[acutekat]

ya thought this might be good
are you GOP or dem
labor or conservative
we want to know
we want YOU to attack those unbelieving in your idealogy
but remeber these are opinions so dont let this get out of hand

it might be good to say were your from on the globe

[KazuoMM]

If I'm anything i would fall under the
Anarcho-communist category

Most people assume that communisms a bad thing
but its quite nice actually
it's just most leaders of communism become corrupt
and never step down from power

[abyssion1337]

I am also farily communist although i have been criticized for too socialist on some issues.

[KazuoMM]

I am also farily communist although i have been criticized for too socialist on some issues.


well socialism is very closely realtaed in idea
just still having a government is the more major difference

[abyssion1337]

the 2 are extremely close.

[acutekat]

i fall under the right wing nut case

nuke em till they glow =D

[KazuoMM]

I don't have a problem with the killing...
however i dont support the nukes because of the after effects
the radiation would spread

[abyssion1337]

nukes are will only kill off the human race: "I don't know how WW3 will be fought but WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones" - Albert Einstein

[acutekat]

ehh
ww3 may be fought with space ships
but ww4 probably wont be fought with stick it will either be fought with bigger better stuff than ww3 or not fought at all

[1337uvis]

dudes... if you like communism... you should live in Lithuania for a year or so... you'd see how ****ty it is... even AFTER 18 YEARS OF FIXING THE ****IN DAMAGE IT CAUSED

[abyssion1337]

ehh
ww3 may be fought with space ships
but ww4 probably wont be fought with stick it will either be fought with bigger better stuff than ww3 or not fought at all



you seemed to have missed the point, he's saying that we will likely bomb ourselves back into the stone age in WWIII

[yagsnave]

Some sort of social democrat I suppose. If I were able I'd gut most of the current welfare system and implement universal health care. I'd also reform affirmative action to look more at things like poverty and single parent households rather than race.

[Useful]

i fall under the right wing nut case

nuke em till they glow =D

You're kidding, right? I mean honestly, I'm a pretty aggressive person, but I don't allow that to cloud my judgment. Just go to a sparring class or beat something up. You'll find yourself thinking rationally in no time.



dudes... if you like communism... you should live in Lithuania for a year or so... you'd see how ****ty it is... even AFTER 18 YEARS OF FIXING THE ****IN DAMAGE IT CAUSED

Well, that wasn't communism, that was Russia. We all know that didn't turn out so well, but you can't blame communism.

[1337uvis]

quite the opposite. I don't blame Russia, since it's people suffered at least as much. Communism is the culprit here. It, and the fact that no GOOD leaders ever choose communism to run a state.

[Jazean]

the communism the soviet union had suffered from a dysfunctional part and a small failure to estimate the lengths human greed would go to F*** with a good plan.

truth be told, communism in its self is a great idea.
adding people and ambition to the mix, sadly
makes the whole thing turn into a S*** sandwich with a side of nuts.

Communism <-----------------------------------------> Fascism

/\ /\
USA |
Stalin&#39;s Russia


see nice little graph for where we fall.

[abyssion1337]

after the rapture your only choices are to follow my communist regeme or go back to a feudal system, that&#39;s how I&#39;ll win.

[Jazean]

if i can have a sword, i&#39;ll take the feudal

[abyssion1337]

you can have a plow and horse, peasent.

[Jazean]

and you can have a nice beheading o noble scum

[DicyDax]

i fall under the right wing nut case

nuke em till they glow =D
I say you get the hell out, I say no to war! No to poverty! YES WE CAN!

[abyssion1337]

and you can have a nice beheading o noble scum

I&#39;ll be running my new communist nation, it will take up most of Europe.





i fall under the right wing nut case

nuke em till they glow =D
I say you get the hell out, I say no to war! No to poverty! YES WE CAN!

agreed, war is pointless and too many people think that it solves things, and don&#39;t get me started on the right wing&#39;s monetary policy: someone explain to me how cutting taxes and raising government spending helps the economy.

[Jazean]

you can have Europe

war gives us things like 7 billion dollar missiles full of concrete, war is more like a money toilet.

[acutekat]

untrue WWII got us out of the depression


and war will never end
poverty will never end its human nature were never gonna get over it
humanity is a terminal illness

[Adjacent Badger]

untrue WWII got us out of the depression

That&#39;s because everybody else were totally smashed, WWII did little to overcome the depression, compared to what the rebuilding of the world after the war did.



I&#39;ll be running my new communist nation, it will take up most of Europe.

Isn&#39;t that exactly what you accuse Stalin et al of doing wrong?
I mean, treating the nation as your private property.



agreed, war is pointless and too many people think that it solves things, and don&#39;t get me started on the right wing&#39;s monetary policy: someone explain to me how cutting taxes and raising government spending helps the economy.

That&#39;s actually old, well-tested economic theory. It&#39;s called expansive financial policy.

Lower taxes + higher government spendings
=>
more economic ressources in civil society
=>
Increased demand/consumption
=>
increased supply/production
=>
Increased demand/consumption
=>
increased supply/production

At some point, when the economy is back running, the government then has to tighten the financial policy, to stable the growth and prevent the economy from running wild.

