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I figured as much in that regard, but I was hoping you'd elaborate on the impression you've developed.
It's applicable to many areas of my interests.
It's so difficult to express online in a forum; there are so many ways to be misunderstood. Please don't take offense: you did ask for my impression.
Your philosophy of the role and nature of governments and societies, as expressed by some of your posts (notably on 10/22 in this thread in response to Hangdog2) give me the impression that you don't believe in cooperation among individuals as a way of living together.
For example, what would you call a cooperation of individuals, a community, to educate their children? I'd call it a public school. We all have different values and different knowledge; we all learn better with a good teacher. Perhaps you never had one. It doesn't mean all schools are perfect or can't be improved, but if you don't like yours, go and help fix it.
What would you call getting together and agreeing on rules that we can all live with so that the strongest don't take advantage of the weakest? I'd call it government. It doesn't mean you'll agree with all the rules. Just go to a homeowner's association sometime. Heck, join one and try to corral your neighbors into agreeing about anything. If you don't like your government, go and help fix it. It's really easy to complain, especially on line.
I'm glad you grow your own vegetables. That's great. But if we were all our own grocer, government, police force, judge and jury**, things would be far worse than they are. For all the evils of government, the places in the world with government are demonstrably better places to live than where there is not. Hangdog2 pointed that out with Somalia. War lords do not equal government. Governments, when strong but not corrupt, allow for people to concentrate on other things than surviving the day. Most people are happier that way.
** and I'm definitely NOT a fan of our legal system, but, d*nt!, come up with something better then, and convince everyone to try it. Anarchy has been tried.
For you, it seems life is all about Dogs vs. the World. Where's the community? Where's the relationship with others?
Well, as I said, there are many people who think, apparently, as you do, and who might violently disagree with what I've written here. I dislike long posts as much as H_TeXMeX_H does so I'm done now.
Last edited by mostlyharmless; 11-04-2009 at 05:13 PM..
Reason: clarification
Cthulu? Come on man, your a Slackware user, you MUST mean J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. Cthulu. Pfft.
Actually, I chose Cthulu only because there is some nice artwork depicting the world TeX, Dogs and craigevil imagine will exist by next year this time .
Pharyngula was the source, in case anyone is interested.
It's so difficult to express online in a forum; there are so many ways to be misunderstood. Please don't take offense: you did ask for my impression.
Yes sir, let's try to isolate some of these misunderstandings. Not because it's been done before, not because it hasn't been done, but because we can.
Your philosophy of the role and nature of governments and societies, as expressed by some of your posts (notably on 10/22 in this thread in response to Hangdog2) give me the impression that you don't believe in cooperation among individuals as a way of living together.
Ahh, here's a popular misconception I run into all-the-time. People don't seem to get that my aspect has the unintended consequence of unity. I guess it can't really be called unintended anymore, but to most people, the idea that .gov doesn't have to sort individuals who may help one another, but individuals, of their own desires, will sort themselves naturally. ASSUMING, of course, that each individual realizes that he/she is equally as capable as anyone else at doing anything. That is to say, while some people may know how to whittle, anyone can whittle, but some have yet to take the time to whittle.
For example, what would you call a cooperation of individuals, a community, to educate their children? I'd call it a public school. We all have different values and different knowledge; we all learn better with a good teacher. Perhaps you never had one. It doesn't mean all schools are perfect or can't be improved, but if you don't like yours, go and help fix it.
While "public school" isn't a bad label for it, what we have now isn't a community effort to educate kids. "Public school", in my experience, and the experiences of others, has been a child-containment area staffed, primarily, with people who are too incompetent to do anything else. This includes upper, middle, and low level management, as well as a great deal of the core of the business, which are the teachers. Please disagree with that one, if you can. I've made sure to curb my language, hopefully, to imply that not all staff are too incompetent to do anything else, and that some indeed may love their work(and it shows---I've had good teachers). Furthermore, these that love their work, are typically QUITE angry with the performance of the rest of the staff, who make little, or no effort in comparison to their own.
What would you call getting together and agreeing on rules that we can all live with so that the strongest don't take advantage of the weakest? I'd call it government. It doesn't mean you'll agree with all the rules. Just go to a homeowner's association sometime. Heck, join one and try to corral your neighbors into agreeing about anything. If you don't like your government, go and help fix it. It's really easy to complain, especially on line.
