On Saturday, January 26, 2013 12:28:01 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote: > > On 1/26/2013 12:13 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > On Saturday, January 26, 2013 11:55:22 AM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote: >> >> On 1/26/2013 11:45 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: >> >> >> >> On Saturday, January 26, 2013 11:36:45 AM UTC-5, JohnM wrote: >>> >>> Craig, I read many of your posts, none was so pessimistic so far. >> >> >> Ah, maybe I was being more sarcastic than the internet allows. I was >> intending to mock those ideas by quoting Scrooge, as I think that there is >> nothing further from the truth than the idea that character is completely >> independent from their circumstance - that people with no shoes can pull >> themselves up by their bootstraps or who have been born into a system of >> oppression can free themselves by belief in the free market or some such >> thing. >> >> Craig >> >> Hey! >> >> What exactly is a system of oppression? Could you describe an actual >> situation in Nature that is "oppression-free"? >> > > Slavery, or apartheid are systems of intentional oppression, but poverty > in a land of plenty is oppressive also, even if oppression of the poor is > an unintentional effect. If it takes two million peasants to prop up one > Imelda Marcos, then being born into the system which does that is an > oppressive one, and not one which you can escape by adopting a positive > attitude. > > Just because life isn't free of oppression doesn't mean that if an Imelda > Marcos manages to tyrannize a country that it is the will of Nature. To the > contrary, the will of Nature is for the oppressed to kill and eat their > oppressors at the earliest opportunity. > > Craig > > Hi Craig, > > Setting the drama of humanity aside, can you point to some actual > cases of this in Nature? >
http://phys.org/news/2011-05-predator-prey-role-reversal-bug-turtle.html http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/272/1575/1929.full "That predators attack and prey defend is an oversimplified view. When size changes during development, large prey may be invulnerable to predators, and small juvenile predators vulnerable to attack by prey." Any deer "oppressed to kill and eat their oppressors [wolves] at the > earliest opportunity"? > Deer are herbivores, so they aren't interested in eating a wolf, but a herd of even peaceful herbivores can potentially kick the crap out of a single predator. No! I dare say that you are building a flawed argument on a flawed premise. > I submit the entire idea of "oppression", as you are using it, is a figment > of human imagination. > If you mistreat a dog, does it not become damaged or vicious? It must be the imagination of dogs too... > We humans have the unique ability to behave in ways that do not actually > solve problems but instead just "make us feel better" about our crappy > living conditions and the problem that is causing us pain does unchecked. > Every case in history where the "oppressed to kill and eat their oppressors > at the earliest opportunity" was one of chaos and malice, nothing good ever > came of it alone. > The American Revolution wasn't a case of throwing off oppression? Are you suggesting that whoever is in a position to oppress someone else is fully entitled to do it, but those who they oppress will only cause trouble by fighting back? > It is only when we face our situations factually and rationally and solve > the problems that we improve our situations. > Freeing yourself from bondage isn't facing up to your situation factually and rationally? If someone has enslaved or imprisoned you unjustly, what other solution to the problem could there be? > Let's consider the case of Imelda. How was it that she was able to do > what she did? She had the force of government to implement her 'oppresion". > I submit to you that it is government that is unique in its ability to > oppress, as it has the monopoly on the *legal* use of force. > The use of force need not be legal to be successful. It doesn't matter whether they are police, secret police, army, or mercenaries who do the torturing and killing and threatening. In the absence of government, as in Somalia, we do not see any reduction in tyranny or mayhem. "In the absence of a central government, Somalia's residents reverted to local forms of conflict resolution, consisting of civil law, religious law and customary law." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia). In the absence of a central government here, the largest corporations would be completely unopposed to exercise total authority over the population, through private security, surveillance, and economic control. The separation of government and corporate power, while offering little protection to the expanding underclass, at least offers better than nothing, and it offers more than Imelda Marcos offered her servants. Any line of reasoning that leads to the implication that government (or a > proxy thereof) can can alleviate or otherwise assuage "oppresion" is only > substituting one Imelda for another. > It would have been hard to have an American revolution without an American government. Who declares Independence from a government if not another authoritative body? Craig > > -- > Onward! > > Stephen > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
