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democracythreat

Listed below are comments made by democracythreat between Wednesday, 25th November 2009 and Friday, 27th November 2009 (7 Hours Ago) .

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Is Turnbull toast? 08:13am on 27 Nov 2009 Turnbull was Kerry Packers' lawyer, and he subsequently made his money in some of the most outrageous share price manipulation schemes ever seen on planet earth. Kerry Packer, for character reference, slept with a revolver under his pillow. A charming man.

I am a conservative and I despise the ALP, but I will be glad to see the back of Turnbull.

Regarding the coal fiasco, it is difficult to know where to begin the analyses. I doubt anybody here knows just how much Australia relies upon coal taxes for government revenues. But Rudd does. After all, he spent billions of those dollars in Queensland when he worked there. He knows very well that coal taxation extends into areas not officially called "coal", such as special rail taxes for railways which transport coal, and other industry specific duties. To say that the Australian government rides on the back of coal is not an overstatement.

But what I find most curious about Rudd... curious in the same way as I find mass murderers curious.. is the way he can speak so calmly about the need for legislation to tax the coal industry even more when he knows perfectly well how far coal tax revenues have fallen in the past three years. Rudd continues to spend and spend and spend the taxpayers money..... and he knows full well that this money must come from the coal industry when it recovers, if the nation is not to be crippled beyond redemption..... and yet he is able to look at the TV camera and say with a perfectly straight face that the world must use less coal, and find alternative means of generating power.

I do not object to Rudd desiring the use of less coal. If he believes in global cooling as a viable policy, that is his right. And i do not object to Rudd spending future coal tax revenues today. (Actually I do, but he won the election so that is his right)

What makes my skin crawl is the way this man Rudd can do both these things at once. He is spending money as if coal revenues had never dropped and will be massive in the future, and yet he is demanding an end to coal revenues for the nation.

He is a pathological liar, and financially reckless in the extreme.

What is most depressing is that the Australian public are idiotic enough to support the man. Oh well, nobody ever said australia was the clever country.
Dubai not too big to fail? 07:43am on 27 Nov 2009 I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
Franco-German power 03:07am on 27 Nov 2009 MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"So you want a recipe for turkey. Well here are two. First of all, turkeys are usually bought at a supermarket "fresh" or frozen. Fresh birds are not frozen and can be cooked right away. Frozen birds must be thawed out. "

You lost me at this point.

Frozen birds must thawed out.

Marcus, I have forgiven much in the past, especially of you. I think we can both agree that in future you will grace the both of us, and this forum, if you lift your game considerably.

Speaking of lifting the game, this blog entry by Hewitt was a refreshing change. If the man wrote more than ten words a day, I might even change my opinion of his value to the community.
Europe's identity crisis 5:49pm on 26 Nov 2009 maria wrote:
"With God, all can be overcome -- if you believe. But no one in their right mind could possible imagine God (by any name) favoured violent ways, wars, torture, cruelty.
....
How can anyone call a rape a marriage? "

well, on this thread we are friends. On another, we are at war. That seems to be the way of this forum.

Threnodio, whom I sure you've met, is often like this. On one thread he will be intelligent and open minded, and then on another he will carry on like a pig missing its bacon. I don't understand him at all, sometimes.

Anyway, I take a quizzical view of this idea that "With God, all can be overcome.", followed closely by the abhorrence of rape in marriage.

Now you probably (surely?) know that rape in marriage was only condemned by law in the english speaking and european worlds. Yes?

You are aware that the pop and his cronies preached the opposite doctrine, and that without the common law declaring that rape in marriage is still rape, the law of the west would still permit rape in marriage.

I mean, you do realize this fact of law and religion? Or no?

Because I meet a lot of women who are dreadfully confused about this point. They want their religion, but they want their law as well. And when one comes into direct conflict with the other, as it does with the issue of rape in marriage, i find that religion is given a pass. And what is more worrying, law is not given any credit.

So my position is not that there is anything wrong with Islam, per se, but rather that there is a lot wrong with Islam as law. Just as there is a lot wrong with catholicism as law, or Tibetan Buddhism as law, or any other archaic system of forced breeding of the lower classes as law.

