the Individual or the Collective??

[wildorchid]

@Marley23

I’m not reviewing five pages of your posts to show you things you wrote yourself..

then dont tell me i’m wrong in some vague sense if youre not willing to back it up with specifics.
thnx

when other users have made fallacious arguments here, i have pointed it out on the spot numerous times. (ie. bringing aircraft into it)
its either on the score card or its not.
saying ‘i think you made a fallacious argument, but can’t remember where’ doesnt count.

[eschereal]

@wildorchid

] yes, there is something Marxist about it; >>> 2 classes: the people, and the polit-buro. no middle class..
the people get dumped on. they get promises, and thats it/ they live at subsistance level with no oppurtunity of upward mobility; the elite .01% live in luxury.
this is the direction we are headed in. not saying we are there yet.

One way or the other. What you have failed to show is how individualist ideology would be likely to yield a different result. Under collectivism, the people suffer under the thumb of a tyrannical government, under individualism, the people are free to suffer. Either structure produces elites and ultimately desiccates the middle class, the net effect is the same. You have failed to demonstrate how one is better than the other – except for some incoherent mumblings about “Core American Values”.

[wildorchid]

Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist
Avoidance. They never actually discuss issues head-on or provide constructive input, generally avoiding citation of references or credentials. Rather, they merely imply this, that, and the other. Virtually everything about their presentation implies their authority and expert knowledge in the matter without any further justification for credibility.

Teamwork. They tend to operate in self-congratulatory and complementary packs or teams. Of course, this can happen naturally in any public forum, but there will likely be an ongoing pattern of frequent exchanges of this sort where professionals are involved. Sometimes one of the players will infiltrate the opponent camp to become a source for straw man or other tactics designed to dilute opponent presentation strength.

Anti-conspiratorial. They almost always have disdain for ‘conspiracy theorists’ and, usually, for those who in any way believe JFK was not killed by LHO. Ask yourself why, if they hold such disdain for conspiracy theorists, do they focus on defending a single topic discussed in a NG focusing on conspiracies? One might think they would either be trying to make fools of everyone on every topic, or simply ignore the group they hold in such disdain.Or, one might more rightly conclude they have an ulterior motive for their actions in going out of their way to focus as they do.
Inconsistent. There is also a tendency to make mistakes which betray their true self/motives. This may stem from not really knowing their topic, or it may be somewhat ‘freudian’, so to speak, in that perhaps they really root for the side of truth deep within.

[BrainGlutton]

@wildorchid

of course, and a high level one, too…
how else did he know what he was painting a picture of??
he wasn’t using his imagination.

No, he was modeling Oceania on the Soviet Union.

[wildorchid]

One way or the other. What you have failed to show is how individualist ideology would be likely to yield a different result. Under collectivism, the people suffer under the thumb of a tyrannical government, under individualism, the people are free to suffer. Either structure produces elites and ultimately desiccates the middle class, the net effect is the same. You have failed to demonstrate how one is better than the other – except for some incoherent mumblings about “Core American Values”.

fixed your post;

if american vaules are incoherent to you, you have proven my point for me.

if you are interested in the the values i was raised with, just ask about it.
i promise to make it crystal clear…

[jayjay]

@wildorchid

Teamwork. They tend to operate in self-congratulatory and complementary packs or teams. Of course, this can happen naturally in any public forum, but there will likely be an ongoing pattern of frequent exchanges of this sort where professionals are involved. Sometimes one of the players will infiltrate the opponent camp to become a source for straw man or other tactics designed to dilute opponent presentation strength.

See, if you weren’t an Individualist, you could have teammates, too!

Frankly, I can’t wait for the day when all of these tough, rugged Individualists all pull a Unabomber and go live by themselves in a shack in the woods instead of loudly complaining about collectivism as they drive on the roads, enjoy the protection of the police and firefighters, collect their Social Security and use their Medicare, and otherwise live a full 21st Century life which was pretty much all created by some form of that despised collectivism.

[wildorchid]

@Marley23

Can. Won’t bother.

/

you lose that one then…

[jayjay]

@wildorchid

fixed your post;

if american vaules are incoherent to you, you have proven my point for me.

if you are interested in the the values i was raised with, just ask about it.
i promise to make it crystal clear…

Let’s see…the values I, an American, was raised with include compassion, sharing, kindness, a recognition of the strength derived from diversity, and an abhorrence of hatred. Also, hard work, responsibility (including my responsibility to support my country with taxes and my responsibility to try to help my fellow human beings), and love of country (which doesn’t mean blind patriotism).

[wildorchid]

@jayjay

See, if you weren’t an Individualist, you could have teammates, too!

Frankly, I can’t wait for the day when all of these tough, rugged Individualists all pull a Unabomber and go live by themselves in a shack in the woods instead of loudly complaining about collectivism as they drive on the roads, enjoy the protection of the police and firefighters, collect their Social Security and use their Medicare, and otherwise live a full 21st Century life which was pretty much all created by some form of that despised collectivism.

] Individualism doesnt mean that individuals can’t interact in a free market, and in a voluntary way.

] you really think your that income taxes go to pay for the roads in your county?

] 21st century life?? what is that? [agenda 21?]
do you realize that you are bashing Americas heritage?

if you feel that way, then i suggest that you move to N Korea where the collectivist state is in more full swing, you will obv have it much better there. its a utopia…

[Marley23]

@wildorchid

fixed your post;

You can’t do this either. Do not edit text inside the quote tags.

[BrainGlutton]

@wildorchid

he was in elite society, and had access to elite think-tank types, social engineers…
he knew the game plan, and leaked it out in the form of fiction.

Orwell would have laughed bitterly at the idea that the stupid British ruling elite of his day had any “social engineers,” or that the feckless-and-powerless British left-intellectuals of his day had any “game plan”!

From The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius (1941):

Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there. One of the dominant facts in English life during the past three quarters of a century has been the decay of ability in the ruling class.

In the years between 1920 and 1940 it was happening with the speed of a chemical reaction. Yet at the moment of writing it is still possible to speak of a ruling class. Like the knife which has had two new blades and three new handles, the upper fringe of English society is still almost what it was in the mid nineteenth century. After 1832 the old land-owning aristocracy steadily lost power, but instead of disappearing or becoming a fossil they simply intermarried with the merchants, manufacturers and financiers who had replaced them, and soon turned them into accurate copies of themselves. The wealthy ship owner or cotton-miller set up for himself an alibi as a country gentleman, while his sons learned the right mannerisms at public schools which had been designed for just that purpose. England was ruled by an aristocracy constantly recruited from parvenus. And considering what energy the self-made men possessed, and considering that they were buying their way into a class which at any rate had a tradition of public service, one might have expected that able rulers could be produced in some such way.

And yet somehow the ruling class decayed, lost its ability, its daring, finally even its ruthlessness, until a time came when stuffed shirts like Eden or Halifax could stand out as men of exceptional talent. As for Baldwin, one could not even dignify him with the name of stuffed shirt. He was simply a hole in the air. The mishandling of England’s domestic problems during the nineteen-twenties had been bad enough, but British foreign policy between 1931 and 1939 is one of the wonders of the world. Why? What had happened? What was it that at every decisive moment made every British statesman do the wrong thing with so unerring an instinct?

The underlying fact was that the whole position of the moneyed class had long ceased to be justifiable. There they sat, at the centre of a vast empire and a world-wide financial network, drawing interest and profits and spending them–on what? It was fair to say that life within the British Empire was in many ways better than life outside it. Still, the Empire was underdeveloped, India slept in the Middle Ages, the Dominions lay empty, with foreigners jealously barred out, and even England was full of slums and unemployment. Only half a million people, the people in the country houses, definitely benefited from the existing system. Moreover, the tendency of small businesses to merge together into large ones robbed more and more of the moneyed class of their function and turned them into mere owners, their work being done for them by salaried managers and technicians. For long past there had been in England an entirely functionless class, living on money that was invested they hardly knew where, the ‘idle rich’, the people whose photographs you can look at in the TATLER and the BYSTANDER, always supposing that you want to. The existence of these people was by any standard unjustifiable. They were simply parasites, less useful to society than his fleas are to a dog.

By 1920 there were many people who were aware of all this. By 1930 millions were aware of it. But the British ruling class obviously could not admit to themselves that their usefulness was at an end. Had they done that they would have had to abdicate. For it was not possible for them to turn themselves into mere bandits, like the American millionaires, consciously clinging to unjust privileges and beating down opposition by bribery and tear-gas bombs. After all, they belonged to a class with a certain tradition, they had been to public schools where the duty of dying for your country, if necessary, is laid down as the first and greatest of the Commandments. They had to FEEL themselves true patriots, even while they plundered their countrymen. Clearly there was only one escape for them–into stupidity. They could keep society in its existing shape only by being UNABLE to grasp that any improvement was possible. Difficult though this was, they achieved it, largely by fixing their eyes on the past and refusing to notice the changes that were going on round them.

But the general weakening of imperialism, and to some extent of the whole British morale, that took place during the nineteen-thirties, was partly the work of the left-wing intelligentsia, itself a kind of growth that had sprouted from the stagnation of the Empire.

It should be noted that there is now no intelligentsia that is not in some sense ‘left’. Perhaps the last right-wing intellectual was T. E. Lawrence. Since about 1930 everyone describable as an ‘intellectual’ has lived in a state of chronic discontent with the existing order. Necessarily so, because society as it was constituted had no room for him. In an Empire that was simply stagnant, neither being developed nor falling to pieces, and in an England ruled by people whose chief asset was their stupidity, to be ‘clever’ was to be suspect. If you had the kind of brain that could understand the poems of T. S. Eliot or the theories of Karl Marx, the higher-ups would see to it that you were kept out of any important job. The intellectuals could find a function for themselves only in the literary reviews and the left-wing political parties.

The mentality of the English left-wing intelligentsia can be studied in half a dozen weekly and monthly papers. The immediately striking thing about all these papers is their generally negative, querulous attitude, their complete lack at all times of any constructive suggestion. There is little in them except the irresponsible carping of people who have never been and never expect to be in a position of power. Another marked characteristic is the emotional shallowness of people who live in a world of ideas and have little contact with physical reality. Many intellectuals of the Left were flabbily pacifist up to 1935, shrieked for war against Germany in the years 1935-9, and then promptly cooled off when the war started. It is broadly though not precisely true that the people who were most ‘anti-Fascist’ during the Spanish Civil War are most defeatist now. And underlying this is the really important fact about so many of the English intelligentsia–their severance from the common culture of the country.

[Marley23]

@wildorchid

if you feel that way, then i suggest that you move to N Korea where the collectivist state is in more full swing, you will obv have it much better there. its a utopia…

There’s the “excluded middle” I was talking about. A particularly overwrought example at that.

[wildorchid]

rules of disinformation
Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don’t discuss it – especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it’s not reported, it didn’t happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.

] dont acknowledge that Mao was a collectivist (collectivist, Marxist, communist, w/e killed 80 million. Stalin, Hitler, ditto. they didnt exist, or if the did they werent collectivist (collectivism: where the individual is hated/ counts for nothing)
Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method which works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such ‘arguable rumors’. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a ‘wild rumor’ from a ‘bunch of kids on the Internet’ which can have no basis in fact.

] orchid was wrong, but i’m not sure where and when, can’t come up with it, but ‘hey everybody, orchid is a kook’.
Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary ‘attack the messenger’ ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as ‘kooks’, ‘right-wing’, ‘liberal’, ‘left-wing’, ‘terrorists’, ‘conspiracy buffs’, ‘radicals’, ‘militia’, ‘racists’, ‘religious fanatics’, ‘sexual deviates’, and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.

] marginalize the one who is straying from party line with personal attacks; attacks on credibility;

Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough ‘jargon’ and ‘minutia’ to illustrate you are ‘one who knows’, and simply say it isn’t so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.

"I’m a lawyer’ ; “i’m a philosophy professor” … even if these claims are true; who cares??

Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards or with an apparent deductive logic which forbears any actual material fact.

] the tenets of the communist manifesto arent communist.

Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can ‘argue’ with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues.

]red herring after red herring to avoid addressing the OP which was in a nutshell; ‘collectivism sucks’… instead we are arguing everything but not willing to acknowledge the OP.
Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can’t do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how ‘sensitive they are to criticism.’

] black helicopters menetioned. ‘black helicoptery’ is used to describe a position…
Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the ‘play dumb’ rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon.) In order to completely avoid discussing issues, it may be required that you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any
meaning or relevance.

] what references? >>> the suicide of Laura Marx, the communist manifesto? Fabian society journal praising Obama? UN Agenda 21 document? UN Vancouver document bashing private property. (page 28).
what references?

Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.

] American values are as intact as they have ever been, or are even stronger.
yeah, and the tooth fairy is real, too?

Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.

] still have to wear the rest of you down first…

[Marley23]

@wildorchid

still have to wear the rest of you down first…

That seems to be your only goal at this point.

[wildorchid]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_excluded_middle

@Marley23

There’s the “excluded middle” I was talking about. A particularly overwrought example at that.

no, its not. excluded middle means black and white thinking
: it’s either/or thinking when there is in reality a spectrum.
:a false dichotomy.

N Korea is towards one end of the spectrum, thats all.

excluded middle doesnt mean you dont call a spade a spade.

N. Korea can be identified as offering less personal freedoms to its citizens than other countries. this isnt a fallacy. we are allowed to do this using the law of identity.

[BrainGlutton]

@wildorchid

from an informal panel of experts here, i’m seeing a lot of this…

www.nowandfutures.com/spew_tools.html

Whatever that is, it ain’t no panel of experts.

[BrainGlutton]

@wildorchid

I’m the one to be singled out; i dont go along with the ‘party line’…

Oh, yes you do. And it seems to be the Tea Party line, mostly, to the extent there is one.

[wildorchid]

@Marley23

That seems to be your only goal at this point.

re-read OP please.

its to get you pull your head out of the sand, and to wake up to reality.

a black boot with ‘hello kitty’ on it is still a black boot.

some will only realize this, apparently, when it’s on their neck…
i think people subconsciously go along with fascism thinking that it will be ok, they will get to be the ones wearing the black boots, so it’s cool.
this certainly happened in nazi germany.

the Stanford prison experiment, and the Yale Milgram experiment on authority underline this sad reality about human nature. people are willing to go along with evil, if they get to participate in it. their error is in thinking that this participation will give them a get out of jail free card…

[BrainGlutton]

@wildorchid

individualists don’t do this… they say ‘interesting opinion’, and respect others views…

In that case, you are no individualist.

[BrainGlutton]

@Marley23

I’m not reviewing five pages of your posts to show you things you wrote yourself. Like I said, you don’t pay attention when people point out you’re mistaken anyway.

A classic-slapstick PRATTfall indeed.