Within a group natural law demands that we work together, trust each other and respect our right to life. This promotes the growth of the group, and makes it more likely that it will thrive as a group. But as a group grows increasingly large, it also becomes increasingly inefficient. This encourages the group to splinter. Then when the two groups meet, they vie for the same scarce resources. The fact that the conflicts turn bloody helps to keep the overall population down. But each group is trying its best to ensure that it is the group that thrives. One way to do that is to attack the weaker groups around you and take what they have. If you don't kill that group, they are likely to come back seeking revenge. Meanwhile, even the groups who choose to live without attacking others, MUST keep itself strong to defend against the attacks from other groups. The best way to do that is to give birth to a lot of well-adjusted children who will be raised in strong families. This is why family is very important to virtually all religions. The family supports the young. Notice the dynamics. The prohibition against killing within the group serves to increase the population of humans; while the acceptablility of killing outsiders serves to decrease the population of humans and prevent them from over populating the earth. Western societies have largely short circuited that dynamics by becoming CIVILIZED. We now abhor killing... including outside our group. Historically, the fate of such civilizations has been to be conquered by the barbarians who do not have such qualms. The is a frequently reoccuring theme. And I suspect that it is one that may be repeated before too long if the course of history doesn't change--as the radical Islamic extremists grow in number, and work more diligently (and effectively) to take over the world. If we do not acknowledge the danger and take action, they will continue to try to kill or enslave everyone who is not a radical Muslim, just like them. And that includes radical Muslims who are not like them. lol.
I don't think your argument from population dynamics is an effective one. As people become wealthier, dirty jobs can be taken over by machines. A shrinking population can have a growing economy so long as people get wealthier. A shrinking population that does not get wealthier will however behave as you suggest. But the argument against abortion is that it simply cheapens human life. When I first debated it in academic philosophy in 1994, the given argument was that the fetus only develops brain cells at 2 months, and abortion will only ever occur before that time, so at that point its technically 'not human'. Nowadays its at 6 months, and the 'brain cells' argument is out the window. I failed that paper because I argued that I have no experience of abortion, so i am not qualified to argue it. I got 49%! Since then, I have observed 7 cases of abortion. In two cases the child was killed because the grandparent did not want to pay for a non-white grandchild. On two occasions the wealthy grandparent claimed to not be able to afford it. On two occasions, the woman simply wanted to have a career and the child was inconvenient. On one occasion the woman was a sociopath and probably unfit to be a mother. Adoption was not even considered, as the mother was an alcoholic and it was feared the child would suffer from alcohol fetal syndrome. I was given the option of studying for my psychology exam, or comforting the mother who had now developed into a psychopath. I helped her and got 80% for the exam anyway. Last I heard she had become a welcanol addict having had fingers amputated because of gangrene. After that she tried to gouge my eyes out because I did not want to be her boyfriend, and now I avoid her completely, as she is now a prostitute in the worst part of town. (If she is still alive). That part of town has degenerated to the point where the buildings are just crumbling, and it is just full of human excrement as nobody has bothered or knows how to fix the ablutions. Abortion causes social decay, but is also a symptom of it. Believing that people are just animals on a farm to be utilized or discarded i reckon to be the underlying cause of all of this. Your argument from economics fails to realise that economics is meaningless without ethics. And, the highest ethical ideal is fundamentally religious. ;-j
This is a good point... to a point. Obviously, my comments are intended to be about general forces which are exerted by natural law--not a universal absolute that is immune to abberations or modifying factors. In addition, we ARE dealing with forces here. Some exert pressure in one direction while others simultaneously exert pressure in the opposite direction. The industrial revolution was a very powerful force, which was largely able to overcome the forces of natual law. It improved the lives of people greatly, allowing many more of them to live very closely together without creating as much comptetion. Improved farming techniques have allowed the earths population to increase by billions over what it could handle when humans lived as hunter gatherers. This allowed civilizations to easily adopt policies of non-conflict with their neighbors. As to your specific comments... yes, a good economy can (for a time) mask the detrimental forces which are brough to bear by acting irrationally (or against the principles of natural law). Despite a few minor ups and downs, America's economy had basically been booming for 25 years (ever since Ronald Reagan) and this masked the forces of natural law. But an economy can't boom forever. Eventually there is always a backward slide. If the community is practicing sound policy, those 'depressions' are always very short and followed by even greater prosperity. When the 'depression' lasts significantly longer than 6-12 months, we know (without a doubt) that we have been following more bad policy than good. Massive numbers of abortions is just one of the many policies that has contributed the America's recent financial difficutlies. But most of the problems that created those difficulties have been around for many decades, growing in destructive potential each year.