And it follows that in fact I do have problems with religions, per se, because regrettably religions ARE systems of law. They may have been castrated in modern societies which understand the dangers of religion, and the god fantasy, but nevertheless religions all see themselves as systems of rightful law. The even retain the trappings of the independent state, such as zero liability to taxation, and the power to hear confessions and grant absolution for crimes.

So i cannot get behind this idea that "With god, all can be overcome."

I prefer to think that with reason, human rights and law, all things can be overcome.

With god, the only thing to be overcome is reason and law, and then you have sharia, or the pope as head of state, or worse.

But that is just my view. I see a lot of what we call civilization which is utterly dependent on the rule of law. I do not see people who live without god as a danger to society. Those who live without law, however.....
Franco-German power 5:03pm on 26 Nov 2009 maria-ashot wrote:
"Actually, democracythreat (No. 24), I am a better judge than Alice in the matter you mention, because I have actually lived in America and so have a frame of reference from which to judge."

The matter I mentioned was whether the soviet union declared itself to be a system of democratic representation, and conducted elections. You had claimed that it had always set itself out as a totalitarian dictatorship.

The reason I mentioned Alice was because I feel uncomfortable talking about the soviet union in the presence of someone who lived there, when I did not. I don't have your blind faith in what I read. And I have the basic good manners to defer to eye witnesses when their testimony contradicts my own hearsay.

maria-ashot wrote:
"I have also had access to more documents than Alice on the subject."

That seems an incredibly arrogant thing to claim. I mean, you could be right. Nevertheless, you can't possibly know, and so it just seems a brutally arrogant comment. You have a very, very high opinion of yourself, and you don't mind setting it forth. Charming.

maria-ashot wrote:
"And my parents, who actually lived through the events in question, and witnessed the thrilling blow-by-blow, did not have to spend their lives cowering in fear of being overheard speaking about what they had witnessed, or being denounced and interrogated for something they had written."

So they were not communists in America then?

maria-ashot wrote:
"Seriously, check it out before you have the temerity to cast aspersions."

I didn't cast aspersions, you poisonous pedant. I simply questioned your suggestion that the soviet union did not portray itself as a system of representative democracy. In return, I receive a high and mighty lecture regarding the brilliance of your CV.

However, I am now in a very good position to cast aspersions. Your breathtaking arrogance, combined with your preference for flashing your credentials rather than engaging the argument at hand, leads me to suspect that you are an intellectual bully and a second rate thinker.

And yes, I have the "temerity" to make these comments because you are just another faceless voice on the internet. And so am I. You can't be the smartest person in this room, because the room has no walls.
A diet to save the world 00:51am on 26 Nov 2009 Leaving aside the debate about whether global warming exist and whether it is man made..... I mean, let's assume for a minute both those things are true..... so what?

So WHAT?

OK, it is getting warmer. I can dig it. Loads of folks doing their thing. And the world is getting warmer.

I just can't see the leap of faith from this point..... and it is only a hypothetical at this stage.... to the bit where the self appointed experts start raving and ranting about the end of the world.

We go from "It is getting a bit warmer, and humans are a part of that" straight to ... DOOOOM!! DOOM! WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!! DOOM!!

How does that work? This is where the really heads in the fridge crazy weirdness posing as science comes into play. OK, i can see why folks think global warming is real. Myself, I understood the earth routinely goes through ice ages and warm periods. Indeed, the greenhouse periods are precisely how the fossil fuels are created. So ok, i get the warming bit. And sure, there are a lot of folks doing a lot of stuff. And sure, that may generate some extra heat. Now I don't think it is enough to affect the natural cycles of heating and cooling for the globe,..... but what the heck! Let's just agree that is DOES affect the natural cycles of the earth.

Cool. All cool and groovy. So how do we then get to THE END OF THE WORLD IS COMING!!!!! DOOOM! DOOM! EVERYONE IS GOING TO DROWN!!!! ALL THE CROPS WILL DIE!!!!

?

Huh?

Even if it were true, how would these people know one way or another? Last time I heard, global warming made the air warmer. It didn't give idiots crystal balls. So where does all the doom shouting come from? What is the origin of the panic?

