Republic vs democracy vs anarchy

[alanjjohnstone]

John, try to stay focussed on your existing GRB thread. 

[Capitalist Pig]

robbo203 wrote:

Capitalist Pig wrote:

 my computer just shut off b4 i could save my f'ing comment i got to start all over…What i meant by a planned economy is an economy based on producing products for use.Under your envisionment of communism there will be no mechanism for a minority to leverage power but what I was trying to say is that communism can not be implemented perfectly as you envision. Democracy is a double edged sword, it lets the majority exurt its will through a popular vote but at the same time represses the will of minorities, which could lead to human rights violations. There needs to be a balance between the power of the state and the people, with one extreme you have totalitarianism and the other you have mob rule.never heard of a natural economy but my guess is that it never even existed lol

 I understand what you are saying but be aware that the concept of a "planned economy" has other connotations and is usually associated with  a command economy model of state capitalisn such as existed in the Soviet Union which we socialists do not support in any way.  A "natural economy" is essentially a non-exchange or non-monetised  economy and in that sense has certainly existed.  Peasant subsistence production is an example of this. As I and others here have tried to explain the concept of democracy in socialism/communusm that  we put forward is something much more nuanced than you are attempting to portray.  For a start, we do not envisage the continuation of the state in communism,  The state is a particular kind of institution that can only exist in a class based society.  In communism there are no classes – because the means of production are held in common – and therefore there can be no state. There will be democracy in communism, however,  as a  natural extension of common ownership but democracy will be a multi-faceted and multi-level phenomenon, operating at different scales of social organisation – local regional and even global.  A further point is that the scope of democratic decisionmaking, though it will be significantly wider than is the case today , will have limits and will need to have limits.  It has to be counter balanced by considerations that bear upon the freedom of the individual or indeed  the minorities you speak of (meaning democracy will tend to take a consensual. form based on compromise rather than an adversarial form)  In fact, I have always argued that the great bulk of decisions in a communist society – if we are to be quite literal about this – will not be democratically-based but individually-based,  For instance it would be up to you as an individual to decide what you wish to consume or what work you wish to contribute.  This is implicit in the communist slogan "from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs." Where democracy comes intio the picture is when you have decisions that need to be made that have unavoidable collective or joint impacts.  It is quite right that the people who are going to be significantly affected by a decision  should have a say in it.   The only alternative to that is to have decisions imposed on you from above and I am sure you wouldnt agree with that! So certainly democracy has a very important role to play in a future socialist or communist society but it is not quite the role you seem to imagine

I don't support mob rule, it may sound nice but I guarantee it will go to shit very fast. The state needs to exist for the stability an advanced civilization needs. If you give all the power to the people soon enough you won't have a civilization anymore. It will be replaced with chaos, disorder, lawlessness, a burnt shell of what society once was basically.

[Capitalist Pig]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

things are funny like that, like with the federal and state law on pot possesion, some states completely ignore the feds

Also importantly the so-called sanctuary cities in regards to enforcement of immigration laws and undocumented migrants

problem is the state governments aren't giving the federal government the information they request on illegal immigrants who have commited crimes. You can say some states are attempting to prevent the federal government from enforcing the law on immigration by witholding information but the feds are the ones who are supposed to enforce it. its just political games some governors are pulling to get lib votes and in the process pissing off the feds

[Capitalist Pig]

John Pozzi wrote:

Hi Eugene, Yes!Take it to the next level via grb.net and be an Earth shareholder.  

hello newcomer

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

problem is the state governments aren't giving the federal government the information they request on illegal immigrants who have commited crimes. You can say some states are attempting to prevent the federal government from enforcing the law on immigration by witholding information but the feds are the ones who are supposed to enforce it. its just political games some governors are pulling to get lib votes and in the process pissing off the feds

