First off, if you dont want to read a political article then simply hit the \"back\" button in your browser. Now, i read this last summer, and i thought it was really good so i saved it, and thought i would share it with you. I have noticed a few more Blades who say they are libertarian, for them this will be espically good. Socialism is evil Walter E. Williams (archive) July 28, 2004 | Print | Send What is socialism? We miss the boat if we say it\'s the agenda of left-wingers and Democrats. According to Marxist doctrine, socialism is a stage of society between capitalism and communism where private ownership and control over property are eliminated. The essence of socialism is the attenuation and ultimate abolition of private property rights. Attacks on private property include, but are not limited to, confiscating the rightful property of one person and giving it to another to whom it doesn\'t belong. When this is done privately, we call it theft. When it\'s done collectively, we use euphemisms: income transfers or redistribution. It\'s not just left-wingers and Democrats who call for and admire socialism but right-wingers and Republicans as well. Republicans and right-wingers support taking the earnings of one American and giving them to farmers, banks, airlines and other failing businesses. Democrats and left-wingers support taking the earnings of one American and giving them to poor people, cities and artists. Both agree on taking one American\'s earnings to give to another; they simply differ on the recipients. This kind of congressional activity constitutes at least two-thirds of the federal budget. Regardless of the purpose, such behavior is immoral. It\'s a reduced form of slavery. After all, what is the essence of slavery? It\'s the forceful use of one person to serve the purposes of another person. When Congress, through the tax code, takes the earnings of one person and turns around to give it to another person in the forms of prescription drugs, Social Security, food stamps, farm subsidies or airline bailouts, it is forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another. The moral question stands out in starker relief when we acknowledge that those spending programs coming out of Congress do not represent lawmakers reaching into their own pockets and sending out the money. Moreover, there\'s no tooth fairy or Santa Claus giving them the money. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces us to acknowledge that the only way government can give one American a dollar is to first -- through intimidation, threats and coercion -- take that dollar from some other American. Some might rejoin that all of this is a result of a democratic process and it\'s legal. Legality alone is no guide for a moral people. There are many things in this world that have been, or are, legal but clearly immoral. Slavery was legal. Did that make it moral? South Africa\'s apartheid, Nazi persecution of Jews, and Stalinist and Maoist purges were all legal, but did that make them moral? Can a moral case be made for taking the rightful property of one American and giving it to another to whom it does not belong? I think not. That\'s why socialism is evil. It uses evil means (coercion) to achieve what are seen as good ends (helping people). We might also note that an act that is inherently evil does not become moral simply because there\'s a majority consensus. An argument against legalized theft should not be construed as an argument against helping one\'s fellow man in need. Charity is a noble instinct; theft, legal or illegal, is despicable. Or, put another way: Reaching into one\'s own pocket to assist his fellow man is noble and worthy of praise. Reaching into another person\'s pocket to assist one\'s fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation. For the Christians among us, socialism and the welfare state must be seen as sinful. When God gave Moses the commandment \"Thou shalt not steal,\" I\'m sure He didn\'t mean thou shalt not steal unless there\'s a majority vote. And I\'m sure that if you asked God if it\'s OK just being a recipient of stolen property, He would deem that a sin as well. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20040728.shtml It has a libertarian author, sooo.... yea..... i know it isnt \"fair and balanced\", but it does a good job of pointing out, both democrat and republican, are not too far off from each other.
Honestly...don\'t you think this one is a bit extreme? I do agree with the anti-privatisation problem...socialism in it\'s infinite form would not give rights of ownership to the individual...but that\'s not the essence... The essence is basically good: Dividing the goods, sharing the goods. But in reality that would never work because of human nature...we are just too greedy or too lazy... But I could easily write an atricle on capitalism with the same outcome. I just think some of the comparisons are a bit far off. How the hell did he manage to get the Nazi regime in there? And slavery? There\'s no more slavery in socialism than in capitalism...it\'s all about working for your food...only in capitalism it might be easier to accumulate goods if you\'re either smart or ruthless...
