:
: Borg:
: There is only one true democracy where 1 unit of currency is one vote. Any other view is delusional and largely an Emotionally-Derived Belief System. : Stoller:
: Ever stop to wonder why votes have to be mediated by some material marker? One dollar = one vote is a bit like saying one machine gun = one vote. Is this really democracy---or just a dictatorship wrapped in sanctimonious prose?
: Borg:
: No, it's true democracy wrapped in reality and not obfuscation.
: Stoller:
: The reason I used the metaphor of the machine gun was to emphasize the fact that behind every dollar (property relation) stands the state ready to defend it. The 'gold standard' of property relations---the 'back up'---is, in fact, the machine gun (etc.).
: Borg:
: To not understand the difference between a machine gun and a dollar will bring much blood in the streets. But that's really what you're about, isn't it.
: I think I do understand the 'difference.' As I said above, force protects the existing property relations.
No, a dollar is not a machine gun. But they are both tools to get what you want. Which do you prefer?
: I say 'existing' because I anticipate the day property relations will be challenged.
Ah, yes. Sounds like the old property is theft routine.
Is that what it is?
: As Trotsky pointed out:
:
: [I]n every 'normally' functioning government, regardless of its form, the monopoly of violence and repressions belong to the ruling power.(1)
:
Indeed.
:
: So what I'm 'about' is actually the same as what you're 'about.'
Not quite. You see, I want to bust the state's monopoly on protection as you do. Simple cost benefit analysis shows me it ain't worth it. Where you and I differ in one aspect is that I'd rather contract private protection and be free of all the existing monopolies of force.
At that point you might say that new monopolies will arise. A number of studies attempt to show that only under the state's protection do they predominate.
: You want the existing state to defend property relations as they already are, and I want a new state to change property relations---and then defend that new status quo.
No. I'll take my chances in the private sector without the state as quack faith healer
: My stance only seems radical---or 'violent' (as your hysterical expression 'blood in the streets' implies)---because you have forgotten that your property relations were established hundreds of years ago. They were no less upsetting, illegal, or bloody in the eyes of the English royalty who were dispossessed of their property---and their monopoly of force---during the American Revolution.
I think new revolutions will take place under the cover of darkness perhaps even as the one on the street is seen. Watch for 'the old smoke screen' routine. Of course, it will be hard to spot.
There can be a difference between 'radical' and 'violent' and there's nothing hysterical about me. I could care less because I will have no control over the mass opinion any more than you will. It has a mind of its own. BTW, 'radical' comes from the latin for 'root'. I'm radical but only violent when attacked.
: Do not make the mistake of thinking that your current property relations require any less force than the property relations I advocate.
My current property is out of the reach of the current legalized protection racket.
And my current property relations rely on my protection. I will not attack another as he sits peaceably in his private kingdom, however large or small. I'll leave that to you. Keep your eye on me as you do, however, as you attempt to implement your 'new and improved' version of the monopoly of force.
: Indeed, as I advocate a society where the majority rule (and own the means of production) instead of the minority, I am confident in saying that the property relations of the socialist future will require far less force than property relations require today under the boot of bourgeois 'law.'
: _______________
:
: Note:
: 1. Trotsky, Address to the Court of the Tsar, 1906, Leon Trotsky Speaks, Pathfinder 1972, p. 19.
:
I surmise that you, Dead Leon, Dead Karl, and Dead God will have to wait until the next Great World Depression to have a shot at this, when all my kind of democrat has gone away, taking his votes/$ somewhere beyond your reach. Then all you have to do is install another monopoly of force and move in to the old founderies, these founderies having been gutted by old capital's taxman.
Under those circumstances, I'd say you have a pretty good shot at it and it's something you should look forward to.
Keep the faith, dude. If there is one Final? War of the Thieves, it will be a sight to behold.
Now I'm going back to re-reading Darwin.
"Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." -- George Orwell