It&#39;s worked quite well in Denmark in the 90es.
The problem is, that if the growth is not channeled into the domestic economy and other countries do not lead a similar financial policy, the economic boost happens elsewhere, but at yor expense.

It has nothing to do with monetary policy. In most or all western countries, the monetary policy is solely in the hands of the treasure. Monetary politicy is about the amouts of the currency, the value of it compared to other currencies, the general interest rate and the reserves of foreign currency. In the ideal, government has no influence at all, but it does of course have some, as monetary policy cannot exist completely independent of the policy of the government. But the government has no direct say on monetary matters - that&#39;s the case in Western Europe (maybe in the entire EU) and I&#39;m absolutely sure, that it&#39;s the case in the US too.

[1337uvis]

after the rapture your only choices are to follow my communist regeme or go back to a feudal system, that&#39;s how I&#39;ll win.

fine, after the rapture, you can have the blazing fields full of dead bodies. While I, as a catholic, will be playing basketball, GTA IV and watching AMV Hell [oh, the irony!] with Jesus :D

[acutekat]

war kept the roman empire goin
until they started losing
a war is good for the side that wins

[Issitheus]

While I, as a catholic, will be playing GTA IV with Jesus :D

That&#39;s quite unlikely, considering... well... it&#39;s a GTA game.

[acutekat]

it may be possible that jesus is pro video game

but i think there are better thing up there than gta IV (duke nukem forever)

[Adjacent Badger]

war kept the roman empire goin
until they started losing
a war is good for the side that wins


I&#39;m not quite sure that the common Roman citizen would agree on that point.
I&#39;d say that trade and a strong organization of society kept the Roman Empire going. It is true, though, that its military achievements helped spread those, but in the end, it wasn&#39;t the wars themselves that kept the empire flourishing.

And it seems to me, that you measure the Roman Empire quite different from how one would judge a modern state. I doubt many people would consider military conquest an important parameter of success in modern society.

An important feature in the military success of the Romans, was the exceptionally high pay for military service. The soldiers were paid with land at the end of their service, in addition to what pay they got while in the army. I don&#39;t know how long you had to serve to get land, but try to imagine how precious a small piece of land was, when you came from absolutly nothing.

[KazuoMM]

Most of our problems come from humans
so i honestly would not have a problem with human extermination
its just we have to safely dispose of our unbiodegradable creations

[Adjacent Badger]

I would really prefer not to exterminate humanity. Concerning our non-biodegradable leavings, I&#39;m sure nature over time could recover even from the occational meltdowns among the thousands of then abandoned nuclear reactors.

[abyssion1337]

actually I just recently saw a program about that, it&#39;s as I thought, Nature will easily reclaim the earth after a long time.

[acutekat]

i say M.A.D. before we go so that we get to see cochroach people in billions of years

[Jazean]

give me a self-contained virtual world that i can upload too, plox!

[Useful]

untrue WWII got us out of the depression

That&#39;s because everybody else were totally smashed, WWII did little to overcome the depression, compared to what the rebuilding of the world after the war did.

WWII got the U.S. out of the depression because it entered late. Late entry means that the U.S. was supplying Europe with supplies before it entered the war, reducing our excess production while creating jobs. Many U.S. companies, including the one owned by George W. Bush&#39;s grandfather, were selling weapons to both sides of the war just months before the U.S. entered. Simply, the war greatly expanded the economy because of the necessary production. It didn&#39;t do the same for Europe because the war was on their soil and they started the war themselves.





I&#39;ll be running my new communist nation, it will take up most of Europe.

Isn&#39;t that exactly what you accuse Stalin et al of doing wrong?
I mean, treating the nation as your private property.

Uh, he was just kidding Badger.





agreed, war is pointless and too many people think that it solves things, and don&#39;t get me started on the right wing&#39;s monetary policy: someone explain to me how cutting taxes and raising government spending helps the economy.

That&#39;s actually old, well-tested economic theory. It&#39;s called expansive financial policy.

Lower taxes + higher government spendings
=>
more economic ressources in civil society
=>
Increased demand/consumption
=>
increased supply/production
=>
Increased demand/consumption
=>
increased supply/production

At some point, when the economy is back running, the government then has to tighten the financial policy, to stable the growth and prevent the economy from running wild.

It&#39;s worked quite well in Denmark in the 90es.
The problem is, that if the growth is not channeled into the domestic economy and other countries do not lead a similar financial policy, the economic boost happens elsewhere, but at yor expense.

It has nothing to do with monetary policy. In most or all western countries, the monetary policy is solely in the hands of the treasure. Monetary politicy is about the amouts of the currency, the value of it compared to other currencies, the general interest rate and the reserves of foreign currency. In the ideal, government has no influence at all, but it does of course have some, as monetary policy cannot exist completely independent of the policy of the government. But the government has no direct say on monetary matters - that&#39;s the case in Western Europe (maybe in the entire EU) and I&#39;m absolutely sure, that it&#39;s the case in the US too.

