Nathan Johnson on Apr 21, 2008 at 07:58 AM:

The truth can never hurt the working class.

Johanan Raatz on Apr 21, 2008 at 09:02 AM:

Nathan

"The truth can never hurt the working class."

Not everything is about class interests. Knowledge is power and power corrupts. People frequently abuse knowledge whether they are members of the working class or not.

Johanan Raatz on Apr 21, 2008 at 09:12 AM:

JF I think you misunderstand Leo Strauss and the "noble lie" here. A better translation of the "noble lie" is really just "salutory myth" and doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means. All the noble "lie" really is is an unproven pretext to base further argumentation on.

If you look at when this idea first arose it was in the time of Plato and the sophists. The sophists were radical skeptics and didn't think anything could be proven, and so they attacked the basic ideas that were used for civil discourse. All Plato and for that matter Strauss are arguing is that we need assume these as true or valid whether or not they can be proven.

As such it really couldn't be thought of as a lie at all, but rather a salutory myth. It can't be proven as true or false except that it is established as common sense and provides the grounds for any further discussion and policy making.

I have a friend on youtube who has a video clarifying this in more detail.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WVGJqZAsVYY

Johanan Raatz on Apr 21, 2008 at 09:21 AM:

I think what Samuel Huntington is advocating is just a PR spin here. Most people wouldn't have the patience to learn all of the precise reasons for something. They're too busy. As such sometimes political scientists need to advocate their policies in soundbytes and PR that unfortunately sometimes skim over details.

Look at WW2 or the Cold war. To America the Soviets and the Nazi's represented distant threats, and people often don't care about the long-term enough. Statesmen like Truman or Roosevelt or Kennedy needed to sometimes make the enemy look a little scarier than normal to get the proper motivation to deal with the problem.

Johanan Raatz on Apr 21, 2008 at 09:28 AM:

"This is a natural development when “the common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialized class whose personal interests reach beyond the locality.”

Look this looks elitist but is really just technical knowledge for a certain profession. You look to plumbers to know how to fix your pipes or doctors to know how to fix your body. Statesmen and policy analysts likewise have their own set of technical knowledge that they need to do their own job. This doesn't mean they are necessarily "elitist" it's just that they are have special knowledge needed for their trade. For example you wouldn't expect these people to know the details of plumbing but that doesn't make plumbers a special class of elitists either though. Knowing trade secrets of a profession doesn't make one an "elitist" per se.

Terrence on Apr 21, 2008 at 11:19 AM:

What I find to be funny is that radical leftists and not just the establishment liberals and neocons may be the worst liars of them all. Ironically they are the ones trying to tear the system down because it is 'bourgeois' and 'elitist.'

Of course this is 'justified' because they are trying to help the proletariat which is blinded by 'false consciousness.' So the proletariat needs to be 'awakened' by elite Marxist radicals who know what the proletariat's 'true' interests are and use every dirty trick in the book to overthrow the 'system.' Of course this 'awakening' usually involves lieing to the masses and telling that there is no morality at all.

Damn hypocrites. I prefer sticking to the devil I know.

Terrence on Apr 21, 2008 at 11:45 AM:

Scene 1:

Mr. Commie: "Religion is a lie and is false consciousness that is inhibiting the proletariat from revolting."

Mr. Commie then goes to found the ACLU and plots how he is going to accomplish this by twisting the Founder's intent and advocating for a much more radical interpretation 'separation of church and state' than was ever intended." (look up the early history of the ACLU on this one)

Scene 2:

Mr. Liberal joins the ACLU and drinks Mr. Commies kool-aid.

Mr. Liberal: "Religious values should be separated from secular society because of separation of church and state."

Mr. Fundie:"But what you are suggesting is immoral."

Liberal(after imbibing commie kool-aid): Immoral by YOUR morals. Stop imposing your morality on me.

Scene 3:

After taking classes from Leo Strauss Mr. Neocon starts a thinktank and starts to mix some kool-aid of his own. Naturally he mixes in a good dose of religion for flavor.

