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I don't want to hear "cannot pay". It's loser speak and is not in my vocabulary. Your philosophy is run-of-the-mill whoa-is-me determinism, and I don't tolerate that type of thinking. If you need money to get training, take 3 menial jobs and save it! Then get the training and kick ass at the job. It's not a choice. The scampering gray squirrel does not bemoan the fact that there are not enough nuts because the other luckier squirrels already took them. He gets his squirrelass moving and takes care of survival. Collectivists and unfair-world ideologues need to jettison their loser left-wing Harvard philosophy and look to the scampering gray squirrel for the correct life model.
I never really thought of myself as one who did not make the best of their circumstances. In fact I seem to notice a pattern quite the opposite in that I do more with less than most of my contemporaries. My answer to the champaign taste and a beer budget has often been to make my own champaign.
That said there is no need to engage in a false dichotomy as if I should be perfectly happy to allow some or a group of people to rig the system. I am certain I would make the best of a situation where I am falsely imprisoned, but I am not going to just whistle in such a graveyard.
In many cases of bankruptcy, for example , they are often caused by health problems that are both financially and functionally disastrous. Its happens. The blame the victim phenomenon exists due in some part to the idea that blaming the victim means that such bad things can always be avoided. The truth is misfortune happens to those who would seem to welcome it and to those who would seem to have done everything right.
I never really thought of myself as one who did not make the best of their circumstances. In fact I seem to notice a pattern quite the opposite in that I do more with less than most of my contemporaries. My answer to the champaign taste and a beer budget has often been to make my own champaign.
That said there is no need to engage in a false dichotomy as if I should be perfectly happy to allow some or a group of people to rig the system. I am certain I would make the best of a situation where I am falsely imprisoned, but I am not going to just whistle in such a graveyard.
In many cases of bankruptcy, for example , they are often caused by health problems that are both financially and functionally disastrous. Its happens. The blame the victim phenomenon exists due in some part to the idea that blaming the victim means that such bad things can always be avoided. The truth is misfortune happens to those who would seem to welcome it and to those who would seem to have done everything right.
And when misfortune happens, you deal with it. If you don't have the wherewithal or the resources, you ask for help. Ask. Not demand. Not self-entitle. Freedom allows you the option to ask for help. When it becomes a demand, it becomes illegitimate.
Also, "blame the victim" is perfectly appropriate in many cases, because the victim consciously chooses a path that guarantees victimhood. For example: having children without money, burying oneself in consumer debt to enable oneself to possess things they cannot afford, abusing alcohol, smoking, gambling, procrastinating, overeating, etc. And even simply not taking care of obviously basic business. If one chooses to behave in a manner that virtually guarantees that one will become a casualty of "chance", they cannot claim to be a victim when the hammer falls.
And when misfortune happens, you deal with it. If you don't have the wherewithal or the resources, you ask for help. Ask. Not demand. Not self-entitle. Freedom allows you the option to ask for help. When it becomes a demand, it becomes illegitimate.
Also, "blame the victim" is perfectly appropriate in many cases, because the victim consciously chooses a path that guarantees victimhood. For example: having children without money, burying oneself in consumer debt to enable oneself to possess things they cannot afford, abusing alcohol, smoking, gambling, procrastinating, overeating, etc. And even simply not taking care of obviously basic business. If one chooses to behave in a manner that virtually guarantees that one will become a casualty of "chance", they cannot claim to be a victim when the hammer falls.
Ok but again you are just arguing one side of what I believe is not a simple dichotomy. One's destiny is not entirely of one's own choosing. But yes, lots of people do lots of stupid things. For example I cannot figure out how anyone can manage to be hit by a train still on the rails... but they do. However every now and then a sink hole just opens up and swallows some poor bastard.
But the real rub is again over , well what my father used to say - your freedom ends where my nose begins-. Changes in the rule of law are not necessarily going to apply equally, and I see no reason to be content merely to do my best under deteriorating circumstances.
Ok but again you are just arguing one side of what I believe is not a simple dichotomy. One's destiny is not entirely of one's own choosing. But yes, lots of people do lots of stupid things. For example I cannot figure out how anyone can manage to be hit by a train still on the rails... but they do. However every now and then a sink hole just opens up and swallows some poor bastard.
But the real rub is again over , well what my father used to say - your freedom ends where my nose begins-. Changes in the rule of law are not necessarily going to apply equally, and I see no reason to be content merely to do my best under deteriorating circumstances.
Actually, there is no destiny. Nothing is determined in advance and nothing is plotted out for the future. Time is an open book. Our lives are our own and only our own. And yes, there is some randomness in life. Pediatric oncologists exist because some people encounter gross misfortune. As do many other professions. What I want is a society where people ask for help and observe the basic courtesy of respecting each other's freedom.
What I don't want is a world of putrescent ivory-tower intellectual deterministic mental midgets who posit that because all men are not created equal, that we must equalize by brute force and taking from one to give to another.
We have one loon on here posting to the effect that freedom needs to include "resources" to be considered truly free. That freedom means freedom from effort, instead of freedom from the idle compulsion of other men.
You do realize that this statement is deterministic. Ya see I kind of take a probability approach like say an 18 year old storming Omaha beach has less of a probability of making it to 19.
Quote:
Nothing is determined in advance and nothing is plotted out for the future.
So much for planning. Have you ever purchased mittens in the fall?
Quote:
Time is an open book. Our lives are our own and only our own. And yes, there is some randomness in life. Pediatric oncologists exist because some people encounter gross misfortune. As do many other professions. What I want is a society where people ask for help and observe the basic courtesy of respecting each other's freedom.
I just don't get into motivational speaking and my preference for science fiction is in another genre.
Quote:
What I don't want is a world of putrescent ivory-tower intellectual deterministic mental midgets who posit that because all men are not created equal, that we must equalize by brute force and taking from one to give to another.
Didn't you just say:
And when misfortune happens, you deal with it.
Why not just make the best of the misfortune placed upon you? Why not just work a little harder and work your way around "putrescent ivory-tower intellectuals"? What do you have to fear since they cannot impact your endless possibilities? Strange argument indeed.
Quote:
We have one loon on here posting to the effect that freedom needs to include "resources" to be considered truly free. That freedom means freedom from effort, instead of freedom from the idle compulsion of other men.
Personally I think anyone who thinks resources are limitless is the loon. Just ask Californians about doing without water during the drought. The one's with a surplus of water rights seem a little more free than those that don't.
So, look, for the third time I tried to point out the ridiculousness of taking either extreme, idealistic position because they become contradictory nonsense. I have proven it to be such line by line.
For example I have seen this :
- There is no black and white, only gray -
Which comically makes a singularly assertive statement. Likewise you have tried to convince others on the merits of self determination which is at a fundamental level nonsensical. Your statements arguing for pure self determination fails entirely because they are in a form of the very argument to convince others because you are afraid of brute force which will result , not to mention it was stated quite deterministically as plot of our future unless your warning is heeded. Pure self determination cannot have any fear of force. And yet there you were before arguing that there is no force that can stifle it.
No need to despair and take it personally because it happens to the best of us :
The result of our discussion appears to me to be singular. For if the argument had a human voice, that voice would be heard laughing at us and saying: "Protagoras and Socrates, you are strange beings; there are you, Socrates, who were saying that virtue cannot be taught, contradicting yourself now by your attempt to prove that all things are knowledge, including justice, and temperance, and courage,-which tends to show that virtue can certainly be taught; for if virtue were other than knowledge, as Protagoras attempted to prove, then clearly virtue cannot be taught; but if virtue is entirely knowledge, as you are seeking to show, then I cannot but suppose that virtue is capable of being taught. Protagoras, on the other hand, who started by saying that it might be taught, is now eager to prove it to be anything rather than knowledge; and if this is true, it must be quite incapable of being taught." Now I, Protagoras, perceiving this terrible confusion of our ideas, have a great desire that they should be cleared up. And I should like to carry on the discussion until we ascertain what virtue is, whether capable of being taught or not, lest haply Epimetheus should trip us up and deceive us in the argument, as he forgot us in the story; I prefer your Prometheus to your Epimetheus, for of him I make use, whenever I am busy about these questions, in Promethean care of my own life. And if you have no objection, as I said at first, I should like to have your help in the enquiry.
-Protagoras
How I wish those determined to have an opinion about politics and economics would read this first. I think a few more might join me in taking a more pragmatic approach that has results as the best support of an argument over self contradicting theories.
Because the "free market" isn't the responsible factor.
It's the rule of law and property rights that allow for collateral and leveraging capital.
It doesn't
Some people believe God exists because God is perfect and to be perfect God must exist.
All these arguments about "property rights" are much the same as this without going into what makes something one's property. Same with rule of law. it was legal to own slaves. It was legal to crucify. All I see is these wonderfully axiomatically correct assertions as if they mean anything.
I tend to like John Lock's labor theory of property as a good basis, but its not easily codified as in ya know it when ya see it. Others think that building a shack on 100 square miles of podunk is iron clad. How about you?
You do realize that this statement is deterministic. Ya see I kind of take a probability approach like say an 18 year old storming Omaha beach has less of a probability of making it to 19.
I deleted the rest, it's garbage.
Let's not debate. Your style is plodding and snarky. I need more.
Let's not debate. Your style is plodding and snarky. I need more.
See this is why I wonder why I should even bother being polite.
So there is no debate. It is a matter of fact that:
And when misfortune happens, you deal with it.
...
What I don't want is a world of putrescent ivory-tower intellectual deterministic mental midgets who posit
....
Our lives are our own and only our own.
Is self contradictory, babbling nonsense and you have filled this thread with it.
there are many other factors involved. some are more significant than others. some you cant talk about in public.
is democracy going to change things in the middle east? you cant just apply your wonderful principles on other people and expect the same result.
The #1 rule always broken by Americans. Always.
If we don't get our way we impose sanctions upon them, erect a military base or start war with them.
History tells tales.
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