Post by: starry-eyed pirate on May 01, 2007, 11:54:43 PM
cop-out.
Post by: Salad Fingers on May 02, 2007, 01:46:52 PM
Post by: Antigen on May 02, 2007, 04:41:30 PM
Maia Szalavitz: The Pain Police: Hurwitz Case Shows Doctors Can Be Healers or Cops-- Not Both
Avatar Posted by god 2 days ago (http://www.huffingtonpost.com (http://www.huffingtonpost.com)) View profile
Category: Politics
According to a jury in Virginia, a doctor can genuinely believe he is treating pain by prescribing opioids, have no intent to sell drugs, make no money at it and otherwise behave as a compassionate healer-- and still deserve to go to prison like a street pusher a result.
That's the essence of the bizarrely mixed verdict in the trial of William Hurwitz, in which the pain doctor was convicted of 16 counts of drug trafficking. Hurwitz originally faced 50 drug-related charges, including trafficking resulting in death-- but the judge dismissed the 17 most serious charges and the jury acquitted him on 17 other counts.
John Tierney of the New York Times (who has been a hero to pain patients on this issue and is one of the few mainstream journalists to cover it comprehensively) interviewed three of the jurors to try to make sense of the verdict.
One told him, describing patients who faked pain to get drugs to sell, "Those patients used the doctor shamelessly...They exploited him. I didn't see him getting anything financial out of it. Many of his patients weren't even paying him. He had to believe that he was just treating them for pain."
Said another, "There was no financial benefit to him that was very evident to us...It was a really hard case for all of us. I think that Dr. Hurwitz really did care about his patients."
Nonetheless, he was convicted of drug trafficking "knowingly and intentionally" and "as conventionally understood." The jurors explained their decision by saying that he "fell down on the job" and missed "red flags" that should have told him that the patients were not what they seemed.
When asked whether that should have simply resulted in a malpractice judgment, rather than a criminal conviction, one said, "I don't know that I know enough to be clear about that gray area between malpractice and out of bounds [the criminal standard]." Another said, "We had to just go with our gut."
This is not justice. A law that can produce such muddle-headed thinking cannot stand. How can doctors be expected to treat pain in these circumstances? If you can be convicted of drug trafficking for failing to detect an addict's lies-- or for simply believing that addicts are human beings who can suffer pain and addiction simultaneously-- why on earth would you take the risk?
Says Siobhan Reynolds of the Pain Relief Network, "They said that he 'fell down on the job.' The question is, 'What's the job?' Hurwitz didn't fail as a doctor, he failed as a law enforcement officer."
She adds, "What this indicates in a society-wide acceptance of the law enforcement role imposed on medicine by the Controlled Substances Act. It is a fully unexamined assumption, unexamined by organized medicine, ethicists or human rights groups."
Do we as a society really want physicians to serve first as police officers, and only if we are judged innocent of addiction or the potential for it, only then to treat pain? Do we want doctors to have as their primary mission a goal of stopping the supply of drugs (even though they are completely ineffectual at it since they can only marginally affect the supply of legal drugs and have no effect at all on the illegal ones)-- or preserving health? When you see your doctor, do you want to be treated as a criminal suspect-- or as a human being?
We can either have our current drug laws-- or compassionate care for pain patients. The Hurwitz case shows that we cannot have both.
Link
VVVV Right click and choose "Play" VVVV
Post by: Anonymous on May 02, 2007, 09:36:20 PM
Information is sought on the identities and affiliates of the people responsible for placing these ads. It has been reported to the Office of Homeland Morality that frequent users of Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora have been seen fraternizing with these subjects. This is to inform you that your ass is mine.
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LOL
Bert "Gonzo" Ganzales
Homeland Morality Czar
Post by: RTP2003 on May 03, 2007, 10:37:30 PM
Quote from: ""starry-eyed pirate""
$tr8 is a metaphor for the entire western market economy, authoritarian society. Everywhere in the west, where there is an authority there is the program. $tr8 was manifested out of a powerful social and personal fear of lawlessness and anarchy. It is the cult of deception and illusion.
cop-out.
You are correct, sir!!!!
Our civilization is based on land ownership and useury.
Pay your taxes, peasant, or we'll take your land.
