They died for nothing

[The Watcher]

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 08:42:26 GMT, "Mysterion" <mysterion@supernet.com> wrote:

"Scott Stephens" <scottxs@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:2N6dne9T6cm2jcPfRVn-3w@comcast.com...
I hear that freedom isn't free,
but if the price hasn't been paid,
have they not died for nothing?

If my individual liberty isn't worth more than a collective whim,
did they not died for nothing?

Why fight? Why risk death? What for? Nothing?

Its better than being a slave.

Apparently not to some people, or should I say sheeple. To some of them,
ANYTHING is better than death, including living as slaves. :/
Just the other day one of the very liberal idiots I work with graced us with
this widsom:

"Peace is always preferable to war."

Yes, I suppose if you're a coward, it is.

Life without the courage for death is slavery. Seneca

 

[Bill Sloman]

"Precious Pup" <beavis@butthead.net> schreef in bericht
news:425F2D23.F8D8D82A@butthead.net...

bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote:

"Freedom" and "liberty" are empty words.

That just means you another in an army of morons that doesn't even know
what it is.

You have just defined yourself as a sucker for empty political rhetoric.

You can only usefully talk
about someone becoming free (or acquring the liberty) to carry out some
activity that was previously impossible or or forbidden

No wonder you say the words are meaningless: you confuse them with
power.

The "freedom" to do anything is useless if you haven't got the power to
actually do it. When Dubbya talks about "freedom" he avoids the specifics
which would expose the fact that his idea of freedom is pretty much confined
to the freedom of the rich to get richer at the expense of the less
well-off, and the freedom of the security services to mess people about on
the basis of whatever ill-founded prejudice the security services happen to
have about them at the time - alleged possession of weapons of mass
destruction does come to mind.

Start thinking about who was to be
freed to do what, and you might be
able to come up with a question worth answering.

What a muddled dipshit you are. You're the last person capable of
answering any question regarding liberty.

Since this world-view would restrict to the right to talk about "freedom" to
those who shared your (far-right) ideas about what constitutes liberty,
your opinion on what constitutes "liberty" would seem to be terminally
confused.

---------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Precious Pup]

Going out of his way to hang his hat on dumbassy, Bill Sloman wrote:

...As a juvenile right-winger, he fails to see Scott Stephens
as one more of the same, and thinks that I should be using some
different (if similarly broad-brush) classification scheme,
which happens to have captured his puerile enthusiasm.

Dumbass,

The reason you're a dumbass is you didn't even get close with a broad
brush stroke, never mind any notion of accuracy.

Scott Stephens is a Randian, which means he isn't a "right winger."

http://www.friesian.com/rand.htm
"With her intimate, personal knowledge of the Russian Revolution, and
all the loathing that it inspired in her, Rand will always be an
invaluable witness to the practice and folly of totalitarianism. She is
also a useful one person test to distinguish libertarians from
conservatives: Her atheism alienates most conservatives, who may even
speak of her bitterly and dismissively. A defining moment in that
respect was the savage review by Whittaker Chambers of Atlas Shrugged,
when it came out, in the National Review. Many admirers of Rand have
never forgiven William F. Buckley or conservative Cold Warriors for that
attack. At the same time, Rand presents a difficult case for the Left.
Since the preferred political universe for leftists contains a one
dimensional spectrum from "progressive" to "reactionary," where the
reactionary end is a seamless fabric of capitalism, religion, racism,
and sexism, Rand is disconcertingly off the track and invulnerable to
typical modes of leftist ad hominem religion and race baiting
argumentation. Also, as a tremendously successful self-made woman, long
before the ascendancy of political feminism, she is invulnerable to the
typical feminist mode of gender argumention against "dead white males."
These inconveniences make it preferable for the Left to ignore Rand,
which mostly they can and have, given the minority and ignorable status
of libertarianism."

You couldn't even figure it out with an "at your level" crayon-like
picture given to you. Only uneducated dumbasses have the simplistic
right-left political vision you do. You swallowed too much poli-party
spunk.

 

[Bill Sloman]

"Precious Pup" <beavis@butthead.net> schreef in bericht
news:4261AC49.29108AF2@butthead.net...

Going out of his way to hang his hat on dumbassy, Bill Sloman wrote:

...As a juvenile right-winger, he fails to see Scott Stephens
as one more of the same, and thinks that I should be using some
different (if similarly broad-brush) classification scheme,
which happens to have captured his puerile enthusiasm.

