'What We Owe to Each Other'

[Not2BSubjugated]

As soon as midcan (or anyone else for that matter) shows me a single example of a successful communist nation where the quality of life is at or better than a free market system - we will listen.
Until then - there is a reason that communism has failed over and over and over.
Milton Friedman - Greed - YouTube

Communism doesn't work because we just haven't found the right communists to run such a state!

Of course, if only we could find a group of people who have not one grain of self-interest, cannot be corrupted by power and influence, who are honest in every way and impervious to their own egos - and then - if they can convince every citizen that their importance is only measured by what they have to offer and not what they take - then communism will work flawlessly.
Not even heaven operated this way.

Hear hear!

 

[Truthmatters]

We are thinking beings and can choose to look into the face of a hurting neighbor and feel compassion or we can choose to look in their face and see nothing but obligation.

Or we can choose to look into their face and scorn them for needing help.

Its all our choice.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

A family, a well run organized family is a dictatorship.

As citizens of a nation, we owe each other nothing. Everything must be earned from the mud up. The entire idea that an individual is owed something simply by virtue of drawing their next breath is asinine. I am OWED is the battle cry of the stupid and lazy.

I feel very sorry you had such a horrible childhood.

A family is actually supposed to be built on love not fear

Tell that to God.
Obey me or I will toss you into flames and darkness for an eternity...and I do this because I love you.

Not even God could run a communist country.

 

[Katzndogz]

Having a choice presupposes no obligation doesn't it. Therefore, according to you, we owe one another absolutely nothing. We might choose generosity, or not.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

We are thinking beings and can choose to look into the face of a hurting neighbor and feel compassion or we can choose to look in their face and see nothing but obligation.

Or we can choose to look into their face and scorn them for needing help.

Its all our choice.

I gotta disagree with you there. No one can consciously choose what they feel, only how they react to those emotions. You can't choose who you fall in love with. You can't choose whether or not getting slapped in the face makes you angry. If it does make you angry you can control yourself and let it slide anyway, and if it doesn't make you angry you can still flip out and act p*ssed off, but you don't get to decide how you feel about anything.

 

[Oddball]

Having a choice presupposes no obligation doesn't it. Therefore, according to you, we owe one another absolutely nothing. We might choose generosity, or not.

No, no, no...You have it all wrong....You're allowed to make the choices presented to you, by people smarter than you and better able to discern what's in your best interests or not.

After all, we can't take the chance that you might make the "wrong" (as defined by the state) choices, can we?

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Having a choice presupposes no obligation doesn't it. Therefore, according to you, we owe one another absolutely nothing. We might choose generosity, or not.

That is a correct assessment, good sir. Truly I feel that we owe each other nothing other than basic respect for their life, property, and self determination, that is, acknowledgement of their right to those things.

Lol, not sure why I thought that was directed at me. I was just reading that post you were responding to, as well.

 

[Truthmatters]

Yes you can choose what to feel.

This is where the logic part of your brain can inform your emotional self.

A child learns to feel.

You can teach them to scorn their suffering neighbor or feel compassion for them.

They can then teach themselves after a certain age.


Its one of the great joys of being alive and in control of yourself.

 

[Katzndogz]

A family, a well run organized family is a dictatorship.

As citizens of a nation, we owe each other nothing. Everything must be earned from the mud up. The entire idea that an individual is owed something simply by virtue of drawing their next breath is asinine. I am OWED is the battle cry of the stupid and lazy.

I feel very sorry you had such a horrible childhood.

A family is actually supposed to be built on love not fear

Tell that to God.
Obey me or I will toss you into flames and darkness for an eternity...and I do this because I love you.

Not even God could run a communist country.

Who ever mentioned fear? A well run organized family is a dictatorship. At the head is a parent. It could be the father, mother or both. The children's wishes might be taken into consideration but they absolutely woudn't get a vote. Obey me or go to your room and contemplate your decisions.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Grrr. I gotta learn how to post properly.

 

[Katzndogz]

Having a choice presupposes no obligation doesn't it. Therefore, according to you, we owe one another absolutely nothing. We might choose generosity, or not.

That is a correct assessment, good sir. Truly I feel that we owe each other nothing other than basic respect for their life, property, and self determination, that is, acknowledgement of their right to those things.

Quite so. This is the ultimate right to be let alone. It is the inalienable right to succeed or fail by one's own hand. Something our government is intent on eliminating.

 

[California Girl]

I owe no one anything. I pay taxes. End of. You don't owe me and I don't owe you.

