REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Arnold Schwarzenegger for president?-OR- If I had a nickel for every time I read the phrase....

POSTED BY: CHRISISALL
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 14, 2022 21:00
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Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:59 AM

CHRISISALL


I like the movies Predator, Total Recall, and Terminator 2- a lot. I own each and have seen them too many times to tell. I mostly agree with the politics of those films. I do NOT agree with Arnold's politics, however, but I do NOT go to Arnold fan websites screaming bloody hell about them. So it puzzles me as to why someone would come to FFF knowing the show and movie portray governments as less than trustworthy, and try to promote near total confidence in any one world leader, or economic system.

If I had a nickel for every time I've read the phrase 'leftist bull' since I found this site, I'd have, like, over $2.50 by now!

Way I see it, most fans of FF are just gonna be the types to want to nail those in power when they lie, to dislike war, and to choose individual rights over corporate power. It's just the kind of persons this show draws in.
If Bush-fans (or Bush-worshipers) come her, isn't it just to fight? To come here to call someone 'The L Word', or pinko when they say they're sensing something goin' sideways with our government or leaders is kind of pointless, don't ya think?

It may be best to ask yourselves this: Am I a closet liberal? Why am I watching FF instead of Rambo III? Am I testing my core political beliefs by hanging around the RWE board? Would I actually vote for Arnold for president?

Just a thought, ain't workin' on my Psych thesis or anything...



Chrisisall, waxing philosophically political

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 6:46 AM

DREAMTROVE


Chris

Actually, clearly about half of us are republicans, just a minority support Bush because

though we oppose monopolist power like walmart, we also oppose big govt. power, like the left is generally pushing, particularly in the form of the democrats, or socialists, and favor individual freedoms.

So, just try not to blanket attack the right when attacking Bush, because that just forces the divide. ANd in the divide, conservatives probably outnumber liberals.

I think this was the flaw in the left tactic in '04. It should have appealed more to conservatives with a "we're not exactly like you, but neither is Bush" or something. I got the feeling that most of the left press was sort of "conservatives are evil, it's all they're fault." Which was bound to make them vote more for Bush.

I'm not a closet liberal. I think Joss is a closet conservative. I think in general, conservatives have been a lot more pro-individual than the left. It's jsut that the neocon slant since Reagan has been building into Bush. Bush is clearly more of a n authoratarian theocrat. I think overall, I'd say he's probably most similar to the govt. in Iran. When I say PNAC is socialist, I don't mean to say Bush himself is a socialist. Bush is a selfalist. But the theocrats and the neocon socialists found a common grounnd in support for big top down structures.

Arnie can't run for president. I might vote for him.

I'd vote for McCain, or Hagel. The only dem who could get my vote currently is Feingold.

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 7:32 AM

CITIZEN


I dunno about this site, there's a fairly heavy slant toward the left, just lately a few of our members have been AWOL, SergantX just got his new job, I believe Rue's got himself an extra restrictive real life these days, and even Signym ain't been around so much.
Anyone heard from Ruxton?

As for Liberals and that, it's probably good to remember that things like Free Speech, Individualism, Equal rights et al, are in fact classical Liberalism.
It's the proof of the pudding that the old Left/Right spectrum is utterly useless these days. So many things fall outside of it.

For instance Libertarians were Right-wing folks that integrated Left-wing Liberal ideals into their own; they really transcend the old left/right spectrum.
Also in all reality Totalitarianism is the opposite of Libertarianism, so it also transcends the Left/Right spectrum.

I don't see how the PNAC is Socialist. I mean they don't want equality for all; they don't want public (not state, public) ownership of production/business either.



More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 7:52 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Actually, clearly about half of us are republicans, just a minority support Bush
So, just try not to blanket attack the right when attacking Bush, because that just forces the divide.


Well, this closet conservative has no problem with left or right, as long as it ain't too fringe-y, but I attack Bush as a person who's choices I strongly disagree with; I pay no particular mind from what political direction a moron emerges.

And the liberal in me detestes big government, so as Book would say, where does that leave me?
Liberal libertarian, I guess.

I'm off to Arnold.com to ask why he backed Bush, when everyone knows Bush is exactly the type who would put Skynet into place!!! Dumb Neo-Con Gymrat!

Chrisisall, the Barbarian

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 8:45 AM

SIMONWHO


I had hopes for Arnold, a Republican with Democratic tendencies. Instead he's repeatedly shown himself to be like every other politician, perhaps never more clearly demonstrated than when he had a road dug up, just so he could organise a press conference around him filling in the hole.

Still, given his recent 0 for 4 display of public support for his proposals, I think that the phrase "Arnold Schwarzenegger's political career" will bear the same cadence and weight as "Tom Arnold's acting career".

Roll on True Lies 2.

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 8:54 AM

BELACGOD


Thing is, Bush isn't a conservative (well, he's a culturally conservative). He doesn't want to make the government less invasive, or smaller, or more defensive of basic freedoms. He's in the pocket of the Blue Sun Corporation.

As a closet libertarian, I cheer on every time River says "People don't like to be meddled with," or Mal says "Put all the planets under one rule, so they can be ignored and interfered with equally." Maybe that makes me a conservative, but I'll curse Bush as long and loudly as any of my liberal friends, just for different reasons.

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 9:41 AM

DREAMTROVE


Citizen,

PNAC is essentially the same group of people who have reformed several times into different groups. Their actual organizations like PNAC hold together for 10 years or so usually, then they go and form another group, but most of them have been in politics since the 50s,60s,70s a few started in the 80s.

PNAC itself started in '97, but these people used to be the neoconservatives of Reagan. Before that, some of them were the Social Democrats, others from the Torsky-socialist group, SWP., etc.

Neocon, is a slang term, meaning a socialist who supports a republican. Social Democrats are openly socialist, as were the trotskites. A fair number of these people were actually members of the American communist party, as late as the late 80s for some.

The term neocon was coined by their fellow socialists who thought it was the duty of socialists to remain loyal to the democratic party.

This crowd, Wolfowitz, Perle and co. are loyal socialists. They support global social revolution, social militarist doctrine, large scale social programs, giant govt. heath and welfare. They are true believers. People make the mistake that they are corrupt corporatists because they are in bed with corrupt corporatists, but they are the socialist revolution.

As I said to Chris, this isn't conspiracy theory stuff. These guys wrote all about the compound majority and all of that in various left wing academic publications. It's pretty well established.

This is who they are. I can see why they don't advertise the fact. But this is why I worry about people like Cheney, Jeb, the whole signatory list. There are a few signatories who don't show up on the list on the site anymore.

But my basic feeling is that 'conservative' should be eternal. It doesn't need redefining. Conservative American politics should be the same as Nixon, Eisenhower, TR, or when John Quincy
Adams first started the National Republican Party.

BTW, I believe that the anti-govt. left you describe exists, but it is much less influential in the political left, at least here in America, and probably worldwide, than the anti-govt. right.

That coupled with my pro-business, and anti-war/RTL stance makes me solidly a member oif the right, not really considering joining the left any time soon, but makes me no closer to Bush and Co.

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 9:58 AM

DREAMTROVE


Chris,

I refer you to my recent post to Citizen. I think the anti-govt. feeling, though itself not tied to it, is much stronger in the right. I largely think this is because big govt. is essential to the installment of the majority of points on the platform of the political govt. but is totally disposable to the right platform. While this does not preclude the big govt. right from existing, it does not grant it the same sort of permanent stay that the left does.

Technically, why republicans back a republican president is that, in theory, a republican president is under a sort of unspoken obligation to support the republican party platform, and any republican legislation that may come along during his term. But Bush, esp. since the re-election, has repeatedly failed to support republican ideas, and so the point may be moot.

Arnie, it is sort of well known in social circles, hates W. Bush, but is a clsoe personal friend of his father's. This may put him in an awkward position. He failed to mention W's name on a list of GOP candidates Californians should vote for, and he did buck Fush on a couple of measures like Stem Cell Research. He also was somewhat unhappy when Bush showed up in CA to support his ballot measures. Probably that last was that he knew Bush was a vote loser. Sort of like when Osama Bin Laden comes out to support your campaign.

I find that my overall conservative slant doesn't interfere at all with my ability to attack Bush like he was a rabid rodent. Clearly, if PNAC et al, as they have before, thought that there was 1% more chance of getting into office as a democrat, they'd be a democrat. I think the same basic crowd, with a couple of personel changes, was behind Clinton, and will be behind Hillary. None of this really has anything to do with right or left.

I think I should, perhaps in cooperation with some opponents on the left, make up a good right/left Dichotomy. It would probably end up in a grid like that test, but with more poigniant points.


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Sunday, November 13, 2005 10:06 AM

DREAMTROVE


Quote:


Originally posted by BELAGOD

As a closet libertarian, I cheer on every time River says "People don't like to be meddled with," or Mal says "Put all the planets under one rule, so they can be ignored and interfered with equally." Maybe that makes me a conservative, but I'll curse Bush as long and loudly as any of my liberal friends, just for different reasons.



