Muhammad Rasheed's Blog, page 234

Artificially Opposed Unnatural Foes

Clifton Hatchett - Faith and Logic are light years apart.

Omar Clifton - Not always true doh, I'd say faith and knowledge as they cancel each other out. You can believe what you know for sure. You can however have faith that something 90% probable will happen. Logic isn't always 100%

Clifton Hatchett - Knowledge and Logic are not synonymous.

Omar Clifton - That to is true. Most people equate them however.

Clifton Hatchett - fortunately we are not them....

Omar Clifton - That too is true.

Rhys Hughes - That is illogical, Clifton...
:-)

Rhys Hughes - "Spock... I need to know how... babies are made..."

"That is biological, Captain."

Clifton Hatchett - Rhys...you are so very consistent....lol, top of the morning or whatever time it is in the Kingdom.

Rhys Hughes - 12:34, just after noon :-)

Rhys Hughes - I like the Irish greeting, by the way. Thanks! :-)

Clifton Hatchett - Good afternoon friend

Muhammad Rasheed - Clifton Hatchett wrote: "Faith and Logic are light years apart."

How so? It would depend on the discussion. Give me an example.

Clifton Hatchett - Faith is belief that isn't depended upon proof, that in and of itself isn't logical.

Muhammad Rasheed - "Logic" itself doesn't function in that narrow a framework... you can discuss a belief-based system logically. It's a matter of the various elements making sense within their own context. In this particular subject, the illogical comes into play -- not from the belief system itself necessarily -- but from attempts to shoehorn the faith-based system into areas it was never intended to go. The biggest example is the whole "proof" thing. Asking for proof from a system that by definition isn't required to produce it, isn't a trait of the intelligent, but is the illogical symptom of a narrow mind.

Clifton Hatchett - Completely cyclical, as such I must disagree.

Muhammad Rasheed - Explain, please. It's not cyclical; it's a classic inductive logical argument. It's appropriate in this model because it leaves breathing room for a human's inherent inability to know everything. Faith by its nature is part of that same package, but on a purer scale. We have faith that there are things, realms, concepts, ideas, potentialities in existence that we do not yet know (or cannot know), and inductive logic makes allowances for our natural weakness in that area.

To use a different, less applicable form of logical argument to judge belief systems by, demonstrates a poor understanding of how logic actually works, and how large and expansive the discipline is.

Clifton Hatchett - Cyclical, Repetitive, and worded beautifully with a rhetoric worthy of some of the better orators of old. Entertaining, but not very impressive. I contend that you have come to a flawed conclusion. Such an outcome is to be expected when one is not aware of common inductive fallacies. You have assumed a logic can be ascertained through the practicing of a system, in this instant belief, in which you had previously noted logic was not applicable. You offer this up as a rebuttal of my original post, yet in actuality you have done nothing of the sort, to the contrary you have proven the accuracy of the post. Never have I implemented or implied the one possessing faith is to be viewed in a bad light, only that logic is not necessitated with the observance of faith.Hasty generalizations are beneath what I had come to expect of you Mr. Muhammad.  Perhaps I will cast judgement of your cognitive functions differently now.

Muhammad Rasheed - Clifton Hatchett wrote: “Cyclical, Repetitive, and worded beautifully with a rhetoric worthy of some of the better orators of old. Entertaining, but not very impressive. I contend that you have come to a flawed conclusion. Such an outcome is to be expected when one is not aware of common inductive fallacies.”

There are no fallacies in the inductive logical argument tool. Traditional philosophers didn’t like it because it forces you to admit you don’t/can’t know everything. The secular humanist mindset hates that shit.

Clifton Hatchett wrote: “You have assumed a logic can be ascertained through the practicing of a system, in this instant belief, in which you had previously noted logic was not applicable.”

You are confused. Let me explain again: There are different forms of logical argument, with inductive reasoning being but one.  All of them use logic as a tool, and each is most applicable within a given sphere. In the system of belief, logic is applicable, but not all logical argument models are applicable.

Clifton Hatchett wrote: “You offer this up as a rebuttal of my original post, yet in actuality you have done nothing of the sort, to the contrary you have proven the accuracy of the post.”

The only thing that will counter my post’s content, is a strong counterargument that negates it. Do you plan to provide one for me to analyze and counter back?

Clifton Hatchett wrote: “Never have I implemented or implied the one possessing faith is to be viewed in a bad light, only that logic is not necessitated with the observance of faith.”

It would help if you managed to come to grips on a more accurate definition and usage of “logic.” Then we can get somewhere. Hurry up.

Clifton Hatchett wrote: “Hasty generalizations are beneath what I had come to expect of you Mr. Muhammad. Perhaps I will cast judgement of your cognitive functions differently now.”

You have my permission to think of me and my functions in any way you please, as long as you get busy formulating an actual counterargument. Assuming you have one, of course. I await your next post with interest.

Clifton Hatchett - You assume from a false pretense. A counterargument would be an acknowledgement of validity to your contention, and though articulated superbly, it is devoid of logic, and laced with passion, as such your proclamation that ''The only thing that will counter my post's content, is a strong counterargument that negates it.'' is irrevocably, and beyond all shadow of doubt, ridiculous, inasmuch as your original attempted rebuttal was flawed from the inception. My contention stands as is, completely irrefutable. Carry on brother Muhammad, I do enjoy your rhetoric. I am entertained.

Muhammad Rasheed So you don't have a counterargument? Well, checkmate.

I win.

Muhammad Rasheed - My thread now.

Clifton Hachett -












Clifton Hatchett - I said carry on. This is truly entertaining.

Muhammad Rasheed - It would've been entertaining if you would've put forth the effort to counter my post. Watching you desperately flip around like a fish is boring and a little sad. awww...













Clifton Hachett - Projection. You are familiar with term for sure, as you demonstrate the condition so well. I need not define the term for one such as yourself.

Muhammad Rasheed - Are you going to keep wasting words flippin' around or fight?

Muhammad Rasheed - Pick that king up and let's GO.

Muhammad Rasheed - Hurry up, I have to get back to this Destroyer thing in another couple of hours.

Clifton Hatchett - Why do you persist...to be humbled can be cathartic, and permit time to reflect upon the error of your ways. I will post something again soon enough to which you will be allowed to respond.

Muhammad Rasheed - Dammit didn't I say I'm in a hurry? COME ON! I'm double parked!

Clifton Hatchett - lol

Muhammad Rasheed - Clifton Hatchett wrote: "Why do you persist...to be humbled can be cathartic, and permit time to reflect upon the error of your ways."

Who's going to humble me? You?

Kinda difficult if you refuse to engage. You need to learn to not give up so fast. Throwing a hodge-podge word salad at me is not going to humble me, only a rock solid argument that I cannot refute. Get busy putting THAT baby together. There's a lad.

Clifton Hatchett - Persist as you see fit. Most jesters do not share your zealotry.

Muhammad Rasheed - You know I'm more than a jester.  I ask that you accept my challenge and prove that you are more than a hit-n-run pseudo-philosopher.  OPEN UP!  Let’s see what your Middlegame looks like.   I certainly hope it consists of more than you simply tipping over a thesaurus upon the page.   You can’t be an intellectual if you lack the ability to demonstrate your acumen through a spirited competitive dialog, Clifton.  Engarde. 

You created the status post, now plant your feet and defend it. Go.

Muhammad Rasheed - “The great outline of research comes to light best in dialog.” ~Otto Toeplitz, mathematician (1 Aug 1881 – 15 Feb 1940)

Muhammad Rasheed - You shine the spotlight on your own lack of research when your side of the dialog comes to an abrupt halt as soon as you're challenged. Get your game up.

Clifton Hatchett - Temper Tantrums are unbecoming.

McCarthy's War

Andre Owens - [shared link] How long before some wingnut defends Hoover in this?

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/12/there...

Russell Farmarco - Doesn't everyone hate Hoover at this point?

Andre Owens - @Russell, you'd think. But remember, there are folks out there in the conservative mainstream who still think McCarthy was right.

Andre Owens - Combine this stuff with the recent release of the HR Haldeman tapes and you get a pretty clear picture of just how racist the US Government was under Hoover and Nixon.

Andre Owens - And Hoover can't be that hated. His name still adorns the FBI building, but then again we have stuff named after that racist Ronald Reagan. So go figure.

Russell Farmarco - Put it this way, no one may be so motivated to remove his name from a building, but I don't think he has many fans.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "But remember, there are folks out there in the conservative mainstream who still think McCarthy was right."

Right about what exactly?

Andre Owens - They think he was right that the US government was deeply infiltrated by Communists.

Trey Noë - That's not true...they believe the US Government IS deeply infiltrated...but I do not think I will accept your judgment for what qualifies as "conservative mainstream" since I am certain you believe that to be an oxy-moron. ;)

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "They think he was right that the US government was deeply infiltrated by Communists."

And you think he was wrong? If so, why?

Andre Owens - Uh, because Dwight Eisenhower wasn't a communist like McCarthy claimed. Thats one example.

Andre Owens - @Trey, huh?

Andre Owens - Are you saying the conservatives today still think the government is occupied by communists? That would sure be a surprise to this Marxist.

Russell Farmarco - The thing about McCarthy, some of those guys were probably communists, as many of the Hollywood folk were, but in a supposed land of the free, there should be no actual crime in that.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "Uh, because Dwight Eisenhower wasn't a communist like McCarthy claimed. Thats one example."

1.) Where did McCarthy claim it?

2.) How do you know Eisenhower wasn't?

Andre Owens - Well Mo, I'm not going to do the research for you. You can easily google comments from McCarthy.  And I know Eisenhower wasn't a communist because he wasn't. So if I claim you're a pedophile, and you say you're not and there's no evidence to support my claim, someone else can come along and say, "How do you know Mo is not a child molester?"

Andre Owens - And to get back to Russell's comment. What is wrong with being a Communist anyway?

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "Well Mo, I'm not going to do the research for you. You can easily google comments from McCarthy. And I know Eisenhower wasn't a communist because he wasn't. So if I claim you're a pedophile, and you say you're not and there's no evidence to support my claim, someone else can come along and say, 'How do you know Mo is not a child molester?'"

TRANSLATION:

1.) "I dunno. I just heard it somewhere. It's fashionable to vilify McCarthy just because. I don't really know the story behind the McCarthy thing, I'm just on the bandwagon because I'm supposed to be. I think."

2.) "He wasn't because he wasn't! Geez, do I have to think for you? Of course there's no evidence that he actually wasn't, just accept it based on the blind faith of non-religion."

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "And to get back to Russell's comment. What is wrong with being a Communist anyway?"

lol Are you actually directing this towards me after rudely ducking my questions? Really?

Muhammad Rasheed - Why don't you ask Google why Communism is so shitty?

Andre Owens - I actually have an undergrad degree in History, so I'm not like you and just basing my beliefs on faith. If you want to go around supporting Joe McCarthy, be my guest. If reflects on your values more than me jumping on a bandwagon. I didn't duck your questions, I"m just not playing your games.

Andre Owens - And why dont you ask google why Muslims are so violent?

Russell Farmarco - It's not a matter of whether Communism is shitty, I agree it is, but it should not be illegal to be one.

Andre Owens - Communism is not more shitty than Capitalism. Read Das Kapital to see an excellent critique of capitalism.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "I actually have an undergrad degree in History, so I'm not like you and just basing my beliefs on Faith."  

Sure you are. That's why you don't want to answer a point blank question in favor of flaunting this history degree. Am I seriously supposed to believe that you wouldn't simply say the answer if you knew it?              

Andre Owens wrote: "If you want to go around supporting Joe McCarthy, be my guest. If reflects on your values more than me jumping on a bandwagon."

I merely asked you a question to support the reasons behind your anti-McCarthy ideology. It's VERY telling that you didn't have one, but got defensive instead. Attempting to misdirect from the topic is also very telling.                        

