Thread: The problems facing modern Socialists

Originally Posted by jew_unit

Oh look, no answer from Bugsy despite him being online for a while yesterday and this evening. MY bet is that he'll stay quiet until someone else puts up something that he can 'easily' knock down using twisted logic, and he'll completely ignore Carpe, Xerxes and myself.

No he's busy trying to translate the above post in to one of three languages he has learned over the years, then translate it in to Zulu and using google translate it to engrish and appear clever.

Bugsy is an academic twunt, never lifted more then his heid from a pillow, admires David Furnish, and is waiting for Fat Teddy Kennedy to blow him before Fat Teddy pops his clogs.

There's just no pleasing you, is there, mush. First you post this:

Originally Posted by jew_unit

[Bugsy, please don't answer this. I prefer speaking to Barratt as he puts his points in plain english and argues cogently and coherently.]

Then, even though I comply, you post this:

Originally Posted by jew_unit

Oh look, no answer from Bugsy despite him being online for a while yesterday and this evening. MY bet is that he'll stay quiet until someone else puts up something that he can 'easily' knock down using twisted logic, and he'll completely ignore Carpe, Xerxes and myself.

Which was inevitably picked up by the ARRSE resident Cletus, who posted this:

Originally Posted by ctauch

Originally Posted by jew_unit

Oh look, no answer from Bugsy despite him being online for a while yesterday and this evening. MY bet is that he'll stay quiet until someone else puts up something that he can 'easily' knock down using twisted logic, and he'll completely ignore Carpe, Xerxes and myself.

No he's busy trying to translate the above post in to one of three languages he has learned over the years, then translate it in to Zulu and using google translate it to engrish and appear clever.

Bugsy is an academic twunt, never lifted more then his heid from a pillow, admires David Furnish, and is waiting for Fat Teddy Kennedy to blow him before Fat Teddy pops his clogs.

Actually, Cletus, I think you’ll find it's seven languages I've learned, but I assume you must have worked (badly) in a sawmill at some stage, since you don't appear able to count above three. But you can’t even manage the language you grew up with, let alone three. That's also why you probably forgot (or never knew) that "into" is a compound preposition.

Jew_unit: I’m not asking for easy questions and I’d love you to actually indicate where I've used “twisted logic�. Unless you mean where I've provided answers that you don’t like, that don’t conform to your prepared (and entirely predictable) questions.

What you want (need) is for me to go off on some illogical rant about how wonderful the USSR, East Germany, Poland, indeed all the so-called Socialist/Communist countries were/are, so that you can throw in all the usual Capitalist propaganda about how negative and inhumane they were. Well, I’m sorry, I can’t do that because I entirely agree with a lot of that propaganda; with the difference that I've actually "been there and done it" and thus know what's true or false, as opposed to you, who's just naively swallowed all the horrific stories wholesale without further contemplation. Although I (personally) find that a bit strange, since you seem to be a person with a modicum of intelligence. Still, things are as they are.

It strikes me that you’re being entirely too antagonistic and confrontational about the whole subject and I've a very good idea why. But it you really want a proper, mature discussion, then don’t arrogantly act as if you’re the only person in the world who's swallowed the knowledge pill and now you’ve got to spend your precious time convincing poor misguided Bugsy that he’s wrong and you’re right. You’ve not made much of a job of that to date, and putting forward the quite laughable and simplistic argument that Capitalism has no fundamental flaws is taking things to extremes.

If you really and honestly believe that in the face of the crushing evidence to the contrary, then we're probably done here and we'll never agree on anything. But if you just inserted it as a teaser, I’d appreciate a little elucidation on the point.

MsG

PS. The abbreviation “MsG� has nothing to do with my name. It's the equivalent of "Regards" and the full version is "Mit sozialistischem Gruß" – With Socialist greetings. Just thought you might like to know.

Another problem facing modern socialists is that they have nobody to represent - the old working class has fragmented. Some became the underclass who don't bother voting, while the rest work in service industries and have middle class aspirations.

A big generalisation I know; but I think there is a lot of truth in it.

If it hadn't been for Teflon Tony with his charismatic presidential style leadership, and soundbite slogans, Labour would have withered and died.

tom,

I find it deeply and deliciously ironic that a large proportion of the so-called "proletariat" are now the ones profiting from and living off (and therefore exploiting) the labour of the middle classes.

Yet further proof that Marxism is contrived beaulocks.

Originally Posted by Bugsy

It strikes me that you’re being entirely too antagonistic and confrontational about the whole subject and I've a very good idea why. But it you really want a proper, mature discussion, then don’t arrogantly act as if you’re the only person in the world who's swallowed the knowledge pill and now you’ve got to spend your precious time convincing poor misguided Bugsy that he’s wrong and you’re right. You’ve not made much of a job of that to date, and putting forward the quite laughable and simplistic argument that Capitalism has no fundamental flaws is taking things to extremes.



MsG

PS. The abbreviation “MsG� has nothing to do with my name. It's the equivalent of "Regards" and the full version is "Mit sozialistischem Gruß" – With Socialist greetings. Just thought you might like to know.

Saying that capitalism has no 'fundamental' flaws is my way of trying to point out that the flaws do not cause the collapse of the system. Unlike you, I have acknowledged serious flaws in my preferred system rather than blindly regarding it as perfect. Sadly for you, any flaws in socilism cause the system to fail.

As for asking Barratt to answer a question I put to him, rather than having you answer it, why is that a problem when I put different questions to you?

After all that, there is still no answer to my question. This is exactly the point I have been making.

Fti. (Futue te Ipsum!)

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Originally Posted by Bugsy

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Learn history. The activity of "Capitalists� has always been regulated. Working hours, opening hours, quality of goods, wages, duties and rights have been regulated for centuries.

Learn history? Right! So according to your “history� Capitalists just upped and said that they were going to implement all of the things you mentioned out of the goodness of their hearts? I don’t fückin’ think so, buddy.

Really.............Let me see.....The regulation weight of a loaf of bread or the quality of beer, 2 prime staples of diet, was set in EVERY single sizable town across the whole of medieval Europe. The earliest recorded legal documents in England are early 13th Century. During the whole of the this period the Crown would ban the sale of wheat and barley for beer producation during times of poor havest. Hours of work were set in local law, with clearly laid out start and finish times and time set aside for lunch, upwards of 3 hours in summer.

The amount of work that could be done by peasants on their Lord's lands were clearly laid out and the duties of the Lords were also clearly laid out. If a tenant performed work on the Lord's land, the Landowner had to fed the tenant. Breaches of these rights and duties were just as frequently punished. Why do you think the best English Kings made so much effort to ensure that the Courts and the Judges roamed the land ? because they damm well knew that a)it's a good way to put presure on landowners and b) if they didn't, it got very messy. Landowners also knew that pissing off tenants meant no tenants.
Why do you think that laws were passed legalising the status of serfs who ran away?

No response then?

Originally Posted by barrett

Originally Posted by jew_unit

Originally Posted by barrett

Originally Posted by jew_unit

Originally Posted by barrett

Interestingly, it is not socialism that has brought us to the brink of financial disaster - but unregulated capitalism.

Although the bankers who have caused this crisis seem to have no problem with taxpayers subsidising their losses - certainly not an earmark of pure capitalism and the mythical 'level playing field'.

Unregulated capitalism leads to boom and bust, which is why nobody in thier right mind advocates a true free market.

However, Capitalism survives problems like depressions whilst Socialism cannot survive even momentary discontent of the people...

My bold.
Mate - there has never been - and never will be - anything but unregulated capitalism (an excuse for the elite to plunder the world's resources) - that is its fatal flaw (as far as the non-elite are concerned!)

What exactly are those regulations that they are putting in place then, as well as the many to which they are simply a small addition?

Capitalism doesn't have a fundamental flaw. If it did, then we would have got rid of it over the many hundreds of years that it has existed since we moved on from feudalism. Socialism, on the other hand, has many fundamental flaws which explains why it took much less than 50 years for the majority of Socailist/Communits states to collapse.

The problem is that the regulations in banking to prevent a crises like the one we are living with were substantially weakened in recent years. Previously (in US) deregulation of capitalism led to the savings and loan crisis and later, allowed Enron to hide its debt and inflate its profits - devastating employees and stockholders.
And yes, capitalism does have a fundamental flaw - it leads to a vast inequality in income where the wealthy have most of the political power and use the earth's resources for the good of themselves, and not the vast majority of its denizens.

I though part of the blame lay with badly educated Democratics pressuring US Banks to lend money to people said US banks would not have touched with a barge pole..

Surely you don't actually expect one, do you, Kit?!

Bugsy hasn't responded to a number of posters who have posed questions or statements that destroy his views. He simply falls back on the age-old practice for the intellectually bankrupt of ignoring that which he can not refute.

He also has neither provided any evidence to support his accusation of malpractice by aid agencies, nor withdrawn the accusation. Can we sue him for slander or libel?! (I can never remember the difference)

Socialism is for people who can't be arrsed to work, they want equal distribution of wealth without lifting a finger, however my company is seriously suffering at the moment can't see any socialists wanting to help me out financially....but they would be more than happy to take when the going gets good again...I say that because as a capitalist I am alway's seeking opportunity...because i can be arrsed to do so.

Also modern socialists are most likely to be out on strike for higher pay when the company is struggling...Like BA for instance rather than knuckling down to see how you can help your company in the long term the workforce is simply sending customers to their competetors.


Socialists.....if you want a Range Rover like mine...become a capitalist

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

[
I though part of the blame lay with badly educated Democratics pressuring US Banks to lend money to people said US banks would not have touched with a barge pole..

Aye, one of the biggest myths around is that of the "deregulation" of the financial services industry, especially compared to around 30 years ago when it genuinely was lightly regulated. It's probably the most highly regulated industry aside from medicine.

Any discussion of the financial crisis without mention of the Carter era "Communities Reinvestment Act", which was put on steroids by Clinton, is purely dishonest.

The CRA mandated that banks and lending institutions had to give mortgages to people who, as you say, they would not have touched with a barge pole unless forced, on pains of being called racist and being sued.

To try to limit their exposure to these federally mandated bad loans, the clever chaps came up with all the exotic financial products which repackaged these loans, to spread the risk around a bit, and make some money on the side.

This was fine in a bull market with ever increasing house prices, and frankly can you blame them from trying to make as much money as they possibly could out of what was objectively a bad deal that the government had mandated through regulation, while the going was good?

Unfortunately, a house price fall causes the whole house of cards to collapse and all the Marxist nutters come back out of the woodwork.

So the current "crisis" is not due to "unregulated capitalism", it is the unintended consequence of regulation forcing financial companies into doing something that, had the regulation not been there, they would not have been doing at all.

No CRA = no crisis now.

Originally Posted by stoatman

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

[
I though part of the blame lay with badly educated Democratics pressuring US Banks to lend money to people said US banks would not have touched with a barge pole..

Aye, one of the biggest myths around is that of the "deregulation" of the financial services industry, especially compared to around 30 years ago when it genuinely was lightly regulated. It's probably the most highly regulated industry aside from medicine.

Any discussion of the financial crisis without mention of the Carter era "Communities Reinvestment Act", which was put on steroids by Clinton, is purely dishonest.

The CRA mandated that banks and lending institutions had to give mortgages to people who, as you say, they would not have touched with a barge pole unless forced, on pains of being called racist and being sued.

To try to limit their exposure to these federally mandated bad loans, the clever chaps came up with all the exotic financial products which repackaged these loans, to spread the risk around a bit, and make some money on the side.

This was fine in a bull market with ever increasing house prices, and frankly can you blame them from trying to make as much money as they possibly could out of what was objectively a bad deal that the government had mandated through regulation, while the going was good?

Unfortunately, a house price fall causes the whole house of cards to collapse and all the Marxist nutters come back out of the woodwork.

So the current "crisis" is not due to "unregulated capitalism", it is the unintended consequence of regulation forcing financial companies into doing something that, had the regulation not been there, they would not have been doing at all.

No CRA = no crisis now.

And Barney "Elmer Fudd" Frank is back at it trying to pressure lending institutions into lending money to low income people so they may buy condos. The cunts in DC failed to completely destroy the banking industry and nationalize it so they are going to take another stab...

Originally Posted by Bugsy

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Learn history. The activity of "Capitalists� has always been regulated. Working hours, opening hours, quality of goods, wages, duties and rights have been regulated for centuries.

Learn history? Right! So according to your “history� Capitalists just upped and said that they were going to implement all of the things you mentioned out of the goodness of their hearts? I don’t fückin’ think so, buddy.

OK, now that everybody seems to be back in the mix, let me provide a few answer to this stuff because it’s obvious that you’ve a set of short-sighted premises that are at odds with the reality of the situation at that time; instead seeing everything being done in the best interests of the working wo/man. That was never the case. Let’s start with this one:

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Really.............Let me see.....The regulation weight of a loaf of bread or the quality of beer, 2 prime staples of diet, was set in EVERY single sizable town across the whole of medieval Europe. The earliest recorded legal documents in England are early 13th Century. During the whole of the this period the Crown would ban the sale of wheat and barley for beer producation during times of poor havest. Hours of work were set in local law, with clearly laid out start and finish times and time set aside for lunch, upwards of 3 hours in summer.

In a time when populations were regularly devastated by plagues, famines and the like, it was necessary to introduce a set of fundamental measures to ensure that the available workforce was in a fit state to work on the lands of the gentry. The folks doing all the heavy lifting at the time were uneducated and essentially unorganised, so they were actually glad that such things were implemented, since it gave some structure to their otherwise unstructured lives.

This was not done with an eye to improving the lot of the workers, but so that the lazy shirkers, i.e. the gentry, could avoid having to work themselves, when all they wanted was to profit enormously from the efforts of their serfs/slaves.

I notice that you conveniently left out the draconian punishments meted out for, say, “stealing� a carrot or a cabbage from the lands of the respective gentry, or not meeting the (sometimes impossible) quotas imposed. But I suppose that’s only to be expected when you’re actually arguing in favour of such a profoundly unjust system in the first place.

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

The amount of work that could be done by peasants on their Lord's lands were clearly laid out and the duties of the Lords were also clearly laid out. If a tenant performed work on the Lord's land, the Landowner had to fed the tenant.

This is a point of view I fail to understand, given how all "the Lords" actually came by their land. Among the indigenous peoples, there was no real concept of taking up land over and above what they could reasonably expect to farm to feed their families and tribes. Then a load of greedy, rapacious, lazy wasters showed up and simply expropriated or annexed this "free" land for their own selfish purposes. The original owners were very often just killed off if they made a fight of it. If they weren't topped, they were forced to work the same land, but had give most of the harvests produced to this "Lord", who'd arbitrarily declared the land to be his.

You really seem to believe that this state of affairs was somehow ordained by a cosmic deity, when in reality it was instigated by using overwhelming force against folks and forcing them to acquiesce or be killed, or more often than not to watch their families being brutally butchered in public pour encourager les âutres.

This totally inappropriate and erroneous picture you seem to be trying to conjure up of all these benign and caring “Lords� in continual worry about their charges couldn’t be further from the truth.

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Breaches of these rights and duties were just as frequently punished. Why do you think the best English Kings made so much effort to ensure that the Courts and the Judges roamed the land ? because they damm well knew that a)it's a good way to put presure on landowners and b) if they didn't, it got very messy. Landowners also knew that pissing off tenants meant no tenants.

The courts and judges roamed the land to ensure that the Queen/King and all her/his subservient hangers-on were paid what they thought they were entitled to from the common wealth of the people. It had nothing at all to do with justice in the sense that we understand it today, and everything to do with grabbing percentages for the work-shy parasites living off the backs of others.

Tenants who felt “pissed off� or looked as if they might start to cause trouble were either tortured (or their families) or just topped. Or they ran away.

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Why do you think that laws were passed legalising the status of serfs who ran away?

I believe you'll find that laws were passed legalising the status of serfs who ran away because they were a very real danger to the status quo, since they were invariably the ones who started to ask serious questions about the legitimacy of the whole system.

The ruling classes realised that they’d never have the manpower to hunt them all down, and anyway, that led more often than not to martyrdom and even more runaway serfs. Divide and rule is the main weapon in the armoury of the ruling classes/Capitalists, even to this day.

In essence, nothing at all has changed with regard to the principles outlined above. The vast majority of folks are still being unfairly and unjustly treated by the ruling classes, who in the meantime have vastly improved their counter-measures to unrest by taking over effective control of gobments, the Old Bill and any other organisation they deem fit to keep folks “in their place�. And that includes you, my friend.

However, I must admit that your post actually gave me hope. For you appear to be a person who accepts the status quo without question or complaint. Therefore, you should have no trouble at all adjusting to a Socialist system.

MsG

Still no answer to my question. How do you deal with those who refuse to act in accordance with the rest of society? I now count this as the ninth time you have been asked this question.

Fti

Originally Posted by jew_unit

Still no answer to my question. How do you deal with those who refuse to act in accordance with the rest of society? I now count this as the ninth time you have been asked this question.

Fti

It’s not the ninth time, Jew_unit, don’t try to create a false impression here. I provided an answer to your question some time ago in the thread, but you conveniently avoided any sensible response. So, OK, I’ll give you another answer wrapped in a reciprocal question with regard to the Capitalist system: "How do you deal with those who refuse to act in accordance with the rest of society?�, since this question is applicable to both systems.

Why should crimes regarded as such in the Capitalist system be anything but in a Socialist system?

But what you’re really aiming at is that you (it seems personally) would be hell-bent on being a “big fish� in the Socialist pool – which shows just how little you’ve learned about this so-called “human nature� you profess to be in touch and so au fait with. With regard to this, you want to proclaim that you’d never change and that you’d always be on the lookout to thoroughly fück over your community members, just as long as you could play (near to) top dog. I’m not sure if you realise, but what does that say about your basic character, fella?

I regard your posts as wanting to play Devil’s Advocate in the discussion, for I can’t seriously imagine a serving or ex-squaddie ever coming up with such a scenario. Although I don't actually know whether you've ever served or are serving.

However, to press on; if it became clear that you were in no way interested in supporting community life, but were only interested in proving that you were infinitely superior to everybody else in the community and that therefore the rules and regulations of the community didn’t apply to you and you could interpret them as you wished, you would be gotten rid of in short order. Just as in a Capitalist community, folks who aren’t prepared to follow the basic tenets of human behaviour with regard to others are removed from the community.

MsG

Actually, your post demonstrates how idiotic you are truly being, Bugsy. You have yourself admitted that 'human nature' requires a hierachy. THAT is the secret of the human genome. We need people above and below us, leaders and followers, and we need the opportunity to progress ourselves throughout our lives. This has been the case from the very earliest forms of 'society' or 'community' when we were apes eating bananas in Eden.

As for your comments about squaddies, they suggest to me that it is actually YOU who has never served, whatever you've said in other posts, for i have never met a member of any armed force who didn't recognise the need for, and importance of, a rank structure.

And your final sentance proves why. It shows that it is only the views of the people charged with protecting your socialist utopia that actually matter. If Jew_Unit and I (and every sensible, logical and sane person) disagree with what the guardians of the 'socialist' system says we must do, we are 'got rid of in short order.'

You have thus created a hierachy of value and importance that destroys any pretence to 'socialism'.

Congratulations, you've just disproved yourself.