Is it 1984 yet?

[bUU]

If you find you have any argument for people that disagree with you other than calling them selfish hey and maybe throw in egotistical or of accusing them of dodging the argument even when they aren't please do.

Good thing I don't do that. I just outlined the dichotomy in another thread: On the one side is an assertion of human decency, social conscience and/or civil progress, and on the other side is an assertion of self-interest, personal entitlement, or reactionary preference. You clearly don't like your perspectives characterized as serving self-interest, personal entitlement, or reactionary preference, and so you wildly lash out with vitriol when I contribute my perspective, full of advocacy for human decency, social conscience, and civil progress. You see nefarious attributes ("egotistical") which simply aren't there, probably because you don't have a counter-argument to my arguments (which are indeed grounded in human decency, social conscience, and civil progress), which doesn't itself make clear how much your perspective advocates self-interest, personal entitlement, or reactionary preference. The problem is not with what I post - it is with your perspectives, because you don't want their nature expressed in the terms I've used. That's tough. If you don't like your blue car called blue then you're going to have to change the color of your car.

What's interesting is that you don't even try to characterize my comments in the same manner. You simply make up nonsensically nefarious characterization which bear no resemblance to the truth, in a desperate attempt to try to cast my comments in a negative light. Folks who are more attuned to the reality of what I'm saying are much more adept at characterizing my comments in a negative light, focusing on what they think are rational defenses for self-interest, rather than trying to engage in the kind of denial you prefer.

It's like your a bot.

To believe that you would need to have worked very hard to insulate yourself from principled, compassionate partisans in society. It is possible to surround yourself with so much reinforcement for self-interest, personal entitlement, and reactionary preference that other perspectives look like bots, when in reality they're simply straightforward reflections of moral repudiation of those things. In a way, your ridiculous accusation is praise: You've noted that I'm very consistent in my perspectives, supporting human decency, social conscience and civil progress. I sure am. You may want to take pride in the fact that you're just as much of a "bot" as I am, since you too are very consistent in promoting those priorities of self-interest, personal entitlement, and reactionary preference that you favor.

By the way everyone is both selfish and altruistic.

What I think is really funny is you spend so much of your message trying to evade being labeled as an advocate of self-interest, personal entitlement, and reactionary preference and then you post this rationalization, effectively ratifying my characterizations of your perspectives. You probably don't even realize you did it.

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?"

"For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land."
[Deuteronomy. Chapter 15. Verse 11.]

[ApatheticNoMore]

Good thing I don't do that. I just outlined the dichotomy in another thread: On the one side is an assertion of human decency, social conscience and/or civil progress, and on the other side is an assertion of self-interest, personal entitlement, or reactionary preference.

It must be nice to see the whole world so black and white. Now I realize everyone has a tendency to see their perspective as the one right one, we may describe that as human nature etc. and I am no exception. However I don't think clinging to that is particularly a virtue. I don't think whole ideologies that enforce ridigity of thought are good things. Basically I'm ANTI-FUNDEMENTALIST. Having principles is fine, living them and fighting for them is fine in fact admirable (like Snowden did), but questioning is ALSO a virtue.

You clearly don't like your perspectives characterized as serving self-interest, personal entitlement, or reactionary preference, and so you wildly lash out with vitriol when I contribute my perspective, full of advocacy for human decency, social conscience, and civil progress.

I don't appreciate being called names no. You also don't appreciate it when I say the only reason you take the positions you do is because you are a fat lazy tv watching coach potato with an extremely low IQ who never got laid in high school and whose mom hated them.

You see nefarious attributes ("egotistical") which simply aren't there, probably because you don't have a counter-argument to my arguments (which are indeed grounded in human decency, social conscience, and civil progress)

I have made counter arguments. You have ignored them. I thinks my arguments are granted in civil progress. All progress depends on bottom up movements, more repressive countries crush bottom up movements. That is the social case for civil liberties. The personal case? Your sexting should not be the governments business, period. The business case? Well you can have business and profit making just fine in a totalitarian state, but there is forms of human creativity it tends to crush IMO.

The problem is not with what I post - it is with your perspectives, because you don't want their nature expressed in the terms I've used. That's tough. If you don't like your blue car called blue then you're going to have to change the color of your car.