Yay to that. I'm not closet about it though :) But yeah, Bush is a chimpanzee, his govt. is a mix of Neocon-socialists, Corrupt Corporatists (represent small groups of large Saudi-dominated corporations, not representing corporate America as a whole) and Christian fundementalist extremist.

Only the last of the three is conservative, and they're our shameful looney fringe, in the way the commies are the lefts shameful loonie fringe.

The corporatists are, of course, party-less. They will side with whichever has the most $$$ to offer. Point of fact, Halliburton, prior to being in office itself in the person of Dick Cheney, had closest ties to Bill Clinton of anyone, as he was the one who essentially gave them control over the US military, and gave them no end of contracts.

PNAC themselves, and their members, are life long socialists, but for the most part party-less as well. They used to be partisan democrats, back int the 60s and 70s, but now they will support whichever party they think will get more power in office. Many of them supported Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and will probably next support Hillary. Their ideological bent is global socialist, and their political partisan bent is which ever way the wind blows.

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 11:06 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Their ideological bent is global socialist, and their political partisan bent is which ever way the wind blows.

Which brings me to my next very important question:
Is Emmett 'Doc' Brown a liberal or a conservative?

Chrisisall, hijacking his own thread!

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 11:58 AM

CITIZEN


Quote:

Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
at least here in America


I think that's the telling thing here, culture clash. I'm from Britain and it's very much the right here that's guilty of a lot of what you accuse the left (militarism, authoritism etc).
So I go back on my previous assertion, the left/right spectrum is useless these days.

When the left/right was pertinent it was rightist authoritism (the monarchists, which is where the modern right comes from) versus the Liberals who were anti central government, and pro individualism, pro freedom of speech.

From my own experience it is still the right that calls for authoritarianism and government control. In this country it was the Sun (which is now a right-wing tabloid) that was heralding a 90-day 'internment' of prisoners without charge as a good thing.
The left-wing media was appalled.

Thus I see the left/right spectrum as utterly useless.



More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 12:11 PM

DREAMTROVE


Interesting question

I'll make a push for him being conservative. At least more or less towards the time line. My knee jerk response of course is that if he'd been a liberal, he would have just given the Lybian terrorists the nukes they wanted.

:)

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Monday, January 9, 2006 2:40 AM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!


Nazi Gay Porn Star Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger

Music videos:

Arnold the Nazi
Music by Spike Jones and the City Slickers
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/6742.php

President Arnold the Nazi
Music by Counter Coup and John Lee
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/6742.php

Boners at Bohemian Grove
Music by Counter Coup and John Lee
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/6737.php

Snuff kiddie porn at Bohemian Grove
Alex Jones of Infowars.com interviews Senator John DeCamp author of The Franklin Coverup
music by Counter Coup and Bohemian Club
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/6737.php

MP3s:

Arnold the Nazi Pottimouth
by Counter Coup, John Lee
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/6142.php

President Arnold the Nazi
Music by Counter Coup and John Lee
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/6142.php

Arnold's gay porn photos in homo After Dark magazine:
http://piratenews.org/bushgaygate-redirect.html

from September 911 Surprise
http://september911surprise.com

"You can't stop the signal!"
-Mr Universe, STM, Pirate TV

Pirate News TV
Knoxville, Tennessee
Winner Best Music Video
"We Never Went to the Moon"
(no rocket exhaust as Apollo LEM "blasted off" from the "moon")
Los Angeles Music Awards 2005
http://piratenews.org
http://ufoetry.com

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Monday, January 9, 2006 5:20 AM

FLETCH2


DT, there is a flaw with your argument. If we accept your theory that Perle, Kristol etc were Socialist "back in the day" so what? You said that you were once. Why is it that you insist that these folks haven't changed and then assert that you have?

(Then again you were working for Howard Dean right....?)

I have to agree with what Citizen said. In our country Conservatives built the big government that they used to run the Empire they created through military intervention. It was the left wingers that campaigned against large centralist government and waste. They were the ones seduced when they got hold of the "one ring" of big government.

To our eyes a "conservative" building up a government machine at home and an Empire abroad is the same old, same old.... That modern Conservatism has shifted is actually a positive effect of Thatcherism, not the traditional stance of the party.

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Monday, January 9, 2006 6:06 AM

GIXXER


I'd vote for Arnie, with Jesse Ventura as running mate (to make sure there's someone in the White House who has some experience of politics).

Then again, maybe the other way around, since Arnie seems to be so thick, he can crash a bike even when he has a sidecar bolted to it...

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Monday, January 9, 2006 7:37 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


The problem is that anyone who thinks "big government" is automatically a "socialist" in DT's book. That makes dubya a "socialist" too. DT- is there another word we can use besides "socialist"? There are various stripes of "big government" folks- some on the side of corporations and some on the side of "the people", some that believe in militarism and some that believe in environmentalism. There has to be some way of distinguishing them. (Yeah, I know- you'll say "big government" is automatically dangerous and it doesn't matter what the motives are of the party in power. I reply by saying that big ANYTHING can do big damage but also big good. Big anything requires a unbreakable check/ balance/ feedback to keep it in line and neither market forces nor democracy seem to be hacking it.)

---------------------------------
Please don't think they give a shit.

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Monday, January 9, 2006 10:49 AM

CREVANREAVER


For those interested in the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment, here's an article by John W. Dean written in 2004.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20041008.html

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Monday, January 9, 2006 5:40 PM

DREAMTROVE


Fletch,

Here's the difference:

The PNAC agenda is the same agenda they came up with then, they never stopped being socialists, they just stopped calling themselve that. Careful study of their ideas and ideals shows that they have simply adopted the socialist idea of top-down think-tank utopia into a model of corporate monopolism just as the axis powers did in WWII. They never embraced the free market, concepts of limited government, civil liberties, the values of individualism, competition and internationalism, to say nothing of the anti-trust or conservation, so they in no way have made an ideological shift from their stated position as the SWP. It's still a Trotskyite global social revolution, in particular, Shachtmanism, as it always was when they were actual socialists. Only their tactivs have changed.

Anyway, interesting point fletch and thanks for bringing it up, I still think I'm on solid ground on this one.

On the issue of old liberals vs. old conservatives, let's be clear on one thing:

People have a lot of tendency to stick labels on history that don't belong. Liberals want to think of the founding fathers as liberals, the right calls them right wing extremists.

When I use the term conservative, or republican, I'm talking about a set of ideals that was pretty consistant from jafferson and j.q.adams all the way through to newt gingrich larry craig and trent lott when they opposed clinton in the late 90s. So neo-cons aside, there is a set of traditional american conservatives more or less unshifting in their perspective. Evolving, yes, but not abandoning their previous precepts, only adding to them. This is the way in which they are markedly different from neocons, who I would argue are consistantly socialist, only adding methods to that, but never losing the core beliefs.

If leftist revisionists look back and want to call those statesmen liberals, sobeit, the words did not mean the same things then that they do now, they were not opposites, Jefferson considered himself both a liberal and a conservative. Certainly I will grant that they were radical, I would just argue that they were radically republican.

The fact that monarchists once sat on the right is no indication that republicanism is a natural evolution of monarchism, that's absurd. But I think that when we talk about ideological schools of thought, I would hope that we could stick to consistant ideological principles and schools of thought.

Socialism has always been about collectivism, general welfare and cooperative systems, and most often lends itself to utopian idealism

Republicanism has always been about free competition, individualism and limited govt., and it most often rooted it pragmatism.

The idea of a 'socialist republican' president is nothing new. Herbert Hoover was openly such, he repeatedly refered to the rise of European Socialism as a model to be followed for America in the 20th century. Could socialist republicanism work? I doubt it, I think the cost of socialism makes republicanism impossible, but that won't stop people from trying every once in a while.




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Monday, January 9, 2006 5:44 PM

CENTURYHOUSE


Quote:

Originally posted by chrisisall:
If Bush-fans (or Bush-worshipers) come her, isn't it just to fight? To come here to call someone 'The L Word', or pinko when they say they're sensing something goin' sideways with our government or leaders is kind of pointless, don't ya think?



Socialists/leftists politics are probably the LAST philosophy the Firefly crew would embrace.

I don't think they'd embrace the right either, but CERTAINLY they wouldn't embrace those in favor of a huge central government that takes care of all via larger and larger social welfare programs, instead of having persons be responsible for themselves.

Leftist tendancies expressed in current Democrat party programs lean more and more toward communism & socialism which supress individual freedoms in the name of the 'collective good' - something the Firefly crew wouldn't stand for.

Mal & crew OBVIOUSLY believe in being able to govern their own actions and excercize armed self defense when needed - something so called 'liberals' have been trying to take away for decades.

Republican business interests wouldn't please them either, but it's not as if the Democrats aren't appealing to those same rich people as well, though thru different channels.

I doubt the right's religious base would please Mal, but consider that nearly 70% of those on the left still profess religios belief.

I would think Mal & Crew would be more likely to embrace Libertarian / Constitutionalist qualities since they emphasizes personal freedoms over socialist government rule.

When you refer to people talking about our government "going sideways" - it is and has been for quite some time. That doesn't mean it's evil, but the checks and balances that were designed to keep it in check are being removed slowly but surely. If other's think it's not "going sideways", it makes me wonder if they have any idea how our government was intended to function by those who designed it?

In my opinion any American who even tries to talk about our government is doing so in ignorance if they have not thoroughly read the US Constitution, Bill of Rights AND The Federalist Papers (written by the authors of the Constitution to explain what they intended).

A person cannot help but be lost in the woods if they haven't done that remedial bit of reading. And if they can't see that this government is taking a course far away from what was intended by the men that designed it, they are missing quite a bit.

Our Constitutionally guaranteed rights are being gobbled up, and have been for decades - by both parties. As the public becomes more and more ignorant of what this government is allowed to do and prohibited from doing, we are drifting further and further to an "Alliance" of our own in the future. All of this 'one world government' stuff we're starting to embrace IS "The Alliance".

Check out my songs:
http://www.thelightningwaltz.com

http://www.myspace.com/crash_sun

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Monday, January 9, 2006 5:56 PM

DREAMTROVE


Signym,

Quote:

The problem is that anyone who thinks "big government" is automatically a "socialist" in DT's book. That makes dubya a "socialist" too. DT- is there another word we can use besides "socialist"? There are various stripes of "big government" folks- some on the side of corporations and some on the side of "the people", some that believe in militarism and some that believe in environmentalism. There has to be some way of distinguishing them. (Yeah, I know- you'll say "big government" is automatically dangerous and it doesn't matter what the motives are of the party in power. I reply by saying that big ANYTHING can do big damage but also big good. Big anything requires a unbreakable check/ balance/ feedback to keep it in line and neither market forces nor democracy seem to be hacking it.)


Signym,

I don't think this is fair to me. I have clearly stated the PNAC connection to Trotsky socialism many times, it's a tightly tied know, a slam dunk case. It's not that the Bush admin resembled Mussolini-style socialism, which it does, but that it has it's roots, and was thought up in the socialist camp of the third party left in America.

Bush himself is not a socialist, that's absurd, Bush is just corrupt, as is his administration. You need to be able to distill out the corruption and the Yeltsin-style theft to see the socialism taking place. The way in which govt. is being reordered, not just in the US, but in the EU, the ME and Africa with the involvement of these same individuals, Wolfowitz, Perle, et al. There are at least two ways in which Bush is awful, and they're only loosely connected to one another.

I'm with you on the big is bad. Big govt. kills with far more regularity than big anything else except for big cult of Yhwh. But yeah, big anything is less than ideal. That's why we have an anti-trust. Sure there are socialist conservationists, but the problem is that a socialist state is essentially unaccountable, and should someone else come to power, the power to destroy can be extreme. Overall I think conservationism is a viewpoint disconnected from people's other political views, the question becomes not where does it stand on the political spectrum, but what solution is best for the problem.

So I'm not slapping the label 'socialist' on those who don't deserve it, I'm putting it only on those who stood up and said "hey we're socialists" and then had the ideological hand to glove and not in an oj way fit.

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Monday, January 9, 2006 5:57 PM

DREAMTROVE


Fletch,


My decision to go to work for Howard Dean was about wanting team evil out of power, and Kerry/Bush were team evil, and Dean had the best shot of beating them. I don't think Dean is a socialist by any means, but even if you gave me a decent Galloway-socialist they still could get my support over this neocon-socialism, which harks back to old gory, and has more in common with Stalinist, Nazis, and the like, which are clearly the worst form available.

But this is the lesser of two evils game, that doesn't mean it's my first choice. I also campaigned for John Buchanan, who is ideological way over on the right, I'd campaign for Pat Buchanan if I thought he could win.


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Monday, January 9, 2006 6:03 PM

CENTURYHOUSE


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
But this is the lesser of two evils game, that doesn't mean it's my first choice.



Doesn't THAT seem to be the case more and more? Too bad we don't have any great choices lately!

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Monday, January 9, 2006 6:17 PM

DREAMTROVE


Final thought about my socialist leaning past. When I was in college, Gorby seemed to make more sense then reagan. Now I look back and see Gorby as a moderate progressive, pro-free market, but more of a hybrid solution, more like a regular democrat, politically not that far from say, barbara boxer.

Reagan on the other hand was a monkey in the middle between to forces, on the one side traditional republicans, who I had no problem with, and the other side globalists, who I still have a problem with. I shifted right, sure, I came to a position on issues like RTL, and began to generally just think the republicans were right on most issues. But it wasn't a drastic shift. Gorby still makes a lot of sense to me, and I still have problems with Reagan, the only difference is now I can specifically track down, oh, here are the problems I had with him, etc. But as a simple student I was led to the erroneous conclusion 'socialism good, republicans bad.' The University didn't do much to help by not giving me an honest historical look at socialisms unerring ability to end in the most spectacular disasters ever witnessed, or the degree to which advances in civil liberties, world peace and environmental conservation were all pretty solidly made by the right, and not the left. This I now chalk up to the fact that academia is much more of a think tank world, and stands to gain by a left establishment, and so are all left leaning, though some are left simply because they were thus programmed by others in academia, and weren't actually seekers of power themselves.

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Tuesday, January 10, 2006 11:52 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Centuryhouse:
Socialists/leftists politics are probably the LAST philosophy the Firefly crew would embrace.

...the checks and balances that were designed to keep it in check are being removed slowly but surely. If other's think it's not "going sideways", it makes me wonder if they have any idea how our government was intended to function by those who designed it?

Our Constitutionally guaranteed rights are being gobbled up, and have been for decades - by both parties. All of this 'one world government' stuff we're starting to embrace IS "The Alliance".


Centuryhouse, I think we are in almost total agreement here.
'Unification' is a nice word, but that's all it is, in reality.

Independent Chrisisall

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Tuesday, January 10, 2006 6:40 PM

DREAMTROVE


I think I'll post more rant of me because I like to hear myself type.

I also agree with this:
Quote:

Socialists/leftists politics are probably the LAST philosophy the Firefly crew would embrace.


I think there are a lot of leftists on this board, but the only reason they are socialist leaning leftists is that that is what they were programmed to be by their education, the way I was. I went to college with nothing but a 5th grade education, and I gobbled stuff up hook line and sinker, and no one ever said "hey look, we're darth vader, aren't we great?" They always pretended to be for whatever they thought we already wanted, peace, prosperity, fairness, and little fuzzy bunnies.

I wouldn't go so far as to call the democrats socialists. I don't think that's fair. But I think they do tend to always favor more govt. and central control, even now, and that's not what we need. I think the Bush admin is a democrat at best, and a socialist at worst. But alas his people are republicans now, and we on the right have to deal with that. I would agree that Mal and co would not like Bush's version of republican economics, but they might like some older version of GOP economics, like maybe Coolidge. I personally am good with most anything pre-reagan, but I think the Serenity crew wouldn't want any business above moderate size.

I'm trying to think of someone in govt. who might be welcome on Firefly. No cheese here, I could use some suggestions.

Somehow I find it hard to think that they're going to tolerate anyone more pro-govt. than frank zappa. Maybe not on board, but I think on a planet, they might agree to meet John McCain. That'll be my shot to start off with.

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Tuesday, January 10, 2006 6:40 PM

DREAMTROVE


I think I'll post more rant of me because I like to hear myself type.

I also agree with this:
Quote:

Socialists/leftists politics are probably the LAST philosophy the Firefly crew would embrace.


I think there are a lot of leftists on this board, but the only reason they are socialist leaning leftists is that that is what they were programmed to be by their education, the way I was. I went to college with nothing but a 5th grade education, and I gobbled stuff up hook line and sinker, and no one ever said "hey look, we're darth vader, aren't we great?" They always pretended to be for whatever they thought we already wanted, peace, prosperity, fairness, and little fuzzy bunnies.

I wouldn't go so far as to call the democrats socialists. I don't think that's fair. But I think they do tend to always favor more govt. and central control, even now, and that's not what we need. I think the Bush admin is a democrat at best, and a socialist at worst. But alas his people are republicans now, and we on the right have to deal with that. I would agree that Mal and co would not like Bush's version of republican economics, but they might like some older version of GOP economics, like maybe Coolidge. I personally am good with most anything pre-reagan, but I think the Serenity crew wouldn't want any business above moderate size.

I'm trying to think of someone in govt. who might be welcome on Firefly. No cheese here, I could use some suggestions.

Somehow I find it hard to think that they're going to tolerate anyone more pro-govt. than frank zappa. Maybe not on board, but I think on a planet, they might agree to meet John McCain. That'll be my shot to start off with.