Damn, i didnt even know there was a part 2! Skinner, the libertarian party is for extreme change. In the realm of the reality we live in, i know we cant change that extreme. Damn i wish we could though. Oh, ive seen nazi references alot in the past year or so.......... After all, Nazi is the National Socialist Party. Hilter gained power at first with the ideals of socialsim, they looked nice to the overwhelmingly poor population of Germany. And in socialism you can just relax and let your fellow man provide your food, instead of working for it yourself.
Got nothing to do with socialism...Hitler provided work for the unemployed...that was enough for them...in your version of socialism, he would have had to supply everyone with free goods to make his regime socialist... That seems to be your favourite argument, \'cause I\'ve seen it repeated soo many times...you done with it soon? In a modern socialist state like Norway, you get unemployment money for a limited period of time. If you\'ve never worked, that amount is so small, you can\'t live off it. Then you have to apply for a certain number of jobs (remember Spud in Trainspotting?). If you don\'t find one, they\'ll finally find one for you that you\'re required to take, or you turn it down but do no longer recieve unemployment money... So you see...socialism in it\'s purest form doesn\'t work...that doesn\'t mean it can\'t work at all... It all needs moderators...like capitalism...or is inside trading legal in America? E.g. are you allowed to warn your buddies before a comany goes down...so they can sell their shares and earn millions, while millions of others loose everything? Capitalism without control would be just as doomed as socialism...
Skinner, i dont agree with the govt robbing us of our money to fund these programs. They are socialist programs, and they are unconstutional. They are the exact opposite of my beliefs. I dont care what goes on in norway, this article was about socialism here in the US. I wonder how the leader of the socialist party could me mentioned in an article about socialism............... Skinner, in previous threads i have given you the exact definition of socialsim, which is my view. Dont try to distort my argument like i have a different belief. Any program that takes away tax money against the will of the people and redistributed is to others, i do not agree with. It is robbery. Care to back that up with any examples? There have been many socialist states to fail in the fairly recent past. I see evidence of some of those nations change to capitolism and find success. Actually, after thinking about it, i dont. I think it is extreme how much power the govt has gotten over the past 200 years to tax us and pass these unconstitutional and quite frankly, failing programs. I simply want to go by the constution, which gives the citizens more power and keeps the govt on a tighter leash.
I used to be a libertarian but now I\'m definetly more left than that in terms of my view on economic policy these days. While their idealization of capitalism and human nature in general appealed to me for some time, real world experience tells you that it doesn\'t really work this way. When money and property are the only things considered, there\'s a lot more important things that are being forgotten about, and those have to be incorporated into the picture when deciding how government policies should be decided. After all, we are human beings, not just computers trying to calculate the highest numbers.
America\'s solution to the poor - throw money at them and hope they go away. Result - more poor who depend even more on the govt Libertarian soulution to the poor - Educate, ween off social programs, let private charities, churches, etc fill in the gap. Result - yet to be seen. Emotion and pitty doesnt make it right to steal money, against the constution, and redistribute it to other who have not earned it. Look at your parents, and their parents, and their parents. They all grew up without most of these programs, they also seem to have a better work ethic. I know people who work 2 jobs to put themselves through school. I work full time and go to school full time. It isnt fun, but i look at it as in investment in my future. A little hard work never hurt anyone. Charity is giving when it is not required. Stealing is requiring someone to give. This is only a theory, but i firmly believe people would be more inclined to give if they were not already being forced to give. I think adding this to giving tool to succede like education to people, making them less dependent of government would be a grea solutiion to the problem. The thing you can not forget is these programs are proven be failures and have done nothing but make people MORE dependent on government and have only increased the number of poor in this country. I think it is time for a different approch, i mean, its not like it could turn out much worse than it is now. Taxes are being raised and more money pumped into these programs whcih are simply not working. Also, most of these programs were ment to be temperary and also not ment to be a main source of income as they have become today. The government has also used this power to add more sinking programs despite the constution.