I believe this paragraph is largely superfluous to my own views. First off, I don't fully understand what you mean when you say "the strongest take advantage of the weakest." Next, I don't know much about the homeowner's association other than they cause a lot of problems, and can possibly kick someone out of a neighborhood for failure to comply. Great, wonderful, but check this out.. What if people had an amount of self respect, pride in where they live, and other core concepts such as honor? Would it not, then, be superfluous to regulate a man's clean, well kept home? Perhaps an unintended consequence to rules regulating a neighborhood might be that, "It's ok to do this, because there's nothing in the rule book saying I can't(yet).. This, in my opinion, would circumvent core values a man might hold, because he's no longer being clean to his own rules, but to comply with an external set of rules. I sense this is an ingredient in the downfall of civilizations, though I don't think you'll understand my response in relation to yours, as I'm fairly certain my logic and yours are not synchronized. Perhaps a better example would be useful.
I'm glad you grow your own vegetables. That's great. But if we were all our own grocer, government, police force, judge and jury**, things would be far worse than they are. For all the evils of government, the places in the world with government are demonstrably better places to live than where there is not. Hangdog2 pointed that out with Somalia. War lords do not equal government. Governments, when strong but not corrupt, allow for people to concentrate on other things than surviving the day. Most people are happier that way.
I would agree, if I could with the first half of this paragraph. I believe the large amount of food in the grocery stores is of the lowest quality possible, while still being competitive products. That's a bad thing, in my opinion. I also believe that every citizen in the country should be able to think, and analyze a situation well enough to realize when "something bad" is happening. I would also expect that citizen to care enough about it, that if the situation warranted action, the citizen would act. The use of a police force makes it a little more likely that things will remain civil, because not only would you have the citizen himself to worry about (assuming you were intending to wrong someone) but you would also have to worry about the dedicated search force looking for you if you managed to get the best of the citizen. POLICE FORCE != SAFETY POLICE FORCE == DEDICATED MANPOWER
My view of the role police USED to have is to dedicate a number of bodies to resolve crimes that mandate more bodies be available. Something a citizen may not have his own network large enough to handle (for example, the search for escaped fugitives, search for bodies, search for suspects, etc)
Additionally, police may, in times of need, be used for other management capabilities, such as traffic flow control. None of this is to assume that the police should be the only line of defense against crime and other social hiccups. If that were the case, then we'd see what we're starting to see now, which is the police becoming more like the military, whom for all intents and purposes - IS the only line of defense of America, vs entities in the same scale as America
(other countries)
Finally, I will disagree with the wording of your closing statement for this paragraph. Strong PEOPLE, that are not corrupt, that hold true to themselves as well as to others, and who are not afraid of life, allow for the creation of civilizations which use government to manage the higher-level aspects of civilization that don't necessarily pertain to the individual himself. Much like the police, the rest of .gov is DEDICATED MANPOWER TO HANDLE CRITICAL FUNCTIONS OF SOCIETY. NOT micromanaging EVERY detail of society.
** and I'm definitely NOT a fan of our legal system, but, d*nt!, come up with something better then, and convince everyone to try it. Anarchy has been tried.
I think the legal system is awesome. What's not awesome is the **corruption within it!(.GOV IS NOT THE ANSWER, even though .gov was given as an answer, it is incorrect.)
For you, it seems life is all about Dogs vs. the World. Where's the community? Where's the relationship with others?
That's the way it is, man.. The rest of the people around me aren't worth a f*ck. I know better than to ask someone for help, because it'll 9 times out of 10 waste my time. Well intended a person may be, I can't even count on that person to know HOW to help. I can't count on him to know HOW to do anything, including his job. Not worth a f*ck, well intended as he may be.
I want that to change, if you can't tell.. I want people to stop following short-sighted rulebooks, and begin doing things that are useful not only for themselves, but also for anyone they may come across. I want em to know how to shoot, I want em to know how to maintain a vehicle, I want em to know how to rebuild a house, I want em to know how to dig a hole, and I want em to know that sharing their knowledge with others is a great way to build the community's strength, rather than the popular viewpoint that suggests doing so is a waste of THEIR time. (these qualities are visible when interacting with me in the real world. I help people, I teach people, and if I can't, then I learn from them (or whoever else may be involved), if they'll share their knowledge as I do.