It only works well if you have a government that isn&#39;t already over budget. The US government is far too large to afford this kind of policy, because too many people work for our government. It would work fine if our gov&#39;t could continue to pay its work force on that kind of budget, but it can&#39;t. This didn&#39;t prevent our country from going to war, and a war that is costing more than any other war we have been involved in, adjusted for inflation. On top of that, the U.S. gov&#39;t does have control of monetary policy to an extent; our gov&#39;t recently tried to reverse our down-turning economy by lowering the interest rate on loans, but it still hasn&#39;t helped. So though what you&#39;re saying works in theory, it wouldn&#39;t make sense to a country in our position.





war kept the roman empire goin
until they started losing
a war is good for the side that wins


I&#39;m not quite sure that the common Roman citizen would agree on that point.
I&#39;d say that trade and a strong organization of society kept the Roman Empire going. It is true, though, that its military achievements helped spread those, but in the end, it wasn&#39;t the wars themselves that kept the empire flourishing.

And it seems to me, that you measure the Roman Empire quite different from how one would judge a modern state. I doubt many people would consider military conquest an important parameter of success in modern society.

An important feature in the military success of the Romans, was the exceptionally high pay for military service. The soldiers were paid with land at the end of their service, in addition to what pay they got while in the army. I don&#39;t know how long you had to serve to get land, but try to imagine how precious a small piece of land was, when you came from absolutly nothing.

But you see that war IS how Rome expanded: you were explaining it yourself. Rome sustained itself through trade somewhat, but the problem was that it encircled the entire Mediterranean, the ancient trade hub. Mostly, it could only trade with itself. So physical expansion was the main form of economic expansion. Not only did soldiers get good pay, it included anything that they could grab from the places they conquered. Considering that their pay put them in the upper-middle class, this was a significant part of the economy.

[Adjacent Badger]

It only works well if you have a government that isn&#39;t already over budget. The US government is far too large to afford this kind of policy, because too many people work for our government. It would work fine if our gov&#39;t could continue to pay its work force on that kind of budget, but it can&#39;t. This didn&#39;t prevent our country from going to war, and a war that is costing more than any other war we have been involved in, adjusted for inflation.
The government&#39;s policy does create growth, but they just haven&#39;t managed, if ever cared about, creating domestic growth - it&#39;s just created elsewhere.



On top of that, the U.S. gov&#39;t does have control of monetary policy to an extent; our gov&#39;t recently tried to reverse our down-turning economy by lowering the interest rate on loans, but it still hasn&#39;t helped. So though what you&#39;re saying works in theory, it wouldn&#39;t make sense to a country in our position.
Does that mean, that the treasure is under control of the government? That&#39;s rather disturbing.



But you see that war IS how Rome expanded: you were explaining it yourself. Rome sustained itself through trade somewhat, but the problem was that it encircled the entire Mediterranean, the ancient trade hub. Mostly, it could only trade with itself. So physical expansion was the main form of economic expansion.

I do not agree on that point. I don&#39;t think that the economic growth were mainly created by the territorial growth, but just made domestic. It is true, that the Romans to a large extend traded within the empire, i.e. along the Mediterranean Sea, but they would have done so, even if there had been other countries at the Mediterranean. Probably not as much, but then they instead went further away to trade.
There are clear evidence of large scale trading with the sub-Saharan regions and India and even signs of trade with China, though they may not have been there themselves.



Not only did soldiers get good pay, it included anything that they could grab from the places they conquered. Considering that their pay put them in the upper-middle class, this was a significant part of the economy.

But you are right, I think, in putting some emphasis on the retired soldiers a an economic factor, as spreading the wealth to create a middleclass, historically has magnified economic growth.

[KazuoMM]

Eventually the middle will turn into the poor and the gap between the rich and poor will cause utter chaos
and hopefully we wont go back to the same government

i hate the 2 party system of america

[abyssion1337]

Eventually the middle will turn into the poor and the gap between the rich and poor will cause utter chaos
and hopefully we wont go back to the same government

i hate the 2 party system of america

I agree but right now without the 2 party sytem we&#39;d be screwed, or so they&#39;d like us to believe.

[Adjacent Badger]

I don&#39;t think the Anglo-American election system (smaller areas voting for one candidate, i.e. the winner takes it all) is suited for anything but a two party system.

[acutekat]

indeed but i hate how my party is acting like the other side

(democrat vs. socialists)

[KazuoMM]

"better to keep your country small
your people few and
simple technology, if have any at all"

[acutekat]

ahh but at present we cannot do that with out WW3

[KazuoMM]

not true...
well the option most people would take is to exterminate most people
however the control over births and immagration could solve it
over a certain period of time
this would also work quite well for the environment
which is more of reason why i concern myself with this

[Useful]

It only works well if you have a government that isn&#39;t already over budget. The US government is far too large to afford this kind of policy, because too many people work for our government. It would work fine if our gov&#39;t could continue to pay its work force on that kind of budget, but it can&#39;t. This didn&#39;t prevent our country from going to war, and a war that is costing more than any other war we have been involved in, adjusted for inflation.
The government&#39;s policy does create growth, but they just haven&#39;t managed, if ever cared about, creating domestic growth - it&#39;s just created elsewhere.

Yeah, that&#39;s exactly the problem: the economic growth goes into companies, but the trickle-down effect doesn&#39;t function, it only gets funneled into CEO&#39;s and stockholder&#39;s pockets and back into the war efforts that caused the problem in the first place.




On top of that, the U.S. gov&#39;t does have control of monetary policy to an extent; our gov&#39;t recently tried to reverse our down-turning economy by lowering the interest rate on loans, but it still hasn&#39;t helped. So though what you&#39;re saying works in theory, it wouldn&#39;t make sense to a country in our position.
Does that mean, that the treasure is under control of the government? That&#39;s rather disturbing.

Honestly, I&#39;ve never taken an economics class, but I&#39;ve picked up an awful lot from the Econ class in my homeroom. I&#39;m pretty sure that the gov&#39;t has at least partial control over the treasury. And yes, it&#39;s frightening. But it work relatively well.




But you see that war IS how Rome expanded: you were explaining it yourself. Rome sustained itself through trade somewhat, but the problem was that it encircled the entire Mediterranean, the ancient trade hub. Mostly, it could only trade with itself. So physical expansion was the main form of economic expansion.

I do not agree on that point. I don&#39;t think that the economic growth were mainly created by the territorial growth, but just made domestic. It is true, that the Romans to a large extend traded within the empire, i.e. along the Mediterranean Sea, but they would have done so, even if there had been other countries at the Mediterranean. Probably not as much, but then they instead went further away to trade.
There are clear evidence of large scale trading with the sub-Saharan regions and India and even signs of trade with China, though they may not have been there themselves.

I have knowledge that suggests the extent of these factors is greater than even you suggest. However, I believe it&#39;s impossible to argue either way without knowing actual figures for GDP for Rome... which are pretty hard to come by, to say the least. Basically, the border provinces were probably more expansion based and coastal areas more trade based, but it&#39;s still incorrect to state anything definitively.

[acutekat]

ok i know this after taking a year of civics (stupid schools)
Ok how to explain this
well the federal reserve system controls the money supply by tweaking the amount of money banks need to have in the vault (the rest they loan out ) the higher amount they need to have on hand the less they loan out and the less money there is in the entire system (preventing inflation) or vice versa where they lower it allowing them to loan out more money so that they can make more loans and prevent recession. The federal reserve system also can make loans to banks themselves to help them from closing their doors (as what happened in the 30&#39;s and the great depression). they do other things as well such as clearing checks but im not going into that right now (i&#39;ve typed too much).

[Adjacent Badger]

There are no morally consistent solution to the confict in the middle east.

Either military force can be considered a legal factor in defining state borders (in which case there would be no Palestine, but a much larger Israel) or military force can be ruled out as the barbarism of the past (in which case there would be no Israel).

The only possible outcome, is some basically immoral compromise, making room for both Israelis and Palestinians.

[abyssion1337]

Actually the problem lies in that both nations are theocracies.

[Adjacent Badger]

Actually the problem lies in that both nations are theocracies.

Theocracies?

[abyssion1337]

the government is dictated by religion.

[1337uvis]

Ahh yes, religion, the fuel for conflict. And it&#39;s rather weird that it&#39;s between the muslim and christian, since if you study it a bit carefully... they both are talking about the same god, under different circumstances. Sounds crazy i know, but it&#39;s true.

[Adjacent Badger]

Ahh yes, religion, the fuel for conflict. And it&#39;s rather weird that it&#39;s between the muslim and christian, since if you study it a bit carefully... they both are talking about the same god, under different circumstances. Sounds crazy i know, but it&#39;s true.

Israel is not a christian country, they&#39;re jews. And the christians I know, definately don&#39;t consider their God the same as the muslims&#39;s.

[1337uvis]

Don&#39;t wanna go deeper into the religion topic, since i&#39;ve never visited a church and my knowledge is based only on rather shallow studying for personal knowledge, so i accept i might be wrong, but even without deeply studying the bible and the koran the similarities are very very many. But, as i said before, i don&#39;t wanna go there.

[abyssion1337]

I&#39;m not religious but I&#39;ve dabbled in in studying religion; Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all considered branches of the same religion (actually I think Judaism is the maid brach)

[Adjacent Badger]

I don&#39;t know that much about those religions, but a good friend of mine, deeply christian herself, denies that chistianity has any important relations to islam.

Islam recognizes Jesus as an important prophet, so there emust be som relationship between the religions, as also Abraham is an important figure in all three religions.

I think both christianity could be seen as kind of renegades from judaism, but while christianity recognizes the judaic testament as a holy book too, islam has cut the relations to judaism.

Basically, I think that the confict is much more politically than religiously defined. I don&#39;t really consider neither Israel nor the Palestinian territorries governed by religion, I&#39;d say they&#39;re just based on occidental and oriental culture respectively.