I beleive that welfare needs to be heavily reformed but not stopped altogether. Don\'t lie to yourself, it\'s true that most people are pretty selfish. The richest people who are being taxed the most, and thus providing the most support to these programs, are the same people who use cutthroat business tactics to destroy competition and make more money for themselves. They care more about raising their stock value than they do about the quality of life of their employees. Employees to them are thousands of people, most of whom they will never meet, whose job is to produce more wealth for them. The CEO of Barnes and Noble is wealthy but the cahsier who has worked there for 30 years is no better for it. The truth is, capitalism, like socialism and communism, is a flawed system, that, if allowed to exists on its own, would ultimately lead to some kind of social demise. Beleive me, I know all the points of libertarianism well, I used to debate the hell out of people... but I\'ve come to realize that human nature is a lot darker than we might want to beleive, and people aren\'t as giving and charitable as we wish there were.
I aslo just wanted to add something about the people\'s relationship with the government. Our government now is treated with general suspicion and animosity by very many people, because we don\'t feel in control or connected to the government. However, ideally, a government is meant to be an instituion run BY and FOR the people... ours, however, isn\'t and that\'s why we perceive it to be such an evil, looming entity. If we had a government that genuinely ruled in our best interest (is that possible?), then maybe we would stop viewing it as an enemy, but rather as something that we are in control and responsible for. How many people today feel as if they have much control over the government? Only the ones who are actually in it, probably... this system is wrong and it doesn\'t work but it doesn\'t mean that government always HAS to be bad.
It seems you have a distored view of the \"rich\" I think 200,000 a year is what is considered \"rich\", or the top 2%. There are many people who make 200,000 a year who are not CEOs of Major companies like Barnes and Nobles. America is the most chertiable nation on the planet, and these \"rich, cuthroat, etc\" are the same people who make it so. If you see someones name on a building at a school or a park named after someone, odds are they donated hundrads of thousands if not millions of dollars for that. The reason the libertarian ideals will never be achieved is because people do not/can not/will not take responsiblity for themselves. The government has grown into a monster, and lets think about why that is. The constitution gives us the right to overthrow our government, but there are too many people dependent on the government. This has been achieved by unconstutional means. Income tax was first promised to only tax the rich. WW2 came along and the first payroll tax was passed, as a temperary tax, to fund the war the FDRs programs. It has been all downhill since then. The reason people have no power is because of our electorial process. We dont change governements every 4 years, we simply fill in the slots with new people who, eather D or R, have basicly the same goals. The debates, the entire race is between 2 people. A douche and a turd sandwich if you will. I think if each party had equal funding and exposure, things would change. But sadly i dont see that happening. Its so funny the people who complain the loudest about the government are the ones who rely on it. I would also like to add the evil business is whats responsible for technological advances. If it wasnt for evil business, we wouldnt have what we had today.
Lets not forget that the reason the government intervenes in economic and social issues now is because of what happened around the turn of the century with monopolies and conditions for factory workers and the like. I\'m not saying that rich people are evil, or that business owners are evil or anything like that... I\'m just saying that human nature renders pure capitalism a dangerous system, the same thing it does to communism and socialism. Just because the government is fucked beyond recognition now, doesn\'t mean that all governments have to be that way. A government that is an exention of the people rather than a seperate, opposing entity would be much more effective. People would pay taxes not because they are forced but on a voluntary basis induced by a greater understanding of long-term social and economic relationships. The question is, of course, how to do this. But the fact remains that many human beings are selfish and greedy and not everyone has the same amount of power. Libertarianism basically says that personal property rights are the ultimate virtue, but that leaves a lot of other things out.