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Tuesday, January 10, 2006 6:40 PM

DREAMTROVE


I think I'll post more rant of me because I like to hear myself type.

I also agree with this:
Quote:

Socialists/leftists politics are probably the LAST philosophy the Firefly crew would embrace.


I think there are a lot of leftists on this board, but the only reason they are socialist leaning leftists is that that is what they were programmed to be by their education, the way I was. I went to college with nothing but a 5th grade education, and I gobbled stuff up hook line and sinker, and no one ever said "hey look, we're darth vader, aren't we great?" They always pretended to be for whatever they thought we already wanted, peace, prosperity, fairness, and little fuzzy bunnies.

I wouldn't go so far as to call the democrats socialists. I don't think that's fair. But I think they do tend to always favor more govt. and central control, even now, and that's not what we need. I think the Bush admin is a democrat at best, and a socialist at worst. But alas his people are republicans now, and we on the right have to deal with that. I would agree that Mal and co would not like Bush's version of republican economics, but they might like some older version of GOP economics, like maybe Coolidge. I personally am good with most anything pre-reagan, but I think the Serenity crew wouldn't want any business above moderate size.

I'm trying to think of someone in govt. who might be welcome on Firefly. No cheese here, I could use some suggestions.

Somehow I find it hard to think that they're going to tolerate anyone more pro-govt. than frank zappa. Maybe not on board, but I think on a planet, they might agree to meet John McCain. That'll be my shot to start off with.

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Tuesday, January 10, 2006 6:46 PM

DREAMTROVE


I think I'll post more rant of me because I like to hear myself type.

I also agree with this:
Quote:

Socialists/leftists politics are probably the LAST philosophy the Firefly crew would embrace.


I think there are a lot of leftists on this board, but the only reason they are socialist leaning leftists is that that is what they were programmed to be by their education, the way I was. I went to college with nothing but a 5th grade education, and I gobbled stuff up hook line and sinker, and no one ever said "hey look, we're darth vader, aren't we great?" They always pretended to be for whatever they thought we already wanted, peace, prosperity, fairness, and little fuzzy bunnies.

I wouldn't go so far as to call the democrats socialists. I don't think that's fair. But I think they do tend to always favor more govt. and central control, even now, and that's not what we need. I think the Bush admin is a democrat at best, and a socialist at worst. But alas his people are republicans now, and we on the right have to deal with that. I would agree that Mal and co would not like Bush's version of republican economics, but they might like some older version of GOP economics, like maybe Coolidge. I personally am good with most anything pre-reagan, but I think the Serenity crew wouldn't want any business above moderate size.

I'm trying to think of someone in govt. who might be welcome on Firefly. No cheese here, I could use some suggestions.

Somehow I find it hard to think that they're going to tolerate anyone more pro-govt. than frank zappa. Maybe not on board, but I think on a planet, they might agree to meet John McCain. That'll be my shot to start off with.

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Tuesday, January 10, 2006 10:46 PM

FLETCH2


Quote:


I think there are a lot of leftists on this board, but the only reason they are socialist leaning leftists is that that is what they were programmed to be by their education, the way I was. I went to college with nothing but a 5th grade education, and I gobbled stuff up hook line and sinker, and no one ever said "hey look, we're darth vader, aren't we great?" They always pretended to be for whatever they thought we already wanted, peace, prosperity, fairness, and little fuzzy bunnies.



My word, this really makes you out to be a condescending Ahole. "People disagree with me only because they don't have the interlectual stones to question what they have been taught."

What a profoundly egotistical git you are.

People have different opinions because their life experience teaches them different lessons. It tends to be the honest adaptation of their world view through experience and circumstance, people have different experience to you, their views reflect their best understanding of the world in the light of those experiences. Had you shared those experiences it is extremely likely that you would share a common view with them, that you didn't just means you have a different view of things, not that the one you have is better or more "right."

That is the message of Serenity, people have to be free to make their own mistakes. One mans "better world" is another man's nightmare.

As to the political inclination of the crew? Russians call WW2 "The great patriotic war" these people were COMMUNISTS invaded by the Nazi regime, but if you look at their literature and language of the time you will find echoes of the American Revolution in it. Anybody, no matter what their political outlook will respond the same when attacked by a hostile foreign power. They will all appeal to patriotism, they will all fight to protect what's theirs. You cannot make any assumptions about the political structure, beliefs or otherwise of the Independents other than their understandable wish to govern themselves. Remember that those nice, refined, educated Southern gentlemen taking the field for the Confederacy did so believing they were fighting for the right for Southern Self determination and states rights. They were also fighting for slavery.

In the pilot Mal et al conduct illegal salvage on a transport ship. You cheer, what a libertarian, what a great guy sticking it to "the man." Yet I bet you thought it was ok to shoot those folks looting in New Orleans? Mal steals from the rich and..... well he keeps it. For all your saying that he's a Libertarian icon most libertarians would prefer people that take other people's property (especially THEIR property) in jail.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 6:16 AM

DREAMTROVE


Fletch,

Thanks for the amazingly hostile response. I don't think I'm a condescending git. I think that the socialist leaning left, in America, is a pre-programmed fabrication of the intellectuals in our education system. I grant the same sort of things happen in churches in the south re: their right wing beliefs, but I'm not taking this sock in the jaw lying down.

Don't be absurd, why would I support the shooting of Americans by their govt.?

American socialism is not by any means the result of life experience. The old 'rightist are based on life experience, leftists are based on education' shows only that education has a leftist slant. It's not that 'if you're informed, you'd be a socialist' it's that 'if you were taught to be so, you are a socialist.' I think that this requires the focus on a lot of presumptive rights, and the careful omission of much of history.

If your theory were correct, then the followers of the American socialist left should be all over the board politically. This is simply not the case. They are lockstep, politically. This is a marked contrast to the non-neocon right, and is a direct parallel to the neocon right.

Where the followers of the socialist leaning left differ from the politicians of the left, they never seem to blame the politicians in question. Leftists often say 'damn the vietnam war damn the korean war, damn nuking japan' but never 'damn the democrats for giving us those wars.' It's a carefully spun belief system.

Am I including all the left here? No. I said 'socialist leaning leftists' because that's what I meant, a school of thought which is taught, not learned through life experience. I know this because I was taught it, and I rejected it because I learned several things about it:

1. Socialism is the politics of genocide and warfare. It has always been, and at least 100 million are dead and counting.

2. Socialism has two facets which mandate that 1. would be true: a) it's cooperative by nature and doesn't foster an atmosphere of dissent. b) It has a moral obligation to enforce equality which means in order to adhere to its own creed, it needs to take over other people's societies, and dismantle and assimilate them.

3. As one of the rural poor, I am no fan of 'benefit the rich' politics. But increased taxation to drive a top-heavy social support system is going to hurt individual business, whether it's the local General Store or General Motors. The fact is that hurting individual businesses hurts individual economics, private sector jobs and thus individual freedom.

If someone has a life experience which leads them to believe that the people, collectively, cannot sustain themselves without government supervision and support, as hard as it is for me to imagine that such as thing would occur, then so beit.

But this is NOT where the American socialists come from. Our univerities crank them out every year. It's my suspicion that university professor dream of big think tank jobs, and want to create followers who will someday forward them to power. But whatever the reason, they are most certainly teaching this belief structure the way the churches teach this Revelations BS. American socialism isn't an independent political point of view, it's a religion.

Saying that this is independent life experience is like looking at the numerous pro-chinese maoist terrorist organizations in various countries in east asia and saying "Hey, look, it's the voice of the people, and is in no way influenced or fed by China!"

Finally, what was at issue was not whether humans were ever naturally socialists, it was whether firefly fans were ever naturally socialists. I think as other do that the shows take is extremely clear.

Since I have mentioned many times that I think that neocons are socialist republicans, and that socialist republicans exist, and the 'team evil' is a group of republicans and democrats who are all socialist-leaning, clearly this is not *strictly* a right-left issue. Mostly I think of socialism as left because it's been traditionally left.

But socialist is not the opposite of right, and it's not the opposite of left. Socialist is the opposite of libertarian. Joss and firefly would probably be very hard to pin down on a left/right spectrum. I would say it leans more right than left, but maybe that's because I'm on the right. I does NOT by any stretch of the imagination lean socialist. It DOES to an extreme degree lean libertarian. In fact it would be no stretch to say that this was libertarian propoganda.

So, I would have to say a socialist firefly devotee has most probably not thought it through. Why would a socialist like this show?

If someone agrees with the positions of the characters and their point of view, then maybe they should question whether in their own poltical lives they are supporting the Alliance.

The Alliance is socialism, big govt., whatever you want to call it. Serenity is libertarianism, anarchy or whathaveyou. It's not pure anarchy, since Mal does keep things in order.

And, BTW, not to be partisan here, but I'd say the same thing to die hard Bush supporters who are firefly fans. Mal is not Bush, Blue Sun is Bush, If you think hands of blue and Niska are the coolest, and you'd really like to seem River, Mal and Kaylee torn to shreds, well, then, whatever.


