So I notice a lot of you are.... extreme.

[Dragon]

So you don't buy one particular premise of Marxism but you swallow the other 95%?

What I just described IS 95% of Marxism in a nutshell. There's nothing else about it that's very important. If someone doesn't believe in the worker's revolt, the overthrow of capitalism, its replacement by a socialist economy, and the gradual withering away of the state leaving a communist utopia, that person isn't a Marxist. The fact that you would describe what they do believe in as "dangerous horseshit" doesn't change that. You would describe many ideas as "dangerous horseshit" (democracy, for example) which are not Marxist.

It's been proven wrong many many times.

LOL no it hasn't. But never mind; it's been clear for a long time that you're not fact-based in your belief system.

The point I was making is that many of the right on this board aren't just extremists, they're delusional extremists who think a majority of the American people agree with them. Apparently you are not among those. I can't escape the suspicion, though, that you recognize your own out-thereness, not because it's the truth (although it is), but because you take pride in it. It's no more fact-based than anything else you believe in, it just happens to be right more or less by accident.

 

[candycorn]

After your analogies, you now want to fling the subtle insult of calling me "ill equipped"?
Your disagreement on standing firm to ones principles shows disagreement to the practice, not the position.
Is that really where you want to stand?

Just please show us a political instance where there is zero room for compromise instead of talking about muggers and of course resulting to personal insults.

You don't like the mugger question because it's the perfect example of what you asked for. You don't compromise with criminals intent on robbing you.

Here's a question with zero room for compromise:

Should Czechoslovakia turn over the Studenten to Nazi Germany?

The question was about politics and not armed robbery.

 

[candycorn]

Twas not I that resulted to personal insults, it was thee.

Now then, a political instance with no room for compromise, I suppose that rests with the beholder of said political position and what they are or or are not willing to compromise on.
I'll draw a line on being forced to engage in commerce. What about you?

Your response was brain dead; we were talking about politics and you bring up mugging? I guess assuming a certain level of intelligence in those with whom I debate is my problem.

I think there is endless room for compromise on all topics concerning politics. If you feel like actually bringing up a scenario, feel free.

Ahh, another insult.

Did you miss it, or just avoid it?

No, just truthful.

 

[rdean]

...At least a little.

I hear a lot of you like to generalize all liberals as being the same. Some of you say that they are liars; they are lazy; they are socialists that are ruining the country, etc. Come on, really? ALL liberals are lazy hippies and socialist pigs? Do you even know any liberals personally? Seeing a piece about them on Fox News doesn't count.

Isn't that the problem with politics today? They have become so polarized. Do you know how to get the truth behind political issues? It's by thinking crtically. You look at both the conservative and the liberal POV, and decide who is right.

Don't watch Fox News or MSNBC... or better yet, watch them both!

I'd give liberals the same speech, but there doesn't appear to be any on this forum

The Republican Party is 90% white, mostly Christian and about as close to same as any political party in the world throughout history could ever be. Yet, they believe they have "diversity". If you keep asking them questions such as this they might start thinking, then they will hate you for making them do that awful thing.

 

[bripat9643]

So you don't buy one particular premise of Marxism but you swallow the other 95%?

What I just described IS 95% of Marxism in a nutshell. There's nothing else about it that's very important.

Wrong. It may be the ultimate conclusion of Marxism, but it isn't 95% of Marxism. There are all kinds of theories, premises and wild ass guesses used to prop up this conclusion, and you buy into all of them. For instance, there is the labor theory of value, which is easily proven wrong. There's also your belief that higher marginal tax rates lead to greater economic growth. Marx himself endorsed the progressive income tax. That policy is inseparable from Marxism.

If someone doesn't believe in the worker's revolt, the overthrow of capitalism, its replacement by a socialist economy, and the gradual withering away of the state leaving a communist utopia, that person isn't a Marxist. The fact that you would describe what they do believe in as "dangerous horseshit" doesn't change that. You would describe many ideas as "dangerous horseshit" (democracy, for example) which are not Marxist.