ok.... this bit just pisses me off. the rest of it fair enough, its to be expected, the same old ideology vs ideology propaganda... but bullshitting religious FOLLOWERS into thinking lies about their already corrupted religion is just sick. what am i talking about...? JESUS WAS A SOCIALIST! http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/13693.htm http://www.christianparents.com/jason.htm heck... theres\' too many pages backing that up... check \'em out for yourself. http://www.google.co.uk/search?sour...s=RNWC,RNWC:2003-38,RNWC:en&q=jesus+socialist the word socialism has been ill-used in the past. i.e. Hitler was part of the national socialist party of germany.... and we all know how that went. all these terminologies are fairly shite really. like capitalist democracy. wtf!? most money gets most votes!? the rhetoric used to demonise socialism hides from the \"theft\" issue very cleverly. instead of collective \"theft\" in a robbin hood style (if you have too much, we take and spread the wealth) we\'d get theft from anyone richer or poorer individually if we were to follow the extremist right wing ideology of some in the \"Libertarian\" party. laissez faire ... isn\'t that what they call it? sounds an awful lot like capitalism to me. and what is capitalism all about...? money. and it takes money to make money. so the more money you have the richer you can get. .... heh, see where that leads? hello king gates! it creates an authoritarian state and holds back people from having the means to make any change. sounds an awful lot like the authoritarian left wing doesnt it. if only more of the libertarian party in america really were for LIBERTY, and a sustainable one at that. http://www.infoshop.org if they were truely libertarian, ie, anarchistic, they wouldn\'t need to read this: http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secFcon.html oh, and just for fun... i might as well post this too... http://www.infoshop.org/octo/matrix/index.php/Capitalism ^ closest thing i can find to the other side of the coin equivalent to gill\'s initial post on socialism. more on this... http://www.infoshop.org/octo/matrix/index.php/Anti-capitalism from the matrix. point being from all my waffle.... too often we get bogged down in discussions between left and right, when really, we should be talking about freedom. be it ecconomic freedom, or personal freedom. whether we see ecconomics and currency as a fiction we need to learn to survive without or if you think people with bad taste need to be brought into line with the mainstream is irrelevant... if we stop trying to take each other\'s freedoms, we\'d realise that there\'s a much better way to live FREE. and to prove to you all that i am a smelly hippie... LOVE is the answer. people too often use \"human nature\" being \"greed\" as an example of why anarcho-socialism will never work... as i put it to them, is that really in human nature, or is the existance in a high pressure capitalist society that encourages and perhaps even CREATES that greed?..... hmmm? think on folks. i\'m out. i tire of these political discussions that rarely get us anywhere, because we never step back.
In a utopia that might work digit, but your ideas are not grounded in the real world. We have so many example of socialist countries eather failing or converting into communism and then failing i dont even need to list them here. Many of those countries have since rebounded, thanks to what.......capitolism. Blame capitolsim for greed, but socialism puts the power in the hands of a few, and your propaganda wont rewrite the history books. Every example has a leader or group of leaders with most of the power, so they take more, and more, and more. This is why socialism is just a step in the transition to communism. Not every time, but we have enough example to back up and prove that claim. If king gates is smart enough to come up with a product that makes him 50 billion, so be it, why hate on him for having the drive to become successful. King Gates dropped out of schoool and started his business very small and built it up, based on the idea people will pay for software, as opposed to the software should be free mentality. What happens to your socialist state when the rich leave? It falls into a shithole. How does capitolism hold people back? It teaches them if they have drive and ambition, they can rise above the rest. Hard work pays off, education pays off. The reason capitolism works is because there are enough people who dont have that drive and ambition who will become the \"worker bees\" while the ones with drive become successful. You work hard, you will be rewarded. Nice job spinmaster, but it doesnt sound anything like the left wing to me. The left wing is responsible for the barriers of economic growth, look at France\'s economy for an example of that. But yea, this is, as skinner said, extreme, but the article talks about it here at home. These programs go against OUR constitution. Can you tell me more about the libertarian party and their views? Im learning......
certainly not. too many people ground their ideas in the \"real world\"*. how the fuck is anything expected to progress if we only ever look at \"what is\" and never look to all the millions of \"could be\" possabilities. History is writen by the victors. isn\'t that what they say? well, capitalism won the \"cold war\" (very cleverly too i might add) so i guess our history books must all be tarred with that brush eh? it might suprise you to learn this, but not all systems work off having a figure head. do you have the imaginative capacity to envision a system that does not rely on the top-down distribution of power? I never said i hated him for having the drive to become successful. If it\'s gonna be said i hate him, its because he won not by producing better software, not by being better than the competitors, he won by having the will to do what the competition were too \"moral\" to do, he won by actively destroying the competition, and now in that position of holding onto a very very large share of the market, he can do as he pleases. anyways, thats not why i mentioned \"king gates\". the term was meant to imply the danger of allowing anyone to become so powerfull as to be truely untouchable. knowing all the pop info on how naughty microsoft is, it makes me wonder how much they get upto that i havn\'t a clue about, and all this, still, no court in the world has the power to compete with the sheer weight of influence microsoft has. Bill gates can give away very high percentages of his wealth, and still be the richest man in the world. what happens when he realises his power? what happens when he tries to use it for his own benefit regardless the expense of others. i\'m not saying he does or will... but who\'s to say he doesnt? who\'s to say the next one wont? do you have something against the idea that digital code should be free? all the methods that\'s been tried to restrict the copying of software aren\'t enough, and its coming to the realisation that the only way to ensure all those bad people who want free software don\'t manage to get it is to monitor their every move.... hello orwell\'s 1984. ha, and some people still try to claim it was a warning against \"socialism\"... nah, it was extremes of authority, ie, totalitarianism that the warning was for. umm.... my socialist state? you mean my anarcho socialist population living in free association.... where the state does not outweigh the individual. please, don\'t argue my point for me. assumptions about where my politics lie are almost certainly wrong. in my ideology, everyone is \"rich\". so what happens when everyone leaves? it gets left to the rest of nature to evolve without humans. call that a shithole if you want, but if thats how ya see things, you\'re gonna grow very bitter and hateful at just about everything. and what of the people who already have drive, ambition and vision? oh, they need money. that great idea they have... not gonna happen without money. so they gotta waste half their lives chasing money to get an idea off the ground that could have pushed humanity forward. also... are you not aware of how shitty the education system is? what lucky exceptional part of society do you exist in where education isnt so much education as more conditioning and training to fit specialised roles. you talk about ecconomic growth as if that is the goal in itself. wasn\'t ecconomic growth supposed to be to raise the standard of living? isn\'t that a little backwards to sacrafice the standard of living for the majority for the benefit of the ecconomy? i\'m not here to talk up \"socialism\" or change your mind on your views on a certain type of authoritarian socialism, or indeed of marxism. i\'m just here to offer you the point of view that there are many benefits to a little leftism, and that its not as simple as left v right. (but i know you know the second part of that already anyway... surely, dont ya?) the idea that by raising the lowest standard of living you deprive the populace of all drive is quite simply, a lie. by doing this you\'re raising the standard of living, the oppertunitys, the base line from which people can launch themselves or an idea or a creation. nope. cos you don\'t want to learn. you just want to be right and be smug about it. the only point i lay claim to about the libertarian party is that they are right wing, not simply libertarian, as their name suggests. which given where they are, you can hardly blame them. *real world. what is this myth you speak of? the world that surrounds us, encases our every waking existance? the world that is transmitted to us through media, and word of mouth based on media? ah, it is the world that says humans are greedy, get used to it, so go out and be greedy too. the world that says we need money. the world that says we need to work for a living, when really we\'re working for a boss. the world that says conform, because the opinions of an individual are to be shunned as insanity. the world that says we\'re free, but everything costs money. please. reality looks different from every different angle. ever tried stepping outside your own views gilligan? ever thought of looking through the eyes of another? do it. I did, and it was great. i try to do it as often as possable now. it stops me from seeing things just one way, it stopped me from being deluded that how i saw things were the way things were. i suspect you think you\'re right, and you think i think i\'m right. right? wrong. I don\'t. i think we\'re all wrong. reccognition of this will keep us searching to be right, rather than simply convincing ourselves that we are. i\'m not in \"real world\". intentionally so? perhaps. but maybe what we think is real is instead just a cleverly constructed lie.
