@adnoto

I do not want a revolution (if one can be avoided).

I never said anything about what you want, because I don't know what you want. I don't think any of us knows. You've never said. -- Paul Daniel Ash

Also a lie.

Just for kicks, here's a little thing I wrote lampooning "24"

Very funny, but I think the aliens are still fuming about the Tom Cruise thing.

I know. My engrams are at critical levels. At this rate, I will never become an Operating Thetan.

Exactly. The anger - personalized, direct, concrete, and intolerable - is nowhere near approaching the level required for a sufficiently potent and widespread campaign of civil disobedience.

I agree with this. I've often felt people don't act until a critical mass is somehow achieved (and the image I carry in my mind is that of a nuclear weapon). Anything that prevents that from happening prevents fundamental change. Nothing cerebral here, just an opinion.

adnoto (re: PDA): I never said anything about what you want, because I don't know what you want. I don't think any of us knows. You've never said. -- Paul Daniel Ash

Also a lie.

How is this a lie? I don't recall you ever being specific about anything you've proposed. You will correct me if I'm wrong (but please don't agitate me and raise my blood sugar level--I'm Dianetic, after all).

You are correct. I should have written "I've never read anything where you said what you wanted."

Clearly, though, it'd be easier for me to go back through your 765 comments than it would be for you to answer the several people who have asked you to state your position here.

Thanks so much.

If you address some concrete scenarios the failure of your reasoning will be plain.

-- wbgonn/blockquote>

That's one of the problems with your comments on this subject. You think that these TV movie "scenarios" that you're making up are "concrete scenarios" when actually they're just made up horse droppings that you add into your 'argument' in order to claim some sort of victory.

Also, you keep insisting, without a thread of evidence, in your "concrete scenarios" that 1) the bad guy or gal has the information you need, when in fact you can't possibly know that, and 2)he or she will give it up only if the unknown information is tortured out of him or her.

Aside from all of that you're putting your faith in someone else to do your torturing for you. I guess you think that frees you from guilt? At least that's who would be doing the torturing in the real world rather than the made up one that you've been telling us about.

Just so we're "clear."

None of you are truly miserable to have nothing to lose nor are you angry enough to fix it so that no one else does either. Edmund Burke's thesis that successful revolutions arise out of the middle class and not the poor was unique to that time. Now there's no such thing as revolutions that arise out of either the middle class OR the poor. The middle class is afraid to be left worse off and the poor just devolve into anarchic bands of 'activists' or 'freedom movements' which are the cover stories for criminal gangs and local tyrants. Mostly it all grinds along slowly toward dingier and cruddier states that work a little less well each year. But the upside for leftists is that everyone everywhere falls and fails a bit at the same rate. The long run outcome is that the west will become a semi functional lower class collection of states that resemble east Germany in the 80's more than anything else. Not really worth living in but not really worth saving either, unless someone handed it to them. In short, everyone will be the same. Everyplace will be the same. More like Cairo or Luanda than Paris. All you have to do is wait and do nothing and real world socialism will come to you with relatively little effort.

Almost all of them - Republicans and Democrats both - are a bunch of traitorous, greedy snakes. Now that the upper classes have clearly abdicated their moral responsibilities on almost all fronts, it's time for a thorough house cleaning. They must all go, and we have to start over with a new constitutional convention in which everything is reevaluated.

Which will occur just after pigs take flight.

First, thanks to all who came to my defense while I was absent. I appreciate knowing I wasn't just having a peri-menopausal moment (it happens). ;-}

All you folks picking on wbgonne just don't know about the engraved invitations that the terr'rists are now required to supply to the gummint during the late planning stages of pending attacks. Who, What and Why are required to be printed in nice raised lettering, leaving only the Where and When to be elicited during subsequent 'enhanced planning sessions' with the CIA personage lucky enough to be on duty when the invitation is delivered.

Heru-ur - This sort of argument we all did in college after Jack Black and a quarter pound of weed.

Sorry about your dealer. If you could still have arguments like that, and remember them now, after that kind of consumption then you should have asked for your money back. ;-}

Adnoto - Somewhere, someone is being tortured by the U.S. government. So? We must defend the pussy!

Read my first damned post. The one that addressed AG's accusation that no one was doing anything about the voting problems. If you don't like my opinion on his jaded choice of derogatory spews, fine, then teach your soulmate to be more creative in his insults. Have him try 'bearded clam' next time.

And finally, pieceofcake sums it up - to repair the damage of the old farts!

It's been decided; gas masks and pitchforks.

p.s. Jebbie - Gahanna can only hear me snoring when the wind is right.

An honest query on my part. I worked for Obama because I really think he would be better for us all than McCain, and I could under the present circumstances see no alternative viable enough to that to warrant my time. I also think many good things will come from Obama being president, though of course I may be wrong, and we shall just have to see. Is your point that by working for that alternative I help perpetuate the system, so that it would be better if we just, say, voted for McCain and tried to undermine Obama to make it all get so bad that a critical mass of dissastisfaction would be reached? If so, it is not clear to me that the suffering caused to others (particularly those with less--what to call it--social capital . . . so that what damaged me would damage them ten times worse). And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I went reading through your previous posts and when I made it to about 101 I just ran out of time/patience: if you have some concrete plan of action different from what DCLaw just laid out--patiently working away within the system--I am a person who would appreciate the chance to think it through. Just link to the post or webpage or whatever, and I will give it some thought. I have read Plato through Aristotle through Augustine through Aquinas to Hobbes and Locke and Rousseau and Marx and all the usual suspects, searching for worthwhile thoughts: and I am never one to say someone cannot show me some new ways to think on the old thoughts and see them new ways. I think I said this once before, but I wanted to say it one more time, because I admire your persistence. But seriously, sir, what is your plan of action? And again to show you I am a serious person, so to speak, I will hide behind anonymous nametags: here is my work e-mail: goetscr@eckerd.edu. I am Professor James Goetsch, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL 33711. I will be reading many papers next week (finals week!) but will be happy to peruse your thoughts as well. You have piqued my curiosity and I make this offer honestly. Let me know what you are thinking.