![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
squidb0i.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsA quote from Greer, and thoughts on same.
"When the neoconservative movement burst on the American scene in the last years of the 20th century, some thinkers in the older and more, well, conservative ends of the American right noted with a good deal of disquiet that the "neocons" had very little in common with conservatism in any historically meaningful sense of that word. In the Anglo-American world, conservatism had its genesis in the writings of Edmund Burke (1729-1797), who argued for an organic concept of society, and saw social and political structures as phenomena evolving over time in response to the needs and possibilities of the real world. Burke objected, not to social change—he was a passionate supporter of the American Revolution, for instance—but to the notion, popular among revolutionary ideologues of his time (and of course since then as well), that it was possible to construct a perfect society according to somebody’s abstract plan, and existing social structures should therefore be overthrown so that this could be done.
By and large, Burke’s stance was the intellectual driving force behind Anglo-American conservatism from Burke’s own time until the late twentieth century, though of course—politics being what they are—it was no more exempt from being used as rhetorical camouflage for various crassly selfish projects than were the competing ideas on the other end of the political spectrum. Still, beginning in the 1920s, a radically different sense of what conservatism ought to be took shape on the fringes of the right wing in America and elsewhere, and moved slowly inward over the decades that followed. The rise to power of the neoconservatives in 2000 marked the completion of this trajectory.
This new version of conservatism stood in flat contradiction to Burke and the entire tradition descended from him. It postulated that a perfect society could indeed be brought into being, by following a set of ideological prescriptions set out by Ayn Rand and detailed by an assortment of economists, political scientists, and philosophers, of whom Leo Strauss was the most influential. It called for a grand crusade that would not only make over the United States in the image of its ideal, but spread the same system around the world by any means necessary. It argued that bourgeois sentimentality about human rights and the rule of law should not stand in the way of the glorious capitalist revolution, and went on to create a familiar landscape of prison camps, torture, and aggressive war waged under dubious pretexts. Neoconservatism, in other words, was not conservatism at all; it was to Communism precisely what Satanism is to Christianity, a straightforward inversion that adopted nearly every detail of the Third International’s philosophy, rhetoric and practice and simply reversed some of the value judgments."
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/11/choice-of-contemplations.html
It's difficult to imagine a better Soviet double-agent against capitalism than Ayn Rand, Norquist, et al.
By spreading the memes that laissez faire should be taken to absolute extremes instead of capitalism kept functioning with counterbalances, that the state should be 'drowned in a bathtub' and the 'beast starved' instead of used to advance the common good and the free flow of goods, services, and capital, the worst aspects and excesses of the capitalist system are emphasized with predictable catastrophic effect.
"Adam Smith himself is critical of government and officialdom, but is no champion of laissez-faire. He believes that the market economy he has described can function and deliver its benefits only when its rules are observed – when property is secure and contracts are honoured. The maintenance of justice and the rule of law is therefore vital. " http://www.adamsmith.org/the-wealth-of-nations/
More Smith:
http://www.adamsmith.org/adam-smith-quotes/
And here we are today.
Corporatocracy has usurped the Republic.
Corporations are considered people, my friend.
All branches of government are for sale to the highest bidder.
Mainstream media is owned by those very same bidders, bought and consolidated and un-accountable, with 'entertainment' put ahead of facts and analysis, leaving only propaganda.
As a capitalist, this is anathema to me.
As a citizen, this irresponsible experimenting with critical systems infuriates me.
As one who leans libertarian, the enshrining of power in money instead of the empowerment of the individual (in the name of big-L Libertarianism, no less, and funded so transparently by said big money interests) is a perversion.
"When the neoconservative movement burst on the American scene in the last years of the 20th century, some thinkers in the older and more, well, conservative ends of the American right noted with a good deal of disquiet that the "neocons" had very little in common with conservatism in any historically meaningful sense of that word. In the Anglo-American world, conservatism had its genesis in the writings of Edmund Burke (1729-1797), who argued for an organic concept of society, and saw social and political structures as phenomena evolving over time in response to the needs and possibilities of the real world. Burke objected, not to social change—he was a passionate supporter of the American Revolution, for instance—but to the notion, popular among revolutionary ideologues of his time (and of course since then as well), that it was possible to construct a perfect society according to somebody’s abstract plan, and existing social structures should therefore be overthrown so that this could be done.
By and large, Burke’s stance was the intellectual driving force behind Anglo-American conservatism from Burke’s own time until the late twentieth century, though of course—politics being what they are—it was no more exempt from being used as rhetorical camouflage for various crassly selfish projects than were the competing ideas on the other end of the political spectrum. Still, beginning in the 1920s, a radically different sense of what conservatism ought to be took shape on the fringes of the right wing in America and elsewhere, and moved slowly inward over the decades that followed. The rise to power of the neoconservatives in 2000 marked the completion of this trajectory.
This new version of conservatism stood in flat contradiction to Burke and the entire tradition descended from him. It postulated that a perfect society could indeed be brought into being, by following a set of ideological prescriptions set out by Ayn Rand and detailed by an assortment of economists, political scientists, and philosophers, of whom Leo Strauss was the most influential. It called for a grand crusade that would not only make over the United States in the image of its ideal, but spread the same system around the world by any means necessary. It argued that bourgeois sentimentality about human rights and the rule of law should not stand in the way of the glorious capitalist revolution, and went on to create a familiar landscape of prison camps, torture, and aggressive war waged under dubious pretexts. Neoconservatism, in other words, was not conservatism at all; it was to Communism precisely what Satanism is to Christianity, a straightforward inversion that adopted nearly every detail of the Third International’s philosophy, rhetoric and practice and simply reversed some of the value judgments."