Like that dude said, the gang and the government they're no different.
Cop-out, indeed. But it's a lonely life out here in the Autonomous Zone. Don't let them catch you. Stay high, stay free. Death before dishonor, drugs before lunch.
Post by: Antigen on May 04, 2007, 05:30:11 PM
Every day, make someone think!
Post by: MammaBird on May 04, 2007, 08:43:20 PM
Post by: basketball on May 05, 2007, 12:47:01 AM
to believe that you're only going to end up DEAD, in a MENTAL INSTITUTION, or in PRISON.?
not to trust your own feelings, thoughts or ideas?
to constantly feel guilty as though EVERYTHING is your FAULT?
o.k. perhaps
Post by: Antigen on May 05, 2007, 03:10:39 AM
Quote from: ""basketball""
they teach you at school to be afraid of your own shadow?
to believe that you're only going to end up DEAD, in a MENTAL INSTITUTION, or in PRISON.?
not to trust your own feelings, thoughts or ideas?
to constantly feel guilty as though EVERYTHING is your FAULT?
o.k. perhaps
Check it out, man
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21466 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21466)
Post by: Anonymous on May 05, 2007, 09:44:40 AM
Quote from: ""basketball""
they teach you at school to be afraid of your own shadow?
I have this phobia..and suddenly.. suddenly.. it all of a sudden came on..it scares me..I'm afraid of my own shadow.. everywhere I turn it's there...
I have this idea that my own shadow is always choking me.. and he..he..gags me.. you know it's funny..it's a funny thing...he's always gagging and choking me..he's always.. he creeps around me..and when i'm in the batroom with myself..I'm always in a nice warm tub or sumpn..and i put nice cream on myself..he's always there lookin to choke me.. it's an awful thing..I feel very silly..i feel so sad about this..
could you help me??Cause he's always gagging me and choking me..and he's my own shadow, that's what's so scary...
AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! You see?? Oh, god help us.. god help us.. god and baby jesus help us.. See? He always chokes me!
Post by: starry-eyed pirate on May 06, 2007, 12:03:26 PM
What is the relationship between the public school system and a place like $tr8 inc. ??? or maybe better yet, what is the structure of society ??? How is it that someone has control over me ???
...And I am free. Free to get up and go to school and do as I'm told and recite the pledge of allegiance every mornin with a bunch of other kids my own age. Free to attend assemblies of children singing brainwashed patriotic songs of nationalist pride. That is only the most obvious commonality. Attendance at school is compulsory. You are not given a choice. If you choose not to attend school, you will be forced to go by the commonwealth or the state. Laws prohibit children from exercising their natural autonomy, even up until the age of 18!!! ok, now, le's see...so you're forced to go and stay awake in class and pay attention and sing all these songs and profess loyalty to the federal government before you're even old enough to know what it all means. Then they tell you that experimenting with known psycho-active chemicals is terrible for you, even if you're intentions are to explore your own consciousness/reality. All it really is, is a very subtle brainwash. Then they "teach" you American History and you can be sure that's all aimed to manipulate you. The whole time they keep askin you...every year the guidance councilor would call me into a room and ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. At first, I said things like a fireman or a cowboy, but then as I got older I became suspicious and began to see patterns...like patterns of social control, like what happened to the natives of this country as they were finally all forced onto reservations, which my own mother made sure I understood when I was just a young kid. And everything I learned about slavery and war. And I begin to see the same pattern in it's present form at the time for me, which was the school system that constantly asked me what I wanted to be, as if what I was wasn't ok. As if I weren't made from the same stardust as the trees. But they acted like they were all about serving my interest but I found out when I resisted their questioning and begin to say 'bout 7th or 8th grade, that I just wanted left alone. That's when they come with their scary threats of what my future might be if I don't do what I'm told and study their ways so I can become like them and be a cog in their machinery. Which has made the world sick.