That's one valid argument, I suppose. Not sure that was a valid argument even before abortions were committed past 2 months. That's a bit like a person who's charged with destroying a baker's cake saying that he's innocent becaue he destroyed the batter, and it wasn't a cake yet. So he's not guilty of destroying cakes. The batter was going to be turned into a cake. So destorying the batter IS destroying the cake. Nowdays abortions are (in essence) being performed on living babies outside the womb. As in botched abortions, where the babies are left to die without medical attention that would have saved their lives. This ties in to the cheapening of human life argument, I suppose. And the question is, "Were does it stop?" If a baby outside the womb can be aborted, simply because the mother wanted to have an abortion before it was born... then why can't she abort a baby outside teh womb because she now wishes she'd had an abortion a few week after the baby is born, and she understands how deeply it is going to impact her social life, finances, etc? Why not several years later when the child becomes a distrubtive, anti-social teenager? Where do we draw the line? In America, Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions. They make more than a billion dollars each year providing these abortions. And this institution was begun by a radical feminist named Margaret Sanger. It is well documented that one of Sanger's principle goals in creating Planned Parenthood was to help control the spread of the black community by encouraging them to self-exterminate their own race. Even today, Planned parenthood maintains the vast majority of it's offices in poor black neighborhoods. Possibly... but it is only a symptom because it is available. Abortion isn't seen as a symptom of being rich because 1) rich people can more easily afford babies. 2) abortion is more taboo for them. 3) rich people can afford private doctors who will perform the abortion without sharing that information publicly. 4) rich people aren't as likely to have unwanted babies, because they can more easily afford birth control; and they're less likely to be raped by a stranger in their community. 5) ect. Two points: First, my argument was solely one of economics. I purposefully didn't get into the ethics of the question. But the two arguments (economics and ethics) are NOT mutually exclusive. Second, I think you clearly have it backwards. The ethics argument is meaningless without the economics, because bad (i.e. socialist/communist) economic practices invariably lead to a decline in the morals of the people. In America, we see this on many fronts. A good example is the economic and moral decimation of cities like Detroit. A few decades ago, Detroit was a shining economic beacon--I suspect it sold more cars than the rest of the world combined. Then the liberal politicians got involved, and big government, redistribution policies, unions, regulations and high taxes all conspired to turn the industrial section of Detroit into a virtual ghost town. Now, crime, illiteracy, and welfare are all at record highs. We can look at this also from the perspective of the bible. Obviously, Jesus encourages charity--but only charity by the individual. Nowhere does the bible suggest that big government redistributing the wealth is a good idea. And in fact, I think the parable of the talents presents a strong case against this idea. In biblical speach, talents are a unit of money. So if Jesus was really a (communist) class bigot, it seems to me that he would have taken 4 talents from the one with 10, and given them to the one with only 1. That way all three servants would have 6 talents. But he didn't... to the two servants who were productive, he rewarded them with the efforts of their productivity. But to the one who was unproductive, he took even that which the servant currently had. It seems to me that the moral of this lesson is pretty clear. And it is the mirror reflection of what always happens when redistribution is practiced by big government. The poor always get poorer, because they no longer have any incentive to work. Yes, the bible tells us that Jesus encouraged us to be charitable... but we were put on this earth as a TEST. And we pass this test by giving of ourselves, and what we have earned. Not by empowering politicians to steal from our fellow citizens, so that they can destroy the moral and economic futures for the poor they claim to be helping--just so they can buy more votes.
Well that was a mostly flawless response, however Could be seen as socialism simply being a bad moral, as it violates 'thou shalt not covert thou neighbor's ass'. The point being, that economics is a subset of morality. To say I have it backwards would imply that morality is a subset of economics. It appears to be a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Is it possible to be morally correct in extreme poverty? Does wealth imply that people will mostly become moral? Poverty often results in the only pleasure being sex, which is why poor communities often get poorer, as more and more unviable children are born. The knee-jerk response would be to throw money at them. This normally results in more pregnancies. Abortion is a crass attempt at stopping this. Sadly, the only recommendation i can suggest is sterilization. But a woman who goes through either often becomes psychotic. In the examples I gave, the girl who reacted the worst, came from the wealthiest background, even though she ended up living in the dregs. So sterilization for women in poverty after the second child is the best solution i can think of. I think sterilization is more humane than abortion. But preventing women from EVER having children is not the way to go, because Hell hath no fury...
We are asking if the mind is more powerful than the body. Which deconstructs into the debate on free will and determinism. If our mind is dictated by the body and is just an epiphenomenon, then our debate is meaningless as debate implies we can choose the better argument over the worse. The reader can choose to carry on reading, or not. If mind (and therefore morals) are dictated by physicality and all is just determined, then choosing to think (or not) is an illusion, so there is no need to make an effort to TRY. So what this boils down to, is that morals (mind) have to be considered as more vital (intrinsically) than the material wealth, or economics. But the two systems do feed back on each other. But ultimately, giving people money without giving them the know-how or morals that need to accompany it, simply results in more poverty, and thus makes the problem worse.
Good point. First, I don't think that either morality or economics is a SUBSET of the other. But I would say that they overlap. If we define things in terms of natural law, then I think we would have to say that both areas are (generally speaking) governed by the SAME natural laws. The universal principles of morality are what they are because that's the way natural law dictates that things must be. No community can condone random killings. No community can condone lying. etc... without bringing to bear forces that promote the community's own dysfunction, which places the community at increased risk of ceasing to exist. That doesn't mean that all religions espouse the same morals. But the morals that are espoused by virtually all religions will be the universal ones. And those will be the ones that work. Similarly, there are different theories of economics. But when certain theories (like keynes economics, or communism) are put into practice the result is alwasy economic decline. Thus, we know that they violate natural law. Conversely, when the principles of austrian economics (or the free market) are practiced, they always lead to improved economic conditions. And again, this is natural law. You train a dog to do something, there is usually a one-to-one correlation between performance and reward. The dog performs the desired act more frequently he gets a treat more often. No successful trainer would ever think he could efficiently train a large group of (say) 10 dog to perform a specific act because everytime one of the dogs does what it is supposed to do the trainer randomly gives a treat to one of the 10 dogs. Trying to train a dog in this way would be deemed the act of a crazy person. Yet expecting workers to be productive so that other people who aren't working can receive equal rewards is essentially the same thing. And natural law simply will not allow such a strategy to work.
The reason I suggest that economics is dominant is this: In any community it is always the case that you can create two scales. One for how wealthy a person is and another for how highly moral they are. Generally speaking, most people are relatively average and so they will tend to fall somehere close to the middle on both of these scales. Now, when you have a healthy, free-market economy, the distribution of the pepole's wealth will tend to be skewed towards the high end with most of the people clusstered in the middle; while the distribution of the people's morals will also tend to skew towards the more moral end. In a small community, if the people have high morals, they will tend towards the free-market type of economy. But as the community becomes larger, the generosity (and healthy economy) will encourage the people to adopt increasingly socialistic economic principles. And the result is always that the morals of the community are corrupted. Those who would normally be a the low end of the moral spectrum will take advanages of whatever they can. They will bribe politicians to give them special favors and so forth. The politicians will begin to give groups speical favor in exchange for votes... and so forth. As the corruption increases, the community will become less moral... and this immorality will lead to a decrease in economic prosperity. The corruption and the decline in economic prosper will cause the scales to move away from the center and cluster at the ends. Those who can take advantage of the system (by being or buying off the beurocrats and politicians) will become filthy rich. Those who cannot will loose wealth, as what they have is redistributed to those who are unable or unwilling to work at all. As this process continues, more and more people will be unable to find work, becasue those who would otherwise invest in creating jobs will be unwilling to risk their capital. Simultanneously, the morality of the people will also begin to diverge. Those who are taking advantage of they system, (either by sponging off those who are productive or corruption of crony capitalism) are obviously highly immoral--because they are violating natural law. As the community collapses, the poor will turn more to crime, increasing the immorallity of the community more. Communism always attacks religion and the family (because they run counter to the collective's ability to control the community) so as these institutions are weakened, moral corruption deepens further. On the other hand, in a community (like America) where we are historically accustomed to living in accordance with natural law, the worsening of economy and morals may also lead to a growing number of people (like the Tea Party) who are more than usually attuned to natural law... and thus can be seen as being more in tune with its morals. Thus, you also have people who are highly immoral and highly moral. Note that the morality I'm referring to is not necessarily religious in nature. Rather, morality (by my definition) is that which is in accord with natural law. Usually this overlaps with religious morality--but not always.
Absolutely yes and no, respectively. Increased wealth does not imply an increase in morallity. According to the bible, just the opposite is true--as Jesus says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to go to heaven. By the way, I saw something once that suggested that "the needle" was a small opening in one of the city's walls. So my guess is that Jesus may not have thought it was as difficult as the modern world seems to think this passage implies. I don't think this was an actual attack against rich people, per say, but I do think the tendency for a wealthy nation to become increasingly corrupt may have been the intended moral of this analogy. After all, wealthy people find it far easier to be tempted by the corruption that is possible when the economics is in violation of natual law. After all, they have the money needed to buy more preferential treatment--whereas the poor do not. As for it being possible to be morally correct in extreme poverty... When the slaves in America were emancipated, they were (for the most part) not very well off. Having just been slaves, they had little or no property to call their own. In addition, most slave had been prevented from learning to read or write. And yet, within a few short years after being awarded freedom, blacks (as a group) had a higer literacy rate than they do today. More than a dozen blacks were elected to congress. Some had managed to open stores and slowly but surely they were becoming increasingly affluent. So what happened? What happened was that after the Republicans passed the civil rights laws in the 1800's, the Democrats came to power. On the one hand, they started the Klu Klux Klan to be the enforcer arm of their party. Then later, they 'rewarded' blacks with welfare that decimated the black family and tied them perpetually to their ghettos, while simultaneously buying their votes. Single biggest factor that determines whether or not a child (particularly a black child) will remain in poverty or improve their economic lot is whether or not the child is raised in a home with both a mother AND a father. Those raised by single mothers have a much, much higher likelihood of having a short and impoverished life. Again, this goes back to the universal moral of virutally all religions, which always promotes the welfare of the child by encouraging strong and healthy families. It's not just "radical right-wing religious nut cases" who should be encouraging and promoting strong familes--every person who wants their community to survive should be doing it, regardless of whether they are religous or an atheist. Straight or gay. Any other policy leads to slow social suicide.
