There is so much error and confusion here I do not think I can address all of it. This is the tragic fate of our time. Misinformation cannot be countered because it's easier and swifter to assert distortions than it is to refute them.

The land was controlled by the party and the supreme leader in every case you have cited. These were not democratic movements. The workers were neither free or in power. This is a serious point because it refutes your false, straw man, poisoning of the well, example. You are of course, free to deny it and believe what you want, but this will not make your belief accurate.

I never said it was a democratic movement. In fact I said the opposite. My point was that the nationalization of property didn’t result in the conditions Marx predicted, that it often, even necessarily resulted in murder and plunder.

With all due respect, the fact that you would even ask such a question can only prove that you haven't read Marx. His entire program was about the worker's emancipating themselves from a class system of oppression. This had nothing to do with dictators or new ruling class parties.

With all due respect, in the following quotes you cited nothing about “democratic nationalizations”, which was obviously a phrase you made up. There is no such thing as “democratic nationalizations” when it comes to appropriating someone’s property, and no amount of glittering generalities will change that.

You have here cited a quote you don't even comprehend. Marx was specifically asked about violence, I can't remember where exactly, there are 50 volumes, but his reply was, (paraphrase) "of course, we don't advocate violence, but the ruling class will not let us have democracy." And this is indeed the tragic truth of revolution. The rulers are desperate to hold onto power and will use violence to crush dissent. They will not allow democracy!

The communist revolutions have led to despotism and terror, and have themselves crushed dissent with violence. The Velvet Revolution, on the other hand, was a revolution for democracy against communist rule, which was rightfully dismantled in favor of a parliamentary republic wherein they could hold their first democratic elections in half a century.

Unto whom was the land nationalized in the examples you cite? Were these democratic nationalizations?

Like I already said, it was given to the peasantry. No, they were not “democratic nationalizations”, which I think is a nonsense phrase. Since we’re asking for citations, whereabouts did Marx speak of “democratic nationalizations”?

Please give a citation where Marx's political theory validates the actions of Mao?

“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.”

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

“ The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch04.htm

“ The purposeless massacres perpetrated since the June and October events, the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.”

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/11/06.htm

Answer my questions. All you are doing is asserting the same narrative over and over again. Please provide citations to back up your assertions. Please stop blaming Marx for Right Wing dictators and totalitarian political parties.

Bother, if I don't soon find intelligent life on this Forum I am departing to greener shores.

Mao was a Marxist-Leninist communist by his own admission. Article one of the Chinese constitution clearly states that “The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants.” I’m not sure where you get this right-wing stuff, but it’s purely ahistorical.

“We are Marxists, and Marxism teaches that in our approach to a problem we should start from objective facts, not from abstract definitions, and that we should derive our guiding principles, policies and measures from an analysis of these facts.”

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_08.htm

“We Communists never conceal our political views. Definitely and beyond all doubt, our future or maximum program is to carry China forward to socialism and communism. Both the name of our Party and our Marxist world outlook unequivocally point to this supreme ideal of the future, a future of incomparable brightness and splendor. ”

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_25.htm

The answer to the question “to whom was the land nationalized”, it was stolen from landlords and “rich peasants” and redistributed to the peasantry.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Land_Reform

A New Jersey judge invalidated a city council election and ordered a new one after allegations of voter fraud, according to a ruling issued Wednesday.

The May 12 election for Paterson's Third Ward city council was "rife with mail in vote procedural violations," Judge Ernest Caposela said in his ruling, though he left the decision on whether there was voter fraud to the criminal courts.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/20/politics/paterson-new-jersey-city-council-voter-fraud/index.html

I wouldn't be so sure. "He claimed to be a Marxist", it would be more correct.

I’ll take him at his word.

About forcing something out of the bourgeoisie I would see no problem if what is taken out of it is its greed and power to exploit, its control of the instruments of justice and the perversion of democracy for the benefit of a minority.

I think it’s better to bring people up than to pull people down. Perhaps it’s not the bourgeoisie that needs our attention.

Mao was a devout Marxist who sought to bring about communism. It’s right there in everything he wrote. No need for the revisionism. He and his revolutionaries stole land, often by murder, struggle session or by sending them to labor camps, for this stated purpose: “to eliminate feudal, exploitative land ownership by landlords and implement peasant land ownership, so as to free the rural labor force, develop agricultural production, and open the way for the industrialization of New China.”. What is this but one example of “the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions”? the “violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie”?

But mostly I’m speaking about the concept of one class appropriating the land of another, the euphemism “nationalization”, which always brings about the contrary to Marx’s predictions.

Can you tell me what this has to do with Marx? Of course we should all stand against this kind of Right Wing totalitarianism, fascism is dangerous no matter what name it uses. Marx knew that qualitative democracy was the only real solution to political tyranny. Not sure where you locate democracy in Mao, Stalin or Hitler?

I was more so speaking about Marx’s idea of the nationalization of land. Mao saw such a necessity, nationalized the land—a euphemism for the confiscation of property by force—and did so with the most ruthless efficiency. As it turns out, the nationalization of land does not make living on other people's labor a thing of the past. As it turns out, the nationalization of land never made the class distinctions disappear, and state brutality, starvation and murder became the order of the day.

We can review past situations where the nationalization of property has occurred, for instance in Mao’s land reforms, and find that these types of “intelligent restructuring” often led to mass murder, famine, cannibalism and economic disaster.

State or mob confiscation of land is barbarism of the highest order, no matter which cadre of intellectuals think the know how to do it best.

Trying harder is not necessarily the answer. Often this just leads to frustration and the person might become of a worse moral disposition than before. There are many factors involved with trying to change one's morality, and learning to have realistic goals might be one of the first. However, inspiration (and this is directly related to will power), might be the most important of all. As you say, some do not even believe in will power. If a person doesn't believe in will power, how could one even be inspired to try to change one's morality? So the question here might be what provides the prerequisite inspiration for a person to actually change one's morality. It's easy for a person to look at oneself and say I have some bad habits, I should get rid of these, but what inspires a person to actually carry out the work required to drop those habits. It's not like the person gets paid for that work, so the motivation must come from something else.

I really like your thinking here. Nicely said. I will just say, though, that inspiration is followed by a choice, some sort of follow-through, which begins and ends in the individual. Man becomes inspired. He is the genesis of his inspiration, and all subsequent follow-through. He is not the passive object and I cannot speak about him as such.

Yes, and I was pointing out, that just because a person decides to move something from one place to another, this does not mean that the person can actually do it. That's the problem with your view of morality. You seem to think that a person can just pick and choose one's morality, as if one's current moral disposition has no bearing on what type of moral principles the person has the capacity to uphold.

I don’t believe a person just picks and chooses a morality, as if from a menu, just that he can come to believe in certain moral principles by his own volition, by weighing the pros, the cons, the value and justice of certain moral principles, and that the sum of his moral principles can be called a “morality”. I would say this is a choice, a matter of choosing.

Trump pardoned Susan B Anthony on the 100th year anniversary of the 19th amendment.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53825403

I note you carefully steered clear of my last question. How are you defining "just"?

So unless you are simply happy to keep chanting propaganda slogans, can you supply the argument that backs up this opinion.

Why is this something you merely say rather than something I ought to believe?

I’m just telling you what I believe, not what you ought to believe. What do you believe?

Altering one's beliefs is not sufficient for changing one's behaviour, as my examples demonstrate. There is the further matter of one's disposition and will power. If an individual does not already have the moral disposition which allows one to adhere firmly to one's beliefs, and not give in to temptation, then altering one's beliefs is an ineffective procedure. The person would just become more and more hypocritical, believing that resisting certain actions is the good and right thing to do, but still lacking the necessary will power to abstain.

Sure, one must change his conduct to align with his morality. If one has difficulty doing so he has to try harder. If he doesn’t, then yes he becomes a hypocrite. Will power is often difficult to muster, especially for people who do not believe in it.

Do you agree that things were happening, things were moving, prior in time to the existence of living beings capable of making decisions. If so, then you ought to see that it is not necessary for a "decision" to be made in order for something to move from one place to another.

I never said it is necessary for a decision to be made in order for something to move from one place to another. I was just saying that you or I can decide to move something from one place to another, altering our situation, changing the world.

That’s fair. I apologize for pooh-poohing your argument.

Ah, that's what you got out of it- a debate on the ontology of sleep vs. non-existence. Yes we all know they are not the same thing. Doesn't mean that not being conscious the waking-kind-of-way is not the gist here.

I got out of it a bad argument for antinatalism, or “never being born being optimal”, which you stated before you started playing “would you rather” with sleep.

I did really read it. I figured the gist of it, beyond the jargon and labelling, was that if you prefer sleep to being awake you would probably prefer non-existence to existence, as if they were in some way comparable.

I love sleep, but sleep is so much better after a fulfilling day. So I do not think trading being awake for being asleep is very wise, because one requires the other. And I do not think sleep is in anyway comparable to non-existence.

I believe you can choose your own morality. One can be convinced of the value of certain moral principles, the danger of others, and can alter his beliefs thereby. People convert all the time, for instance, at least when given the freedom to do so.

Certainly genes influence behavior but they do not determine morality. People still choose and shape their lives because their genes have provided them the agency and the faculties to do so.

And I do not believe in the determinist position. Unless the determinist can point to something else in the world making the decisions, it cannot be said that anything else in the universe is making the decisions. No “force of nature” outside of myself makes me move something from one place to another. The decisions and actions begin and end in the self and nowhere else.

Someone hasn't heard of the 22nd Amendment.

Someone hasn’t heard of a joke.

Yes if you afford someone rights you thereby have a duty not to break them. Your right to free speech is my duty not to censor you, and so on.

I accept the rule of law but only where it is just.

If this were true then there'd be no such thing as guidance counselling, and no such thing as the study of morality. Are you amoral?

I’m not amoral. I just don’t feel the need to adopt any one morality without first choosing to do so. There certainly is such a thing as guidance counselling. But it’s just advice, not some prescription on how to best live one’s life.

Do you recognize for example, that you were born into a very particular place in this world, and no matter how hard you try to "find the strength and courage to alter your situation", this situation cannot be altered? It makes no difference how much freedom and liberty you afford yourself, the situation you are in right now, being defined by what has come to pass, cannot be altered.

The fact that I can move something from one place to another proves I can alter my situation. I know I cannot go back and change the beginning, but I can start where am and change the ending. I think that was CS Lewis.

The policy would be for the manager in this case.. But I guess other employees not screwing each other over either. It's like you live in a dream world where everyone takes the responsible action. If that was the case, you're right, no need for government.. Shades of Locke and definitely Hobbes here.

I don’t believe some legislator knows how to run my business better than I do. Likewise, I don’t need nor want the state to step in where my own employment is concerned. But no I do not believe everyone takes the responsible action. I just believe that they are capable of doing so.

Why would an antinatalist put so much energy into proving it, if it was selfish? This isn't just a personal lifestyle choice, it's a whole ethos and largely very passionate one. Even on its face you are incorrect.

You are backpeddling and now without justification.. Don't force others, don't cause harm to others unnecessarily.. I explained inter-wordly affairs and intra-worldly affairs. I gave justifications for why your own ethos actually only applies at one level and not another. You seem perturbed by this and cast ad homs at antinatalists. Not a great rebuttal.

Passionate or not, In my mind it’s a poor ethos that benefits no one but the one espousing it. I say this because no anti-natalist can point to a single person who benefits from it, lest he points to himself. These “others” you purport to be helping do not exist. So how can you, and why would you, claim that you are in some way refusing to force and cause them suffering? It’s an ethos that cannot serve anyone outside of your own imaginings.

You got me all wrong, Tim. And yes, I can say Lejoy.

But the answer is that in a world where "de facto" people can't just leave their job on a whim, or without causing much disruption, the better outcome is to have a policy that allows for maximum freedom without affecting people's personal health unnecessarily. Good day.

People can leave their jobs as countless people have proven. Whether they have the confidence to do so is another question. Either way, no policy can replace personal responsibility. And if policies is what one requires to guide him through life, quitting his job should be the least of his concerns. Cheers.

So I've mentioned before how birth is the only case where one can perfectly not cause harm and force. The simple act of NOT doing something (negative ethics) would allow this. However, once born, things change. People are now in the world. Prior to birth, it is inter-worldly considerations (birth and life), where once in the world, its intra-worldly affairs. This means a) there will ALWAYS be some violation of negative ethics. Thus any form of deontological ethics and utilitarianism in intraworldly affairs would have to be mitigated against what forms of violation are considered more valuable or lead to greater outcomes than others. Of course, this mitigation and negotiation of ethical dillemmas could have been avoided altogether if one prevented it at the inter-wordly consideration level.

Sure, if you prevent life you prevent any difficulties that come with it. But I still think pretending one is being ethical in doing so is a disguise for self-concern and personal failures. The anti-natalist is literally helping no one but himself while pretending he is. In that sense it is not so ethical as it is deceitful.

Ugh, if life just fit your "liberty" model so easily.. You don't recognize de facto unfreedoms, so we probably have nothing more to say to each other. If you don't recognize how de facto situations lead to "not really freedom" situations, I can't help you.

If you cannot find the strength and courage to alter your situation, I can understand why you wish you were never born to begin with. But things can change.

Really? You wear your thoughtless absurdity like a purple robe. One that a Brutus could "unkindly knock."

And you show your susceptibility to the basest of propaganda. The only ones seeking to alter the USPS and the election are the democrats, and this is proven by their push for mail-in voting and the massive provisions regarding elections and the USPS in the coronavirus relief packages. The only ones suppressing the vote are those saying it is dangerous to go to the voting booth. Mailboxes have been disappearing every year by the thousands for decades due to underuse. Of course only the most news-riddled could turn these facts into an anti-Trump conspiracy theory.

The point of a good morality is to encourage the individual to seek one's own well-being. Morality definitely must start with the individual. But "individual freedom and liberty" might not be an appropriate value to be assigned high priority. We observe that a good community is much more conducive to the individual's well-being than is freedom and liberty. So a good morality would inspire an individual toward producing a good community, rather than direct the individual toward freedom and liberty.

Neither you or I can tell another how to seek his own well-being, for how to live one’s life is best left for him to decide. That is why one must be at liberty to choose his own fate. If that means adopting a collectivist mindset, that’s fine, but without first the freedom to decide on his own he is little more than a slave.



That’s a very convoluted argument regarding anti-natalism. But it shows that even you subscribe to the notion of individual liberty. The difference is you only offer it to “potential children”, beings that cannot be found on any plane of existence. Let’s see if you can extend that sentiment to flesh and blood human beings.

An individual right not to be made sick by others? Of course intentionally infecting others with disease is a serious crime, and one has every right to hide in a padded cell to avoid community infection. But there is no right to not be infected by others, just like there is no right not to get wet from rain. Life is a risk. One must take the precautions he deems necessary in order to be safe.

If you feel unsafe at work you can refuse to work there. It’s that easy.

That's the mindset that is common, as you've hinted at, that is a part of the unraveling. The overvalued notions of individual freedom and liberty at the expense of the community.

I think the opposite is the case: the overvalued (and abstract) notions of community are acted out at the expense of individual freedom and liberty. And the fact that all communities are composed of individuals makes any denial of individuals rights and freedoms all the more dangerous.

Spread the word of liberty and break through the Great Firewall. As the Hong Kong protesters and the ‘89 democracy movement showed, people want it and are willing to risk their lives for it.

You mention that belief in determinism is self refuting. I don't see it. Your belief is determined, just like anything else. Yes, their argument would be determined. Yes, their conclusion would be determined.

What else beyond oneself determines the belief? If nothing else determines the belief, oneself has determined it.

A story you won’t see on CNN, who doesn’t even mention it, is the election fraud in NJ.

New Jersey has yet to get to its second of three rounds of 2020 elections, and so far we’ve seen misdelivered ballots, ballots dropped in piles in apartment lobbies and ballots burned in a mail truck fire. Meanwhile, clerks’ offices are inundated with a flood of mail-in ballots, plus thousands more applications for ballots, many from unaffiliated voters who clerks said don’t intend to vote in the July 7 primary.

“It’s a mess,” said state Sen. Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth.