Either you believe exactly what I say or I persist in name calling. Yes, and I'm sorry your mom hated you and that high school was so rough. You reduce the complexity of human beings and how they perceive the world to whether a car is blue. How simplistic is that. Do you even grok that people perceive the world based on complex chains of reasoning, ideological arguments, and depending on what particular historical knowledge they may or may not posess to bolster those ideological arguments? That ideology grows out of more than just whether or not one is moral.

Folks who are more attuned to the reality of what I'm saying are much more adept at characterizing my comments in a negative light, focusing on what they think are rational defenses for self-interest, rather than trying to engage in the kind of denial you prefer.

Ok the 10 million dollar question: even though I have no problem with self-interest as such, for the sake of argument, on what basis do you believe I am more self-interested than you are? Do I earn more than you, is that it? I have no idea if I do. Have I tried harder over the years to seek increasing salary while you have prioritized other values? I sincerely doubt that is the case, but we do not know. Do I give less to charity? Maybe, who knows. Do I care more about pursuing income earning opportunities? We don't know. How I done deliberate harm to others to profit? I have not (except in the fact that existing in industrial civilization destroys the world) Am I more materialistic? I doubt that as I am not very materialistic but maybe you live in a dirt hut and sleep on the floor. Do I love my family less? Well maybe more than you love your mom, but she hated you so .... I am more selfish because I am defending civil liberties. Do you see how absurd that is. You would say that the most selfish people in this society are who? The banksters? The oil companies? Nah, you'd probably say they are the ACLU!

You may want to take pride in the fact that you're just as much of a "bot" as I am, since you too are very consistent in promoting those priorities of self-interest, personal entitlement, and reactionary preference that you favor.

Dude, you probably think I'm a Republican ...... A lot can be derived just from self interest you know. Like concern for the environment, well we all live on it.

You probably don't even realize you did it.

Fine if civil liberties are Ayn Rand then I'm an Ayn Rand fan. And I hope everyone else would become one as well and donate to the ACLU. I mean you are literally an argument FOR Ayn Rand you realize. If opposition to increasing totalitarianism is selfish then MAYBE RAND WAS RIGHT AFTERALL. For many reasons I thought she was wrong with her ridiculous dichotomies of either people must completely advocate selfishness OR ELSE totalitarianism, but Buu wants to be the living example otherwise. And frankly that just may make me reconsider Ayn Rands thoughts afterall. Like everyone else she came from a backgrand and a historical context (though was probably mad on amphetamines at least in the later years). What if when she lived in Soviet Russia, the apologists for Stalin were everywhere and they were all mouthing Buu, if you oppose the state's violations then you are selfish. Then well ... then I'd become Ayn Rand too.

Of course you still have not pointed out how I live my life is any more selfish than how you live your life. Of course categorizing people entirely by their politics is itself ... I don't know ... totalitarian? You actually seem to think you can determine who is selfish and not (even though again everyone is selfish), not by how they live, but by whether they punch a D or R chad in an election. The eye of your needle to heaven is easy to fit in, even for a rich man: you don't even have to give away your money, just vote for whom you say (and you are an utter and complete fool if you think a rich man voting Obama or any other Dem is giving away their money - the rich keep the majority of their money regardless of tiny percentage differences in tax rates between parties - they don't even tax wealth only income. Neither party represents and existential economic threat to the existing order - the rich will stay rich regardless. I'm quite sure they know it, the class warfare talk is purely for the sheeple).

You know if you purely went around arguing for the poor and government programs to help the poor your argument might actually have some moral force (though you'd still be a self-rightous douchbag for being so douchy when making those arguments), but when combined with authoritarianism and love of heirarchy ("the boss is always right") it's just ugh ...

[bUU]

It must be nice to see the whole world so black and white.

I don't, but I know it makes you feel better about your position by making such a vacuous claim. The reality is that there are wide range of perspectives within the realm of reasonableness and moral context - what I have pointed out (which you object to) are perspectives that aren't among those many such perspectives, but are rather perspectives that are distinctly self-motivated, those that callously disregard others and broader society, etc. The fact that those particular perspectives happen to be the ones you personally support is your affair.

Now I realize everyone has a tendency to see their perspective as the one right one, we may describe that as human nature etc. and I am no exception. However I don't think clinging to that is particularly a virtue. I don't think whole ideologies that enforce ridigity of thought are good things.

I haven't seen you show any movement whatsoever toward a socially-conscious perspective. But perhaps I missed one of your messages.