This is a bit anecdotal coz i haven't the time right now to provide proper links.In Nazi Germany during the Soviet Invasion police regiments were called upon to execute Jews. One author studied a regiment recruited from liberal moreorless anti-Nazi Hamburg and found that they carried out their orders to the letter rather than be inefficient and reluctant. Off-hand I think the book was called "The Willing Executioners"Whereas the Nazi governor of Denmark when ordered to get rid of the Jews, let them all escape to Sweden and replied when disciplined…"What did i do wrong…i got rid of the Jews, didn't i?"My point is that we can bend the law or ignore the law if we so wish , exactly as you said previously. The sanctuary cities are being humanitarian compared to those states such as Arizona who sought to rigourously enforce immigration laws. It is not merely political games for votes. After all undocumented immigrants despite Trump's so-far unverified allegations don't vote. It is rather compassion. California’s immigrant population has grown, its crime and violence rates have plummeted. In 1980, census figures show, California’s population was 24 million, and two-thirds of it was non-Latino white. Today, the state’s population of 40 million is 40% Latino, 13% Asian and only 38% white. Over the last two decades, California has seen an influx of 3.5 million immigrants, mostly Latino, and an outmigration of some 2 million residents, most of them white. An estimated 2.4 million undocumented immigrants also currently live in the state.according to data from the FBI, the California Department of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control, the state has seen big drops in every major category of crime and violence that can be reliably measured. Since 1980, California’s rate of reported crime overall has fallen by 62%. The state’s criminal arrest rates, too, have fallen considerably, by 55% overall, and by 80% among people younger than 18 — a population, it is worth noting, that is now 72% nonwhite.More specifically, the rate of violent crime in California has fallen by an impressive 50% in the same period. This includes drops in robberies (65%), homicide (68%), and rapes and assaults (more than 40%). That last figure is even more remarkable when you consider that the legal definitions of both assault and rape were expanded during these years. (The state’s rate of violent crime did rise slightly in 2015 and 2016, but overall is still at a roughly 50-year low.)Also telling is the state’s reduction of violent deaths, a category that groups homicides with non-criminal fatalities such as accidents and overdoses from illicit drugs. Before the early 1990s, California had one of the country’s highest rates of violent death. It has since fallen by 18%, and did so as the average rate of violent death across the rest of the country rose 16%. Overall, Californians are 30% less likely to die a violent death today than other Americans.Compared with averages in all other states, California now has 33% fewer gun killings, 10% fewer murders overall, and 30% fewer illicit-drug deaths. When overdoses from illicit drugs rose 160% in the rest of the country, between 1999 and 2015, they rose only 27% in California.The murder rates in the state’s largest cities — all of which are “sanctuary” jurisdictions and therefore, by Trump’s logic, the most dangerous — have plummeted by 74%, and are now well below those of large cities elsewhere in the country.And just to be cautious and put a caveat on those statistics let us be aware that undocumented immigrants are reluctant to officially report crimes against themselves for fear of deportation so perhaps the rates are mis-leading.“Every time a criminal goes free because the victim fears deportation and the police, we are all a little less safe,” De León said in a statement. “Fear and mistrust are obstacles to the administration of justice.”So, indeed, let us protect all the vulnerable.

[robbo203]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

I don't support mob rule, it may sound nice but I guarantee it will go to shit very fast. The state needs to exist for the stability an advanced civilization needs. If you give all the power to the people soon enough you won't have a civilization anymore. It will be replaced with chaos, disorder, lawlessness, a burnt shell of what society once was basically.

 Just as a matter of interest, does this mean then that you oppose the concept of democracy altogether? I actually take the direct opposite view – advanced civilisation actually needs democracy and can only truly flourish when you have democracy..  Even within capitalism in which we have a fairly rudimentary form of democracy called "bourgeois representative democracy" there is a discernable correlation between economic progress and the extent to which bourgeois democratic rights are permitted.  Authoritarian regimes tend on the whole to be less economically developed – though there are exceptions I also completely reject your equating of democracy with  the term "mob rule".  Mob rule is only the flipside of the same coin on which rule by the state exists,  Mob rule arises precisely in response to the inadequacies and repressiveness of state rule,  It is not an alternative to state rule but the progeny of state rule. Mob rule, with all that it implies – the irrational, emotive, knee jerk of the masses to an intolerable situation – is not what democracy is about – at least not in the sense that we envisage democracy in a socialist society.  Because such a society will be a classless society it will ipso facto be a stateless society and by calling for the retention of the state you are effectively calling for the retention of class society. You are effectively calling for the retention of the very conditions under which mob rule asserts itself

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

Just as a matter of interest, does this mean then that you oppose the concept of democracy altogether?

