John: Sally, we need something to start this www.radicaldebate.com chatline topic off with, and ... and here is my first provocative thought to anyone who reads this: You are not living the way you want and you do not have the courage even to question why. 2
Sally: Are you free? Your rulers say you are. [both chuckle]. 21
John: Lots of people are looking in but nobody wants to say or ask anything. 87
Sally: Give 'em time John. Let me ask you - name one question that it would occur to you to ask, given you have to ask it in two minutes, of complete strangers, while the boss could come in at any minute. 88
John: I might ask about the nature of freedom, and how I would recognize a free man. 89
John: And then I would ask how I would recognize a free country. Would it be one in which all men were free? 90
Sally: You'd have to define 'free'. Could a married man with a mortgage on his house, a car purchased on borrowed money, a demanding job in which his pay depends on his carrying out instructions formulated by others and his 'attitude' evaluated on how willingly he conforms, be said to be free? 91
John: Was it Mao who said "Freedom is a word". I can see how the average middle-class Brit on the Tube might agree with him. I was watching tens of thousands of free individuals crossing Westminster Bridge to the City the other day. Identically dressed, carrying the same newspapers, compelled to work like this to pay off the debts you mentioned. They reminded me very much of Mao's masses. Brainwashed clones? Or a large body of individuals who by coincidence happen to live and act like battery hens? [both laugh]. 92
Sally: Yes John. I hope we can give a more satisfactory definition of freedom than Mao's. 93
Sally: Are we saying freedom precludes necessity or necessity freedom? Or neither or both? 97
John: Well if you are compelled to do something you don't do it freely. If you act out of necessity can you be acting freely? 98
Sally: Doesn't freedom imply choice and is implied by it? If so freedom is identical to choice. If you act out of necessity you are not choosing and are therefore not exercising freedom. If you act only out of necessity you never exercise choice and therefore never exercise freedom. If you never exercise freedom but are compelled to act always out of necessity, you are not free - ever - and so cannot be said to be a free man. 99
John: So the only free men are those who are never compelled to do anything but who rather always act through choice. What a wonderful vision! Would you allow the existence of a partially free man - a man who is compelled to act in a certain way - e.g. your wage slave crossing Westminster Bridge - for some of the time, but not at other times? 100
Sally: Yes, you'd say the man was free some of the time. If he is free all the time he's a free man. If he's free some of the time he's 'partially free'. Yes, we could use that phrase to mean that. We are free to use the words that way. [obligatory chuckle from John]. 101
John: Now - is partial freedom just to do with time? If a man is free for three hours a day he is 12.5% free etc. Or is it also to do with limits on the range of things he can do? For example if a man may eat three species of animal out of four, his freedom is further reduced - 0.125 * 0.75 freedom for this man so far. 102
Sally: If so, so we have a sort of calculus of freedom, based on choice. Every option that's removed from the range of possibilities open to a man reduces his freedom pro rata.
[sad whisper]Most people in contemporary Western society would score pretty low. 103
John: People often distinguish between freedom from and freedom to. They will say that while under a benevolent socialist state for example, a citizen may be free from hunger, insecurity and ignorance because the state provides free food, health provision and education, but under that same state, he may lack freedom to set up his own business or worship spirits. 104
Sally: Playing with words. Clearly freedom from hunger is identical to freedom to eat, freedom from ill-health is identical to freedom to have health, freedom to worship spirits is identical to freedom from religious persecution and so on. False and thus un-needed dichotomy dear boy. 105
John: Are we implying that any unfulfilled need or any restriction on opportunity to fulfill a need is a constraint on freedom. That would be a pretty unusual and radical inference. For one, that sort of freedom implies a pretty high degree of civilized organization, particularly if everyone is to be free - no unfulfilled need for anyone! 106
Sally: Yah! this is what we must aim for. But is freedom possible in our current capitalist epoch - in which it's legal for one man to exploit another, own vast areas of land and exclude others from it, and slaughter vast numbers of civilians indiscriminately - these 'rights' being protected by law backed up ultimately by force. 107
John: No, freedom the way we define it, looks inconsistent with the current system. However, the current system seems in many respects, to be the best man has had to date. 108
Sally: Yes, the past seems to have been a lot worse. Feudal landlords, dictators, kings, religious zealotry, landed gentry etc. Audacious, enlightened self-interested struggle can achieve wonders. And it clearly needs to take a big step forward some time soon. 109
