Thetownend.com

I have been reading a lot of books of late about social change etc ie George Orwells 1984, Brave new world, Mein Mampf, books about lein etc etc

Alot of them although written by different people, all seem to suggest that in order for there to be happines, stabilty etc we must give our freedoms to the state so that they the state, leader whatever, can decide whats what for the greater good.

So my question to you is: Would you be prepered to give up your freedoms for complete happines, no worries, no lack fo food etc all you have to do is go to work at your assigned job, do it then go home and do what ever within reasson. (some of the books talk about free drugs, free sex etc).

There is alot more to it than the above but thats the basic idea.

I for one wouldn't really mind. I am not important enough to probably even notice a change. I go to work, I come home, I go out and I more or less do what ever I want within the law. So if all that could be asured brilliant! So what if I don't get to decide somethings, or who's in charge nothing much really ever changes for the average bloke. If the Hilter came to power tomarrow my life would hardly change same if lennin came to power nothing would change. I'd still go to work, I'd still watch footy, I'd still have to pay tax.

in a word no. life without freedom of choice is not one I would want to persue. This is just a way of absolving responsibility from those who won't take charge of their own lives and social repsonsibility. I am perfectly capable of doing both and I would wish to carry on doing so.

Fuck that, you can be happy and keep your freedom, and I'd hate to have an assigned job or task for life - I want to go as far as I can and I believe one day I'll be in charge of something big, otherwise what's the point?

I have and do take charge of my life. But in realtiy what can I do to change the biggetr picture. For expample take state benfits. No elected goverment is ever going to do anything radical because they no they will piss loads of people off therefore will not get elected again. Where as say a Dictor wouldn't really care so might actully sort a problem. Lets be honest the current systm is hardly working for example paying 40% tax to fund chavs and the underclass to breed going to war on a lie is not what I call progress.

GFM, are you inferring we'd be better off under a dictator?

what can you do to change the bigger picture?

depends on what kind of person you want to be. The 'bigger picture' is made up of millions of people, sounds cliched but start small and work up. If you wanted to help change things you could. Just depends how much you want it to change and how much effort you are willing to put in.

No need to embrace communism - just a different attitude.

based on the ones from history and the present day probably not although Hilter had some good ideas as did sterlin and lennin even the chinse chap mow had soem ideas that were okay like getting rid of religion!!!!. But my point is still valid, as I am trying to discuss the failfure of decomracy but the alternative is a unknow to me????????

I didnt know stirling moss was a dictator, christ thats opened my eyes

Just look at Cuba. No thanks.

Mind you with the potential for us to have these cunty I.D cards, we're going that way. Our potential "I.D. card" system, if it goes ahead, will be more invasive of one's personal right to privacy than that of China's, and we all know where they stand on the political spectrum.

I think you missed the whole point with a couple of those books GFM.

Brave New World and 1984 were both scathing attacks on Totalitarianism, be it the communist type, or Fascism. The message in both those books is that individual freedom is worth more than State control.

Communism doesn't work, as proved by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the increasing shift in China to a free market economy. Even Cuba only survives on Western  holidaymakers!

Fascism only survived in Spain due to the will of one man, as soon Franco died the country returned to a Democracy.

Democracy isn't perfect, but given the alternatives I'd rather it.................

Under Labour we have headed further into Nanny State territory.  I fucking hate it.  Dont eat this, do that, drink this, dont smoke that, its bad for you - now give us all your money and we will redistribute it as we see fit. FUCK OFF!  At least old School labour were honest about their socialist principles and went after the aristocracy and mega rich, nu-labour have just gone after the reletivly ordinary working man, as seen by the huge increase in the tax burden since they came to power. This money given to dossers & single mums on the basis of "eradicating child poverty"or pissed up a giant NHS shaped wall.

Government should be small and non-interventionalist unless absolutley necessary, as opposed to the control freak social engineering bollocks that we currently have to tolerate.

Just for the sake of balance, Cuba does have an all encompassing trade embargo i.e. blockade, imposed on it by our 'friends' the USA, which is bound to affect its economy, despite it probably being self-sufficient by means of sugar exports if allowed.

That's rubbish. It was propped up by The Soviet Union until its demise and is now propped up by tourism, in much the same way it was before Castro seized power.

They'd have never been self sufficient with regards to exports, even when they were exporting to the Eastern Bloc.

Er it's not rubbish, the trade embargo was imposed 2 years before the Soviet's propped up the economy (mainly to persuade the Cuban's to allow missiles on their island)

Are you saying that one of the longest trade embargos in history is not going to have a detrimental effect on a country's economy?

I'm not defending Communism here, just saying you have to look at Cuba's economy in context

What is actually the problem with ID cards then ?

I have heard many many people talk about how ID cards are an Invasion of Privacy etc.etc.etc. - but how ?

What is so wrong with carrying something that "proves" who you are ?

Surely it is only a problem if you have something to hide ?

I value my freedom and space, I couldn't survive under communist rule.