He says elsewhere he is a fan of Marie Le Pen.

[Bijou Drains]

The focus on illegal Mexican immigrants by Donald Trump and his supporteers, is a little ironic on a number of levels. To start with I would think that most Native Americans have a view on teh impact of unchecked immigration (Trump himslef is the son of an immigrant).That aside most of the immigration from Mexico is into states such as New Mexico, California and Texas, states that were taken from independent Mexico following large scale immigration of white settlers into those states from the USA.It could be argued that the Texan revolution came because of unchecked, illegal white immigration, supported by the hope of re-establishing slavery in Texas.

[Anonymous]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

The focus on illegal Mexican immigrants by Donald Trump and his supporteers, is a little ironic on a number of levels. To start with I would think that most Native Americans have a view on teh impact of unchecked immigration (Trump himslef is the son of an immigrant).That aside most of the immigration from Mexico is into states such as New Mexico, California and Texas, states that were taken from independent Mexico following large scale immigration of white settlers into those states from the USA.It could be argued that the Texan revolution came because of unchecked, illegal white immigration, supported by the hope of re-establishing slavery in Texas.

The Mexican were cheated by the Yankees in the  same way  that they cheated the nativesThe southwest was completely stolen by provoking a war like they have always done and creating false enemyThe Guadalupe-hidalgo treaty said that Mexican were allowed to go in and out the territory and they have the option to become us citizen.That territory was called the republic of the north or the second republic. The problem are not the Mexicans the problem is capitalism and the decline of the empire.Within a few years, Latinos are going to be majorityThe joke is that wall is already there and the concrete wall is going to be built by Mexican workers using concrete mixing Corp located on the Mexican side Violating a lot of regulations and accordsIf you only read comic books you are going be  fooled by the rulers The real slogan is make America white again which is only a false dream

[Capitalist Pig]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

problem is the state governments aren't giving the federal government the information they request on illegal immigrants who have commited crimes. You can say some states are attempting to prevent the federal government from enforcing the law on immigration by witholding information but the feds are the ones who are supposed to enforce it. its just political games some governors are pulling to get lib votes and in the process pissing off the feds

This is a bit anecdotal coz i haven't the time right now to provide proper links.In Nazi Germany during the Soviet Invasion police regiments were called upon to execute Jews. One author studied a regiment recruited from liberal moreorless anti-Nazi Hamburg and found that they carried out their orders to the letter rather than be inefficient and reluctant. Off-hand I think the book was called "The Willing Executioners"Whereas the Nazi governor of Denmark when ordered to get rid of the Jews, let them all escape to Sweden and replied when disciplined…"What did i do wrong…i got rid of the Jews, didn't i?"My point is that we can bend the law or ignore the law if we so wish , exactly as you said previously. The sanctuary cities are being humanitarian compared to those states such as Arizona who sought to rigourously enforce immigration laws. It is not merely political games for votes. After all undocumented immigrants despite Trump's so-far unverified allegations don't vote. It is rather compassion. California’s immigrant population has grown, its crime and violence rates have plummeted. In 1980, census figures show, California’s population was 24 million, and two-thirds of it was non-Latino white. Today, the state’s population of 40 million is 40% Latino, 13% Asian and only 38% white. Over the last two decades, California has seen an influx of 3.5 million immigrants, mostly Latino, and an outmigration of some 2 million residents, most of them white. An estimated 2.4 million undocumented immigrants also currently live in the state.according to data from the FBI, the California Department of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control, the state has seen big drops in every major category of crime and violence that can be reliably measured. Since 1980, California’s rate of reported crime overall has fallen by 62%. The state’s criminal arrest rates, too, have fallen considerably, by 55% overall, and by 80% among people younger than 18 — a population, it is worth noting, that is now 72% nonwhite.More specifically, the rate of violent crime in California has fallen by an impressive 50% in the same period. This includes drops in robberies (65%), homicide (68%), and rapes and assaults (more than 40%). That last figure is even more remarkable when you consider that the legal definitions of both assault and rape were expanded during these years. (The state’s rate of violent crime did rise slightly in 2015 and 2016, but overall is still at a roughly 50-year low.)Also telling is the state’s reduction of violent deaths, a category that groups homicides with non-criminal fatalities such as accidents and overdoses from illicit drugs. Before the early 1990s, California had one of the country’s highest rates of violent death. It has since fallen by 18%, and did so as the average rate of violent death across the rest of the country rose 16%. Overall, Californians are 30% less likely to die a violent death today than other Americans.Compared with averages in all other states, California now has 33% fewer gun killings, 10% fewer murders overall, and 30% fewer illicit-drug deaths. When overdoses from illicit drugs rose 160% in the rest of the country, between 1999 and 2015, they rose only 27% in California.The murder rates in the state’s largest cities — all of which are “sanctuary” jurisdictions and therefore, by Trump’s logic, the most dangerous — have plummeted by 74%, and are now well below those of large cities elsewhere in the country.And just to be cautious and put a caveat on those statistics let us be aware that undocumented immigrants are reluctant to officially report crimes against themselves for fear of deportation so perhaps the rates are mis-leading.“Every time a criminal goes free because the victim fears deportation and the police, we are all a little less safe,” De León said in a statement. “Fear and mistrust are obstacles to the administration of justice.”So, indeed, let us protect all the vulnerable.