Mr. Commie and Mr. Liberal: What are you doing? Stop lieing to the masses to manipulate them. Lieing is wrong.

Mr. Neocon(with a twinkle in his eye): "Of course lieing is wrong just like God instructed Moses in the 9th commandment. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." To promote this I advocate that we teach the ten commandments in school to help booster honesty as a civic virtue."

Mr. Liberal: "Stop imposing your religious morals on the rest of society."

Mr. Neocon: "Oh it's not my religion. I'm just throwing it out there for people to believe."

Mr. Commie: "Religion is a lie and it's wrong to opiate the masses with it."

Mr. Neocon: "What's wrong with lieing? I thought you believed religion was a lie. If religion is a lie there is nothing wrong with breaking the 9th commandment. Right?"

Dumbfounded Mr. Commie and Mr. Liberal after realizing their foolishness are very quiet for a long time.

Moral: If morality itself (consent if you will) is a lie then there is nothing wrong with lieing.

Nathan Johnson on Apr 21, 2008 at 11:58 AM:

I'm a communist and I believe in God. Sincere Marxists aren't dogmatic or elitist, they think for themselves. Materialism (the ideology of capitalism) does not promote critical thinking, therefore critical thinking must not promote materialism.

Terrence on Apr 21, 2008 at 12:11 PM:

Neocons and radical leftists have turned politics into propaganda wars. Both need to stop, but I don't think either will. If one stops the other wins automatically.

The neocons have alot of medium sized lies to support state power. The marxists have one big one: that everything is about class warfare that they use to undermine authority.

The two feed on each other. One loves to abuse authority and the other acts like a rebellious teenaged spoiled brat. I honestly think the two richly deserve each other. Unfortunately the rest of us are caught in the cross-fire.

Maybe we should ditch the both of them and vote for Ron Paul next time.

Terrence on Apr 21, 2008 at 12:27 PM:

"I'm a communist and I believe in God. Sincere Marxists aren't dogmatic or elitist, they think for themselves."

Really?! I'm surprised. That's a first. That makes me ask another question. What do you think of morality? Is it basically absolute?

"Materialism (the ideology of capitalism) does not promote critical thinking, therefore critical thinking must not promote materialism."

Most Marxists I have read about found their entire philosophy on dialectical materialism and are strongly opposed to ideas of a God or traditional morality. They usually think God is a myth used to control the masses and think that morality is relative to class. Both are attitudes I find morally abhorrent. It's almost like they have an attitude problem towards authority or something. However you suprise me. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here, but you have to see my problem with communism as it is popularly promoted? The Marxists I have read about advocate stealing and rationalize it away by creating their own class-based morality to justify it.

Out of curiosity if you do hold to moral absolutes (I assume you do because most people who believe in God do)how do you get around rights to private property without advocating theivery?

JF on Apr 21, 2008 at 12:54 PM:

I don't think the masses need to be "awakened", I think they largely already know what the social problems are. The point of this was that a society should have free access to all sorts of opinion. A society is a democracy to the degree that the public has free access to information and the ability to act on it. The American mass media has little variety and is often distorting facts for the benefit of the state. Take Israel-Palestine for example. You can search the entire archive of mainstream newspapers in this country and you will not find one that says that the US has been opposing "the peace process" in the conflict. Yet, for the last 30 years the US has been unilaterally rejecting the Two State Settlement which has been accepted by the entire international community. The vote comes up annually at the UN General Assembly and the vote is now typically 160-7 (Israel, US, Tuvalu, Micronesia, Nauru, Paulu, Marshall Islands). So the US has blocked peace for the last 32 years in Israel-Palestine and been supplying enormous military aid to one country, but if you search every single piece done on this topic by the entire mainstream media for 32 years, you cannot find one statement that says the US has been opposed to the "peace process". Here is just one example of the American media's lack of variety in expression.

JF on Apr 21, 2008 at 01:05 PM:

Who says you have to believe in God in order to believe in morality? The two ideas really have nothing to do with each other. I think you can create a much more viable and honest ethical system when you believe in free will instead of determinism. Belief in an all-powerful, all-controlling entity severely cripples your ability to believe in free will.

