I know, I know - not to be talked about etc...
But, anyway, riding to work is good for "thinking time", and there I was swooping down some nice quarry singletrack on my way to work on Friday...
... thinking that the political choices that people make are so close to religious choices - especially in terms of family and community indoctrination taking precedence over rational thought and analysis!
I work in a scientific and engineering based field - and most of my colleagues would have scored pretty high on the ASD thing the other week. It's all about detailed analysis of the data, rational interpretation and closely qualified conclusions. Sweeping statements, gut instincts and bullsh!t don't really wash.
Which is why so many of us have rejected organised religion and have our own beliefs or no belief - agnostics and atheists who reject traditional religious view on the basis that they don't hold up to scrutiny.
It looks very much the same with politics too - everyone who has expressed an opinion (and only a few have remained silent) have come out in favour of the Lib Dems... and not just swing voters wondering who best to vote for, but lieflong supporters - is it the rationale scrutiny thing again?
And interestingly, Prof Dawkins is now voicing his public support.
Rational thinkers of the world unite!!!
Politics/economics has nothing at all to do with mathematical truths or fact.
It is about belief and faith.
You simply choose whatever model best suits your own personal prejudices.
That's what I have always done ...... and what everyone else does.
The only difference is, some people like to pretend that their favoured model somehow represents the "mathematically truth", in the hope that others will be convinced.
Politics/economics is about morality and nothing else........you simply tailor your preferred choice in the vague hope that it will somehow work.
Never ever, believe the lie that "There Is No Alternative" ........there always is.
Where once were men are now but sheep
-a fiction and far cry
From planet earth's proud animal
-who would be you and I.
Alas, our forebears drank the cup of poisoned alibi
And made excuses far and wide,
and made God in the sky.
This boogaloo's now round the world
-bad trips for everyone.
No more the man of paradise
or the Celt of Albion.
They queue like burning moths to spread the all-time vicious lie.
You christians destroyed our tribe
-I'll fight you till I die.
And you can cut me down for what I said
But goodness lives where God is dead.
The history of religion is the history of the State
Incestuous exploiters of a catalogue of hate.
The man of peace was over-run by armies of the "Lord"
Who signed their names to any war
and sang to praise the sword.
The mission heads for outer space
the voices ring and swell
With aeons of self-righteousness
the senseless echoes knell
The words get much more meaningless
-even plainer to tell
That those who would pronounce this God
are those who make this hell.
And you can cut me down for what I said
But goodness lives where God is dead.
LOVE IS THE great triumph over christianity.
She made a fool of silly priests. She mocked authority.
She filled her bed with happiness.She gripped his loins for joy
And felt ecstatic agonies and screamed the sweetest cry.
Her children are the legacy of failure to be chained
An everasting mutiny of flowers where it rained.
They rise out of oppression
They speak with one accord.
The fountains breath- the spirit lives-
The future rests assured.
ernie_lynch - what you say is correct, but is not really my point.
You simply choose whatever model best suits your own personal prejudices.
... which works fine for those that make that choice and make it an informed choice. Many don't, they make a choice based family or community norms, or peer or media influence.
"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink"
Oddly, Google has decided to adorn this thread with an ad for Scientology...
Maybe I've suddenly developed dyslexia, but hardly any of this bollocks is sinking in. Maybe that's why people blindly follow it. The '3 B's', my ex girlfriend use to say were the key to everything. Bullshit Baffles Brains.
.....they make a choice based family or community norms, or peer or media influence.
You make it sound as if there is something wrong with that. As you suggest, decisions should be [i]informed[/i] decisions. Now no one person can know everything about everything, and some people just aren't that interested. So we leave it to others whom we trust, and whom we feel share the same preferences, interests, prejudices, etc as ourselves, to make the decisions for us. And everyone does that.
The process is called "leadership". There was a time in Britain when you simply decided which party generally best served your own personal preferences, and then left it to them to provide the leadership and get on with the job - I'm a very strong believer in a [i]vanguard[/i] party btw.
Nowadays politicians manipulate and '[i]market[/i]' what people's preferred choices should be. They then attempt to convince them that they, are the ones best placed to deliver. So people go shopping for political parties like they would a washing machine or car. Of course this leads the politicians to act and behave as if they were salesmen, as a consequence they all end up saying/offering the same thing - ie, whatever is necessary to secure a "sale". Which of course ends up meaning that people are given no choice at all - they are all offered exactly the same thing by career politicians in a monopoly politics industry.
In fact one of the reasons why today politics in Britain is up shit street - and it really is up shit street imo, is precisely because people have suddenly decided that they have become experts on everything.....just think of all the people who are experts on education, the environment, etc. And have you [b][i]ever[/i][/b] met someone who wasn't an expert criminologist ? Who didn't know how criminals should be treated and how crime should be reduced ? I tellya, there's about 40 million people out there who would all make expert Home Secretaries.
