Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 4:26 pm
That's truth. But the problem for Socialism is that it allows for only one political party -- the Socialist Party. So not only are corruptible humans in charge, but they're unchecked, unrestrained, and unlimited in tyranny, since the ordinary people have no checks-and-balances, constitutional limitations, term limits, or democratic votes that can unseat the Socialist elite.

And that has never ended up well. Not even once.

The Party is supposed to replace God, but there are hold-outs who pass along the old ways.

*

This speech says man is not this body exclusively … but this man is a spiritual sort of fella, and such a recognition is not necessarily an endorsement for a social or economic system, although it does sound romantic for the fantasies of socialists, and well delivered with a soft focus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pu0hMs4unk

“Maybe it’s like Casey says. A fella ain’t got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul. The one big soul that belongs to everybody.”

The Party is an easy metaphor for The Big Soul.

Walker wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 5:11 pm The Party is an easy metaphor for The Big Soul.

It's kind of amazing, isn't it? The people who say that "material conditions" determine everything also think there's some kind of "common soul" to humanity...embodied in the State. It's got to be yet another dumb idea they get from Hegel, whether they know it or not. Of course, Hegel's ideas are mediated to them through Marx, but it's still the same source. And this is a throughly metaphysical imagining...so that even while they despise "religion," they actually dabble all the time in very "religious" concepts, such as "souls," "prophecies," teleology, "faith" and morality, all that while declaiming against the reality of all such metaphysical things.

That's what Marxism essentially is: it's a cultic religion, not a philosophy. And you can tell by the fact that even though Marxism has failed in reality 100% of the time, that is not enough to dissuade their "faithful" from "belief" in their immanent "heaven."

Walker's the last of the Mohicans, Mannie. Nobody else is listening anymore. Maybe Dr. Jakobi, but only because his investments are doing well, and he wouldn't want that to change because some german economist gave the proles of the world a dangerous idea.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 7:15 pm Walker's the last of the Mohicans, Mannie. Nobody else is listening anymore. Maybe Dr. Jakobi, but only because his investments are doing well, and he wouldn't want that to change because some german economist gave the proles of the world a dangerous idea.

Well, if that's so, that's only because things aren't going well for the Socialists here. They've run into a bunch of factual show-stoppers they can't handle, such as the incapacity of government to perform what they look to it to perform, the inadequacy of human nature to deliver the kinds of agents they desire, the absurdity of its economics, its inability to ground even one single moral precept, and the record of its disastrous historical failures which have cost millions upon millions of lives.

Why do they not defend it further? Because if they're honest with themselves, they can't. It's not defensible. It's not a rational plan for anything. It's' a speculative fever dream cooked up on the coattails of Marx et al. For its adherents, it's a creed, an addiction, a cult. It's their only alternative idea to the status quo, and the one they hope will deliver to them the goods for which they long...security, freedom from work, freedom from choice, freedom from thought, and a blessed release from responsibility for anything at all...all obtained not by creative effort or hard work on their part, but by the simple expedient of subscribing to a delusory view of economics, humanity and history.

Socialist rulers are not going to deliver to anyone freedom, education, health care, income, security, happiness...but if the Socialist-intoxicated give up dreaming that it will, what do they have left? Face the world as it is? Believe in God? Have to do something personally? Never!

To see that idol fall is intolerable to somebody addicted to that metanarrative. It's like watching his house burn down around his ears.

Socialism-from-above, the shit the Dems impose on the working class, is not what we want. We want the working classes themselves to change their circumstances. Socialism-from-below. I reckon the only way that'll happen (in Ermerica) is if there are major ammendments to the Constitution and I don't see that happenin'. Revolution ain't gonna happen unless the militaries of the world commit to helping the worker's revolution instead of squashing it under the order of the bourgeoisie. I don't see that happenin' neither, mm-hmm.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 4:58 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 1:27 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 1:21 am
No, no...you answer first. Explain how the government is going to help these people.

If a friend of mine found himself homeless I would recommend hooking up with section 8 government housing programs, and getting on food stamps.