What I choose to do is my choice. This is not a difficult concept to understand. Pity that it appears to be above the intellectual pay grade of the left wing borg.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Yes you can choose what to feel.

This is where the logic part of your brain can inform your emotional self.

A child learns to feel.

You can teach them to scorn their suffering neighbor or feel compassion for them.

They can then teach themselves after a certain age.


Its one of the great joys of being alive and in control of yourself.

The concept of the logical mind informing your emotions is arguably true. I myself subscribe to the notion that your emotions are an extension of your truly held beliefs and standards. This does not, however, exclude my point that you can't choose how you feel. No one can choose what they truly believe. A person's standards are based on their beliefs, and thus, if your emotions are an extension of the standards of your logical mind, you come full circle to not being able to control how you feel, but simply how you conduct yourself.

When you teach your children how to feel, what you actually do is instill beliefs and values in them during their formative years, for these beliefs will directly shape the standards on which their future emotions (and thus, desires) will be based.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

As usual the loony left always talk in theories and strawman arguments.
As "T-M" shows - communism is about compassion. Which of course is the ultimate mind blowing stupid way to think. Communism is not compassion - it is the opposite. It is imprisonment of the human spirit, it is my way is the best way - obey or die.

This is T-M's view of compassion.

 

[Oddball]

Yes you can choose what to feel.

This is where the logic part of your brain can inform your emotional self.

A child learns to feel.

You can teach them to scorn their suffering neighbor or feel compassion for them.

They can then teach themselves after a certain age.


Its one of the great joys of being alive and in control of yourself.

The concept of the logical mind informing your emotions is arguably true. I myself subscribe to the notion that your emotions are an extension of your truly held beliefs and standards. This does not, however, exclude my point that you can't choose how you feel. No one can choose what they truly believe. A person's standards are based on their beliefs, and thus, if your emotions are an extension of the standards of your logical mind, you come full circle to not being able to control how you feel, but simply how you conduct yourself.

Not quite.

Your emotional responses are a physical manifestation of your belief system, which itself is malleable.....Change your beliefs and you change how you feel about things.

 

[Katzndogz]

Whether or not a suffering neighbor deserves scorn or compassion is a function of judgment. If we don't teach judgment we teach nothing.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Furthermore, there's plenty of proof that you can't choose how you feel. If humans were capable of doing so relationships would all break cleanly. When you or your other half came to the conclusion that you were incompatible and initiated the breakup, you could simply choose to truly not care.

Take this into consideration as well, Truthmatters. If emotions are a matter of conscious choice, then love can be turned on and off consciously, meaning you could apply love to whomever you wanted and remove the associated feeling -from- anyone you wanted. That means that homosexuals could choose to fall in love with people of the opposite sex. Thus, what you're saying is that homosexuality is a choice. I'm willing to bet based on your other posts that you wouldn't sign off on homosexuality being a choice.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Yes you can choose what to feel.

This is where the logic part of your brain can inform your emotional self.

A child learns to feel.

You can teach them to scorn their suffering neighbor or feel compassion for them.

They can then teach themselves after a certain age.


Its one of the great joys of being alive and in control of yourself.

The concept of the logical mind informing your emotions is arguably true. I myself subscribe to the notion that your emotions are an extension of your truly held beliefs and standards. This does not, however, exclude my point that you can't choose how you feel. No one can choose what they truly believe. A person's standards are based on their beliefs, and thus, if your emotions are an extension of the standards of your logical mind, you come full circle to not being able to control how you feel, but simply how you conduct yourself.

Not quite.

Your emotional responses are a physical manifestation of your belief system, which itself is malleable.....Change your beliefs and you change how you feel about things.

No one can consciously change their beliefs. You can be convinced of other things, and thus your beliefs change, but no one can choose what convinces them.

Take the case of a cheating girlfriend. You catch her going behind your back to sleep with someone else, and manage to see it first hand through a bedroom window. When you confront her later, she denies it fiercely. Can you simply choose to believe her, now that you've seen evidence to the contrary, simply so you don't have to feel cheated and betrayed? I dare say you cannot.

