Authoritarian and Totalitarian Democracies

[Mr King]

What causes poverty? De-industrializing  your industrialized society and moving the jobs elsewhere without having anything of meaning to replace those jobs.

Edited October 19, 2024 by Mr King

[Stuart Galbraith]

And having lots of extra human beings in those deindustrialized areas helps, because?

You guys already complain about the benefits and health care the poor get.Fair enough. Tell me, who do you think will be paying for the privilege of supporting thousands of unaborted  plebs? You will. Either in benefits, or growth in crime as they find other ways to support themselves.

Tell you what, don't even argue with me. Come back in 10 years and tell me I'm wrong. I'll be happy to concede if I am.

Edited October 19, 2024 by Stuart Galbraith

[lucklucky]

So you favour killing the poor in womb ? 

Does that mean you will forbid abortion for those that have money?

 

It seems Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Mozart  and everyone before industrial revolution should have be killed in womb because by today standards they would be poor.

[lucklucky]

What causes poverty is people that not understands that they need to do useful things for other people. 

[Mr King]

DOD authorizes the federal military to use lethal force against American citizens within the borders of the United States. Right before the election. 

 

 

[lucklucky]

10 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

And so it was, but the context of the man and the composition make it all it is.

What makes poverty? Large families. So why is that going to be any different if its a large family in Africa or Atlanta?

 

Where are the canvas, the brushes in the bottle of paint?

[sunday]

It does not seem very smart to give real authority to Monty Python on things sociological, biological, medical, and ethical instead of appreciating them because a good laugh or two.

[Stuart Galbraith]

13 hours ago, lucklucky said:

So you favour killing the poor in womb ? 

Does that mean you will forbid abortion for those that have money?

 

It seems Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Mozart  and everyone before industrial revolution should have be killed in womb because by today standards they would be poor.

Stop framing the questions according to the answers you want to hear.

Its about free will. Freedom. Either you give the poor the right to choose to not have huge families, or they will have huge families. Then you will all be complaining how they have huge families and you have to support them. Because either in living support, healthcare or policing, you will.

Assuming of course that the foetuses that would be aborted would be great artists or an asset in any way. Most likely they will have poor diets and therefore have sub par intellects, and end up their lives as addicts because they cant find work, or criminals. Or maybe they wont, because the poorest elements in society will go and get abortions from backstreet abortionists, damaging their health, and imparing theri ability to have children at a time in their life when they can afford to support them.

I can understand the emotive language. But I cant understand how America willingly ignores the decades of experience across the rest of the world (yes, even in Ireland!) that finally conclude that the right of abortion is not something the nation state should impose itself into. I cannot understand a nation that frames itself on giving freedom on all things, and then yanks away womens freedoms enjoyed for decades and thinks there wont be any consequences.

13 hours ago, lucklucky said:

What causes poverty is people that not understands that they need to do useful things for other people. 

Many years ago I studied the British industrial revolution. Everyone was having a horrible time, everyone poor, etc etc.

Except its really not true. If you worked in a factory, you were, compared to a farm hand, well paid for the time. The problem came when everyone had huge families, and they were pissing money away on food for extended families.

And that was in a time of relative plenty.What happens in those huges areas of the United States that have been deindustrialized? Because despite the hype, those jobs are not coming back from Asia, and the few that do, because of new technology require far fewer individuals than they did. Those mills that powered our industrial revolution are all gone. The few that remain are shells that operate under the hands of 6 people that once employed 600.

The idea that poverty isnt caused by large families is willful ignorance. Even China figured out that having a huge population does nothing for productivity if you want to move beyond rice paddy economies.

The publication 2000 AD used to suppose what America would be like in the 21st Century in the Judge Dredd series. Post nuclear war was built Megacity one on the remnants of New York City, which stretched from Montreal to Georgia, containing 800 million people.  Everyone lived on benefits, had perpetual leisure time, and no right to vote because the very concept of Democracy became outmoded because the Judges and the computers made all the decisions.All the jobs were automated so hardly anyone worked, everyone was bored and so turned to crime (Interbloc warfare was their only relief), and it was only draconian action by the judges (including summary justice) that kept the whole thing in line.

