Sean Trane wrote: Nacho: I am one of those who dislike when progheads have superiority complexes. Superior IQs maybe a common characteristic for progheads but it is hardly a monopoly . I work in a Scientific Research center and I see everyday people who have superior intellect ( but not necessarily more intelligent about everyday life or political advices) and those guys do not even know of most prog bands outside maybe Floyd.

Ooops, I'm afraid you took my bad joke about IQ -the band- too seriously.

I'm an University lecturer and a scientist myself, so I know what you mean. But I think there's something about education (not necessarily IQ) that has a lot to do with this: as a part of my work I'm an academic advisor for students from the USA who come to study to Salamanca (if anyone thought from any of my previous posts that I was something like the typical anti-USA guy you were completely wrong). They come from every state and, being university students, they represent the higher level of education there. OK, my point is that I estimate that in the last few years more than 95% of them were quite left winged, at least for USA standards, with very critical points of view on their government's foreign, social, environmental and human rights politics... In fact, 94 out of 97 of them would have voted Democrat in the last election (had it not costed a few dollars to vote by mail).

So what do you think, is it only because they are young or is it because they are trained to think?

And please, I'm very far from stating that right-winged people are unable to think. I'll better stop it before the punches start!!!

 

Tony R wrote: Sweetnighter wrote: Tony R wrote: Sweetnighter wrote: Tony R wrote: Amen Peter.Whenever I try to make some of the points you've just made (but not as eloquently) I just get shouted down for being unrealistic.I never use my car for journeys of less than 10 miles-although using local public transport seems just as polluting. People today are just plain ignorant.Where once I would have seen a raised hand of apology for some minor indiscretion I know receive the full bore of hate and bile and a raised fist.We live in a society where it is almost a sin to suggest that someone is "wrong"-what hope have we for future generations? What hope have we for the environment when the vast majority of ordinary citizens vote on tax issues? Green policies cost money and above all demand time and effort.We live in a world of ignorant,selfish greedy bastards. PS: Sweetnighter-In my book anyone who admits/discusses being anything other than Working Class deserves a slap.Admitting one is Middle Class is just the same as admitting you are an arrogant,thoughtless,bigoted snob.Grow up. Tony, I think its great that you make a practice of doing those things and it propably serves both your health and your wallet well. What makes you think that if Greens were elected that they wouldn't be "ignorant, selfish, greedy bastards?" My class status is definitely something I'm allowed to talk about if I want. If I was rich, I'd come out and say it, even admidst all this opposition to the wealthy. It is very irrational, highly judgemental, and actually very bigoted. What if I were to rephrase your statement in this way? "Admitting one is Asian is just the same as admitting you are an arrogant,thoughtless,bigoted snob.Grow up." Put in that context, it certainly sounds bigoted to me. My class status says nothing of my personal qualities. Is a poor man a more righteous person because he has less money? Call me an idiot, but somehow the amount of money one has never seemed to be an indication of their character in my view.  re: My class status is definitely something I'm allowed to talk about if I want To be so conscious of your "class status",in fact to refer to "class" and "status",thus indicating one's self-designated rank in society is snobbish,arrogant and insulting.You love your labels don't you Sweetnighter? Your example is banale... ...... is there a stamp on your passport that says "Class:Middle"? Your plane ticket might give an indication but your passport-never. Tony, relax... I only said that my family is of middle class to refute any claim you'd make against my being ignorant of people's need to make a living and the struggle that that is for so many people. I'm not saying anything more than that. What do you mean by being "conscious" of my "class status"? Is it wrong to know how much money you have? And no, there isn't any indication of my income on my passport... i really don't know why you brought that up. And what about the label? I guess it just doesn't mean anything to me. If it has some underlying connotations of snobbery to you, so be it, but thats not the way I intended that to come out. I guess it would have been better to say "My family is of a moderate income" or something, but it just never occured to me that that'd be an issue. I think you're assumptions of what I'm saying and your generalizations of people of particular incomes says something about your shallowness in trying to understand differences between people if anything It is you that is shallow Swetnighter.You treat this like an intellectual excercise,I see the subject as being far more important than that.People are really suffering out there because of capitalism and you expect me to respond "nicely" to your cold logic. You really do not get this do you? I know that debating these issues with you on a Prog Rock forum are not going to change anything but I demand the right to attack the cause of life's ills.Your problem is that of being too comfortable-you seem not to be affected by the underlying emotions of these issues,rather like a surgeon calling time on a patient he can no longer treat. Referring to your self as "Middle Class" for any reason is so crass-hence the reason I see you as being comfortably numb to the issues.I am not making generalisations-I do not need to.I could possibly earn more than you so I am not coming from that angle.