Who pays?

Obviously not you. You can live in a shack out on your own and pick berries if you don't want to pay your dues to maintain society. Some kristian. Real charitable.

Most people pay their taxes. I do, most do and we don't bitch and complain about having to pay taxes to help our fellow citizens who have hard luck. You're complaining about it more than anyone else. If you want to bitch and complain then go live in Antarctica. There's no "losers" in Antarctica who you can bring you down.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:51 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 4:58 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 1:27 am If a friend of mine found himself homeless I would recommend hooking up with section 8 government housing programs, and getting on food stamps.

Who pays?

Obviously not you.

Obviously not you, either. How are you going to pay other people's bills on $10,000 a year or less yourself?

Welcome to Socialism: everybody suffers, nobody's needs are met, and nobody adds value to the economy, so there's no hope for the future, either.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:28 pm Socialism-from-above, the shit the Dems impose on the working class, is not what we want. We want the working classes themselves to change their circumstances. Socialism-from-below.

Okay, describe your plan: how does that happen? What are the steps to get there?

I reckon the only way that'll happen (in Ermerica) is if there are major ammendments to the Constitution and I don't see that happenin'. Revolution ain't gonna happen unless the militaries of the world commit to helping the worker's revolution instead of squashing it under the order of the bourgeoisie. I don't see that happenin' neither, mm-hmm.

Right. So now you've said two ways it AIN'T gonna happen. Let's hear about how it IS going to happen.

Because if there's no IS, then it's a vain fantasy, and no more.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 4:26 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 3:43 pm Such expert, other-than-the-people management of the people, for the politicized government objectives and not the objective of the people, would in fact be Stealing by government.

That's very true.

But WHEN does the government manage anything except in its own interest? Only when close accountability, such as a short election cycle with a choice of candidates and strict limitations on each office's authority are maintained. The minute the government has latitude, it takes power to itself to control more, tax more, disposses more, legislate more and restrict access to more. It acts to increase it's own power and prosperity, not the welfare of ordinary people.

This is a big problem with Socialist theory. In theory, a Socialist government is said to operate with such paternalism and unselfish interests that it serves the ordinary people. In fact, in Communism, it's supposed eventually to wither away voluntarily, so that no government ends up being needed at all. All of this supposes a human nature that is special, and only found in Socialist government officials -- namely, complete devotion to "the good" as conceived in Socialist theory, and complete self-abnegation in favour of "the people."

But of course, this theory supposes people to be as they never are. People are not perfect, unselfish, uncorruptable, unambitious, devoted to the public good and above inducement to self-interest. There are no such human beings. And, in fact, people who even approach this sort of saintliness are vanishingly rare. Government is inevitably composed of fallen, corruptible, selfish human beings, in whom virtue is only occasional and is only produced by strenuous devotion to duty.

There used to be an old joke. It went

"What's the difference between Socialism and Capitalism?"
Answer: "Well, under Capitalism, man exploits man;
And under Socialism, it's the other way around."

That's truth. But the problem for Socialism is that it allows for only one political party -- the Socialist Party. So not only are corruptible humans in charge, but they're unchecked, unrestrained, and unlimited in tyranny, since the ordinary people have no checks-and-balances, constitutional limitations, term limits, or democratic votes that can unseat the Socialist elite.

And that has never ended up well. Not even once.

Do you know why you are so fixated on "socialism" and/or "communism"?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:54 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:51 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 4:58 am Who pays?

Obviously not you.

Obviously not you, either. How are you going to pay other people's bills on $10,000 a year or less yourself?

Welcome to Socialism: everybody suffers, nobody's needs are met, and nobody adds value to the economy, so there's no hope for the future, either.

That's why we tax the rich who take all the money, moron! Or do you think Musk is going to earn a trillion dollars?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 6:51 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 5:11 pm The Party is an easy metaphor for The Big Soul.

It's kind of amazing, isn't it? The people who say that "material conditions" determine everything also think there's some kind of "common soul" to humanity...embodied in the State. It's got to be yet another dumb idea they get from Hegel, whether they know it or not. Of course, Hegel's ideas are mediated to them through Marx, but it's still the same source. And this is a throughly metaphysical imagining...so that even while they despise "religion," they actually dabble all the time in very "religious" concepts, such as "souls," "prophecies," teleology, "faith" and morality, all that while declaiming against the reality of all such metaphysical things.

That's what Marxism essentially is: it's a cultic religion, not a philosophy.

LOL
LOL
LOL

'This', coming from 'the one' who has been indoctrinated into, and follows, religiously, one of the biggest 'cultic religions'.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 6:51 pm And you can tell by the fact that even though Marxism has failed in reality 100% of the time, that is not enough to dissuade their "faithful" from "belief" in their immanent "heaven."

Exactly like "christianity" has failed in Reality 100% of the time, that is not enough to dissuade their "faithful" from "belief" in their immanent "heaven", as well.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:07 pm

promethean75 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 7:15 pm Walker's the last of the Mohicans, Mannie. Nobody else is listening anymore. Maybe Dr. Jakobi, but only because his investments are doing well, and he wouldn't want that to change because some german economist gave the proles of the world a dangerous idea.

Well, if that's so, that's only because things aren't going well for the Socialists here. They've run into a bunch of factual show-stoppers they can't handle, such as the incapacity of government to perform what they look to it to perform, the inadequacy of human nature to deliver the kinds of agents they desire, the absurdity of its economics, its inability to ground even one single moral precept, and the record of its disastrous historical failures which have cost millions upon millions of lives.

Why would you care about or refer to the cost of millions upon millions of lives when you are wanting, promoting, and supporting the increase in spending of billions upon billions of dollars to manufacture millions upon millions of more weapons to fight more and more wars, which obviously could end up killing more millions upon millions of lives?

Once again you have ended up promoting the very thing you are also pretending you are fighting against.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:07 pm Why do they not defend it further? Because if they're honest with themselves, they can't. It's not defensible. It's not a rational plan for anything. It's' a speculative fever dream cooked up on the coattails of Marx et al. For its adherents, it's a creed, an addiction, a cult. It's their only alternative idea to the status quo, and the one they hope will deliver to them the goods for which they long...security, freedom from work, freedom from choice, freedom from thought, and a blessed release from responsibility for anything at all...all obtained not by creative effort or hard work on their part, but by the simple expedient of subscribing to a delusory view of economics, humanity and history.

LOL
LOL
LOL

Once more, "immanuel can" has 'dreamed up' that there exists a 'particular type of people', somewhere, and then, laughably, is 'trying to' argue against these 'imaginary people', here.

There is absolutely no one saying nor claiming what you are proposing, here, "immanuel can".

What 'you' are actually doing, here, is 'creating people', in 'your imagination', only, who you put in 'opposition' or on the 'other' "side" of 'your own cult', and then 'try to' fool and trick 'the readers', here, that 'they' are the 'bad people', and that 'those' in 'your own cultic religion' are the 'good' and 'right people'.

LOL 'your own cult following' has got you so mixed up and crazy 'you' are 'inventing people', which you are 'trying to' argue, and fight against. And, part of the reason why you continually are doing this is so that you do not have any time to just stop, and just 'look at' our silly and ridiculous 'your own cult' is, exactly.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:07 pm Socialist rulers are not going to deliver to anyone freedom, education, health care, income, security, happiness...but if the Socialist-intoxicated give up dreaming that it will, what do they have left? Face the world as it is? Believe in God? Have to do something personally? Never!

Yes, because "immanuel can" has not 'dreamed up' a 'man with a penis' created every thing, at all once, and is the 'saviour' of all, but then again, not of all, but only of some, who believe not just in the claim that a 'man' created every thing all at once, but a virgin gave birth to a baby 'boy', and that when "immanuel can" dies it gets to go to heaven but any one who does not believe and follow what "immanuel can" believes and follows will not get to go to heaven.

you have not 'dreamed 'this' up' have you "immanuel can"? Because 'this' is written in a book, and written by those with penises, exactly like God has one.

What do you have left without 'this'? Can you face 'the world' as it Really is? you already believe God is a 'man'. Are you able to think and do things, personally? Or, do you always need 'your cult', and 'that book', to guide you and show you 'the way'?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:07 pm To see that idol fall is intolerable to somebody addicted to that metanarrative.

As is being proved by "immanuel can", "itself".

Imagining believing that a thing with a penis created every thing, all at once, and 'It' has promised you that only after 'you die' is when you can then be Truly 'happy', but then having to realize that 'this dream and idol of yours' is slowly, but surely, completely disappearing. And, you have to 'wake up' and realize that 'it' was all but just a self made up dream 'of yours'.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:07 pm It's like watching his house burn down around his ears.

If 'this' is what you would like to describe 'us' as watching, while 'we' observe 'your house' burning down, around 'you', completely, then okay.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:07 pm … a bunch of factual show-stoppers …

lol

I think we need to add theatre to the list of topics your Dunning has well and truly Krugered, Manny!

promethean75 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:28 pm Socialism-from-above, the shit the Dems impose on the working class, is not what we want.

No one wants what "immanuel can" has 'dreamed up' and is claiming, here.

Once again "immanuel can", [the expert in deceit and deception], has just kept introducing this 'red herring', to take 'the light' off of "itself", and to introduce 'some thing', which it can actually fight and/or argue against.

What "immanuel can" is, essentially, doing, here, is 'trying' its very hardest to 'justify' the taxing of 'workers' so all that money never gets used to help nor support those who need help and support, but instead all goes to the 'betterment' of, and to the 'protection' of, people like "itself".

See, the Truly greedy and selfish, like "immanuel can", obviously, could never ever justify their Wrong thinking and Wrong doing, so they will, very deceptively, introduce Falsehoods, and pretend that 'they' are Real, and True, while pretending that they are fighting and arguing against those 'made up things'.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:28 pm We want the working classes themselves to change their circumstances. Socialism-from-below. I reckon the only way that'll happen (in Ermerica) is if there are major ammendments to the Constitution and I don't see that happenin'. Revolution ain't gonna happen unless the militaries of the world commit to helping the worker's revolution instead of squashing it under the order of the bourgeoisie. I don't see that happenin' neither, mm-hmm.

The 'militarized' are paid by 'governments'. These 'indoctrinated people' have come to believe that 'their governments' know best, and 'they' have been manipulated to believe that they 'have to' and 'will' 'follow' whatever 'their government' says. So, it does not matter one iota that it is you actual 'workers' who are 'paying' for 'this insanity', the 'militaries' of 'the world' are not going to help 'the workers', because 'they' have been lied to, and thus have been manipulated for 'too long', 'now', to see what is actually True, and Right, in Life, anymore.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:51 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 4:58 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Nov 17, 2025 1:27 am

If a friend of mine found himself homeless I would recommend hooking up with section 8 government housing programs, and getting on food stamps.

Who pays?

Obviously not you. You can live in a shack out on your own and pick berries if you don't want to pay your dues to maintain society. Some kristian. Real charitable.

Most people pay their taxes. I do, most do and we don't bitch and complain about having to pay taxes to help our fellow citizens who have hard luck. You're complaining about it more than anyone else. If you want to bitch and complain then go live in Antarctica. There's no "losers" in Antarctica who you can bring you down.

But, "immanuel can" does not 'bitch' nor 'complain' about paying taxes, just as long as long those 'paid taxes' are spent on 'building roads', which "immanuel can" drives on, and/or on weapons and militaries, which will defend and protect "Immanuel can".

"Immanuel can" only 'bitches' and 'complains' about paying taxes if absolutely any of 'that money' goes in any way to help and care for any one who is what is called 'less fortunate'.

"Immanuel can" could not care any less if more people paid more taxes, just as long as 'that money' gets spend on 'protecting' "immanuel can" from 'others'.