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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[FearfulJesuit]

SalmonGod, you live in rural Indiana. This isn't some vast conspiracy by malignant, inscrutable, amorphous Powers That Be. This is just a fact about rural areas in advanced economies- people who have the grit, skills or brains to make it in urban areas leave, and the people that stay behind are stuck in a rut. This isn't any less true in rural Scandinavia, except to the extent that a greater proportion of societal wealth transfer makes it more comfortable to stay.

[Helgoland]

I don't know a single american who is really happy, and doesn't feel severely limited in what they're able to do with their lives by overwhelming forces that rain shit on them from above.

I do, and I don't even live in the states.

[SalmonGod]

What does it take to qualify as a dystopia?  I really want to know.  I get the impression that people won't accept the term for anything less than death squads kicking in hundreds of doors on a daily basis or a genocide in progress or something.  To me, it just means any society that disempowers and forces a shitty quality of life on a significant portion of its population.

I don't live in rural Indiana.  I live just outside Indianapolis.  I work on Indianapolis airport property.

This isn't some vast conspiracy by malignant, inscrutable, amorphous Powers That Be.

Furthermore, and I've addressed this many times before, just because I'm critical of power structures doesn't mean I believe in some Illuminati shit.  I believe that conspiracies are continually happening (and I don't know how anyone could say otherwise after living through the past several years), but not that their nature is all about secret societies sacrificing children in the shadows.  I just believe that as power consolidates, those who have it naturally drift away culturally and otherwise from the rest of the population, and have mutual self-interests that they invest in, which tend to be to the detriment of everyone else.

[FearfulJesuit]

Are you really so fooled by your own ideological blinders that you can't distinguish 21st-century America and Western Europe from the 19th-century Congo, 1930s Ukraine or 1970s Cambodia? Has every society in history been a dystopia? If so, then why has quality of life been improving consistently for the last two centuries?

Here, you want an example of willful ignorance? Take a look at yourself for once- you are exactly the sort of enthusiastic cadre who would have signed up for one of the 20th century's Marxist nightmares. You're afforded the luxury of thinking otherwise by living in the modern First World, where no such movements are roaming around because people don't see any need for them- but if you were born in Tzarist Russia, or French Indochina, or Japanese-occupied Korea, I have no doubt you'd be a rank-and-file Party member. If you're able to ignore this sort of thing staring you right in the face, you'd have been able to ignore massacres of kulaks.

Additionally, and as an aside, you surely don't think decent qualities of life appear out of nowhere, do you? I'll agree that modern corporate capitalism has gone too far in many cases, but the fact that you're sitting at a computer writing forum posts and can expect to do so until at least the age of eighty is a product of the modern nation-state and the joint-stock corporation.

[Helgoland]

Furthermore, and I've addressed this many times before, just because I'm critical of power structures doesn't mean I believe in some Illuminati shit.  I believe that conspiracies are continually happening (and I don't know how anyone could say otherwise after living through the past several years), but not that their nature is all about secret societies sacrificing children in the shadows.  I just believe that as power consolidates, those who have it naturally drift away culturally and otherwise from the rest of the population, and have mutual self-interests that they invest in, which tend to be to the detriment of everyone else.

Salmon... He said nothing to the contrary. "malignant, inscrutable, amorphous Powers That Be" is a pretty spot-on description for what you lined out. Well, inscrutable might be debatable depending on your exact position, but you certainly are on the conspiracy theorist side of the spectrum. The most sane one I've ever seen, by the way - I don't mean 'conspiracy theorist' in the usual, highly negatively connotated sense.

[Angle]

Why would someone critical of power structures join a movement dedicated to consolidating them? I think your characterization is off the rails.

And remember, anytime two or more people with some kind of power decide to join forces for their own benefit, to the detriment of others, while disregarding the laws they're supposed to be following, that's a conspiracy. It may lack the glamour and intrigue that conspiracy theorists love, but there it is.

As a final note, you guys are being huge jerks to SalmonGod. "You're a communist pig!"? Really?

[FearfulJesuit]

Why would someone critical of power structures join a movement dedicated to consolidating them? I think your characterization is off the rails.

We've seen this before- all successful movements are power structures- there's no way around that- but the leftist ones of the 20th century convinced themselves that they were different power structures. Dictatorship of the proletariat...will of the people...the list goes on.

Talk to any group of campus anarchists, and they'll tell you that they want to replace the government with ill-defined committees to interpret and enact the will of the people. Well, what else is a Politburo, if not such a committee?

(Of course, such committees had to deal with a big conflict of interest in real Marxist societies- the "people" in many cases were backwards, clung to false ideologies, and had to be re-educated in the ways of Marxism-Leninism. I don't think SalmonGod is particularly interested in enacting the true will of the American people, since they're- gasp!- bigoted fundies. I don't doubt that his intentions are honest, but this path has been all too well trod before.)

A good read on this is Political Pilgrims by Paul Hollander, a survey of Western intellectuals- all of them brilliant and most of them otherwise fairly critical thinkers- who visited the other side of the Cold War and became enamoured with the bright new societies that were being built, ignoring the atrocities that they were built on. It's foolish to think that we're suddenly enlightened and critical enough that we can avoid this pattern.

[Angle]

And can you actually point to SalmonGod saying that a small group should seize power and remake the country in their image? Cause I can't imagine him saying that.