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/11/choice-of-contemplations.html
It's difficult to imagine a better Soviet double-agent against capitalism than Ayn Rand, Norquist, et al.
By spreading the memes that laissez faire should be taken to absolute extremes instead of capitalism kept functioning with counterbalances, that the state should be 'drowned in a bathtub' and the 'beast starved' instead of used to advance the common good and the free flow of goods, services, and capital, the worst aspects and excesses of the capitalist system are emphasized with predictable catastrophic effect.
"Adam Smith himself is critical of government and officialdom, but is no champion of laissez-faire. He believes that the market economy he has described can function and deliver its benefits only when its rules are observed – when property is secure and contracts are honoured. The maintenance of justice and the rule of law is therefore vital. " http://www.adamsmith.org/the-wealth-of-nations/
More Smith:
http://www.adamsmith.org/adam-smith-quotes/
And here we are today.
Corporatocracy has usurped the Republic.
Corporations are considered people, my friend.
All branches of government are for sale to the highest bidder.
Mainstream media is owned by those very same bidders, bought and consolidated and un-accountable, with 'entertainment' put ahead of facts and analysis, leaving only propaganda.
As a capitalist, this is anathema to me.
As a citizen, this irresponsible experimenting with critical systems infuriates me.
As one who leans libertarian, the enshrining of power in money instead of the empowerment of the individual (in the name of big-L Libertarianism, no less, and funded so transparently by said big money interests) is a perversion.
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 5/11/11 17:09 (UTC)Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 6/11/11 18:39 (UTC)Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 6/11/11 19:22 (UTC)Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 6/11/11 20:22 (UTC)Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 6/11/11 20:37 (UTC)Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 6/11/11 20:56 (UTC)Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 6/11/11 21:00 (UTC)Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 6/11/11 21:02 (UTC)Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 6/11/11 21:04 (UTC)Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 6/11/11 21:07 (UTC)Then why do it?
"Second, it does express an opinion, one that says "I agree with this cause/candidate/issue so much that I'm willing to put my money on it."
So let them do that with their own, personal finances.
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 6/11/11 21:14 (UTC)Because, again, it expresses an opinion.
So let them do that with their own, personal finances.
But corporations still have speech rights. It's not either/or.
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 7/11/11 02:14 (UTC)"But corporations still have speech rights. It's not either/or."
money =/= speech, etc
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 7/11/11 02:24 (UTC)It's the basic purpose of any political or social donation, yes.
money =/= speech, etc
In that the exchange of money is a statement at nearly all times, I disagree.
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 8/11/11 19:07 (UTC)So why bother with the money part, if all they want is to express an opinion?
"In that the exchange of money is a statement at nearly all times, I disagree."
Want to elaborate?
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 8/11/11 19:44 (UTC)Because money is necessary to help run a campaign. Because money has a greater weight to it due to the sacrifice it entails.
Want to elaborate?
Whenever you purchase a product, donate money, give a gift, you're making a statement. You're "speaking."
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 9/11/11 02:06 (UTC)Thus, obviously, expressing an opinion is not all they want.
"Whenever you purchase a product, donate money, give a gift, you're making a statement. You're "speaking.""
If I go and kill someone because I disagree with what that person is saying, that's making a statement - but it is obviously not okay for me to do so.
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 9/11/11 03:06 (UTC)No, it has multiple aspects.
If I go and kill someone because I disagree with what that person is saying, that's making a statement - but it is obviously not okay for me to do so.
Because killing someone deprives them of their basic right to life.
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 9/11/11 03:20 (UTC)Can you be more clear? Do you mean the person's desires/actions have multiple aspects?
"Because killing someone deprives them of their basic right to life."
Thank you, captain obvious. But I think you missed the point.
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 9/11/11 03:32 (UTC)When I purchase Coke over Pepsi, it has multiple purposes: I'm supporting one company over another, I'm expressing a preference for taste, I'm purchasing something to quench my thirst, etc.
Thank you, captain obvious. But I think you missed the point.
I got your point. My rights end where your rights begin, etc - the issue is that you don't have a right to silence speech you dislike.
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 9/11/11 19:17 (UTC)So you admit that when you purchase Coke over Pepsi, you're not only speaking, you're also doing other things.
"I got your point. My rights end where your rights begin, etc - the issue is that you don't have a right to silence speech you dislike."
Actually, that wasn't my point. I wasn't trying to rant at you about rights, since I think you and I generally agree on what that means. I was trying to point out that an action that contains a message may or may not be a valid action just because it happens to contain a message. In fact that's a pretty dumb argument since just about any action can be construed to contain a message. (Yes, I was using an extreme example to illustrate my point.)
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 9/11/11 19:42 (UTC)Of course.
I was trying to point out that an action that contains a message may or may not be a valid action just because it happens to contain a message. In fact that's a pretty dumb argument since just about any action can be construed to contain a message. (Yes, I was using an extreme example to illustrate my point.)
Absolutely. However, the only line is where the rights of someone else ends. That's why murder, a statement, is wrong, but donation, a statement, is okay - you don't have a right to kill someone, but a donation is still fine as it doesn't violate anyone else's right.
Re: " people do not lose their speech rights when incorporated or organized."
Date: 9/11/11 23:39 (UTC)I guess this is the point we'll have to agree to disagree on. It isn't always so cut and dry. Many of the rules and systems with which we run our country aren't based on the immediate effect of preserving someone's rights, but the long-term effects of preserving equality and fair representation, which in turn help protect peoples' rights.