[1337uvis]

Yes, in modern times religion plays a lot of a smaller role in conflict. Now the reasons are either political , or maybe even a few men&#39;s ambition.
And people should be searching for similarities with other religions, not differences. The only thing is that some religion has to be the first to start recognize other&#39;s similarities, but no one has the guts to do that.

[abyssion1337]

Actually the biggest difference between judaism and christianity is that the Jews don&#39;t believe Jesus was the messiah.

[KazuoMM]

this is sounding like my lunch period

i have a friend who is half jewish and half christian
and he clears things up like this all the time for me

[acutekat]

i have studied religion way more than i should


Muslims= they believe in a profit Muhammad (or however you spell it) he is not their "Deity" that would be "Allah" the Arabic word for go they believe (fundamentally) the same things up right until Abraham had Ismael (the Arab people)
Judaism = the back half of the bible (descended from Issac)
christianity = all the bible (the gentiles)

i hope that clears it up
i could go way in depth but im not going to

[SS_nyuu911_SS]

Ahh yes, religion, the fuel for conflict. And it&#39;s rather weird that it&#39;s between the muslim and christian, since if you study it a bit carefully... they both are talking about the same god, under different circumstances. Sounds crazy i know, but it&#39;s true.

Israel is not a christian country, they&#39;re jews. And the christians I know, definately don&#39;t consider their God the same as the muslims&#39;s.


Actaully your wrong...
see im a Protestant ( or christian)
and we do have the same God,
Allah is the same as God
Allah is "God" in there language...
christianity and muslims are actually very close...
the Koran is almost exactly the same as the bible (when it was first written)
but muslims have bastardized the koran so much that now they think its part of the belief to kill christians..
which is what gets me confused..

but alos in a sense ur right..
becuz now we are completely different becuz like i said they have bastardized their belief so it is way different then mine,
but a long time ago they werent that different

[jaw091]

and yet a long time ago they still had cheese

[abyssion1337]

actually many Jews are begining to recognize Jesus as the messiah.

[Ionzorg]

I haven&#39;t watched the news or read the paper in ages...Sorry, but Ionzorg am of no help in contributing to the political side of the debate, and thus Ionzorg am feel inadequate.

But I&#39;m fairly in tune with religious studies, and I agree that the three main religions are generally rather similar, and most people of faith are too busy dabbling in their holy wars and hate mongering to realize it. And yes, the Muslim faith has been horribly corrupted, attributing to it&#39;s bad rap, but it isn&#39;t bad, per se.

Also, don&#39;t the Jewish people believe only in the Old Testament?

[1337uvis]

yes, but they recognize the christians&#39; belief in the new testament also so there&#39;s no quarrel between the two like there is with Islam on koran and the suna (shiits and sunits - they kill each other!)

[abyssion1337]

I think we&#39;ve gotten to the point where we&#39;re all just agreeing with each other.

[KazuoMM]

i think the book Ishmael has an interesting view
on the bible specificly Genesis
everyone should read it

[abyssion1337]

I still have too many problems with Christianity, most of the new testimant (the part after the torah) is slanted; many of the books were left out cause they wanted the perfect bible.

[jaw091]

have you ever read the bible?

[abyssion1337]

yes I have.

[Ionzorg]

I&#39;ve read about a third of it, I&#39;ll likely read the rest someday soon, as it is certainly a fascinating set of documents. Who here has read the Book of Mormon?

[SS_nyuu911_SS]

yes I have.


lmao!
they didnt take any books out of the bible..
i know this becuz ive studied theology.

[Useful]

yes I have.


lmao!
they didnt take any books out of the bible..
i know this becuz ive studied theology.

Well, they didn&#39;t take them out per say, they just ignored the fact that women can be prophets too. Basically, different sects have decided what is canon and what is not. For example, Episcopalians (my sect) consider much of the Old Testament to be apocryphal.



I&#39;ve read about a third of it, I&#39;ll likely read the rest someday soon, as it is certainly a fascinating set of documents. Who here has read the Book of Mormon?

My dad read some of it. He said wasn&#39;t as moving as the Bible is. I read the first 20 pages and I&#39;d have to agree.

[jaw091]

wow this is very educational

[1337uvis]

this is getting to a point where i can no longer suppress my disgust in any religion of any kind and thus i suggest a new topic: fuel prices, what in the hell is wrong with that? Who do you think is responsible?

[Useful]

That&#39;s easy. Kind of. Just check out my post over on "Which Came First" and you&#39;ll have the answer. If you want really accurate blanket info, use the National Geographic articles at the end; they have very good summaries.

[Ionzorg]

Yeah, I don&#39;t think I have any intention of reading it anyway. I don&#39;t think it should be considered a Book in the Bible in the first place, because, well...plenty of reasons, that I&#39;m sure most are familiar with. But that&#39;s me.

As for gas prices, yeah, head on over to "Which Came First", because I don&#39;t think we need two controversial threads both dedicated to the same topic. :P But a new one couldn&#39;t hurt either. How is it that in any thread, we always end up back on the religious debate?

I propose a return to the Political MELEE that this thread was meant to be.

[1337uvis]

Die communists!

