This Place Looks Worth a Look

I was at Able2Know for 8 years but got kicked out (actually suspended 6 months for a first offense, and the owner went back two years to find the post that was used as an excuse to throw me out, which tells you everything you need to know) .... it was claimed for hostility in violation of TOS but was actually because the site owner took a dislike to me after I successfully stood up to the liberal elite bullies that rampage around that place. I am a nice guy, really. But politically radical. I call myself a Zen Socialist which as to do with my belief that the health of the collective extremely important, and that to sustain it individuals must be healthy and free to make up their own minds. I also believe in some very unpopular ideas such as " no work, no eat", I have no time for alledged victims refusing to pitch in to help pull the collective wagon, for instance. Another radical idea that gets peoples attention is that I am rabidly anti victim culture. Liberalism's obsession with fondling victims is a huge problem, I want to deprive them of that by not creating victims in the first place, for instance women should not get themselves wasted and then crawl into bed nakid if they don't want to have sex. Oh ya, I am pretty hostile towards the feminsts too.

Anyways, I am retired now but I was in the food service industry for much of my life, I love trains, I was a stay at home homeschooling dad for a bunch of years, my wife was 26 USArmy enlisted human intell so the military is big with me and has been a big part of my life. I think Trump is brilliant, and I think that the fact that we are still free enough that we can produce a Trump when our national political system has failed as it has, that through a sound Constitutional process this democracy can renew itself, is just awesome. This country has long been failing, and the elite are currently kicking and screaming in the face of the little people demanding reform, but the American people still have enough power to eject the elite if we really dedicate ourselves to the project, and Trump will be the proof. Since the elite have steadfastly refused to reform, have in fact even refused to take the little people seriously, putting people like Trump in positions of power is required to fix America.

Welcome aboard. But, I just... I have to know. What makes Trump "brilliant"?

Hawkeye10 said:

I was at Able2Know for 8 years but got kicked out (actually suspended 6 months for a first offense, and the owner went back two years to find the post that was used as an excuse to throw me out, which tells you everything you need to know) .... it was claimed for hostility in violation of TOS but was actually because the site owner took a dislike to me after I successfully stood up to the liberal elite bullies that rampage around that place.

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Welcome.

Seems this is one of the few places where there's both a decent amount of give and take and you aren't arbitrarily run off for being conservative, so allowed by the mods and others on staff. Been here for a while, and have yet a reason to complain about anything. (So hats off to the mods on that). They are the ones that keep this place running as well as it does.

Cheers! :beer:

eohrnberger said:

Welcome.

Seems this is one of the few places where there's both a decent amount of give and take and you aren't arbitrarily run off for being conservative, :

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I actually consider myself to be Left of Center, and I am a former Liberal. However, the generally recognized group that is closest to me are the libertarians, but with my priority on the health of the collective and in that I think we need a much bigger government than they do makes me not one of them. I do think that this government is much too big and is much to intrusive on areas of my life where it does not belong thus it needs a massive pruning, and I do think that this government being as incompetent as it is means that we need to remove power from it and continue removing power from it till/unless they get their act together. I understand that this has me currentlng alongside the Conservatives. I will walk with anyone who happens to be going my way. I will however continue to say till someone proves me wrong that I am not a Conservative.

FieldTheorist said:

Welcome aboard. But, I just... I have to know. What makes Trump "brilliant"?

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He knows where the American people are when most of the pros dont, and he knows how to win. Think about it, this amateur who has never even after decades in the spotlight betrayed that he was very much interested in politics turns out to be better at it than all of the pro candidates. He also embarrassed the wealthy who ran the selection of the candidates, those who are right there with Bill Kristol in the belief that if Trump wins the floor fight then they need to take their money and build a new party, because the riff-raff took over the Republican party.

Hawkeye10 said:

I actually consider myself to be Left of Center, and I am a former Liberal. However, the generally recognized group that is closest to me are the libertarians, but with my priority on the health of the collective and in that I think we need a much bigger government than they do makes me not one of them. I do think that this government is much too big and is much to intrusive on areas of my life where it does not belong thus it needs a massive pruning, and I do think that this government being as incompetent as it is means that we need to remove power from it and continue removing power from it till/unless they get their act together. I understand that this has me currentlng alongside the Conservatives. I will walk with anyone who happens to be going my way. I will however continue to say till someone proves me wrong that I am not a Conservative.

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If you don't mind me commenting, you sound like you might be a Libertarian that also wants strong structure, perhaps.

Care to expound upon the bolded?

Chomsky said:

If you don't mind me commenting, you sound like you might be a Libertarian that also wants strong structure, perhaps.

Care to expound upon the bolded?

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As a Zen I believe that nothing is for sure real till the experience of my life indicates that it is real. It is always the individual who decides, not bosses, not scripture, not custom. In zen the collective is made up of equal free agents, who hopefully are working to become better attuned to the Universe but even if they are not they are a free mind always and of free action unless there is a very good reason for them to not be. In Zen socialism the people must be free and they must be a educated as they can be encouraged to be, and they need to be as well informed as possible, all of which is stuff that almost everyone agreed 50 years was what we want America to be, but we have lost that mostly.