Dumbass,

The reason you're a dumbass is you didn't even get close with a broad
brush stroke, never mind any notion of accuracy.

Scott Stephens is a Randian, which means he isn't a "right winger."

That is your fatuous opinion. I read "Atalas Shrugged" some forty years ago,
and thought that it was right-wing rubbish then. It might not be your
particular flavour of right-wing rubbish, but IIRR it depended on the
workers running the same sort of financial risks in accepting their salaries
in script that shareholders run in holding their capital in shares,
completely missing the point that most workers spent almost their entire
salary every month, and didn't have the financial resources to run that sort
of risk. This level of stupidity condemned it as rubbish back then, and if
you and Scott Stephens think it is anything but rubbish now, you aren't to
be taken seriously.

---------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Precious Pup]

Bill Sloman wrote:

"Precious Pup" <beavis@butthead.net> schreef in bericht
news:4261AC49.29108AF2@butthead.net...


Going out of his way to hang his hat on dumbassy, Bill Sloman wrote:

...As a juvenile right-winger, he fails to see Scott Stephens
as one more of the same, and thinks that I should be using some
different (if similarly broad-brush) classification scheme,
which happens to have captured his puerile enthusiasm.

Dumbass,

The reason you're a dumbass is you didn't even get close with a broad
brush stroke, never mind any notion of accuracy.

Scott Stephens is a Randian, which means he isn't a "right winger."

That is your fatuous opinion. I read "Atalas Shrugged" some forty years ago,
and thought that it was right-wing rubbish then. It might not be your
particular flavour of right-wing rubbish, but IIRR it depended on the
workers running the same sort of financial risks in accepting their salaries
in script that shareholders run in holding their capital in shares,
completely missing the point that most workers spent almost their entire
salary every month, and didn't have the financial resources to run that sort
of risk. This level of stupidity condemned it as rubbish back then, and if
you and Scott Stephens think it is anything but rubbish now, you aren't to
be taken seriously.

Dumbass,

I've never read a word of Rand other than quotations by other
essayists/writers. (So it would be a stretch to say I am invested at
all in it.) I do know how others who have read it characterize it (and
I gave you one link), and most say it tends towards libertarianism,
which is decidedly not "right wing." The only people I know of who call
Randism "right wing" are people who consider themselves "leftists."
That's because they're stupid, simply know they don't like it, and
finally don't know what to do with it -- so they ignorantly throw it in
the "right" bucket. "I'm 'left' and know I don't like it, so it must be
'right.'"

Your right-left thinking is one-dimensional. That's your problem, not
mine. For whatever the weaknesses of the two-dimensional Nolan Chart
may be, it is better than your one-dimensional right-left
characterization.

http://www.insteadofablog.com/2002.08.05.shtml
http://www.wirkman.net/notreadzone/2002.08.05.shtml

 

[Bill Sloman]

"Precious Pup" <beavis@butthead.net> schreef in bericht
news:42628838.95C330DC@butthead.net...

Bill Sloman wrote:

"Precious Pup" <beavis@butthead.net> schreef in bericht
news:4261AC49.29108AF2@butthead.net...


Going out of his way to hang his hat on dumbassy, Bill Sloman wrote:

...As a juvenile right-winger, he fails to see Scott Stephens
as one more of the same, and thinks that I should be using some
different (if similarly broad-brush) classification scheme,
which happens to have captured his puerile enthusiasm.

Dumbass,

The reason you're a dumbass is you didn't even get close with a broad
brush stroke, never mind any notion of accuracy.

Scott Stephens is a Randian, which means he isn't a "right winger."

That is your fatuous opinion. I read "Atalas Shrugged" some forty years
ago,
and thought that it was right-wing rubbish then. It might not be your
particular flavour of right-wing rubbish, but IIRR it depended on the
workers running the same sort of financial risks in accepting their
salaries
in script that shareholders run in holding their capital in shares,
completely missing the point that most workers spent almost their entire
salary every month, and didn't have the financial resources to run that
sort
of risk. This level of stupidity condemned it as rubbish back then, and
if
you and Scott Stephens think it is anything but rubbish now, you aren't
to
be taken seriously.

Dumbass,

I've never read a word of Rand other than quotations by other
essayists/writers.

So you are sounding off about the precise political position of an author
you've never read, to me, who has read at least one of her books. Who is the
dumbass?

(So it would be a stretch to say I am invested at
all in it.) I do know how others who have read it characterize it (and
I gave you one link), and most say it tends towards libertarianism,
which is decidedly not "right wing."

Only in your opinion, and that of other right-wingers, who see fine
divisions within what everybody else sees as an intellectual garbage dump.

The only people I know of who call
Randism "right wing" are people who consider themselves "leftists."

Further to the left than you, which leaves a pretty broad politcal spectrum.

That's because they're stupid, simply know they don't like it, and
finally don't know what to do with it -- so they ignorantly throw it in
the "right" bucket. "I'm 'left' and know I don't like it, so it must be
'right.'"

I'm sure that how you see it. You don't seem to be equipped to cope with any
more realistic model of middle-of-the-road thinking.

Your right-left thinking is one-dimensional.

Your perception of it is one-dimensional.

That's your problem, not
mine. For whatever the weaknesses of the two-dimensional Nolan Chart
may be, it is better than your one-dimensional right-left
characterization.

"Better" in what sense? It is just as unrealistic, and less useful in
practice. A more complicated model does not necessarily give a better
representation of reality than a simpler model, and is almost always less
useful.

--------------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Scott Stephens]

Bill Sloman wrote:

"Precious Pup" <beavis@butthead.net> schreef in bericht

Going out of his way to hang his hat on dumbassy, Bill Sloman wrote:

Scott Stephens is a Randian, which means he isn't a "right winger."

Not exactly a Randian. I came across this essay by the
Objectivist-outcast N. Branden yesterday which I find pretty accurate,
from what I know: "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn
Rand: A Personal Statement"

http://rous.redbarn.org/objectivism/Writing/NathanielBranden/BenefitsAndHazards.html

Why aren't Randians right-wingers? There surely not leftists. Perhaps
its because they (I) don't acknowledge a deity, apart from nature
(existence), as the source of individual rights?

I read "Atalas Shrugged" some forty years ago,
....

IIRR it depended on

It is about far more. It depicts the consequences of the American mixed
economy turning communist and disintegrating, but more significantly,
the philosophy at work in the lives of its heroes and villains.

and if

you and Scott Stephens think it is anything but rubbish now, you aren't to
be taken seriously.

I don't take you seriously either.

Scott

--
**********************************

DIY Piezo-Gyro, PCB Drill Bot & More Soon!
http://home.comcast.net/~scottxs/

POLITICS, n.
A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. - Ambrose Bierce

There is no giant behind the devastation of the world—only a shriveled
creature with the wizened
face of a child who is out to blow up the kitchen because he cannot
steal his cookies and eat them, too. - Ayn Rand
**********************************

 

[Gunner]

On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 20:50:56 +0200, "Bill Sloman"
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

You have just defined yourself as a sucker for empty political rhetoric.

You can only usefully talk
about someone becoming free (or acquring the liberty) to carry out some
activity that was previously impossible or or forbidden

No wonder you say the words are meaningless: you confuse them with
power.

The "freedom" to do anything is useless if you haven't got the power to
actually do it. When Dubbya talks about "freedom" he avoids the specifics
which would expose the fact that his idea of freedom is pretty much confined
to the freedom of the rich to get richer at the expense of the less
well-off, and the freedom of the security services to mess people about on
the basis of whatever ill-founded prejudice the security services happen to
have about them at the time - alleged possession of weapons of mass
destruction does come to mind.

The irony is exquisite.

Gunner

"The Democratic Party is the party of this popular corruption.
The heart of the Democratic Party and its activist core is
made up of government unions, government dependent professions
(teachers, social workers, civil servants); special interest and
special benefits groups (abortion rights, is a good example) that
feed off the government trough; and ethnic constituencies,
African Americans being the most prominent, who are
disproportionately invested in government jobs and
in programs that government provides.

" The Democratic Party credo is 'Take as much of the people's money as politically feasible, and use that money to buy as many of the people's votes as possible'.
Tax cuts are a threat to this Democratic agenda.
Consequently, Democrats loathe and despise them."
-Semi-reformed Leftist David Horowitz

 

[Pig Bladder]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2005 00:20:35 +0000, Precious Pup wrote:

Going out of his way to hang his hat on dumbassy, Bill Sloman wrote:

...As a juvenile right-winger, he fails to see Scott Stephens
as one more of the same, and thinks that I should be using some
different (if similarly broad-brush) classification scheme,
which happens to have captured his puerile enthusiasm.

