Free health care.
…will be very exciting.
Just quick defense of my non-American concern: corrupt elite who enact power via both the government of the US and the global financial/military system have direct and haunting effect on everyone, in the whole world. It’s all interconnected, in so many demonstrable ways. A concern for the outcome of the action of those in power is only out of a desire that Earth moves in a direction of peace and evolution. If my writing can convince a few American voters to reconsider their vote then I’ve done a good job.
I think a very positive movement is deeply brewing in the world. We may see some of that manifest in this election, or we may not and be disappointed yet again. Old ideas and terminology like ‘nationalism’, ‘left and right’, ‘capitalism’, ‘socialism’, etc, are redundant - a new dialogue is emerging that is based on interconnectedness, compassion and wisdom. You certainly ain’t gonna see it wholesale in the White House by Jan 09, but the seeds are there as are the windows of opportunity to press these issues so that bit by bit the old structures can wash away.
Time to reject old gods and masters. Rand is one of them.
Come on! A gold standard in today’s world doesn’t mean that the money you carry in your pocket is made of gold. It means that whatever high-tech solution we have for exchange of goods and services, in the end point it’s all represented by a standard, a limited amount of physical goods (or information or whatever) that can’t easily be manipulated or duplicated by a bank or government. In today’s world the “gold” part would probably be something other than the actual metal, maybe the largest computation millions of computers could compute together… the brains would sort it out. Point is that we need to get rid of the false premise that money equals worthless paper. We need to tie the money supply to something more solid and reality-based.
Also note that the already rich people profit most on today’s sick system of inflation. Imagine that there is a 100 people standing in a line to the bank and that only one person can take out money on one day. That means that the first person in the line can take out 1000 dollars and consume them right away with zero inflation, while the 100’th person who takes out 1000 dollars will have less purchase power due to the inflation. The first person gets the goods and services, the 100,000th person gets much less goods and services for the same amount of money.
To properly reject something one first needs to understand it. In my experience, very few individuals who claim to understand a thinker such as Rand really live up to their claim. Basically they just attack a straw man. I’ve spent many years attacking Rand in every possible way in my past, but the more I read of her, the more I realized that she defined broad principles that were timeless and that I needed to revise or expand my own concepts and thoughts in order to apply those principles to new areas in our modern world.
Free health care.
With all due respect, wtf are you talking about?
“a new dialogue is emerging that is based on interconnectedness, compassion and wisdom”
interconnectedness - globalization
compassion - liberalism
wisdom - intellectualism
Nothing new here. There will never be a major revolution in the US. We are extremely happy here. We have freedoms that other countries can only dream of.
Mean while, while you guys are talking about how America needs to change, there are gays being executed in Iran (Iran: Two More Executions for Homosexual Conduct), to name one of many human rights violations done in the middle east. And yet its the United States that is wrong for wanting to overthrow these dictators? I’m sorry, but some of you just need to take a couple steps back and put things into perspective.
Free health care.
The revolution will not be televised. It will be quiet and slow. Globalisation is a reality, not an ideology. Accepting and working with interconnectedness is a premise for world peace and evolution. Nothing wrong with compassion. Wisdom is a long term memory that balances between reason, memory and intuition. Any questions?
Nowhere is perfect. Expecting humans to be perfect is like hoping Renoise will cook you dinner. If you’re extremely happy in the US it may mean you’re not effected like some people are.
Transcender, oh dear well I hope I live up to it!
What part of my post implied that to be the ONLY reasons to invade a country? I was actually advocating overthrowing oppressive dictators, and mentioned the gay execution as one of many examples ( did you not read where I wrote “to name one of many human rights violations done in the middle east”). Saudi Arabia has total Sharia law, where women have almost no rights.
What do you take me for? Stop with the straw man attacks.
And your comment about capital punishment has nothing to do with anything. I’m against capital punishment, but to compare our system to what goes on in the middle east is quite ridiculous to say the least. For one, we only execute murderers, not ordinary “criminals”. We don’t do it for religious reasons as they do in Iran. Read a book or something on retributive justice and deterrence.
Oh, and BTW some states don’t even have the death penalty (ie Michigan)
As for “staying the fuck out of other countries”, we’d all be speaking German had we adopted that policy in the 40’s. Isolationism is selfish and inhumane.