The irony of all that, is that people are under the misconception that they have come to their own conclusions - which of course they haven't. As I've already suggested, politics is now marketed and sold to people (eg before 1979 no political party in Britain had ever used the services of an advertising agency). A good example of this is taxation.
It is now universally believed that low taxation is vital. That the best that can be said about taxation is that it is a "necessary evil". Completely bollox ......taxation isn't a "necessary evil", it is a "necessary virtue" in a civilised society - in my opinion anyway. But that's because my preferences and prejudices are completely different to those who most benefit from "low taxation". Of course ironically, there should be/is absolutely no difference between my preferences and prejudices, and that of the majority of the population.
The Tory Party, for obvious reasons, were the first to market this myth that low taxation is vital. They had considerable success with marketing their myth, so consequentially, the Labour Party (desperate for power/a sale) bought into the idea. And then finally under Nick Clegg, the LibDems also jumped on board too. Which now leads to a situation where people have no choice at all - all three main parties offer fundamentally, exactly the same choice on taxation.
And we now have the ludicrous situation where people want the basic rate pegged at exactly the same rate, as it was pegged during the boom period, despite the fact that we now have a buggered economy (how on earth could what was right then, be right now ?) So massive cuts in public expenditure, with all it's social consequences, will occur.
In a final dose of irony, the highest tax burden Britain has ever experienced, occurred under the party which brought you ..... yes, "low taxation" .....the Tories, ffs.
Politics today, is marketed and sold in Britain in much the same as it's always been marketed and sold in the US. The result is almost no choice at all for the British people, and a ****ed up monopoly political industry, controlled by self-serving careerists. As I said on another thread recently, people had far more political savvy 40 or 50 years ago, than they have today - despite the fact that they made choices very much on based "family or community norms".
Word.
+1, ernie.
That the best that can be said about taxation is that it is a "necessary evil". Completely bollox ......taxation isn't a "necessary evil", it is a "necessary virtue" in a civilised society
Balls Ernie - you've got it the wrong way round!
Tax [b]is[/b] a necessary evil, a direct consequence of the desire/need for publicly delivered services and governance - it is this that is your "necessary virtue" not how you pay for it - the core argument is over what the role of the state is in both extent and scope of those services.
So, the more government/the state does, the more it needs to tax!
The free market economics argument is that services are best when delivered in a competitive environment, where people can choose who delivers the services - this does not preclude cooperation in the purchase of those services, but the key is in the delivery, and the greater the level of delegation of that decision, the greater the opportunity for competition
Lets take binmen as an example - the pure Socialist model makes the binmen direct employees of the state, with the organisation of the service and the delivery under state control, the argument is that this is more effective/efficient due to economies of scale and nobody seeking a profit - however nobody can "buy out" so there is no realistic competition - the alternative model is that you personally select a company to collect the bins for your house, you go to whoever gives the best service for the best price, the drawback being that your neighbours might just leave it on the street to rot - there are myriad alternatives of collective bargaining in between where your individual street or your parish council organise this on a collective basis to offer a better deal, but the key element is that if the company that provide the service does not deliver a good enough standard, they will lose the business. At the moment, we have a bastardised hybrid where most district councils contract out to a private company on a large scale long term contract, so theres no risk of them losing the job as nobody is in a position to compete - and therefore society loses all the benefits!
Personally, I think that the parish council could arrange the deal, and thereby elected representatives are answerable to their direct neighbours for the quality and value of the service, and its a small enough for competition to be an effective driver in service delivery.
You see, thats one example of how the country could change! overnight! The remit and scope of the government could be wound back, doing less and costing less to administer - thats how we cut taxes and make the "necessary evil" easier to swallow.
Lets look at the banks - theres been a lot said about further regulation and banning large bonuses - well, we could do that, we could spend a fortune enforcing it and administering it, and punishing banks who pay too much - or alternatively we could publish the figures and say to the public "this bank paid X in bonuses, this bank paid Y" and, horror of horrors, let the public make their own mind up - the public is free to take their business to whichever bank they choose - the free market in action, if you don't like your bank paying big bonus money, go somewhere else!
See, simple - one less law, one less regulation, one less thing for government to do, one less thing for government to spend money on, and hence one less reason for the "necessary virtues" to be collected.
[b][i]"The free market economics argument is ........"[/i][/b]
That's all I needed to read ratty. I'm not really interested in the "free market economics argument"........I've heard it before.
But thanks for your lesson on rubbish collection anyway...........I had no idea that you were such an expert on rubbish.