The problem is that most of the dangerous horseshit you believe was first coined by Marx. There is very little new in the way of economic theory to support socialism since Karl Marx.

It's been proven wrong many many times.

LOL no it hasn't. But never mind; it's been clear for a long time that you're not fact-based in your belief system.

It's hardly surprising that you consider anyone who points out the flaws in your theories as "not fact based." If you believed they were fact based, then you would be admitting your theories are bogus. Calling me "not fact based" is that same as saying "nuh uhn!" It proves nothing other than that you are obstinate in holding to your delusions.

The point I was making is that many of the right on this board aren't just extremists, they're delusional extremists who think a majority of the American people agree with them. Apparently you are not among those. I can't escape the suspicion, though, that you recognize your own out-thereness, not because it's the truth (although it is), but because you take pride in it. It's no more fact-based than anything else you believe in, it just happens to be right more or less by accident.

All you're doing is calling people you disagree with names. The fact is that over 40% of the public calls themselves "conservative" and only 20% call themselves "liberal." The right-wingers in this forum are therefore closer to the mainstream than the left-wingers. I recognize my views are to the right of almost every right-winger in this forum because I am fact based. Unlike you, I don't delude myself and accuse people of not being "fact based" simply because they dispute what I post in this forum.

 

[alan1]

Your response was brain dead; we were talking about politics and you bring up mugging? I guess assuming a certain level of intelligence in those with whom I debate is my problem.

I think there is endless room for compromise on all topics concerning politics. If you feel like actually bringing up a scenario, feel free.

Ahh, another insult.

Did you miss it, or just avoid it?

No, just truthful.

Yer dodging the statement and the question posited. You have one more chance to step up and be honest.

I'll draw a line on being forced to engage in commerce. What about you?

 

[bripat9643]

The Republican Party is 90% white, mostly Christian and about as close to same as any political party in the world throughout history could ever be. Yet, they believe they have "diversity". If you keep asking them questions such as this they might start thinking, then they will hate you for making them do that awful thing.

OWS is 90% white, and they display their blatant anti-Semitism all the time.

So who are the real racists?

 

[bripat9643]

Just please show us a political instance where there is zero room for compromise instead of talking about muggers and of course resulting to personal insults.

You don't like the mugger question because it's the perfect example of what you asked for. You don't compromise with criminals intent on robbing you.

Here's a question with zero room for compromise:

Should Czechoslovakia turn over the Studenten to Nazi Germany?

The question was about politics and not armed robbery.

I just gave you an example of a policy with zero room for compromise. What's your response?

 

[alan1]

I just gave you an example of a policy with zero room for compromise. What's your response?

So far, candycorn seems unable to address the actual points presented. He/She hasn't been willing to address my response to his/her challenge.
He/She is able to fling insults at me though.

 

[bripat9643]

I just gave you an example of a policy with zero room for compromise. What's your response?

So far, candycorn seems unable to address the actual points presented. He/She hasn't been willing to address my response to his/her challenge.
He/She is able to fling insults at me though.

That's a typical libturd response when they are cornered. They keep braying loudly about some diversion in the hope that no one notices they are slinking away from the issue.

 

[candycorn]

You don't like the mugger question because it's the perfect example of what you asked for. You don't compromise with criminals intent on robbing you.

Here's a question with zero room for compromise:

Should Czechoslovakia turn over the Studenten to Nazi Germany?

The question was about politics and not armed robbery.

I just gave you an example of a policy with zero room for compromise. What's your response?

If we could stick to the topic....oh what am I thinking....you don't have a response to that...it's always an extreme case with partisan morons like you.

But here is my response.

Okay...I'd probably take my money and chunk it as far from my person as possible and run the other way since I value my life more than my money.

Can you give me a political example where there is zero room for compromise?

 

[candycorn]

I just gave you an example of a policy with zero room for compromise. What's your response?

So far, candycorn seems unable to address the actual points presented. He/She hasn't been willing to address my response to his/her challenge.
He/She is able to fling insults at me though.