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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 6:21 AM

DREAMTROVE


From the wikipedia entry on 'libertarianism'
Quote:

Consistent with their belief in minimal taxation and limited government, they generally oppose the tax-funded provision of public services such as postal service, transportation, welfare programs, Social Security, public education, and health care. They argue that whatever the government provides for consumption (e.g., transportation, education, health care, etc.), the private sector could produce more abundantly, and at a higher quality and lower cost. They often argue that in a truly free market, even the poorest would end up better off as a result of faster overall economic growth - which they believe is likely to occur with lower taxes and less regulation.


There's a lot more where that came from, not an ideology that lends itself to a love of socialist big govt. states.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 6:39 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Fletch2:
In the pilot Mal et al conduct illegal salvage on a transport ship. You cheer, what a libertarian, what a great guy sticking it to "the man." Yet I bet you thought it was ok to shoot those folks looting in New Orleans? Mal steals from the rich and..... well he keeps it. For all your saying that he's a Libertarian icon most libertarians would prefer people that take other people's property (especially THEIR property) in jail.

In the pilot, Mal was doing something illegal, not wrong. No one was going to claim that stuff. He intended to survive.
The looters in New Orleans were either intending to survive, or profit. And in either case, killing them (or even just wounding them) would be wrong (and illegal, in the strictest sense).
Getting pushed to the wall is an extenuating circumstance IMO; survival is programmed into us, and shouldn't be penalized. If someone took my property in order to LIVE, I suspect I'd understand on some level...

What now? Am I an Anarchist?


Liberal Libertarian Chrisisall

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 7:00 AM

FLETCH2


I can add a Wikipia definition "Dreamtrove is a Git" and that would be what you would find if you searched it (you have been following the news recently right? The fact that they were almost sued for slander because of someone's "joke" enteries.)

You proved my point for me yet again. Allow me to give you a potted version of "Dreamtrove." Way back when someone taught him some kind of Socialist rubbish, and being a thinking sort he saw it was rubbish and he moved on. Along the way he found himself a "new true religion (NTR) that is sort of conservative, well, kinda sorta. Equipped with this new world view he started to look around only to discover like most of us do that the NTR was as full of bull as his old one. Most of us shake our heads at this point, come to the conclusion "a pox on all your houses" and formulate an entirely new political viewpoint. Not Dreamtrove, he's Paul on the road to Damascus, he's the new convert, the zealot, he's been shown the NTR and it can do no wrong. Rather than face the truth he simply changes reality, he arbitarily renames things so that no hint of fault could ever impinge on his "prescious." Like Gollum he hides and obscesses.

Bush a Socialist? Damn straight he is in DT's private Idaho. Better to think that than *horror* a Republican can be as big an imperialist self serving ahole as anyone else. Team Evil? Makes perfect sense that all these politicos on both sides are in cohoots. It means you can avoid the reality that the US has the best politicians that money can buy and that irrespective of the party in power, their paymasters and those paymaster's objectives remain constant.

"Team Evil" is your way of burying your head in the sand. It allows you the comfortable delusion that if a handfull of bad apples can be weeded out we can all go back to that happy place. It ignores real political and economic reality, that the system is corrupted and rather than there being a few bad apples, it's the good guys we are short of.

Now here's the interesting thing about all of this, I see exactly where you are coming from, I understand why you come to the conclusions that you do and even though some of your ideas are out there I respect them because I realise that there is actual analysis going on here, rather than forced fed media potted opinion. The problem I have is that you can never let anyone else have their own opinion, I understand that you may think that they are wrong but you always seem to be saying that they have no right to be wrong. If they disagree you shout them down, or at the very least make damned sure you have the last word.

People presented with the same info can come to different conclusions without malice or stupidity. Differences of opinion are good, they are great, they are grand. People that stick labels on other people and then decide that people with those labels have opinions not worth hearing... well they are the ones that loose in the end.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 7:18 AM

FLETCH2


Chris, the point is that you can't make political assumptions based only on what we see on the screen. Mal didn't want the Alliance running Shadow, that doesn't make him a libertarian, that makes him a patriot for his world. German Nazis, Russian Communists, American founders, all behaved as patriots when invaded by outsiders, even though their beliefs were very different.

Mal doesnt like the way the Alliance expands but why would he? It cuts down on the crimes he can pull, it means more regulation and more red tape. If a Crack dealer opposes wire taps is he a civil libertarian or does he just not want to get busted?

I like Mal a lot but these are complex characters that live in a radically different and complex world. We have no idea what the larger issues in the Unification War were because it doesnt matter to Mal. The war took his old life from him and left him with this one. How just it was, who was the angels and who was the devils doesn't matter because it's Mal we are concerned about.

If you told the story of a Southern boy in the 1870s, evicted from his home because of the war, you wouldn't know if his family kept slaves or how they were treated. All you know is that boy's life and that boy's needs. You have no way of knowing if his suffering made a better life possible for dozens more or if he really is the tragic figure he appears. It doesn't matter, this is HIS story.


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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 7:58 AM

CENTURYHOUSE


I just wanted to pipe in and say (for what it's worth) that I agree with most of Fletch2's first post and some points in his following posts, and almost ALL of Dreamtrove's posts.

I too was taught the socialist leaning college mindset and at some point managed to figure things out for myself - which brought me to different conclusions politically than any of my friends had, my parents had, or school & various medial sources had attempted to program into me.

Before this thread came up, I had been thinking about the political implications of the series/movie and thinking that it was very liberatarian. That said, the irony of what seems to be a mostly 'libertarian' crew going out and comitting crime wasn't missed by me.

That said, just as they'd feel no compunction about shooting someone that tried robbing them of their ship/goods/life, I don't think they'd blame someone else if they tried to do the same. It's a risk of the trade.

ps - Dreamtrove, can you point me to whatever you've written about some on the right being 'socialists'?

Check out my songs:
http://www.thelightningwaltz.com

http://www.myspace.com/crash_sun

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 7:59 AM

CENTURYHOUSE


[duplicate - sorry!]

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 8:02 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Fletch2:
Mal doesnt like the way the Alliance expands but why would he? It cuts down on the crimes he can pull, it means more regulation and more red tape. If a Crack dealer opposes wire taps is he a civil libertarian or does he just not want to get busted?

Before the war, I take it that Mal was a rather upstanding citizen, not a crook. He even joined an army to defend his way of life, only to get let down by both sides.
His illegal activities began post-war in Serenity (see posted convictions the Operative pulls up), and was a reaction to the unfairness of the 'verse, and in trying to remain Alliance-free, certain laws had to be broken (without hurt to others, I might add).

Mal is not a career criminal, although his bank job in Serenity brought him as close as he'd ever be. In Serenity, he was against the wall.

I question Mal's methods, but I can't say I can fault him most times.

Do you think he's a 'bad guy', Fletch?

Perplexed Chrisisall

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 8:15 AM

CENTURYHOUSE


Quote:

Originally posted by Fletch2:
Mal doesnt like the way the Alliance expands but why would he? It cuts down on the crimes he can pull, it means more regulation and more red tape. If a Crack dealer opposes wire taps is he a civil libertarian or does he just not want to get busted?



The impression I got was that MAL fought the alliance, and after the war he began running shady operations to stay out of the Alliance's interference and meddling.

Think also of River's words about 'people don't want to be meddled with'. That says it all.

People don't want intrusive, meddlesome governments telling them how to be. WE are supposed to decide how to be, and assign government certain limited tasks & powers to make that happen.

When the government begins racking up more responsibilities for itself and more power for itself (ie socialism) it becomes 'meddlesome' and has to restrict individual freedoms to do it's work and maintain it's power without resistance.

Why do you think the government wants to restrict guns? For crime? Get real! Crime stats universally without exception show reduced violent crime rates after gun ownership rights are expanded and drastic crime increases in EVERY location where gun rights are curtailed once those restrictions are put into place (even in areas where crime was falling before the new laws).

Governments want to limit/ban guns so that as they grow power there will be no 'checks & balances' to interfere with that governments plans. It has nothing to do with crime.

This mentality of removing power from the people is a good example of what governments do when they want to grow themselves further. Persons who value freedom and independence don't like it when these types of trends continue unchecked.

That's where I see Mal & crew in all of this. I don't see them as career criminals steering free of the Alliance to avoid getting busted, as much as people whose goal is to steer free of the Alliance's interference and who have no other way of doing it than shady dealings.

Check out my songs:
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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 8:44 AM

FLETCH2


No, I think he's complex and worth watching, which is incidentally why I watch him. My point is that folks are assigning him a political outlook based on their interpretation of what he does. To what extent is he "sticking it to the man" out of political conviction and to what extent is he doing it out of nescessity? As for "well his back's against the wall we'll cut him some slack" that's a bleading heart liberal viewpoint. Most hard line conservative types are fed up of fellons and their sob stories trying to get off from taking responsabilities for their actions.... etc blah.

