A practical application of socialist ideas (Read 1172 times)


Feeling the growl again

    AP, I am not Tater, but if I were to explain his post in my words it would go like this.  If I can expect my children to work through their differences and learn to get along and get things done, it is fair to expect it of grown adults running our country.  Despite whatever uncooperative actions done by Party A, Party B is not blameless for simply crying victim.  They have a responsibility to make a reasonable effort.

     

    I think your rape analogy is WAY off the mark.  Nobody is a victim here.  They all signed up to do something so they need to find a way to do it. 

     

    I have objectives at my job which I am responsible for at the end of the year.  If I can't get them done because nobody in other functions will work with me, my boss doesn't care.  It's MY responsibilty to find a way to make the work happen.  I am accountable.  Further, if the reason they won't work with me is because I've bullied or alienated them, I'd probably be "voted out" in rather short order.

     

    I don't see either side really bending over backward to make things work out.

    "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

     

    I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

     

    Trent


    Good Bad & The Monkey

      My assumption that you knew what I was talking about was incorrect and my reply made no sense to you.

       

      Yah, I was making a general comment, not a specific indictment related to a particular issue.


      Lazy idiot

        Or, perhaps, you could leave it up to the voters to decide whether their representatives are representing them, by either keeping them in place or replacing them?  Otherwise, why don't we just have a referendum on everything?

         

         

        Voters are stupid.  So are politicians.  The problem with asking our elected officials to be representative of their consituents is that we've gotten what we are: stupid people running our towns, states, and country.

         

        I wonder, when faced with a choice between sticking to campaign promises and bowing to big $, which way many elected officials will bend?  I wonder which way I would bend?

         

        Another real problem is that there is probably never going to be a candidate who accurately represents our views on the wide spectrum of issues that "politics" encompasses (unless we run for office, in which case it's hopefully ourself).  One (a hypothetical one) can be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, anti- gun control, pro-choice, pro-death penalty, etc, etc, etc.  Many of the masses don't have someone that they can say represents them in full.  It's supporting bits and pieces of this guy, some of the stuff from this gal, and hoping that they can all work together to not screw me over royally and also maybe not start a nuclear war while they're at it.

         

        In my opinion, discussing politics in print on the internets is a very dicey proposition.  Meaning gets muddled, inference lost, tone of voice removed.  We're stuck with words, and the pre-assigned personalities we've all given each other and our sometimes hastily chosen screennames and avatars.  By the time one of us writes a huge paragraph about something we read that offended us in some way, it's then out there and impossible to take back.  Maybe the other guy or gal didn't quite mean it that way.  Maybe it was a misunderstanding.  Maybe someone was poking a little fun in trying to lessen the tension.  Or maybe we've all got our finger on our personal A-bomb ready to blow.

         

        Basically, it's probably best for us all to breathe a little more, go for a run, and remember that I'm not going to change you and you're not going to change me.  At least not within the confines of the RunningAhead forum.

        Tick tock

        LedLincoln


        not bad for mile 25

          In my opinion, discussing politics in print on the internets is a very dicey proposition.

           

          Less dicey than AM radio call-in shows.  Maybe less dicey than candidates' "debates".


          Prince of Fatness

            So no matter what either side does, the other side is also to blame? That seems surprisingly ethically dubious..

             

            If one kid beats the other, and the victim complains, and the aggressor says that the victim started it, then you hold both to blame?

             

            At least at first blush, that seems as ethically questionable as blaming rape victims for inviting it by their choice of clothing or choosing to walk outside at night?

             

             

            (I'm surprised, because I've seen you post on politics and ethics, and usually you make sense to me. I think I must be misunderstanding this, or missing some important caveats here -- maybe you mean this only applies to non-physical actions or something.)

             

            Politics <> Rape.  I think.

             

            Seriously PaulyGram's "active participant" comment explains it.  I believe that the Democrats and Republicans are both active participants in partisan politics.  I really don't care who started it.  I don't care who may do it a little more than the other.  They both do it actively enough to consider it a comprehensive problem in my opinion.

             

            And my other point was that it will be difficult to fix this problem because it seems that any time someone offers an olive branch to the other side they are either seen as weak or as a traitor by their own party.  Big problem, and both sides do it.

            Not at it at all. 

            Trent


            Good Bad & The Monkey


            Prince of Fatness

              <> ≠ ≠

               

              <> = Potato Head forgetting that the Ω is right there in front of him, providing the ≠.

               

              MTA.  And <> = ≠ as far as I'm concerned.

              Not at it at all. 

                <> = Potato Head forgetting that the Ω is right there in front of him, providing the ≠.

                 

                MTA.  And <> = ≠ as far as I'm concerned.

                 

                Yes, <> = ≠ = ne

                 

                don't know why <> <> ≠

                Life Goals:

                #1: Do what I can do

                #2: Enjoy life

                 

                 

                DataJunkie


                   

                  Another real problem is that there is probably never going to be a candidate who accurately represents our views on the wide spectrum of issues that "politics" encompasses (unless we run for office, in which case it's hopefully ourself).  One (a hypothetical one) can be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, anti- gun control, pro-choice, pro-death penalty, etc, etc, etc.  Many of the masses don't have someone that they can say represents them in full.  It's supporting bits and pieces of this guy, some of the stuff from this gal, and hoping that they can all work together to not screw me over royally and also maybe not start a nuclear war while they're at it.

                   

                   

                  That sounds like a linear opt problem to me... Big grin

                    Politics <> Rape.  I think.

                     

                     

                     What in the Wide World of Politics is going on here? 

                    "If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus

                    AmoresPerros


                    Options,Account, Forums

                      Politics <> Rape.  I think.

                       

                      Seriously PaulyGram's "active participant" comment explains it.  I believe that the Democrats and Republicans are both active participants in partisan politics.  I really don't care who started it.  I don't care who may do it a little more than the other.  They both do it actively enough to consider it a comprehensive problem in my opinion.

                       

                      And my other point was that it will be difficult to fix this problem because it seems that any time someone offers an olive branch to the other side they are either seen as weak or as a traitor by their own party.  Big problem, and both sides do it.

                       

                      Ok, I think I see a crucial bit here that I didn't appreciate -- you're asserting here that they're both about equivalent -- that one side only does it a "little more" than the other. That was probably an implied assumption underlying your original post that I didn't see at all.

                       

                      So if one side was more than "a little" more to blame than the other, then the whole "blame both sides no matter what" would no longer be as appropriate, right?

                       

                      (I don't have a horse in the race - I'm just curious about this ethical principal of always blaming both sides -- because it reminded me of collective punishment when I first saw it.)

                       

                      So presumably the same factors into how you deal with the kids in the other example you gave -- an implied assumption is that one may be "a little" more to blame than the other, but you assume both are nearly equally weighted in actual blame, so you just go with the simple approximation of blaming both equally.

                       

                      Now that makes sense to me.

                      It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.

                      AmoresPerros


                      Options,Account, Forums

                        As a footnote, I like this whole analogy business of treating our legislators like children -- that seems fairly apt.

                        It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.


                        Prince of Fatness

                          (I don't have a horse in the race - I'm just curious about this ethical principal of always blaming both sides -- because it reminded me of collective punishment when I first saw it.)

                           

                          I don't always blame both sides in a conflict.  In the case of partisan politics I do, then I provided another example of a situation where I would blame both sides.  I'm not sure how this led you to always.

                          Not at it at all. 

                            Jeff - the most important thing I want to clarify is this....

                             

                             I did not intend what I wrote as a personal attack.  I used the term "you" when a more generic term like "one" should have been used. 

                             

                            And thanks to Trent for pointing out that I should also have used envious or covetous.  Communication is difficult sometimes.  I know you from real life, not just the interwebs and I like you as a person.  Clearly we're pretty different when it comes to politics, but as you say, hopefully we can be friendly. 

                             

                            The point to the story was that a man owned property with incredible value that he did not recognize, so instead of understanding the value of what he had, his dissatisfaction (envy, covetousness) caused him to waste what he had, trying to gain more wealth, and this caused him to lose everything. 

                             

                            From my perspective, the focus on the big difference between the rich and poor in the US causes some to miss the point that even the poor in the US have great opportunities if they choose to take them.  To do nothing and hope for the government to close the income gap is to waste the fortune of opportunity that many in other countries will never have.

                             

                              

                             

                            Actually, this is a classic tactic of argumentation. It's called the red herring. No party or ideology has a lock on this tactic or on argumentative fallacies. For example, you just suggested that I was jealous of rich people. That seems like a pretty far fetched claim. Not to mention it is a personal attack.

                             

                            You suggested that the piece that you pasted was "part of the story." Since I didn't really get the story you posted, I thought I would look a little bit more, see if I could find the rest of the story. The rest of the story is an attempt by a guy in the late 1870s to connect Christian values with monetary success. I thought that maybe the fact that this guy makes some pretty dubious claims about Christianity and that he was writing in a really different economic context might be useful for thinking through the relevance of your story to the current conversation.

                             

                            Obviously, we disagree on politics, but hopefully we can be friendly to each other.

                            AmoresPerros


                            Options,Account, Forums

                              I don't always blame both sides in a conflict.  In the case of partisan politics I do, then I provided another example of a situation where I would blame both sides.  I'm not sure how this led you to always.

                               

                              I used a logical conversion from where you said "never" -- I suppose translating that into "always not".

                               

                              However, I later read spaniel's post, and came to realize something interesting.

                               

                              Now, I'm a very smart person. And modest. And fast. And humble.  And reticent. And good-looking. Um, this is a fascinating thread upon which I would like to expound lengthily (and reticently and humbly, of course, and quickly and modestly), but to return to my original excursion:

                               

                              I used a deliberately extreme analogy (of dubious merit, of course), because I was interested in stretching some rules about "always" and "never" to extremes, to see how seriously you guys meant them as absolutes, or rather, how seriously we might be able to discuss the extremes to which absolute rules can lead.

                               

                              What I realized from spaniel spelling it out in words of fairly short length and few syllables, is the observation that as fascinating as the subject of ethics is, the question of ethical behavior, and blame, in the particular context of the US legislators, has some issue with how important it really is.

                               

                              To take a nice (that is, slightly extreme) example, to make the point, Clinton from one party and Gingrich from the other party have achieved some notoriety for infidelity, and accompanying deception. I have seen attributed to Gingrich the justification that his adultery was only because of how hard he was working for the country (and frankly I'd expect no less a justification from Clinton, if he were given the chance).

                               

                              But spaniel has reminded me -- even if this was not his intent - that there is a pragmatic consideration of what I really want out of these leaders. Note: I think I did grasp his basic point, which was that I want them to get along in order to accomplish their purported jobs -- that is part of where I'm going here (however slowly, and at however length).

                               

                              I don't want leaders of ethics or morals, neither teachers of the same. I want effective action on certain large national issues (for myself, I'm interested in deficit reduction, for example, amongst others).

                               

                              If these guys can accomplish that by way of sacrificing their marriages (and perhaps aspects of their personal character), well, I get to look at it from my perspective rather than theirs, which makes it more attractive -- insomuch as it's their character they're damaging, and my country getting the benefit. That sounds not so bad. I remember the piece of the speech in that movie "Pattton" which went something like this: I don't want you to give your life for your country; I want you to make the other poor slob give his life for his country.

                               

                              So now I remember why everyone may have little interest in my crazy detour of questions of ethics. And really, I'm pragmatic about it also.

                               

                              If we can elect a bunch of sleazy, hypocritical, cheating, buggering a**holes who can improve our fiscal situation, and quit sacrificing our country's youth abroad, hey, that doesn't sound so bad.

                               

                              The good news, of course, is that I think we need not look far at all to find aforementioned bunch of sleazy, hypocritical, cheating, buggering a**holes. I think we even divided out a special section of the country for them, to be separated out from all the regular States.

                              It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.