I don't think its humanitarian for the government to endanger the lives of its citizens by giving felons passes just because they immigrated illegally. I know you have good intentions but the sad reality is that people commit crimes and if you don't enforce the law there will be no deterant for future criminals.I think you are picking and choosing statistics that support your views honestly, your going to make the argument that because california is less white then it was 40 years ago there is less crime? The fact is it is of great puplic expense to take in people with no skills and no money. If the immigration laws were enforced that would increase wages because american corporations would have to hire american workers again, no more cheap labour.The sanctuary cities are a massive political game. The democrats promise open borders and that they will not enforce the law to gain votes from non citizens, why do you think they are against voter ID laws? Millions of dead and non citizens were found on the ballots before the election so don't say "theres no such thing as election fraud".By the way is it compasionate to let a criminal who was deported mulitable times to come in and let him murder a mothers son? I swear some of the stuff I read on these forums is like reality has been inverted

[Capitalist Pig]

robbo203 wrote:

Capitalist Pig wrote:

I don't support mob rule, it may sound nice but I guarantee it will go to shit very fast. The state needs to exist for the stability an advanced civilization needs. If you give all the power to the people soon enough you won't have a civilization anymore. It will be replaced with chaos, disorder, lawlessness, a burnt shell of what society once was basically.

 Just as a matter of interest, does this mean then that you oppose the concept of democracy altogether? I actually take the direct opposite view – advanced civilisation actually needs democracy and can only truly flourish when you have democracy..  Even within capitalism in which we have a fairly rudimentary form of democracy called "bourgeois representative democracy" there is a discernable correlation between economic progress and the extent to which bourgeois democratic rights are permitted.  Authoritarian regimes tend on the whole to be less economically developed – though there are exceptions I also completely reject your equating of democracy with  the term "mob rule".  Mob rule is only the flipside of the same coin on which rule by the state exists,  Mob rule arises precisely in response to the inadequacies and repressiveness of state rule,  It is not an alternative to state rule but the progeny of state rule. Mob rule, with all that it implies – the irrational, emotive, knee jerk of the masses to an intolerable situation – is not what democracy is about – at least not in the sense that we envisage democracy in a socialist society.  Because such a society will be a classless society it will ipso facto be a stateless society and by calling for the retention of the state you are effectively calling for the retention of class society. You are effectively calling for the retention of the very conditions under which mob rule asserts itself

I don't support majority rule no. I explained my views in my earier posts so i really don't want to go into another detailed post. What i think basically is that if we let things to be decided on a majority vote, those who aren't in the majority will be marginalized. I think its sort of a herd mentality

[Capitalist Pig]

Matt wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Just as a matter of interest, does this mean then that you oppose the concept of democracy altogether?