Well, as I said, there are many people who think, apparently, as you do, and who might violently disagree with what I've written here. I dislike long posts as much as H_TeXMeX_H so I'm done now.
I don't think too terribly many people think like I do, but I betcha the people that bought the government know what I'm saying, and know how to exploit the way it works. I don't inherently disagree with anything you said(not related to your impressions of me), because they're atleast half-right, but, "you're forgetting to simplify your answer".
Excellent, though I seriously disagree with the notion that long posts are not for the win. I can spit out thousands of words pretty fast.
I like long posts because of the precision effect they have on my analysis.
IE a short post might be a value of 1, whereas a long post might be a value of 1.0000000000000 (I rarely truncate answers, simply because doing so is a mental process which requires very little, if any, consideration. Meanwhile, some details may stick out in a way pertinent to the issue as specified, thereby making useful the extra information.)
my response is in bold under each segment of your post.
**Corruption = BAD PEOPLE.. BAD BAD BAD, drug addicted, felons that haven't been convicted yet (probably because of their job title, because it's not their cleverness or discreet practices that keeps them out of the spotlight), promiscuous, lying, cheating, etc.. BAD people.
Anyways, I forgot to vote. I won't be getting the shot like all the other sheeple. There is no guarantee that the vaccine will cover the right strain, plus I don't trust it. The 'vaccine' might be just as dangerous anyways.
PREFACE - For those who trust their .gov, but also remember how I was loosely describing "incompetence" as a predictable outcome in a corporate environment..
One Flu Over the Ukraine's Nest
by Edgar J. Steele
November 3, 2009
My name is Edgar J. Steele.
Ok ... I'm back. Sort of. Maybe. We'll see.
But I'm not promising anything. I'm still a little cranky. And I'm not doing any radio shows for a while, anyway - though I did do one interview with a good friend who went off the air over at RBN recently. I actually mean shows of my own. I'll probably do a few interviews here and there.
Thanks to everybody who has written, concerned about my well being. I appreciate your thoughts, concerns and good wishes.
It actually has grown kind of fun to watch the speculation over whether or not I died this summer. A couple of people claim to have spoken with someone who swore that he spoke at my funeral. Sorry I had to miss it, but nobody invited me, apparently. As Mark Twain once observed: "The rumors of my death have been much exaggerated."
What moves me today? It appears that the massive biological pandemic that I have forecast for many years, most recently specifying this Fall (that's right now, folks), has arrived in the break-away Soviet republic of Ukraine over the past week. You say you haven't yet heard about it yet? You will. There has been no news coverage in the West so far, so near as I can tell, but this story is too big and moving too fast to cover up much longer.
I have seen a number of Internet postings on the Ukrainian epidemic and, even, a few UTube videos already. I have heard the story developing since last week from correspondents of mine in Ukraine who have been witnessing things first hand. School and public offices have all been closed. President Yuschenko has declared a state of emergency and issued a plea for international help. Reports of up to 3,000 deaths (unconfirmed) already are leaking out.
So far, the worst of this outbreak is in Western Ukraine, in and around the city of Lviv, but a few hundred kilometers to the East, in the capital city of Kiev, nearly half the people now stalk the streets wearing surgical masks. It would be an understatement to say that the people of Ukraine are moving into full panic mode. I can see why. So should you. I will explain why in a moment.
Ukrainian authorities are unclear that this outbreak is the same as or, even, a close variant of the Swine Flu now sweeping over the planet. Maybe it is just a lethal mutation. Likely not, however. They are calling it both a viral pneumonia and bacteriological hemorrhagic fever. The symptoms mimic those of Swine Flu, though on steroids. People die with their lungs dissolving almost overnight, filled with fluids and blood. This is the exact, same pattern as followed by the 1917 Spanish Flu, which struck down the healthiest among the population, those with the strongest immune systems. The rampup over the summer has been identical to 1917, too.
Here's why you are at special risk if you are young and healthy: Your vital and responsive immune system is the very thing that kills you, by overreacting to the infection via what is called a Cytokeine Storm. I wrote about this process earlier this year, in Flu Happens. A great many of the people now dying have underlying conditions as well, particularly those of a respiratory nature such as asthma, when they take ill.
