|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
posted August 29, 2013 05:29 AM |
|
|
Speaking of Shakespeare:
"Gloucester:
Then, since this earth affords no joy to me
But to command, to check, to o'erbear such
As are of better person than myself,
I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,
And, whiles I live, to account this world but hell
Until my mis-shap'd trunk that bear this head
Be round impaled with a glorious crown.
And yet I know not how to get the crown,
For many lives stand between me and home,
And I, like one lost in a thorny wood,
That rends the thorns, and is rent with the thorns,
Seeking a way, and straying from the way,
Not knowing how to find the open air,
But toiling desperately to find it out,
Torment myself to catch the English crown;
And from that torment I will free myself,
Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.
Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile,
And cry 'Content!' to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall,
I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could,
And like a Sinon take another Troy.
I can add colours to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down."
- Henry VI, Part 3
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
|
Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
|
|
posted August 29, 2013 04:28 PM |
|
|
"I am going to get a chemist--a real genius--and get him to extract all the oxygen out of the atmosphere for eight minutes. Then we will have universal peace, and it will be permanent." - Mark Twain
____________
Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
|
|
Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
|
|
posted August 29, 2013 04:30 PM |
|
|
|
Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
|
|
posted September 03, 2013 09:51 PM |
|
|
"Everyone thinks of changing the world, yet nobody considers changing themselves." - Some Russian guy
____________
"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted September 03, 2013 10:43 PM |
|
|
"There are some government programs that give money to the poor - Aid to Families with Dependent Children, for instance. But such programs are vastly outweighed by those having the opposite effect - programs that injure the poor for the benefit of the not-poor. Almost surely, the poor would be better off if both the benefits that they now receive and the taxes, direct and indirect, that they now pay were abolished...
People with higher incomes have a longer life expectancy. The children of the middle and upper class start work later, often substantially later, than the children of the lower classes. Both of these facts tend to make Social Security a much better deal for the not-poor than for the poor...
Many years ago, when I did calculations on part of the Agriculture Department's activities, I estimated, using Agriculture Department figures, that higher food prices then made up about two-thirds of the total cost of the part of the farm program I was studying. Higher food prices have the effect of a regressive tax, since poorer people spend a larger proportion of their income on food." - David Friedman
"The most dramatic episode for me in the course of the consultations [concerning the draft] occurred when General Westmoreland, top commander of our troops in Vietnam, testified. He was then, I believe, Chief of Staff of the Army, and he was testifying in that capacity. Like almost all military men who testified, he testified against a volunteer armed force. In the course of his testimony, he made the statement that he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. I stopped him and said, 'General, would you rather command an army of slaves?' He drew himself up and said, 'I don't like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves.' I replied, 'I don't like to her our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries.' But I went on to say, 'If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general; we are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher.' That was the last that we heard from the general about mercenaries." - Milton Friedman
"People have self interests that matter, morally; nations do not. Nations are toxic hellholes of false identity and purveyors of monstrous political violence. Nations are not rational people; they are not free associations or contractual agreements; they are unchosen, coercively assembled collectives, whose interests are typically an abortion of, if not an outright war against, the moral interests of individual people which actually deserve to be cultivated, practiced and respected. For anyone committed to individual liberty, a nation's 'interests' deserve no notice at all except to trample them underfoot." - Charles Johnson
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
|
Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted October 20, 2013 10:04 PM |
|
Edited by Stevie at 22:09, 20 Oct 2013.
|
'Those who assert that a blind fatality might have produced the various effects we behold in this world are guilty of a very great absurdity; for can anything be more absurd than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings?'
'God is related to the universe as Creator and Preserver. The laws by which He has created all things are those by which He preserves them. He acts according to these rulers because He knows them; He knows them because He has made them; and He made them because they are relative to His wisdom and power.'
'Particular intelligent beings may have laws of their own making, but they also have some which they never made.. To say that there is nothing just or unjust but what is commanded or forbidden by positive [human] laws is the same as saying that before the describing of a circle all the radii were not equal.'
'We must therefore acknowledge the existence of relations of justice antecedent to positive law, and by which they are established.. If there are intelligent beings that have received a benefit of another being, they ought to be grateful; if one intelligent being has created another intelligent being, the latter ought to continue in its original state of dependence.'
'But the intelligent world is far from being so well governed as the physical one. For though the former has also its laws which of their own nature are invariable, yet it does not conform to them so exactly as the physical world. This is because on the one hand intelligent human beings are of finite nature and consequently liable to error; and, on the other, their nature requires them to be free agents. Hence they do not steadily conform to their primitive laws; and even those of their own instituting they frequently infringe.'
