This is just too good not to share 😀
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21 comments to Well you did ask for this! |
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That’s awesome.
Yes, the belief that one’s mindless support for an ever-larger state comes packaged with a right to pick and choose how that power will be used is widely held by the credulous.
As always,
“But…but…that’s NOT what “we” MEANT! This was NOT in the script we were given!”
Another point, the lefties rioting about the government not spending enough when their riots cause governments to spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, policing said riots.
Is the person arrowed as wanting more government a specific lefty or a generic lefty that we don’t know the name of? I’m presuming that we know that she is in fact a lefty because the riot in question is a specific riot and we have a rough idea what those involved are rioting about.
Quite so Perry.
What are riots always about Stonyground?
It is always the “Social Justice warriors” pushing for more “Social Justice” – but smashing shop windows and so on.
The specific excuse for the riot is not relevant.
Many of the rent-a-mob that turn up, do not even know what the specific excuse is this time.
Not “but” – “by”.
The smashing up of shops and so on is not really a means to an end – it is the end.
The basic point is the destruction of private property.
By people who do not believe in the principle of private property.
As for the police – they are not hated because of the tax money used to pay them.
For example the Obama supporters who chant “Pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon” are not exactly known for wanting lower taxes.
Although Mr Obama himself (being a trained “Community Organiser”) uses crafty gentle language – as a “dog whistle” to mean the same thing.
Stonyground,
The best I can do – but it seems to be dispositive – is that the photo used was a still from an Occupy Portland event.
There’s a contemporary article here, before it was turned into a meme.
So yeah, genuine state-fellators get to experience what a powerful state is capable of.
To keep things in perspective: it used to be the case that many Leftists, especially in continental Europe, wanted more government, but only _after_ a radical change of ruling class. The French Revolution was the prototype, the Russian Revolution even more so.
(I note that Bastiat was one of the exceptions: afaik he sat on the Left, but certainly did not want more government.)
Needless to say, things are quite different now: except for a few radical nutters, “leftists” want a change of ruling class only when they are not in power, and never a radical change.
There is a thought experiment I have used for a long time in order to understand human history in a broad sense. It goes like this…
Imagine that the Greeks of the Golden Age not only developed the concept of the rights of man, but managed to somehow broadcast these ideas and win over the many autocratic states surrounding them.
What would human history have been like if the Enlightenment, in terms of rationalism and empiricism, had developed a few thousand years ago, instead of only a few centuries past, and had managed to discredit collectivist ideology over the millennia, preventing the rule of all the various flavors of autocrats that have so repressed human liberty, and, thereby, the many developments of independent minds engaging in creative attempts to better themselves productively instead of by political chicanery and corruption.
To even begin this thought process in a rudimentary fashion is to immediately begin to comprehend the massive distortions that anti-individualism and anti-rationalism have inflicted on human development.
Centuries of slavery, millennia of judging all things “politically”, I.e., in terms of professed belief in the ruler, religion, or ideology in vogue, instead of critically, from an empirical viewpoint, endless repression of any different thought, economic or scientific idea, or political opinion which might threaten the ruling clique and their cronies, and, of course, the never ending warfare of one criminal ruling group against some other faction within, or some other criminal ruling gang from without.
Even considering these questions is to begin to grasp the massive waste, destruction, and corruption of the human social enterprise by the endless varieties of collective, autocratic, theocratic, and anti-individual rights gangs that have so distorted human development.
When would the many scientific and inventive ideas that have changed the very essence of the modern human experience have begun, if independent thought and creative action not been ruthlessly suppressed?
How early would steam power have developed? Medical innovations? Use of machines instead of slaves? Exploration , true exploration, instead of endless attempts to conquer and enslave?
This list, of course, goes on and on, even more than an old man musing about these questions can enumerate.
This is the very thought experiment the avowed collectivist can never make on their own, as they cannot comprehend any society not ruled by coercing the common citizen to follow the path that only the anointed, whether by birth, theology, or ideology, can see by some gnostic, magical vision of the future.
Well, we can see now, and very clearly, the path humanity has been led down by the many rulers claiming power over all people and all human activity. It is a path awash in blood, repression, slavery, war, and death in millions beyond counting. After millennia of “guidance” by the anointed, right up to the present day, we see segments of humanity still struggling with age-old problems of starvation, disease, lack of education, inability to create innovative solutions due to repression, and, most fundamental of all, endless restrictions on any attempts to define, and live, their lives as they see fit.
Why human rights, human liberty, human freedom?
We have tried, again and again, the collective vision, defined in endless variations of the same basic theme—the individual is bad and dangerous, the collective, however defined, is the only good—and our history is drowned in the blood spilled, and buried in the corpses, that the collective vision has inevitably produced.
This is the meaning of the phrase, “the anti-mind is the anti-life”.
And so has it always been.
It seems the recipient of the pepper spray tried to sue for damages and lost…
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2014/01/pepper-sprayed_occupy_portland.html
Pepper girl. Do not want.
Thank you bod and Snorri for the additional information, I suspected that a genuine lefty would be involved. I wonder, did she learn anything from the experience?
Veryretired, the Ancient Greeks did actually invent a crude steam engine but it was only used for entertainment. They never got around to using it for any useful purpose such as having an industrial revolution.
Veryretired-
So, “The Six Blind Men and the Elephant” then?
Maybe a stretch….The Tower of Babel?
Most recently (for me) The World Trade Center, reconstruction and Memorial?
Perhaps the story of “The Wollman Skating Rink rehab collective”?
Stonyground-
Dig deeper! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria
That ancient steam powered “engine” opened great doors for civilization.
Granted, I find the electric remote for the garage a bit “lower maintenance”.
Yes, I acknowledge that, technically, opening some big doors mechanically is putting steam power to practical use but I think that it was done to be impressive rather than to be genuinely useful. Useful in the way that shop doors can be closed to save on heating costs but open when potential customers go near them, or your garage doors. It is worth noting that nineteenth century cars and motorcycles were more trouble than they were worth compared with a horse when it came to getting from A to B. They still caught on in a way that Hero’s doors didn’t.
Anyone interested in Hellenistic science, either to celebrate it or to denigrate it, will find much of interest in The Forgotten Revolution by Lucio Russo.
There is legitimate criticism of it, but you will find enough of it at the link so i won’t go into it here.
Which ties nicely back to Veryretired’s post I think.
There was no call for mechanical devices- because they had plenty of slaves! Rome had a vast slave class. Lots of people have a desire for an easy life, and if they can get that from slaves, they will, and did. And, of course, ISIS is trying to re-introduce slavery. There’s still plenty of work for the Anti-Slavery Society, unfortunately.
@Veryretired Yes, a fascinating thought experiment, although somewhat depressing. Who knows how far we might have spread through the universe by now…
In a similar vein, you might enjoy the ideas in Paul Rosenberg’s book: Production Versus Plunder. It presents history in the light of the conflict between those two ideas.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Production-Versus-Plunder-Paul-Rosenberg-ebook/dp/B001XUS4YU/