Potato salad.


The above statement is as relative to the discussion as your response was. It makes the middle of the road mindset look very good when the partisan morons like you and brianna look so ill equipped to consider a question in the political context.

 

[candycorn]

I just gave you an example of a policy with zero room for compromise. What's your response?

So far, candycorn seems unable to address the actual points presented. He/She hasn't been willing to address my response to his/her challenge.
He/She is able to fling insults at me though.

That's a typical libturd response when they are cornered. They keep braying loudly about some diversion in the hope that no one notices they are slinking away from the issue.

Cornered? Keep dreaming little boy. Thanks, I needed that laugh and you supplied it beautifully.

 

[Dragon]

Wrong. It may be the ultimate conclusion of Marxism, but it isn't 95% of Marxism. There are all kinds of theories, premises and wild ass guesses used to prop up this conclusion, and you buy into all of them. For instance, there is the labor theory of value, which is easily proven wrong. There's also your belief that higher marginal tax rates lead to greater economic growth. Marx himself endorsed the progressive income tax. That policy is inseparable from Marxism.

Wrong on several points.

First, I don't agree with Marx about the labor theory of value. I have my own theory of value, which I may explain one of these days; it differs sharply from Marx. Second, while Marx did endorse a progressive income tax, so have many others, including for example Adam Smith, who predates Marx by a century or two. So if you want to argue on the basis that the person who first advocated an idea owns it (a fallacious concept to start with), then we must say that the progressive income tax is Smithian, not Marxist, and that Marx merely borrowed it.

Third, to say that the policy is "inseparable" from Marxism is demonstrably false, as it has been pursued by every advanced government in the modern world, none of which are Marxist. So clearly, it is quite separable from Marxism.

And fourth, I never said that high marginal tax rates by themselves lead to higher economic growth, nor do I think that's true. I said, and believe, that narrow income gaps lead to higher economic growth, and high top marginal tax rates can contribute to narrow income gaps, but cannot on their own create them. More would be required than that.

You really have no good reason to call me a Marxist anyway. I'm not taking it as an insult, and I already said the views I do hold are just as far to the left as his were. I have a mild objection to being called a Marxist more or less for the same reason I object to being called an Irishman. It's not that there's anything wrong with being an Irishman, it's just not true about me. Nor is it true that I'm a Marxist.

There is very little new in the way of economic theory to support socialism since Karl Marx.

Depending on what exactly you mean by that word, I may or may not be an advocate of socialism. If you mean state ownership of the means of production and a planned economy, I am not an advocate of that. On the other hand, if you mean a worker-friendly, egalitarian approach to government economic policies that shape the parameters of market operation, then your statement is incorrect -- that has support in a broad range of economic theory and actually very little support from Marx, who considered any such action short of revolution futile.

It's hardly surprising that you consider anyone who points out the flaws in your theories as "not fact based."

That isn't the case. I believe that anyone who believes things that a very little bit of digging into the evidence disproves is not fact based. For example, your own belief that democracies levy higher taxes than monarchies. I already pointed out to you that a comparison of Germany (a monarchy), Britain (a pseudo-monarchy), and France and the U.S. (democratic republics) at the time of World War I would show this to be untrue, yet you continue to believe in it. Continuing to believe in something your philosophy or theory claims SHOULD be true, without regard to what observation shows IS true, is the very definition of not being fact-based.

Similarly, a belief that high taxes on the rich is devastating to the economy is not fact-based. A little examination of U.S. economic history, and of prosperity compared to tax rates on the rich around the world, shows that there is no evidence in support of this idea whatsoever. Yet for economic conservatives, it is essentially holy writ. Again, something is believed because theory or ideology says it SHOULD be true, without regard to what observation shows IS true.

In fact, in another discussion you acknowledged that, on matters of economics, your own belief ISN'T fact-based. You said that it is impossible to relate economic ideas to empirical verification, and that means that you reject all empirical data in regard to economics. Rejection of empirical data is another way of saying: not fact-based.