John: So you're an optimist then Sally. You reckon that the current system can be improved and your evidence is progress has been made in the past. And you're a radical because you think that the belief system of the current epoch is flawed and can be challenged through human reason, leading to action towards greater freedom than ever before. 110
Sally: Amen to that brother. [both laugh, John spills his beer]. Perhaps we should say 'Venceremos!'. 111
John: 'Freedom!'. 112
John: I've just been surfing the Internet and I found: http://boppin.com/poets/yy_babiyar.htm - Yevgeny Yevtushenko - a real radical of the Soviet years - when ideas actually mattered - materialist, rationalist, internationalist - compare this poem with the aimless whimperings of the 'free' alienated trivia masquerading as 'art' in the West - and now Russia. The West is not free to - or free from - it's free of.. 127
Sally: Free of what? 128
John: free - devoid rather - of any sense of mission - any vision of goodness, progress, a better world. All that's left is the intention to remove what they see as dangerous alternatives - and they seem to see all alternatives as dangerous. Culturally the West, at present seems bankrupt - with diversion the name of the game. It's epitomized for me by sentiments such as 'the answer my friend, is blowing in the wind'. Is that the best our 'radical' artists can do? It's an order of magnitude more timid than the worst soviet line-follower you can imagine. Western artists seem more intimidated by the 'free' market than the soviet artists ever were by the 'workers'' state. 129
Sally: John, you're such a fucking commie [laughs]. A red under the bed. A threat to freedom etc. etc. An enemy agent paid by the .. er .. enemy. Sorry that doesn't work now does it? Maybe you had an unhappy childhood. Or maybe you're right. In any case, there's no chance of anyone listening to you. Reality has been subsumed under entertainment for the vast majority now. 'Reality' has become a game show. A particular kind of story - nothing more. French philosophers, starting with 'the medium is the message' have got as low as to assert that there is no such thing as reality - merely an multitude of equally-valid stories. And this current Western fantasy world is challenged primarily only by dark-age islamist theists who believe the answer lies in submission to their primitive nonsensical belief system. I suppose this is what you would claim. 130
John: Objectively, yes. The muslimist islamist theists represent a tragic step backwards into a much older superstition, and God help us if this is the best humanity has to offer in the twenty-first century. But there is room for optimism in all this. There ARE thinkers - many in the educated productive working and middle classes of both the Western and Eastern - and Southern - worlds - who can transcend the nonsense of western 'culture' and islamist theist backwardness. Let's hope so anyway. When this current generation of brainwashed dreamers have been pensioned off - provided they haven't destroyed the planet with their increasing arsenals and mutual disregard for human life - maybe reason - true self interest - will re-emerge - just as it did in the progressive years of the West. 131
Unknown guest: "calculus of freedom. Most people in contemporary Western society score pretty low" you some kind of a goddamed AlQaeda supporter? Rousseau set forth our freedom buddy, would you prefer living under the Taliban? No, and it aint just my racial preference that tells me most people in Pakistan, SaudiArabia, Indonesia would rather have our style of "Freedom" too. Certainly you wouldny be doin this kind of thing there. So please leave out the comparisons. Or maybe you are comparing "contemporary Western Society" with some communist fantasy in your head where everyone gets to ride a motorbike with a Che Guevara T shirt and play acoustic guitars around firelight till sundown.
Why are you Guardianistas so against Contemporary Western Society anyway? Oh sorry, have I committed an illegal action? Am I to be terminated? Buffer overrun? How about TAR and mount drive? Or just send term signal? Sally: Yeh. Lovely one. Sure things could be worse. That does not prove they're good. Or incapable of improvement. 172 Unknown guest: Why do you say we score low? We have a fair amount of freedom. I would say most of the kinds of freedom you are talking about are not imortant for the majority. I personally do not feel I need more freedom, except perhaps to spend GNP on more socially beneficial projects. And I would abolish government and allow maximum free market etc. Maximum freedom from political manifestos
What do you want more freedom for? 175 JC: Don't worry about security - this is an open discussion forum / pub. I'll delete any postings even suggesting the breaking of any laws. Questioning or expressing approval or disapproval for them, or suggesting new laws or revision of existing ones is legal as far as I know. Wouldn't it be great if we could get a lawyer to contribute to www.radicaldebate.com? A law table - how cool! Important topic in any civilized society, particularly a democratic one in which the people do have a bit of a say. 176 Unknown guest: Yea it would be great. Actually anybody would be great. 177 "... except perhaps to spend GNP on more socially beneficial projects. And I would abolish government and allow maximum free market etc. Maximum freedom from political manifestos ...
