Watch out, @vannax! There’s a sage here who might call you a keyboard warrior or an enemy of this community. In general, if you disagree with this so-called free speech absolutist, you are considered rude and uninformed. You will also be told that nobody in your life loves you. This guy seems to know a lot about the people here. I don’t know whether he has a crystal ball or is some kind of psychic. But, I think we should show him some respect for his mysterious sources of knowledge and wisdom.
There exist different levels of tyranny.
Some say Caligula was a tyrant, but citizens under his rule only suffered around a 3% total tax rate, and most business was entirely unregulated. People under his rule had levels of freedom undreamed of today.
Sure, they had slaves back then, but whatever. There was no other way to really have an advanced civilisation back then. The abolition of slavery in the British Empire was not some great moral awakening; people always knew it was bad, but regarded it as a necessary evil. What really ended slavery was steam power and industrialisation, a way to power advanced civilisations without slaves.
Lastly, what Abe and the industrialised north did to the south is in many ways equivalent to what the elites are now doing to entire western hemisphere.
Homo malus est stultitia idea celebrans.
Sure - it ended one form of slavery but has perpetuated another.
Absolutely, that’s why I mentioned Malthus. It’s all the same cult, the Technocrats go way way back.
At least it ended the idea of one man owning another man.
A great leap forward, IMHO.
I agree, the idea may be gone, but the reality still exists. Now we have consortiums owning people. We call these consortiums nations and states.
Oh boy:
Arch Linux team says opposition to Age Verification is a CoC violation.
Screw them. Artix is the new Arch.
I hate CoCsuckers.
Here is another story:
At around 11-12, me, my brother and some buds would play at sword-fights with cross-country ski poles we…found, and use garbage can lids as shields, we learned to wrap cloth around our shield hands, cause blocking a good strike could hurt.
So…we were about playing one day, just 4 of us, when 5-6 older kids decided to start picking on us, and call us names. 5-6 unarmed, loud-mouthed punks.
So we beat them up and chased them away with our “swords.”
My favourite story is when some kids had me and a “buddy” trapped in a little fort, throwing rocks, and what have you. I had to beat up and tie up my “buddy” because he was trying to let the hostiles into the little fort. I eventually negotiated our release by giving the hostiles a water-proof match case. Much later (a couple weeks) they caught me on the streets, and attacked me. I was ready, and sprayed them in the eyes with Raid. Their parents called the cops. The cops agreed I acted in self-defence.
Why would I have to fight so much?
After my trip to Europe, I could talk French, so my parents sent me to a French school, in the city. Me and my brother were the only English kids there, and the only kids who didn’t go to school with the locals where we lived. Game on!
Admittedly, I liked to fight since birth.
Oh, it gets worse. My little sister, born two months premature, had to have injections and shit through a colostomy bag. She screamed like a demon. I tried to save her, and got beaten by my parents. I loved her, and her screams literally drove me insane, at the age of 6 or 7. I kept trying to save her, and dad was the only one tough enough to stop me, and he had to beat me up to do it, I literally went violently insane when I heard my little sister screaming like that. I had to stop them. I didn’t know squat. Such is the human condition.
…and nowadays, people seem to go violently insane over what, micro-agressions? My God, but when they actually start to piss people off as bad as I got pissed as a child, well, I guess there will be another few million body-bags to fill, same as it ever was. I dunno how many I’d kill to make sure my sister is safe, but its alot.
Mordechai:
Thanks for the information. I like Friedman’s quotation too.
And George Bernard Shaw, in Man and Superman:
“In heaven an angel is nobody in particular.”
Some thoughts regarding an alternate perspective until the final resolution recognition sets in:
Paradoxically, the ultimate echelon of enlightened self interest focuses equally on one another.
That in the ultimate scheme of things, the “big picture” transcendence to what religions et al refer to in various terms designating a “higher plane of existence”, etc.
There is no permanently enduring “get rich quick” scheme short-cut involving gaining adversarial advantage over another to defeat an opponent in a zero-sum game scheme scenario.
Exploiting short-term adversarial advantage of wielding the imbalance of power over vs the long-range mutual advantage of sharing balanced power with. The Golden Rule principle of mutual satisfaction is the portal to rise above and beyond (transcend) the level of endless confrontation and inherent enmity.
Star Trek TNG: Data can win without winning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIRT6xRQkf8
Maybe it’s difficult to imagine this as the method of attainment, (i.e., “You can’t get there from here.”) but consider if that’s the nature of interactions to be found on the next level. (If you believe that)
Enlightened self-interest rises to the level of dynamic equilibrium between self and other.