The fact is that over 40% of the public calls themselves "conservative" and only 20% call themselves "liberal."

That is ONE fact. That on all current issues, polls show those holding liberal positions to number between 40 and 60 percent of the population (higher on a few isolated issues) is ANOTHER fact. That Obama was elected in 2008 with 53% of the popular vote after running a strongly progressive campaign is still ANOTHER fact.

Twenty-one percent of the people CALLING themselves "liberal" is consistent with both of those other facts, but only 21% of the people actually BEING liberal is not. The only conclusion consistent with all three sets of facts is that many people actually are liberal who, for whatever reason, don't call themselves liberal. Or as I like to put it, liberals outnumber self-professed liberals in this country by more than two to one.

Being fact-based doesn't mean you cherry-pick one fact that seems to support what you want to believe and run with it, ignoring everything else. It means you spend a little more time digging and make sure you actually have it right.

 

[RadiomanATL]

I just gave you an example of a policy with zero room for compromise. What's your response?

So far, candycorn seems unable to address the actual points presented. He/She hasn't been willing to address my response to his/her challenge.
He/She is able to fling insults at me though.

Potato salad.


The above statement is as relative to the discussion as your response was. It makes the middle of the road mindset look very good when the partisan morons like you and brianna look so ill equipped to consider a question in the political context.

Dude, you're continuing to dodge. I don't see anyone falling for it.

 

[bripat9643]

The question was about politics and not armed robbery.

I just gave you an example of a policy with zero room for compromise. What's your response?

If we could stick to the topic....oh what am I thinking....you don't have a response to that...it's always an extreme case with partisan morons like you.

But here is my response.

Okay...I'd probably take my money and chunk it as far from my person as possible and run the other way since I value my life more than my money.

Can you give me a political example where there is zero room for compromise?

I just did, but I'll restate to even you can understand it.

Imagine it's 1939. You are the Prime Minister of England and Adolf Hitler is demanding that Europe hand over the Studenten region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany.

What's your policy?

 

[conner700]

Calling other names is what Republican's do. They can't carry on a conservation. They love crony capitalism and wouldn't even know how to make money unless it was stealing it from the 99%.

Republican want socialism welfare for the banks, auto manufactures, and big corporations. But when a child is raped by a football coach they ignore blame the child.

 

[RadiomanATL]

Calling other names is what Republican's do. They can't carry on a conservation. They love crony capitalism and wouldn't even know how to make money unless it was stealing it from the 99%.

Republican want socialism welfare for the banks, auto manufactures, and big corporations. But when a child is raped by a football coach they ignore blame the child.

Really?

You're turning the Penn state thing into a republican versus democrat thing? Really?

Fuck off.

 

[Meister]

Calling other names is what Republican's do. They can't carry on a conservation. They love crony capitalism and wouldn't even know how to make money unless it was stealing it from the 99%.

Republican want socialism welfare for the banks, auto manufactures, and big corporations. But when a child is raped by a football coach they ignore blame the child.

Which republican blames the child?????
Oh, your just a trolling dolt.

 

[bripat9643]

Wrong on several points.

First, I don't agree with Marx about the labor theory of value. I have my own theory of value, which I may explain one of these days; it differs sharply from Marx. Second, while Marx did endorse a progressive income tax, so have many others, including for example Adam Smith, who predates Marx by a century or two. So if you want to argue on the basis that the person who first advocated an idea owns it (a fallacious concept to start with), then we must say that the progressive income tax is Smithian, not Marxist, and that Marx merely borrowed it.

Adam Smith did not endorse a progressive income tax. Leftist have been quoting a particular passage in The Wealth of Nations to support this theory, but it'sa deliberate misinterpretation. Smith supported a tax that was a straight percentage. It's a tax that modern liberals would call "regressive."

Prior to Karl Marx, I can't think of anyone who even endorsed any kind of income tax, let alone a progressive income tax.

