On Sunday, January 27, 2013 2:51:04 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote: > > On 1/27/2013 2:14 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > On Sunday, January 27, 2013 12:34:37 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote: >> >> >> What I really what to know is: what motivates the need to find >> oppression? >> > > What motivates the need to deny oppression? > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppression > ''*Oppression* is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, > cruel, or unjust > manner.[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppression#cite_note-1> > It can also be defined as an act or instance of oppressing, the state of > being oppressed, and the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or > physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, and anxiety." > > My argument is that the entire idea of oppresion is flawed unless > there is a clear and objective means to show the metrics that is used. >
I would say that is never a valid argument for anything. If I can't give it a number that is objectively true in all cases then it doesn't exist? Like, if someone cuts keeps you locked up in a dungeon for 20 years there is nothing you can say about it unless someone can point to some kind of metric showing how much worse it was in the dungeon than out of the dungeon? > What defines "burdensome", "cruelty", "unjust"? > Why would these concepts suddenly be mysterious? Why do we have to become lawyers to address simple vocabulary that a 10 year old understands clearly? In general, anytime that someone contributes to your life in a way that you do not appreciate, and obstructs your ability to free yourself from that condition, that is burdensome, cruel, and unjust. > All subjective eye-of-the-beholder valuations. > You mean the universe? > Oppression cannot be objectively defined, > I just did. > as I previously pointed out how one could claim a state of oppression and > there is no way to measurable show that the oppression does not exist - it > is impossible to prove a negative. > There is no measurable way to show that measurement is an appropriate political standard. The entire legal system has no problem with establishing all kinds of measures and metrics of what constitutes these qualities though. They aren't always in agreement, but they aren't uncommon or puzzling. > Oppression now become a means to oppress itself, to pit one group against > another. > So when the rich enslave the poor its not oppression, but when the poor claim to be oppressed, that is oppressive to the rich? > > So I ask, what is the motivation to even consider the idea of > oppression if not to inject subjectivity further into relations between > humans that already hard enough to figure out? > Liberty is always the motivation to eliminate oppression. Liberty has no meaning if it cannot be used to inject subjectivity into relations between humans. > When one can look at the measurable results of policies and find where and > when people thrive > (Socialist Scandinavia) > and where and when they do not, > (Capitalist Sub-Saharan Africa) > there is no need to even mention the word oppression or injustice. > Huh? Democratic countries are destroyed because multinational corporate interests are threatened, and there's no need to mention it? Why would you not mention oppression or injustice? I mean I could understand if someone was an heir to a fortune from these enormous crimes that they would not want to mention them, but why would anyone else want to protect them? > When evaluating policies, does it not only matter that the results are > beneficial by some agreeable measure so that we can cast aside all > subjective aspects? > To cast aside all subjective aspects then we would have to exterminate all human life on the planet. > We can see in history that collectivist policies have almost uniformly > caused harm (measureable in the numbers of people in mass graves), so why > do they keep being tried? > Because privatization uniformly leads to tyranny. Has there ever been a collectivist revolution which was not motivated by the injustices of the regime which is the target of the revolt? The South could have kept their slaves - all of them, forever, if they just hadn't have been so incredibly evil about it. They had to rape them and beat them and torture them routinely for pleasure. They had to expand their unquenchable perversion westward and in perpetuity. That is what pissed off the abolitionists enough to make trouble. This is the inevitable result of the denial of oppression and survival of the fittest fallacies. Slavery is the pristine example of unregulated capitalism. 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.