The reason I'm familiar with the lack of conscious will in what you believe to be true is because of my struggle with Christianity. I was raised in a baptist Church by a mother who was, during my formative years, fiercely strict in her observance. Anyway, as you can imagine, I was exposed to a lot of fire and brimstone throughout my upbringing, and it instilled a deep fear of eternal damnation (Christian hell is not a pleasant concept). I never, however, felt like I KNEW that God was up there or that one of his identities was Jesus. I never truly believed. What I did believe was that, on the off chance that this religion -was- true, it would behoove me to hedge my bets. After all, if I believe in this religion, but I'm wrong, no harm no foul (I hadn't yet been exposed to other hell concepts at any length or by anyone I trusted). If I don't believe, though, and then I'm wrong, BAM. Burn forever. So believe you me, I tried my ASS off to make myself believe. For 17 years I tried to believe before coming to the realization that, in the grand scheme of things, it's no more likely to be the truth than any of infinite other possible explanations.

My point is this: even in the face of emotional trauma, even in the face of eternal agony, no man can -choose- what truth to believe. He is either convinced of that truth or he is not.

 

[Oddball]

The concept of the logical mind informing your emotions is arguably true. I myself subscribe to the notion that your emotions are an extension of your truly held beliefs and standards. This does not, however, exclude my point that you can't choose how you feel. No one can choose what they truly believe. A person's standards are based on their beliefs, and thus, if your emotions are an extension of the standards of your logical mind, you come full circle to not being able to control how you feel, but simply how you conduct yourself.

Not quite.

Your emotional responses are a physical manifestation of your belief system, which itself is malleable.....Change your beliefs and you change how you feel about things.

No one can consciously change their beliefs. You can be convinced of other things, and thus your beliefs change, but no one can choose what convinces them.

Take the case of a cheating girlfriend. You catch her going behind your back to sleep with someone else, and manage to see it first hand through a bedroom window. When you confront her later, she denies it fiercely. Can you simply choose to believe her, now that you've seen evidence to the contrary, simply so you don't have to feel cheated and betrayed? I dare say you cannot.

That's not changing a belief....In fact, such an action is based upon and enabling some other belief, which is more than likely out of awareness.

The reason I'm familiar with the lack of conscious will in what you believe to be true is because of my struggle with Christianity. I was raised in a baptist Church by a mother who was, during my formative years, fiercely strict in her observance. Anyway, as you can imagine, I was exposed to a lot of fire and brimstone throughout my upbringing, and it instilled a deep fear of eternal damnation (Christian hell is not a pleasant concept). I never, however, felt like I KNEW that God was up there or that one of his identities was Jesus. I never truly believed. What I did believe was that, on the off chance that this religion -was- true, it would behoove me to hedge my bets. After all, if I believe in this religion, but I'm wrong, no harm no foul (I hadn't yet been exposed to other hell concepts at any length or by anyone I trusted). If I don't believe, though, and then I'm wrong, BAM. Burn forever. So believe you me, I tried my ASS off to make myself believe. For 17 years I tried to believe before coming to the realization that, in the grand scheme of things, it's no more likely to be the truth than any of infinite other possible explanations.

My point is this: even in the face of emotional trauma, even in the face of eternal agony, no man can -choose- what truth to believe. He is either convinced of that truth or he is not.

And my experience is from being a quite well trained and highly skilled NLP practitioner and hypnotist....I'm very capable of creating alternate "realities" for people all day every day.

Personally, I cannot imagine what it would be like if I chose to constrain myself with the limiting belief that my beliefs cannot be changed....Actually, I can imagine that, I simply choose not to do so.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Yes you can choose what to feel.

This is where the logic part of your brain can inform your emotional self.

A child learns to feel.

You can teach them to scorn their suffering neighbor or feel compassion for them.

They can then teach themselves after a certain age.


Its one of the great joys of being alive and in control of yourself.

The only way you can teach your child to feel compassion is to instill in them beliefs that facilitate standards that perpetuate feelings of compassion for the suffering. You can't teach them directly, like, "See that suffering man on TV Timmy? Feel compassion for him." And then Timmy nods thinks to himself, "Feel compassion!" and voila, there it is.

If that were the case child obesity would be a cinch. You'd just tell your kids, "Look at that sugary snack. Feel disgusted. Now look at that deep fried lard there on your plate. Feel disgusted. I want you to not like that stuff anymore. Now look at this broccoli. Eat some. There, now while that taste is in your mouth, feel happy."

Parental controls wouldn't be necessary, even if you subscribed to cable porn channels. "Now Timmy, this here is an adult channel and not for your eyes until you're older. I want you to go ahead and stop feeling curious about what's on this channel so you won't be tempted to turn it there, and then when you're a bit older you can start feeling curious again."

I know I've responded to this already, but I could go on all day with counterexamples to your little emotion is conscious theory.