If you mean most of the collective will be happy, you’re speaking of a majority, not the collective as a whole. So, again, you’ll need to sacrifice individual happiness to reach your goal, and crack a few eggs to make an omelette. To achieve this, your regime will be unjust.

I wasn’t intending to “flex”, just to offer my opinion.

I guess I agree with some of that. But why not model our government after what we know works and results in the most happiness (social democracy)?

The utilitarian concern is the problem to begin with because it sacrifices individual happiness for collective happiness. One exists, the other doesn’t. One can be attained, the other cannot.

First and foremost, become an independent. Gather with people of like mind instead of like affiliation.

Avoid authoritarianism and make freedom a guiding issue. The American left was on the correct side of every issue wherever it chose to defend and advocate for freedom and against authoritarianism.

Ditch the European socialism for something more American, like Georgism. It was a big mistake to propagate the Euro-brand of socialism when there is a rich history of American leftism worth remembering.

Quit playing identity politics. It is just as superstitious and divisive as when the right uses it, and for the same reasons.

Avoid methodological collectivism because it leads right back into authoritarianism.

So, I have this question: "Is there any meaning in talking about 'materialism' to materialists, since they can't see or think that there's anything else than matter, anyway?" That is, it is something self-evident for them. You can see this also as a paradox: "Materialism has no meaning for a materialist"!

All this is true, at least in my own case. I prefer the concrete and physical to the abstract and immaterial. But it’s more a preference for dealing with a thing rather than a nothing. One I can point to, the other I can only find in the pure wind of idealist literature. So there is some thrift to holding on to the position: one needn’t waste his metabolism on what amounts to fiction and fairytale.

The American’s in power right now are the same ones who meddled in Ukrainian affairs during the Euromaidan events. Par for the course, for them, so this is no suprise.

At any rate, American leadership already has the Afghanistan disaster under its belt, so I’m not sure why Putin should care one straw about Biden’s saber-rattling.

The road to hell is paved in good intentions, goes the old refrain. The belief we can force society to resemble some utopian vision is the problem to begin with. It isn’t long until even the most well-intentioned socialist is tossing people in a Gulag. Just say “that isn’t true socialism”, try again, kill millions, rinse and repeat.

Welfare isn’t a one-to-one ratio with socialism, but I agree.

Which socialist society appeals to you? Kampuchea, Cuba, North Korea? Eritrea? East Germany?

Resist falling under the spell of socialism, if you can. The world is still recovering from its lies and ruin.

The question one needs to ask, is given that different ontological assumptions about life lead to radically different conclusions about death that are in large part tautological, why choose a single ontology as being correct? Why not accept all of them and accept their respective conclusions relative to their respective ontology?

Simply because observation and study confirms the one and not the other. I am just unable to take the leap from assumption to conclusion.

One would hope that such an idea would be as disreputable as statism is to you. If "the revolution" was successful--and not just a rearrangement of the deck chairs--people's thinking would be different.

I don’t think a system of voluntary cooperation is as disreputable as statism, because statism is a system of compulsory cooperation. That’s why I wonder if your system would be compulsory or not, and what you’d do to those who refuse. If it’s voluntary, it’s just; if it’s compulsory, it’s unjust.

I’m familiar with Debs but only vaguely with DeLeon. I’ve read Debs, his free speech trial, but only know DeLeon through his criticisms of George. Both were contemporaries of George, though. If I remember correctly Debs praised George and Deleon excoriated him. But those debates during those times, between the socialists and the Single Taxers, were fascinating to read about, and represent an exciting moment in American political theory.

I’m well aware of the treatment of socialists in the early 20th century and beyond, Debs included. It’s embarrassing that a country so adamant about freedom and free speech would violate these principles due to fear of ideas. I wager had they left them alone, socialism and communism would have fell out of favor in America long ago.

Experience could be construed as the state of a living body, perhaps. But beyond that it cannot go. Both the body and thus all states of the body dissolves upon death.

It’s completely voluntary, and the opportunities myriad, far more than would be available to him should the the capitalist be absent. We could exploit some patch of land somewhere and through toil accumulate enough to make a living, but exploiting capitalists is far easier. We could also live off the toil of others, but that would be unjust.

An experience of what? It is the experience of a body, by a body. It’s body all the way down.

The other conclusions beg the question. They assume that an entity or substance exists within the biology but is not the biology, and second, that this entity or substance can somehow persist beyond the biology itself. It seems to me one should be proven before contemplating the other.

Not only Marxists, but Georgists believe in roughly the same thing regarding exploitation. But Henry George was able to devise a far more just system. (It’s a damned shame Americans prefer German socialism to Henry George’s ideas, which are these days relatively unknown).

For me, I don’t see how a relationship of voluntary exchange can be the same as exploitation proper, for instance in slavery. It is because the capitalist is the same human animal that I see them as an opportunity. They want and need things, as well, and I can provide it to them in exchange for some of their capital. Perhaps the Marxist should learn to exploit them.

Why just those two choices as default?

As far as I can tell there are only two types of general “means” to acquire the wealth required to satisfy needs, namely, (1) through one’s own labor or the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others, and (2) through the appropriation of the labor of others. One is just, the other unjust.

Anyways, as far as economic systems go, Justice is the prevailing ideal for me. All others, like charity, community, wealth equality, are better left to ethics and matters of personal conscience.

Yeah I like your threads.

Well yes, I don’t like starving to death so I work. Having a place to work and receive payment for my work is therefor a benefit. Living off the land is at the time too difficult.

We already know what happens after death, have the cadaver farms to prove it, and it ain’t pretty.

Problem is origination of capital. Not everyone starts equally. Not everyone has the chances to put the resources together. The Marxist would ask, by what right does one human own the means of production over another if we all have the same goal of survival? In other words besides words like freedom, do you like the idea that some people own how we survive and some people have to sell their labor to them?

Sometimes I envy them, sure, but envy is a great motivator. To me it’s very kind that they would start an enterprise at which I can work and be rendered payment for my services. The right by which someone usually comes to own the means of production is through purchase or gift or labor, though there are nefarious means.

We know that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics wrote socialism into law and declared in their constitutions the abolition of capitalism, private property, and economic exploitation. Every country that has ever declared these kinds of things have often struggled, imploded, or gone the way of the dodo bird. Is this system so worth it, even if many countries have hardly risen from its rubble?

But the so-called liberal democracies are not much better, in my mind, to the point that I can only differentiate them by rhetoric and other superficialities these days. They’ve turned every contingency into a resource for accruing power in the government, as Madison once wrote. They’re all strands of the same collectivist statism—I don’t know what else to call it. At least there are some encouraging signs of people thinking in terms of freedom again.

I swear that if I ever saw something like your kind of socialism I would applaud it, at least as a feat of organization, and because it isn’t of the German variety. What I’d worry about, though, is what you’d do to those who don’t want to take part in it, or seek to make their living from your property. There is always that problem of individuals believing they know how to run their own lives better than some central committee.

Absolutely. A socialist system would have to manage it's capital resources too -- mines, factories, land, ports, and so on. The difference is that socialists manage resources for the common wealth, and capitalists manage resources for the creation of their own wealth.

The act of managing resources for the common wealth would require a monopoly on the resources, a cabal of managers to govern it, and an army of workers to till for it. I’d prefer the voluntary system, myself.

It seems to me that that the category “those incapable of non-lethal self-defense” would also include those who lack the strength and numbers to defend themselves in certain situations, which could be anyone of any level of strength and ability. Accordingly the same ethical justification should extend to them—everyone—and not just the disabled.

“Capitalism” has always been a collectivist bugaboo, anyways, forced into the economic lexicon and seemingly left there. So it’s strange to see those who abhor collectivist projects fall into using it to describe the present system. But really, a system that doesn’t consider managing capital is unimaginable, and a system that is not capitalist has never existed. Had they named it better the problems with the present system might be more apparent. At least we’d know, as you said, what about the present system is the more important enemy, and we could work to rectify it. Until then I guess we have to engage in a naive form of class struggle.

I’ve always understood that suicides make up a majority of firearm fatalities.

But as far as I can tell the right to self-defense arguments still stand, and for the same reasons countries employ armed soldiers and police. Sometimes people need to protect themselves and others. Sometimes using a gun is the best way to do that. I’m not aware of any new arguments, nor do I think new ones are required.