He says elsewhere he is a fan of Marie Le Pen.

who is now in the process of being jailed for criticizing ISIS

[robbo203]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

 I don't support majority rule no. I explained my views in my earier posts so i really don't want to go into another detailed post. What i think basically is that if we let things to be decided on a majority vote, those who aren't in the majority will be marginalized. I think its sort of a herd mentality

 CP, what you are effectively saying is that you think it is better that a minority should marginalise the majority than that a majority should marginalise a minority.  Individuals in the minority carry more weight in your book than individuals in the majority and should therefore be able to overrule the latter.  This is exactly the circumstances under which that phenomenon you fear most – mob rule or the knerk yerk, irrational, over reaction of the disenfeanchised – will occur.  It is the blind lashing out against the systemic contempt of the minority establishment shown towards the majority Treating everyone as equal, as carrying equal weight means treating everyone with respect.  This is why in a true democracy, while the will of the majority will and should prevail, there exists the optimal conditions in which every attempt will be made to accomodate  the wishes of the minority – that is to say, to compromise with the minority rather than marginalise them. Conversely it provides the optimal conditions for the minority to treat with respect the wishes of the majority, As long as you have class ownership of the means of production iyou have a fundamentally adversarial  social mechanism in place by which the majority will be permanently marginalised with all that that entails

[Anonymous]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

Matt wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Just as a matter of interest, does this mean then that you oppose the concept of democracy altogether?

He says elsewhere he is a fan of Marie Le Pen.

who is now in the process of being jailed for criticizing ISIS

How upsetting. A product of your rule of capitalist Law. Oh blessed martydom awaits her. So what? "On the legal affairs committee, 18 MEPs voted to lift immunity, three opposed and no one abstained.Under French law, the maximum penalty for distributing violent images is three years in prison and a fine of up to €75,000 (£64,000)".What does a power struggle between rival capitalist parties for the purpose of gaining government over the workers, have to do with us, who advocate getting rid of these enforcers of capitalist exploitation and running  of a free access society by the workers self organised to get rid of class exploitation.I merely cited an example of your support for a fascist totalitarian type, 'smack of firm governance', but you weep and wail when it is imposed upon your favourites.

[Anonymous]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

Matt wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Just as a matter of interest, does this mean then that you oppose the concept of democracy altogether?

He says elsewhere he is a fan of Marie Le Pen.

who is now in the process of being jailed for criticizing ISIS

Those are not the real facts, or you do not know what you are talking about.  They removed her parliamentary inmunity because she was publishing violence picture of ISIS, and under the capitalist law of France, that is prohibited with the penalty of being taken to prison or the imposition of a heavy fine.The main problem of France is not ISIS, it is only a distraction, the real problem is capitalism, and it has been discovered that the terrorists attacks made in France have been committed by the same terrorists that they have trained, andf they want those terrorists  actions to be committed to have excuses to continue the war in the Middle East, and  to produce fear within the French populationIf they are going to publish pictures of violence, they also should publish the pictures of the atrocities and fascists acts committed by the Westerrn Powerr and the USA in Iraq, where they dropped depleted uranium, mini nukes,  and millions of bombs against the population, and they destroyed everthing, and more than 1.5 millions people were killed, and there are children that are born without legs, without arms, and with cancer , leukemia, with large tumors due to atomic radiation.  They have also dropped bombs on hospitals, actions that were not effected  by the German Nazi in WWII, the terrorists attacks of the western power in Iraq are  worst than the terrorist attacks made in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where a whole population of inocent peoples were used to scierntific atomic experiments, and they have dropped more bombs than during WWIIISIS is their product, produced by the wars in the Middle East, and they have used ISIS in order to carry their criminals acts to overthrow goverments, to make war against the goverment that do not support them, , and to overthrow leaders like they did in Lybia, and many young peoples have joint ISIS because many of their relatives have been killed, and the leaders of ISIS have used that excuse to obtain more membership. They whole middle east is a mess produced by the USA and the Western powers and the real intention is petroleum, minerals and opiumThe army of ISIS has been financed by the Western Power and the USA goverment, even more, many report have shown that the amount of attacks made against ISIS is only a lie, they have only destroyed those members of ISIS who have opposed their own creator, like in Benghazi, where the US embassy was a nest of terrorists and criminals, and some groups of terrorists attacked the embassyThese are only fight between bandits of capitalism trying to take control of the state and the economy in detriment of the working class, and to impose neo-fascists, and neo-Nazis agenda, who ever support them, can also support the Italian Fascists and the German Nazis

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