I am not only taking about the economic and social real world, im talking about the reality of human nature. Power currupts human by nature. Humans by nature adapt and use our brains to find solution to problems, thats one thing that seperates us from the rest of the animals. People WILL take advantage of anything set up to help them. Dont lock your door, dont lock your car, you will see human nature. That maybe so, but it doesnt change the fact that so many nations have experemented with socialism, and so many of them have failed. So many of them end up communist. So many of them turned to capitolism and saw the rewards. All governmental systems which install a socialist type rule do. They are the ones regulating everything, therefore they have the power. Not one person ith power, but the government as a whole. Refer to human nature to adapt comment from above. I burn software with the best of them. Its a cat and mouse game, but i am not against anything sold on the free market. There is a demand for it, and microsoft meets that demand. IMO it is only popular because it is a standard. Something as revolutionary as windows could and i imagine will come along one day and change things a bit. He cant do as he pleases though, the public still has the final say-so, they are the ones buying the product, but agian, its all they know. Humans do not like change. Yes, i am fully aware of how shiity the public education system is. It is designed to turn students into what the govt wants them to be. They teach them what they think they should know. I am lucky enough to not have attended public school. not quite sure what u mean, but ill take a crack at it. Im finishing up work on my BS in info tech. I have went to school for years and years learning a variety of things, alot of things i will not use as much as others. In my final years of school i have been taking more specialized classes geared towards my major. General computer classes and then specializes networking classes dealing with microfsoft, unix, cisco, levels of date and so forth. I look at it as training and conditioning for the job i hope to get with the skills i have aquired while going there. I dont think we are sacraficing the standard of the majority. I think it is more sacraficing the standard for the minority, the group who doesnt have that drive and ambition i was talking about earlier. They are the ones who get left behind, who struggle, and imo it is their fault. Reguardless of economic status, tools for success are available for those who want them bad enough. Working to put yourself through school is an example of a sacrafice that someone could choose to make to better themselves and better prepare themselves for the future. Refer to the comment about locking your doors. Hers a little example. At my old job, we had a snack tray. and payment was done on the honor system. How long do you think it took before the snack tray came up short? Hacking, stealing, piriting software, selling drugs, all examples of human natures will to do what it wants. If it was free, what would be the purpose of making it? another example of the real world im talking about. Start a business, work for yourself.
And that is why capitalism doesn\'t really work... in America the vast majority of the wealth and real estate in this county are held by 1% of the population. Economic data also shows the gap between the \"rich\" and \"poor\" to be widening. So is capitalism really creating more opportunity and distributing power more equally? Money IS power and capitalism inherently results in it being very unevenly concentrated. Those who were born with more money and more opportunity call the shots, and very few who were born with jack shit are ever able to make anything out of their lives. It doesn\'t mean they don\'t work hard... an illegal immigrant worker picking strawberry\'s all his life has a much more unpleasent job than the rich CEO of the fruit company he is employed by and yet what is his compensation compared to the owners of the company? Not much... so hard work and money earned don\'t have much of a correllation, there are plenty of other examples, use your imagination. Huge corporations run by capitalists have been gypping the masses for ages, and just because they\'re been conditioned to be too complacent to catch on doesn\'t mean that its okay.
What is this run on paying taxes. I pay my taxes happily. My taxmoney goes towards free education for all. And that includes university. My money go to universal healthcare. My money go to support those who cannot support themselves for shorter or longer periods. My money goes to ensure security and a semblance of justice by keeping the firedepartment, courts, penalsystem and police funded. I might not agree on everything my government use my money on. But that is why we have elections every now and again, so that our politicians can bicker over how to spend that money in accordance with the democratic support they get. If my government wasted billions on invading harmless countries halfway on the other side of the globe or some other halfassed idea, we\'d kick that government and install a new one. That\'s the contract. Government is administrating our society, our little club of citizens, our country. To do that they receive taxes. We trust our administration to use that money wizely to the betterment of the entire society as a whole and its citizens individually. But then again, I live in an actual democracy, where citizens matter. Not in a psudo-democratic imperialistic plutocratic corporative-fascist state.