Dumbass,

Isn't that just Precious!
--
Pig Bladder on a Stick

 

[Precious Pup]

"Precious Pup" <bea...@butthead.net> schreef in bericht
news:425F2D23.F8D8D82A@butthead.net > <http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=425F2D23.F8D8D82A@butthead.net>...
bill.slo...@ieee.org wrote:

"Freedom" and "liberty" are empty words.

That just means you another in an army of morons
that doesn't even know what it is.

You have just defined yourself as a sucker for empty
political rhetoric.

Dumbass,

Just for kicks on the emptyness of the liberty concept, Google "positive
negative liberty":

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=positive+negative+liberty

Nearly a million hits of emptiness. All that talking about nearly
nothing. You really must wonder why people go to all that pointless
trouble. LOL

You can only usefully talk about someone becoming
free (or acquring the liberty) to carry out some
activity that was previously impossible or or forbidden

No wonder you say the words are meaningless: you confuse
them with power.

The "freedom" to do anything is useless if
you haven't got the power to actually do it.
When Dubbya talks about "freedom" he avoids the
specifics which would expose the fact that his
idea of freedom is pretty much confined to the
freedom of the rich to get richer at the expense
of the less well-off, and the freedom of the
security services to mess people about on the
basis of whatever ill-founded prejudice the
security services happen to have about them at
the time - alleged possession of weapons of mass
destruction does come to mind.

I reckon you must feel Dubya is some sort of intellectual "equal but
opposite" peer of your's. That must be why you talk about him so much.
I don't find Dubya intellectually stimulating in the least bit, but you
seem to.

Freedom is freedom. Power is power. Anyone who obliterates the meaning
of the words probably has an agenda.

When the founders of the US style of federalism contemplated what form
the government was to take, the exact dichotomy was between freedom and
power. Freedom (liberty) was considered *passive* by them and always
encroached upon by power, which is *active* by nature. The did not
simply confuse liberty with power; they recognized they were at odds
with each other and that it was liberty that needed defending since it
was on the passive side. One can argue how effective they were in
implementing a form of government that checked power expansion, but the
intent cannot be argued.

Since you are a socialist, it is little wonder you gladly accept the
bastardized definition of freedom. The distortion is necessary for you
to justify your schemes.

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/r.htm

In short, you need "freedom" and "liberty" to be empty terms to destroy
the very practice of them. That is your path to total rule of others.

Start thinking about who was to be freed
to do what, and you might be able to come
up with a question worth answering.

What a muddled dipshit you are. You're the
last person capable of answering any question
regarding liberty.

Since this world-view would restrict to the right
to talk about "freedom" to those who shared your
(far-right) ideas about what constitutes liberty,
your opinion on what constitutes "liberty" would
seem to be terminally confused.

I meant what I wrote. When I talk about you in particular, you respond
with the "world-view" non-sequitur. It isn't a world-view, it is an
assessment of a single dumbass poster to s.e.d: you.

You're free to talk as much as you want, but why would anyone listen to
you? Where should you start? Who knows, but Locke is perhaps as good a
place as any:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521357306/





Bill Sloman wrote:

"Precious Pup" <beavis@butthead.net> schreef in bericht
news:425F2D23.F8D8D82A@butthead.net...


bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote:

"Freedom" and "liberty" are empty words.

That just means you another in an army of morons that doesn't even know
what it is.

You have just defined yourself as a sucker for empty political rhetoric.

You can only usefully talk
about someone becoming free (or acquring the liberty) to carry out some
activity that was previously impossible or or forbidden

No wonder you say the words are meaningless: you confuse them with
power.

The "freedom" to do anything is useless if you haven't got the power to
actually do it. When Dubbya talks about "freedom" he avoids the specifics
which would expose the fact that his idea of freedom is pretty much confined
to the freedom of the rich to get richer at the expense of the less
well-off, and the freedom of the security services to mess people about on
the basis of whatever ill-founded prejudice the security services happen to
have about them at the time - alleged possession of weapons of mass
destruction does come to mind.

Start thinking about who was to be
freed to do what, and you might be
able to come up with a question worth answering.

What a muddled dipshit you are. You're the last person capable of
answering any question regarding liberty.

Since this world-view would restrict to the right to talk about "freedom" to
those who shared your (far-right) ideas about what constitutes liberty,
your opinion on what constitutes "liberty" would seem to be terminally
confused.

---------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen