Comments on: Ron Paul

By: Mudd

Mudd — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:07:41 +0000

Well Patrick it is as simple as this. EVERYTHING invented by man, everything, is the result of someone wanting to change something. EVERY love affair, every child created, every tear shed, or beaming smile, is the result of change. Status quo can only come about by totally content people, with no imagination, no drive, and no desires. Even if for some horrendously evil reason you wanted it that way, the randomness of the universe won’t let you have it, thank whatever gods there be…..

By: schmwarf

schmwarf — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:22:27 +0000

Patrick,#31: Let me see if I’m right in interpreting you. What you are saying in a nutshell is, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?

By: Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Patrick Nielsen Hayden — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:55:20 +0000

Mudd, #25: “Change is not always good, but stagnation is worse.”

Nonsense. There are plenty of circumstances in which no change is better than the “change” that happens to be on offer. “Stagnation” is just a propaganda word deployed by the guy who thinks you should meekly accept the change he’s pushing.

Mudd’s formulation would be perfectly plausible coming out of the mouth of invading warrior nomads–or of 21st-century investors as they strip away the hard-fought rights of unionized workers. Because change is always good, right? You can’t have stagnation. Bah. It’s bullshit, and odious bullshit at that.

By: charlie

charlie — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:33:23 +0000

Just for the record i’ve no intention of voting for Paul but whats so wrong with unrestrained class warfare let them eat cat food!

By: Michael Brazier

Michael Brazier — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:51:45 +0000

Steven, you seem to have confused Ron Paul with Pat Buchanan -- Buchanan's the fellow who imitates Charles Coughlin. Paul's intellectual ancestor is John C. Calhoun; he isn't in any sense a populist politician, and he's no closer to real popular opinion than Noam Chomsky is.

By: skzb

skzb — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 23:48:11 +0000

As important? Maybe, after things like a house and food and medical care are covered. As Brecht said, “First feed the face, then talk right and wrong.”

By: Mudd

Mudd — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 23:00:37 +0000

Ok, that was astute. Like Mr. Brust I was raised with benevolent neglect by my mother and consider Heinlein my spiritual father. So that was a heck of call. There seems though a growing understanding in US by people that there futures have been given away. The manufacturing capability, the social security system, the environment itself. All traded away for more bucks. Do you think those things can be as important to people as a house, car, or luxuries? I hope so.

By: skzb

skzb — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:27:43 +0000

It sounds like what is being talked about isn’t “heightened contradictions” (which is a pretty empty abstraction when left like that), but the notion of “make things as bad as possible until people revolt.” So far as I know, this has only been tried by Heinlein, who confined it safely to fiction. Mr. Heinlein, whatever his skills, is not remembered for his contributions to the art of social revolution.

The two biggest flaws in that theory are, 1) historically, people make revolutions to defend what they have, rather than when they are utterly crushed. As Trotsky said, if privation were sufficient for revolution, the masses would be in a constant state of revolt. 2) How in the hell can you expect people to trust leaders who are trying to make their lives worse?

It is true that, when pushed far enough, people will fight back; but it is when we have gained some things (say, for example, a house, a car, a few luxuries) and see them threatened that we tend to get aggressive and become willing to accept revolutionary answers if there seems no other way out.

By: Mudd

Mudd — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 05:32:31 +0000

Re: Teresa and Jeff, sure they have. History has been ripe with heightened contradictions. The French revolution, the fall of Rome, the Catholic church reformation several centuries ago, the economic collapse of the Soviet Union, etc. Change is not always good, but stagnation is worse. The status quo never works in world the is evolving in a healthy way. Most of the above scenarios deal almost solely with the upper managment becoming decadent and thinking they are safe doing it.

By: Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Teresa Nielsen Hayden — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 04:36:03 +0000

Is the “‘heighten the contradictions’ ploy” any relative to the “things have to get worse before they can get better” gambit? If so, I can explain it.

The trick is to ask, “How much worse?” What the answer always boils down to is “Bad enough for everyone to see my way is right.” It gets you past all those pesky implementation problems and that long slow process of changing people’s minds, which of course makes it a very attractive theory.

The trouble with letting things get worse is that (1.) there’s no guarantee things are going to get better anytime soon. Historically, the world has frequently been in bad shape. How often has it reacted by suddenly snapping into a new and much better form? I can’t think of many. In act, I can’t think of any at all.

(2.), the world is full of people scraping by on the narrowest of social and economic margins. When things get worse, those people suffer. Some of them die, or lose their health, or have their lives ruined in some other way.

I can’t see it as a good thing.