John: Would a pure free market with no government provide socially beneficial projects? Didn't elected government arise to do that? Doesn't 'the market' need good order, rule of law, educated and shaped producer-consumers, transport, defence and all the rest? What do you reckon Reg? Reg is the landlord, barman - commonsense conservative. 178 Reg (commonsense conservative): Of course you need order. Just imagine what it'd be like if there was no Bill for example. You could have private police I suppose. There would be a bit of a problem getting them to protect the poor. And of course they could themselves turn into crooks - it might pay better. You need checks and balances. Even a market system needs a state. 179 Marge (commonsense fascist): Of course you need a state to keep order, for the good of the country. If these liberals and all those other do-gooders had ever done a decent day's work they'd know that. What with them and all the scroungers living off the state - they're ruining the country. A strong state, run by the market to encourage the productive people like me and Reg and clamp down on scroungers, liberals and illegal immigrants. That's what we want. 180 Unknown guest: You certainly do not need a "State" in the sense we know it. 150 years ago government was tiny. It worked. Perfectly. The poor were taken care of by rich factory owners that realized the benefit of a healthy population.
Milions of bureaucrats across Europe are superfluous, completely surplus to requirements. But they have created institutions that need them, self-perpetuating institutions not helped by Keynesian economics. Even political parties opposed to big government are addicted to big government. If you took them all away, a small team of 10 people could run the whole country. Think of all the fat men and women working on all the local councils up and down the coutry. Self important types that get paid well for doing nothing useful at all. In fact they cause trouble for ordinary citizens. Social care workers snooping on hard working families, councillors blabbing on about solving issues, policemen that run away from trouble and hide, road sweepers hiding in gardens smoking pot, traffic wardens, consultants, race relations officials, interpretors, all a waste of time. 200 John: Good idea: Society is arranged so that every man and woman is free and equal and different and no-one controls anyone else. They are motivated by love.
Unknown guest: It is called that for a good reason. We cannot all be making big decisions all the time, it would not be practical. So we delegate to people that are good at it. It works. It functions. It feeds the morons on the council estate that have nothing to offer anybody. Let me get this right, you would force those idiots to take decisions about the course of society that would affect all of us? I sincerely hope you never get your way. Looking at the state of the UK in 2007, with young minorities stabbing each other every single day, and a total breakdown of any belief in good or bad, your way would end civilization as we know it.
If you've been the victim of an unprovoked attack, you will know what I mean.
The love you talk about cannot be taught, some of these people do not posess the capacity. You could set up your communist society and these people would destroy it. So that is why I don't think democracy is great, but it works well enough. 364 So you think improvement of any sort is impossible? Or unlikely? Or undesirable? Isn't it truer to say that changes are continually being proposed and some implemented and the thing to do is to support those that are progressive and oppose those that either take us backwards or stand in the way of progress. You could even initiate some new ideas. I'm not sure your cruel generalization about council estate residents is true. Haven't you met nice ones? Clever ones? etc. [See the Abilities threads]. 437 hello. my name is charly from www.joy2live.net. i have visited this site a little and I find some topics interesting but what could I say?
we have been a team working together for the last ten years and we have been looking for secrets about freedom, government, crop circles, philosophy. we have discovered astonishing things but the most astonishing was to discover that nobody wants to know the truth. we have learnt to shut up because everytime we talk about something we know, people are afraid, they want to stay in their beliefs, far away from their fearsin the long run we have learnt to use what we know for our own lives without sharing with anybody. our group moved from research to simple adventures, now we play, we make the most of our lives we live a lot of adventures but at the same time, now we do that just for the fun.
knowledge is a useless power when you live in a society where nobody wants to know. they want to talk about what could be one day, maybe...but not about results from serious research and experience. so it is funny for us now to drop into a place like this, where people want to discuss things. we don't really want to discuss because nobody wants to hear, i know it is not fair but it is just like that, we can't help it. all we can do today is make the most of our lives. we keep the secrets we have found, because nobody is courageous enough to hear and we just play and make a collection of challenges and pleasant times, that's all.
charly
534 John: Tell us one of your secrets. 535 Sally: There are lots of truths - if you know some that people generally don't know or know but deny, tell us - we're all ears. We're more usually 'convinced' by evidence and logic than anything else. 536 John: We have open minds. Try us.
554 JC: This is a test message to check the operation of the new Radical Debate Chatline subject web pages. Dig it: Go to www.radicaldebate.com home page and try it out. This comment will self-destruct in pi * r * 10^(42/e) seconds, where r is your attention-span measured in drachma, or the world will aleady have come to an end due to unwise decisions having been made by people who never did get round to visiting this website. Whichever happens first - you know - adios amigos - it's been so - like - real. 834 JC: You are not living the way you want and you do not have the courage even to question why. 1071 JC: If this is the case, how can you claim to be a free man? 1072 JC: And if there are lots more like you where you live, how can it claim to be a free country? 1073 JC: You run from freedom. 1074 Shirley: Yeah, and you get your kicks from withdrawing love from those who try to be free. 1075 JC: You are so hemmed in by rules, laws and conventions, all of which, they say, are there to protect your freedom. 1076 Shirley: Something is seriously wrong. 1077 JC: Then you think: Perhaps if I had more money then I could be free like these people in this advert. So you work harder for the boss-man so you can be free. 1078 Shirley: Then you realize that defeats itself. Let's be smart you think and be the boss-man. Screw others. Be free. 1079 JC: Yeah, that's exactly the sort of freedom I don't want. 1080 Shirley: It's as far as we've got in two millennia JC. Blow you Jack I'm alright. Bourgeois freedom. The mentality of the shopkeeper. Selfish and small-minded, it's the opposite of real freedom. 1081 JC: Convention is our prison. 1404 Sally: If freedom is choosing irrespective of conditioning, then surely if we were aware of all the options and chose according to our wishes - our best interests - and could obtain the means to realize them, then that would be freedom. 1756 John: Possibly. But aren't our wishes - our notions of self-interest - determined by external forces? 1789 JC: Yes. An important part of our education is to tell us what we should want - what's desirable. 1790 The Equality Bill will soon become law in the UK. Is this piece of legislation designed to increase freedom or lessen it? 2154 JC: It appears to be aimed at putting more pressure on organizations not to discriminate solely on grounds of class, gender, religion etc. Outlawing discrimination on these grounds would increase the freedom of the subject. It would of course decrease the freedom of the person doing the discriminating. 2155 How would it increase the freedom of the subject? Surely in a so called free society right of association in an organization depending on your own personal bias be it racial, gender or other specific is a basic tenet. Outlaw parties or organizations that discriminate in a similar fashion, and you end this right.
And I thought you believed in freedom. 2156 Re-reading the article and all the comments with some alarm, I have to say I would pretty much use this as a measure of how much anybody cares about freedom by their response.
I too felt the full force of racial prejudice in the 1970's but, I have to say I much prefer that to a state where people are scared of communicating truthfully.
This surely must be the defining moment in the history of western democracy, or am I missing something?
Hidden as it is in amongst all kinds of seemingly important world events such as earthquakes and co2 scandals, do you not agree it is of colossal importance? 2158 JC: Nameless friend, you appear only to be concerned with the freedom to exclude the freedom of others. 2160 Sally: So he does JC. A pretty negative form of freedom. 2161 John: Yes - it's really an argument against freedom. 2162 Sally: Explain. 2163 John: Sal, my calculations point to its being your round.. my dear.. 2164 Sally: Unequivocally? 2165 John: Indefaticably. 2166 Sally: OK my dear - I'll be right back - and you'd better have an answer.. 2167 An argument against freedom...yes. For a tiny minority of the population.
This, like most nations on earth is concerned with the wishes of the majority.
Do you feel sufficiently enlightened to force your will on the majority of the population? Like the British Labour and Conservative parties are doing.
It is a positive form of freedom for the majority of English people, for the indigenous people of this island.
Think of the consequences of what you are saying: should Israel exist? If your argument is an argument against nation states then it is an argument against the right for Jewish people to have their own land. And the Irish to have their own land. Perhaps you feel 850 years is not long enough to be struggling for self determination?
It took you two weeks to come up with an answer, and it is not a proper answer. My issue was with the apparent decline in freedom and how the Equality bill might be lessening or increasing freedom in the UK.