Andre Owens wrote: "I didn't duck your questions, I"m just not playing your games."

No. You didn't have an answer, and decided to pretend I was playing games in a weak effort to save face. If you didn't want to talk about it, all you had to say was you didn't want to talk about it because your history classes never dug into that.

Muhammad Rasheed - Easy.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "Communism is not more shitty than Capitalism."

Sure it is. The individual is the foundation of society, and any system that supports the state over the individual is fundamentally shitty. The individual comes first, and THEN the collective.  Trickle-down bullshit doesn't work in ANY system.

Andre Owens - Whatever man. Like I said, you can easily google comments from Joe McCarthy. I'm not the one who is supporting an historically reviled figure. And maybe you should open a book and read the history of the McCarthy era.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "Whatever man."

That right there sums up your history degree. You should've led with that.

Andre Owens - Ahh yes, I can see you're a brainwashed Ameican who believes in the myth of the hyper individual overcoming all odds by sheer force of his personality with no help from the collective.

Muhammad Rasheed - I can see you're a brainwashed American with a blind faith that capitalism is evil, and McCarthy was wrong.

Andre Owens - Have you read Das Kapital and the critique of Capitalism?

Muhammad Rasheed - No. I don't need someone to spoon feed me what to think. That if my undergrad history teachers didn't tell me about it, then I don't know it.

Trey Noë - I am skeptical of the value in believing whole heartedly in any institution whether it be public or private as both are comprised of humans who are flawed...and I say that add a self described human. Perhaps we end up believing more in the institution that we feel had given us more and then get persuaded to protect the institution...there's an axiom, like all beings with self preservation in mind "the institution protects the institution"

Russell Farmarco - FWIW, I actually can't find anything online where McCarthy called Eisenhower a commie or even insinuated it, just that Ike took the approach of ignoring him altogether (unlike Truman) and this seemed to take some wind out of his sails along with McCarhty's TV appearances where the American public found him to be an unlikable bully. The idea that Eisenhower may have been a communist is absurd though as he was the President of the philosophy's greatest foe and presiding over a war against it.

Andre Owens - So now reading is being "spoon fed what to think." Wow, just wow. You're a piece of work Muhammad.

Muhammad Rasheed - I asked you a normal question, and YOU got defensive & snippy, but I'M the "piece of work?"

Muhammad Rasheed - Okay.

Muhammad Rasheed - I guess that's just how Marxist-atheists roll then...

Russell Farmarco - Plenty of problems with capitalism, but wherever Communism takes hold the death count usually soars. It was by far the leader in state sponsored death in the 20th century.

Russell Farmarco - http://www.informationisbeautiful.net...

Muhammad Rasheed - Russell Farmarco wrote: "Plenty of problems with capitalism, but wherever Communism takes hold the death count usually soars. It was by far the leader in state sponsored death in the 20th century."              

Marxist-atheists are apparently ALLL about soaring death counts since they keep going on and on about the "joy" of Communism.

Muhammad Rasheed - They LOVE it.

Andre Owens - So? And Capitalism is by far the leader in the slave trade, the wiping out of the native populations of America, Australia and anywhere else its raised its head, and hyper colonialism.

Muhammad Rasheed - Did you say "So?" So to soaring death counts under your precious, precious Communism?

Gosh.

Muhammad Rasheed - Show me, Red Skew, how "wiping out a population" is related to capitalism.

Andre Owens - The "So" was directed at Russ for saying that Communism was by far the leader in state sponsored death.

Muhammad Rasheed - As a capitalist through my cartooning business, show me where I'm fucking up by not wiping out whole populations of people so I can get my game up.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "The 'So' was directed at Russ for saying that Communism was by far the leader in state sponsored death."

I KNOW! hahahaha That's why you sound crazy!

Muhammad Rasheed - hahahahahaha

Russell Farmarco - That's certainly the bad side of Capitalism, and more then worthy of critique. But I still think it's a lesser of evils and it benefits more people than Communism. Certainly kills less people overall. 94 million in the most recently completed century dwarfs US's war count and all of facism combined warrants more than a "So?" but it appears we differ on that.

Andre Owens - You know nothing of history Mo if you can't see the greed of capitalism led to the wiping out of the natives for their land and enslaved the African population. Or was Slavery actually a communist plot?

Russell Farmarco - Communism didn't exist then.

Andre Owens - Exactly Russ!

Russell Farmarco - So since it's started it's been a larger disaster.

Russell Farmarco - Here's the fundamental irony that I think proves a regulated capitalism to to communism. Almost no one in capitalist countries moves to communist ones even though they are allowed to by their capitalist government but LOTS of people defect from communist countries to move to capitalist ones though they are forbidden under penalty of their home communist country to do so.

Muhammad Rasheed - Here's the problem: Capitalism isn't an ethic. Or a moral value. The individual humans that take part in capitalism BRING their ethics, morals, creeds, etc. with them when they do it.

Again: What does "wiping out a population" have to do with capitalism?  

I'M a capitalist. So is the Mom & Pop restaurant down the street. Is "wiping out a population" an inevitable consequence of selling cartoon books and chicken dinners to the populace in a Free Market?  

Explain. Preferably with actual facts and not huffs & tizzies, and whatever else you keep demonstrating.

Andre Owens - Well, maybe you guys can forgive capitalism for its sins but I can't. Without the overreach of Capitalism there never would have been a Communist revolution.  Communism is a reaction to the excesses of Capitalism. Read some history.

Muhammad Rasheed - ^huff & tizzy

Andre Owens - Mo, you dont deal in facts. I told you point blank that Eisenwoher wasn't a communist and your answer was "prove it."

Muhammad Rasheed - So what does flaunting a degree in someone's face mean in your world, Red Skew?

Muhammad Rasheed - lol

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "Mo, you dont deal in facts. I told you point blank that Eisenwoher wasn't a communist and your answer was 'prove it.'"

WOW.

Muhammad Rasheed - Did they teach you what "prove it" means in your undergrad...? It means: "show me the facts that support your claim." 

Muhammad Rasheed - You took "prove it" as a kind of magic curse or something? Very odd.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "Well, maybe you guys can forgive capitalism for its sins but I can't."

The individual people who run the businesses decide whether to overreach or do morally wrong actions against other people. That literally has NOTHING to do with capitalism, no more than Communist state leaders deciding to steal from the coffers to benefit their own families literally has nothing to do with Communism; these are actions that the individuals choose to do on their own because, personally, they are scumbags.

Blaming the system itself for their actions is the height of ignorance.

Andre Owens - I'm not here to educate you. If you didn't study history in school and have no interest in doing your own work I can't help.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "I'm not here to educate you."

hahahahahaha!

Muhammad Rasheed - Cute. awww...!

Muhammad Rasheed - Russell Farmarco wrote: "It's not a matter of whether Communism is shitty, I agree it is, but it should not be illegal to be one."

The US gov had reason to believe that members of the Communist party had infiltrated the gov and they set up a department whose job it was to confirm. After floundering around a bit, they asked hard-charging Senator Joseph McCarthy to head it up, a good job for him because he: 1.) had a reputation for not being bought off by people to compromise his stance on things and 2.) could be a convenient scapegoat in case things went bad. That very same hard-charging/can't-be-bought-off attitude made him a lot of enemies for the usual reason in political circles.

Just a few years into the investigations they discovered proof that Communist infiltrators had absolutely infiltrated the highest reaches of the gov and had sold atomic bomb secrets to the Soviets.  With the seriousness of the problem evident to everyone involved, McCarthy's team was given more power.

Muhammad Rasheed - It would not be enough.

Muhammad Rasheed - The problem was actually FAR worse than McCarthy had envisioned. The Communist party had not only infiltrated the US gov, but had deliberately targeted the entire Intellectual Class of the country; strong recruitment efforts in colleges among both students and faculty, and more importantly, placed themselves in the forefront of every group fighting for human rights and progressive ideals. They schemed to make Communism linked to everything worth fighting for among the intellectual class, who were trying to break the oppressive chains of old systems, like jim crow. Because of this, the entire Who's Who of every human rights leader had absolutely been to at LEAST one Communist meeting. In quite a few individual cases, the efforts to link Communism to these 100% worthy causes was indeed successful, though, like Red Skew above, they could not tell you how Communism itself was also equally worthy.

Andre Owens - Nice cut and paste job. You know you're supposed to give credit to other peoples ideas or at least use quotation marks.

Muhammad Rasheed - Because of the obvious revealed seriousness of the atomic bomb secrets scandal, McCarthy could not afford to cherry pick which groups or individuals they wanted to investigate. If they touched Communism AT ALL they were worthy of investigation, and because of the Communist party's brilliant tactics, there were very few people who hadn't. Of the many, many, Many, MANY! people who were subpoenaed into the hearings, of course not all of them subscribed to the Communist party personally, but they certainly had been to the meetings on at least one occasion, or had some other tie to it, even through close acquaintances.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "Nice cut and paste job. You know you're supposed to give credit to other peoples ideas or at least use quotation marks."

This is 100% my own words, summarizing it based on my own research over the years, as I go (interesting how you were unable to do the same with your own "research."  Do you see the difference between being spoon fed someone else's stuff and using critical thinking in your own research/study?). It's a fascinating topic. Imagine my disappointment when my effort to get you to discuss it to possibly add to my body of knowledge produced your hissy fit & tizzy.

Andre Owens - Sorry man, I apologize. I shouldn't have assumed it was cut and paste.

Andre Owens - And to quote Muhammad Ali, “I Ain't Got No Quarrel With The VietCong...No VietCong Ever Called Me Nigger.”

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "And to quote Muhammad Ali, 'I Ain't Got No Quarrel With The VietCong...No VietCong Ever Called Me Nigger.'”

It's a great quote, and pregnant with meaning, but within this context -- on the heels of you saying "So?" to the well-documented, and unprecedented atrocities that Communism has brought in its wake -- I honestly fear if the brainwashed Marxists in our society have their way. What will keep those same atrocities from being afflicted upon American soil? I know my own people will probably be the first to eat it.

Andre Owens - I still go back to whats wrong with Communism? No Communist country colonized Africa, the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand.  This was all done by Capitalist society. I also find it hard to debate someone who hasn't read Das Kapitial or The Communist Manifesto. You dont see me debating the particulars of Islam as I've only read parts of the Koran.

Andre Owens - I guess Slavery isn't unprecedented in your mind. Although I can understand why you have no problem with slavery as (The sections that I have read) your holy book condones it.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "I still go back to whats wrong with Communism?"

I'm pretty sure I answered that already.

The individual makes up the basic component of our society. Society should take care of that basic unit first, and then spread outward. Starting from the State level and then trickling down to give the individual the filtered crumbs has proven not to work. It leads to an oppressive society in which resources are mismanaged by elitists.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "No Communist country colonized Africa, the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand."

What does "colonizing" have to do with capitalism (this is rhetorical, of course, since you seem to have a disdain for actually answering questions in a normal human discussion)? As a capitalist myself, who have I colonized? Should I? When you sell copies of Force Galaxia, is it in your entrepreneurial business plan, as a capitalist, to colonize New Zealand? WHO TOLD YOU that wiping out populations & colonizing countries was part of capitalism? WHY DO YOU BELIEVE THAT????

Andre Owens wrote: "This was all done by Capitalist society."

It was done IN a capitalist society. What does it have to do with the principles of capitalism itself? Can I buy/trade in a Free Market without colonizing a country? Why or why not?

Andre Owens wrote: "I also find it hard to debate someone who hasn't read Das Kapitial or The Communist Manifesto."

Imagine how difficult it is to discuss the Saga of Joe McCarthy with someone who -- although he is mysteriously VERY passionately against it -- literally doesn't know anything about it. "Google it" indeed.

Andre Owens wrote: "You dont see me debating the particulars of Islam as I've only read parts of the Koran."

Didn't stop you from taking an erroneous swipe at it earlier during your pitiful misdirection attempt.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "I guess Slavery isn't unprecedented in your mind."

There's a fundamental difference between "slavery" and eugenic "mass killings." At least as a slave I'm still alive, and have the potential to be a Harriet or a Frederick. My options are significantly narrower lying belly up in a mass grave with my limbs all askew.

Andre Owens wrote: "Although I can understand why you have no problem with slavery as (The sections that I have read) your holy book condones it."

You would've been safer if you had continued to stand upon "I don't know it so I won't speak on it." The Qur'an lists freeing a slave as a great good deed in the list of good deeds, and as you should know, says that performing good deeds is how the believer will get into heaven. Does that sound like "condoning" to you, sir? Hm?

Muhammad Rasheed - Anyway, eventually the McCarthy hearings did go bad, as the Senator's team investigated people who were powerful enough to push back, and push back HARD. Predictably his government sponsors left him out to hang on his own, and the entire enterprise magically was assigned to him and him alone, so now his very name bears the stigma of his government's betrayal.

Andre Owens - Oh I see, it was all a conspiracy against the good man Joe McCarhty.

Andre Owens - David Icke makes more sense.

Muhammad Rasheed - - Today, as you well know, the Intellectual Class remains fully indoctrinated in Marxist-Communist ideologies; very dangerous considering they are in a position to influence policy, and the common thought as our Western society educators.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "David Icke makes more sense."

The "sense" is merely the facts of history, which you are oddly devoid despite your proudly-flaunted degree.

Andre Owens - Well you just outed yourself as not being the Intellectual Class. So by your own admission you dont know what you're talking about. You keep jabbing about my degree when I mentioned it in passing when you said I no nothing about history. You have a childish taunting debating style that I'm gonna no longer participate in.

Andre Owens - Good day sire.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "You keep jabbing about my degree when I mentioned it in passing..."

You didn't mention it in "passing," you mentioned it as an attempt to bluff me, as if it meant your knowledge of history couldn't be questioned in any way.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "Well you just outed yourself as not being the Intellectual Class."

lol Yes, I'm a maverick.

Muhammad Rasheed - Good bye, Red Skew.

Russell Farmarco - Several posts above, Andre, you said something like "I guess you guys are willing to forgive capitalism its sins but I'm not". Firstly, I am just looking pragmatically at the whole of each system. Both are run by humans and therein lies the evil rub, evil will be done. So I do not forgive capitalism its sins but still see it as doing more good and less evil than communism. By the same token does you "So?" mean you forgive communism for it's killing of 94 million people last century?

Andre Owens - No, I dont forgive Communism. But how do you explain 100 million African's killed in colonization for profit in a capitalist system. http://www.mobilization2-21.com/missi...

Scott Kecken - Andre, where do you find the time to reply? Why even bother?

Andre Owens - Scott, I sit in front of a computer all day at work. This is merely a distraction. I'm a sucker, thats why I reply. I should know better.

Scott Kecken - Gods bless you.

Muhammad Rasheed - “The great outline of research comes to light best in dialog.” ~Otto Toeplitz, mathematician (1 Aug 1881 – 15 Feb 1940)

Russell Farmarco - So we both don't forgive these systems for their evils, just wanted to get that straight that your weren't serious that Muhammed and I forgave capitalism its sins. I certainly didn't think you forgave Communism its murder of 94 million years. I have no explanation for that other than racism and the evil of man. Though that is a site with a specific agenda and it is making several assumptions over a longer time period, it is unarguable that the white world raped and exploited Africa beyond belief. Much of that time period, however, there were monarchies in the most powerful countries, more so than regular democratic capitalism. And since communism didn't exist then it's hard to argue that it's less evil, or better. Still, as a response to the evil flaws in this capitalist system, I believe that communism is even worse. During the periods where they have existed side by side, we can both point to atrocities on the watch of each system, but it's a lot easier to point to all the good things democratic capitalism has brought the people of the world (the NFL, The Beatles, Muhammed Ali, Skype (free service), the moon landing, the Bill of Rights, civil rights, Google (basically free), nearly every positive scientific invention, multiple by pass open heart surgery, etc to infinity) than it is to come up with a list of 10 great things communism has produced.

Andre Owens - The Soviets were the first to space. Had the first woman in space decades before the west. The Chinese Communist have over 1 million folks assisting in Africa today. Also, this: "The positives of communism are that all production is planned democratically and geared toward providing for peoples needs rather than just generating profit. The result is that the majority of people (the proletariat) are able to work less and get more (because they are not sacrificing so much of the fruit of their labour for the benefit of the bourgeoisie's profits). This was summed up by Karl Marx in the phrase:

'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need' " 

Andre Owens - And really "to infinity?" Think thats a bit of hyperbole.

Andre Owens - And then there's this: "The USSR and China may have claimed to be communist but in reality they had little to do with what was theorized by Karl Marx (it's like George Bush claiming to be for small government while presiding over the biggest deficit ever) and their choice to claim this label has more to do with attempts to disguise the oppressive nature of the regimes than any sort of liberation."

Russell Farmarco - Yes, that was hyperbole, Thanks for recognizing it as such.

Russell Farmarco - So if it works so well, how come the Soviet Union collapsed economically? Yeah, it looks good on paper but that is always the excuse of those who romanticize the brutal attempts at Communism. "Yeah, they murdered nearly 100 million people in a century but they weren't REALLY communist." So why are people always trying to get out of communist countries to come here and no one (hyperbole alert!) is going to those countries, not even folks like you who profess to prefer it?

Andre Owens - Its the same reason when one brings up the atrocities in peoples holy books, they always retort, "Thats not real Christianity or Islam." Its the same reason that Ben Affleck attacked Bill Maher over his anti-Islam stance. In other words its deflection from inconvenient truths. Its the reason that people take their children to be indoctrinated in a religion yet claim that its the word of a god and get defensive.

Russell Farmarco - So this defender sod Communism are deflecting?

Andre Owens - And if Communism is so bad, why did the US ally with them in WWII?

Russell Farmarco - This is a good story regardless of one's POV: http://blog.chron.com/.../when-boris-......

Russell Farmarco - To deafeat the greater threat of the moment.

Russell Farmarco - And the Nazi's were a form of socialism too.

Andre Owens - And if Communism is so bad, why do over 60% of Russians want its return after living with wonderful capitalism for two decades? http://www.systemiccapital.com/60-per...

Andre Owens - You didn't just say that Nazi's were socialist too? Oh because the name was National Socialists, they are somehow socialist? The Nazis hated the communists. Thats a historical fact. So, if the Nazis was a form of socialism, what do you call The Federal Highway system?

Andre Owens - Next thing, you guys are gonna tell me the US Civil War wasn't over Slavery.

Russell Farmarco - True the "socialist" name was more of a Trojan Horse as only socialists could get gain political traction in Germany at that time. They were straight up gangsters but they had some of the "benefits" of a socliaized society: health care, jobs programs etc.  Whether defined as fascism or socialism the real problem is they were racist totalitarian gangsters.

The Federal Highway system is also a form of socialism, the good kind!

I believe an unsexy mix of free markets and light socialism is the way to go.

Russians want communism back because they are essentially ruled by the same totalitarian powers but in a different form. But they were closer to communism when they had that wall up to keep people from leaving (always a mark of a successful system, a wall to keep people IN!) and then collapsed than they are to capitalism now.

And yes, the Civil War was over slavery. A weird kind of badge of honor that the country would engage in a civil war to get rid of slavery. Perhaps unprecedented historically, but you're the history major so let me know if there's a parallel.

Russell Farmarco - And have a great weekend, btw!

Andre Owens - I was a history Minor, but let's no quibble. Yeah, its a huge black mark on this country that it took a Civil War to get rid of slavery.  But after 400 years of slavery, 100 years of Jim Crow and 50 years of The War on Drugs this country still has promise.

Russell Farmarco - True dat.

Muhammad Rasheed - Russell Farmarco wrote: "So we both don't forgive these systems for their evils, just wanted to get that straight that your weren't serious that Muhammed and I forgave capitalism its sins."

To be clear, I do not recognize the 'sins' belonging to capitalism, but to unscrupulous, individual businessmen. People are quite capable, as demonstrated in my examples above, of taking part in capitalism and enjoying the fruits thereof without engaging in practices that encroach upon the human rights of others. Vile atrocities are not part of the capitalism package. Why? Because capitalism is only 'an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations,' and is not an all encompassing system designed to define/improve all aspects of human life like an organized religion. It's a civilizational tool, one that goes hand-in-hand with the religions, philosophies, creeds, ethics, etc. that the individual businessmen bring to the table.

AN ANALOGY:

There are three bus drivers. One drives his bus along the scheduled route, one goes out of his way to pick up people who can't get to the bus stop on time, while the third plows his bus into a crowd of children at the park on Fair Day. The bus drivers are businessmen, the buses they drive are Capitalism. Andre subscribes the atrocities committed by the third driver to the bus itself, and wants to overturn the bus system altogether.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "And really "to infinity?" Think thats a bit of hyperbole."

The truth of the matter is that the inventions and compiled societal improvements are quite numerous and continue more and more with each passing year. This from the normal competition in the Free Market that entrepreneurs work in.

Andre Owens wrote: "Andre Owens The Soviets were the first to space. Had the first woman in space decades before the west."

Ironically they were able to do so because of the international competition that mimicked the capitalistic Free Market system as each country competed with the other.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "And then there's this: 'The USSR and China may have claimed to be communist but in reality they had little to do with what was theorized by Karl Marx...'"

You're quoting this, but if this is actually your argument, do you realize it is hypocritical?

Muhammad Rasheed - Russell Farmarco wrote: "So if it works so well, how come the Soviet Union collapsed economically? Yeah, it looks good on paper..."

No, it doesn't. It looks like trickle-down nonsense on paper, and in reality, it immediately strayed from the intended ideals by virtue of it being backwards nonsense. In order to work at all, first the individual's rights must be protected and maintained in a free society, and then a socialist-lite system placed on top to protect the weaker citizens, and maintain public systems.

Russell Farmarco - Muhammad, I get you point, but capitalism by its nature and its engine of greed often leads to people failing their own belief systems.  And when it's a democratic capitalist society that invades countries (as we have in every war since WW2) where economic philosophy is a key player then yes, that system hates in the responsibility of those evil deeds. But it's WAAAY better than communism, we agree in part on that.

Muhammad Rasheed - Andre Owens wrote: "Its the same reason when one brings up the atrocities in peoples holy books, they always retort, 'Thats not real Christianity or Islam.' Its the same reason that Ben Affleck attacked Bill Maher over his anti-Islam stance. In other words its deflection from inconvenient truths. Its the reason that people take their children to be indoctrinated in a religion yet claim that its the word of a god and get defensive."

This is actually the post that brought me back.  ("Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, BEETLEJUICE!") The so-called "inconvenient truth" lies in the opposite direction, alas. If the source scriptures say XYZ, but the people and theologians say ABC, then the attempted vilifications by those who only pretend to understand the religion is only foolishness. Only those who are in the know are in a position to say what is an "inconvenient truth" or not, and I've already demonstrated that you are not in that club. Stand down on the religious topic, Andre. You do NOT know what you are talking about.

Andre Owens - I'll concede that man. I'm an adult so I dont need to know the mythology of fairy tales. Thats definitely in your wheel house. I'll withdraw my comment and apologize for daring to step onto your turf.

Muhammad Rasheed - Forgiven.

Muhammad Rasheed - Big head. :P

Andre Owens - Thank you Father.

Muhammad Rasheed - You're welcome, my son. Have a cookie.

Muhammad Rasheed - Russell Farmarco wrote: "Muhammad, I get you point, but capitalism by its nature and its engine of greed often leads to people failing their own belief systems."

Negative.  It is in the nature of the humans themselves to pursue greed (is it not listed as number 3 in the Seven Deadly Sins?) and who fail to live up to their ideals.  The ideals themselves, and especially those economic systems that require flawed, sin-prone humans to function, are not at fault. Not unless, like Communism, the system is designed ass-backwards and is fundamentally flawed "on paper."

Russell Farmarco wrote: "And when it's a democratic capitalist society that invades countries (as we have in every war since WW2) where economic philosophy is a key player then yes, that system hates in the responsibility of those evil deeds. But it's WAAAY better than communism, we agree in part on that."

Again, it wasn't the society that invaded, nor the economic system, but individual businessmen/world leaders who decided to do so. Are there other, more humane ways of acquiring resources that don't rely on leadership being assholes? Of course. Well, why didn't those world leaders try those ways instead? Because individually... personally... they did not adhere to the Seven Virtues and attempt to make them part of their lives. Capitalism doesn't have a component for ethics/morality. It's not supposed to. That's not what it's for. That's what religion is for. That's what "being raised right in the principle of the Golden Rule" is for. If the individual capitalist lacks this trait and/or personal training, then he/she IS going to sow mischief in the earth when he conducts business. This is NOT the fault of capitalism. Not at all. This is the equivalent to blaming the hammer because the wielder stripped all the threads on the screw with it trying to twist it into the wood with the claw part. The screw is the abused society, the hammer is capitalism, the unused screwdriver is religion/morality/ethics, and the wielder is King Leopold II.

No Room for You at the Top

"Photograph: Jay-Z and Beyoncé with Doug Morris, former CEO of Universal Music Group which owns Jay-Z's Roc-a-fella records, Island Def Jam Records (formerly Russell Simmons' Def Jam) and current CEO of Sony Entertainment which owns Columbia Records where Beyoncé is signed.

"Doug Morris' net worth nearly doubles that of Jay-Z.  So who are the real owners of hip-hop?

"Despite the perception that Black entrepreneurs like P. Diddy, Russell Simmons, Jay-Z, Cash Money [or Young Money] are moguls, they are, in actuality, the children of their respective parent companies.  P. Diddy's Bad Boy Records is owned by Warner Music Group; Suge Knight's Death row by Interscope is owned by Universal Music Group; Def Jam is also owned by Universal... What's worse is that, despite popular perception, there are no Blacks -- none -- in top executive positions of the parent companies.  What the parent companies, as well as the Black moguls, would like us to believe is that "the R.O.C. is runnin' this rap shit."  This is why Jay-Z is touted as the 'C.E.O. of Hip-Hop.'"  ~M. K. Asante, It's Bigger Than Hip-Hop: The Post Hip-Hop Generation, p. 111-112

Muhammad Rasheed - The 1% will fight to keep you from coming over to the other side of that table.  Will Smith's family tried to make just such a power move with their creator-owned After Earth film -- they planned to use the profits (that they expected to match Will's typical blockbuster numbers) to finance their own studio, mimicking Tyler Perry's path.  But before After Earth even came out a MASSIVE anti-Smith Internet attack started and gained momentum, focused on how horrifying it suddenly became for the fact that wealthy Hollywood stars traditionally gave those same opportunities to their children... an attack against nepotism that oddly began and ended with the Will Smith family alone.  When the movie came out it did uncharacteristically poorly because of the unreasonable and mysterious attacks, and Will responded: "That's unfortunate." 

Indeed.

The fact that my own people joined in on that bullshit against him makes me FURIOUS.

Jerry Lee Brice - Jealousy... nepotism is nothing new or unusual in Hollywood...

Muhammad Rasheed - There's a cartel of about six studios in Hollywood, and like all cartels and monopolies they hate competition, and prefer to keep those weekend premiere profits all to themselves.  Consequently we tend to see the same types of stories pushed forward from the same narrow group of mindsets in almost every movie, filtered through one particular demographics' viewpoint, which the masses assimilate as a "mainstream truth."

The Threadbare Nerve Linking an Artist & Their Art

When I was a freshman in art school, the College of Creative Studies back in Detroit, upon completion of an assignment the teachers would have us all line our work up on the wall and, to our horror, one-by-one would critique each in front of us.  They would explain what worked and what didn’t work, using their expertise in the established design models, color theory, and of course some of their own subjectivity.

Almost universally we found the experience to be brutal and merciless, and quite a few students would drop out because of this group critique.  For those who stayed they eventually learned how to separate themselves from their work, and look at their design pieces and illustrations with an objective eye... learning how to not take a critique or comment about their work to heart.  The time period it took for this process to finally catch, enabling the young artist to gain the valuable ability to see their own work objectively, would naturally vary from student to student, and for me, it happened around the mid-sophomore year.  Later, when I entered another art school, The Joe Kubert School in Dover, New Jersey, many of the teachers would do the same thing.  I was quite immune to the freshman terror of the event by that time, but it was fun and interesting watching my classmates go through it – seeing their reactions to what was being said.  In my Narrative Art class taught by Mike Chen, he would allow one of the students to do the critiquing, and even though this would make the subjectivity percentage of the comments go up considerably, it still functioned the same way.  Eventually they were able to separate themselves from their work, too, and not take the critiques personally.

Because of these experiences, I know how hard it can be for the average person, and the autodidact artist, who didn’t have the benefit of that kind of training to receive a critique, whether solicited or not.  When they create, I recognize that they are still attached to that creation, and to make any kind of comment about it is to make a comment about them.  Obviously this is a natural default setting we all possess, and my peers and I were able to have the opportunity to have that connection severed, but it's important to recognize that that state is not the norm, and is by no means an easy state to achieve for the average person.  So unless the person deliberately puts themselves into a position where they will allow that severing to take place, one must be careful and use a great deal of tact when commenting on someone’s work, because to make a misstep in that area is likely to create an enemy in someone who is unprepared for it.  They will absolutely get defensive and lash out at the critic.

Humanism - Traditional Tool of Religious Philosophy

Muhammad Rasheed – “In modern times, humanist movements are typically aligned with secularism and with non-theistic religions. Historically however, this was not always the case.”

Jeremy Travis - What was the case?

Danny Bronson - Give a reference...let me look it up.

Muhammad Rasheed - Many medieval Muslim thinkers pursued humanistic, rational and scientific discourses in their search for knowledge, meaning and values. A wide range of Islamic writings on love, poetry, history and philosophical theology show that medieval Islamic thought was open to the humanistic ideas of individualism, occasional secularism, skepticism, and liberalism.

According to Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, another reason the Islamic world flourished during the Middle Ages was an early emphasis on freedom of speech, as summarised by al-Hashimi (a cousin of Caliph al-Ma'mun) in the following letter to one of the religious opponents he was attempting to convert through reason:

"Bring forward all the arguments you wish and say whatever you please and speak your mind freely. Now that you are safe and free to say whatever you please appoint some arbitrator who will impartially judge between us and lean only towards the truth and be free from the empery of passion, and that arbitrator shall be Reason, whereby God makes us responsible for our own rewards and punishments. Herein I have dealt justly with you and have given you full security and am ready to accept whatever decision Reason may give for me or against me. For "There is no compulsion in religion" (Qur'an 2:256) and I have only invited you to accept our faith willingly and of your own accord and have pointed out the hideousness of your present belief. Peace be with you and the blessings of God!"

According to George Makdisi, certain aspects of Renaissance humanism has its roots in the medieval Islamic world, including the "art of dictation, called in Latin, ars dictaminis", and "the humanist attitude toward classical language". [from Wiki]
 
Bakkah Rasheed-Shabazz - Rhetoric was based upon truthfulness instead of the modern use of deception like Mitt's confusion of the facts in the presidential campaign debate. All claims had to supported by documented fact, and no showboating was allowed.

Danny Bronson - But, the humanists sects were never mainstream relative to the main theistic religions. They appear to be more marginal.

Muhammad Rasheed - The status quote is pointing out that the concept of 'humanism' wasn't traditionally equated with anti-God or anti-religion mindsets, but focused on the human principles within religion over the supernatural aspects. Only in more modern times did the humanist movements become normally of a secular bent, pushed in that direction from the influence of the British Royal Society.

Humanism doesn't equal secular/atheist, but is a very specific list of focused items that secular atheists took on as their own cause later.

Muhammad Rasheed - In other words, the secular atheists don't have a monopoly over humanist philosophies.

Muhammad Rasheed - Warith D. Mohammed, the heir to his father's original Nation of Islam organization, and founder of the African-American "American Muslim Mission" was a popular "humanist-theist" for example, strongly emphasizing the human side of the Islamic faith over the spirit.

Danny Bronson - I get that. I have a hard time equating the new bent on atheism as humanist. It seems to me to be more like fundamentalist secularism. But I have seen more humanist ideals being presented by traditional religions.

Danny Bronson - I used to listen to WD Muhammad back in the 1990s when I was being introduced to Islam by some brothers in Fayetteville. I never converted but I did attend mosque.

Muhammad Rasheed - Danny Bronson wrote: "I get that. I have a hard time equating the new bent on atheism as humanist. It seems to me to be more like fundamentalist secularism. But I have seen more humanist ideals being presented by traditional religions."

Right, and that's what the status quote is talking about. Traditionally, a humanist mindset has been firmly expressed within religious philosophies, and they were never diametrically opposed to each other. That idea is an artificial rivalry, similar to the idea that religion and science are bitter rivals. Again it was the British Royal Society's efforts responsible for that rift as well (and exacerbated by the Protestant "American frontier" mindset).

Muhammad Rasheed - Danny Bronson wrote: "I used to listen to WD Muhammad back in the 1990s when I was being introduced to Islam by some brothers in Fayetteville."

My folks were totally into him, and my Ma above still is. I always thought he went a little TOO far in his emphasis of humanity over the spirit and he made me uncomfortable with it, even as a teen. I feel he would cross a line sometimes that in my opinion didn't reflect the primary point of the message of scripture, that's why I don't consider myself a follower of his.

Danny Bronson - Maybe that's why I dug him. And another guy, naim akbar...I used to enjoy him too...

Danny Bronson - Still like Akbar.

Muhammad Rasheed - I think WD Mohammed's strength was in encouraging the building of an economically empowered community. Na'im Akbar's strength was in making the principals of his psychological field an assessable tool for those same community builders, enabling them to undo the inferiority complex indoctrination of a fundamentally racist society.

Danny Bronson - Articulated well.

Jeremy Travis - Where modern atheists and secularists espouse humanism is in attempting to explain moral behavior without tying it to the supernatural. There are natural reasons why 'good' is good and 'bad' is bad and it seems that humanism explains and expresses that understanding pretty well. It surely does better than religious fundamentalists who essentially feel that anything goes if it comes from 'on high', depending on how they define and understand the concept of 'on high'.

Muhammad Rasheed - Jeremy Travis wrote: “Where modern atheists and secularists espouse humanism is in attempting to explain moral behavior without tying it to the supernatural.”

Honestly our behavior isn’t tied to the supernatural, that’s the point of Free Will; we are free to perform however way we are moved to on earth. “Tying it to the supernatural” sounds like a Disney movie.

Jeremy Travis wrote: “There are natural reasons why 'good' is good and 'bad' is bad and it seems that humanism explains and expresses that understanding pretty well.”

On the terrestrial side I fail to see why or how it would fail to match up with the reason given by the theists. There’s a clear dividing line between what the flesh does, compared to what the spirit being will do once this physical body is shed at death. Everything we do here is “natural.” That’s the point of the test.

Jeremy Travis wrote: “It surely does better than religious fundamentalists who essentially feel that anything goes if it comes from 'on high', depending on how they define and understand the concept of 'on high'.”

Define “better?” As in “I prefer this over that one because I don’t believe in the latter” better?

The theist uses the Supreme Being's concepts as the standard to measure truth from, while the other uses whatever their measure is, and they both determine to explain moral behavior in fleshy humans in a natural world. It will still come down to the physical science of why people do what they do. How individuals among each camp perform depends on how each defines and understands the concepts they study, and among them all there will be varying levels of accuracy.

Jeremy Travis - Muhammad wrote: "Honestly our behavior isn’t tied to the supernatural, that’s the point of Free Will; we are free to perform however way we are moved to on earth. “Tying it to the supernatural” sounds like a Disney movie.

Well, I've heard some theists, Kirby being one, who say that that which is good/fair/right/just is so because god said it is and not based on their own merits; that nothing is good if god doesn't say that it is, nothing is bad if god doesn't say that it is, and that something can go from being one to the other if god says so. That essentially ties 'right' and 'wrong', 'good' and 'evil' with the supernatural.

Muhammad wrote: "On the terrestrial side I fail to see why or how it would fail to match up with the reason given by the theists. There’s a clear dividing line between what the flesh does, compared to what the spirit being will do once this physical body is shed at dead. Everything we do here is “natural.” That’s the point of the test.

See above for the difference as I know it based on what I've heard or read.

Jeremy Travis wrote: “It surely does better than religious fundamentalists who essentially feel that anything goes if it comes from 'on high', depending on how they define and understand the concept of 'on high'.”

Muhammad replied: "Define 'better?' As in 'I prefer this over that one because I don’t believe in the latter' better?"

Well, in a word, yes. Humanism seems to give a more comprehensive explanation for why 'good' is good and 'bad' is bad.

Muhammad also wrote: "The theist uses the Supreme Beings concepts as the standard to measure truth from, while the other uses whatever their measure is, and they both determine to explain moral behavior in fleshy humans in a natural world. It will still come down to the physical science of why people do what they do. How individuals among each camp perform depends on how each defines and understands the concepts they study, and among them all will be varying levels of accuracy."

I think that humanism tends to show how or why something is moral based on what is beneficial versus what is detrimental. Raping people is detrimental to the wellbeing of the individual who has been raped and it is detrimental to a society that allows it, therefore it is wrong. I don't see how the word of god could change that, therefore the word of god is unnecessary in understanding that rape is wrong. Because one can come to that understanding without the need for supernatural/spiritual additives, that is the reason why some of the modern atheists and secularists espouse this thinking.

Muhammad Rasheed - Jeremy Travis wrote: “Well, I've heard some theists, Kirby being one, who say that that which is good/fair/right/just is so because god said it is and not based on their own merits; that nothing is good if god doesn't say that it is, nothing is bad if god doesn't say that it is, and that something can go from being one to the other if god says so. That essentially ties 'right' and 'wrong', 'good' and 'evil' with the supernatural.”

In His scriptures, God defined what is righteousness and what deeds represent sin/evil. These are the concepts from which our modern day notions of morality derive, the same way our modern system of law derived from the Jewish practicing of biblical and Talmudic law. The Book was sent specifically as the guide to mankind and functions as the manual for life. In order to benefit from it you must perform the way it says to perform, and those who perform best will be rewarded over those who perform least, while those who refuse to perform and reject the manual will ultimately be punished. This is the very definition of merit-based. Kirby and his ilk are wrong if what you described is what they believe.

God is the Supreme Creator, and EVERYTHING is so because He said that it is… spoke it into being. He created this universe based on the rational, measurable laws of mathematics that can be studied and understood, and understood in relation to one another within the framework of a rational, physical creation. The fact that one can basically learn the general-purpose, high-level programming language of mathematics to understand the numerous aspects of the universe is unrelated to the fact that everything points back to God as the Author of that programming, and the idea that He has a point to it all. The secular-humanist wants to confine the limits of what can be understood about our existence to a narrow focus within that programming language space, and feels that the idea of there being no point at all to anything because there is no God is somehow a ‘better’ understanding of the part of the programming language they wish to focus on. To me that’s narrow-minded thinking.

Jeremy Travis wrote: “Humanism seems to give a more comprehensive explanation for why 'good' is good and 'bad' is bad.”

I see the humanist explanation as only a part or aspect of the bigger picture reason for why. There’s a high-level reason, and then a narrowly-focused lesser reason confined to the nature of human communities/societies that can be directly measured and understood. That understanding will be deeper if the higher-level explanation is also accepted and meditated upon.

Jeremy Travis wrote: “I think that humanism tends to show how or why something is moral…”

How does it do that?

Jeremy Travis wrote: “… based on what is beneficial versus what is detrimental.”

Theism does both.

Jeremy Travis wrote: “Raping people is detrimental to the wellbeing of the individual who has been raped and it is detrimental to a society that allows it, therefore it is wrong. I don't see how the word of god could change that, therefore the word of god is unnecessary in understanding that rape is wrong. Because one can come to that understanding without the need for supernatural/spiritual additives, that is the reason why some of the modern atheists and secularists espouse this thinking.”

Today within our modern Western society, considered by many to be the apex of human civilization progress, we find people raping each other, justifying why it’s okay to do it, and even getting off scot-free from doing it after being tried in court. In less sophisticated societies in the past, and even in the same kind of societies around in the world today, people prove to be even more blasé about raping people. Whether the educated people in society come to the conclusion on their own that rape is wrong, by studying the effects of it upon society, doesn’t seem to matter one way or the other. What would they do with that info? Note it in a text book or scroll and file it away? Should they manage to convince the policy makers to make a law against rape, would that stop people from raping each other? Has it? The people who want to rape people continue to go around raping people because that’s their thing. And those laws against it will not survive beyond the lifespan of the society itself.

In the scriptures, God said to be good to one another, treat each other as you yourself wish to be treated, and sow not mischief in the land, among many other similarly-themed items. And He had His messengers preach this for thousands of years… in fact the last great western society came and went inside of that era of the prophets. That society and all of its laws, whatever they may have been, are gone, while the message of God remains. And it will remain still once this current technologically marvelous Western society is also gone, it’s message codified within the values of family cultures, passed on for more generations. People will continue to know that it is wrong to do bad things to one another because they were taught such growing up in their homes from the message of scripture as filtered through the values of their culture, and this will continue long after the laws of an advanced society have turned to dust, as has always been the case. The people who want to buck those values and do wrong to others anyway, will continue to do so.

Why Taxing the 1% Isn't the Way to Fix the US Economy

Muhammad Rasheed  - Heavily taxing the 1% to generate income for the government to fix the struggling economy isn't an effective, or realistic, solution to that problem. For one, the wealthy have nearly unlimited tools for hiding their money from stuff like that. They wrote the Tax Code, remember? For two, the government isn't an expert in generating business revenue, it's an expert in using its force to take taxes from you, and in creating half-efficient, broken policies. Politicians generally have no idea how to fix the economy, and rarely if ever listen to the advice of economists.

Even though it seems counter-intuitive for those of us who think it’s the gov’s job to “Do something!” to fix the economy, it really is better NOT to lean on the 1% too heavily for taxes, because they make more money for themselves by using their wealth as venture capital (Shark Tank™) in helping other businesses to grow for a portion of the profits. Obviously that's good for the economy -- the normal cycles of trade and commerce in the markets. It is notable that of all the investment instruments available to the moneyed class, venture capital to invest in business is the most lucrative of them all, and staying out of the way of that is the way to help the economy to thrive. If the taxes become intolerably high for the wealthy, it will literally make it more profitable for them to lock the bulk of their wealth up in some form of interest-bearing instrument, where they legally only have to declare the part they didn't lock away as taxable. Consequently, when the politicians notice that the amount of tax revenue they expected to make doesn’t come after-all, they will be forced to turn those tax lasers onto the poor and middle class, deepening the quicksand pit of the struggling economy.

Get out of the way of the Free Market and let it work.

Chester Moyle - Absolutely right. Plus if you took all the wealth from the top one percent you could run the government for about 1 week, maybe two. The bulk of all taxes comes from the middle class and small business. Blaming the rich is just blaming others for the failure of the government to control spending.

Muhammad Rasheed - Chester Moyle wrote: "Blaming the rich is just blaming others for the failure of the government to control spending."

It's not really a matter of "blaming the rich," but of many citizens thinking that it's somehow the government's job to roll up its sleeves and hands-on "fix" the economy. This is 100% not true, even though politicians are often under that delusion themselves (while ironically ignoring the advice from the expert economists). Meanwhile, the government's REAL job is to maintain the system of laws that enable the markets to thrive, and to protect the Free Market from sabotage and interference, even from itself.

Geoff Hassing - Sorry Muhammad, but I have to totally disagree with you.. Heavily taxing the 1% is exactly what we should be doing. Up until Reagan became president, the 1% were taxed at almost 75%, and that was since the early 1900's. And because of that, they were constantly looking for ways to grow what money they had left, which spurred them to invest and grow their money, instead of now, with a low tax rate, they just sit on it and spend it on themselves. With low tax rates for the wealthy, there's no motivation to try and grow your wealth to maintain your lifestyle. The higher tax rates created motivation.

And the argument that that will discourage people from trying to get rich doesn't work either, because if someone truly wants to be wealthy, they will find a way, regardless of what the tax rate is.

Taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilized society. But it's also you're responsibility as a member of your country to support your country . Taxes pay for infrastructure, education, defense, utilities, Social Security, Medicare, and a million other things. The more society give to you, the more it requires from you.

The Bush years proved Trickle Down economics don't work. If you cut taxes for the rich, they're not going to invest it so it can benefit everyone and trickle down to the poor, they're going to spend it on themselves, that's just human nature.

But the law also needs to be structured to that if you're caught gaming the system or hiding your money, you lose it all! Same with corporations, and especially with corporations. If you do business in this country, you pay for that privilege, it's part of the cost of doing business. But if you cheat the system and are caught, you and your company are outta' here!

But at the same time, the laws should also be structured to encourage investment here. If you create jobs, you get a tax break. If you pay your taxes honestly, you get a tax break. If you build factories here, you get a tax break. Those are the things they should be giving tax breaks for.

Muhammad Rasheed - Your post is dripping with fictions that politicians actually believe, and are the very reason why the economy isn't as strong as it could be.

Jeremy Travis - Are the taxes on corporations and on the wealthy not low enough or should they be lower?

Travis Hollaway - If everyone paid what they actually owed without loopholes and offshore accounts things could get interesting

Geoff Hassing - Muhammad, what are my fictions? The periods of the highest taxes on the wealthy, happens to also coincide with the periods of greatest growth for both corporations and the middle class in this country from post Depression until around 1973.

Between tax cuts for the wealthy, subsidies for oil companies that are posting record profits already, and large corporations, like GE, dodging out of paying over $4 billion in taxes, and even managing to get $350 million back from the government, while maintaining a bloated military the size of the next 20 countries combined, it's no wonder we don't have any revenue coming into the Treasury.

If you can show me evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it.

Here, Warren Buffet explains it pretty good...

http://zfacts.com/node/118

Ali Rashada - This discussion is simply a variation on the Emperors new clothes. The economy is based on a fiction - namely that the government has to get into debt in order for a currency to exist, and then has to tax the people and businesses to pay that debt. Start at the beginning if you want to fix the problem

Daniel Stone - so many issues with this argument.

1) saying the rich have many ways to hide money away is an excuse, not a fact of life that cannot be avoid. There was, once upon a time, a thing called "regulation' which held people accountable for their finances. But allowing corporations and the rich to buy politicians allowed for the regulations to be dismantled, and trade agreements are made solely to create loopholes to send money around the world under the guise of free trade and job creation. It's willful ignorance to not even acknowledge that.

2) during the most prosperous time in our country, the post WWII modern era, the rich were taxed at about 50% of their income. Why and how did this lead to the biggest economic boom in history? Those taxes were poured into infrastructure, creating highways and public transportation, building entire cities and communities, economic incentive to build factories and increase production, the educational boom kicked off by the space race. ALL of which required people to be employed with a steady paycheck. If people have money, they will spend it. This era echoed positive growth for america for nearly 60 years. What is being argued by saying, "the rich know how to use money," is a misnomer. They HAVE money, they don't know how to use it. They know how to HIDE it, they know how to shuffle it around and keep it out of other people's hands. But don't make the mistake of thinking the last 30-40 years of economic mismanagement by these so-called financial geniuses isn't completely damning evidence that they either have no clue what they're doing financially, or they really just don't give a shit about the economic community and are only serving themselves. So no, it's not counter-intuitive, it's called being flim-flammed by semantics.