Basically I'm ANTI-FUNDEMENTALIST. Having principles is fine, living them and fighting for them is fine in fact admirable (like Snowden did), but questioning is ALSO a virtue.

One of my church's inside jokes is that we put a sign out front, "All answers questioned here." But you cannot escape the reality of the patently self-driven perspective being a special case, vis a vis the perception of it by all the myriad socially-conscious perspectives. But we're getting off-topic.

I don't appreciate being called names no.

I'm meticulous about not calling anyone names. I know it makes you feel better about your rhetoric to claim that I do, because you don't like what I post. I bet you even have convinced yourself that that sentence, itself, was calling you name. Rather, I meticulously address my comment to the perspectives expressed, not the people who express them. 99.5% of the time, that's precisely what I do, and that 0.5% of the time are unequivocally response in kind which I later edit out if practicable, because I don't really need to lower myself to the level of the person I'm responding to. Again, I know you deny this, because otherwise you'd have to back-pedal something you've already said, so I won't insist that you retract it.

You also don't appreciate it when I say the only reason you take the positions you do is because you are a fat lazy tv watching coach potato with an extremely low IQ who never got laid in high school and whose mom hated them.

It doesn't bother me much - when you do such things it just gives me a rather easy opportunity to show have scurrilous your rhetoric is. Otherwise, it really doesn't have much impact.

I have made counter arguments. You have ignored them.

No you haven't yet showed that perspectives you expressed, which I labeled as self-motivated, antisocial, or otherwise lacking in compassion actually were socially-conscious or specifically altruistic. As a matter of fact, at least once, if not several times, ratified the characterizations I've expressed, defending the self-interest rather than denying it. To be honest, it would be more honorable to express the kinds of perspectives you regularly express with integrity, owning up to their self-driven nature. I'd still find it objectionable, but at least it would be more honorable.

I thinks my arguments are granted in civil progress.

Putting aside the fact that you've belied that with your own comments, in the past, all you ever need to say in response to whatever I post is that you disagree. What am I going to say to that? If you present a defense, I'll show why it is faulty if that is evident.

We're getting way off topic for this thread... if you want to carry on such a conversion that doesn't pertain directly to the NSA situation, then find a better thread for such nonsense.

[bae]

... I don't fault them as craven and dishonorable for not sticking around for that as I don't see doing that as some form of noble cause of civil disobedience.

Indeed.

A study of the literature would show that here are several quite valid models of "civil disobedience" spanning a range of behaviours, not all of which require you to turn yourself in to The Man and accept The Approved Punishment to communicate your point. Drawing an overly-narrow definition is handy for scoring rhetorical points though, or for limiting the actions of one's political foes.

"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words." - 1984

[ApatheticNoMore]

Indeed.

A study of the literature would show that here are several quite valid models of "civil disobedience" spanning a range of behaviours, not all of which require you to turn yourself in to The Man and accept The Approved Punishment to communicate your point. Drawing an overly-narrow definition is handy for scoring rhetorical points though, or for limiting the actions of one's political foes.

+1 And I do think that limiting disobedience as such is the whole point. OBEY! [insert andre the giant image here]

[bae]

+1 And I do think that limiting disobedience as such is the whole point. OBEY! [insert andre the giant image here]

Civil disobedience?

[ApatheticNoMore]

Well I was thinking of the famous "OBEY Giant" graphic (of which I have seen plenty):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_t...nt_Has_a_Posse

But I guess that one will do as well.

[Spartana]

Indeed.

A study of the literature would show that here are several quite valid models of "civil disobedience" spanning a range of behaviours, not all of which require you to turn yourself in to The Man and accept The Approved Punishment to communicate your point. Drawing an overly-narrow definition is handy for scoring rhetorical points though, or for limiting the actions of one's political foes.

"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words." - 1984

And personally I don't consider what Snowdon did as a form of civil disobedience. He was a whistle blower or a snitch (depending on one's views of such things) and certainly not in the same league as MLK or Gandi. He would have been much more effective if he had just been "the undisclosed source" and remained at his post spewing more secret government intel to the media. So from a "rebel" standpoint, his actions in coming forward effectively cut off his usefulness to society. He can no longer gain info that may be useful to the public ( and will probably never be able to hold a job again) and will be a man on the run for the rest of his life most likely. Why he came forward is beyond me as he ended his usefulness permanently and ruined his life.

[bUU]

He may have just wanted attention.

[dmc]

I'm shocked!!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57...hout-warrants/