http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12693#219259

david f, poor deluded fool, who filled your head all that rubbish? whoever your mentors have been, they have been telling you deliberate, premeditated lies.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12693#219600

david f, now you are starting to wake up.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=RKu8PwAACAAJ&dq=none+dare+call+it+conspiracy&hl=en&ei=7KaPTpbeE8_3mAW5k5j2Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA Have you read this book?

in it they explain the true or correct left/right political system. All totalitarian dictatorship systems, monarchy/ceasar/emperor/etc (Bahrain, England 800 years ago), communism/international socialism (USSR, etc), fascism/nazism/national socialism (1930's Germany, Italy & Spain) are on the far left.

the far right is REAL anarchy (no rules at all).

3/4's of the way across towards the right is what America had after it won the war for independence, "limited, constitutional democracy".

Everything from far left to 1/4 towards the middle is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Fabian_Society including both the RED/green, getup, GAYLP/alp, Socialist Alliance & the LNP coalition.

Bob Katter, Don Chip & Pauline Hanson would all be centrist moderates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTahZE4q90U&feature=player_embedded this is another good explanation of what is wrong with both major mistakes political parties.

The "secular state" was invented by PROTESTANT christianity, Baptists, Quakers, etc complaining about both the Anglican & Catholic churches co-operating with the Monarchist aristocracy to enslave us all.

Remove the labels & look at the practical reality of China today, it is operating identically to Germany circa 1933 to 1939 only with more haste & corruption.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12693#219586

Squeers, when will you give up & admit you have been wrong about everything? if you don't "come clean" soon you will end up in a labour camp for life, stipped of ALL your assetts to pay compo to Aussie victims of loony left poverty creation schemes.

davidf,
my point about materialism being ideological was philosophical, but accurate nonetheless. But we've already lost Poirot with too much philosophy so I won't quibble.

Dear Squeers,

I am sorry to lose Poirot although I am glad Toulouse Lautrec. However, I enjoy philosophy.

Dear Peter Hume,

Our electric utility has been privatised. As a result we get poorer service and higher costs. We get poorer service because it is apparently cheaper to fix outages rather than do preventive maintenance. The preventive maintenance mainly consisted of looking for branches that might fall on power lines and lopping them off. It is cheaper to stop the inspections and fix outages. Salaries of executives have been raised also. We pay for that on our billings which have been increased since privatisation.

Two possible reasons that our utility has been privatised are the ideological push for privatisation and corruption in that people in our government have received bribes to allow privatisation. Maybe both played a part. Maybe it was something else. However, the consumers who had no voice in the decision are worse off by privatisation.

Sometimes private ownership is better – sometimes not. In this case it is not. It makes better sense to evaluate private or public ownership on a case by case basis rather than adopt the one-size-fits-all stance of the ideologue whether that ideologue supports all public or all private ownership.

In “Cultural Amnesia” by Clive James, p. 605,
Ideology functions as a machine to destroy information, even at the price of making assertions in clear contradiction of the evidence. - Jean-Francois Revel

david

My argument is that in defending the socialism you approve of, you must and do make the same unjustified assumptions that you rightly criticize in Marxist socialism.

“Consumers or the users of roads have little or no voice in the way they are constructed. That is also true for water resources, utilities and many other areas. It makes sense for government to do this.”

The problem is, that proves too much. The same could be said of tractors, bakers’ ovens, skyscrapers, sowing crops – in fact all production goods and services.

Besides, the prices of capital goods and all combinations of them, derive from consumers’ valuations of the final products, which capitalists impute backwards from those primary data. Government severs the price connection between paying for and receiving a service so consumers have *less* voice if government does it.

“Smith described the ideal market.”

The argument for liberty does not depend on the population meeting some theoretical ideal of perfection. It is enough that people engage in voluntary and peaceable co-operation because they expect to benefit from it.

But even if such an impossible standard were justified, neither is government perfect! It’s made up of the same people with all the same defects! and
a) is a compulsory monopoly which can and does make costs higher and quality lower, and
b) lacks the critical ability of economic calculation based on profit and loss – hence the 50 empty trips to the moon problem.

Imagine if a Marxist said to you that, because private ownership of farms cannot be perfect, therefore the state should collectivize agriculture!

The deep structure of your assumption is also exactly like the Marxists': “Because imperfection, *therefore* state control is the solution.” This theory would only make sense if government were all-knowing, all-capable, benevolent, and had the task of providing salvation from man’s defective nature.

Your argument as to public goods is refuted in detail in this interesting article on road privatization:
https://mises.org/journals/jls/7_1/7_1_1.pdf

Or do you, like the Marxists, look on the enormous number of unnecessary deaths as justified for the sake of road socialism?

imajulianutter,

Well done, sir! You've successfully established that fascism is not synonymous with either conservatism or liberalism. So phucking what?

I never said fascism was the same thing as conservatism - I said they were both right-wing.

Your attempt to suggest that conservatism and fascism are somehow synonymous on the basis that they are both right-wing is akin to suggesting that antelopes are whales because they're both mammals: it doesn't make sense.

For the record (from wikipedia):

"In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law and/or tradition. To varying degrees, it rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is detrimental to society."

Fascism definitely fits that bill. I'd argue that conservatism does too, and possibly liberalism as well. Although I'm a liberal, and very much in favour of the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics.

Oh dear oh dear The Acolyte Rizla sinks to inappropriate langauge as his/her position disintergrates.

'Well done, sir! You've successfully established that fascism is not synonymous with either conservatism or liberalism. So phucking what?'

No it was your references that did that.

'Are you trying to argue that conservatives aren't right-wing, or that fascists aren't right-wing?'

It was you who introduced the Right/left wing thingy, your original position was

'... they were both right-wing'(Liberalism and National Socialism)

My position was always that National Socialism was Socialism and your definition makes it left wing.

Here is your original position

'Despite the name, the National Socialist party was about as socialist as our Liberal party is actually liberal...'

It seems you've set about arguing National Socialists weren't socialists, confused yourself with a very odd understanding of Leftwing / Rightwing policies and then supplied reference to definitions that repudiate your original position.

And all the while you've steadfastly avoided providing your understanding of the policy and behaviours that show National Socialsts had policy and behaviours equivalent to those of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

Boy that politic's class you've attended really has some odd definitions of traditional understanding of political realities and commonly held beliefs.

An answer to the following question will show the absurdity of your beliefs.

If Liberals are left-wing what are Socialists... leftwing too?

You, The Acolyte Rizla, are definitely not liberal, especially if you think Socialism is egalitarianism.

Egalitarianism recognises differences in people in regard to wealth, income, competence, talent, intellect and personality but stipulates all deserve equal respect regardless of circumstance.

Socialism just states all people are equal and in practise attempts to implement that forceably in all aspects of peoples lives.