What good does the existence of a second party serve if said party is wrong?
Would it be terribly insulting if I were to doubt your sincerity? I know this is the Pit and all, but I am basically a polite guy.
I am utterly sincere.
Why doubt his sincerity? I’m willing to stipulate that he’s sincerely willing to love Big Brother in order to protect his freedom, just as the average Tea Partier is sincerely willing to vote for plutocrat hand-puppets in order to protect his economic interests or the average jihadi is sincerely willing to blow himself up in order to protect his people from the evil Zionist Imperialists.
There’s no reason to question his sincerity. The wisdom, perceptiveness, common sense, etc of his stated opinions, sure, go ahead and question those till the cows come home…
Two of these things are not like the other. The Tea Partier has been convinced to act against his own best interests by voting for people who profit off his poverty. The jihadist has been convinced to act against his own best interests by killing himself.
I act for my own best interests by supporting and upholding a state that is capable of keeping me alive, safe, and free.
Dammit, this is what I get for prematurely declaring something “stupid statement of the month”. :smack: Although you were wrong, Smeghead, I didn’t have to wait until page 7.
Well, you have to realise that although I’ve been on the SDMB for a few years, I normally confine myself to fatuous comments about soccer and occasional participation in “Ask a Brit a silly question” threads. So I haven’t really encountered this sort of…whatever it is before.
I mean, to advocate totalitarianism on the grounds that it is the best way to avoid totalitarianism? I’m kinda stunned by the logic.
Who’s advocating totalitarianism? I am a firm believer in democracy. The problem is that our democracy is under attack by people who would prefer to destroy all we hold dear in the name of their own short-term financial gain, who are exploiting our political system and the freedoms of speech and the press associated with it to further poison the minds of the people and brainwash them into supporting their own self-destruction.
Once those cancers have been removed from the body politic, then we will be able to fully enjoy the fruits of democratic society.
So, still feeling pretty good about that “calmer and coherent” observation, Velocity? If you want to walk it back, I think we’d all understand…
There is no contradiction between the two, which is why the Founders of the American Republic were suspicious of “democracy”. Their understanding of how easily it could become a pretext for totalitarian mob rule if the government wasn’t kept on a short tight leash was tragically confirmed before the century was over; Madame Guillotine proved to be a fast and efficient remover of “cancers” from the body politic…
Heck, at first even I thought Ron Paul was a cool old guy, until the inner lunacy shone through a bit more clearly.
So you would like the government to democratically snoop on citizens at every available opportunity (and a few further opportunities that aren’t currently available but that you hope will become so in the near future) and democratically imprison people who say things you don’t like?
Nope; all three are identical examples of a sucker tricked into giving away his interests on the pretext of preserving them.
I would like the government to snoop on citizens at every available opportunity in order to identify and apprehend criminals and enemies of democracy.
How is being alive, safe, and free against my best interests?
How is cutting the taxes on the fortune I’m gonna make once the dadgum gummint gets out of the way against my best interests?
How is foregoing the chance to earn the eternal favors of seventy-two virgins in Paradise against my best interests?
Now, would you like to answer those questions as posited, or would you like to remove the predetermined outcomes from them (no picking and choosing; it must be all three) and reframe them on a realistic basis?
The “Founders of the American Republic” were millionaire elitists who made their fortune by treating human beings as property, concocted a “revolution” because they didn’t want to pay their taxes, sought out to create a system of government where they would be the only people ever allowed to decide who was in charge and what the laws should be, and convinced the undereducated people to support them with vague slogans about liberty.
And the French were on the right track until they succumbed to the cult of personality and let Napoleon take over and destroy all the progress they’d made.
The low taxes don’t exist.
The seventy-two virgins don’t exist.
The life, safety, and freedom I currently enjoy do exist.
There, you see? Da big bad Snowden and da big nasty Greenwald didn’t bring the scarey brown people to kill you after all!
Holy carp, I was joking with that Der Trihs comparison…
Who defines “enemies of democracy”?
But you’re not high. And I should question why I’m so certain that no sober person would agree with your beliefs. Got it.