8)
Only as much as you're an [i]expert[/i] on taxation Ernie 😉 touché?
But I'm not an expert on taxation ratty. I'm only an expert on swinging a hammer. As I've said in my post above (I presume you didn't bother reading it properly) :
[i]"In fact one of the reasons why today politics in Britain is up shit street - and it really is up shit street imo, is precisely because people have suddenly decided that they have become experts on everything....."[/i]
"In fact one of the reasons why today politics in Britain is up shit street - and it really is up shit street imo, is precisely because people have suddenly decided that they have become experts on everything....."
He didn't read it or he may have taken the hint.
No Ernie - don't undersell yourself - you've always been more than happy to opine on the fact that other people are shake and bake experts on subjects, whereas your own knowledge and "preferences and prejudices" exceeds all... Just as you've shared your extensive knowledge of taxation above, despite your own admission as to not being an expert 😉
As I said on another thread recently, people had far more political savvy 40 or 50 years ago, than they have today
See, you're even an [i]expert [/i]on the political history of Britain... presumably your comment that people were more politically savvy is based upon original research, as done by you and published in a peer reviewed journal? since I wouldn't expect you to comment on something that you know nothing about... whats that, hoist upon your own petard there Ernie 😆
I mean, I recall it being you who gets particularly upset when I accuse you of repeating chapter and verse the propaganda that you've read in your subscriber copy of socialist worker!
Obviously ratty, you can't tell the difference between "not an expert" and "idiot".
I'm not an expert on meteorology. But that doesn't mean you can piss down my back and tell me that it's raining.
Some things are self-evident facts.
I can even get my head round something as highly complex as the theory of evolution, despite never having studied the subject, nor being an expert on it.
I'm impressed with your expertise on rubbish though 😀
Waves at fellow Roy Harper fan... a true genius
Rubbish? I should know something on the subject Ernie - I talk it all the time 😀
So, your argument basically comes down to "anyone who disagrees with me is falsely claiming to be an expert, but anyone who agrees with me is confirming the righteous truth of self evident fact"
Socialists - plus ca change... 🙄
WTF is Roy Harper ?
So, your argument basically comes down to "anyone who disagrees with me is falsely claiming to be an expert, but anyone who agrees with me is confirming the righteous truth of self evident fact"
No. It basically comes down to : I take the piss out of you, and accuse you of being an expert on rubbish.
HTH
Ah, the old Ernie trick, after all these years - still incapable of playing the ball when losing the argument and has to rely on trying to play the man...
Unfortunately Ernie, ever since my sex change operation went wrong (*), the piss drains straight out into my bag - so I'll have to rely on offering you a free pint sometime.
*(they missed a stage in the operation, meaning that unfortunately for you I'm still minus a ****, maybe you could fulfil the role sometime...?)
WTF is Roy Harper ?
The bloke in Corrie what married the transexual.
Rubbish? I should know something on the subject Ernie - I talk it all the time
I'm glad you've cottoned on, We've been telling you that for years. 😉
How would all the theories apply to, ummm, say, the photocopying business in the district council offices? Could this be farmed out to someone who was an expert on photocopying?
Get that Shibboleth/AdamG to do it; he's good at photocopying! 😆
As a taxpayer, the idea of low tax [i]sounds[/i] great, assuming I personally don't need public services*. But in general aren't citizens better served by higher taxes, and consequently, better public services?
*because I'm rich enough to run a gas guzzling motor, live in a ring-fenced, low-crime area and have private medical insurances for the family. Stuff the poor.
But in general aren't citizens better served by higher taxes, and consequently, better public services?
Greater government spending doesn't just provide better public services, it also, as John Maynard Keynes (who was something of an expert on the subject) pointed out, stimulates the economy. And that can be spending on anything, not just services - from road building, to defence spending.
And taxation isn't by any means the only way to boost government spending. Every time I turn on a light switch, it adds a few pennies to my EDF bill which goes towards French government spending. If the French government can own 85% of the the world’s largest utility company, then there is no reason why Britain's utility companies with their vast profits, can't be owned by the government on behalf of the British people.
There are plenty of alternatives to tax increases and spending cuts, just not the will.
Say TATA to TINA ......There Are Thousands of Alternatives
Ah ratty you said
You see, thats one example of how the country could change! overnight! The remit and scope of the government could be wound back, doing less and costing less to administer - thats how we cut taxes and make the "necessary evil" easier to swallow.
And gave the example of binmen. How come that privatisation always costs more that direct labour unless massive cuts to wages are made.
You simply are talking utter pish - this is the experience again and again - some services simply are better as state monopolies and every time that privatisation is tried it ends up costing more.
Has anybody mentioned sex yet?
I think ratty did aracer.