[abyssion1337]

What&#39;s your problem with us communists, we have a bad rep, for no good reason.

[KazuoMM]

yea communists never get a break cause of stalin
but i&#39;ve been thinking it over and
i might be changing over to a mix between
communism and privitism

[abyssion1337]

that&#39;s fine, marxism-leninism isn&#39;t perfect so adding some qualities of other systems could work out.

[KazuoMM]

what i&#39;ve been doing latley is seeing where humans went wrong
it wasnt that all humans went wrong, just a certain group which then
started taking over others and converting them

the start of it was the agricultural revolution

[1337uvis]

What i&#39;ve been doing in reality lately is making sure that communism doesn&#39;t spread :D

[Ionzorg]

I believe that communism, per se, can work in theory, but in reality, it really goes against our collective human nature. Humans on the whole are greedy bastards, so its inherent qualities really have no place amongst us, as much as I would like it to.

I&#39;m all for it&#39;s ideologies being implemented in other systems, however, and I think that could work magnificently. An internet test just deemed my friend to be an anarcho-communist, apparently, but that system also seems highly unfathomable. You know what&#39;s great though? Socialism.

[1337uvis]

honestly, do you all believe that communism&#39;s ideals are good for the people? It may be an efficient way to run a government BUT it will never be a reasonable way to live like. And you can&#39;t have one without the other.

To all of you who think it&#39;s been misunderstood [communsim = it] i just have to say: people in 1933 in Germany said : Wow, this Hitler fella sure has some fresh ideas! Let&#39;s give them a try!

[Adjacent Badger]

And even after seizing power, he was widely appraised for his magnificent leadership, in short time bringing Germany back as a strong industrial nation.

I don&#39;t think humans are inherently greedy, it&#39;s the rule of privitism and liberal economy that has brought us to where we are. I think that&#39;s how totalitarian ideologies have been able to break though time and again. They are borne by the wish of change among those not benefitting from privitism and liberal economy. Hitler promised to give the population a share in the power and wealth of the country and better living standards. The russian communists did the same, as well as Hugo Chavez and Moammar Ghadafi did. And that promise was to some extend kept.

Still today, the communists gather a large minority of the votes in Russia, peaking in 1999 with 24%. Even after more than 50 years of harsh dictatorship and 15 years of rampant economic growth. They are on their way down, getting only 12% at the last presidential election. All provided, of course, that the elections were free and fair, which had been claimed untrue by many observers.

[1337uvis]

Yes, the presidential election ballot was preety much like this:
[ ] Dmitry Medvedev
[ ] Are you sure it&#39;s not Dmitry Medvedev?
[ ] Kidnap and torture my entire family.

[abyssion1337]

you would have said the same thing, at that time hitler hadn&#39;t shown his evil side yet and the germans were ****in desperite, they&#39;d have gotten behind satan.

[1337uvis]

oh yes at that time i would&#39;ve absolutely voted for Hitler, and 90 percent of you would have too. I&#39;m just saying - there you go, be more careful... I mean thats how Lithuania got the first impeached president in europe. Now, he looks a bright guy, young and lots of good ideas. Only two years later it turns out that he didn&#39;t have any ideas and that there was Moscow&#39;s money behind him.

[Adjacent Badger]

Interesting, are he still in office?

Oddly I have never heard of that, but it doesn&#39;t surprise me that Kremlin would do such.

[KazuoMM]

oh yes at that time i would&#39;ve absolutely voted for Hitler, and 90 percent of you would have too. I&#39;m just saying - there you go, be more careful... I mean thats how Lithuania got the first impeached president in europe. Now, he looks a bright guy, young and lots of good ideas. Only two years later it turns out that he didn&#39;t have any ideas and that there was Moscow&#39;s money behind him.


just goes to show you the determination to control others

[Ionzorg]

Oh yeah, I would have voted for Hitler. Sure, the crimes he committed turned out to be unimaginably callous and evil, but he was indeed an amazing leader and strategist. If he wasn&#39;t such an ass, he could have done great things for mankind...But, of course, if he wasn&#39;t such an ass, he probably wouldn&#39;t have attained power in the first place.

Also, interesting tidbit about the impeached president in Lithuania...I&#39;m going to have to look into that. Was this recent?

[1337uvis]

Rolandas Paksas, look &#39;im up. And duh, ofcourse he&#39;s not in office anymore, he got his ass impeached back in &#39;04

[Useful]

Socialism works. Look at Sweden, Iceland, and Norway. They have some of the highest Human Development Indexes in the world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

[Adjacent Badger]

I think that it&#39;s social democratism, rather than socialism.
Traditionally socialism rejects parliamentarism, the major difference between classic socialism and social democratism.

[abyssion1337]

socialism is a good system.

[Useful]

I think that it&#39;s social democratism, rather than socialism.
Traditionally socialism rejects parliamentarism, the major difference between classic socialism and social democratism.

You&#39;re right, of course. I was just saying that the principle works. Of course in a nation of over 500,000 people you&#39;d undoubtedly have to have some sort of representative and not direct government simply for logistical reasons.

