will champion those who they perceive to be championing the myth they tell themselves about themselves, especially when a boogey man is coming to take what think they got on their own, with the sweat of their own brow and thier superior knowledge and work ethic. She told them what they wanted to hear and that's an easier haul than telling them they are dummies getting screwed by charlatans. Nobody wants to think they've been had.

What I said was, I bet you would struggle write a simple elegant paragraph articulating community over individualism in the manner of that speech of Thatcher's. — Tom Storm

Telling people what they want to hear has always had an easier go of it, especially with those a mile wide and an inch deep. (I'm talking about you.)

I'm European, most governments in Europe aren't really socialist at this point. — ChatteringMonkey

What are they? Or, more precisely, what were they before the recent response to immigration? The reason I ask is, I want some of that, and yet my fellow Americans scream "Socialism" at the top of their lungs whenever anyone mentions the tax rates and benefits in the rest of the developed world.

Socialist movement were fiercely anti-clerical, they sure did have a big hand in secularisation... and failed to provide a alternative story that inspired forming communities around. — ChatteringMonkey

That almost sounds like communism.

Personally, I'm confused about all the slings and arrows toward socialism. When I look up the definition, yeah, I get it. But isn't socialism, like capitalism, a nuanced thing with many shades? For example, what do we call every first world country on the planet, besides the U.S. (that's assuming the U.S. is first world)? I don't know what all those European countries are, but I like their single payor/universal and lots of other things. And I don't see their forms of government tearing into existing social structures. Am I missing something here?

:100: