Do you live your life by your principles?

Roll VT Errol…

Fuck yeah!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn-eQDWm6U4

just for you Hipp

.

Pisser!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpt2FN4OvxU

I have a feeling we were all quite frustrated last night. Waiting to pounce on Knoydart, but sadly his mum must have turned out the lights and taken his laptop.

How long until the moron with confused principles makes a return?

Or has he gone for good?

I am coming to the conclusion that the people who tend to cause the most upset here are just not that bright and quite a few of us do not tolerate fools at all.

YouTube - Peter Russell Clarke outtakes bloopers perthscanner

That's brilliant. I love Wallace and Gromit.

[*]I am trying to always think positively about myself, and of those who I meet. My first thought when someone is rude is to wonder what has happened in their life/day that is bad that has caused them to act like that. etc etc

Some people are just ***ts though and will take advantage of your niceness and most people don't want to be 'saved'.

edit: I sound like I was damaged as a child here..

To give, you first have to take away.

And that is why every rich person should die for the crimes they have committed and continue to commit by enslaving the bulk of the world's population.

Some people are just ***ts though and will take advantage of your niceness and most people don't want to be 'saved'.

I don't think anyone has taken advantage of any "niceness"

I had not seen this line in my scanning of this thread "And that is why every rich person should die for the crimes they have committed and continue to commit by enslaving the bulk of the world's population."

Which is indefensible on many different levels, not least the sheer intellectual laziness that was required to come out with it in the first place.

If someone posted on here that a group or class of people should be excluded from the country as a result of their ethnic origin, there would, quite rightly be uproar. I would be among those expressing outrage. Such sentiments should not be held or expressed. Society no longer tolerates right wing racist bigotry.

Although Knoydart's bigotry comes from the left, it is no less offensive or unacceptable.

Although Knoydart's bigotry comes from the left, it is no less offensive or unacceptable.

I would disagree that this came from the left. I think it comes from a hopelessly lost position nowhere.

Fair point Oliver.

Although Knoydart's bigotry comes from the left, it is no less offensive or unacceptable.

I don't want to wade into a philosophical debate, but i wanted to clarify why - from a left perspective - the suggestion of killing the wealthy is a) stupid and b) completely ineffective at moving towards a socialist/communist/whatever society based on equality and common wealth.

[Disclaimer: I don't necessarily agree with the Marxist perspective, but i do know quite a lot about it...]

The issue is that even the shittest marxist out there knows that it isn't "the wealthy" who are personally to blame for the persistence of capitalism. From this perspective, capitalism structures certain political subjectivities in opposition to one another, objectively, i.e. without the volition of anyone involved. So the class system, from a serious left perspective, isn't the fault of the ruling class, but of the socioeconomic system under which we are all forced to live, for better or worse.

OK let me break all this down...

If you take that sort of perspective, inequality isn't just (or even primarily) about wealth or poverty per se; *it's about the ongoing, everyday relationship that creates wealth and poverty. *For a Marxist, that relationship is rooted in the relations of production: between **the working class **(broadly defined - including a whole range of 'professional' workers and middle managers) who sell their time and skills to earn wages, and the ruling class (including employers, execs, governments etc.) who use their time and skills to employ workers' time and skills to earn profit. Wages and profit are fundamentally different things, and come with a starkly differing set of economic interests and positions. Those differing economic positions aren't about who's wealthy or who's poor necessarily (although of course massive wealth could still be seen as *morally *wrong in this framework): From a Marxist perspective it is all about this dynamic social relation between the working class (proletariat) and the ruling class (bourgeoisie).

So... back on track: what i'm arguing is that according to the Marxists (and a lot of other lefties like some anarchists and social democrats), you can't destroy inequality by killing the wealthy, because it doesn't destroy the objective social relationship that causes wealth disparities in the first place.

...and that is why knoydart's argument is either a) not from the left or b) a really shite (mis)understanding of what left politics are about. booya.

I'll +1 but point out that Knoydart claims to be of the left and therefore falls into the category of ignorant or misunderstanding.

I really am suprised people see what I am saying as not just wrong but 'weird'. God. Its not like this is a coporate board for senior executives to discuss their favourites restaurants. Its about people with a passion for cycling, I am really suprised how conservative this place is.

Have none of you ever read marxist or even socialist literature? What I am describing is not unique.

And here is his claim to speak for the left.

I live and will die by the sword. Principles are soft mushy things compared to the taste of cold steel.

I live and will die by the sword. Principles are soft mushy things compared to the taste of cold steel.

A man with no principles and a weapon.

Marginally less dangerous than a man with principles and a weapon.

And here is his claim to speak for the left.

well on behalf of the other 99.9% of the left, he's wrong :-D

And here is his claim to speak for the left.

Read it again--there is no such claim. Granted, if we accepted a level of confusion playing even into the attempt to claim a position, we could construe one. But he doesn't say that he speaks 'for the left'.