The Fugs
It really was.
I mean, fundamentally capitalism is a system of relations of production. And the dominant mode of relations of production in the Soviet Union was employment by someone else, at a time and place chosen by someone else, doing tasks chosen by someone else in a manner devised by someone else, in a physical environment created by someone else, for a wage chosen by someone else that only represented a fraction of the value that one’s labor produced.
In other words, capitalism.
Capitalism, with the state as monopoly capitalist.
He didn’t either, he believed he had discovered a force of history, an inevitable and implacable force that existed outside of the metaphysics of morality. It was objective science, a fact rather than an inspiration. That was to be the force of his argument, not that it was just, but that it was inevitable. Its wasn’t good or bad, it was science.
Friend Beren Erchamion has announced himself a Communist, a position that I cannot take seriously on any political spectrum, any more than I can accept predestinarian Calvinism as a legitimate subset of Christianity.
He was certainly personally sympathetic to the workers’ movement, but he justified his social theory on “scientific” grounds. In that regard, of course, he was wrong (we don’t call Marxism the pinnacle of high modernism for nothing)–the justification for communism isn’t “scientific” but moral–it’s simply the implementation of Christ’s call to love one’s neighbor as oneself.
So what do you suggest?
Employment by self, at a time and place chosen by self, doing tasks chosen by self, in a manner devised by self, in a physical environment created by self, for a wage chosen by self?
Such a country would be lucky to last a week.
You are a self-avowed Communist. 
Are you saying Bricker is a perspicacious pile of poo? Pshaw!
…well, perhaps he is but he’s polished, prepared and out performs most people with whom he’s polemic.
No, it really wasn’t. The fundamental principal of capitalism is that the means of production and trade are owned by private individuals. The Soviet Union controlled AND owned both the means of production and trade. Sure, they had some small aspects of capitalism…basically it was the only part of their economy that worked when they allowed people to grow crops and do some small scale work privately. But it takes some serious mental contortions to attempt to spin what the Soviet Union (or China) into ‘capitalist as fuck’. I realize you want to do a No True Scotsman thingy, deflecting from the bad aspects of communism by saying they weren’t REAL communists while attempting to associate modern (American) right wingers with Hitler, but as I said you can’t have it both ways. Hitler was no more like modern American right wingers than Stalin and Mao are really like modern (American) left wingers…but left wingers and liberals LOVE to play the Hitler game so I’m happy to play along.
At any rate, this isn’t a debate nor is it the forum for debate…this is the forum for insults, but I can’t bring myself do any gratuitous insults at this point. If you would like to debate whether the Soviet Union was ‘capitalist as fuck’, feel free to start a debate in GD or maybe Elections and I’ll be happy to respond…as I’m sure would a lot of other people. It might be amusing to see how you could possibly spin things to demonstrate that either Mao era China or Stalin era Russia was ‘capitalist as fuck’, so I hope you take up the challenge.
I suppose that’s a fair reading, but the point I am trying to make is that Lenin and, to a greater degree, Stalin pursued the philosophy not for the philosophy itself, but for their own power.
I think that’s an over-simplification. Bricker is very intelligent, generally honest, and refreshingly willing to consider opposing viewpoints and change his mind when convinced. Many of my most satisfying SDMB debates have been with him, and I’ve learned a lot.
That said, he has some fairly irritating characteristics:
(1) He’s FAR too quick to play the let’s-point-out-the-liberal-hypocrisy card, even when it’s a very very tenuous comparison, and not remotely germaine to the main topic under conversation
(2) He has a frequently-observed tendency to skitter back and forth between discussions of what is legal and what is right/good. He could save an awful lot of hamsters by saying “hey, I think was a terrible idea, I wish it hadn’t happened, I deplore, it, but I do think it’s legal because x, y and z” rather than saying “this is totally fine”, or something along those lines. Because people read the second, and some of them (understandably, particularly in a heated conversation about an emotionally fraught topic) assume that he’s saying that he supports what happened, ie, thinks it’s a good idea, is in favor of it, wants it to happen more. And then they attack him for that. And then he gets to smugly point out how much better informed he is about the legality of the situation than they are, when, frequently, they didn’t even care about the legality of the situation. (Which of course doesn’t mean that they don’t think legality matters IN GENERAL, just that at this precise moment, in this precise thread, that’s not what they wish to be discussing.)
He is certainly NOT, however, a pile of shit sculpted into human shape. I find his presence on this board to be a massive overall net positive, and wish we had more of him.
He pretends to be this decent guy, but he argues evil things. He pretends to adhere to the same morals as we do, but then makes large circumlocutions to allow him to justify things that don’t fit those moral principles. He lets slip his partisan leanings all the time, while pretending not to be partisan. Oh, and the projection is obvious every time he goes after liberal hypocrisy.
He is also an asshole who thinks he’s right all the time and lectures everyone. It’s the same reason people hate me. He refuses to engage as he is, someone who is approaching a hostile audience, and instead of trying to work with us, loves to just poke fun and annoy.
And that’s not even getting started with his religion. He uses that as a refuge all the time, but ignores when conservatism is at odds with his faith. Sure, he can cling to it for abortion to be wrong, but he ignores it when Jesus said to heal the sick and give to the poor.
Instead he makes up contradictory bullshit about how he can believe what the Bible says but then still think that doing the opposite is better for the government.
And then there’s his textualism, which is the same thing as Biblical literalism, which his religion rejects. But he’s all for it when dealing with the law. He even admits he’s being “lawful neutral” when, inhernetly, a Christian must be lawful good.
Also, he’s a defense attorney who has argued that he has an obligation to fight for someone he knows is guilty to be declared innocent. This is more of his “lawful neutral” idea, that he prefers legalism to morality. Because of this, he is guilty of any subsequent actions by these people, so he is probably guilty of murder.
Just because he’s smarter than the average guy and can put forth a more convincing front doesn’t make him less awful. Sure, there are people here who are worse, but most of them can be ignored, while Bricker’s arguments look superficially good and thus we have to dismantle them.
Oh, and the argument being made is perfectly sound. Antifederalism doesn’t cause lives to be lost, nor is there an argument that what it does is worse than death. So it is perfectly permissible to put up the lives and say that Bricker is completely dismissing them with his arguments.
Finally, I disagree politically with my parents and friends. I don’t merely disagree politically with Bricker. Sure, he’s not Trump or Trump supporter bad, but I do think he ultimately is an immoral person.
That’s why he refuses to argue morals and pretends they can be different for different people. He has no moral center of his own, so he assumes that’s the same for everyone else.
He is, ultimately, a Pharisee.
Still don’t think he’s quite a “pile of shit,” though. There are tons of people worse than him, and there’s not too much farther to go if you push that far down. But, this is the Pit, and people are deliberately exaggerating.
And I know I mixed my own problems with him and the problems I think the board has with him, as I’m sure none of them care about the Christian thing like I do. I’m a Christian who became a liberal because I realized that U.S. conservatism was incompatible with Christianity and its core tenants.
It’s far easier to dismiss someone who doesn’t put on a veneer of respectability, so they are less likely to get under people’s skins.
I do actually think that, unlike some other posters, Bricker is still reachable. He has changes over time. But that doesn’t make him any less irritating.
That wasn’t a math error:
My error was relying on a citation that I quoted at the time with wrong (non-final) figures. It was an error, it was my error, but it wasn’t a math error.
This might be the craziest post ever made on these boards by a non-troll/loony.
You realize that as a defense attorney he is legally obligated to serve the complete and sole interests of his client, right? How the hell is that immoral? And, unlike you, he has not advocated violence to acheive his political goals.
Well, I guess no violence, outside of his razor-sharp wit.
Is the average public defender guilty of jaywalking, robbery, larceny, arson, fraud, vandalism, DUI, prostitution, drug trafficking, indecent exposure, assault and battery, then?
Morals different for different people? What a zany idea that’s whacky! Everyone agrees on morals, like:
Look again, sparky. You did have the correct figures for Wisconsin, but asserted that 31,072 was a smaller number than 22,748. Guess you’ve got reading problems as well, counselor. But hey, sick burn on the ‘stupid’ crack.
OK. It was a math error. It was swapping correct figures, rather than a calculation error.
I have to say that this is not normally what I’d call a math error, but sure. It was a math error.
I have great respect for Bricker’s knowledge of the law, somewhat less for his debate tactics, rather less than that for his knowledge of economics and human nature, and none at all for his apparent lack of empathy for those less fortunate.