Capitalism NOR Socialism are the root of the suffering of mankind; REALITY is. Whether or not socialists would like to admit this, life is hard, people die, and bad things happen! The debate of capitalism vs. socialism is not an issue of which one eliminates suffering, its a question of which one allows people the ability to alleviate their own suffering. Grandiose schemes run by greedy bureaucrats that are only interested in taking your money and your freedom and throwing a tenth of it away to the poor while spending the other nine tenths of it on military spending and huge unnecssary government buildings DOES NOT HELP REAL PEOPLE! REAL PEOPLE! Yes, people out there need help, but the only truly solvent way to help them is to give them the means to help themselves. Stealing from already productive people to throw crumbs at them does nothing but satisfy the moral conscious of those who are scraping off the poor. Thats why I believe what I believe.

Well Sean...since you wanted it...here goes..

The Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: 6.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.72

It really shouldn't surprise anyone who has argued with me politically on this site.

gdub411 wrote: Well Sean...since you wanted it...here goes.. The Political Compass Economic Left/Right: 6.00 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.72 Authoritarian Left Right Libertarian It really shouldn't surprise anyone who has argued with me politically on this site.

Well GDUB compared to my - 6, you are a lot more positive
 

 

Stalin is in your Good section Tony R


I'm somewhat more anarchistic and left, compared to Ghandi, who of this list is the only person I respect


Edited by tuxon

Your political compass

Economic Left/Right: -5.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69

James Lee wrote: [QUOTE=gdub411] Well Sean...since you wanted it...here goes..

Oh sure, I asked for it all the way back on page one...but Sean really matters. Is he better-looking than me or something?

 

Have you seen Sean's pecs....actually, I never read the thread before and never seen your post until now. Sorry.

Asa for socialism/idealism it sure is the way of the future but as I said before, I have grown increasingly disenchanted with that system/ideology. Remember well that I am generally left-winged minded so the following criticism are due to long and personal experience as well as being an old union activist.

For the first point, and generally speaking , left wing politics is fine as long as you agree with 100% of their ideas and you do not disgress from them. You arenot really allowed to have your own ideas and it will not be tolerated to question/challenge the real ideals/goals. Socialism is in general a very authoritarian system (Hence Stalin and all of the other "socialist "criminals).

 

With socialism comes the main two classes: The contributors and socially assisted and I find that this solidarity (agree 100% on that generous principle) is almost strictly one way . I have no problem as a healthy, intelligent and generous working man to help out the people who have less luck than I do (handicapped or poor health a.o.).

But it seems that some people (most notably some professinal jobless carreerists) do not do much to help themselves and that the socialist system helps them staying assisted getting financial help that they do not really deserve beyond a certain point/period since they are not willing to take up complementary education to help them find a job. I have a few long-term jobless friends that have been receiving dole/pogey from working sods such as I, but when they are asked to help out society in general (low-key surveillance of neighborhood, helping at street crossing around schools, light upkeeping of public gardens/parks etc.. for 10 to 20 hours /week) for a financial complement on top of the usual indemnities, those rebel, yelling slavery, calling the system fascism  and being echoed strongly by the union/syndicates.

We know that trade unions are now powerless to help the working sods (lucky bastards who should be grateful to have a job) and since they are busy working and supporting society in general , the unions are helping out the jobless and generally inactive population by encourageing them to persevere , eventually popping up to beef up the crowd in some demonstration etc..    In French we call this:  Clientelisme, but really this is making those trapped into that system some sort of blind adept to a sectarian system that seems to be encourageing profiters , lazyness and other things iI would rather avoid mentionning here.

I realize that my words in this posts may seem offensive to some extreme left wingers here (Certainly do not mean to offend anyone but this is a political thread after all) and some might want to think that I would deserve a different result in that test (-6 economically and -2.5 socially) more to the right. About three years ago I would have scored probably more to the left still (especially socially) but disillusionment has struck me and my relatively low score on the libertarian scale was not really a surprise anymore.

Any thoughts on left-wing solidarity????

 

 

Sean Trane wrote: Any thoughts on left-wing solidarity????

Yes. You only point to the lazy few that are being socially aided and refuse to do anything when the opportunity presents itself. I know first-hand this is not the majority, at least in my country. Even so, i think that if this type of system allows this kind of dis-activity, then so be it, I would rather see the poor alone mothers supported than seing some rebel lazy kids refuse to contribute to society. And believe me, here in Holland, it's NOT easy to refuse to do such work without valid reason.

EDIT: oh, and I'll point out that left-right is by definition only a economical scale, namely, to show the amount of influence the government should have on economy.


Edited by JrKASperov