I know it’s a stretch, but I also like what Grace has to say about it:
“Paradise and paradox… They’re the only names in the combination game…”
Garden Of Man - Grace Slick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCYPx2xuFfc
(Transcript is wrong, BTW)
Wishing you well.
vannax:
Thanks for the information:
I found this today, don’t know if it might be of interest to you, but I thought I’d post it… hopefully it might be of value to someone:
Making Linux Ungovernable With I2P - Mental Outlaw
Wishing you well.
So, I’ve been away for some days.
What the news about Privacy Invasion, AKA, Age Verification on OM?
Things are now starting to filter out to the mainstream…
In 2010 we always heard the quote: “Never put your info on internet”
Today we hear: “YOU MUST PUT EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU SO YOU CAN BE SAFE!”
Those crappy laws only serve to keep the rich rich and the poor poor.
As far as I’m concerned, they can stick that crappy Facebook where the sun doesn’t shine. I hardly ever use it. The masses only know how to use those crappy social media platforms.
We will win.
OK, then. You can deal with the Chinese Communists when they decide to invade and all you don’t have an actual navy to stop them. This was something the South didn’t figure out until it was far too late and they had to work with whatever they could scavenge together. Not that it mattered at that late date. Nothing could defeat the Union’s Navy, short of the British Navy. And even that was debatable because the British lacked minimal draft ships to operate in shallow spots, just as they did at the Battle of Lake Erie fifty years earlier.
I always found it interesting how much of the Navy at the time consisted of Southern officers who refused to become traitors, which was almost all of them to the man. They understood which country they belonged to. The brainwashing doesn’t work when the preachers are not around to keep on preaching the wonders of slavery and hating one’s own country.
Neither side were angels, but the South was much worse by a very large margin. There was Andersonville Prison just for starters. There was the fact that if it was too much “trouble” to march prisoners to a prisoner of war camp, the South would just find some field where nobody was looking and shoot them. Contrast that with the North where Conferates were glad to get food and water after surrendering, along with proper housing.
Southerners are experts at revisionist history. To the point where they claim everyone else does it because nobody believes them. They are so correct that they will beat up anyone who disagrees with them, odds in their favor every time, of course. At least six against one is a fair fight to a Southerner. Eight against one is even more fair according to their thinking.
At least I never have to worry about a Southerner showing up where I live to beat me up. I have the ultimate secret weapon that they can’t defeat. Actual winter, cool summers, and close enough to Chicago, where Southerners fear to go.
Last time I checked, South Carolina tried to kill everyone in the fort. Then turned around and claimed they never did it.
The Civil War settled the question of states leaving. It is only Southerners who fail to grasp that fact. The Articles of Confederation failed. Why? Massive tariffs on anything and everything. Trade ceased to exist. Economic conditions were getting continuously worse. The only thing that document got right was how to parcel out land in the Midwest, which made far more sense than beating a horse and then following it to see where it goes in order to survey a road or other survey markers.
I have been to the South. Far too many times. The South must love him otherwise they wouldn’t put up all those directional signs. Yes, he was a good old boy alright. Talked out both sides of his mouth while sticking his finger in the air to see which way the wind was blowing so he knew what to say to Newt Gingrich while saying something the opposite as soon as Newt was gone. I came across plenty of Southerners exactly like that. I was an over the road truck driver. One who would go into places that would terrify Southern truck drivers.
The last time I checked, cotton was still being grown across the South. Just as Iowa grows corn and soybeans.
What does FDR and gold have to do with WWI? The only people who turned in their gold were those who believed in FDR. The rest of the population did the same as they did during Prohibition. Just as alcohol was produced in plain sight, so gold was stashed in plain sight.
Funny how you love to change the subject from WWI to FDR. Well, he was Secretary of the Navy at the time. But he never made the decision to get involved. Must be more of the twisted Southern logic that has trouble coping with reality. Have you tried to double clutch?
Here we go. When all else fails, blame everyone else for all your problems. Blame all the bankers and so on. I know first-hand how that works in the South.
I can always count on Southerners to believe in those conspiracies, despite the complete lack of evidence. If that was true, where is your evidence? How did Wilson make sure the Lusitania was sunk? Explain that. Did FDR call up Yamamoto and arrange to have him show up on Sunday at 8 on December 7, 1941? Where is that evidence? GW Bush set up the towers to be hit? How does that work?
I suppose you believe that tiny little winter storm that happened a few years ago in Atlanta was the work of President Trump. Or the one last year in Florida. Truth is, I sent both because some Southerners lied and then pulled out their guns, threatening to shoot me, point blank.