If you steal from the "bad guy" do you get a pass? Who decides who the bad guy is? The black kid that mugs you probably believes that there is "200 years of the man holding the black man down" just as much as Mal thinks stealing from the Alliance is justified. If that kid thinks that "200 years" makes you the bad guy does that mean he has a right to steal from you?

A look at Mal and I see a lot of things, some of which are frankly contradictory. I don't assume Mal is on "my side" politically, I'm on *his* side because I like him. I certainly don't assign him a political viewpoint and then ignore all the ways he runs counter to it.

Is Mal Libertarian, or is he someone who can survive better in a world with weak law enforcement?

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 9:05 AM

FLETCH2


Century House.

All governments "meddle" meddling is when something interferes with you doing something you want to do. Your mother making you clean your room and eat your greens? meddlesome wasn't she? The FAA deciding how often airliners get checks, just meddling in someone else's business until 300 people go down in flames. Meddling is making you do things you don't want to do.

The problem is that we know nothing at all about anything to do with the issues of Unification. For example, Inara said she VOTED for Unification. We have no idea who was allowed to vote or what the result was. We don't even know if the Independents represented the majority of the people on the planets they came from.

If you knew nothing about the reasons for the Civil War and followed only the adventures of a former confederate soldier then you would believe.

1) That the Confederate states had a right to leave the union (since the Consitution says nothing at all about it and no state ever explicitly ceeded the power to leave.)

2) That the Union had contravened the 2nd amendment because they forcably confescated guns in some border states.

etc etc

Seen from that POV the Union is the evil empire and you'd never know that slavery was involved at all.

That's why assuming a political possition to a fictional character is just holding up a distorting mirror to yourself. The things he does that you would agree with endear him to you and convince you that he has the same beliefs you do, but what you are looking at is a reflection of your own biases, not nescessarily what is really going on.




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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 10:16 AM

DREAMTROVE


Fletch,

Your offensive rant is deliberately dishonest. You have read my other posts, and yet you persist on trying to restate my positions in some demonic form because I'm the political opposition, and you would stop at nothing to destroy me.

Bush isn't a socialist, but PNAC is and I've proven it countless times, and I don't need to because other people have everywhere else. It's a socialist agenda in action.

But why are we still talking about this? Socialism, dreamt up by intellectuals in the 19th century, became a hot topic of political debate in the 19'teens and 1920s, and then socialists everywhere rose to power, and enacted their agenda. As a result, civil liberties were destroyed, the world economy collapsed and 100 million people were killed in endless ideological genocidal warfare. To say that they failed doesn't even scratch the surface. It was an unholy abomination.

BTW, Mark my words on 'Team Evil.' If President Hillary comes to power she will complete Bush's agenda, just as Bush continued Clinton's. We'll have a nasty war in Iran, and a big monopolitic corporatocracy, which is what Mussolini called his form of socialism.

You're right, I argue abrasively. I don't do so any more than other people. I think I'm probably middle of the road abrasive. I am fairly certain I'm less so than you or Finn, Citizen, though he's mellowed, and much less than Hero, AJLynch or Auraptor, and much much less than Howard or PN.

The only people I can think of offhand who post often who are noticeably more mellow than me are Limi and Chris.

I think you simply notice it more in those who disagree with you. But I do recognize it's a problem.

Here's some food for thought. I think this guy is solidly to the left of me:

http://markhumphrys.com/modern.left.html

... but I like his



I would only argue that in stopping this mass slaughter and destruction of earth, we come up with better solutions when level heads prevail, and the Bush/Kennedy/Truman approach to bad socialist state govt - let's invade - is at the best suboptimal, and possible out and out appalling.

If, like me, you've studied socialism in action in depth, you know that naziism is a subset of it, and hardly holds a monopoly on the massive slaughter of innocent civilians, the dismantling of govts, cultures and nations, and the total suppression of civil liberties. I assume that if someone came to the forum and said "Nazi Germany is a model of a well-ordered society" everyone would respond with "Die fiend!" I think my attitude of "perhaps this merits more thought" was fairly cordial by comparison.

I don't think socialism is at all consistant a belief system at all coherent with the political ideas in firefly, and I think it's far far outside the mainstream. If I thought that it was what you really want, I would say, okay, that's your opinion, and shut up. But I don't. You don't perpetually post opinions which support big brother or the idea that we're all really better off if Blue Sun just gets its way and the Alliance controls everything.

But this gives me an idea.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 11:39 AM

DREAMTROVE


First, on this rather interesting Mal motivation discussion. I think I can guess at what's going on here. This isn't like trying to determine the motivations behind shakespear character or unravelling the Mayan Codeces. Joss is around today, we know basically what he stands for and he's quite outspoken. I know he opposed Bush in '04, and he is general libertarian leaning. We also know he was british educated.

The pre-alliance situation, the independents were undoubtedly internationalist, as they not unified, and represent in the western motif, the separate states, or on a european angle could represent the nations of europe. The alliance becomes the US, washington, or the EU. I don't think the Alliance is specifically the EU. I think Joss looked at the US under Bush, the EU, China and the USSR, and invented a new big bad. But what came before, we can tell by the values of Mal and Zoe. It was not chaos, as it is now, but it was free-er. There was relatively little interference by the independent govts. on people's affairs. Mal's patriotism represents something similar to what might happen to americans if they had been invaded by the soviet union, or the french resistance response to nazi occupation.

I agree, Mal is only a criminal because of circumstances, but I want to add one of those circumstances: He has no respect for the authority of the Alliance. He sees them as not accountable or representing the interests of the people, and so he sees them as an illegitimate occupier. Therefore, anything which need be done for the cause, must be done. The french resistance used similar logic.

I don't think it's fair to say everyone's going to see themselves in Mal. I think viewpoint characters are often supposed to appeal that way, but we can very clearly pin down what he's about, and we are supposed to be able to. I think Mal is absolutely libertarian, but not anarchist, he wants a decent limited govt. back, perhaps several. I don't agree with him 100% of the time, but he's not losing my vote in election to Niska.


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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 12:27 PM

DREAMTROVE


CenturyHouse,

I don't usually fight with fletch, we disagree about 'socialism.' Maybe it's just the word.

Anyway, I wrote a lot about this it's all over the old threads, but I don't know percisely where. I got a lot of flames for it.

Kerry was right when he labelled Bush a "Herbert Hoover" but unfortunately, Kerry couldn't stay on message. Hoover (a Republican) was openly a socialist, and he viewed european socialism as the new paradigm for the American economy. The problem was the American economy didn't need a new paradigm, and it was a disaster. Just like we didn't need a new world order, the old world order was just fine, and now we don't need a new american century. We had something that worked, and people keep trying to throw it out.

These new socialists, or 'neocons' don't really have a direct connection to Hoover, but they're a similar idea.

The term 'neocon' was coined by michael harrington, who was a member of the shachtman trotskyite movement in the 50s-70s. It refers to socialists who join the republican party. Litterally, 'neocon' is a type of socialist, the way 'nazi', 'communist' and 'green' are all types of socialist. Some socialists are obviously more objectionable than others. In particular, a neocon is a shachmanite, which is a type of trotskyite. A neocon is a republican, and usually a former social democrat. If they are still a democrat, they are a social democrat, and not a neocon.

Max Shachtman was a socialist leader in the American communist party (ACP) who left to lead the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

The short history is the ACP was started by pro-soviets in the '20s, and then broke with the soviets over Stalinism. After Stalin's death in '53, the ACP split. The two factions, the leninists who favored renewing ties with the USSR, stayed as the ACP, the trotskyites, who favored a continuing the divide with the USSR left and joined the SWP, and their leader, Max Shachtman, as its head.

The Shachtmanites later left the SWP to join the democrats, and became the social democrats. This group later split as a result of the failed "scoop" jackson campaign of '72. It was here that the ones called neocons decided to make the move towards the republican party.

The democrats decision to nominate a peace candidate was a sign that '68 had temporarily killed the democrat hawk, and that they might need to go elsewhere. War was always on the agenda, since the entire object of Trotskyism is global social revolution.

Trotskyism holds:

1. The perfect society can be designed.
2. The perfect society can implement the design through revolution.
3. Every country must have a revolution in order for the world to be free of opposition to the perfect idea.

