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Old 05-11-2013, 05:11 PM
 
3,846 posts, read 2,379,498 times
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Even the last guy is coerced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOEvS8awmb4
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Old 05-11-2013, 05:33 PM
 
48 posts, read 44,969 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Iamme73 View Post
Voluntary? That is not the history of human beings on any level.

If you believe that family obligations were/are voluntary, if you believe that tribal obligations were/are voluntary, if you believe that work obligations were/are voluntary, you don't know much human history.


Government is not different. Government is a society. People create societies of free will. A society is inherently collectivist.

All collectivist endeavors have some form of coercion.

Any obligation that one has, that one is expected to fulfill that isn't expressly about just ones pleasure and wants, and needs, and in which other people can and will make your life difficult if you don't fulfill that obligation is coercion. Families, jobs, and tribes practice coercion quite well.

You are lying to yourself if you believe any differently.
Simply put, that what seems like the great tension of modernity—the concurrent rise of individualism and collectivism, and the struggle between the two for mastery—is really no tension at all. It seemedcontradictory that the heroic age of nineteenth-century laissez faire, in which free men, free minds, and free markets were supposedly liberated from the chains imposed by throne and altar, had given way so easily to the tyrannies of Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. But it was only a contradiction, Nisbet argued, if you ignored the human impulse toward community that made totalitarianism seem desirable—the yearning for a feeling of participation, for a sense of belonging, for a cause larger than one’s own individual purposes and a group to call one’s own.
In pre-modern society, this yearning was fulfilled by a multiplicity of human-scale associations: guilds and churches and universities, manors and villages and monasteries, and of course the primal community of family. In this landscape, Nisbet writes, “the reality of the separate, autonomous individual was as indistinct as that of centralized political power.”
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Old 05-12-2013, 03:44 AM
 
8,391 posts, read 6,284,397 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WonkBlog View Post
Simply put, that what seems like the great tension of modernity—the concurrent rise of individualism and collectivism, and the struggle between the two for mastery—is really no tension at all. It seemedcontradictory that the heroic age of nineteenth-century laissez faire, in which free men, free minds, and free markets were supposedly liberated from the chains imposed by throne and altar, had given way so easily to the tyrannies of Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. But it was only a contradiction, Nisbet argued, if you ignored the human impulse toward community that made totalitarianism seem desirable—the yearning for a feeling of participation, for a sense of belonging, for a cause larger than one’s own individual purposes and a group to call one’s own.
In pre-modern society, this yearning was fulfilled by a multiplicity of human-scale associations: guilds and churches and universities, manors and villages and monasteries, and of course the primal community of family. In this landscape, Nisbet writes, “the reality of the separate, autonomous individual was as indistinct as that of centralized political power.”
Yeah, basically everything human beings do is collectivist, arguing against the idea of collectivism is arguing against human beings. There are individual desires and wants and needs certainly, but there is no context in which a human being can get those desires, wants and need fulfilled without depending on other human beings.

When certain human beings gain enough power, they pretend and their political sycophants pretend that their desires, wants, and needs are individual and free and the collectivist state/government is attempting to stamp out that powerful person's freedom, blah, blah, blah, it is all so illogical and dumb, but this is where conservatism is at this point.
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Old 05-12-2013, 03:56 AM
 
Location: Las Vegas,Nevada
9,282 posts, read 6,729,413 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ovcatto View Post
The debate is about a false dichotomy. Neither are mutually exclusive so-called collectivism or individualism are mutually exclusive. Humans are by nature a "collectivist species" our very survival has and will always depend upon it. By the same token individualism is a natural and necessary attribute of human existence. The only issue is how to balance the two so that one doesn't blot out the other. I don't know why this is so hard to understand.
oh moral relativism, how do you never die?
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Old 05-12-2013, 07:48 AM
 
48 posts, read 44,969 times
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I think the best part of the author's argument is:

What might be beneficial is, instead of candidates encouraging people to get involved with their local communities for political purposes (door knocking, voter registration drives, presidential debate watch parties), they would encourage it for the purpose of simply making better, more vibrant communities, where neighbors can tackle problems together locally.

It would also be good if conservatives stopped talking about economic liberty as if it’s the only thing necessary to make a good society, and if liberals acknowledged that the state’s capacity to solve social problems is severely limited.


http://www.mndaily.com/blogs/unfit-p...case-community
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Old 05-12-2013, 11:33 AM
 
Location: Stillwater, Oklahoma
30,976 posts, read 21,567,116 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nonarchist View Post
Unions cramp my style.
Then don't join a labor union.
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Old 05-12-2013, 11:54 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by StillwaterTownie View Post
Then don't join a labor union.
I never did.

They still cramped my style.
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Old 05-12-2013, 12:07 PM
 
48 posts, read 44,969 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nonarchist View Post
I never did.

They still cramped my style.
This is not a discussion about labor unions. It's clear that your intellectual capabilities are so severely limited that you can't get passed the typical right-left partisan bickering, so please find a discussion where the less-educated are more welcomed. Thanks
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Old 05-12-2013, 12:16 PM
 
3,728 posts, read 4,861,625 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WonkBlog View Post
There's nothing about unions in this. Prime example of how people can't think outside the collectivist v individualist paradigm
It's not a minor quibble or superficial difference. It is a major difference in philosophy on how government should be run and the inherent nature of human rights.
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Old 05-12-2013, 12:28 PM
 
3,846 posts, read 2,379,498 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WonkBlog View Post
This is not a discussion about labor unions. It's clear that your intellectual capabilities are so severely limited that you can't get passed the typical right-left partisan bickering, so please find a discussion where the less-educated are more welcomed. Thanks
You're starting to cramp my style.
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