'Man, as a physical being, is, like other bodies, governed by invariable laws. As an intelligent being, he incessantly transgresses these laws established by God and changes even the ones which he himself has established. Then, he is left to his own direction, though he is a limited being and subject like all finite intelligences to ignorance and error. And even the imperfect knowledge he has, he loses it as a sensible creature when it is hurried away by a thousand impetuous passions. Such a being might every instant forget his Creator. For this reason, God has reminded him of his obligations by the law of [the Judaeo-Christian] religion.'
Montesquieu
'When man is made controller of his own evolution by means of the state, the state is made into the new absolute. Hegel, in accepting social evolution, made the state the new god of being. The followers of Hegel in absolutizing the state are Marxists, Fabians, and other socialists.. In brief, God and His transcendental law are dropped in favor of a new god, the state. Evolution thus leads not only to revolution but also to totalitarianism. Social evolutionary theory, as it came to focus in Hegel, has made the state the new god of being. Biological evolutionary thinking, as it has developed since Darwin, has made revolution the great instrument of this new god and the means to establishment of this new god, the scientific socialist state.'
J.R. Rushdoony
Simply epic.
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted October 20, 2013 10:19 PM |
|
|
"I'm not just surrounded by Ph.D.s; I'm surrounded by libertarian economics Ph.D.s. I'm not just unfamiliar with NASCAR; I forget the very existence of professional sports for months at a time. I don't just watch shows for yuppies; I manage my entertainment to make sure that I never hear a commercial. In my world, Alex Tabarrok is more important than Barack Obama, Robin Hanson is more important than Paul Krugman, and the late Gary Gygax is more important than Jeremy Lin... whoever that might be.
Unlike most American elites, I don't feel the least bit bad about living in a Bubble. I share none of their egalitarian or nationalist scruples. Indeed, I've wanted to live in a Bubble for as long as I can remember. Since childhood, I've struggled to psychologically and socially wall myself off from 'my' society. At 40, I can fairly say, 'Mission accomplished'." - Bryan Caplan
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted October 20, 2013 10:22 PM |
|
|
Wow, how can someone make so clear that he understands absolutely nothing about Hegel or Marx or Darwin or evolution in just three paragraphs. It really is epic!
I checked the guy and not surprisingly he is a theologian, again. Is there even one religious writer who can actually make sense or is there some kind of test where they deliberately pick guys who are clueless about the basic concepts they are talking about.
|
|
Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted October 20, 2013 10:36 PM |
|
Edited by Stevie at 22:37, 20 Oct 2013.
|
artu said:
Wow, how can someone make so clear that he understands absolutely nothing about Hegel or Marx or Darwin or evolution in just three paragraphs. It really is epic!
I checked the guy and not surprisingly he is a theologian, again. Is there even one religious writer who can actually make sense or is there some kind of test where they deliberately pick guys who are clueless about the basic concepts they are talking about.
And I guess you used wikipedia.. makes sense.
Btw, Does it really mater who what said?
You seem to really hate a particular belief for no apparent reason, otherwise I can't explain your reply. Wasn't everything equal in evolutionary terms?
"Wow, how can someone make so clear that he understands absolutely nothing about Hegel or Marx or Darwin or evolution in just three paragraphs." -- I stoped being impressed by this kind of lines decades ago.. words, words, words.
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted October 20, 2013 10:40 PM |
|
|
|
It's not hate. His claims are just absurd, so absurd, it indeed mattered who he was because you get curious when you see something this wrong.
|
|
Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted October 20, 2013 10:41 PM |
|
|
|
Copy paste it and prove it wrong.
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted October 20, 2013 10:52 PM |
|
|
|
Copy paste what? The whole idea of God being replaced by this or that is ridiculous, just because he thinks in terms of God he acts like everyone else is entitled to. Godless people don't replace God with this or that, they just dont have a God. Besides Hegel wasnt an atheist, he wasnt even a materialist, in marxist theory the state exists only for a period of time, it is not the final goal and Darwin's natural selection relating to biology has nothing to with social darwinism or socialism or Marxism. Yet theologians are always so eager to melt all the "atheist thinkers" in one pot even if they are completely irrelevant.
|
|
Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted October 20, 2013 11:32 PM |
|
|
artu said:
.. and Darwin's natural selection relating to biology has nothing to with social darwinism or socialism or Marxism.
