naarleven

iTrader: (2)

I was relating the notion of secret societies to aliens. It was a rant, I have been dealing lately with a lot of conspiracy and such and felt the need to go off. The maddox comic was more about conspiracies in general.

As for the summation of politics into "collectivist" and "individualist" is obviously far too short sighted. Reminds me of Donnie Darko when the main character is asked to take an event and put it on a emotional chart divided into love and fear. Despite being the core aspects of most emotions, the scale of emotions is far to complex to just split into 2 categories. Same thing with this article. You would be hard pressed to find anyone who would agree with all aspects of his summation of politics.

Just like anything else in this world you cant divide things into supposed good and evil.

johndoe

iTrader: (5)

Actually, aliens I find much more plausible.

usd2bfst

Personally I start losing interest when they get into all the conspiracy theory and extremist stuff, because I think the world is a big grey area, but the author was all reiterating things I have heard before and none the less an interestig read. What really resonates with me however are just the basic principles in part 1 about individualist vs. collectivist theory. (I spent a semester in College debating much the sme thing.) I was raised in the socialist state of CA, and every year as I was growing up there were new laws making the things we enjoyed doing illegal. It became so oppressive that it made me sick, and perpetuated my desire to move to a free state. Now that I've made that move I'd vote / fight / etc. to keep it free where I am now, as would most of the people that live here. Whether or not you like the 2 party system that's the way it is for now, and the more knowledge that can be shared the more likely it is people will make their decisions informed so that they at least understand what it is they are choosing.

naarleven

iTrader: (2)

Sociologists and political scientists prove time and time again that the supposed ideological war in america of red vs blue states is a farce. The majority of americans when asked real political questions (like realistic question about subsidies or foreign relations not are you liberal or are you conservative) almost always head to a more moderate or centrist area.

The esteemed author of this piece of writing discounts the balanced moderate opinions of millions of people by saying if you're a moderate; you're only scared of making a real decision on politics.

I call myself a centrist because I feel there are aspects of all political systems which must be implemented when they're needed. Not some extreme ideology that must be kept up. Balance and moderation is the key in all aspects of life. You would be hard pressed to find someone who legitimately can't see the logic in a balanced political system.

But when you divide things into factions, as Mr. Griffin did so extremely, and the media attempts to do on a more subtle level, people attempt to come together. To have the feeling of factions and political groups. Though I have only read the research of others, the ideological war is about as real as WMDs in Iraq.

JasonC SBB

Griffin doesn't say anything about "ruling everything". He said the world has 3 major factions - the theocracies (e.g. Isamic countries), the Leninists (e.g. Cuba, China), and the "Rhodes-ians" (e.g. western countries). He never said "ruling everything", he more says "huge influence".


If one is convinced that certain secret societies existed in history (several have come and gone), what does that have to do with "aliens"?

That would be like a soccer mom neighbor accusing you, an autocrosser, of being "one of those dangerous speeding street racers".

Is it impossible for a secret or semi-secret society to exist, just because you can't imagine how they might operate? (e.g. "that's like conspiracy-alien talk!) If such a secret or semi-secret society existed for several generations existed, is it impossible that their philosophies have spread?

Let's take a non secret society, the MADD (mothers against drunk driving). If you study their early work, they did good stuff (targeting truly drunk driving). After they achieved their success, they continued on and successfully lobbied to lower the legal BAC limit to 0.08%. If you study the literature, you'll find that the vast majority of drunk driving crashes are with drivers way over 0.12%. The crash *rates* of drivers at 0.08 to 0.10 are *lower* than sober drivers. So a lot of safe drivers are being arrested and charged, at great expense to these individuals to hire lawyers, pay more insurance, etc. It has become a huge money machine for the courts, cities, insurance cos, lawyers, et al.

Now this society, MADD, has successfully spread the philosophy that all "drinking and driving is evil" and "you are a criminal for driving at 0.08". Note that MADD started out doing real good work...

Let's pretend that MADD stayed secret or semi-secret, that it was a group of concerned influential citizens, and achieved the same goals. They believed in the goodness of what they were doing.

Would their secrecy have invalidated their existence? If one studied the progression of anti drunk driving, and found a consistent pattern that shows a small group of people was the source, would that be beyond the realm of possibility?

What if the Neocons (Rove, Cheney), had never come out with their PNAC (project for a new american century), and nobody figured out where all this pro war imperialist rhetoric came from, does it mean such a group never existed?

People are so inured to hare-brained crazy theories of "one small group rules the whole world" that they automatically and summarily reject any notion of small influential groups.

JasonC SBB

He didn't so much "divide people into factions", as show that governments of the world all lean towards collectivism, because of their very nature, while the US Constitution was an attempt to PREVENT the government from turning collectivist, as would be its natural tendency.

I take it you read all 4 PDFs?

naarleven

iTrader: (2)

Collectivism was far from the enemy of the constitution. In fact the idea of collectivism was a philosophy from nearly 100 years later than the constitution was written.

It was more accurately a measure against government oppression, specifically in the case of monarchies which was the dominate political system of the time.

You'll find I am not even defending collectivist ideas, but I think this is an amateurish take on political history as a whole.

JasonC SBB

The NAMING of collectivism came later, but not the PHILOSOPHY. The philosophy has been around for thousands of years.

Collectivist government and tyranny go hand in hand.