I do not agree with all of this. In America, at least, the welfare policies encourage women to have more children becasue they can get more money for doing so; and men are constantly on the prowl, becasue they don't have jobs to take up their time. Once these detrimental and anti-social behaviors are learned (and become generational patterns) it's very difficult to get the community to rise back out of the muck. It's impossible when the same policies that created the poverty are still being employed. But if sound economic principles are employed... and the children have access to quality educations (something that has become almost non-existent in America) then the community can improve its lot significantly very rapidly. Those who have little skill or initiative will remain mired in their poverty. But those who want something better will be able to work for and obtain it. Each generation, the numbers will improve and the economic scale for that community will slowly skew back towards the middle. Until the patterns of poverty are broken, however, there is no hope for improvement at all--no matter how much money the government pours down the community's drain. As for having children... there are issues related to the prestige associated with a single woman having a child. But this is largely the product of years and years of discouraging marriage, by reducing the amount of money a married woman receives compared to a single mother. People are sometimes foolish and do foolish things, like having sex they later regret. But (in general) the pressure to have children has been created largely because having more children increases the single mother's relative income. If laws were changed to strongly encourage marriage, and to penalize mothers who had more children, I don't think it would be very long before poor people began to respond to those pressures. Yes, some pregnancies are a total acident, but many are intentional--designed to achieve a goal that is currently being rewarded. Remove the reward and a lot of the behavior will quickly go away. Similarly, find a way to reward children for going to school and doing well, and children will be more likely to stay in school. A good first step would be to kick out all the riff-raff, so that those who want to learn can. Ever seen the movie LEAN ON ME? The next step is to provide good schools, which means getting rid of the corruption of the teacher's unions, and allowing parents to have a choice in where they send their children. I think these two things would have an immediate and significant impact on the average education level of poor students. Other excellent ideas that I've heard include Newt Gingrich's plan to replace some of the school system's janitors with many more students who do light chores around the school. Being able to earn money in this way would quickly become a priviledge that students would compete with one another to earn.
You make so many good points. But lets look at it from south africa's point of view. The Nationalists came to power after world war 2. And proceded to push the country backwards by excluding the majority from education. They tried to use violence to force people to learn a minority language. How did they come to power? I can only reason that it was with the help of nazis (and their gold) that escaped after world war 2. The afrikaner government somehow got to power despite being morally and economically corrupt. At school I considered myself to be a communist for the simple reason that it was the enemy of the violent oppressive govt. I had no idea what communism meant except that anything was better than that lot! There is a certain degree of communism in family ethics which just seemed a good thing. The Czars of Russia, were capitalists with an apparantly viable economic model. So how did the peasants get the power to overturn them? If communism was so bad, then it would never have got to power. I mention these two examples to demonstrate how it is that an apparantly less workable model can become more workable. Very often, people are promoted when it is obvious that they have less ability, even without any direct form of corruption. Often I have been told 'your work is the best' by all my colleagues, only to find that i am the one failed, kicked out, or not given the contract/tender. What much of this comes down to is just blatant envy, where people in power feel threatened that i can do the work better than them, and so they simply promote a lacky that agrees with them and kow-tows to their 'authority'. Its for this reason that i turned on the white minority government who espoused a sound economic ideal, and preferred to be treated as an equal despite my greater ability, rather than be treated as inferior despite my greater ability. This may sound egotistical. But I have no other option than to tell it the way it is. I was more instrumental in kicking the boneheads out of government than any person i have met or heard of. What I am saying is that jealousy can undermine a good economic system. Once more, that morality trumps economics. The Czars of Russia MUST have been jealous of the abilitiy of many people, or the peasants would not have had the organisational capacity to overthrow them. I would guess that a similar dynamic is what results in the republicans in the U.S. and the conservatives in the U.K. not being able to hang on to power, despite their superior economic model. Morality wins each time. ;-j