[KazuoMM]

thats just another reason to decrease the population
i dont mean kill people but possibly limit births
give praise to adoption... no killing

[Useful]

thats just another reason to decrease the population
i dont mean kill people but possibly limit births
give praise to adoption... no killing

Haha! A noble aspiration, but it still wouldn&#39;t get us anywhere near the levels needed to make a direct government feasible.

[Ionzorg]

Yes, the population really does need to be reduced, or at least controlled. I think that the whole Chinese system of "One child per couple, no exceptions," is a bit harsh, but a different system could be devised for other nations like the US, taking into consideration family income, things like that.

Another thing that we need more of is snipers. Lots more snipers. ;D

[Useful]

Yes, the population really does need to be reduced, or at least controlled. I think that the whole Chinese system of "One child per couple, no exceptions," is a bit harsh,

Well, that rule has lightened up a lot you know. They&#39;ve added all sorts of exceptions to make it more livable. The biggest one is "You can have more kids if both you and your spouse were only children", meaning that this past generation of almost exclusively only children can have more kids. Of course, the economic growth since then has improved living conditions enough that most families don&#39;t have more than a few kids anyway.

[Ionzorg]

Yes, thank you, I was sort of hoping for an update on that situation...haven&#39;t heard much about it as of late.

You know, I&#39;m not really sure whether the further development of the Chinese country will be a blessing or a hindrance on the whole...nothing against them, of course, but that many people under one governing body can make a huge difference to the world, in more than a few ways.

[Adjacent Badger]

The laws against multiple children has, as far as I know, never been implemented at full power in the rural areas where children are a necessity on the farmsteads.

[1337uvis]

yep, it hasn&#39;t isnce that would be like cutting off your own food supply, since China is still not reaching the intensive farming level like in European countires and is still using the extensive farming method

[KazuoMM]

and on the food supply
we need to stop making more of it
because if there is more food there is a growth in people
more people more problems

[Useful]

Hmm... looks like the religion thing turned into a total mess, so I&#39;ll clear it up.

All three religions believe in the same God. They simply have different names for it. Also, they all stem from basically the same "continuity" for lack of a better word.

The first one was Judaism. It believed in a number of prophets with Abraham being the most important one as the savior of the Jewish people.

Then came Christianity. It recognizes all of the Jewish faith as valid (with some variation among sects) but doesn&#39;t believe that Abraham was the most important. It also adds some more prophets. Believes that Jesus was the most important prophet, in fact the son of God and (in most sects) the ONLY son of God.

Then came Islam. It also recognizes all Christian and Jewish belief but thinks that all previous prophets were imperfect, eg. they didn&#39;t quite get the word of God down right. They believe that Mohamed DID, and that his book, the Koran is the actual Word of God. Believe that Mohamed is the LAST prophet, because he correctly interpreted the Word of God and therefor God doesn&#39;t need to send any more prophets.

So it basically comes down to which prophet you trust the most. The misunderstanding that has happened SINCE then is what made this whole big mess.

[Issitheus]

Woo first two pages of off-topic belong to meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Now for page 3...

[Ionzorg]

You can do eet! Spam, spam I say!

[SS_nyuu911_SS]

usefuls rant was dumb...

[Issitheus]

I DON&#39;T SPAM!!!

[1337uvis]

Issi you are a bloody spammer, burn in hell! [Sir!]

[Issitheus]

Give me proof that I spam.

[1337uvis]

to quote... yourself:



I DON&#39;T SPAM!!!


^ THAT is #1 spam, ever!

[Issitheus]

Give me proof that I do.

[abyssion1337]

well you do spam but you&#39;re not nearly as bad as acutekat or the end of all things green

[Useful]

Woo first two pages of off-topic belong to meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Now for page 3...

Okay, if this isn&#39;t spam, I don&#39;t know what is. It is completely off-topic in a thread that&#39;s pretty serious, it clearly states it&#39;s goal to be entirely post-count-oriented, and it adds no meaningful content otherwise.



usefuls rant was dumb...

No, you&#39;re dumb. I thought this was cleared up already. :-\

[Issitheus]

Well now that I&#39;m at the highest known rank, there&#39;s no need for me to supposedly spam... or even post. goodbye, forever.

[Useful]

I hope to God that you&#39;re kidding. Back when you said meaningful things you were actually fun to post with. But you&#39;ve become obsessed with the post count to the point where you spam and don&#39;t really care. I hope that you&#39;re satisfied now and that you&#39;ll return to your former self. Because if you don&#39;t, I&#39;m going to have to find a way to get Dicy Dax back on here. Or Badger. ESPECIALLY Badger. Because l33tivus and DaMetzger are cool and all, but I can&#39;t do Eastern European politics. I just don&#39;t know enough of it. Wish I did though...

So come back with a clear mind Iss, and I&#39;ll welcome you.

[Issitheus]

Okay, you caught me. I&#39;m not leaving.

And I really hope that I&#39;m at the highest rank, because I like having fun with you guys. it&#39;s just that since I got Zarx to make this new rank, I&#39;ve been shooting for the top. Now, I&#39;M BACK, BABY!!!

[abyssion1337]

now we need another one perhaps otaku god

[Useful]

now we need another one perhaps otaku god

Yeah. And we need more stars! 5 stars for Has No Life and 6 for Otaku God. The cut off should be 10,000 posts. But this is totally off-topic. I&#39;m making a new poll... check it out soon. 8)

[S.ifr]

It&#39;s a first, but I hope this thread doesn&#39;t go off-topic.

[Useful]

Alright, come over in random rants so I don&#39;t spam this thread or double post over there.

I deem this thread superfluous, because the General Election thread will probably take up all attention.

[1337uvis]

this thread has been on life-support for a few months now.... I&#39;m sorry, but it&#39;s... it&#39;s time to pull the plug...

[Issitheus]

*bang* This thread has just been killed by Issitheus

[Useful]

All abandon ship to the General Election thread!

[1337uvis]

*waves and kicks the boat away from this thread* *salutes*

[acutekat]

ok abyss

clear *zap*

i brought this back especially for you

[Filleraol]

OH SHI-

It's alive

*runs the hell away*

[acutekat]

i know i had to use the search function to get this thing back
suprised it was still here

[daikaisho vanguard]

You wanna revive it or just boost your post-count?

[acutekat]

im trying to revive it

so here goes

health care, specifically the new bill in congress (U.S. one that is) are you in favor against or what would you like to see in it or do you have no clue whats going on (if you do, wikipedia yourself)
ill wait to see how this works out

starting out : im not in favor of the bill i'll justify my opinion in a later post

[abyssion1337]

despite the one or two big problems it has I still support it

[acutekat]

i don't support it because i don't think socialized medicine will work

and this bill has too much socialized medicine in it

[abyssion1337]

right well so far socialized medicine is working well for just about everyone else

[acutekat]

75% of the world's pharmaceuticals are invented in the united states.

why? becuase the people who invent them make money off em
there is drive to invent thing where as in other countries there is none
socialism doesn't work long term
the free market is absolute when you try to limit it things get ugly

[abyssion1337]

are you kidding, there's about a 600% markup on most drugs, tell me that's not too much, drugs are way too expensive but hey the only people who get hurt are sick people and the pharmaceutical companies sure as hell don't care about them, the free market is just a way to screw people over and yeah socialism works very well long term but when a free market crashes it a billion times worse

[kapparomeo]

As much as Moore tried to insist otherwise in Sicko, the NHS that we have here in England is not a paradise where the rivers flow with milk and honey. The NHS didn't create a healthcare system - it only acquired one, by taking possession of existing hospitals for itself.

It's not "free" either. You still have to pay - the only difference is that instead of an insurance premium you must pay a tax levy. While admittedly variable tax rates mean that the poor have access to more expensive treatment that they could not otherwise afford, I question whether the NHS is the only way to provide that treatment. No amount of socialised healthcare will protect you against incompetence and indolence (my grandmother died last year because owing to complications which stemmed from a hospital infection - Florence Nightingale asked that the first requirement of a hospital was that it should do the sick no harm... a hundred and fifty years later and they still can't get it right), and to say that the NHS is inefficient is like saying that the sea is a bit wet - it is a grotesquely bloated organisation in which billions upon billions are tipped down the drain to no discernible purpose. One third - one third! - of the NHS's staff are administrators. Taking away doctors and other medical staff, that means that there's almost one pen pusher for every nurse! What other organisation can you tell me is so catastrophically disorganised, so wasteful like that? How much money could be invested into other social welfare programs, or even re-invested into better healthcare, if we didn't have this millstone of NHS bureaucracy weighing us down?

The obnoxious nature of NHS supporters also really gets up my nose. Activists have made it so that the NHS is a sacred cow of politics here - anyone who suggests that reform is needed will immediately have a dozen hacks leaping on him like hyenas for being a baby-killer who knots catheters and spreads swine flu. You can't hold a public debate on it at all, as all of the speakers are continually hamstrung by the need to excuse themselves and pontificate about how wonderful and impeccable the NHS is, really, no lie, it's awesome, please believe me, before they can offer up a criticism. At least Americans can actually talk about their healthcare - it's virtually impossible to do that here.

Maybe U.S. healthcare needs reform, but you definitely don't want to base any new system on our model!

[abyssion1337]

I'm actually familiar with your model, it's far from ideal however it's also far from what socialized health care should look like

[acutekat]

ok i've figured out how to do this thread without arguement spinning out of control

i will now say my give my summation on the topic and the proceed to a new one once others have given their two cents


ending arguement:
socialized medicine is a dangerous thing as our friend in the U.K. has mentioned (at least thats what i got out of it that) and people can't seem to take criticism over it (there's a lot of the same here ) i think that a reform both in the courts and in the FDA would do more good than increased taxes and more government insight

thats my story and im sticking to it

i leave it to the next guy

[abyssion1337]

idiot, the way we were doing this was fine

[acutekat]

dragging this up from the bowls of el diablo for a new life

i dunno you decide

[acutekat]

forgive me father for i have sinned


bump