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Gratitude

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by RoareyRaccoon

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Bit of an angry rant, this one, since it is a matter I'm very passionate about.

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male 958,250, audio 1,437, roareyraccoon 485, rant 188, podcast 111, philosophy 78

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Type: Music - Single Track

Published: 1 month, 3 weeks ago

Rating: General

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alistair

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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Ya' Brit!
'Ere in 'merica we started our whole deal from a foundation of "Hey, those crazy assholes aren't listening to us, so why the fuck should we treat them like they matter?" Some of us still try to hold to that ethos, and the more the crazy assholes are crazy, and the more they don't listen to us, the more the ethos matters.

It is not a sin to demand self-governance at the most local level manageable and non-interference from de facto foreign polities.

Further, if one's goal is X, but one would be satisfied with X-1, then you don't ask for X-1, you ask for X and hope for the satisfactory compromise. And why must the compromise ever only go one way? Pulling against the ever-creeping encroachment and growth of empire-level government is a net good, in my estimation, because otherwise it's just a constant forfeit to the totalitarians.

RoareyRaccoon

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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@ alistair

That's why government in the USA is fragmented into a huge range of powers, from local to federal, with different levels having conflicting incentives that keep power in check. The problem isn't the institution it's the lack of patriots who love their country staffing it.

alistair

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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@ RoareyRaccoon

Yeh, but when the institution has been hijacked by unelected and irremovable bureaucrats it doesn't matter if there is a supply of patriots, because those patriots have been legislated out of the process.  There's a tipping point where an institution becomes a mere broken system operating under its own momentum for its own sake, and becomes no longer beholden to the entities it ideally serves.

When the local is rendered irrelevant through federal bullshit, and any attempt at restoring the balance is treated as an existential threat, the institution is no longer in play.  It has become an expression of a different institution.

The "X-1" condition in this scenario is sweeping the slate clean and restarting the institution from its first principles, whatever the most effective means of accomplishing that is.  I prefer peaceful means, which involves expressing the idea and trying to get people to sign on to it.  I am partial to my home state's secession, for example, because the specific and current instance of the institution is no longer fit for purpose and must be discarded, and then maybe reformed.

To get harangued for being disrespectful toward an institution's ideal, when expressing a position regarding a manifest federal State, is a laugh.

Slavery was an institution, too.

RoareyRaccoon

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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@ alistair

You don't have anything superior to replace the system with, that is a categorical fact. The answer to these problems is not to do away with what exists, because that makes you the same enemy of the system as the people presently shitting all over it. Nothing is preserved or restored.

LongTom

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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@ RoareyRaccoon

Revolutions often produce governments worse than the ones they replace. The USA was very fortunate in that regard.

alistair

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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@ RoareyRaccoon

"	RoareyRaccoon wrote:
	You don't have anything superior to replace the system with, that is a categorical fact.

Two guys walk into a garage where a classic car is kept.  It was a pretty cool car, efficient and sleek, not without its problems but it not only got the job done it did so with class.  It was an admirable car.

However, it's now completely covered in rust, the engine is knocking on seven of eight cylinders, the gearing is entirely shot, the tires aren't merely bald but have actually rotted away so that, if it could move, it would only generate a lot of awful screeching and sparks.

The first guy looks at the car and goes, "Man, this thing is so busted it would be idiocy to try and fix it.  It might even be dangerous.  It's time for a new car."

The second guy says, "Dude, this car is a classic!  There will never be another car like this, and it's been running just fine for all these years.  What would be the point of replacing it?  We can just buff out some of those spots."

First guy responds, "Man, this is an ex-car.  This car has shuffled off its ignition coils and joined the bleeding choir invisible.  If you try to remove the rust it will fall apart.  The engine needs to be completely replaced, and the drive train, and the electronics.  By the time you 'fix' this bucket, if you survive the process it'll be a different car.   So, come on, let's just go get a new one.  We can use this one's capabilities as a guide.  We'll make sure it's got the safety features you want.  C'mon, let's go."

"There is no car that will be better than this one is," the second man says as the bumper falls off and wasps emerge.

And on it goes.

LongTom

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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@ alistair

The difference is that a replacement car would already exist. The question is if it is more feasible to repair or replace the car.

alistair

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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Edited 1 month, 3 weeks ago by Owner

@ LongTom

I've heard there's a pretty good model already out that the original was based on, it's called the US Motors "Constitution". I think that'd be a good replacement. Maybe there's some minor improvements that could be made, but if we could get that without the rust, everything being broken and (preferably) sans wasps, that'd be alright I think.

It would be a decent start, anyway.

RoareyRaccoon

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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@ alistair

Analogy breaks down once you recognize the fact that the USA is not a rusted, broken vehicle. You have to ignore how successful your country is and pretend it is worse now than it ever was, and there's no going back or saving anything. I reject that concept outright, I reject your defeatism and I also reject that the anarchist dogshit you're hoping for is actually better than what presently exists.

alistair

1 month, 2 weeks ago

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@ RoareyRaccoon

A country is not its government, and a country's success is its people's success, not that of its governance.

The success of the United States has been in spite of an overburdensome, rights-trampling, property-stealing, unelected bureaucratic Federal Apparatus, not because of it.

The United States government in its modern form is not a time-tested institution; its ever-growing nightmare of regulatory and enforcement bodies was a product of the Progressive era and the Socialist machinations of FDR et. al, and it has only been due to a monstrous explosion in productivity thanks to the 20th century technological revolution that we've managed to outpace the rotten looters.

No, I will name the abuser, and demand that abuser cease its abuses; lacking that, I demand emancipation. Will I get either? Not likely, because there are hordes of people who will line up to kiss the ring, happy to revel beneath the boot that will be placed on everyone's neck For The Greater Good.

What I see is little more than State Worship, praying to the God of State that it should not be sullied by blasphemers such as myself, just because the faith's Acolytes sometimes don't fuck everyone up the ass. So I'm an atheist; sue me.

RoareyRaccoon

1 month, 2 weeks ago

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@ alistair

Alongside it, not in spite of it. You advocate going backwards in time by millennia, dooming society to inevitable takeover by another power. I don't care what your criticism of government is (criticisms I can agree with) if your solution is something worse. Like your car analogy before, one doesn't go from a faulty car to a bicycle, one builds upon the superior vehicles' template. No system is immune to the interference of its enemies, as if you could have something that could never be conquered or abused. You have concluded the governmental structure that exists warrants destruction and for that reason you are a traitor to your own country. It can never be said enough: fuck your solution if it is worse than the problem it aims to solve.

The USA tried having small governance with states having control, no federal government. It was after 1776, and it lasted a few years, because it was fucking shite. You lack the maturity to accept the fundamental tragic limitations of the system you've lived in and are so focused on its flaws you will see inferior ideas, provably so, as desirable alternatives. Nothing is on your side in such a conclusion.

alistair

1 month, 2 weeks ago

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Edited 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Owner

@ RoareyRaccoon

You're being foolishly obstinate about this discussion, and you're replying to shit I'm not even saying here.

I could keep going in circles giving analogies and explanations that the concrete thing I have issue with is a State that has been coopted by destructive, thieving tyrannical forces we have effectively zero ability to mitigate, because they are unelected bureaucrats answerable to no one.

And then, when someone comes in and tries to fix it, the unelected bureaucrats weaponize the existing apparatus to destroy that person, to throw their supporters in solitary confinement without end, to torture them, all to discourage the others who might dare to speak up against The One True God.

And, since we're putting words in each other's mouths now, you support this.

I'm not even proposing my desired outcome (as derived from my principles) here, I'm pointing out that The Extant US Federal Government is out of control and needs to be reigned in.

Do you even notice that I've only been specifically and explicitly talking about the US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, not THE CONCEPT OF GOVERNANCE ITSELF, that I've been trying to get you to understand that one is not the other?

I'm guessing the answer is "no," because you're not actually talking to me, you're talking with your idea of me, and it's really goddamn tedious.

RoareyRaccoon

1 month, 2 weeks ago

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@ alistair

I know that you're an anarchist, because you've said so, so I know that merely doing something about the corruption that exists is not your actual position. I'm no supporter of the rot that exists in governance as a result of the people working in it, specifically the US federal government. That rot is not a function of the system itself but is a deviation from its principles by people who do not believe in it. That is why they are destroying it. They are not right to destroy it, so writing federal government off as lost does nothing but help people wreck it, so functionally it's the same thing. What is a country to do if people do not defend what it is, but rather, in their own different ways, wish to see it fundamentally altered? You sure as hell won't defend it.

alistair

1 month, 2 weeks ago

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@ RoareyRaccoon

"	RoareyRaccoon wrote:
	I know that you're an anarchist, because you've said so, so I know that merely doing something about the corruption that exists is not your actual position.

That's silly.  Here, let me lay out my Modus Operandi for you, since I rarely actually talk about it in much detail.

I am philosophically anarcho-capitalist, because that is where my principles lead me.  I am not ancap because "boo I hate the State raah!"  I am ancap because it is the only position consistent with my principles.  It just happens to be where I end up.

The 20th century's unimaginable death toll and constant economic disasters at the hands of The High God Government is merely a data point in support of my position.

However I'm not an idiot.

In the real world there are compromises and accommodations made, so pragmatically I am minarchist.  If we can't get away from a Federal State, then I would like that State to be so small that it can be, to borrow a quote, "drowned in the kitchen sink."  A clean-slate return-to-the-baseline Constitution would satisfy my conditions, as would my home State's secession.

Further, I know full well that making a sudden revolutionary change would almost certainly be a catastrophe.  Thus I subscribe to Voluntaryism, and support moves to reduce individual reliance on the Federal State along with accompanying moves to reduce the Federal State's ability to fuck with those individuals who just want to be left alone.

And all that said in this comment thread I have only been defending the position of the Founding Fathers; that when certain abuses persist and attempts to remedy them result in more abuse, then it is the right of the people to walk the fuck away.

And what I'm seeing in response is that not just taking the abuse up the ass is disrespectful.  Naaah, go to hell with that shit, mang.  Them fuckers are evil monsters, and every Federal employee is a parasite leeching the wealth of the people and then throwing it into a big-ass fire and whining about how important they are.  I ain't care about being disrespectful to thugs, thieves, murderers, minions and tyrants.

"	What is a country to do if people do not defend what it is, but rather, in their own different ways, wish to see it fundamentally altered? You sure as hell won't defend it.

A country is not its government.

KumaKun

1 month, 2 weeks ago

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@ alistair

We went through a long conversation once, with me trying to learn how the heck "anarchy" and "capitalism" could possibly be put into a compound term that isn't inherently oxymoronic. I appreciated very much that you had the patience and respect to answer each question I had as we talked out what this would even look like.

What we ended up with was simply feudalism. Anarcho-capitalism in practice would be functionally indistinct from feudalism.

Any imagined system of human management that is inherently reliant on a presumption of everybody playing fairly will never be feasible. Some number will always cheat. Feudalism being good for anyone presumes a BENEVOLENT feudal lord amasses the greatest amount of wealth, resources, or power to distribute gainful employment INCLUDING a specifically military combat force - and that this individual and his econo-state manage to win against any less-benevolent or less-desirable opposing warlords.

Anarcho-capitalism, as you described it to me, was not an absence of a State. It was merely the pretending that the smaller economic blocs centered on whomever emerged to offer people a position that was simultaneously employment AND status of nationality against other competing econo-lords was somehow not just a larger number of smaller and more tenuous mini-states. Capitalism in any way that is beneficial and gainful cannot coexist with an absence of an enforcement of contracts or laws - and that, whatever shape you give it, will ALWAYS be the equivalent of a "State" in precisely the manner anarchy treats any form of "state" as the real problem.

Anarchy will never result in anything but might makes right. Idealizing anarchy typically presumes as a given that those who would be most right would also naturally somehow acquire the greatest and superior Might to ensure their rule as opposed to any Genghis Kahn that might come along.

