Quantum Destiny

You lot are making my brain hurt

Lucifer Baphomet

No, you'd still have stupid fundamentalists of various abrahamic variations saying it eroded the traditional family, and therefore hurt children, and turning it into a contentious issue.

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Cindy Claveau

Small point of order: the Greeks (and later the Romans) weren't all that free and open. The right to vote in Athens (the greatest of the Greek city-state democracies) was reserved to adult males who had completed military training. So women and slaves were excluded, as were those whose failure to pay debts had resulted in suspension of their citizenship.

It was a start, but it was gravely flawed.

Colette Meiji

There has never been a free and open society. Just various levels of oppression.

CaleVinson

They could *say* it, but they couldn't pass laws to *implement* it.

The idea being that you can't get rid of fuckwits in your society, but you can live with them if they aren't able to *action* their fuckwititry (and yes that is a word g'damn it! )

Though I agree - "Harm" would have to have a pretty literal definition in this approach. I personally think we're way beyond the point where this should have been done. But perhaps this is Beebo's point too - the "can't go there" brains might never be able to accept the rejection of "harm is whatever I say it is!!!!", however a self-defeating proposition that is.

Sigh.

Lucifer Baphomet

Democracy /dɪˈmɒkrəsi/ [di-mok-ruh-see]
The elaborate game of smoke and mirrors played by those with power to delude the proles into thinking they have a say on how things are run

Beebo Brink

Yes.

To elaborate on that succinct reply, take a look at where we stand as a species. We are such a booming success that we threaten our own existence (and that of many other species) by our need for ever expanding resources for our explosive population growth. The authoritarian model of judiciously constrained violence works very well for us, even if it does not please the more idealistic sensibilities of a portion of our population.

That we have a mix of such seemingly contradictory tempraments (for lack of a better word to describe those camps of thought) would imply that we need both approaches: authoritarian models to harness our unruly, squabbling selves into a functional unit and the more idealistic democratically minded to rebel when authoritarianism grows too oppressive. One is ruthlessly efficient and satisfies deep-seated emotional urges, the other is humane but requires a degree of rationality that our species as a whole simply can't sustain. At different times in history, one or the other may predominate, but it is the mix itself that succeeds.

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CaleVinson

OK.

Those last few posts have done it. I'm in serious need of chocolate now. And possibly more than is good for me.

Rest assured, that should zits form as a result, I *will* be naming them "Luc", "Beebo", "Cindy", and "Hypatia".

Hypatia Callisto

I'm not racist, you are. I believe in all people having access to education and health care. I believe in equal rights for everyone. I believe in rights for women.

I don't think that people should be kept in the rainforest simply because its "their culture". I don't believe women should be raped because its "their culture". I no more believe in that for people from North Africa than I believe in it for "your people". But you seem to have no problem with it. And by the way, I have plenty of Native American friends who would disagree with you. Because they were perfectly able to adopt liberal ideas and adapt them to "their culture".

And honeypie, the Nazis were just as fascist as you, but you are incapable of seeing that you are a fascist. The Nazis do not have a monopoly on fascism. Spain and Italy had forms of it too, that did not end up in concentration camps. Nazis are fascists, but not all fascists are Nazis. You really have to study logic a bit more.

Go back and read some more Umberto Eco and get back to me when you have learned exactly what fascism is. The link I posted is exactly how to spot Ur-fascism.

http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html


You are syncretising Rousseau-style sociology, which is politically hard left, FRENCH and NOT YOUR CULTURE, with stories about "your culture". The idea that "nature is good, and people are born as a blank slate is roundly debunked in SCIENCE. Which is not merely "culture".

You are an Ur-fascist. You believe in some fiction about your history, and syncretising it to politics that have nothing to do with your history. I highly doubt you are from the Amazon, and I highly doubt you've ever put a paw in Brazil. You are here, on the Internet, posting in this forum, happily consuming Western civilisation while crapping on it like a massive hypocrite. If you really walked that talk, you would not BE HERE, as you would not have an internet connection.

I bet you believe Patrick Tierney too. Biggest hoax written about Amazon researchers, good people out at the University of Santa Barbara got tarred and feathered by him unjustifiably.

Darkness in El Dorado - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am a LIBERAL with strong LIBERTARIAN leanings (a classical liberal, with a strong centrist bent) and you need to learn the difference.

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"To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?"

"I suppose so," said Alice.

"Well, then," the Cat went on, "you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."

"I call it purring, not growling," said Alice.

"Call it what you like," said the Cat.

Lucifer Baphomet

If the rain forest was so wonderful......

Why did she leave??

Arilynn

What does that even mean?

Pussycat Catnap

It means my heritage comes out of the Amazon Rainforest.

Why the fuck is that so hard to grasp?

And I'm racist for suggesting that its wrong to attack my culture?

Please...


Why did those of you who are white who are in the USA leave Europe? Because you left, you are not allowed to even reference your heritage at all without getting attacked for it?


Hypatia, your overwelming need to brutally attack me for my race and for mentioning that there are some ideas from my heritage shows your racism for how raw it is.

NOT ONCE did I attack anyone else's culture nor even suggest my heritage as superior, and in response, I got you...
- What I did do, was then in response pull out a graphic image from western heritage as an example, to show just how wrong it is to attack natives and their heritage anytime one of them even dares to speak up about who they are.

FYI: My family is Peruvian Amazonian. I have cousins living there and in Lima.

But I guess, since I'm on the internet, I can't speak about my roots. I'll remember that the next time a white person mentions that Europe exists.

Arilynn

Joshua Nightshade

o_0

Phoenix Psaltery

P2

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Five59 Online Graphic Design
Phoenix's Plurk | Phoenix's Flickr| Phoenix's Rarely Updated Blog

Arilynn

/hides behind Joshua

Cindy Claveau

My ancestors came here to escape religious persecution. I'm still against religious persecution.

Surreal

What a clusterfuck.

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Pussycat Catnap

My point is that...

There was NO JUSTIFICATION for attacking me and my heritage. Calling me racist for me referencing something that is good about some of my cousins is itself racists.

Attacking my heritage as has been done here was completely uncalled for.

People emigrate. Now I get called on for being a descendant of someone who immigrated? And making that kind of attack is not also racist?

If I flip any of those attacks around and made them on whites, I would be called a racist...

Joshua Nightshade

Hi! My name's Joshua!

My favorite pasttimes include taking out my personal hangups on strangers I've met on the internet.

Konnichiwa!

Joshua Nightshade

1 User Agreed:
Pussycat Catnap

Pussycat Catnap

Which is exactly what was done to me here - with all the stuff about Nobel Savage and posting graphically violent depictions of Amazonian violence and then calling me a fascist for defending my race...

Some people have some serious issues with their perceptions of Aboriginal / Native populations...
- And when a person with that heritage speaks up, they get brutally flamed on for it...

Lucifer Baphomet

Actually, it all started with this Pussycat...

Your idealised fairy tale view of life in the rainforest...

Yes.. the freedom to run about naked, amongst snakes and venemous insects

The freedom to generally enjoy life within the restrictions of strict tribal taboos

The freedom to see the village 20 miles upstream as demons, and live in fear of them

The freedom to have stone age medicine in an enviroment that's a breeding ground for emergent pathogens

The freedom to be vulnerable to large predatory animals on a daily basis

The freedom to be totally unprepared for, and unable to deal with the the advance of modern society as the logging companies move deeper into the forest

The freedom to have through the roof infant mortality rates..

The freedom to die in childbirth for want of decent medical care.

Sounds pretty fucking wonderful, eh?

Serious Cat

A society built on these principles seems fair to me

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Pussycat Catnap

Lets look back to how this started.

The OP asks about minimums for a society.

I peacefully posted one example of an absolute minimum, and compared it briefly to ideals held by Jefferson.

The response I got was two racist attacks against native people. I countered. I got called fascist.

Now you want to say -I'm- the one with the hangup? I'm not the one who launched the racist attack.