P.S. The ACLU is a conservative organization. The word "conservative" is one which has almost lost its original meaning, but the ACLU is historically a conservative organization which is dedicated to upholding the principles of the Constitution. The fact that so many neo-conservatives bash the ACLU shows how reactionary they are.

Johanan Raatz on Apr 21, 2008 at 02:11 PM:

JF; Though I don't agree with his characterization of neoconservatives he has reason to suspect the ACLU.

"The ACLU is a conservative organization."

"The ACLU's affiliations with terrorists are not restricted solely to foreigners. For instance, the organization named unrepentant New Left terrorist Bernardine Dohrn to its Advisory Board. Dohrn, along with her husband Bill Ayers," ~http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6145

Apparently the ACLU's founder was also a 'conservative' who supported the Soviet occupation of Russia. ~http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=243727412764090

I'm more than a little surprise that the a conservative organization would have members of the Weather Underground on it's advisory board. Judging from the other things they promote if this is a conservative organization it is a mighty strange one.

"which is dedicated to upholding the principles of the Constitution."

Or at least that is the 'noble' lie they like to tell. The truth is that this is doublespeak. They like to support twisted interpretations of the Constitution to turn it in on itself. Specifically they wanted to use America's freedoms to destroy American culture.

"I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately, for abolishing the state itself."~Roger Baldwin, founder of the ACLU

They can't support the Constitution if they intend to abolish the state that it was made for.

http://actioninengland.mywowbb.com/forum45/206.html http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/opinion/article_21218247.shtml

Jedi mind tricks don't work on me. The ACLU is not conservative. The fact that the neocons who are somehow very reactionary were ascendent until very recently demonstrates that much of the public sees through this as well. The ACLU is an extremist organization masquerading itself in moderation.

JF on Apr 21, 2008 at 02:48 PM:

Raatz, if you define terrorism, you will find that it is YOU who are pro-terrorist and YOU who supports terrorist actions. You apply the term terrorist to anyone who commits violent acts of which you are opposed to, i.e. you apply the term hypocritically. The US is harboring terrorists such as Posada and Constant, but the neo-cons don't have a problem with that. Nor with the fact that the US routinely commits acts of terrorism throughout the world. And if you're one of those people who says that "states can't commit terrorism", well then you can call it "state terrorism". A crime is immoral regardless of who is carrying it out. When the US kills women, children, and babies indiscriminately, that qualifies as terrorism, or "state terrorism", and you seem to have no problem with this.

Nathan Johnson on Apr 21, 2008 at 06:26 PM:

Terrence, thanks for being open minded enough to even hear me out.

There is no doubt that religion has been misused historically to serve the ruling class. For example, the monarchy in Nepal claimed to be descendents of Vishnu, the pharohs claimed to be gods, the Crusades, ect ect. But if religion is being used for class reasons, then it isn't really religion. Also, there is a distinction between superstition and religion.

I think that dialectical materialism has a lot of merits. For instance, I think we can all agree that if a draught occurs in America it is not because the American people are "sinful" but because of atmospheric conditions, climate, and a bunch of other scientifically explainable reasons. However, as good as dialectical materialism is at explaining many things, I don't believe it is capable of either proving or disproving God's existence. Materialists say that everything is made of material, but never explain what material is. Matter=energy, but then what is energy? I think that quantum mechanics challenges the philosophy of materialism in several respects.

However, at the macro-level Newtonian physics might as well be true. Whether or not we hold the correct view of the nature of time, we can still read time on a clock; so its not good to get carried away with obscure scientific philosophy if it cannot influence the way we live life in society.

As far as morality goes, I'm not going to pretend to know any answers. I doubt there is such a thing as absolute morality, but I don't know. I just go by feel. So when I worked at a country club and saw some people working 12 hour days in the sun doing manual labor, and then some rich people golfing and eating expensive meals without working a day in their life, I feel that that needs to change.

Instead of basing arguments on morality or feel, which varies person to person, it is better when possible to base arguments on science. Marx, with his theory of surplus value, completed the labor theory of economics, and launched scientific socialism in place of utopian socialism.

I don't consider a socialist revolution to be stealing, since revolution is expropriating the expropriators, negating the negation. How can some rich people golf all their life without working a day in their life? How can they take from the market without contributing to it? They must have stolen that money from someone, namely the working class. Because the ruling class does not willingly give up its power, revolution is necessary. Capitalism structurally depends on profit, which is to say, stealing from the working class.

Communists do not take issue with small businesses and entrprenuers who contribute to society with their hard work, but rather with the largest of corporations and the people who own them.

In a nutshell, the contradictions of capitalism can be summarised: the contradiciton between social labor and private appropration. It took millions (and at a further remove billions of people, if not everyone now that everything is so interconnected through the global market) of people producing the food I eat, the homes I live in, the roads I travel on, the electricity I consume, the clothes I wear, the education I receive, the buses I take, etc etc- it took all that social labor to produce the person I am today, I feel it would be selfish for me to think I have the right to earn more than a living wage, much less become a multi-millionaire, when so many people are responsible for my upbringing.

The greater the productive capacity of society, the less scarcity is felt, the less reason for competition, the more sense socialism makes.

If you want to learn more, check out Einstein's article "Why Socialism?" http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einst.htm

Johanan Raatz on Apr 21, 2008 at 07:26 PM:

"i.e. you apply the term hypocritically."

Well I apply Carl Schmitt's concept of the friend/enemey distinction if that's what you mean, but that's just good political philosophy. For example you can't blindly equate a human rights abusing state with one that promotes an ideology of freedom because they both happen to use war.

"The US is harboring terrorists such as Posada and Constant, but the neo-cons don't have a problem with that."

I didn't know who those were at first but after investigating they appear to be anti-Castro fighters. Now his actions may have been bad and I could discuss that. However, I'm going to point out the elephant in the room here. Let's say he's a terrorist. Did you happen to notice that the state he is fighting against was itself a rogue regime and was established by terrorists? Whatever his actions the actions in Cuba under Castro have been far worse. As were the actions of the terrorist and mass-murderer Che in helping Castro establish his dictatorship. So worst case scenario we have terrorism-contra-terrorism.

Now the larger issue here is why are you so eager to criticize Posada when the regime he was fighting against is obviously the greater evil?

"And if you're one of those people who says that "states can't commit terrorism", well then you can call it "state terrorism".

Ok now that you've forced the issue yeah I'm one of "those people." If state's can't commit terrorism then "state terrorism" is a misnomer.

"A crime is immoral regardless of who is carrying it out."

You're missing intent here. An action in self-defense or defense of others is not the same as an action against someone.

"When the US kills women, children, and babies indiscriminately, that qualifies as terrorism, or "state terrorism", and you seem to have no problem with this."

No I have a problem with it, but I also think we should pay attention to the larger issues in these cases. Something you've seemed to be ignoring up to this point. And we don't indiscriminately attack civilians. In fact we've specifically developed smart bombs to minimize civilian casualties.

Now this whole discussion leads me to one question: Why do you constantly criticize America to the exclusion of other states when other states are far worse? It's like reverse geocentrism and sometimes it almost seems to border on anti-patriotism.

Nathan Johnson on Apr 22, 2008 at 05:31 PM:

You never answered my question from before- would Jesus ever use terrorism? Since you believe in absolute morality, it should be a yes or no question.

If Jesus wouldn't, since you call yourself a Christian, you should stop making excuses for American-backed terrorism.

Geoff Loper on Apr 22, 2008 at 05:54 PM:

Terrance,

I love the way you put it, but there is one thing that you need to change slightly.... Helen Keller was one of the ew founding members of the ACLU, and she did define herself as a communist... so maybe Ms. Commie would fit there too

Johanan Raatz on Apr 22, 2008 at 06:08 PM:

"You never answered my question from before- would Jesus ever use terrorism?"

No. However, that is based on my definition of terrorism which apparently differs greatly from yours.

Now as to your implication let's remember that first of all Jesus was not a statesman or a public official. However the Bible does permit the state to use force even lethal force when it is appropriate to do so.

"If Jesus wouldn't, since you call yourself a Christian, you should stop making excuses for American-backed terrorism."

I wasn't making excuses for American-backed terrorism as the US does not back what could be by definition called terrorists. Now of course you are going to take issue with this. However I would point out that the actions America takes (though sometimes far less than ideal) are generally to protect herself, her citizens, and her allies. That's morally justifiable.

Now that you seem to be trying to grab the moral high ground I would like to ask you if the mass murders Che committed were morally justified.

Johanan on Apr 22, 2008 at 06:18 PM:

Nathan;

This is completely off topic but I thought it was interesting anyway.

"I think that quantum mechanics challenges the philosophy of materialism in several respects."

Very interesting. I agree. I think a sort of informationalism will actually become the new materialism in the not to distant future.

Nathan Johnson on Apr 22, 2008 at 07:20 PM:

Johanan, I don't get it- we both agree Jesus wouldn't use terrorism, so how can any Christian excuse terrorism in any context when Christians are supposed to live according to "what would Jesus do." I thought we'd already established that the US gov supported the use of terrorism in Operation Condor. If Jesus wouldn't kidnap leftists or plant bombs in public places, neither should anyone else, from a Christian standpoint.

I don't see how we have a different definition of terrorism- I'll even agree to the US gov's definition of terrorism: "…activities that involve violent… or life-threatening acts… that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and… appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping..."

I already explained about Che.

Johanan Raatz on Apr 23, 2008 at 11:58 AM:

"Johanan, I don't get it- we both agree Jesus wouldn't use terrorism, so how can any Christian excuse terrorism in any context when Christians are supposed to live according to "what would Jesus do.""

Your framing this wrong. The question is not should terrorism be used? but rather is a given action terrorism?.

"that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and…"

Here we are. The catch is in this part: "United States or of any State."

The United States is enforcing it's policies (it's laws if you will) by it's actions. Therefore it's actions are not in violation of the law they are the enforcement of the law. Also the "State" being reffered has to be a legitimate state. The government classifies many states as "rogue states" meaning they are not legitimately states.

Now yes the government uses dirty foriegn policy at times however that is sometimes unavoidable. Unless you get the wrong impression I don't like that. However, the choice is often between a bad choice and a worse choice. The trouble is that you are forced to choose.

Now in the case of Operation Condor I would have liked them to find a better choice that respected human rights more, but in foriegn policy you not avoid being realistic. It's not logically possible. I'm not a realist like Kissinger, in fact I dislike that position. I think consideration for human rights should be involved but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be a 'realist' in the broad sense. In responsible foriegn policy you have to out of necessity.

Now for example let's look at Operation Condor for a second. We were in the Cold War and we were fighting the Soviet Union. Political communist regimes (ie. Stalinist ones) were sprouting up everywhere. The government had to do SOMETHING or else we would not have won the Cold War. Now I would have preffered a third choice but if I was forced to choose between things like Operation Condor and loosing the Cold War I'd pick the former as the latter would obviously have been far worse.

"I thought we'd already established that the US gov supported the use of terrorism in Operation Condor."

Well that's the thing. I think if you asked the CIA, they would classify Operation Condor as an anti-terrorism campaign.

"I already explained about Che."

Yeah you said he was 'justified' and described him as a sort of freedom fighter. You know that's a load of crap. He was a mass murderer and he helped Castro enslave the Cuban people. If Che was justified than Operation Condor was more than justified.

What I found ironic about this was that you didn't really seem to apologize for him. However when I tentatively supported Pinochet despite saying that I didn't like to you jumped on me for it.

If you look at Wikipedia, Pinochet was responsible for 3,000 deaths bad yes but nowhere near as bad as Che who helped set up a totalitarian regime that has killed around 102,000 people.