3) Politicians are whores. Straight up. They follow political trends and will essentially go with the flow of whatever banner they've decided to back. There simply aren't enough independently acting politicians to even consider that they might be trying to make any decisions on their own. That's not how it's worked in decades. How it works is, your party leader is told what the overall strategy for you biggest investors are (the rich) and how you will all fall lock step towards making that strategy play out the way they want it to, and each congressman and senator essentially acts as a PR representative to sell that strategy to the public.

So you can't say it's the politician's fault for not knowing that increasing taxes won't work out or that regulations will even be effective. Most likely, any small group that is working independently and is actively trying to make a difference will have their bill coopted by bigger, badder groups, the bill is gutted and made impotent, or worse, is changed around to have the opposite desired effect.

4) the idea of the 'free market' has been hijacked by parties that use regulation to create what is essentially a rigged market, while pretending it's free. We do not have a free market. This has been argued since the 60's and before, that, most often the ones calling for a free market are the first in line to use government regulation and law to make sure everything is rigged in their favor. It's baffling to me that people are still being fooled by this.

Daniel Stone - so regulation both helped and hindered the american economy. It is a gun and basically, whoever is in control of it gets to call the shots. more often than not they'll use it for selfish advantage.

when it comes down to it, you'd have to change humanity's fear based greed impulse before you'll have a "fair," non-predatory economy.

Tcapr Washington - Not to mention that it just isn't fair. People need to work to achieve the same successes

Geoff Hassing - Very well said Daniel! Right on the mark! : )

Muhammad Rasheed - Are we celebrating early when I haven't even responded yet?

Geoff Hassing - I'm still waiting for your response.

Muhammad Rasheed - I'm working on some smaller items first because of my schedule. I anticipated this discussion was going to be a bit more involved, so I have to set some time aside for it. Patience.

Geoff Hassing - No prob, whenever you have time, I understand how that goes. Besides, Facebook debates are a never-ending thing... there's always one going on somewhere. LOL!!

Jeremy Alexander Love - Yeah, the biggest hole in the argument is that it actually did work in the 90's starting with Bush Part One raising taxes and continuing through Clinton.

Muhammad Rasheed - Geoff Hassing wrote: “Sorry Muhammad, but I have to totally disagree with you.. Heavily taxing the 1% is exactly what we should be doing. Up until Reagan became president, the 1% were taxed at almost 75%, and that was since the early 1900's.

You’re implying that it was the process of taking money from them that was somehow improving the economy. Meanwhile, during an era of innovation, entrepreneurial and industrial growth, the gov decided it was the best time to tax the crap out the people that could afford it.

Geoff Hassing wrote: “And because of that, they were constantly looking for ways to grow what money they had left, which spurred them to invest and grow their money, instead of now, with a low tax rate, they just sit on it and spend it on themselves. With low tax rates for the wealthy, there's no motivation to try and grow your wealth to maintain your lifestyle. The higher tax rates created motivation.”

I don’t think we’re talking about the same group, Geoff. The wealthy are always looking for ways to invest and grow their wealth. You must be talking about the top crust of the middle class… the high income earners who like to spend a lot.

Geoff Hassing wrote: “And the argument that that will discourage people from trying to get rich doesn't work either, because if someone truly wants to be wealthy, they will find a way, regardless of what the tax rate is.”
If it is easier and more profitable to put their money away and draw down interest on it than it is to lose big chunks of it in taxes while trying to make it work for them, then they will take the former option.

Geoff Hassing wrote: “Taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilized society. But it's also you're responsibility as a member of your country to support your country . Taxes pay for infrastructure, education, defense, utilities, Social Security, Medicare, and a million other things. The more society give to you, the more it requires from you.”

No one has a problem paying the taxes as a citizen of the country. The problem comes from taxing me higher so that they can generate revenue to make programs or schemes that don’t work and waste money. Government systems that are mismanaged, inefficient, money drains (like education, defense, and a million other things) should be equally as shame-inducing to a US citizen as stepping up to our responsibilities is a source of pride.

Geoff Hassing wrote: “The Bush years proved Trickle Down economics don't work. If you cut taxes for the rich, they're not going to invest it so it can benefit everyone and trickle down to the poor, they're going to spend it on themselves, that's just human nature. “

That’s a strawman. Anything “trickling down” anywhere is not my argument. My argument is that the economy booms by way of the normal cycles of trade and commerce, which requires the unobstructed movement of capital through the markets. When people have disposable income, they use it to spend and invest. They look for opportunities to improve the quality of their lives, and they have the money to experiment. It creates a flow of quality change up the socio-economic ladder as the poor enter the middle class, and the middle class enter the upper class. But when that disposable income is taken away from them, they find themselves just getting by, and the over-taxed wealthy become a lot less likely to invest in experimental ventures, becoming more risk adverse.

Geoff Hassing wrote: “But the law also needs to be structured to that if you're caught gaming the system or hiding your money, you lose it all! Same with corporations, and especially with corporations. If you do business in this country, you pay for that privilege, it's part of the cost of doing business. But if you cheat the system and are caught, you and your company are outta' here!”

I think the law needs to be structured so that the government stays in its lane. Programs that it takes taxes to support that have well-intentioned but dismal performances should be discontinued and if the people still want them, allow the Free Market to compete for that business. The taxes that the gov used to take and waste, can be used by people to build companies, and for others to spend on those companies, which is the perfect picture of what a thriving economy looks like.

Geoff Hassing wrote: “But at the same time, the laws should also be structured to encourage investment here.”

That would involve leaving people’s disposable income alone so they can spend it on what they want, and maintaining/enforcing the laws that make conducting business safe in all areas.

Geoff Hassing wrote: “If you create jobs, you get a tax break. If you pay your taxes honestly, you get a tax break. If you build factories here, you get a tax break. Those are the things they should be giving tax breaks for.”

The frustrating thing is that in its inept attempt to “help” the economy, the government often sabotages it by creating programs in areas that function as monopolies preventing free competition so that processes and services can improve over time. If only it would just get the heck out of the way, jobs would form like dandelions, there would be much fewer taxes because they wouldn’t be desperate to take our money to hold up their broken programs, so that the offer of a tax break would be as serious as grabbing a few pennies out of the convenience store tray.

Muhammad Rasheed - Jeremy Travis wrote: “Are the taxes on corporations and on the wealthy not low enough or should they be lower?”

The taxes across the board should be lower. Why? The gov collects a lot of taxes they use to attempt to fix things they don’t need to be trying to fix. If they stayed in their lane they wouldn’t need as much taxes as they do.

Muhammad Rasheed - Travis Hollaway wrote: “If everyone paid what they actually owed without loopholes and offshore accounts things could get interesting”

Monopolies are what slow down the economy, and cause inefficiency bottlenecks in industries that make it struggle. Monopolies pop up whenever the government tries to fix a problem itself, and they need more taxes to patch ridiculous holes that would get patched by efficiently run private companies competing against each other, with the gov’s security/safety oversight. In that scenario what we “owe” wouldn’t account for too much and people wouldn’t need to be ducking it.

Muhammad Rasheed - Geoff Hassing wrote: “Muhammad, what are my fictions? The periods of the highest taxes on the wealthy, happens to also coincide with the periods of greatest growth for both corporations and the middle class in this country from post Depression until around 1973.”

FICTION #1: That it’s the gov’s taking money from the rich that made the economy better.

FICTION #2: The government itself has the business savvy to fix the economy, if only it had enough tax revenue to do it.

The government taxed them more during prosperous economic times because they got greedy watching all of that wealth moving around out there. They started getting big ideas too, and the voters encouraged it because… why not? Everyone was doing great! “Come on, everybody! Let’s vote for THIS guy! He said he can use some of this money to build an Imperial Star Destroyer on Uranus! I say, ‘Let’s do it’!” Big Ideas! cost money and when politicians have them, they cost tax money, and suddenly they find all of their disposable income is going to these bs programs.

Geoff Hassing wrote: “Between tax cuts for the wealthy, subsidies for oil companies that are posting record profits already, and large corporations, like GE, dodging out of paying over $4 billion in taxes, and even managing to get $350 million back from the government, while maintaining a bloated military the size of the next 20 countries combined, it's no wonder we don't have any revenue coming into the Treasury. If you can show me evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it.”

But these are all the very examples of the government being in the way of the economy working that I’m talking about. That first item is just the wealthy using their influence to try to get themselves out of the problem that’s plaguing us all. The taxes are too high when they don’t have to be.

Muhammad Rasheed - Ali Rashada wrote: “This discussion is simply a variation on the Emperors new clothes. The economy is based on a fiction - namely that the government has to get into debt in order for a currency to exist, and then has to tax the people and businesses to pay that debt. Start at the beginning if you want to fix the problem”

The markets are running on the funny money of the Fed’s fiat system which is a fiction, this is true. The capitalism markets are able to function in that ‘fiction’ because of the trust that the people themselves place in the currency. The main benefit of the fiat system, that benefits the ruling classes pretty much exclusively, is its ability to generate enormous sums of credit to finance wars and other mega-purchases without instantly bankrupting a nation. The bank cartels will be able to artificially hold the nation up within their debt craft magic. The system of course devalues the currency steadily over time, and when it eventually collapses, they will have no choice but to use money of actual substance to restore the faith of the citizens. And then they will probably put them back on the fiat system as soon as they are able.

This IS a problem as you’ve said, Ali, and one that contributes to keeping us from being as prosperous as we could be.

Manipulation and sabotage of the Free Market is another.  All of these items lead to one big one: The government is doing things it has no business doing, and has overextended itself to our detriment.

Muhammad Rasheed - Daniel Stone wrote: “1) saying the rich have many ways to hide money away is an excuse, not a fact of life that cannot be avoid. There was, once upon a time, a thing called "regulation' which held people accountable for their finances. But allowing corporations and the rich to buy politicians allowed for the regulations to be dismantled, and trade agreements are made solely to create loopholes to send money around the world under the guise of free trade and job creation. It's willful ignorance to not even acknowledge that.”

Would you expect the wealthiest of us to be stagnant after working so hard in the last 100 years to establish this new system that benefits them so? As of today, the government itself is heavily indebted to them, so that unlike in the past, whenever the banks – and corporate partners of the banks – make a mistake, they simply call the gov to bail them out, and THEY HAVE TO DO IT. With no argument. As of today, the banks have had many of the toughest regulations removed from around their necks so that they can regularly and literally perform immoral, unfair, illegal-if-anybody-else-did-it, finance schemes at will with zero repercussions. As of today, the latest Tax Code was written, not by an objective outside body, but by a committee of the wealthiest corporatists in bed with powerful government bodies.

Daniel Stone wrote: “during the most prosperous time in our country, the post WWII modern era, the rich were taxed at about 50% of their income. Why and how did this lead to the biggest economic boom in history? Those taxes were poured into infrastructure, creating highways and public transportation, building entire cities and communities, economic incentive to build factories and increase production, the educational boom kicked off by the space race.”

Again this is reflecting the same fallacy mentioned above. It was the innovations and high entrepreneurial achievements of a booming economy that caused the gov to level those high taxes upon the people and spend all of that money, not the other way around. When the gov saw them living fat and spending it made them want to spend TOO.

Daniel Stone wrote: “ALL of which required people to be employed with a steady paycheck. If people have money, they will spend it. This era echoed positive growth for america for nearly 60 years.”

Right, and it changed once the gov started mucking around in it and it took a nose dive.