Shachtmanism only differs from traditional Trotskyism in a few notable ways:

1. Compromise is not possible, because it corrupts the perfect idea.
2. Internal revolutions compromise with the revolutionaries, and thus should be avoided, the perfect idea needs the perfect army, typically the US army.
3. Temporary corruption is tolerable because the ends justify the means, and this corruption will be corrected later.
4. The Mussolini corporatism, merger of corporation and state, with one monopolistic corporation holding power over a function is superior to soviet state agencies, because if you lose power of the agency, it is controlled by your opponenent, whereas the entrenched monopoly is always controlled by you.
5. The world will ultimately be arranged into a hierachy of supernational entities such as the EU, Nafta, African Union, Asean, etc., which will be ruled via a compound majority.
6. Compound Majority is when 60% of voters in 60% of districts in 60% of provinces in 60% of nations in 60% of multi-national unions in the world support the agenda, you have a majority, even if it is only 2.5% of the world's population (assuming 1/2 of elligible people, ie. 1/3 of all people vote, as is typical)

The neocons may have been responsible for Nixon's fall, and Ford's rise, there's a lot of theory out there, this one I suspect to be true because of Ford's appointment of neocons. The later went on to create the Reagan campaign, wooing the christian right as an ally, and ousting frontrunner GHW Bush.

The attempted an alliance with Bush Sr. but it was touch and go, and later they came back with Bush Jr., a stooge totally under their control. These people, this group, is not a totally amorphous entity, but has always contained many of the same members, though there has been some fluidity to it, it contains Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeane Kirkpatrick, etc., the folks we now know as 'neocons.'

Important to note, a neocon is never even an implied conservative in the traditional sense, but a socialist supporter or the conservative political movement.

The other side of the neocons are those who stayed democrats, the social democrats, now calling themselves moderates, but are anything but, include people such as Lieberman, Clinton, DiFi and Ben Nelson, along with others. There is a fair amount of evidence that during the administration of Bush Sr., when neocon influence was ebbing, the neocons healed their split with the other social dems and assisted Bill Clinton to power.

The decision apparantly came during the Gulf War, when Bush Sr. refused to invade Iraq to take out Saddam, which had long been on the neocon agenda. By re-aligning themselves with their former allies in the social dems, the neocons helped to create the Clinton administration, and were routinely in his office, helping to form Clinton's Iraq policy.

PNAC is a fragment of the neocon movement which became disillusioned with the Clinton strategy in Iraq and formed in '98 to create a republican opposition, in George W. Bush.

Bush was taught how to be president by Condi Rice, a traditional republican, and then aided in his campaign by Karl Rove, also a more traditional republican, and then joined with Dick Cheney, a traditional neocon, and close ally of the Clinton Administration, to form the new republican-neocon ticket. Once in office the lion's share of the agenda has been more neo-con, and less traditionally republican.

This awkward dynamic of the two former members of the Shachtmanite camp, one republican, and one democrat, is what I blithely refer to as "Team Evil." It's not to say that there is no tension between the two mutant children, but they have an uncanny closeness which is more supportive of their other half than of their own respective parties, which is why Bush doesn't want a NY GOP member opposing Hillary for NY Senate '06, because a defeat there would more or less kill Hillary's presidential '08 chances.

My best guess is the current team evil plan is to run Ben Nelson/Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side, and oppose it with Newt Gingrich/Condi Rice on the other. Gingrich/Rice would throw the election, possibly by openly supporting Intelligent Design and some other well designed suicide platforms. In exchange for their part, Gingrich would probably become secretary of the treasury or some such, and Condi would probably be made CEO of Chevron/Texaco. Afterwords, the agenda would resume where it had left off, and Hillary would invade Iran.

Here's a good starting place for learning about these guys and their roots:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Shachtman

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:12 PM

FLETCH2


Joss is liberal, he says that there is a lot in Mal he disagrees with, I don't think that makes Mal Libertarian.


http://www.highstakes2004.com/photos.html

So we know you just made a call on Joss's politics that proved to be wrong, you saw what you wanted to see.

The Guardian newspaper did an interview with an Iraqi "resistance" leader last year, remove specific Arab/American or Muslim references and you could hear the same arguments you might have heard from Washington had you been able to do a battlefield interview back in 1777.

We know what Mal does, we can assign reasons to why he does it but he doesn't do it because he's fighting a gorilla war, this is his way of surviving, if in the process he embaresses the Alliance like in "Train Job" that's just gravy. I think he's too complex to be labeled, I think folks that give people labels are wrong anyway.


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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:49 PM

DREAMTROVE


Joss is a liberal the way hollywood is liberal, but he's really more a barbara boxer or russ feingold liberal, not a socialist, pro-govt., etc.
The truth is the characters in Buffy and Firefly tend to be conservative and sometimes reactionary. This goes back to Chris' original post on the thread.

Why are we (conservatives) here, and they (conservatives who like Bush) is because Joss really paints characters we like. Particularly on Buffy: Willow, Anya, but also Spike, Giles, etc. are deeply concerned with helping the cause of universal equality and the general welfare, they're not crusading against corporations, and advocating state ownership. They're a fairly reactionary lot, and the only outright political statements come from Anya who is particularly right wing, like Emma Caulfied. On Firefly the most traditionally leftist lines are spoken by Book, who to some extent seems to be being set up as a punching bag. The more I think about it, the more I think it's not all that political, but if you look at the spectrum of television drama, nothing more conservative than Firefly is going to come on, that's any good anyways. Farscape maybe, but again, not anymore. So this is what we've got, such as it is. I think the same thing could definitely be said re: socialists. I certainly don't credit that Joss is not a libertarian. In almost all of his characters in all of his shows there's always at least a little of a libertarian bent, and a fair number are out and out anarchists.

Quote:

Can you really fight a war for your liberty and at the same time deny it to others?


Yeah, sure, people do it all the time. No one ever seems to notice their own hypocracy. The Americans did it in the war of independence, and then the South did it in the civil war.

Actually, Fletch, I hope you read my little history rant on neocons, so you can see I'm not spouting off and labelling, and I'm not really guessing here. But I also want to take a moment to put this up, because I think it's relevent, if people are going to keep on the civil war, which I think is relevent to the show.

The Civil War was not about slavery. Not directly, anyway. Slavery had existed for some time. The North found it distasteful, and had tried to find ways to end it, but it did not declare war on the south to end slavery. The war did not start with the emancipation proclaimation, just in case anyone has that misconception. The war started in 1860, the proclaimation was January 1, 1863.

The war was actually about the marginalization of the South. The reason abolitionists were unable to ban slavery was that they lacked the necessary votes in the US Senate. Abolitionists were largely whigs and republicans, but there were some democrats, but more importantly, they tended to be northerners, people from non-slave states. So in order to correct the balance it was proposed that the western territories be added as states and partitioned into a larger number of votes. The goal here was to force a republican majority of non-slave states, and forever force the south into a marginal political position.

The South saw this as a direct threat, who would want to be part of a union in which they were totally maringalized? (This is one of the problems we have in Iraq now with the Sunnis.) So the south responded with a move to partition texas to help even the future score, pending the partition. Requests to recognize Texas partitions were denied, and it became clear that the midwest partitioning would succeed, and the South saw its hand as forced. If they waited for the partition to be complete, their power would be lost completely, and so they decided to act.

This is, btw, not a theory. The Confederate states told this whole story many times in their documents at the time, and it shows up in many of their declarations of independence from the union. After the war the idea was shelved until a later date, but then enacted by Harrison in '89-'90


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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:03 PM

VIOLETRIX


Quote:

Thing is, Bush isn't a conservative (well, he's a culturally conservative). He doesn't want to make the government less invasive, or smaller, or more defensive of basic freedoms.


i agree with this wholeheartedly.

i try not to get too involved in political conversations on this site, since i like to keep my politics and scifi seperate. since it's what i do, (or used to do), all day long, i'd rather have some time off.
the thing that kinda chafes my ass is the assumption that all of the people who frequent this site have the same political outlook. look, i don't care what your politics are, i really don't. but don't assume that i'm a half-wit or that i just want to fight if i support a certain party. that's right. i'm a conservative, with heavy libertarian tendancies.

and, just out of curiosity, what exactly do you mean by "neocon?" to me, it's thrown around so much, it has no meaning anymore. kind of like calling someone a "liberal." don't assume that i don't know what the word means, i'm just curious what it means to you all. the word is always spat out with such vitriol in some circles, it's quite baffling.
i support limited government, and i support the advancement of capitalism. and although i like the terminator franchise immensely and have a definite soft spot for conan, voting for arnold is just a moot point, unless we pass an amendment to the Constitution.
(and no, i didn't read this entire thread, so if someone else mentioned that, then i'm sorry to be redundant.)
i don't want to fight or anything. like i said, i don't care what you do in the ballot box. my nature makes it impossible for me to remain quiet.

and it's true what river says, "people don't like to be meddled with." people also don't like to be prejudged.


love you all,
neocon V

http://violetrix.blogspot.com
you won't remember anyway

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:29 PM

CITIZEN


Hmm, well.

Fletch:
I think you were a little, erm, overly enthusiastic in your description of DreamTrove earlier. Having said that I can't fault the points you raise. I don't think I've seen anything that really says to me that Bush/PNAC/team evil whatever are Socialist or have a socialist agenda.

DreamTrove:
Quote:

As a result, civil liberties were destroyed, the world economy collapsed and 100 million people were killed in endless ideological genocidal warfare. To say that they failed doesn't even scratch the surface. It was an unholy abomination.

What? I mean seriously what? Do you think Russians we're better off under the Right-wing tsars? Because they really weren't. Civil Liberties have increased over the last 100 years in most countries, not decreased.

We had the two biggest wars mankind has ever seen over the last 100 years, do you think that might of had an influence on the world economy and the number of deaths? Yeah I know you blame Socialists for that to, but I'm far from convinced. Humans were still in constant conflict sometime before Socialism was on the scene.
Quote:

http://markhumphrys.com/modern.left.html


Following the links that say "100 million died for socialism" ends up at a section talking about Pinochet. Pinochet wasn't Socialist.
Further more he actually supports the idea that America has the right to invade any country she wishes. What he has to say about Soverenity:
"The United States must shatter this antiquated scam".
But who has the right to shatter the antiquated scam of Americas Soverenty? It reads like Mark thinks America has the right to tell the world how to act, while no one should dare tell America anything.
I especially like his assertions that the killing of Native Americans is all down to the Europeans...
Yet more seems to be inditment against religion.
I think he's a loony.
Quote:

let's invade - is at the best suboptimal, and possible out and out appalling.

I agree with that, but not that it's socialism.
Quote:

If, like me, you've studied socialism in action in depth, you know that naziism is a subset of it

Nazisim is a form of Fascism.

Chris:
Quote:

Do you think he's a 'bad guy', Fletch?

You know, in a lot of way's you could view him like that. I mean he shot a fed straight in the head... what would you think opun hearing a similar situation in the News?

He killed that Alliance pilot in Serenity, kinda goes contrary to what you'd expect of a hero, no?

Just throwing that out there.



More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:30 PM

DREAMTROVE


Violetrix,

Welcome to political pie throwing, watch out for the

It sounds like you're not a neocon.

Neocon is not a random term or simply a left wing pejorative. It's a very definite term with a very definite meaning and refers very definitely to a distinct group of people. It is a marked contrast to traditional conservative, or 'paleocon.'

Neocons grew out of the trotsky socialist movement, and the Bush admin IS a neocon. It's not a bad neocon, it's a very true to form neocon, this is what a neocon is supposed to be.

If like AJLynch you think newamericancentury.org is the ideal source of America's best course of action, if you like big govt., merger of corporation and govt. and the new world order, one world govt. etc. and your favorite president is Bush, then you may be a neocon.

If you think that American conservatism is defined as a school of thought which started with Jefferson, Adams and John Quincy Adams, and was consistant through TR, Taft Coolidge and Eisenhower, and to some extent Nixon, Ford and GHW Bush, then you're probably not a neocon.

Please read my post if you missed it, (and if it doesn't bore you.) Here it is again, on the origins of neocons:

Quote:

The term 'neocon' was coined by michael harrington, who was a member of the shachtman trotskyite movement in the 50s-70s. It refers to socialists who join the republican party. Litterally, 'neocon' is a type of socialist, the way 'nazi', 'communist' and 'green' are all types of socialist. Some socialists are obviously more objectionable than others. In particular, a neocon is a shachmanite, which is a type of trotskyite. A neocon is a republican, and usually a former social democrat. If they are still a democrat, they are a social democrat, and not a neocon.

Max Shachtman was a socialist leader in the American communist party (ACP) who left to lead the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

The short history is the ACP was started by pro-soviets in the '20s, and then broke with the soviets over Stalinism. After Stalin's death in '53, the ACP split. The two factions, the leninists who favored renewing ties with the USSR, stayed as the ACP, the trotskyites, who favored a continuing the divide with the USSR left and joined the SWP, and their leader, Max Shachtman, as its head.

The Shachtmanites later left the SWP to join the democrats, and became the social democrats. This group later split as a result of the failed "scoop" jackson campaign of '72. It was here that the ones called neocons decided to make the move towards the republican party.

The democrats decision to nominate a peace candidate was a sign that '68 had temporarily killed the democrat hawk, and that they might need to go elsewhere. War was always on the agenda, since the entire object of Trotskyism is global social revolution.

Trotskyism holds:

1. The perfect society can be designed.
2. The perfect society can implement the design through revolution.
3. Every country must have a revolution in order for the world to be free of opposition to the perfect idea.

Shachtmanism only differs from traditional Trotskyism in a few notable ways:

1. Compromise is not possible, because it corrupts the perfect idea.
2. Internal revolutions compromise with the revolutionaries, and thus should be avoided, the perfect idea needs the perfect army, typically the US army.
3. Temporary corruption is tolerable because the ends justify the means, and this corruption will be corrected later.
4. The Mussolini corporatism, merger of corporation and state, with one monopolistic corporation holding power over a function is superior to soviet state agencies, because if you lose power of the agency, it is controlled by your opponenent, whereas the entrenched monopoly is always controlled by you.
5. The world will ultimately be arranged into a hierachy of supernational entities such as the EU, Nafta, African Union, Asean, etc., which will be ruled via a compound majority.
6. Compound Majority is when 60% of voters in 60% of districts in 60% of provinces in 60% of nations in 60% of multi-national unions in the world support the agenda, you have a majority, even if it is only 2.5% of the world's population (assuming 1/2 of elligible people, ie. 1/3 of all people vote, as is typical)

The neocons may have been responsible for Nixon's fall, and Ford's rise, there's a lot of theory out there, this one I suspect to be true because of Ford's appointment of neocons. The later went on to create the Reagan campaign, wooing the christian right as an ally, and ousting frontrunner GHW Bush.

The attempted an alliance with Bush Sr. but it was touch and go, and later they came back with Bush Jr., a stooge totally under their control. These people, this group, is not a totally amorphous entity, but has always contained many of the same members, though there has been some fluidity to it, it contains Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeane Kirkpatrick, etc., the folks we now know as 'neocons.'

Important to note, a neocon is never even an implied conservative in the traditional sense, but a socialist supporter or the conservative political movement.

The other side of the neocons are those who stayed democrats, the social democrats, now calling themselves moderates, but are anything but, include people such as Lieberman, Clinton, DiFi and Ben Nelson, along with others. There is a fair amount of evidence that during the administration of Bush Sr., when neocon influence was ebbing, the neocons healed their split with the other social dems and assisted Bill Clinton to power.

The decision apparantly came during the Gulf War, when Bush Sr. refused to invade Iraq to take out Saddam, which had long been on the neocon agenda. By re-aligning themselves with their former allies in the social dems, the neocons helped to create the Clinton administration, and were routinely in his office, helping to form Clinton's Iraq policy.

PNAC is a fragment of the neocon movement which became disillusioned with the Clinton strategy in Iraq and formed in '98 to create a republican opposition, in George W. Bush.

Bush was taught how to be president by Condi Rice, a traditional republican, and then aided in his campaign by Karl Rove, also a more traditional republican, and then joined with Dick Cheney, a traditional neocon, and close ally of the Clinton Administration, to form the new republican-neocon ticket. Once in office the lion's share of the agenda has been more neo-con, and less traditionally republican.

This awkward dynamic of the two former members of the Shachtmanite camp, one republican, and one democrat, is what I blithely refer to as "Team Evil." It's not to say that there is no tension between the two mutant children, but they have an uncanny closeness which is more supportive of their other half than of their own respective parties, which is why Bush doesn't want a NY GOP member opposing Hillary for NY Senate '06, because a defeat there would more or less kill Hillary's presidential '08 chances.

My best guess is the current team evil plan is to run Ben Nelson/Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side, and oppose it with Newt Gingrich/Condi Rice on the other. Gingrich/Rice would throw the election, possibly by openly supporting Intelligent Design and some other well designed suicide platforms. In exchange for their part, Gingrich would probably become secretary of the treasury or some such, and Condi would probably be made CEO of Chevron/Texaco. Afterwords, the agenda would resume where it had left off, and Hillary would invade Iran.

Here's a good starting place for learning about these guys and their roots:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Shachtman





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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:34 PM

FLETCH2


DT, absolutely. That is exactly what the Civil War was about. If you look at any ongoing civil unrest the story is the same, you have a localised region where the majority of people have a different opinion from the majority of the larger political entity the region forms part of. They feel marginalised and feel they are better off on their own. The bigger entity though thinks otherwise, and seeks to follow through on the principles dictated to by its majority.

Inara VOTED for Unification. If it where a vote of every world and it came back 90/10 in favor, that could still mean that on some worlds it was 90/10 against, so which majority do you listen to the 10 billion that says yes or the 10 Million that says no? Do you ignore the 1 Million on the planet that did vote unification or not?

Now my personal belief is that if 90% in one place say no, they said no, and you leave it like that, but strictly speaking I'm ignoring the majority view of 10Billion voters and siding with a mere 10 million. Depending on the Constitution in place I may not even be allowed to let it ride.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:46 PM

CITIZEN


Inara never says she voted for Unification, she says she supported it. This probably means the samething as someone who supports the war in Iraq, i.e. they didn't vote for it but they don't disagree with it.



More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.

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