It's interesting that I've never encountered a single atheist that explains reality without appealing to evolutionary reasoning. So it has everything to do with that.
Darwin's works (and others') laid the foundation for the current secular worldview. You don't need to be a genius or a scholar to figure that out. If you can explain life solely through the interaction of matter and energy via a mechanism, i.e. natural selection + mutations, then all actions/events that ensue from such interactions are equally valid, equally important and all differentiations are purely arbitrary.
If so, then there is "no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.". So there is no difference between me slicing bread and me slicing your throat, they're both interactions between masses of atoms. Imagine if your government was thinking like Dawkins is.. oh wait, it prolly does.
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted October 20, 2013 11:36 PM |
|
|
Stevie said:
So there is no difference between me slicing bread and me slicing your throat, they're both interactions between masses of atoms.
You're either horribly misguided or a troll. Probably the latter.
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
|
Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted October 20, 2013 11:41 PM |
|
Edited by Stevie at 23:43, 20 Oct 2013.
|
mvassilev said:
Stevie said:
So there is no difference between me slicing bread and me slicing your throat, they're both interactions between masses of atoms.
You're either horribly misguided or a troll. Probably the latter.
Rather than calling me a troll you could have just pointed out where that reasoning was faulty.
|
|
DagothGares
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
No gods or kings
|
|
posted October 21, 2013 12:00 AM |
|
|
Quote:
I'd prefer this thread to have more quotes than discussion about them.
Please make separate threads, if you guys wanna slug it out quote wars style. 
____________
If you have any more questions, go to Dagoth Cares.
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted October 21, 2013 12:51 AM |
|
Edited by artu at 00:57, 21 Oct 2013.
|
|
Ok, one last word then. Stevie, your reasoning is indeed faulty because a) Natural selection explains nature not civilization, civilization is something we came up with BECAUSE nature is wild and people knew that before the theory, they dont need Darwin to see the obvious. b) Saying morality is something we build the foundations of does not mean morality does not exist, all high mammals that lives in groups have some level of social conduct, it also is something that evolves. Your reasoning assuming a necessary causality between morality and existence of God is COMPLETELY arbitrary and false.
|
|
DagothGares
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
No gods or kings
|
|
posted October 21, 2013 11:39 AM |
|
|
Quote:
Americans, by which I mean a populace propagandized to the Left or Right or Middle, cynically believe that "wanting to get re-elected" or arrogance or ideology is what's to blame, as if 500+ career Machiavellians are too stupid to know what an underemployed theater grad knows. "They should just do the right thing!" Who will let them? You?
The shut down was the inevitable consequence of a government not permitted to compromise, smothered by the oppressive gaze of a kamikaze media that will kill itself and your country just to get a headline today. I'm starting to wonder if the reason it is always pretty white girls who get kidnapped is that the media is the one kidnapping them. And you blamed Bear Stearns for being too focused on short term profits? CNN's time horizon is your next micturition. The media demands partisanship, conflict, opposing sides, but despite having 24 hours to fill will never, ever explain the interplay between complex issues, preferring to feature them in segments while hyping them to a crisis. Imagine trying to have sex always on camera, and always with a goat, and always with some know-it-all screaming at you, "get hard now! NOW! 8 seconds left! NOW! What's wrong with you?!" Jesus, can I take a minute and do this privately? "Transparency!"
If Senator X "makes a concession" the relevant media will proclaim him a loser and a coward, they don't want representatives, they want cage fighters. There's no reward for compromise and there's no safe place to attempt it, either. This is 100% your fault, "I can't believe how stupid these people are!" It's great how you can't find employment but have time to micromanage the U.S. Senate. #outrage
If you want to know what political career disaster looks like, have an infinitely leggy ex-sorority girl in flesh toned Manolos sitting behind a glass table in perfect lighting announce to 50% of America that you were beat by an old woman from California or an old man from Ohio. "Ha ha, what a cuckold! Back to you, Kent."
- Alone
____________
If you have any more questions, go to Dagoth Cares.
|
|
markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
|
|
posted October 21, 2013 03:54 PM |
|
|
@mvassilev 
HASTINGS, SCENE 4, {The Tower of London}
"O bloody Richard! Miserable England!
I prophesy the fearfull'st time to thee
That ever wretched age hath look'd upon.
Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head.
They smile at me who shortly shall be dead."
____________
"Do your own research"
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted October 21, 2013 08:10 PM |
|
|
"At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled." - Ayn Rand
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
| |
|
|
This thread is pages long: 