[Helgoland]

Why would someone critical of power structures join a movement dedicated to consolidating them? I think your characterization is off the rails.

I think FJ is employing the reasoning laid out in 1984, specifically in the book by Goldstein, "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism". The gist of it is that in any revolution the middle class eliminates the upper class, only to subsequently replace it, while the lower class remains in place. The original idea is lacking in the same way that the Marxist class model is: There is no room for the intelligentsia, to which Salmon (and the rest in this thread) would probably belong. For the subject at hand though the intelligentsia is split into two parts though: One supporting the revolution for the same reason as the middle class, the other because of naivete, making it similar to the revolutionary parts of the lower class. FJ is, as far as I can tell, accusing Salmon to be part of that second part.

Come to think of it, many of the movements FJ listed must have seemed like desirable alternatives at the time to any sane man... I could certainly see myself defending the Bolshevik's actions, had I been born at the time. The same thing goes for many other regimes we now see as examples of mankind's depravity.

If anyone here knows German and can get their hands on the book, Utopie und Mythos der Weltrevolution does a very good job of showing how these processes work.

[FearfulJesuit]

Well, everyone is going to remake the world for the good of everyone! But that's logistically infeasible, so we'll set up organizing committees to interpret how that's going to operate and have them direct the remaking...

This is not a strawman. It is an intrinsic property of far-leftist and anarchist social thought. It's what happens when you try to reject all existing forms of hierarchy and societal organization to remake society, then have to figure out a way to remake society.

And why do these committees proceed to impose their ideology on the people whose "will" they are "interpreting?" Well, partially to maintain their own power- because that's human nature, no way around that- but also because of the problem I outlined above: the will of the people has nothing to do with the bright new world the ideologues want. If you suddenly flipped a switch and replaced America's government with a magic oracle that spoke and enacted the true will of the people, America would go back to the way it was very quickly (though probably with a little less corruption). So, to make the bright new world line up squarely with the will of the people...you have to change the will of the people.

This is how starry-eyed, egalitarian idealists find themselves massacring kulaks and blowing up cathedrals. I repeat that this is not a strawman. This is exactly what happened in Bolshevik Russia and Maoist China.

[Angle]

...And you think that SalmonGod is an Anarchist/Far Leftist? I'd put him down as a frustrated Moderate Leftist.

[FearfulJesuit]

...And you think that SalmonGod is an Anarchist/Far Leftist? I'd put him down as a frustrated Moderate Leftist.

Er...yes? He's established that he's an anarchist several times, and has stated point-blank that he'd like to have corporations, the government, and organized religion done away with and replaced entirely with a brand new social order. That fits the bill.

[SalmonGod]

I'll agree that modern corporate capitalism has gone too far in many cases, but the fact that you're sitting at a computer writing forum posts and can expect to do so until at least the age of eighty is a product of the modern nation-state and the joint-stock corporation.

I don't expect that, actually.  Trends in debilitating or terminal illness caused by pollution and food quality, economic inequality, and environmental destruction would have to halt/reverse for me to expect that.  You realize my generation's life expectancy is expected to decrease as compared to my parent's, right?  At the same time retiring later, if at all.  I'm sure maximum life expectancy will improve dramatically, but be inaccessible to most. 

I try to maintain some optimism about the potential for my situation to change and continue to try, but my most serious expectation is that I'll continue to plug away at stressful, demeaning work for the majority of my waking hours and have just enough energy at the end of every day to engage in some shallow and mildly entertaining distraction for a couple hours until the day I die..  Sprinkle in a handful of actual vacations (I'm 31 and don't feel that I've ever had one, but I'm sure it will happen eventually), and a fun weekend event here and there.

And no... I do not believe in any movement that relies on a single organization to take charge and make change.  I believe in the development of organizational methods that make things more local and dynamic.  I believe in people directly engaging with each other to identify problems, needs, and solutions, instead of these things being dictated to them by self-interested parties sitting at the top of miles high organizational ladders.  I absolutely understand that no minority can act as a conduit for the will of the majority, and any lofty attempt at such is doomed to corruption.  The closest political label that can describe my is Social Libertarian, with a strong lean on the belief that modern communication technology should be making older forms of large scale organization obsolete.

[Helgoland]

And no... I do not believe in any movement that relies on a single organization to take charge and make change.  I believe in the development of organizational methods that make things more local and dynamic.  I believe in people directly engaging with each other to identify problems, needs, and solutions, instead of these things being dictated to them by self-interested parties sitting at the top of miles high organizational ladders.  I absolutely understand that no minority can act as a conduit for the will of the majority, and any lofty attempt at such is doomed to corruption.  The closest political label that can describe my is Social Libertarian, with a strong lean on the belief that modern communication technology should be making older forms of large scale organization obsolete.

And how do you plan for such societies to tackle large-scale problems, like pollution, global warming, etc etc? The enforcement is a huge problem there even if the decision-making process is there.
Also, quote on that life expectancy bit?

[Angle]

Er...yes? He's established that he's an anarchist several times, and has stated point-blank that he'd like to have corporations, the government, and organized religion done away with and replaced entirely with a brand new social order. That fits the bill.

That's where the frustrated part comes in. "<x> is so <y>! I wish it would just disappear!" is the classic exclamation of the frustrated person. I'm willing to bet that if you gave him a button that'd have "corporations, the government, and organized religion" disappear completely, he wouldn't push it.