hey, that\'s what i\'ve been shouting for a while. um, yeah, thats kinda the idea isnt it? i don\'t lock my door, i don\'t lock my car... what aspect of human nature are you suggesting i look for in these locks? go live in canada for a while, i hear they don\'t lock their doors either. oh no! what have i said! now all you american\'s reading this, so full of \"human nature\" will go take advantage of all those people who don\'t lock themselves in their cages. i think you confuse alot of \"human nature\" with greed inspired by the lives we\'ve led. not everyone has been brought up to be a dog eating dog. you\'re not paying attention to the longer term movie. and does all socialism have to be of the statist variety? hows about getting some libertarian socialism eh? you should know now i\'m even more set against authority than yourself, do you think i\'d be arguing for an authoratative socialism? so you are for free software after all! you\'ve reccognised the power of digital, and how property rights clearly don\'t work for digital information. revolutionary? ... umm... windows? can you point out to me even just ONE thing, that microsoft can truely claim to have done that was revolutionary? take a look at all their patents and you\'ll see, they werent the first, they\'re lawyers were just the first to say they were. thats true. we\'re sheep. i was never one to truely buy the idea of the public being behind the driving seat... look at each person, who\'s driving them... their brain? and look around at their influences, their inputs... especially in the USA. advertising, advertising, advertising. it\'s like a crack addict. you can say it\'s their choice, but really, their hand is forced. you\'re fully aware, yet you didn\'t attend public school. hmm... how can you be fully aware then? yep. well, as long as you\'re aware of it. !!! you don\'t think that maybe they\'d have something really worthwhile to contribute and would contribute it if they didn\'t have to spend they\'re lives struggling to make the rent payments? refer to a society that doesn need to live in fear and lock its doors. yeash. it sickens me to think that so many people live like that. all would be completely unecessary, or nonexistant in a society that provided basic needs and didn\'t seek to inspire false desire for useless products constructed for the sole purpose of being sold to generate profit, where all software is free as it should be as it can be distributed at no cost, and where drugs are available to those who know what they\'re getting themselves in for. man, wake up! you\'re \"real world\" begins and ends at a $ sign. I won\'t shout at you that \"there is more to life\" (though i almost did before i deleted it), money is a fiction! do you think the necessity to have numbers running through bank\'s computers is really a necessity? do you think that if we were to ask for our money (i.e. gold) we\'d actually get it, or that there\'s even enough of the shiney metal for us all to get it if we all did? does the entirety of the rest of the animal life on earth exist outside the \"real world\"? i know, it\'s not easy making this mental leap from having existed in such a rigidly enforced philosophy of ecconomic pressure, i went through this myself. Money is not the sole source of motivation. Nor (more importantly) should it be. There is no need to apply such pressure on people, that forces them in ONLY ONE DIRECTION, that which makes profit. have you ever considered, that maybe, \"that which makes profit\" is not the best driving force and steering device for society? maybe, this would produce errors and oversights that may lead us irreversably to our own self anihilation? it is not completely unheard of, other species have done this too surely. in the big picture, we\'re little further on than ameobas, incapable of knowing what it is we live on. we\'re biologicaly fairly indistinguishable from those humans a few hundred years back that thought the world is round. we just might not know everything, y\'know? and with that, i raise the point that it\'s not such a bad idea to have people just sit around, thinking, living, being... anything other than being forced to produce, steal, exploit, get out of exploitation, sell, buy, aquire, work, waste, polute. its a culture of WORK OR DIE, effectively. you think, honestly, that this is freedom? is this really \"choice\"? [quote name=\'Gilligan\'] well, funny you should say that. it\'s only been my plan for the past 4 yearsish, held back by health, and more so... lack of finances. ooh look at that... the existance of money is holding me back! here\'s a question for you... does \"society\" exist? ... if you\'ve answered yes... wouldn\'t it be cool and groovy for that society to be pleasant to live in? rather than having to lock your door? if you\'ve answered no, then... what do you call the collective of humans (and other beings) amongst which we live? there is no reason, barring the will of the rich and powerfull few and their perpetuation of the contrary, that we cannot live without money, that people, if they wish could still have all those comforts afforded to those of us who are rich enough, and live hapily, more like we are built for. go genetically engineer a human more suited to work and money if that is what you really dessire, but me, i look at humans and think... we look like tropical creatures, built for long distance running, and froliking among trees and on beaches. ... that wasn\'t really my own observation, but it makes more sence than what either you or i think of \"human nature\", at least, on a biological level. ok, i\'ll stop. thats way more than enough for you to come back at. ps, i feel like animalmother from full metal jacket, when doc just said \"you might not think it, but animal mother when under fire is one of the finest examples of humanity, all he needs is someone to throw hand grenades at him the rest of his life\". thanks for the handgrenades gilligan. don\'t stop throwing them. please.