1337 b4k4--

It was precisely because I anticipated that argument that I said what I did in the paragraph following the one you quoted. You can say what you will about the labor environment now, and I'm sure that's what this thread's really driving at, but a lot of that doesn't apply to a guy in 19th Century London, one who can't reasonably be expected to, say, move his family to another area where work might be readily available, or some such. Your coworker has a few more options (and thus more leverage) than Bob did.

[Edited on December 7, 2006 at 9:51 PM. Reason : dug]

12/7/2006 9:51:14 PM

Scrooge is a tragic character because he allows himself to be driven from his strongest ability..that of being a tough-minded money-lender. After the spirits have had their way with him, he will never again be the steely-eyed businessman, making those tough decisions that made him successful. That means turning some people down, and prosecuting people who defaulted on their loans.

Altruism is a powerful weapon of the left with it's use of moral intimidation. Those who want lower taxes, want to keep more of their own money are tarred as greedy. We have to correct this by teaching people that self-interest is not greed, and that there are other ways to be virtuous besides selfless sacrifice to others.

12/8/2006 10:33:42 AM

Scratch an altruist......

12/8/2006 10:46:01 AM

Quote :

"that there are other ways to be virtuous besides selfless sacrifice to others"

Yeah like.....uh......um.........oh yeah, letting them own guns!

Quote :

"Scrooge is a tragic character because he allows himself to be driven from his strongest ability..that of being a tough-minded money-lender."

It funny that even children could tell you whats wrong with this story, yet you still don't get it.

In the words of FDR
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.

12/8/2006 11:07:38 AM

Kris, the kommunist, is of course going to support the idea of the individual devoting his efforts to the collective. People are little more than worker ants... or as comrade Stalin said:

"True courage consists in being strong enough to master and overcome one's self and subordinate one's will to the will of the collective, the will of the higher party body"

Collectivists have such a convoluted sense of what liberty means. It's so much more than just owning guns. Dickens takes an effective member of society, paints him as evil and shows his ultimate salvation in mindless altruism.

12/8/2006 11:37:34 AM

Quote :

"Kris, the kommunist, is of course going to support the idea of the individual devoting his efforts to the collective."

Have you ever heard of the "Prisoner's Dillema", a lot of times when people just choose these nash equilibriums (only serve themselves), we all come out worse than if we had made a collective effort. To put it another way, many times we can serve ourselves better by working for the welfare of all, it just takes this collective effort. This is why we see such socialized efforts and powerful centralized governments in the world today, because it helps us all.

You just seem to have such a selfish disposition that you can't stand to think someone else might be using some of your money without working for it. This doesn't bother me or most other people because we know there will be worthless fucks out there, it's not such a terrible thing that they can eat without doing work. If you envy their situation so much, why not join them? Just quit your job and live off everyone's money, I won't mind, but I'll bet you'll find its not as comfortable or easy as you like to think it is.

Quote :

"Dickens takes an effective member of society, paints him as evil and shows his ultimate salvation in mindless altruism."

What dickens does is take a man who has lost his humanity and sense of morality, and has him find it agian. All children have this sense of humanity and morality, they don't have to be taught it, but often times adults loose this, and dickens shows a man reborn, finding his humanity and morality once more. I like to think of it as the opposite of Kafka's metamorphisis. And having humanity and morality doesn't mean you have to be like jesus, you don't have to give away everything, but you should be able to imagine yourself in other people's situation and have sympathy for them.

12/8/2006 12:12:13 PM

It begins. Let me save some time.

Kris: See my payout matrix? People should cooperate.
Someone else: That's doesn't work. People won't act like you want them to.
Kris: We can train them to.
Someone else: I disagree.
Kris: I disagree.

[Edited on December 8, 2006 at 12:34 PM. Reason : there we go]

12/8/2006 12:28:30 PM

I'm not purposing any system, I'm just stating the flaws in headless self interest.

12/8/2006 12:39:39 PM

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"All children have this sense of humanity and morality, they don't have to be taught it,"

This very strongly conflicts with your many previous statements that people are mere products of their environments and training, and have no inherent predisposition to one behavior or the other. According to statements you've made previously, humanity and morality are programmed into people and can easily be programmed out.

12/8/2006 12:39:45 PM

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"This very strongly conflicts with your many previous statements that people are mere products of their environments and training, and have no inherent predisposition to one behavior or the other."

Well I suppose it does sound so, but I was refering to how children don't neccesarily have to be taught by another person, but that the learn from their environment, but their environment being different from an adults leads to this disparity. I guess there was a shitload implied there, probably moreso than I made through the context, sorry.