You make some good points too... and I must admit that I don't know a whole lot about the history of Africa. So most of what I say about Africa specifically will be spectulation, (or stuff I just looked up). Actually, I would say that throughout history, the vast majority of governments have tended to be corrupt--some more than others. The free-market principles that were put into place at America's founding (and which are no longer being followed in the US) gave birth to the industrial revolution. That's how powerful the principles are. It wasn't the industrial revolution that permitted modern forms of government, as many historians claim. The facts are that many technologies had been around for many years before the industiral revolution--including the combustion engine, electricity, and many others. But it wasn't until the free-market system that was employed in America set the entrepreneur free that these technologies took off and began to improve people's lives exponentially. This is the only reason that America rose from a small backwater upstart--swamped by debt from a devastating revolutionary war--and within a few short decades become the dominant world power. This is what is meant by American exceptionalism. It has everything to do with the principles of our government and nothing to do with the people in America itself. Americans were the rejects from the rest of the world. But here, under our system, they flourished like no other country in the world's history--souring faster and higher than any before had even thought possible. This was the whole point behind the Statue of Liberty, which was given to America by the French, to honor America's newly designed form of government. The point of this poem, which graces Ellis Island, is that the other countries of the world can send to America the worst dregs of their society--and here, in America, they will have greater wealth and prosperity than the rich of the other lands. Not because America is inherently better, but because the system that her economy functions under is. I'm just guessing what the current numbers are, but even today, after years of political corruption and economic decline--I suspect that America's poor qualify as being among the worlds wealthiest. A dacade or so ago, our poor were in the top 5% of the world's wealthiest. And I believe that this is an accomplishment that virtually any country that practiced pure free-market capitalism mirror within a few decades. Singapor and Hong Kong in recent years. Despite their size, and past histories, free-market principles have made them economic forces to be dealt with in recent years. So why are Free-Market Governments such an extreme rarity? As I said before, free-markets lead to propserity... prosperity leads to corruption... corruption leads to oppression... and oppression leads to economic stagnation... Which leads to revolt... But revolt is almost invariably a new dictator wrestling control from an old dictator. The process of falling from grace is generally much easier (and faster) than rising from oppression. Once you hand the reigns over to the communist masters, they're rarely if ever eager to give the reigns any slack. Everyone must act for the good of the collective, but ironically the dictator always decides what is good for the collective (which translates, "What's good for me, the dictator?" ) Thus, good government is rare and precious--and all too frequently squandered.
I disagree strongly. The Russia of the Czars may have been capitalism... but it was definitely not free-market capitalism. There is at least as much difference between free-market capitalism and other varieties as there is be capitalism and communism. If the capitalism being practices was actually a viable system, then the peasants would have had no reason to be angry. The reason the poor were so angry and ready to revolt was because the poor starved by the millions while the Czars (and their cronies) lived like... well, like Czars. This is not a viable system, in my mind. A viable system must satisfies the majority of the people, at least well enough to keep them content, if not actually happy. At a minimum, this means they must have enough to eat so that they don't starve. A good system of government should keep the majority of the people relatively happy and prosperous. As for communism not being so bad because it comes to power... historically, communism has usually come to power as a protest to some other form of bad government. In fact, the leaders of the communist movement have almost invariably used their rhetoric to get the citizens behind them, with lofty ideals about the general welfare of the collective, and so forth. They promote class warfare... villanizing those who have enough money to create jobs... although in these cases, these people usually aren't doing a very good job of that because the government and economy is already corrupt and engaging in crony capitalism, or worse. The point is, communism is the means by which power hungry and greedy people over throw governements. It preys on the desires of the poor for a better life. And in corrupt governments, their cries for justice are NOT undeserved. But those in control of the communist government that rise to power in this manner are never overly concerned about the welfare of the poor, and often the poor end up being even worse off under the new government. This was certainly the case with Russia... as literally hundreds of millions of poor Russians have starved to death under the communist regime. And billions more have lived inpoverty and abject misery. The other way communism can come about is by transitioning from a democracy, to a socialism to a communism. As I've said, the wealth of the democracy leads to generosity, which leads to giving the poor increasingly large amounts