I'll tell you: Global warming is the new stupid. It is the new BIG STUPID IDEA. A lot of fundamentally stupid people have become embarrassed with their beliefs in UFO's and the god thing, and now they have found a new stupid. A big one.

And what do stupid people do? Right! They scream DOOM!!! whensoever their preacher tells them the end of the world is nigh.

If you listened to these idiots carefully, we would all be dead already from AIDS, from god, from Alien abduction, from nuclear power station meltdowns and from .... from everything!! Sooner or later, the hoards of idiots make anything and everything the new big stupid fashion craze.

So keep shouting about the doom, you freaks. Keep shouting it, and make sure we can see who you are.

Pretty soon you are going to work out everyone is laughing like hell at you, and then you are going to slink off into the idiot rooms and find the next big stupid idea.
Europe's identity crisis 00:17am on 26 Nov 2009 Alice, you don't have to worry about it.

The BBC published some lady saying "This is our last chance to save the world!"

Now the BBC is a respectable source of information, so I figure the game is nearly over.

I gather that the air will get nearly 1 degree warmer, and the sea level will rise by 3mm. You know, sometime in the future.

So, you know, the end of the world is fast approaching. No point in worrying about long term economic problems. Everyone is going to die and suffer and then die some more. It is going to be terrible. This is our last chance to be saved by government, the BBC tells me.

I don't understand why jesus can't save me. After all, if god didn't want us to have a warmer planet, why did he make the earth so we go through cycles of ice ages and global warming? Is he stupid, or what?

So I blame jesus before I blame china. If and when the world ends because or warmist terrorism, I just want everyone to know that I did my bit to help save the world as well.

Just today, I put my name down for a team of mercy killers who want to go out and shoot the remaining polar bears fro helicopters, before they get their sorry feet wet. We plan on shooting some dolphins, too, because the warmer seas will just make their lives even shorter and sorrier. It is all about .50 cals and mercy, this saving the world business. I seen it in iraqk and afpak. I seen this one fella, and he was saving the world with a .50 cal, one terrorist civilian at a time.

I just wish i could do more to SAVE THE WORLD, partly because the world is such a tricky place and partly because it is the fashion just now.

So you understand, saving russia is second on the list after SAVING THE WORLD. We all have to get together and SAVE THE WORLD, just like jesus saved us from ourselves, because human beings are not natural. When god came down from the clouds and made humans, he forgot about the bears and the dolphins. It was all a ghastly mistake. So he had his son impaled on a stake to make things right with the terrible humans (that's you and me), and even then he couldn't stop the chinese from burning coal in the winter time.

The problem just gets bigger the more you think about it, as you can see. A stupid person might die from the effort of trying to work it all out.

Essentially, the way I have it figured, god failed to save us through poor planning, and then jesus died in vain. What a family, nuh? Bad genetics, probably. But if we all hold hands and listen to the BBC journalists we can SAVE THE WORLD from total disaster. Pretty soon they will be telling us how to do the trick, I imagine.

I think... well I guess... everybody has to join hands and find a piece of hot desert. Then we take turns to blow on that piece of desert until it cools down some. You know, like when you blow on a hot cup of tea.

Then the world will be saved, and china can go burn some more coal, and russian women can have more babies.

One problem at a time alice, and we have a real hum doosy of a pig pickler right here with this global hot air thing-a-whatsit.

First we save the chinese, and THEN.... no, i got that all wrong. First we save the world and THEN we worry about the godless chinese communists buying... i mean burning... all the coal.

I'll just get my shooting irons, and we can get to it. Time is a wasting!
Franco-German power 11:51pm on 25 Nov 2009 Deadlylampshade wrote:
"Democracy huh?
The question is: can we kick them out if we don't like what they do?"

That isn't how it works. They way it works is that when you are upset, Mr UK will go to Mrs Germany and tell her that Mr France is jolly well no good at all when it comes to being kind to the other children at the kindygarten. THen Mrs Germany will say to Mr France "Mr France, you have been jolly naughty!", and if Mr France argues with her then Mr UK and MRs Germany will turn their backs on Mr France until Mr France realises that he can't talk to his friends like that and still expect to be invited out for tea and scones. And then when Mr france has had a good cry and apologized, Miss Latvia and Mr Poland Jnr will be invited to sing along with this weeks Happy Song : "We all love the happy happy ECJ!"