Daniel Stone wrote: “What is being argued by saying, "the rich know how to use money," is a misnomer. They HAVE money, they don't know how to use it. They know how to HIDE it, they know how to shuffle it around and keep it out of other people's hands.”

The argument is that the wealthy do know how to take care of themselves; that’s why they are wealthy (even the legacy wealth and trust fund babies have to learn how to take care of their inheritances). During a down economy, those left out in Poor Land see the wealthy with envious eyes and believe the rhetoric that says ‘if only the gov will take their money from THEM, everything will be magically better.’ This is not true. Things were better when the gov didn’t overextend itself with over-sized dreams, and simply stayed in its lane by maintaining and defending the laws and markets that encouraged people to do business and help to generate wealth and prosperity for everyone.

Daniel Stone wrote: “But don't make the mistake of thinking the last 30-40 years of economic mismanagement by these so-called financial geniuses isn't completely damning evidence that they either have no clue what they're doing financially, or they really just don't give a shit about the economic community and are only serving themselves. So no, it's not counter-intuitive, it's called being flim-flammed by semantics.”

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it was the politicians of the past who were responsible for those booming economies. The politicians who did the least resided over the most prosperous economies. The ones with the rolled up sleeves and dirty fingernails were the ones messing it up.

Daniel Stone wrote: “Politicians are whores. Straight up. They follow political trends and will essentially go with the flow of whatever banner they've decided to back. There simply aren't enough independently acting politicians to even consider that they might be trying to make any decisions on their own. That's not how it's worked in decades. How it works is, your party leader is told what the overall strategy for you biggest investors are (the rich) and how you will all fall lock step towards making that strategy play out the way they want it to, and each congressman and senator essentially acts as a PR representative to sell that strategy to the public. So you can't say it's the politician's fault for not knowing that increasing taxes won't work out or that regulations will even be effective. Most likely, any small group that is working independently and is actively trying to make a difference will have their bill coopted by bigger, badder groups, the bill is gutted and made impotent, or worse, is changed around to have the opposite desired effect.”

Right now we are in a position where the citizen masses are under the illusion that the government is supposed to make the economy better by ‘doing stuff,’ and the wealthy are simply taking advantage of it by pushing them around to ‘do stuff” that benefits them exclusively. If the government got the hell out of the way of the economy, we would all prosper, but the wealthy don’t care; either way they know how to work the system to get richer.

Daniel Stone wrote: “4) the idea of the 'free market' has been hijacked by parties that use regulation to create what is essentially a rigged market, while pretending it's free. We do not have a free market. This has been argued since the 60's and before, that, most often the ones calling for a free market are the first in line to use government regulation and law to make sure everything is rigged in their favor. It's baffling to me that people are still being fooled by this.”

We have a limited Free Market economy in that the system is set up to allow for new innovation, and companies to compete against each other with new products born from those innovations that the people benefit from. The Free Market is sabotaged when monopolies and cartels are allowed to form that halt that competition… sometimes it is sabotaged by the government itself in its ridiculous efforts to “help.”

Ali Rashada - Muhammad Rasheed, you do realize that you argued for both sides of the coin here. You continually say that the government gets in the way of the free market, which (unlike reality where the strong prosper and weak shoulder the burden) if left unfettered, would allow everyone to prosper (impossible since money is finite and everyone cannot posses larger quantities and it retain its value). Yet you say monopolies and cartels are "allowed" to form that halt the competition. Consortiums and conglomerations are the natural evolution of the economic darwinism we practice - they are the multi-celled organisms that dominate the wilds of international economics. The real solution is civilization - the understanding that humanity has banded together, giving up some things to gain others. We need to realize that the economic systems have always been man made, and we need redesign a new system from the ground up using all the knowledge we have gained in our struggle to become civilized to allow a prosperous and healthy life for all humans on the planet while showing respect and stewardship for the plant and animal life.

Ali Rashada - That means ending the profit and competitive variable when it comes to obtaining the necessities of life, which humanity has obtained dominion over thru agriculture, animal husbandry, architecture and education, to name a few.

Muhammad Rasheed - Ali Rashada wrote: “@Muhammad Rasheed, you do realize that you argued for both sides of the coin here. You continually say that the government gets in the way of the free market, which if left unfettered, would allow everyone to prosper. Yet you say monopolies and cartels are "allowed" to form that halt the competition.”

The government has a very specific role to play: Using its force to maintain and enforce the system of laws that enable our civilization to function. That’s its job. Monopolies and cartels are the natural enemy of the Free Market which prevents the little guy from being able to compete with the bigger businesses, and if the gov would concentrate on policing the markets to prevent them from forming, instead of trying to “fix” them by creating its own inept monopoly, the economy would thrive.

Ali Rashada wrote: “Consortiums and conglomerations are the natural evolution of the economic darwinism we practice - they are the multi-celled organisms that dominate the wilds of international economics. The real solution is civilization - the understanding that humanity has banded together, giving up some things to gain others.”

In a thriving market, with strong laws that protect a safe & secure environment for investment, the people aren’t overburdened with taxes and are at liberty to use their disposable income to aid their fellow man who is less fortunate than himself as dictated by his values, creeds and religion.

Ali Rashada wrote: “We need to realize that the economic systems have always been man made, and we need redesign a new system from the ground up using all the knowledge we have gained in our struggle to become civilized to allow a prosperous and healthy life for all humans on the planet while showing respect and stewardship for the plant and animal life.”

Not necessary. We just need to enforce the laws that we already have, and restrict the gov from overextending itself into areas it has no business being in.

Ali Rashada wrote: “That means ending the profit and competitive variable when it comes to obtaining the necessities of life, which humanity has obtained dominion over thru agriculture, animal husbandry, architecture and education, to name a few.”

That’s the very system that enables the average person to achieve socio-economic success, and improve the quality of his life in a fundamentally fair system using the efforts of his own mind and hands. It’s the monopoly that restricts him from doing so, making it illegal for the average person to grow his own food on his own small stretch of land to support himself. This is immoral, and why the monopoly must be destroyed and guarded against.

Ali Rashada wrote: “(unlike reality where the strong prosper and weak shoulder the burden)”

It’s our reality now for a variety of reasons. It doesn’t have to be if we only do what we are supposed to do and the gov stays in its lane protecting what it is supposed to protect. Right now, it is so overextended -- with the politicians so desperate to see to fruition their own failed and broken pipe dream visions at the tax payer’s expense -- that the government has become quite derelict of its duties.

Ali Rashada wrote: “(impossible since money is finite and everyone cannot posses larger quantities and it retain its value)”

It’s not impossible. Under ideal circumstances we would return to a precious metals standard (or even a digital currency), where we would need less of a higher-valued currency because it would purchase more as the economy boomed.

Ali Rashada - Pardon...how can the market be "free" when you keep speaking about laws to prevent this, and enforce that? You have decided what aspects of the economy please you, and so have no problem with government "interference" there to maintain it. That's not a free market. All the various laws are created to allow a specific outcome - currently geared towards those already with money and power. If we acknowledge that law and control are necessary to maintain the system as we want it, then we should do so with our eyes open and direct goals in mind.

Muhammad Rasheed - Ali Rashada wrote: “Pardon...how can the market be "free" when you keep speaking about laws to prevent this, and enforce that? You have decided what aspects of the economy please you, and so have no problem with government "interference" there to maintain it. That's not a free market.”

The “Free Market” isn’t an empty term, or a synonymous term for “anarchy” just because it has the word ‘free’ in it, or otherwise a mystic word that everyone should be encouraged to come up with their own definition for, or anything like that. It’s a very specific economic term that means a very specific thing:

free market – market in which there is little or no control or interference by government or by any powerful economic force or entity, such as a monopoly, cartel, or collusive oligopoly. [Barron’s Business Guide – Dictionary of Business Terms, 3rd edition, by Jack P. Friedman, Ph.D., CPA]

That system allows for individual business owners to compete freely for the consumers' spending dollars. Like any other civilizational system, it requires some form of security protection to prevent the dedicated criminal from encroaching on the rights of other citizens. Other than that, it should be left alone.

Ali Rashada wrote: “All the various laws are created to allow a specific outcome - currently geared towards those already with money and power. If we acknowledge that law and control are necessary to maintain the system as we want it, then we should do so with our eyes open and direct goals in mind.”

Currently the laws designed to protect the people have been abandoned (protect the Free Market from monopolies) in favor of special interest policies and laws lobbied to give unfair advantages to moneyed cliques. All of that must be removed and the gov’s focus returned to protection of the markets in a Free Market capitalism economy. That’s where our true strength lies (in a secular point-of-view, of course) and where the American Dream is fully active.

Ali Rashada - in the year 2014, why should the market be left alone? How can we justify in this day and age, maintaining a system based on profit (acquiring cheaply then selling expensively) and competition (someone has to lose) when this system causes international poverty and abuse?

Muhammad Rasheed - Because when it's left alone it is the little guy... start-ups and consumers... that benefit, and when it is interfered with, it's the most powerful who benefit, by exploiting the little guy.

Ali Rashada - When left alone, there will always be winners and losers (rich and poor), by design of the system. Now it could be argued that this is a facet of life, therefore so be it, but I say when we have the ability to design a system that encompasses the very sustenance and education and health of humans, neglecting to care for EVERYONE when we have the ability and resources, is a sin of unforgivable porportions

Muhammad Rasheed - We will have the ability to care for everyone. Mentioned above, as dictated by our values, creeds and religions. If the economy was booming, the average citizen was economically stable, you don't think we would take care of each other?

That's not the gov's job. It's our job.

Muhammad Rasheed - Politicians don't have that skill. They waste money, and in their effort to create those kinds of programs, they ONLY invite opportunity for corruption.

Ali Rashada - We the people, the government is made up of humans...

Muhammad Rasheed - The government is made up of elitists who think they know your life better than you do.

Muhammad Rasheed - We don't need them making those kinds of decisions; that's a big part of the problem now.

Muhammad Rasheed - Keep your money, and help the people closest to you.

Muhammad Rasheed - Don't delegate that to government officials.

AT LAST! The Destroyer Returns to the Comic Pages

It’s been decades since The Destroyer paperback novel series by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir has graced the comics world with its Sinanju awesomeness, but now true fan M. Rasheed, in partnership with surviving creator Murphy, has unleashed the funny book flood gates.  The award-winning cartoonist brings the quirky, action-packed, ultra-violent, and very fun Men’s Adventure tale to a ten-book, 54 page graphic novel series as only the author of Monsters 101 can! 
Any Destroyer fan will be proud to have this super-set in their collection, featuring brand new stories full of fan-favorite villains, and a special 6 page tale that ends each title with a ‘Scrolls of Sinanju’ journal entry written by some of the greatest masters as they describe a key point of the series' mythology.   These comics will be a great starting point for new readers interested in jumping into the 100+ novel mainstream tales as well!
So start saving your pennies, folks.  TALES OF SINANJU:  The Destroyer  1-10 by M. Rasheed, based on characters created by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir, is coming your way Christmas 2014 exclusively from Second Sight Graphix.
Graphic novels6.14” x 9.21”Perfect binding54 pages, b&w interiorswww.mrasheed.com

QUICK REVIEW: Stephen King's It

"It" was an interdimensional super-monster, probably inspired to a degree by Cthulhu and those Great Old Ones (and possibly as the "yang" to the Christian father/son "yin"). It had two forms: 1)an immortal form called "The Dead Lights" that you couldn't look at without going insane and 2) a mortal, lesser powerful form that It sent to earth to feed. This mortal form also had a "dead lights" core, but this lesser creature was a little more malleable. Instead of driving you insane if you looked at it, your mind would change it into something significantly less horrifying... like your greatest nightmare... as a weak form of self-defense. It feeds on fear, so it didn't care what you transformed it into, the end result would still be the same. You are lunch.

It preferred to feed upon the rich fear produced from the over-active imagination of children, and to bait them it would transform into a clown... and who doesn't love a clown?

This story was intensely well-built, with truly excellent character development and shear terror. This is King's true masterwork.

A Bleak & Dreary Future

I was reading the reviews for the 2009 film The Road, directed by John Hillcoat and based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy.  Despite receiving mostly positive reviews, with a 75% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, it did very poorly at the box office barely clearing $2 million.

I can see why it didn’t do well.  It depicts events after the worst has happened, whether the worst is a nuclear weapon-induced holocaust or an impact from a super meteor is never mentioned, but the sky is perpetually grey, it grows colder and colder as time goes on and there are no animals nor food-bearing plant life.  The food available is whatever scant remains can be found of processed, packaged food left over from the civilization era.  The survivors either slowly starve searching around for this processed treasure, or slowly starve while hunting and eating other humans.  The two protagonists are a desperate man, played by Viggo Mortensen, and his young son walking their way south in hopes that it’ll be a little warmer closer to the equator.  Despite recognizing Mortensen as a sword-fighting badass from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, he’s none of that here.  He’s just a man, scared out of his mind, functioning in raw survival mode as he tries to find some minimum amount of security and comfort for the two while they slowly starve to death.  There are no invincible sword-wielding Denzel Washingtons, no Ken Shiro masters of the Fist of the Northstar martial arts, no young and cocky Mel Gibsons, and not even a charming old scientist with a magic ice crown to protect them.  This is the story of the end of humanity on planet earth, the final days of our species, played 100% straight.  And it absolutely sucks (the story rocks, it's the event that sucks).  It’s dreary, depressing as hell, and absolutely terrifying.  Not a lot of people can handle that material, or would want to.  Like watching the most violent parts of Gibson’s Passion of the Christ or even Braveheart, it’s not for everyone.  And in the case of The Road, where it barely made back its modest $25 million budget, obviously not a lot of people wanted to mentally deal with that subject.


A true horror story ends on a hopeless note.  Especially the horror short story and a movie is definitely a short story.  Hollywood test subject data revealed that audiences don’t like leaving the theater with a feeling of hopelessness, so they always try to kill the monster so that mankind can live happily ever after.  Whenever a stubborn director insists on ending the horror film the way it ended in the original source material (everybody dies, or that thing is still out there) the audiences complain about the ending.  But that’s the nature of “horror.”  The Road is definitely a horror story… the biggest horror story of all, featuring the end of mankind pretty much the way we all expect it will actually end. 

As I read through these negative reviews, I’m struck as usual by the apparent lack of insight, or the lack of even TRYING to understand the story by these worthless professional critics.  Some of them were upset because of the product placement.  But there’s no food left in the world EXCEPT what was packaged in this nigh-indestructible cylinder of steel.  MOST people who buy that stuff go for the brand names.  They do.  So it is completely realistic if, at the end of civilization, if I’m digging around in a beat up, dusty vending machine, and I do luck up and pull a can out of the thing, it will absolutely be a recognizable brand name on it.  Of COURSE it will.  In the context of the story, that isn’t a legitimate critique, it’s a stupid one.  Really.  If I luck up and find a bomb shelter stocked with can goods, what are the chances that those canned goods will feature popular, recognizable brands from the most successful corporations in the world?  Pretty fucking high.  Of COURSE they will.  My only gripe regarding that latter scene came from personal experience.  An old friend of mine was under the impression that canned goods really were indestructible, thinking that the processed food inside would keep forever.  In 2009 I didn’t notice that the cans he had in his pantry had been bought back in our mid-90s college days (or possibly earlier), and the expiration dates had long passed.   I enthusiastically opened a can of fruit cocktail only for a strong metallic stench to come out of it, and there was no color to the food… it had taken on the grey of the can.  So the chances of the canned food within the film’s bomb shelter still being edible were pretty low (it’s possible that the characters really wouldn’t have given a shit though).

Another critic remarked, “…the movie lacks... an underlying sense of innocence, a sense that, however far humanity has sunk, there is at least some chance of rising again."  That’s not a real critique either.  How long a time period was it in between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Rise of America?  A damn long time.  Centuries.  To suggest that your movie isn’t that good because you didn’t mention somewhere in it that “everything will be okay” means that the writer didn’t deserve a public platform, and needs to be putting caps on bottles in Brazil or somewhere, and shut the hell up.  “This fundamentally sad story makes me sad, so you should make it not so sad so I will feel better” is not a critique.  It’s fucking babbling.

Other critics said it was “Nothing, on a vast scale,” “a long, dull slog,” and “doesn't work on its own merits.”

To me the film was a terrifying gut check, and to read such comments was disappointing at best.  Like they just don’t care.  These are supposed to be the folk on the ‘liberal’ side of our society, the ones who say they are against global warming, “Go Green!” et cetera.  To be fair most of the critics DID get it, so to harp on these stupid ones and their impotent “it wasn’t as good as the book” type comments, shouldn’t bother me, but it does.  I feel the same way about it that I feel about the virtual mass media silence regarding the wonderful Open Source Ecology (OSC) movement of Marcin Jakubowski, and in fact there is a link.  I mentioned before that the mastery of all fifty of those machines by every human being on earth should be what is taught in public schools.  Another benefit to that idea is that it would prevent the horror depicted in this movie from happening.  We would all be technologically savvy enough to not only survive those bad times, but to overcome them.  The skills and knowledge needed to build these machines from scratch… I mean REALLY from scratch, i.e., blacksmithing the raw iron ore from scratch… would give us the mental agility to figure our way out of that terrible situation and live again.  I remember in the movie Phenomenon starring John Travolta (it also coincidently had Robert Duval in it just like The Road does), where Travolta’s character built upon some designs where he was able to use a certain type of commercially available light to grow plants in his house… the lamp radiated the same light plants need for photosynthesis.  So if the sun was blocked, we would still be able to grow food and be okay, we wouldn’t have to live the bleak way they were doing in this film.  We grow our great civilizations by the way we think, based on specific types of mental training (mathematics, technology, science), combined with our working together.   We’d be more likely to work together to solve the Most Terrible Problem if we know what to DO.  If we have no idea what to do then we are going to either slowly starve to death looking for stray/hidden cans of Boston baked beans, or kill and eat each other.  If we have the training, and the mental acumen that develops from that training, to problem solve on any scale, then we will work together to start civilization back up and be okay again… hopefully with some hard lessons learned.

A perfect example of this thing is the solar energy concept.  We started half-assed talking about “Going Green!” and finding alternate energy sources that free us from our dependency on petroleum, and in the meanwhile the Germans actually made it happen.





The only talking THEY did was during the problem solving stage WHILE they made it happen.  But the German people have a centuries old reputation for pushing math, tech, science in their children because they recognize that each of us has a responsibility to the entire species and they make sure that they do their part as an ethnicity.  The rest of us need to get on the ball before it’s too late.  If we don't, you know what a very real possible future may look like?  That everyone else will be dead and the Germans alone manage to survive the cataclysm.  So you know all the sci-fi future movies that don't show any brown people in them that you like to bitch about?

Yeah.  Exactly.  Let THAT shit sink in.   GET UP!!!


“I believe that true freedom, the most essential type of freedom, starts with individual ability to use natural resources to free ourselves from material constraints.” ~ Marcin Jakubowski

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIIzo...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPH0G...

Filling a Necessary Need or Making a Fundamental Problem Worse?

As a part of his defense of the middleman minority, Dr. Thomas Sowell points out how many people consider an aspect of what they offer to be a “necessary need” inside of lower class communities that have few alternatives:

“Where customers have been poor, credit has been extended to them at high risk and correspondingly high interest – whether charged separately or included within the price of goods.  Because middleman minorities have typically operated with thinner profit margins per item than their indigenous counterparts, they have had to be very calculating, often with little room for error, and this characteristic may be particularly resented by others who tend to follow tradition or routine, or who seldom look far ahead or exercise much self-discipline.  That is, middleman minorities may be most resented by those most dependent on them to supply the economic requirements which they themselves lack – for example, to save and supply credit for those who do not save.”  ~Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture: A World View

As an example of the typical relationship dynamic he’s talking about, Dr. Sowell quotes this source passage showcasing the Indian middleman minority in the midst of Burmese peasants:   

“The main Chettyar business was to give credit to the paddy farmers.  The Burmese peasant seldom had the instincts of a capitalist.  When he harvested the paddy and sold his crop he liked to have a good time, make a contribution to the pagoda, buy clothes and jewels for his wife – and then just hang on till the next harvest.  Chettyar credit ensured that he could hang on.”

A major part of this item of course is the usury controversy, and Dr. Sowell presents it too as part of the necessary part of doing business in the middleman minority way, and implies that it’s a vital component of providing a necessary service to the economically high-risk lower classes:

“Middleman minorities around the world are often accused of ‘taking advantage’ of other people’s ‘weaknesses,’ such as customers’ buying things on credit that they cannot readily afford.  Equally widespread is the view that middleman minorities are charging ‘usurious’ or ‘unconscionable’ interest rates…”

I agree with Dr. Sowell on all other listed items on the defense of middleman minorities, from their fiscal responsibility, entrepreneurship, a strong sense of family unity, the very high insistence on high education in the next generations, their highly-admirable qualities of sacrificing the immediate to ensure success later… all of these are more than worthy of immolation.  But I completely disagree with the concept of them enriching themselves by exploiting the ignorance of the poor on matters of monetary responsibility.  The holy books of the major world religions have strong edicts against the charging of usury, all labeling the practice a sin and it wasn’t until Dr. Sowell described it in this way that I began to really see why it would be.

Being “poor” by its nature is an undesirable state, a state of not having enough, of restricted opportunity, of being on the bottom of the societal class hierarchy, of being defenseless by way of limited options in life, and an unenviable desperately survivalist lifestyle.    The missing ingredient that can elevate the poor from these conditions isn’t money, it’s knowledge.  Or more specifically, the applied knowledge that through practice develops into valuable skills.  A poor person who now has the knowledge/skills to repair complex technological equipment, will not be poor for long.  A poor person who has been trained to develop the self-discipline to live beneath his means and save a portion of his meager income until he has enough to finance the beginnings of a long-term plan, will also not be poor for long.   The lack of those very traits that enable the middleman minority to enjoy the fruits of prosperity from their knowledge of the techniques of fiscal responsibility, are why the poor are poor.  They are poor for a lack of knowledge, and their lifestyle is all they know.   They are often confused at the success of other groups, not realizing that success comes from an application of knowledge and skill in those areas, and they grow resentful  at a sense of unfairness born from the false idea that these other groups are successful because they are innately monetarily superior, as opposed to trained to be so.

So if they want to pay for something that they cannot afford, and there are no other means available to get it, they will have to save… to learn how to save… in order to acquire that item.   The practice of doing so every time they need something will develop a potent valuable skill that is a foundational tool of wealth-building.

But if an outsider provides an easy out that prevents them from having the motivation to practice the valuable skill of saving, then it will effectively keep them poor, and in fact encourage them to be poor if that easy out, such as a high interest loan, actually makes their problems worse than they were by putting them in debt.     I think it is very wrong to do this, to build your own wealth on the weaknesses of others, absolutely.  These false opportunities that the middleman minorities offer the poor are only traps that give them a temporary sense of relief but actually make their impoverishment worse.  Having very little is one thing, but having a long-term or permanent debt over you as well is something else entirely.    The bottom-line is that the middleman minority possesses the knowledge and the self-discipline to save and build up capital to increase their economic opportunities, and they charge the poor for the use of the fruits of these skills, getting in the way of the poor developing these skills themselves by necessity, and thus helping keep them in poverty.  Putting systems in poor communities that will prevent them from coming up with better solutions – solutions that history has shown will force them to come together to solve – by preying upon their lack of knowledge and the normal trait of a desperate person looking for an easy out, should absolutely be a sin.