Gov. Phil Murphy ordered May’s local elections and July’s primaries to be conducted almost entirely by mail as part of the state’s effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Since then, the missteps have included:

Republican voters in Somerset County received ballots meant for Democratic voters.Morris Township ballots were destroyed when a mail truck caught fire June 20.Possible computer glitches at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission assigned the wrong party registration to some voters and sent two ballots to voters who have legally changed their names, according to New Jersey Globe.One out of 10 ballots in May’s local elections were not counted, according to NJ Spotlight.

There is also new statewide voter registration software that has been glitchy, slowing the process further, clerks told NorthJersey.com.

“It’s unfortunate and unfair that these elections are going to have an asterisk next to them,” Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said Monday.

The allegations out of Paterson may be the most troubling. State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal alleges that Councilman Michael Jackson and Councilman-elect Alex Mendez handled mail-in ballots improperly. Jackson possessed too many mail-in ballots that were not his own and Mendez submitted voter registration applications he knew were false, Grewal claims. Two workers for a third campaign were also charged with election fraud.

One woman said she was hired by the Mendez campaign to pick up and drop off numerous stacks of ballots eight days prior to the election, said a lawyer for one of the losing candidates.

https://www.njherald.com/news/20200630/its-mess-paterson-voter-fraud-just-taste-of-mail-in-ballot-issues-plaguing-new-jersey

Imagine it on a national scale.

They agreed to a 10 billion dollar loan just a couple weeks ago. Is that circumstantial evidence included in this theory?

The USPS gives the reason why they’re removing the boxes, but these reasons are dismissed in favor of a trite conspiracy theory, Very thoughtful.

Am I reading this correctly? Is Chump actually ordering US mailboxes to be carted away?

Nope. It’s just a conspiracy theory.

The first domino falls in the Durham probe.

Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith will plead guilty to making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from U.S. Attorney John Durham's review of the investigation into links between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, two sources close to the matter tell Fox News.

Clinesmith was referred for potential prosecution by the Justice Department's inspector general's office, which conducted its own review of the Russia investigation.

Specifically, the inspector general accused Clinesmith, though not by name, of altering an email about former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page to say that he was "not a source" for another government agency. Page has said he was a source for the CIA. The DOJ relied on that assertion as it submitted a third and final renewal application in 2017 to eavesdrop on Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/durham-probe-ex-fbi-lawyer-to-plead-guilty-in-first-criminal-case-arising-from-review-attorney-says

Not a good look for the Crossfire team.

More peace in the Middle East thanks to Trump. Neocons on suicide watch.

Israel and United Arab Emirates Strike Major Diplomatic Agreement

For the concept of "property" to exist, the only thing required is law, if by "property" you mean something which a person can claim to own.

It’s the other way about. Without property there would be no laws protecting it.

Until now we’ve justified it with the concept of rights, in this case the right that the worker has to the value he has created by his own labor. Man must sustain his life through his own efforts, and if he cannot use the product of his own effort as he sees fit, he cannot sustain his life.

Someone to appease the donor class and someone for the media to faun over. That’s all the Dems need. Now they can run the campaign on “making history” while covering for both their garbage careers.

The article embraces Anti-americanism, formed, as it was, from afar, from an insulated view, and through the lens of a hostile media. Sweeping generalizations and lies by omission without any actual study. And this from a reputable anthropologist.

Only during life can we supply it with meaning. If there was an afterlife there would be no meaning to life, and no sense in living it.

So... what makes something an ability. Competence is basic coherence. Why is it an ability of any use if everyone can do it. That makes someone elite- in a way. So you want, and I'm going to hope you're from whatever country we're talking about and not acting under the auspices of another, the most qualified and crucial positions such as medicine, defense, technology, science, education, etc... to be replaced with just anyone who knows how to get dressed in the morning? Erm... yeah that's a big no. lol

No, that’s not what I want. I just mean that most if not all of the skills needed to perform the work of professionals within many institutions could be acquired through practical experience rather than formal education. But since many industries require the credentials, and thus the elite education, those in power tend to be of the same mind and experience. It’s called “credentialism“, and I think it has helped form the disastrous policies of elite institutions.

This is a great read from a whistleblower. A taste of things to come in the Spygate scandal.

The Spies who Hijacked America