'Please cite when and under what circumstances you have observed that someone's heart is corrupt.'

often when I read what you say David f.

Dear runner,

That is merely a wisecrack which you are good at. It is not an answer.

Capitalist or socialist?
Good question.
Perhaps the following may demonstrate just what suckers we are he in the "Lucky Country"
Go to any pub, club or casino in Australia where there are poker machines and see that the highest winning combination payouts are the same for every like machine in the country.
Forget the progressive jackpots just concentrate on maximum combination payouts.
The reason they are all the same all over the country is because the Federal Government sets the payout figures as maximums.
In America and Europe the owner of the machines set their own payout levels, free market, competition whatever you may call it however here in Australia payouts must be regulated.
Why?
Imagine this scenario.
Your local bowling club with a dozen or so poker machines competing with the football club up the road with two hundred machines or the local casino with a thousand.
Now picture the situation if the casino with more patrons,more revenue and more entertainment attractions is able to set its own poker machine payouts.
The smaller clubs cannot compete so the go out of business all over the country and there are a few hundred thousand workers without jobs.
A social disaster.
Capitalism propped up by socialism.
Makes you think

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Dear thinkabit,

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« Banjo Paterson: Your account of the raise of civilisation and complex social structures (eg: structured society, public works and government) is very wrong. Europe was not a "cradle of civilisation". The break from hunter-gathering to permanent agriculture occurred in a number of places at different times and mostly independently and sometimes completely independently. »
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That is also my understanding, thinkabit, but I did not indicate that Europe was a "cradle of civilisation".

According to Wikipedia :

[ The concept 'cradle of civilization' is the subject of much debate. The figurative use of cradle to mean "the place or region in which anything is nurtured or sheltered in its earlier stage" is traced by the OED to Spenser (1590)."

The phrase "cradle of civilization" plays a certain role in national mysticism. It has been used in Eastern as well as Western cultures, for instance, in Hindu nationalism (In Search of the Cradle of Civilization 1995), and Taiwanese nationalism (Taiwan — The Cradle of Civilization 2002). The terms also appear in esoteric pseudo history, such as the Urantia Book claiming the title for "the second Eden," or the pseudo archaeology related to Megalithic Britain (Civilization One 2004, Ancient Britain: The Cradle of Civilization 1921). ]

I was only referring to the transition in Europe from hunter-gatherer to sedentary activities :

« The struggle for survival in these more difficult conditions became the motor for evolution away from the traditional nomadic, hunter-gatherer way of life to the sedentary activities of agriculture and animal husbandry. »

Wikipedia :

[ The majority of "Westerners" belong to sedentary cultures. In evolutionary anthropology and archaeology, is often applied to the transition from nomadic society to a lifestyle that remains in one place permanently.

The Natufians were sedentary for more than 2000 years before they, at some sites, started to cultivate plants around 10000 BC.

The first sedentary sites were pre-agricultural, and they appeared during the Upper Paleolithic in Moravia in Europe and on the East European Plain during the interval of c. 25000-17000 BC. ]

Hopefully, this clarifies any misunderstanding.

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Dear david f,

The moral maxim presupposes that you know which is the “speck” and which the “plank”.

I was talking about times bygone, the Soviet (Stalinist) system and the American (McCarthyist) “system”. I had personal experience with the former not the latter, you probably the other way around. So our impressions about relative freedom were subjective. As I said before, one simple way to objectively compare is to count the number of people escaping (or trying to escape) the American/Western rule to live under the Soviet rule, and those who went (or would have gone if allowed to) in the opposite direction.

I agree that a society calling itself free is something like a person calling himself clever, generous, etc. It is always relative, and for others to say in both cases. However, politicians need labels and slogans.

Dear chrisgaff1000,

I can't imagine any thinking person playing the pokies.