That the current system of governance has been allowed to be altered so far off-track from the original intent and design is not any kind of inescapable proof that this isn't still the best system humans have ever devised - we just have to RESTORE what has been stripped from it.

Roarey's being obstinate, but not foolishly.

Your system has no answer for "so what if the marxist collectivist fascist authoritarians just happen to amass the greatest strength to impose their will onto others, wiping out any of the contract-based feudal states you imagine would be better along the way?"

Each individual making contracts with other individuals is NONSENSE without some EXTERNAL body to enforce and maintain those contracts while distributing consequences to those who break their contracts.

You treat it as a Given ( because it would have to be for this to work ) that the greatest strength to respond to those stepping out of bounds will be controlled by some individual or organization whose self-imposed primary objective is a noble and ethical and just one. If one feudal Econo-lord decides to just make war with his biggest competitor, the fifth generation of his subjects, born into whatever contracts their parents may have signed, will go to war.

The US system of governance is not corruption-proof.

NOTHING IS OR EVER WILL BE.

But this system - if restored and righted in many of the ways it has been taken off-track - has more built-in mechanisms to obstruct corruption than any other, by far exceeding feudalism/anarcho-capitalism which will never be anything but just hoping for the best.

There's no Power in the People in anarcho capitalism. There's ONLY the power of formed collectives - built entirely on "this guy is my employer, I fight for him, or I have no job - and if I was born into my father's contract that says so, death might be the penalty for trying to quit."

It's absurd, and quite frankly, the one point of inscrutable lack of the usual degree of insightful intelligence I see from you on just about any other subject.

alistair

1 month, 2 weeks ago

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@ KumaKun

"	We went through a long conversation once

If you say so. Based on word count I believe I know who you are. And I also remember that, prior that that conversation, I stated that my AnCap position is one of principle, not ideology. I see it as a guiding star and razor when it comes to decisions of governance, not necessarily a viable end-state, because I am capable of acknowledging that I don't know everything.

"	That the current system of governance has been allowed to be altered so far off-track from the original intent and design is not any kind of inescapable proof that this isn't still the best system humans have ever devised - we just have to RESTORE what has been stripped from it.

Man, isn't it interesting how that has been one of the acceptable options I've mentioned in this thread? Right Here. And yet...

"	It's absurd, and quite frankly, the one point of inscrutable lack of the usual degree of insightful intelligence I see from you on just about any other subject.

Aw.

If it seems absurd, then I recommend saying to yourself "I notice that I am confused," and then reevaluate your assumptions.

LongTom

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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@ alistair

Slavery probably would have died out naturally as it did in all the other South American nations that had it.

clubfurmen2

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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Do you need a hug?

moyomongoose

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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Edited 1 month, 3 weeks ago by Owner

If another economic great depression was ever to hit like the 1930s depression that began with the stock market crash of 1929, I can only imagine how bad the civil unrest would be now days.

Back in those days, the only pair shoes some homeless people had were newspaper with cardboard taped around it...Just imagine some of these young bloods now days having to accept that as the latest thing in footwear. That would fly like a lead balloon.
The 1930s was also the same decade of the great dust bowl drought in the midwest. There were guys who boarded trains to California to look for migrant labour jobs...Except a passenger coach for them was a boxcar in a freight train. Then once they got to California, they were constantly harassed by the police.

LongTom

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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@ moyomongoose

There was a stock market crash as bad as that in the late 1980's, which did NOT cause a depression.

moyomongoose

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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@ LongTom

At the end of 1990 (shortly before Desert Shield became Desert Storm in Iraq) it sure felt like there was a depression.

LongTom

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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@ moyomongoose

Ironically I got the job at the X-ray machine company that I still have to this day on Thanksgiving week 1990.

ExistentialTimeCrisis

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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well said 👏

Mvindo

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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just remember tho that the West didn't become great thanks to the people who said that everything was fine as it was, that nothing needed to change. it became as good as it is because of people who were able to identify problems and look for solutions

LongTom

1 month, 3 weeks ago

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On a sort of related note, what does everyone think of the British Royal family? An expensive bauble Britain doesn't need anymore, or still useful?