You see, elections are for people who think politics is about having an opinion and voting for parties which articulate not only their policies but the core economic and social philosophies behind those policies. In Europe, we don't like those sort of naughty birds! Those sorts of nasty types just make all the children sad, and make it hard for teacher to keep Mr UK and Mr France happy and jolly.

So the important thing is to remember that Mrs Germany loves you very much, and that if Mr France says a bad word then this is because his parents were on welfare when he was just a cute little baby, and now he can't adjust to the proper social environment for a child his age.

But nevermind, Miss Latvia and Mr Poland Jnr will cheers us up so we don't have to think about poor Mr France and his trailer trash parents on welfare. Miss Latvia and Mr Poland Jnr know a very happy song, and they will lead us all in a fantastically delicious sing along!

Here we go, sing with Miss Latvia and Mr Poland Jnr....

"Our bank is your bank is our bank is your friend!
We all love the banker our love to him send,
And send him the money, the law and the press,
If you want more money just lift up your dress and say ......

EU HAPPY SONG! EU HAPPY SONG! EU EU HAPPY HAPPY SONG!!!
Europe's identity crisis 8:04pm on 25 Nov 2009 maria, if we are going to delve into the past for evidence of who has the bigger race hate.....

I see your race riots, and I raise you several death camps and twenty million slavic untermensch.

Show me your best poker face, now.
Franco-German power 7:59pm on 25 Nov 2009 maria-ashot wrote:
"democracythreat, No. 8: There was no "party conspiracy" in the Soviet Union: it was a totalitarian Partocracy from Day One. "

Hi maria, I think Alice would be the one to judge this point, but my understanding is that the soviet union was constantly having elections and telling its people that they lived in a glorious workers democracy. At least that is what my mattress relations tell me. They lived in the former soviet union.

And after all, what was the name of eastern germany? The "Totalitarian Workers Collective"? No, it was the Democratic Republic of Germany. Just as North Korea is a fine democracy, if you listen those who run the system.

So my guess is that you are dead wrong on this point. I would submit that is absolutely untrue that the soviet union was not a representative democracy, run in accordance with its own constitutional law.

Now I am not saying that the soviet union was a meaningful democracy, or that it was not a crooked and false democracy. Sure, i can see the flaws. I can see the absurdity. My brother in law tells me of the time his military unit were driven forty miles in an army truck, to vote for a candidate in a "crucial" party election. And there was only one candidate!!! But the party folks were so caught up in their ow propaganda, they couldn't see anything wrong with that!

so don;t read me wrong, I can see the absurdity of calling the soviet system real democracy in action.

But then again, we both know that Obama won his first election in Michigan in a one horse race, too. He had every other candidate struck of the ballot on technicalities, and his party lawyers helped him do that.

So it happens in the glorious west, too.

And there are those who would go so far as to suggest that it is impossible to tell the difference bwteen the centre left and the centre right these days, because all their policies are just about identical. there are a great many people who feel that no matter who they vote for, the same vested interests behind the scenes are going to end up being the winners.

After all, you know yourself that major corporations generally sponsor both major parties equally, sure as to be sure of a favorable hearing no matter who wins the so called "election".

So my feeling is that people in glass houses ought not throw stones. Representation is representation, and should not be confused with real democracy. Either you have representatives who make your law for you, or your vote on the issues yourself.

I tend to think power systems evolve over time, like any system, and further that power concentrates itself.

My view is that the western system has always had much better propaganda than the soviet system and a much easier job to do. the western system criminalizes the lower classes, doesn't expect them to vote, and for many decades of the last century black folks were not even permitted to register to vote. The civil rights movement didn't come until LBJ, after all.

the soviets, by stark contrast, were pushing the very difficult line that class war was a good thing for the economy and that uneducated drunks were fit to judge capital crimes.

So I have some sympathy for the architects of the soviet system. Selling their system of representation as democracy must have been much harder than selling the westminster or the US systems.

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