Comments on post #3022039

@sporked on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2019-01-13T09:57:09-05:00

Mithiwithi said:

This is simply factually incorrect. Political power is just a synonym for "authority" and "authority" is just another way of saying "someone who can tell other people what to do, and those other people will do it even if they wouldn't do so on their own" - and thus, power as a matter of physical fact ultimately comes from the people. Any appearance to the contrary is just the result of a prevalent shared belief among a given group of people that they "should" cede authority to certain other people in a certain way.

Representative democracy, then, is the belief that authority "should" be ceded to whichever people a majority of the people think it should be ceded to; and monarchism is the belief that authority "should" be ceded to an arbitrary person, the "monarch", and when the monarch dies or abdicates, to one of the monarch's children (or other relative, according to whatever rules of succession are implicitly agreed upon).

Ultimately, the weak point of all forms of human government is that relatively few humans have the wisdom and intellect to govern a large populace fairly and justly (for any value of "fair" and "just" you might define), and not sufficiently many more humans have the wisdom and intellect to accurately determine which humans are fit to govern. Thus, all systems will regularly vest authority in people who aren't fit to wield that authority.

It's not even that, it's that all political ideologies rely on people being altruistic, greed not existing and no one having ambitions. As fucked as we are now with Brexit I do think the UK has come closest to a governmental system that kinda words enough for most people to be satisfied with their lot in life.

@Mithiwithi on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-08-10T19:22:52-04:00

Claverhouse said:

power doesn't come, and never has, from the wishes or decision of the Pee-Pul

This is simply factually incorrect. Political power is just a synonym for "authority" and "authority" is just another way of saying "someone who can tell other people what to do, and those other people will do it even if they wouldn't do so on their own" - and thus, power as a matter of physical fact ultimately comes from the people. Any appearance to the contrary is just the result of a prevalent shared belief among a given group of people that they "should" cede authority to certain other people in a certain way.

Representative democracy, then, is the belief that authority "should" be ceded to whichever people a majority of the people think it should be ceded to; and monarchism is the belief that authority "should" be ceded to an arbitrary person, the "monarch", and when the monarch dies or abdicates, to one of the monarch's children (or other relative, according to whatever rules of succession are implicitly agreed upon).

Ultimately, the weak point of all forms of human government is that relatively few humans have the wisdom and intellect to govern a large populace fairly and justly (for any value of "fair" and "just" you might define), and not sufficiently many more humans have the wisdom and intellect to accurately determine which humans are fit to govern. Thus, all systems will regularly vest authority in people who aren't fit to wield that authority.

@psnuker on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-25T08:14:40-05:00

NWSiaCB said:

If by "strikebreaking" you mean "giving into their demands", then yes. The way she countered Communism was to pay them more and give them more benefits. Clearly, an incentive to unionize and openly flirt with Communism whenever they want more vacation days or a better dental plan!

Well, that's why Bismarck set up the German welfare system even though he DESPISED the German communists and socialists. He was just smart enough to realize that if you actually address the issues socialists were complaining about, they'd pipe down a bunch and stop plotting violent revolution.

@GweAnakJakarta on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-21T09:55:04-05:00

oberstleutnant said:

Danbooru, where the matters of politics, history and policy are discussed but with added bonus of interesting art.

proud to be part of the community

@zgryphon on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-20T16:33:25-05:00

Claverhouse said:

As an hereditary monarchist I am opposed to all suffrage, including my own

To quote that quintessential thespian Wesley Snipes, "Some muthafucka's always trying to ice-skate uphill."

@Garrus on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-20T13:04:39-05:00

Claverhouse said:

And no, I don't think monarchism would make life 'better': that's not what it is for --- just right.

The divine right of kings only exists if you believe it to exist. Once that is extinguished, you're ripe for change by way of the guillotine. If you're going to claim the right to rule, you may as well have a decent base of support to call upon. Elections provide a way to change things up that doesn't involve torches and pitchforks.