So I begin to ask myself: Why do they threaten me ?? Why do they need me so badly that they can't allow me to walk through the woods and follow the stream instead of forcing me to spend my days indoors under the mind-control-regime of some social authority; what are they afraid of ?? Why don't they want me to look out the window ?? What might I see ?? So I begin to wonder pretty hard about all this. And I naturally realized that anyone or group of people, as the school system is, a public institution, that cannot reasonably and respectfully address me as a human bein, is not to be trusted. My own intuition and common sense required me to withdraw from their influence if indeed I were to grow free. I attended school less and less as I grew older and became more and more resistant to them and consequently found myself in more and more trouble with the authorities. Eventually since I was not only a truant but a known and admitted marijuana smoker, I was targeted by $tr8.
Public school is an acculturation center. $tr8 inc. is a re-acculturation center. The kids who don't get the wash in school get sent to $tr8. Kinda like in the story of Pinnochio when he gets sent to that donkey island and all the bad kids are slowly turnin into donkeys, growing donkey ears and hooves an' all, and they have to work for that mean ol' bastard with the whip, and the longer they're there the more donkeyish and less human they become, ya know ??
What they want; the government, the people who are entrenched in the society and especially the wealthy and powerful is for the school systems to create through years of mental and physical conditioning, economic/patriotic slaves, who will go into debt while they get "educated" in colleges and universities and then be forced to pay taxes to an oppressive empire whose institutional nature is blind to humanity. The authority of the government-establishment wants human tools to use and the school system(and religious institutions) along with places like $tr8 provide that commodity to them.
The behavior of the greater society is pathological. $tr8 is the manifestation of the real values of America. But $tr8 is only one part of the overall historical pattern of the brainwash slavery. To really cop-out you have to escape the whole western market economy.
I believe in the right to self-defense, even though I do my very best to avoid violence. I'm not opposed to an honorable fist fight or a standing militia for defensive purposes. The seeeye-a and right now the American military(and British, etc.) are bein used like international 5th phasers to restrain the misbehavers and put them on consequences. I don't support the troops, as such, cause I don't support the program. I support the people. All the people. The G-8 and the World Bank, the IMF etc. and the shady people behind those exploitive institutions are all program directors. The politicians and lawmakers and federal judges are all staff. The efBea-I and Dee-E Ayyyye etc. and state and local cops are the domestic 5th phasers.
When I was 17 and copped out and caught by the cops once, I told the cop I wanted to be emancipated but nothin come of it 'cause that fucker(as I dehumanize him now) had no respect for me as a human bein and I got took back to $tr8.
pirate out.
Post by: Anonymous on May 06, 2007, 12:53:57 PM
Quote from: ""starry-eyed pirate""
Public school is an acculturation center. $tr8 inc. is a re-acculturation center. The kids who don't get the wash in school get sent to $tr8. Kinda like in the story of Pinnochio when he gets sent to that donkey island and all the bad kids are slowly turnin into donkeys, growing donkey ears and hooves an' all, and they have to work for that mean ol' bastard with the whip, and the longer they're there the more donkeyish and less human they become, ya know ??
It's odd you should mention that; I was just talking about Pinnochio and that scene in particular with a friend the other night...
Yep,, "Pleasure Island."... Too ironic! ...Froderik
Post by: starry-eyed pirate on May 06, 2007, 01:49:44 PM
Yeah, what a scene huh ?? I don't think I have that book here, though! It sounds like a scene I'd like to read again.
I gotta untie the line now though.
pirate out.
Fuck Authority.
Post by: Anonymous on May 06, 2007, 02:27:44 PM
Quote from: ""starry-eyed pirate""
'sup Frod ?? ::bandit::
Yeah, what a scene huh ?? I don't think I have that book here, though! It sounds like a scene I'd like to read again.
Hey man...good..it's a beautiful day! :smokin:
Sure is... yeah it was a book first, but it was the movie I was talking about the other night (while likening it to the trickery of the program); it's classic animated Disney.. I'm guessing it was made sometime in the 40's...Frod
Post by: starry-eyed pirate on May 06, 2007, 03:02:25 PM
I'm sorta inclined to check things out foe m'se'f, ya know ?? I don't believe no-one or thing who threatens or tries to intimidate me. I'm a good punk like that, so I am. I aint no malcontent, embittered prisoner of the past but I see the dynamics of my path; the tricky currents, the easy illusions, the painful suffering I must learn to endure...and it's a beautiful day alright.
Post by: Anonymous on May 06, 2007, 03:10:31 PM
Quote from: ""starry-eyed pirate""
Hey.
I'm sorta inclined to check things out foe m'se'f, ya know ?? I don't believe no-one or thing who threatens or tries to intimidate me.
We should learn to listen to the government because they usually mean well and should know what's best for us......right..?? ::seg::
Post by: Antigen on May 06, 2007, 03:29:28 PM
Post by: starry-eyed pirate on May 06, 2007, 03:31:48 PM
Post by: starry-eyed pirate on May 06, 2007, 03:48:25 PM
Quote from: ""Antigen's Ghost""
Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Pontiac were true American heros. And maybe even the Empress Verdiace Tiari Washitaw-Turner Goston EL Bey too.
Crazy Horse, Sittin Bull and Pontiac but not cause of anything American. They are spiritual heroes, and not because of who they were in life, for we really don't know and cannot judge, but because of what they have come to represent through their lives as symbols of our common pop mythology. I'm not familliar with them other cats
All you need to know is within you. Chew through the iron chains. You are righteous. God is in you.
Post by: starry-eyed pirate on May 06, 2007, 03:58:48 PM
Whoever has the power to fix this should. I don't really care to be misrepresented like that. Obviously there is a glitch in the, program(no pun intended) :lol:. And it really kinda leads me to wonder...'cause that aint right...so whoever can straighten(pun intended) the fuckin thing out should get on it, I think by now...
pirate out.
Post by: Froderik on May 06, 2007, 04:29:24 PM
Quote from: ""starry-eyed pirate""
Who art thou ??; make thyself known. Post thy avatar. For I suspect thee of impersonation. Look into my eyes...and stand the sight. If'n' ye indeed be Froderik.
:rofl: 8-) ::seg::
Perhaps Woody Guthrie (http://http://www.woodyguthrie.org/) should be added to that hero list..
And yes, the "you n33d" filter should be removed!
Post by: Antigen on May 06, 2007, 06:27:28 PM
Anyway, about the great heros, yeah all that, Pirate. And that's what I was taught to think of as American ideals. When they wrote the Constitution, they based it not only on the Magna Carta and Greek ideas about Republic, but also on the Iroquois Alliance. Them others who think it has some shit to do with conquest and authority are fuckin nuts, no matter how many of them there are.
Don't take this the wrong way, comrad, but I think of you as a pretty good American.
About halfway down on this page http://www.garifunaheritagefoundation.c ... on*id*val* (http://www.garifunaheritagefoundation.com/369.html?*session*id*key*=*session*id*val*) it talks about the Empress. I met her once on the Miami River when the archaeologists were digging up the Maimi Circle. She's a trip! But the legal instruments she's claiming are probably not one bit less legitimate than the one's currently enforce. And she's an effective leader too. Last I heard she had a decent amount of patronage among community leaders and individuals in and around Louisiana.
Post by: RTP2003 on May 06, 2007, 09:02:01 PM
Larry Flynt
Emperor Norton I
Timothy Leary
Quanta Parker
J. R. "Bob" Dobbs
Boris, the guy whose face is on a package of Zig-Zag brand rolling papers. Although of foreign origin, I have included him on my list because he is credited with teaching millions of Americans from all walks of life how to use marijuana to get "high". Although still technically an outlaw, the number of people loyal to his philosophy continues to grow.
feel free to add your own faves......
Post by: Antigen on May 07, 2007, 12:31:44 AM
Quote from: ""RTP2003""
J. R. "Bob" Dobbs
All hail Bob!
:nworthy: :nworthy: :nworthy: :nworthy: :nworthy:
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--
Get your divinity and learn how to grow your dick and make a million bucks!
Send $2 to [email protected] or P.O. Box 515, Charleroi, PA, 15022
Post by: Anonymous on May 07, 2007, 09:23:28 AM
tell them to go back to hell and jerk off and leave you alone!
Post by: Anonymous on May 07, 2007, 09:51:26 AM
for speaking the truth.........
Post by: Antigen on May 07, 2007, 04:09:04 PM
Quote
Thomas Paine (1737–1809). Common Sense. 1776.
Of the origin and design of government in general, with concise remarks on the English Constitution.
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. 1
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. 2
In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour out the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him from his work, and every different want call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune would be death, for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die. 3
This necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessing of which, would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other; and this remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue. 4
Some convenient tree will afford them a State-House, under the branches of which, the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of REGULATIONS, and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. In this first parliament every man, by natural right, will have a seat. 5
But as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase likewise, and the distance at which the members may be separated, will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act were they present. If the colony continues increasing, it will become necessary to augment the number of the representatives, and that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number; and that the elected might never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors, prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often; because as the elected might by that means return and mix again with the general body of the electors in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflexion of not making a rod for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this (not on the unmeaning name of king) depends the strength of government, and the happiness of the governed. 6
Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with snow, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right. 7
I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view, I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is granted. When the world was over run with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise, is easily demonstrated. 8
Absolute governments (tho' the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine. 9
I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials. 10
First.—The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king. 11
Secondly.—The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers. 12
Thirdly.—The new republican materials, in the persons of the commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England. 13
The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; wherefore in a constitutional sense they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the state. 14
To say that the constitution of England is a union of three powers reciprocally checking each other, is farcical, either the words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions. 15
To say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes two things. 16
First.—That the king is not to be trusted without being looked after, or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy. 17
Secondly.—That the commons, by being appointed for that purpose, are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown. 18
But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity! 19
There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless. 20
Some writers have explained the English constitution thus; the king, say they, is one, the people another; the peers are an house in behalf of the king; the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of an house divided against itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest construction that words are capable of, when applied to the description of some thing which either cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind, for this explanation includes a previous question, viz. How came the king by a power which the people are afraid to trust, and always obliged to check? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, which needs checking, be from God; yet the provision, which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist. 21
But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavors will be ineffectual; the first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time. 22
That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self-evident; wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the crown in possession of the key. 23
The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own government by king, lords and commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason. Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some other countries, but the will of the king is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his mouth, it is handed to the people under the more formidable shape of an act of parliament. For the fate of Charles the first, hath only made kings more subtle—not more just. 24
Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in favour of modes and forms, the plain truth is, that it is wholly owing to the constitution of the people, and not to the constitution of the government that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey. 25
An inquiry into the constitutional errors in the English form of government is at this time highly necessary; for as we are never in a proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue under the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered by any obstinate prejudice. And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one. 26
http://www.bartleby.com/133/index.html (http://www.bartleby.com/133/index.html)
Post by: starry-eyed pirate on May 07, 2007, 04:56:48 PM
Post by: Antigen on May 07, 2007, 06:18:46 PM
Post by: starry-eyed pirate on May 10, 2007, 10:44:36 PM
Yeah, I'm extremely skeptical of that statement...
I also got "Wolfe Tone, The Prophet of Irish Independence" which was a hard and scholarly read, but very interesting, that day, and some other books on Irish history and "the Transcendentalists" by Perry Miller, which contains all kinds of phenomenal writing.
Thom Paine though, ... ::cheers:: ...Yeah, great revolutionary... :skull:
:D
Post by: Antigen on May 11, 2007, 01:09:32 PM
Post by: Froderik on May 11, 2007, 01:13:59 PM
Hence the term, "Socialism" (in theory, anyway...lol).
Post by: Antigen on May 11, 2007, 02:49:30 PM
But it was not and could not be society or socially driven or anything close to the bonds of affection and admiration that draw people together in society because it was an authoritarian scheme still to the last detail. Authority is all about coercing people to act against their own heart and conscience; it's the opposite. The very idea of a socialist government is an oxymoron.
Post by: Froderik on May 11, 2007, 03:49:53 PM
Post by: Anonymous on May 11, 2007, 05:03:56 PM
Quote from: ""Froderik""
AG (or anyone else who feels like chiming in), what existing form of government comes closest to a utopian status quo?
Armed anarchy.
Post by: Antigen on May 11, 2007, 06:37:48 PM
Quote from: ""Guest""
Quote from: ""Froderik""AG (or anyone else who feels like chiming in), what existing form of government comes closest to a utopian status quo?
Armed anarchy.
I think This comes pretty close.
Post by: MammaBird on May 11, 2007, 07:46:40 PM
If some of our socities are sick, we're all gonna be sick.