Third, to say that the policy is "inseparable" from Marxism is demonstrably false, as it has been pursued by every advanced government in the modern world, none of which are Marxist. So clearly, it is quite separable from Marxism.

It has been pursued by Marxists and foolishly approved by European governments. Calling them "advanced" isn't justified by any facts, empirical or otherwise.

And fourth, I never said that high marginal tax rates by themselves lead to higher economic growth, nor do I think that's true. I said, and believe, that narrow income gaps lead to higher economic growth, and high top marginal tax rates can contribute to narrow income gaps, but cannot on their own create them. More would be required than that.

A distinction without a difference. What, in your view, would lead to less inequality of income in lieu of high marginal tax rates on income?

You really have no good reason to call me a Marxist anyway. I'm not taking it as an insult, and I already said the views I do hold are just as far to the left as his were. I have a mild objection to being called a Marxist more or less for the same reason I object to being called an Irishman. It's not that there's anything wrong with being an Irishman, it's just not true about me. Nor is it true that I'm a Marxist.

If there are any differences between your beliefs and the Marxian quackery, it hardly matters. You both have the same agenda, which is giving the government total control over the economy.

Depending on what exactly you mean by that word, I may or may not be an advocate of socialism. If you mean state ownership of the means of production and a planned economy, I am not an advocate of that. On the other hand, if you mean a worker-friendly, egalitarian approach to government economic policies that shape the parameters of market operation, then your statement is incorrect -- that has support in a broad range of economic theory and actually very little support from Marx, who considered any such action short of revolution futile.

Socialism is government control of the economy. It doesn't matter what form it takes. Whether it's the Soviet model of state ownership, or the Nazi/liberal model of government regulation to the point of turning corporate "owners" into little more than factory managers.

The phrase "worker-friendly, egalitarian approach" is just a euphemism meaning state control. State control is never "worker friendly" when the workers have no other options.

That isn't the case. I believe that anyone who believes things that a very little bit of digging into the evidence disproves is not fact based. For example, your own belief that democracies levy higher taxes than monarchies. I already pointed out to you that a comparison of Germany (a monarchy), Britain (a pseudo-monarchy), and France and the U.S. (democratic republics) at the time of World War I would show this to be untrue, yet you continue to believe in it. Continuing to believe in something your philosophy or theory claims SHOULD be true, without regard to what observation shows IS true, is the very definition of not being fact-based.

You made all kinds of weasels about country 'A' not being "fully industrialized" and country 'B' not being a genuine monarchy. You can delude yourself into believing you won the debate if that makes you feel better. I simply didn't have the time to continue it.

Similarly, a belief that high taxes on the rich is devastating to the economy is not fact-based. A little examination of U.S. economic history, and of prosperity compared to tax rates on the rich around the world, shows that there is no evidence in support of this idea whatsoever. Yet for economic conservatives, it is essentially holy writ. Again, something is believed because theory or ideology says it SHOULD be true, without regard to what observation shows IS true.

The evidence is pretty clear that high marginal tax rates retard economic growth. The high taxes Hoover and FDR imposed retarded economic growth for over a decade. Growth in the USA recovered after WW II only because the rest of the industrialized world was bombed into the stone age. Economic growth resumed when first Kennedy and then Reagan lowered marginal rates.

In fact, in another discussion you acknowledged that, on matters of economics, your own belief ISN'T fact-based. You said that it is impossible to relate economic ideas to empirical verification, and that means that you reject all empirical data in regard to economics. Rejection of empirical data is another way of saying: not fact-based.

The claim that empirical methods are not applicable to economics does not equate to saying economics isn't "fact based." And I do reject empirical data as a means of proving economic theories. If you can't isolate the variable, then you can't use empirical methods. That's a basic principle of the scientific method. Your example only proved the point. Using the exact same set of facts, we came to diametrically opposed conclusions on the effect of high marginal tax rates. You failed to prove your conclusion was any more valid than mine. Ergo, empirical data didn't prove a thing.

I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of your post simply because I don't have the time.