I think the amount of "freedom" (in the general, what I can do with my life sort of way) people need to have to be happy is pretty low, as long as the illusion of freedom is there. As long as you make people think they're free and have options, then the majority will be happy doing what they've been told/assigned.

I haven't read 1984 for about a year and a halfish. You can tell when I read it recently because all my posts become a web of Orwellian dystopia references. I don't think I can be blamed, it's a brilliant book.

Freedom is going where you want, when you want.

Look at North Korea, those poor people aren't allowed any luxuries or a normal life.

Where would you like me to start?

The ID scheme will cost a fortune of OUR money, be vastly over budget and won’t work properly as the way with all of this Government’s IT Projects e.g. NHS,

Our sensitive details are at risk of being lost, as this Government has proven with millions of data being lost with child benefit, DVLA CD’s going missing etc etc

Biometric data is not a 100% guarantee, and if your fingerprint data is compromised (and it’s relatively easy to forge fingerprints on a scanner) how will you prove otherwise fraud is not being done by you – you can’t change your fingerprints!

As for the; ‘only something to hide’ argument, are you saying that only guilty people ever get harassed or arrested by those in authority – ask Fred on this one or Walter Wolfgang – the 82 year old WW2 veteran who was arrested under the Terrorism Act for shouting the word ‘nonsense’ at a Labour Conference.

Like Birmingham airport for example?

I dont agree with all this ID shit, the government and police in particular should be allowed a DNA database which would erradicate most crime in my opinion

I think all Englishmen not necessarily women,, historically have felt a degree of freedom....its not something that hasn't come without conflict, but is enshrined in our unwritten constitution.  

   Unfortunately the paradox at the heart of our freedom, has been the relative enslavement of other cultures....in order that our prosperous lifestyle is maintained..

   ...this pursuit of global hegemony is still  unresolved .

I didn't mean the embargo was rubbish. Cuba's economy, before Castro, was based on foreign investment (Mainly American) tourism (Mainly American) and a small percentage on exports, mainly sugar and tobacco.

If the embargo was lifted, it would be doubtful if the Cuban economy could survive on exports alone.

Communism is only surviving in Cuba because its economy is being propped up by tourism, the tourists ironically being the filthy capitalists that Castro despises! That's all I was trying to say.

i think a lot of people here are confusing democracy with capitalism.

I'm not Mex, I read a book once and it had pictures and everything.

I'm edumacated me................................

(My days, I'm going to try not to turn this into an essay. If wrote as many words a month as I do on the TEF but elsewhere, then I'd have written a several novels. They'd have been shit. It's always after a few glasses of wine I go of on one. This might be an exeption though because I'm not really arguing with anybody, just investigating a way of thinking about government, but with words. )

Anyhoo....

The level of freedom you have is sort of indirectly proportionate to the level of rights you have. There's simple stuff like having the right not to be murdered/mugged/burgled, which you accept with the pay-off of not having the freedom to go and murder/mug/stab. Lets call this (1.)

There are less direct ones. As a nation (as have most nations and most nations as a group ie. the UN) we've agreed that we have the right not to starve. There's other rights we have like that; a right to an education, a right to a certain level of health-care. Let's call this (2.)

Rights in (1) and (2) are a bit different. Loosing my freedom to starve to death, my freedom to die from a treatable illness and my freedom to be illiterate, are freedom's that I can't see anybody really wanting. Yet the freedom's I'm giving up in (1) could be advantageous; It might well work in my favour to rob some bastard who's got more money than me, or gun down the cunt who's been fucking my Mrs.

The first important point (a) to make is that there's no point making the rights vs. freedom pay-off yourself, if your neighbour isn't doing the same thing (espcially with 1). This is this same whether you're living in a post apocalyptic anarchist state, you're a 7th Centuary Saxon King or you're an elected ruler of a European Nation.

The second and sort intermediate point (b) you have to make is that I'm simplifying completely here. All the rights vs. freedom's pay-offs choices for a nation are intertwined hideously. Which is where government comes in....

As this giving up freedoms for rights only work in big groups (see point a, size of the group depends on isolation), then you need people to police it. Particually examples from point 1.

This police takes organisation and money to run. Then you've got the examples from 2.. Education, not letting people starve and health care also cost money to run. Which ends up balanced by a negative right, the right to pay tax.

This is where government comes in. To sort out a and b. You need to work out who's in charge of organising these rights that everybody now has,.

Of course we don't live in a 1:1 on all this. You don't lose your entitled rights, even if you've broken your freedom limitations. (not going to get into that on this post, it's long enough)

But basically government is all about balancing out these rights and freedoms, or something. Fuck knows. I've written a fucking essay again.

If you get charged with an offence the police take all your DNA anyway. Is there a need to do it for every person when the majority don't commit crimes?

Exactly.

You couldn't get pissed up in a boozer, climb on a Mini's roof, get refused entry to a football ground, go to the nearest airport and fall asleep and then get a taxi home in North Korea could you  :D

I thought it was a Metro

And dont forget the biggest piss take of all, they want us to pay £100-odd quid for the privelidge of having one!

I suggest you all read the following:

1984
brave new world
Hilters book

Then come back to me. But don't worry when I am world ruler life will be better well it will if you fit in and do as i say otherwise...................

Which one?

That is having a wooly scarf.

I.D. cards are compulsory for Thai's but even in this third world country the bit of plastic with a photo, name, number and microchip are free.

I am undecided about whether or not I.D. cards are right or wrong myself, I am not particularly bothered if the Gov know what I have been up to as I don't have much to hide, asides from that occassional nights that my nose has been powdered and the odd cash in hand job, yet I hardly think that somebody like myself would be a target for them, and I there is no way that an I.D. card could let them know what I have been up to behind closed doors anyway.

The thing is though that there is a real threat throughout the world of terrorist types, or even just dodgy types in general. And so there is a genuine argument for I.D. cards.

Not only that, I think that we should accept that the technology is there now whereas it was not before. I.D. cards or not in another decade or two "Big brother" could be everywhere whether we like it or not.

Ok so these home grown terrorists who come from respectable families and careers, how are they going to get picked up through an ID card scheme? I find the idea fanciful.

i have read them whats your point? i would recommend the communist manifesto, theres a lot of good shit in that and russel brands biography.

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Am I the only one slightly depressed by the level of ideological debate that this thread has given rise to?

Communism has failed apparently. Really?

So somewhere a workers state was established that sustained itself for a long enough period for the principles of collective responsibility, ownership and control of the machinery of the production, distribution and exchange to become the natural order of things, meaning that the need for a state of any kind disappeared and it eventually "gradually withered away". And then that new communist society somehow failed? That actually happened did it?

Where was that because I must have missed it?

Odd that it happened at all because I was sure that all the leading theorists of communism were fairly clear that it would only be possible on an international basis, and if I'd lived in a workers state (let alone in a communist society) for even the shortest period of time I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed!

Putting aside the Mr Sarcastic bit for a second, what I'm trying to say is that most of you, with a few obvious exceptions, are debating an issue that you have only the sketchiest of knowledge about.

Is communism a good or a bad thing? Well I'd suggest it would be a good idea to find out what it is before you attempt to express an opinion on the matter.

Looking at the totalitarian state that the USSR became and assuming that it (or China or Cuba for that matter) defines communism would be a bit of a mistake. Explaining why would take a bloody long time and require a grasp of late 19th and early 20th centrury social and economic history, which I'm not about to deliver a lecture on here.

Mex is right, try reading some books. The manifesto is a good place to start. But I've always had a soft spot for "Origins of the family, private property and the state" as good old Fred Engels is suprisingly readadable when he's not weighted down with the more leaden prose of his mate Karl. It gives a decent introduction to the principles of dialectical and historical materialism, which is the philosphcal basis of Marxism and hence communism.

It also blows out of the water the much repeated (including by GFM at the begininning of this thread) idea in real terms "nothing ever changes".

As a bit of a dialectical materialist myself could I just point out that actually everything changes........ constantly......... in a whole load of ways. Even things that are seemingly solid and permanent are in a constant state of flux.

That chair you're sitting on is fractionally different to how it was yesterday. Your arse has rubbed at the seat and worn it away slightly, just like it did yesterday and the day before. That's a quantative change wearing away little by little every day. But, eventually, those quantative changes add up to a qualitative change and that seat cover will wear through altogether.

As for society it certainly has not always been structured in the way it is now, with a ruling class that own virtually everything and the rest of us having to work for them to make a living. Capitalism is at best 400 years old a tiny fraction of the history of mankind, even in Britain which had the earliest rise to power of the capitalist class. Before that we had a feudal society and before that .............

Well read the book for yourself but for now just know that man lived in tribal primitive communist societies with no concept of class or private property for a damn site longer than he's lived in anything like the way we do now.

Right I'm done now. I feel strangely purged!

I love it when Lumps goes into one doing a long post.

Fair comment Lumps, but it's fair to say that The USSR, China and Cuba are/were perceived as Communist (When in reality they're Socialist)

Communism, as an idea, is laudable but would never work, imho.

It fails due to human nature, greed, envy, etc, etc.

All methods of government must have their good points, or else they'd never have happened, I just feel that democracy is better than the alternatives.

Just my uneducated ramblings on this thread..........................

Is anyone actually under the delusion that we live in a democracy? I don't recall voting to increase MP's pay (AGAIN!), making their expenses part of the Official Secrets Act, referendum on the EU etc etc etc.

To sum up Lumpys post for those who got bored after the 1st sentance



blah blah blah blah

I'm gert more cleverer than you

blah blah blah blah

The end.

 :D

thanks lumps, you pretty much posted what i was thinking but couldnt be arsed.

greed and envy in my opinon are products of capitalism and the power of socialisation,they would not exist in a communist utopia.

But it would be impossible to transform any capitalist country into a 'communist utopia'. In fact, it wouldn't work anywhere. People take advantage and break rules to the detriment of others and that's always going to happen no matter what they system.

 :(

hold hold on I am only a month into my open uni course on Polictis. I'll come back to you in a year mr lumps.