Again, with the lack of any evidence. You sure love those kook conspiracies. Seriously, try double clutching.
Never heard of it. Just because something happens in Canada or the UK doesn’t mean that it happens in Tennessee.
The American Indians were at war at assorted times with just about everyone. They were not poor innocent victims as your leftoid media wants you to believe. About the only instance of a tribe remaining peaceful was when the Comanche met the German immigrants. They sat down and cut a trade deal. Germans got bison meat. The Comanche got clothing, beer, garden vegetables and sauerkraut. Yet all around the Southerners couldn’t figure out why they couldn’t defeat the Comanche, yet the Comanche didn’t bother the Germans, except when they showed up to trade bison for stuff they didn’t have. In fact, the South has a much worse history of shooting up Indians than the rest of the country.
As for the Japanese, several were found in California and Hawaii spying for Imperial Japan. It was a war. That happens.
Most Germans didn’t get rounded up during WWI and almost none during WWII. Why? They quickly identified the spies and turned in the spies. By then, most Germans, unlike the Japanese, had been here for several generations and were very industrious. Yes, in the South the few Germans there were got rounded up during WWII, because the Southerners don’t like anyone who isn’t exactly like themselves.
Funny how all of them had all kinds of very questionable activities happening behind the scenes. Should the government gone in the way it did, hindsight being 20/20, which is always is? No. But given what they had to work with at the time and the rumors being spread around by the locals, that is what happened. Next time, try to get the conspiracies under control before something happens, not after the fact.
The driver was an illegal. I guess you have no problem with illegals running over people, smashing into school buses, buildings, and so on. Whatever it takes to have no government whatsoever, right?
You have to love these anarchists.
So you do believe in whatever they are preaching this week at the local mega-church.
Environ-mentalism is not a replacement for Judeo-Christianity. It is a cult that believes everyone must die, except for the elites at the top. Trouble is, who is going to do all the work? Who is going to fix those failed robots that they keep promising? The ones they have been promising for over 50 years. The AI programming that keeps on failing? Who is going to chase down those bugs? St. Greta of Troll?
I was an over the road truck driver before I retired. I have stopped in St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Long Beach, NYC, Boston, Baltimore, DC, Miami, whatever, you name it. Well except for San Diego and San Francisco. Illegal to take a big truck into San Fran over the bridge and never had a load going to or coming from San Diego. The worst by a long shot is Atlanta followed by Dallas. The only places where electric fences and guard towers were required were Atlanta and Dallas. Even Detroit isn’t that bad. I picked up or delivered loads to all parts of Detroit that still exist. Nobody bothered me.
Chicago is easy. Just don’t talk like a Southerner and say evil things to the locals, learn how to drive civilized, and stay on your side of the yellow line. Chicago is so easy in fact, that while backing into a dock facing the street on the South Side in the Englewood neighborhood, drivers will simply go around the block rather than fight me and the locals on the sidewalk will go across the street to use that sidewalk. Unlike in NYC and most any city in the South where the clown shows start driving into the tires or the concrete dock or start screaming and making threats to kill me for existing. The Chicago locals just leave me alone. One night I arrived at a warehouse at midnight and parked on street in the Roseland neighborhood. Nobody bothered me. Even with the window rolled down a few inches.
Now in the South at a truck stop, keep the windows rolled up and put locks on everything, including the air brake release knobs and steering wheel. At least that was one good thing about Texas. I could always find a dead end dirt road to back down and park it. Never had to worry about someone showing up looking for a fight because I somehow offended him because I existed. About the only thing that came close to messing with me was that bull that one night when I was delivering oil field parts out in a cow pasture in Texas. At least I had constant security with him out there. He must have thought that I wanted to haul away his herd because he couldn’t tell my dry van from a bull wagon.
The South is the only place where I had a warehouse manager call the police because I refused to talk like a Southerner and kept telling that clown that it was his responsibility to give me proper directions to get from his employee parking lot to the truck dock on the other side of the building, which he refused to do. He told the police I had a gun and was shooting up the place. The police show up, four cars, eight officers, sixteen guns pointing at me, point blank, telling me they are going to shoot me unless I produce that gun, now! A gun that I don’t have because no such gun exists, despite what the local good old boy claims. The one who is standing in the warehouse doorway, laughing his ass off with his warehouse nonworkers.
And you are going to lecture me about Waco and Ruby Ridge? Get out of here. You have nothing as far as I am concerned except an attitude and it needs to be cooled off. Perhaps you need to deal with some snow of Calumet, Michigan proportions? 300 inches sounds about right because that is almost what they had above the ground last week.