@Claverhouse on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-20T12:15:39-05:00

Tk3997 said:

Expect it wouldn't be because once some of the 'workers' were placed in charge of deciding these things they wouldn't be workers they'd be mangers. It's just one more in the endless list of contradictions in the half assed pile of crap that is communism, it's little wonder the only people that ever adopted it were just autocracies using it as a convenient excuse because 'dictatorship' had gained rather negative connotations by the start of the 20th century.

Someone always has to be in charge, that's just a fact of life. The key isn't trying to avoid that it's figuring out ways to try and pick the right people for the positions and having ways to remove them effectively if they're bad. The idea that 'workers' would magically be better decision makers or wouldn't fall into all the same traps when put in charge is just naive and easily disproved by history. Frankly there are allot of stupid working people that ideally shouldn't be involved in making national scale decisions.

I'm honestly not even really convinced universal suffrage is actually a good idea. To be brutally honest large portions of the population are so stupid that other people DO know what's better for them. The only reason I lean toward it though is because restricting voting rights to the better educated is too open to a slippery slope abuse.

As an hereditary monarchist I am opposed to all suffrage, including my own, because a King should just rule, and power doesn't come, and never has, from the wishes or decision of the Pee-Pul; but however stupid or incompetent workers could be, they cannot match the stupidity and incompetence of the elected priesthood, the highly educated managerial and technocratic classes who run daily stuff like privatization and banking, the racist loons of the right, the clintonesque follies of the centre, or the envious intolerance of the left, or any dear leaders --- such as Bush II and Obama in America alone, let alone Trumpikins.

And no, I don't think monarchism would make life 'better': that's not what it is for --- just right.

@BelchingSpitfire on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-18T20:34:22-05:00

Danbooru, where the matters of politics, history and policy are discussed but with added bonus of interesting art.

@Scholastica on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-18T20:07:45-05:00

Paid vacation, a bonus, and prizes. Best way to stave off a communist revolution is to treat the workers better. Who da thunk?

I'm rather reminded of the US military officers during the Civil War who organized the slaves they freed onto government controlled plantations. One of them bragged about their cotton yield being much higher than what the slave plantations normally reported, pointing out that fair wages and family care worked wonders for increased productivity over, ya know, whipping and no wages.

All that being saidl Iowa, you're fighting with a preteen. Just sayin'.

@Higusan on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-17T05:50:53-05:00

zgryphon said:

Yeah, Iowa basically just reinvented Stakhanovism.

This is why I think that somewhere Gangut is having a giggle.

@chaosrealm93 on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-16T21:52:13-05:00

Tyrswed said:

>paying people for work will make her mad
How very communist of her.

nah, just being her stoic studious and bureaucratic self

like typical middle management, any rise in costs will rile her up lol

@Blindga on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-16T19:12:25-05:00

For some reason, the talk made me want to look up this thing again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJBzhcSWTk

The whole American democracy/republic was sort of designed around some of these early opinions of perfect democracy and it's flaws; that people are easily deceived and things can get really sideways if the democracy is corrupted. Ironically, that is what the American is using against the Russian in this scene.

So, what's the moral of this story again?

@NWSiaCB on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-16T18:46:30-05:00

SentinelNikolaev said:

Strikebreaking 101

If by "strikebreaking" you mean "giving into their demands", then yes. The way she countered Communism was to pay them more and give them more benefits. Clearly, an incentive to unionize and openly flirt with Communism whenever they want more vacation days or a better dental plan!

Tk3997 said:

Expect it wouldn't be because once some of the 'workers' were placed in charge of deciding these things they wouldn't be workers they'd be mangers.

There's a difference between owning something and managing something. Workers owning the company means that workers are the shareholders of the stocks in the company as well as its employees. There are several (capitalist) companies that actively encourage workers to own the shares in stocks, and some where shares are nearly entirely owned by the employees or former employees of the company, but they're still shareholders who determine the overall direction of a company collectively through shareholder votes, rather than direct managers.

It's also not like low-level managers don't also do regular work. The manager of the meat department in a grocery store will still cut the meat and serve customers when not actively managing.

Tk3997 said:

Someone always has to be in charge, that's just a fact of life. The key isn't trying to avoid that it's figuring out ways to try and pick the right people for the positions and having ways to remove them effectively if they're bad.

And that's what shareholders do in corporations. They can fire the upper management whenever the management doesn't serve their interests first.

Tk3997 said:

I'm honestly not even really convinced universal suffrage is actually a good idea. To be brutally honest large portions of the population are so stupid that other people DO know what's better for them. The only reason I lean toward it though is because restricting voting rights to the better educated is too open to a slippery slope abuse.

And to also carry over the shareholder argument, the reason there should be universal suffrage is because the objective isn't necessarily to elect the best person, but to make those who are in charge beholden to everyone. When one group of people can't vote, it's politically expedient to scapegoat them for all society's problems, and there is no political cost to subjugating them as long as the majority is kept against them with propaganda.

Democracy isn't perfectly efficient, but it isn't supposed to be, and doesn't need to be. The greatest threats come from within, and the purpose of democracy is to ensure that those with power always have a greater master they are beholden to.

@zgryphon on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-16T18:22:15-05:00

Demundo said:

That's actually pretty much communism if I must say though...

Yeah, Iowa basically just reinvented Stakhanovism.

@Tk3997 on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-16T15:10:18-05:00

ida1 said:

The greatest propaganda victory of the corporate right is to conflate "competition" with "capitalism".

Even if the workers owned everything, a la socialism, the workers could decide to give the hardest working, or those with the most difficult jobs, more pay.

It's just that it would be the workers doing the deciding instead of command/management.

Expect it wouldn't be because once some of the 'workers' were placed in charge of deciding these things they wouldn't be workers they'd be mangers. It's just one more in the endless list of contradictions in the half assed pile of crap that is communism, it's little wonder the only people that ever adopted it were just autocracies using it as a convenient excuse because 'dictatorship' had gained rather negative connotations by the start of the 20th century.

Someone always has to be in charge, that's just a fact of life. The key isn't trying to avoid that it's figuring out ways to try and pick the right people for the positions and having ways to remove them effectively if they're bad. The idea that 'workers' would magically be better decision makers or wouldn't fall into all the same traps when put in charge is just naive and easily disproved by history. Frankly there are allot of stupid working people that ideally shouldn't be involved in making national scale decisions.

I'm honestly not even really convinced universal suffrage is actually a good idea. To be brutally honest large portions of the population are so stupid that other people DO know what's better for them. The only reason I lean toward it though is because restricting voting rights to the better educated is too open to a slippery slope abuse.

@Claverhouse on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-16T13:55:01-05:00

Even so, Hibiki has upped their increment. More trade-unionist than bolshevik ( which were generally antithetical anyway ), but still a workers' victory !

@ida1 on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-16T11:42:32-05:00

The greatest propaganda victory of the corporate right is to conflate "competition" with "capitalism".

Even if the workers owned everything, a la socialism, the workers could decide to give the hardest working, or those with the most difficult jobs, more pay.

It's just that it would be the workers doing the deciding instead of command/management.

@Demundo on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-16T11:38:54-05:00

That's actually pretty much communism if I must say though... I mean, it's "giving the workers what they thinkn they deserve". That's a basic point of communism.

So instead of exploiting loop holes, this is what "knowing the enemy" would do.

@Rax0387 on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-16T10:32:22-05:00

Iowa, exploiting the loopholes of communism.

@Tyrswed on post #3022039 (hibiki, nagato, verniy, iowa, i-58, and 3 more (kantai collection) drawn by ido_(teketeke))

2018-02-16T10:25:45-05:00

chaosrealm93 said:

oof! spending the base’s money like that.. ooyodo wont be happy :D

>paying people for work will make her mad
How very communist of her.