So, what are we gonna do?
Yeah, but what if Germany had adopted that same policy? Talk about a flawed argument.
Invading countries is bullshit. Get your own in order and maybe you can make some room for refugees… drain the dictators of their people and resources… but, oh wait, we’re living under corporatism ourselves, so who exactly would have to invade where to solve what problem? But that just as an aside… it’s the hipocrisy that makes it not work, for one.
But more importantly, war is very expensive. The same money could be used for things that actually works. It just wouldn’t be overnight… but that’s better than something people only dream will work instantly, which then turns out to be just as bad or worse - while at the same time blowing up billions of dollars!
The reason anyone still defends these notions of “we have to bring them (puppet) democracy with the sword” is that it’s so full of holes and at the same time emotionally charged that people just can’t bring themselves to step back and really look at it.
Also, a LOT of damage has been done, a lot of people have died who will never come back, while a lot of backs have been patted about it at the same time - also not easy to admit, to put it mildly.
Money is the only religion that is accepted all over the world.
And that’s the only reason it works. I don’t care what backs it
up and my guess is about 90% of the population using it doesn’t
care either. Money, be it paper, seashells or gold coins, it only
works because we believe in it, right?
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
The following reply is just a fleeting flash of thought and is not set stone.
Power doesn’t work like how money works. I think power works in advanced manipulation (matter and thought being the strongest in the human game). Money is just a tool to divide people. Take money out of the survival equation and think about what it really takes to live until our eyes are all grayed out or get eaten by a predator.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0811136/plotsummary
I saw this documentary the other day and it was a scary thing to watch, considering the military powers the US have.
The hate and the inability to express critisism against the war was just like in germany.
However I´m starting to worry that a new cold war situation is on the rise.
In 2007 Russia increase their arms budget.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/09/russia.usa
In 2008 now they have doubled it but its still only 1/10 of the US budget…
I’m sure you’re right. But then again, I never was talking about power.
edit: re-read your reply. now the above doesn’t make sense
Free health care.
Flawed argument? Dude, you have a total back assward circular argument. If Germany had adopted that policy, that would’ve been great, but they didn’t, and we intervened and prevented further Nazi invasion. I don’t know what your point is, other than you can’t form a coherent point.
You can’t simply equate all foreign policy to one another. The Nazi’s intentions in WW2 for invading France were slightly different than ours, in case you hadn’t realized.
Yes, this is true. America has unfortunately supported many dictators, including Saddam in the 80’s
I don’t see how this prevents us from dealing with them. I didn’t nor wouldn’t ever claim America to be flawless nation incapable of hypocrisy, because its quite the opposite.
Diplomacy is one of many options. It’s not as easy against religious fanatics like Kim Jong Il (N. Korea) or the ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Iran).
BTW Diplomacy and supporting dictators aren’t opposite to one another as you imply.
There is just no way one can look at all the evils happening in the middle east and claim non-interventionism is a viable option. Its a joke really.
Free health care.
Just wanted to point that out, too. Many forget the role of Russia in the liberation of Europe, mostly
for what happened afterwards in the Soviet and during the Cold War. Since Europe ended up leaning
more towards the US than USSR, Europe has adopted the vizion that America, Canada and a UK crew
came and swept the Nazis off the face of the continent.
Besides, the ONLY reason the US intervened was because Japan launched an attack on Pearl Harbor
and Japan and Nazi Germany were pretty thick budies back in the day. It’s called a World War with
good reason, eh. Oh, and you never liberated us. Your grandfathers liberated ours. A generation that’s
almost extinct, I might add. We know NOTHING. NOTHING of war and its terrors. We can only guess.
US, UK, EU, it’s all the same. Hypocrite fukkers, the peacelovin flowerpower generation sends its own
children into a war they themselves despised. And I despise ‘my own’ generation for not trying anything
to stop it. No marches for peace, nooo… we send our own children just the same…
We can read books about it, watch movies and keep an eye on the media. But we’re sitting here, being
fat and happy about ourselves and our decadence, worrying about writersblocks and sidechaining…
We’re lucky sons of bitches and don’t anyone forget it.