When they wrote that over 40 years ago now, it was intended as a parody. Increasingly it looks like a template of the future. Whether in militarized policing, deindustrialization, a huge population spike due to criminalized abortion, all the boxes are being ticked.

 

[sunday]

In related news, the United Kindgom...

Quote

British army veteran found guilty of breaching abortion ‘buffer zone’ by praying silently

This morning, Adam Smith-Connor, 51, was given a two-year probation sentence and ordered to pay $11,700 for silently praying outside an abortion clinic in Dorset for the repose of his son's soul.

Wed Oct 16, 2024 - 12:59 pm EDT

(LifeSiteNews) — A British army veteran has been found guilty of breaching a pro-abortion “buffer zone” by praying silently near the protected abortuary.

This morning, Adam Smith-Connor, 51, was given a two-year conditional discharge (i.e. he is on probation for two years) and ordered to pay costs of £9,000 ($11,700) by District Judge Orla Austin at the Poole Magistrates’ Court in Poole, Dorset.

Smith-Connor was arrested near the British Pregnancy Advisory’s Bournemouth, Dorset, abortion business on November 14, 2022, after praying silently for his son Jacob, who was aborted 22 years ago. The father, currently a physiotherapist, pleaded not guilty to breaching the Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) that forbids protests, offers of help to pregnant women, or pro-life witness of any kind outside the abortion center for the next three years, from Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. When confronting Smith-Connor, who prayed silently with his back toward the clinic, a police officer asked him to describe “the nature of his prayer.”

Austin decided that Smith-Connor had deliberately violated the Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO). According to the Irish News, she had been told that Smith-Connor had emailed the local government to inform them of his plans to pray silently outside the clinic. The court had also heard that he refused to leave when asked to do so by police officers, who engaged him in conversation for well over an hour.

Smith-Connor had prayed for his son’s soul outside the abortuary on other occasions.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce is another British citizen who has been arrested for silent prayer, but she received £13,000 ($16,900) in damages and an apology from police. She told LifeSiteNews via email today that she is “immensely concerned” that Smith-Connor has been “branded … a criminal” for praying in a public place for his aborted son.

“Adam was given assurances by the police that he was perfectly entitled to silently pray near the abortion centre in Bournemouth, as of course he should be able to do – yet just one week later he was issued with a fine for doing exactly that,” Vaughan-Spruce stated.

“In Adam’s three day long gruelling trial in September he provided video evidence of his interaction with the police in which they assured him repeatedly his silent prayers were not breaching the PSPO buffer zone in Bournemouth and this, along with the knowledge that we should never be criminalized for our thoughts, should have been conclusive evidence to acquit Adam of any wrongdoing,” she continued.

READ: UK pro-life woman awarded £13k after wrongful arrests for silently praying outside abortion facility

Vaughan-Spruce believes that if silent prayer has become a crime, Britain has “moved into the realm of thought policing. It would be discrimination against people with religious beliefs.”

“This should be a concern to each and every person of goodwill regardless of their faith or even which side of the abortion debate they stand on,” she declared.

Vaughan-Spruce encourages all those involved in implementing buffer zones to think carefully about what they’re doing and the kind of society which they’re helping to create.

“Christians must never be told they can’t pray in public, that prayer is something to be left at home or reserved solely for church,” she declared. “Wherever the public are allowed, Christians, as members of the public, must also be allowed, and wherever Christians are allowed, their silent prayers, their private thoughts, must be allowed too.”

“Praying for pregnant women and their children isn’t a crime. Ultimately prayer can only bring good, never evil, and is not something to be feared nor should it ever be outlawed, Vaughan-Spruce concluded.

Were you looking for an illustration of Hannah Arendt's banality of evil:

Quote

Arendt during the trial

Arendt's subtitle famously introduced the phrase "the banality of evil." In part the phrase refers to Eichmann's deportment at the trial as the man displayed neither guilt for his actions nor hatred for those trying him, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply "doing his job." ("He did his 'duty'...; he not only obeyed 'orders,' he also obeyed the 'law.'")[1]

 

[EchoFiveMike]

17 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

And having lots of extra human beings in those deindustrialized areas helps, because?

 

It doesn't.  Let's start with removing the tens of millions of foreigners.  I think about 50 million would be an acceptable start.  S/F....Ken M

[urbanoid]

On 10/19/2024 at 1:20 PM, Stuart Galbraith said:

And so it was, but the context of the man and the composition make it all it is.

What makes poverty? Large families. So why is that going to be any different if its a large family in Africa or Atlanta?

 

No, not really, an important factor driving poverty is... mass immigration, especially of those unskilled/semi-skilled ones because those immigrants are willing to work for less. 

Also what Rick said.

[urbanoid]

4 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

The idea that poverty isnt caused by large families is willful ignorance. Even China figured out that having a huge population does nothing for productivity if you want to move beyond rice paddy economies.

The CCP would give a lot for the people to have large families again, as they have painted themselves into a silly, largely avoidable demographic corner. Like most of the developed world, sure, but they're apparently one of the worse examples. 

[sunday]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

The CCP would give a lot for the people to have large families again, as they have painted themselves into a silly, largely avoidable demographic corner. Like most of the developed world, sure, but they're apparently one of the worse examples. 

Especially with the selective infanticide of baby girls.

[Stuart Galbraith]

23 hours ago, Rick said:

Large families do not make poverty. In the U.S. it is single parenthood. One of the best economic statements there is to avoid poverty is do not have children out of wedlock, complete high school, and get a job. 

Sorry, that is absolutely not true. In Britain, large families were very definaely the cause of urban poverty. Wages were perfectly adequate to single individuals, even married individuals. Their quality of living decreased with every child they had.   And they had to have large families, because firstly there was no abortion or adequate contraception, but also no safety net in old age. Unless you considered the workhouse a safety net, and most didnt. That and half of them were dead before they reached adulthood, because there as no nationalised healthcare scheme. Even in agricultural communities like mind, child mortality was shocking. I know, I walk around the parish graveyard and can see them.

And lets not forget, these kids were not going to college. They were going out to work in the mills or the mines when they were 12 years of age. They had to, it was the only way to avoid destitution.

 

So how is ending abortion going to end single parent families? Precisely how is that going to add to the economy, this huge drain that is going to require benefits and your taxdollars to support? And how many of that urban blight do you honestly going to turn out to be the playwrights or presidents of tomorow? Because here is a shocker, most of them end up criminals, and you know it.

 

 

[Ivanhoe]

So, is it still 1920?

Did the British government back then have secret effective treatments for pneumonia, sepsis, staph, cholera etc. not available to private-sector physicians?

As for childhood deaths and large families, one might wonder which is cause and which is effect.

 

[rmgill]

19 hours ago, sunday said:

It does not seem very smart to give real authority to Monty Python on things sociological, biological, medical, and ethical instead of appreciating them because a good laugh or two.

He misses the point of the changing times. You’d think he was still building brick bunkers and hiding crates of No36 mills bombs in hedges and under potting sheds. 
 

Were large families the cause of colonial wars, British Imperial Expansion and a larger Naval force?

Edited October 20, 2024 by rmgill

[Rick]

4 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Sorry, that is absolutely not true. In Britain, large families were very definaely the cause of urban poverty. Wages were perfectly adequate to single individuals, even married individuals. Their quality of living decreased with every child they had.   And they had to have large families, because firstly there was no abortion or adequate contraception, but also no safety net in old age. Unless you considered the workhouse a safety net, and most didnt. That and half of them were dead before they reached adulthood, because there as no nationalised healthcare scheme. Even in agricultural communities like mind, child mortality was shocking. I know, I walk around the parish graveyard and can see them.

And lets not forget, these kids were not going to college. They were going out to work in the mills or the mines when they were 12 years of age. They had to, it was the only way to avoid destitution.

 

So how is ending abortion going to end single parent families? Precisely how is that going to add to the economy, this huge drain that is going to require benefits and your taxdollars to support? And how many of that urban blight do you honestly going to turn out to be the playwrights or presidents of tomorow? Because here is a shocker, most of them end up criminals, and you know it.

 

 

Which part of my second sentence is it that you do not understand?

[sunday]

2 minutes ago, Rick said:

Which part of my second sentence is it that you do not understand?

Seems you have met a bout of Stuarting.

[sunday]

4 minutes ago, rmgill said:

He misses the point of the changing times. You’d think he was still building brick bunkers and hiding crates of No36 mills bombs in hedges and under potting sheds. 

More likely another case of unwillingness to admit other people could be right, and he could be mistaken, as that could affect negatively the image he has of himself.

Not the first time.

[Rick]

1 minute ago, sunday said:

Seems you have met a bout of Stuarting.

Yep.  I would still have a drink with him as he is a nice guy.

[sunday]

1 minute ago, Rick said:

Yep.  I would still have a drink with him as he is a nice guy.

That is always a possibility.

[Skywalkre]

I'm not going to disagree that bad decisions can lead to and reinforce poverty... but folks seem to be ignoring the fact that social mobility has been decreasing in this country for years and the income of average Americans declining as well.  What, just a few decades ago, was a life that could sustain a family comfortably would today be a life that one bad hiccup could lead to a family in ruin. 

Adjusted for inflation, blue collar workers make 2/3 what they did 50 years ago.  The elementary school I went to as a kid recently closed and during a public hearing on what to do with the land one of the suggestions was "affordable housing for teachers" (you need a Masters to teach in this state).  My parents afforded the home I grew up in on one middle-management job on my dad's side and minimum wage work from my mom.  At my last job I made more than them combined, adjusted for inflation, and barely qualified for my current, rundown (for the area) apartment a dozen miles from that home.

[rmgill]

Jack up the immigration. Itll get worse. Seriously, do you not understand the supply of labour specifically bending down wages? 

[Stuart Galbraith]

3 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

I'm not going to disagree that bad decisions can lead to and reinforce poverty... but folks seem to be ignoring the fact that social mobility has been decreasing in this country for years and the income of average Americans declining as well.  What, just a few decades ago, was a life that could sustain a family comfortably would today be a life that one bad hiccup could lead to a family in ruin. 

Adjusted for inflation, blue collar workers make 2/3 what they did 50 years ago.  The elementary school I went to as a kid recently closed and during a public hearing on what to do with the land one of the suggestions was "affordable housing for teachers" (you need a Masters to teach in this state).  My parents afforded the home I grew up in on one middle-management job on my dad's side and minimum wage work from my mom.  At my last job I made more than them combined, adjusted for inflation, and barely qualified for my current, rundown (for the area) apartment a dozen miles from that home.

Its been declining across the west, not just in America. But I wouldnt disagree. Just look at the cost of higher education now. In the UK you are in many cases paying off University fees till you get to retirement, if the industry you enter into isnt as profitable as you thought it was. Which, with the way technology is moving, is seemingly frequently the case.

 

Edited October 22, 2024 by Stuart Galbraith

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, rmgill said:

Jack up the immigration. Itll get worse. Seriously, do you not understand the supply of labour specifically bending down wages? 

If you stopped immigration dead, you would still have a problem of technology making business's require less people. There is literally no way around that, unless you educate everyone up to participate in the online economy. Fathers writing android aps, the wives start an onlyfans, their teenage kids starting pods on tiktok or youtube. Most people arent ready to make the mental leap to doing that, and its not suitable for everyone anyway.

That is not endorsing uncontrolled immigration, but there is certainly an unavoidable fact that in my country manufacturers (and builders for that matter) have done a lousy job at training up the next generation of engineers, so they feel the only way they can get them is import them from abroad. That should be ended, but it requires Government intervention to force employers to invest in those skills, and in the UK that has become a shorthand for 'socialism.' So we dont import enough new engineers or scientists, and the country ends up in a long decline because its cheaper to manufacture on the continent anyway.

Maybe it isnt true  there, I dont know.