of welfare from the government, (i.e. socialism) but over time, this erodes the ecomony and the work ethic of the poor, creating more poor... which creates more socialism... at some point, the community must reject the socialism and return to sound economic policy, or they must transition to a totalitarinistic communism which can suppress the people and force them to live in the squallor that the government has created and now maintains through force and violence whenever necessary. Actually, I would say that this is a form of crony capitalism--not a free-market. It may not be government supported... but it's still crony capitalism. It happens because their is a culture of corruption that surrounds the business. Corruption is something that can happen at any level. It can occur in the government, at the corporate level, at the level of your department in that company, or even at the level of the family. Regardless of where cronyism occurs, everyone looses but the person who is being bought off and the person doing the buying. You loose, becasue you work better (or harder) than anyone else without being rewarded--which makes you wonder if working that hard is really worth it. So eventually, you're almost certain to slow down and not try so hard as you would if you were being appropriately rewarded. Your company looses, because they aren't getting the best work. The customer looses, because the product your company makes cost more, since the best workers aren't doing the work. Jealousy will always be an inevitable part of human nature. So there will always be such forces at work. There has never been a perfect free-market anywhere at any time--just as perfect communism has never been practiced by any government. These are ideals that reality can only mirror imperfectly. But I would suggest that in a society dominated by free-market thinking, such cronyism is much less common--on all levels. And, if you do run into it, you have a much greater freedom to either go to another employer who will reward you appropriately--or go out on your own and become a competitor to the company who refused to reward you. Bill Gates started Microsoft, a few decades ago, but first, he tried to entice IBM into promoting his Windows program. IBM refuse, so Gates went and did it on his own--and now he's was the richest man in the world. That's what happens in a free-market society. If you have an good idea, you can work hard to promote it--and the result is that you are rewarded hansomely. And the community receives the benefits of your ingenuity. In a non-free capitalist society, that man is still turned down by his company, but he can't create his own business, because taxes and regulation, and everything else makes trying to do so impossible. Many well known businessmen in America today have emphatically stated that if they were to try starting the businesses that made them rich, created thousands of good jobs, and enriched society with fabulous conveniences that would otherwise not be available--they would not have been able to succeed becasue of the oppressive, anti-business attitude of America's government today. Actually, I'd say the biggest reason is because conservatives believe in minding their own business. They're busy going to work and doing the things necessary to improve their own lives. And they are more honest, so they expect to recieve honesty from others. The radical liberals, on the other hand tend to be the poor who don't have jobs, so they can spend their time protesting (like the Occupy Wallstree idiots). Also, while conservatives believe in letting others control their own lives, radicals want power or they believe that it is their RIGHT (and/or responsibility) to control and dictate what other people can and cant do. Thus, while the conservatives stay home, the radical liberal are out their messing with the political system, trying to bend it to their benefit and will. And finally, radical liberals tend to have very low morals, (as we see in the dynamics with Barack Obama). Liberal find no fault in a leader who blatantly lies to the masses in order to get SNEAK laws through that support their goals. They find no flaw in a leader who breaks the law in order to change the law in illegal ways... as long as it accomplishes their goal. American conservatives tend to find such things hard to fathom, and so (until recently) they have not been on gaurd for such corrupt tricks.
- What is your name? - No. - Is it your name? - Yes. "NO" is a devil name (see brilliant "9 lives of Tomas Katz" by Ben Hopkins) - devil - as a contrary to being (God) is not - being. Just one from m. digressions (so..some gnostic said, that is demonic anti - Trinity : to God Father (Being) - contrary is ASUR (nihil) 2 others are mostly: Aryman (material, pull human down to earth) and Lucipher (intellectual/soul pride, get human high to "sky" but as in a legend about Icar..
Post scriptum: In quoted movie (9 lives) are very interesting scenes of "deleting" the being/creation (as on London example: last words are like that: - no substance..-no light..- no Dave) Who is Dave? Check the movie (it's not mine, but I personally recognize this film as a brilliant for every philospher&religious thinker and..who likes good sense of humor) BTW: If something exist (yes, this is our case..) is better than will be no existence at all (if You don't agree I will publish a evidence and, what I think, and what is logically important: If you say, f.e. - "There is no free will, this creation sucks, I prefer to not exist rather" - You make a logical error. Cause alternatives are only in existence. In non - existence aren't any.
Lets discuss the difference between a free market and a non-free market. A free market is where people do not undermine the competition in immoral ways. (watergate?) To simply say that jealousy will always be there, is just not good enough. So will murder. That does not make it acceptable. Consider the automotive industry, it came to power through supply and demand and, the free market. Fine. And yet nowadays it corrupts government to get handouts when it should be allowed to fail. That is simply, stealing from the public to give to the existing monopoly. The notion of 'too big to fail' is just crony-capitalism. The Czars wasted money on ornate golden eggs instead of investing in educatiing the masses. Apparantly, they believed it a waste to teach people literacy. You call occupy wall-street idiots. I disagree. They are protesting against the crony-capitalism that you justly attack earlier. The whole notion of derivatives is just a 'baffle them with bullshit' scam. The housing market has been corrupted as people were allowed to borrow money on the basis that the market value of houses will increase forever. No thought is given to the opposite. I would warrant that getting a house loan is often a result of backhanders. Several government leaders own many many houses. Owning a house and exploiting those that rent it, was a fundamental problem which brought about the French revolution. Often this boils down to such notions as sex in exchange for rent. Often its such morality that drives people to want positions of ridiculous power over others. I think that the Republicans (and even the Democrats too) were making the same mistakes that the Czars were. And that socialism in America is happening because of corruption to the free market. You arguments must apply to your own situation too! To insist that democrats cheat there way into power, but that republicans do not is inconsistant. If the Republicans respected the free market as much as they say they did, then they would never have lost power like the Czars. And this comes down to education. In South Africa, the ruling elite excludes whites who are educated in order to promote uneducated blacks into positions of education. So now its the blind leading the blind. Its the same mistake the afrikaners made. In my final year of school, 70% of the pupils spoke english as a first language, but 5 out of my 6 teachers were afrikaans speaking! Only my english teacher was english speaking! This is just plain ethics. ;-j
And this is the great failing of democracy. It promotes partisan conflict. Both sides 'looking after their own', and trying to undermine the other. This is why China moves faster than anyone else. And yet in 1952 China had the highest child mortality rate the world had ever known. Mao was ultimately acting on the ethics of caring about the poor. Teaching them sanitation, when he could have been 'flying to the moon.'
Not sure how you get that interpretation from what you quoted. Morals and economics are intimately intertwined. I think that much is clear. And there are certain periods in the cycle from good to bad government and back again when morals may have a more dominant role. But overall, I think economics is dominant... Not by a lot. And I can see how it would be very easy to interpret things the other way. It's a bit like looking at a glass of water with a straw in it and asking, "Which is more important, the water the glass or the straw?" To a man with no hands, the straw may be the most important, becasue without it, he can't easily drink. To a man in the desert, the glass may be the most important, becasue without it the water would run into the sand. To a man who is very thirsty, the water may be the most important, because he needs the water, and if he wanted to, he could drink straight from the kitchen sink. It's largely a matter of perspective. From my perspective, I see economics as the main driving force, most of the time. In a good economic system, morals will tend to improve. In a bad economic system, morals will tend to decline. But this is based on my ideas of what a good economy is... and what good morals are... and where the community is in the up and down cycle... etc.
This is a pretty good definition. Usually it's applied to economics, so Gatergate wouldn't be a good example. But it can be applied to other areas; and Watergate could be interpreted as an illegal attempt to gain the upperhand in a political campaign... so it would be an example of polluting the "free-market of ideas" surrounding the campaign. I didn't say it did. I was simply pointing out that human nature has a range of behaviors. In the most perfect society imaginable, there will still be bad people who do bad things. In the worst society imaginable, there will still be good people who do good things. What the economy does is to skew that bell-curve towards [more good] or [more bad] behavior. Jealousy is one of the tools that are used to motivate the poor to resent the rich. Even though it is the (relative) rich who typically provide the jobs for the poor. In a good, free-market economy jealousy is minimized bcause the poor have ample opportunity to find work, with relatively good wages. And they know that if they want to go into business for themselves, there aren't any significant road blocks standing in their way. Whether they work for themselves or others, they get to rise or fall based on their own merit--and they get to keep most of what they earn. Instead of wasting their time trying to figure out how to get more of other people's money, they are forced to be out there trying to figure out how to make more money for themselves--so they literally do not have as much time to engage in thoughts of jealousy.