The Equality bill seems to be an EU directive from a left wing ideological perspective that is violently opposed to the idea of nation states. It is a legal manifestation of a social engineering experiment. When the full horror of the socialist experiment has unfolded how much freedom will be left? The internet is definitely in the crosshairs, so you'd better make your argument whilst you still can. 2168 JC: As I understand it, the Equality Bill makes it illegal
to discriminate against people on the grounds of ethnicity,
religion, gender etc. That increases the freedom of those
previously unjustly discriminated against on those grounds,
and reduces it for those previously doing the
discriminating. The former would presumably outnumber the
latter in most cases, so there would be a net
increase in freedom. I can't see why you would want
to oppose that.
Would you support, for example, the right of a golf club to
exclude all black males?
As John says, that's really an argument against
freedom. And against golf too. 2169 John [laughing]: Yes. Where's Sally gone? 2170 Marge (on the ear'ole): JC - or whatever your name is - you're talking absolute bollocks and you know you are - you're arguing against the majority and for the minorities and making it look like the opposite - ya wanker. [All cheer]. 2171 That's right Marge, he thinks the whole raft of legislation designed to lessen personal freedom and increase the strength of the state is only aimed at the BNP.
Hooray! Now they're out of the picture we can all carry on being enlightened, free, intelligent, non materialistic, non-fundamental, rational.... 2172 JC: Marge, you're assuming that the majority want the freedom to discriminate unjustly against these minorities and thus reduce their freedom? I doubt that they do. 2173 Marge: What do you mean - unjustly? If the majority wanted it, it would be just. Isn't that what democracy's supposed to be all about? Even if they don't, if you support the rights of minorities, you ought to support the rights of that minority that wants to discriminate against another minority. You can't have it both ways. 2174 JC: I don't think you can argue that you should be free to unjustly discriminate so you're not unjustly discriminated against. In any case, surely we should either all be free to unjustly discriminate or none of us should. Anything else would be unjustly discriminatory. [chuckles] 2175 Binkie: Marge, you seem to favour the freedom to unjustly
discriminate over the freedom not to be unjustly
discriminated against. I say unjustly simply because no-one
would be against just discrimination. So you would be in
favour of the freedom to deny a man a job simply because he
was black on the grounds that you should have that freedom.
It seems to me the freedom you gain is considerably
outweighed by the freedom he loses. A net loss of freedom.
This is just an example to illustrate a more general
principle, which is that unjust discrimination works
against not only the victim himself, but against the system
as a whole. 2176 Shirley: Perhaps this is what the socialists mean when they say an injury to one is an injury to all. 2177 I can recommend a rather nice Veil Vendor Marge, now that those minority enlightened double discriminated against hard done by ones suddenly by a sleight of the left hand find themselves in the enviable position of being in possession of the moral high ground.
How about a lawn mower for the crop circles and a silver suit for when we start boarding? Or will your tin foil hat suffice? 2178 You see it as discrimination, but you only have that luxury in Western style democracies. The vast majority of the rest of the world see it as their natural right to associate with whomsoever they choose, something that no state has the right to interfere in with laws banning this and that organization.
Call it preservation of nature. 2179 JC: Re 2178, 2179: Banning unjust discrimination would increase opportunities for association and enhance freedom; encouraging unjust discrimination would decrease opportunities for association and reduce freedom. 2180 Binkie: yeah - it's difficult to see any logic in our un-named friend's comments. Perhaps he would permit himself a re-think. Here's the thesis: Reducing unjust discrimination would tend to increase the sum of human freedom. 2181 So when are they taking you to court Mr C for not employing a black 'contributor'?
Where's the gay man? The Suweto Bohemian? You're reducing all those peoples opportunities by discriminating against them you know.
This is why you really ought to give up your self imposed exile and re-engage with society and the real world. When you do, you will find that no amount of anti-discrimination laws and regulations will stop you gravitating towards those you want to gravitate towards, and feel revulsion at having to make rubbish small talk with those you detest, in the workplace or wherever.
How patronizing you think the state should force people to behave this way. I thought you were a communist, someone that believed in freedom. You obviously seriously really do not believe in freedom, and even more alarmingly you do not trust the common folk to treat each other like human beings. Hence your support for the Equality Bill.
Here is a sensible article
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7032788.ece 2182 "Reducing unjust discrimination would tend to increase the sum of human freedom".