12/8/2006 12:42:32 PM

Quote :

"Kris, the kommunist, is of course going to support the idea of the individual devoting his efforts to the collective. People are little more than worker ants... or as comrade Stalin said: "True courage consists in being strong enough to master and overcome one's self and subordinate one's will to the will of the collective, the will of the higher party body" Collectivists have such a convoluted sense of what liberty means. It's so much more than just owning guns. Dickens takes an effective member of society, paints him as evil and shows his ultimate salvation in mindless altruism. "

Communism doesn't fail because altruism is unsustainable, it fails because it only takes 1 greedy person to throw things off balance. The world WOULD be better off if people could be more charitable, but we are driven by the forces that caused evolution to be a little greedy. It is natural greed that causes communism to fail, not altruism.

12/8/2006 1:21:00 PM

It fails because it's incompatible with human nature.

12/8/2006 1:56:50 PM

That's what I said.

12/8/2006 2:02:48 PM

we're getting off topic, this is a defensive of altruism, not communism

12/8/2006 2:15:51 PM

My post was also implicitly defending altruism too though, while bashing communism and Earth Dogg's comment.

12/8/2006 2:30:08 PM

which part of that do you think I was refeing to when I was talking about the relevancy?

12/8/2006 2:37:00 PM

Quote :

"What dickens does is take a man who has lost his humanity and sense of morality, and has him find it agian."

Well see, there's something for everyone in this classic tale.

Quote :

"you don't have to give away everything, but you should be able to imagine yourself in other people's situation and have sympathy for them."

I agree whole heartily with this. I'm all for voluntary charity. If people want to give away their own property to others, more power to them. The problem comes in when that charity is forced (gov't) or coerced (spirits of Xmas) .

Being forced to work for others is wrong. If I break into Kris' house and rob him at gunpoint and then give all his money to a street urchin, Kris is still going to feel wronged and probably call the cops on me. Just as it's wrong for an individual to steal your money for whatever reason, it's also wrong for a bunch of people to get together and steal your money for whatever noble reason.

12/8/2006 11:12:49 PM

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"I agree whole heartily with this. I'm all for voluntary charity. If people want to give away their own property to others, more power to them. The problem comes in when that charity is forced (gov't) or coerced (spirits of Xmas) "

The story of scrooge is about voluntary charity, you just completely missed the point, and by "you" I mean whoever wrote the article in whatever gods-word-on-earth liberitarian site you got this opinion from.

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"Just as it's wrong for an individual to steal your money for whatever reason, it's also wrong for a bunch of people to get together and steal your money for whatever noble reason."

I never read anything about Scrooge getting robbed.

Perhaps you should be complaining about Robin Hood.

12/9/2006 6:06:51 PM

Quote :

"whole heartily"

12/9/2006 10:49:09 PM

Dickens gives comment on today's islamo-terrorists in this story as well:

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""There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us." "

David Perdue gives us some insight in Dicken's personal business acumen with this behind-the-scenes info on the book:

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"In the fall of 1843 Dickens and his wife Kate were expecting their fifth child. Requests for money from his family, a large mortgage on his Devonshire Terrace home, and lagging sales from the monthly installments of Martin Chuzzlewit, had left Dickens seriously short of cash. As the idea for the story took shape and the writing began in earnest, Dickens became engrossed in the book. He wrote that as the tale unfolded he 'wept and laughed, and wept again' and that he 'walked about the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed'. At odds with his publishers, Dickens paid for the production cost of the book himself and insisted on a lavish design that included a gold-stamped cover and four hand-colored etchings. He also set the price at 5 shillings so that the book would be affordable to nearly everyone. The book was published during the week before Christmas 1843 and was an instant sensation but, due to the high production costs, Dickens' earning from the sales were lower than expected. In addition to the disappointing profit from the book Dickens was enraged that the work was instantly the victim of pirated editions. Copyright laws in England were often loosely enforced and a complete lack of international copyright law had been Dickens' theme during his trip to America the year before. He ended up spending more money fighting pirated editions of the book than he was making from the book itself."

12/10/2006 10:48:45 AM

Yes, at first I was happy to be learning how to read. It seemed exciting and magical, but then I read this: Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. I read every last word of this garbage, and because of this piece of shit, I am never reading again.

12/10/2006 3:55:11 PM

^I don't remember where that came from, but suddenly I feel like having sex with chickens.

12/10/2006 4:08:33 PM

For someone who seemed to poo poo making money, Mr Dickens seemed to spend a lot of effort in protecting his copyright privilages.

12/10/2006 11:46:11 PM