Now for the particularly interesting and sinister conspiracy twist (you just knew this was coming, didn't you?):
Inckdentally, I have forecast in my Internet columns and my book, Defensive Racism, this very scenario, though I have not known where it would begin.
Three months ago, Israeli Mossad agent Joseph Moshe, who specializes in biological warfare, was taken down by Los Angeles police, allegedly for "threatening the White House." What wasn't reported by the media at the time was that Moshe just had "called into a radio show to warn people about a biological weapon that was being made by Baxter international that would be spread through vaccine and would cause a plague upon its release." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_259330.html) Moshe also claimed that Ukraine would be the country in which it first would be released. This was in early August. How did he know?
Three months ago, Moshe stated that this pandemic would begin in Ukraine, a country free of the flu until last week. That is too much for coincidence. Maybe it simply is coincidence, but I do not believe in coincidence. And, suddenly, lots of people are dying in Ukraine from this flu outbreak - a much more deadly form of the flu than has been seen anywhere else.
Baxter Pharmaceuticals has a vaccine development and production lab in Ukraine and in the past has been proven to have shipped dangerous live agents to other countries, notably AIDS in blood products that killed thousands of people a few years ago. This past spring, Czechoslovakia happened to test some Baxter vaccine and found live virus, something about which you may have heard.
Baxter, the source of the flu vaccine now being distributed over there, cannot be trusted! The Ukrainian people are not being told any of this or about what this Moshe character said just prior to being arrested in August over here. I am forwarding this column to all my friends in Ukraine tonight.
There is extreme danger from this flu pandemic in Ukraine right now and you should take especial precautions, wherever you live. Particularly, get a supply of Tamiflu, if possible, and start taking it at the first sign of symptoms (headache, fever, dry cough, aches/pains and extreme fatigue). It works. I have used it myself in the past. This flu operates very fast, often within just 3 - 6 hours, and is very deadly. You will not have time to get Tamiflu once you have symptoms.
I predict that we will see this all over the globe by the end of the month. This could kill a lot of people. A lot, as in millions. Already, you can bank upon this infection being in many other countries, now going through its gestation period. It is infectious before symptoms really manifest. We will know by this time next week.
Hang on, folks. I think this is just the crest. Now comes the plunge downward. Keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times.
Dogs, the article you just pasted here makes a citation to the Huffington Post but if you bother to follow the link the Huffington article makes no mention of any supposed radio show. There is however a comment left by a reader on that article that claims, without providing any sources that Mr Moshe called a radio station. So not only does the piece by Edgar Steele incorrectly cite the HP, it uses a reader's unsourced comment as a base for the article's conspiracy theory.
Dogs, the article you just pasted here makes a citation to the Huffington Post but if you bother to follow the link the Huffington article makes no mention of any supposed radio show. There is however a comment left by a reader on that article that claims, without providing any sources that Mr Moshe called a radio station. So not only does the piece by Edgar Steele incorrectly cite the HP, it uses a reader's unsourced comment as a base for the article's conspiracy theory.
For you, it seems life is all about Dogs vs. the World. Where's the community? Where's the relationship with others?
That's the way it is, man.. The rest of the people around me aren't worth a f*ck. I know better than to ask someone for help, because it'll 9 times out of 10 waste my time. Well intended a person may be, I can't even count on that person to know HOW to help. I can't count on him to know HOW to do anything, including his job. Not worth a f*ck, well intended as he may be.
So then we agree that my impression of you was largely correct. We need not nitpick over the examples I gave that lead me to my impression. Actually we probably agree more than disagree on those problems but approach the solution to corruption differently.
There's actually no virus or plague or anything in the Ukraine at the moment ... yet they declare martial law. Well, I guess other countries will follow suit soon enough. I suspect the elections in the Ukraine (going on imminently) may have something to do with this.
So then we agree that my impression of you was largely correct. We need not nitpick over the examples I gave that lead me to my impression. Actually we probably agree more than disagree on those problems but approach the solution to corruption differently.
Oh, I can tell.
I dunno, man.. You give a bunch of crooks the power to do whatever, and you expect them to make life harder for themselves because it's the right thing to do?
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