Reducing unjust discrimination is a loaded term, and implies force of some kind. In practical terms it necessitates the use of law, requiring the enforcement of a state agency. State agencies do not take kindly to being abolished and tend to attempt to justify their existence. This quite often results in the prosecution of innocents. Too much reduction leads to a decrease in freedom. Perhaps this could be reduced to a mathematical equation: inversD=F.
However, it would be helpful if you attempted to prove your hypothesis. What if reducing unjust discrimination(whatever that is) doesn't tend to increase the sum of human freedom in the UK in 2010? 2183 "Banning unjust discrimination would increase opportunities for association and enhance freedom; encouraging unjust discrimination would decrease opportunities for association and reduce freedom".
Who is discriminating in an unjust fashion? The Equality Bill was not something debated with the British population, therefore it is not grounded in consensus or democratic principles, it is an edict from an elite political layer on high. Therefore the Equality Bill is a fascist edict, an illegal act of state repression. Hardly surprising coming from an un-elected fascist body like the EU.
If you ban the BNP from refusing black members, you are increasing opportunities for a minority of the population to join said party. But you are also banning the majority ethnic group from associating in a group of their choice. Therefore overall you are decreasing the aggregate freedom.
How you can arrive at the opposite conclusion is strange. But please show us how you arrive at that conclusion. Or antithesis.
2184 JC: Whether banning unjust discrimination would increase or decrease the sum of freeedom is not a matter of opinion but of fact. We can only speculate, but it seems more likely to increase it. If fewer people are discriminated against on the grounds of race, gender etc., that would naturally follow. Only those who would unjustly discriminate would have their freedom reduced and only to the extent that they could no longer do so. 2185 JC: So it boils down to whether you consider discrimination on the grounds of race, gender etc. just or unjust. 2186 JC: ... and whether you value freedom. 2187 I value freedom alright, more than you know, I deal with these issues on a daily basis and it's not pretty.
If you are going to legislate against things, do it worldwide. Not just in England, against white English people.
Yea it comes down to should you be able to discriminate against people on grounds of race. As I've said, try asking the people. Or don't you like what the people think? Could you be a fascist by any chance? Fascists don't like the opinion of the people.
I disagree that creating negative punitive legislation against the majority in any way increases freedom. In your imagination you see a world that conforms to your ideals, but they are definitely not everyone's ideals.
You have still not given a satisfactory explanation. I thought you were supposed to be a philosopher, and I was supposed to be stupid.
It looks like the Equality Bill gets a definite thumbs down.
Next.
2188 JC: But is being able to discriminate against someone solely on the grounds of race just or unjust? 2189 From a Humane point of view, it is probably unjust. Most African countries do it. Pakistan does it. Saudi Arabia does it. So does Japan. But when your culture is under threat, humanitarian considerations have to take second place. Survival is important. And the ability to carry on surviving. Then the correct moral pathway is to discriminate.
It only becomes an issue when mass migration of people takes place. This upsets the eco-system and the karma of the planet, and should be prevented at all costs. The result of mass migration is conflict, and discussions such as this. 2190 JC: So discriminating against someone solely on the grounds of race (i.e. racism) protects your 'culture'? 2191 Shirley: And your survival, apparently. 2192 JC: I suppose it could help protect the survival of a racist culture. 2193 Shirley: I don't even like racists of my own race. 2194 Binkie: Why? 2195 Shirley: Because they promote the disharmony they say they are trying to prevent. It's illogical. 2196 JC: Yes. We only have to look at history to see the harm racism does. 2197 Binkie: To everyone. So it follows we should oppose racism in every country - wherever we go - in the interests of all races. 2198 Shirley: I can understand a bit of racial bias by racially oppressed minorities, illogical though it is. I don't approve of it, but I can understand the less able in such minorities regressing in this way as a response to fear. But I abhor the less able in majorities promoting racism against minorities. It strikes me as sub-human. Cowardly and sub-human. 2199 JC: Shall I delete all of our racist friend's posts? [laughs]. 2200 Shirley: No. It's a relevant debate - these things - even support for unfair discrimination - are still with us I'm afraid. And he's been brave to put his opinion, and livened up the debate. 2201 [smugness and self-satisfied looks all round from this consensual majority] 2202
Bad idea: Society is arranged in hierarchies of control and ownership. People are motivated by greed, envy, fear, and fantasy. The vast majority of control and ownership is in the hands of a small wealthy minority. This is, incredibly, called 'democracy' - rule by the people. 232