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celticlord2112 -> RE: "Obama Can't Win"; Hillary Clinton (4/4/2008 1:09:23 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
Your beliefs are not without merit, but where you fall short is as follows:
quote:
ORIGINAL: celticlord2112
individual liberty is sacrificed in the name of some ill-defined collective "good".
Individual liberty is no more tangible, and thus it follows no less ill-defined, as the collective good.
Actually, this is not true. Individual liberty begins with articulation of the phrase "I want"--"I want". For an individual to make such a statement, it is necessarily axiomatic. "I" is atomic, "I" is individual.
A collective good must similarly begin with an articulation of "We want...." However, inasmuch as any articulation is an individual act, this statement can never be presumed axiomatic, but must be proven with further statements. "I" can state that "we want," but without support and justification that statement is inherently suspect, whereas the similar individual statement "I want" is not.
Thus, individual liberty is necessarily more definitive than any collective good.
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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
quote:
ORIGINAL: celticlord2112
Yes, socialist thinking, being as it is dehumanizing thinking, is evil.
Claiming socialist thinking to be "evil" smacks of the indoctrination suggested by RL.
You fail to see that what we have here are simply two ideas on how to organise people to achieve the essence of politics - harmony.
How have I failed to perceive that? If I am vocal in opposition to one idea and forceful in advocating a different idea, I necessarily must be aware that there are competing ideas under discussion. I merely reject one of those ideas.
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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
According to your own post, you've come to believe that individual liberty is more tangible than the collective good. Regardless of your beliefs, one is no more a given or an illusion as the other.
You offer up no proof of this. My rebuttal of your earlier statement stands as my challenge.
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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
Every belief you have stated in your post could be turned on its head, and countered with the excesses of the free market system.
No doubt that attempt will be made. Such is the nature of debate.
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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
CL, I'll put this to you, you're unable to step out of your shoes and see political notions for what they are - they're simply ideas - rather, you've moved into the absolutism of believing a particular idea to be evil.
Ideas spawned the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution.
Ideas spawned the world's great religions.
Ideas can lead to war.
"Simply ideas"? There are no such things. Ideas are the foundations for all that we choose, and thus all that we do. If our ideas are wrong, our choices will be wrong, and our actions will be wrong.
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