Leader of Oath Keepers and 10 Other Individuals Indicted in Federal Court for Seditious Conspiracy and Other Offenses Related to U.S. Capitol Breach

These are the first sedition-related charges in the capitol riot. Apparently one of the defendants is actually on Tucker Carlson right now, which is stupid if you care to beat the charges.

Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab - but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’

Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show.

An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.

The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.

But a leading scientist told Sir Jeremy that “further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular”. Dr Collins, the former director of the US National Institutes of Health, warned it could damage “international harmony”.

If I’m ever the last man on Earth I’ll be sure to remember your penetrating insight and denounce all ownership as meaningless. Thanks for that.

If I own something, someone else does not. Wow. The clouds part and I am finally enlightened.

That’s exactly why I said there no justice in expropriating someone’s wealth and giving it to others.

Ignorance prevents one from giving reasons for his assertions. What role is played by others in ownership?

I don’t get the point. I do not own anything except in relation to those around me because…

Your furtive attempts to further a conspiracy theory in a country that is not your own is the going rate, ssu. Get in line.

Pure contextomy. He’s not insistent on anything to do with the military, and you pretended that he insisted Trump should get the military to seize voting machines. You furtively left out what exactly it was he was insistent about (appointing a special counsel and investigating the machines and elections) in favor of pretending his hypotheticals were some form of advice to Trump. But the hosts questions clearly distinguish between what Flynn thinks Trump should do and what he could do. You took from the “could” pile and pretended it belonged on the “should” pile. Even now you can’t even post the whole interview!! Utter lies.

ssu - “Yeah, just an ex-National Security Advisor (and former US general) of Trump insisting that Trump should use the military to confiscate the voting machines.”

NOS4A2 = “No, Michael Flynn insisted Trump should appoint a special counsel to investigate the voting machines and exactly what happened in swing states.”

ssu - “You simply cannot deny that he asked for the military to be used do this, to confiscate the voting machines.”

General Flynn - “The things he needs to do right now is he needs to appoint a special counsel immediately; he needs to seize all of these dominion and these other voting machines we have across the country; he needs to go ahead and prioritize by state and probably by county—Fulton county and Maricopa county for example—exactly what they did up in Antrim county, Michigan, and what they discovered; I think if he looks at probably a couple of random sampling of these counties he’s going to find exactly the same problem.”

https://www.newsmax.com/amp/politics/trump-election-flynn-martiallaw/2020/12/17/id/1002139/

Why won’t you state exactly what he did insist, instead of making it up?

Altruism is when you act with the interests of everyone in mind. Everyone votes for some decision or group because they believe that they will benefit the interests of everyone. Whether or not what or who they have voted for succeeds at that does not change the fact that the voter was well-intentioned.

I don’t think altruism is when you act with the interests of everyone in mind, especially when it comes to voting. To me, to suppose that one can know what the best interests of everyone in mind are, and that a vote can help to bring them about, is the height of egoism.

I took a rare look on Twitter yesterday just to analyze the cringe and I wasn’t disappointed. True believers and CNN talking heads were practically begging people to believe the narrative, speaking about their trauma, pretending those who died that day were not all Trump supporters.

They had a remembrance ceremony in Congress, of course, because a show must be made of it. Crypt-keeper Nancy Pelosi brought in musical guests during her remembrance of January 6th. The cringe makes it hard to watch.

The fact is exactly how I stated it, and you’ve done nothing to refute it.

That’s rich. I neither brought up the interview nor shared it. I only used it to show what was said, and only because I couldn’t find it anywhere else. You might have to use other fallacies to refute it.

I was linking to the interview.

Yea, an irresponsible fear.

No, Michael Flynn insisted Trump should appoint a special counsel to investigate the voting machines and exactly what happened in swing states. The rest was purely theoretical.

“These people out there talking about martial law like it’s something we’ve never done,'' Flynn told Kelly. ''Martial law has been instituted 64 times. I’m not calling for that. We have a constitutional process. … That has to be followed.”

https://www.newsmax.com/amp/politics/trump-election-flynn-martiallaw/2020/12/17/id/1002139/

But you might had known that if propaganda didn’t sway your thinking, like it did with everything else.

It’s not like medicine or anything else has advanced in a century. No, it was surely the fact that we outlawed dancing and meddled in everyone’s lives that saved them. Bless the government for taking our rights.