Anyway I lose the libertarians when I harp on the health of the collectives assets, its infrastructure and institutions, as I do constantly, and how we ideally take care of those assets by empowering the government to raise taxes and administer our orders . I care a lot about this stuff, the nuts and the bolds of a strong country and a strong common bond between the various groups, class being the most important. I lose them when I talk constantly about the need for everyone to contribute to the common good, when I tell those who say "well I have the means so I can do what ever I want, all for me is OK if that is what I want" that they are moral reprobates and that maybe we should take that wealth that they hold back (because at the end of the day all wealth belongs to the collective to do with what we please, we only allow individuals to hold it conditionally) and give it to someone else who will make better use of it. Ya, when I get to talking the libertarians tend to tell me to shove off.

Maybe I have just not met the right ones?

eohrnberger said:

Welcome.

Seems this is one of the few places where there's both a decent amount of give and take and you aren't arbitrarily run off for being conservative, so allowed by the mods and others on staff. Been here for a while, and have yet a reason to complain about anything. (So hats off to the mods on that). They are the ones that keep this place running as well as it does.

Cheers! :beer:

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I agree 100%. I have walked away from several very large sites due to the heavy handed and unbalanced moderation, was banned for two weeks on one for pointing out that someone was off topic, you know it time to go at that point. I have been here only a short while and am very impressed with the way this site is run and moderated, for myself I hope this is the last site I need to bother with. Even though I am an Inde and swing both Conservative and Liberal depending on the topic I would like to see a few more Cons here, I guess am used to the wars after all these years, LOL, but overall it seems fairly well balanced.

you are going to be fun here


make a point to bone up on the forum rules and stick around

Well it looks like you think for yourself and that's a huge plus.

Welcome ! I'm one of those fire breathing liberals though so *beware*, lucky for you (for us all, really) i have no power whatsoever.

justabubba said:

you are going to be fun here


make a point to bone up on the forum rules and stick around

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The test is going to come when I say something like " I think that this alleged sexual assault crisis on campus is actually a hoax created by the feminists to drum up more victims and thus get their hands of more government handout money (read more jobs) and to gain more power".

Will this get called hate speech and get me suspended/banned? No less than Emily Yoffe got thrown out of Slate ( she is still on the masthead but I bet that changes Jan 1) for even hinting about such thoughts rolling around in her head. Heresy tends to cost big in America Circa 2015....... sport what ever kind of genetic mix you have, get your fun however you want, just dont disagree with power on the important things or else it is off with your head. That women are weak and need the feminist/government cooperative to protect them is one of those things that must be agreed to. That the existence of these alleged victims in large numbers means that the government needs to have more power and I need to have less (cause I will use it poorly, after all, I am just one of those lowly white men) is another.

We shall see, We shall see.

Absentglare said:

Well it looks like you think for yourself and that's a huge plus.

Welcome ! I'm one of those fire breathing liberals though so *beware*, lucky for you (for us all, really) i have no power whatsoever.

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I was a liberal but the stench of all of that lying and "the ends justify the means" BS of todays corrupt liberalism chased me out of that tent. I do sometimes meet decent liberals, just no where near enough.

Hawkeye10 said:

As a Zen I believe that nothing is for sure real till the experience of my life indicates that it is real. It is always the individual who decides, not bosses, not scripture, not custom. In zen the collective is made up of equal free agents, who hopefully are working to become better attuned to the Universe but even if they are not they are a free mind always and of free action unless there is a very good reason for them to not be. In Zen socialism the people must be free and they must be a educated as they can be encouraged to be, and they need to be as well informed as possible, all of which is stuff that almost everyone agreed 50 years was what we want America to be, but we have lost that mostly.

Anyway I lose the libertarians when I harp on the health of the collectives assets, its infrastructure and institutions, as I do constantly, and how we ideally take care of those assets by empowering the government to raise taxes and administer our orders . I care a lot about this stuff, the nuts and the bolds of a strong country and a strong common bond between the various groups, class being the most important. I lose them when I talk constantly about the need for everyone to contribute to the common good, when I tell those who say "well I have the means so I can do what ever I want, all for me is OK if that is what I want" that they are moral reprobates and that maybe we should take that wealth that they hold back (because at the end of the day all wealth belongs to the collective to do with what we please, we only allow individuals to hold it conditionally) and give it to someone else who will make better use of it. Ya, when I get to talking the libertarians tend to tell me to shove off.

Maybe I have just not met the right ones?

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Dayem.

So a Libertarian, with a collective conscience?

You sound a lot like me, and I never found a political philosophy to adequately describe it, so I put my lean as "Libertarian Left", which seems close enough.

Essentially, it involves intense personal freedom (the Libertarian aspect), but involves a strong structure to assure equitable access to resources that allow us as individuals to potentiate ourselves & succeed to our maximum potential, thereby improving society as a whole.

The better we are as individuals, the better our society is; the better our society is, the better our potential as individuals. I believe it's a virtuous circle.

Thanks for the reply.

Hawkeye10 said:

The test is going to come when I say something like " I think that this alleged sexual assault crisis on campus is actually a hoax created by the feminists to drum up more victims and thus get their hands of more government handout money (read more jobs) and to gain more power".

Will this get called hate speech and get me suspended/banned? No less than Emily Yoffe got thrown out of Slate ( she is still on the masthead but I bet that changes Jan 1) for even hinting about such thoughts rolling around in her head. Heresy tends to cost big in America Circa 2015....... sport what ever kind of genetic mix you have, get your fun however you want, just dont disagree with power on the important things or else it is off with your head. That women are weak and need the feminist/government cooperative to protect them is one of those things that must be agreed to. That the existence of these alleged victims in large numbers means that the government needs to have more power and I need to have less (cause I will use it poorly, after all, I am just one of those lowly white men) is another.

We shall see, We shall see.

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You won't get in any official trouble for those sorts of positions. You will likely rile up some of your fellow lefties, but there you can have spirited debate. The advice to read over the rules is good. The standard here is clear and cleanly enforced. Time to time our best posters might even get dinged with an infraction but you really have to push it to get banned here.

Hawkeye10 said:

As a Zen I believe that nothing is for sure real till the experience of my life indicates that it is real. It is always the individual who decides, not bosses, not scripture, not custom. In zen the collective is made up of equal free agents, who hopefully are working to become better attuned to the Universe but even if they are not they are a free mind always and of free action unless there is a very good reason for them to not be. In Zen socialism the people must be free and they must be a educated as they can be encouraged to be, and they need to be as well informed as possible, all of which is stuff that almost everyone agreed 50 years was what we want America to be, but we have lost that mostly.

Anyway I lose the libertarians when I harp on the health of the collectives assets, its infrastructure and institutions, as I do constantly, and how we ideally take care of those assets by empowering the government to raise taxes and administer our orders . I care a lot about this stuff, the nuts and the bolds of a strong country and a strong common bond between the various groups, class being the most important. I lose them when I talk constantly about the need for everyone to contribute to the common good, when I tell those who say "well I have the means so I can do what ever I want, all for me is OK if that is what I want" that they are moral reprobates and that maybe we should take that wealth that they hold back (because at the end of the day all wealth belongs to the collective to do with what we please, we only allow individuals to hold it conditionally) and give it to someone else who will make better use of it. Ya, when I get to talking the libertarians tend to tell me to shove off.

Maybe I have just not met the right ones?

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Yep, that (bolded above) is definitely not a libertarian view. The ideal tax rate is (close to?) 100% but, just to keep the folks fooled, we (the elite governing class?) will keep it a bit lower is not exactly what I would call healthy for society. The carrot and stick approach toward motivation of "the collective" becomes very lopsided once you remove too many carrots - you are then left with the need for ever more sticks. Once we adopt a free sandwiches for all policy it then becomes very difficult to voluntarily recruit any free sandwich makers.

What spoils your ideal is sometimes referred to as the tragedy of the commons.

The tragedy of the commons can also be viewed as tragedy of lack of private ownership, it is the very concept of "commons" that creates the problem by lacking a proper individual private owner of the resource. Private ownership and operation of property also known as capitalism, combined with free market or absence of government oppression removes the very concept of "commons" thus fixing the problem of "tragedy of the commons" by removing its root cause, which is collectivism.

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

BTW, welcome to the zoo!

Hawkeye10 said:

I actually consider myself to be Left of Center, and I am a former Liberal. However, the generally recognized group that is closest to me are the libertarians, but with my priority on the health of the collective and in that I think we need a much bigger government than they do makes me not one of them. I do think that this government is much too big and is much to intrusive on areas of my life where it does not belong thus it needs a massive pruning, and I do think that this government being as incompetent as it is means that we need to remove power from it and continue removing power from it till/unless they get their act together. I understand that this has me currentlng alongside the Conservatives. I will walk with anyone who happens to be going my way. I will however continue to say till someone proves me wrong that I am not a Conservative.

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Fair enough. I look forward to more of your posts. It'll be interesting to read about your perspective on things, and discuss with you.

Casper said:

I agree 100%. I have walked away from several very large sites due to the heavy handed and unbalanced moderation, was banned for two weeks on one for pointing out that someone was off topic, you know it time to go at that point. I have been here only a short while and am very impressed with the way this site is run and moderated, for myself I hope this is the last site I need to bother with. Even though I am an Inde and swing both Conservative and Liberal depending on the topic I would like to see a few more Cons here, I guess am used to the wars after all these years, LOL, but overall it seems fairly well balanced.

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See more from the conservative perspective? I agree. Although I have to say that I've enjoyed many of posts from the more ardent ones that are already here.

Cheers to you guys too! :beer: