Occupy Wallstreet

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

I'm only going to comment on this specific quote because I literally just finished smoking a joint - no intention of derailing, or arguing etc.



That's a whole other can of worms, though.

George Carlin put it best: man doesn't have rights by birth, you have privileges.

I don't think the "pursuit of happiness" is a right. Anything that is conditional is not a right. Rights are things like Free Speech, Free Religion, Free Sexuality. Those are rights.

If the only rights man has are given to him by other men, then men can take them away without repudiation. Unalienable (misspelling corrected) rights (based on natural law) are the only rights we really have, because man cannot give them or justly take them away. Understanding this concept is a lot easier if you believe in a creator.

Also, how is pursuit of happiness conditional? It guarantees you the right to pursue your own joy, and reflexively prohibits you (or the government) from inhibiting anyone else from that pursuit (eliminating acts against others as a route to happiness). Now there are a lot of ways to interpret our unalienable rights, but that was intentional.

Also, these rights are identified in the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution, so they remain more a natural law than a human law.

[Typhoid]

I constantly feel the need to make it clear I'm not maliciously arguing - just keeping a conversation going. You know, just for the record and all.

Also, how is pursuit of happiness conditional? It guarantees you the right to pursue your own joy, and reflexively prohibits you (or the government) from inhibiting anyone else from that pursuit (eliminating acts against others as a route to happiness). Now there are a lot of ways to interpret our inalienable rights, but that was intentional.

You cannot pursue happiness, unless it is in the confines of the law. That is not Freedom. That's a guideline.

You can however love who you want, believe what you want, and say what you want. On our continent, or at least Canada and the US - those are the only true "Birth Rights" we have. But even then, those "Birth Rights" were given to us by normal men, who decided it was a good idea.

You don't have the birth right to be happy. You have the birth right to be whomever you want to be, and attempt to find what makes you happy within the confines of the law.

If the only rights man has are given to him by other men, then men can take them away without repudiation.

(That's essentially why I quoted George Carlin and said "man does not have rights, he has privileges".)

Our North American rights (The Free Speech/Religion/Love) mean absolutely nothing to some leaders in other parts of the world.

And hell, even in the US I don't think you're legally allowed to be gay and get married in most places. Score a point for Freedom. Freedom to marry who you want as long as a group of likeminded people approve the person you're marrying.

The Freedom to publicly worship whoever you want, unless it's Satan, or Mohammad.
The Freedom to publicly say what you want, unless it's racist or sexist.

I'm not saying Canada is better than the US in this case. It's all the same boat. I'm just not a fan of the whole "Freedom this, Freedom that."
We're only as free as the leaders we elect, and their committee of friends allow us to be.

Edit: And I'm aware I sort of contradicted myself with the "I believe these are the only true birth rights we have" and ending with "We don't have Freedom". I was stating what I believe we SHOULD have as birth rights (and do) - I just felt like ending with the realism that we don't have Freeom. We only have Freedom because the rest of the world is so fucking oppressed compared to us(North America). That doesn't mean we're Free. It just means we're less oppressed.

[Bond]

Typhoid, I understand your personal view on the issue of rights, but you do know western philosophical thought is founded on a separation between natural (unalienable) rights and legal rights, right? Natural rights exist outside the legal system -- they are timeless and cannot be taken away (as in they were not given by man, so they were not given by the legal system). Legal rights are given by man and hence fall under the legal system. Our declaration of independence, constitution, and really any english common law document is founded on this principle.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

I constantly feel the need to make it clear I'm not maliciously arguing - just keeping a conversation going. You know, just for the record and all.

And I'm conversating.

You cannot pursue happiness, unless it is in the confines of the law. That is not Freedom. That's a guideline.

You can however love who you want, believe what you want, and say what you want. On our continent, or at least Canada and the US - those are the only true "Birth Rights" we have. But even then, those "Birth Rights" were given to us by normal men, who decided it was a good idea.

You don't have the birth right to be happy. You have the birth right to be whomever you want to be, and attempt to find what makes you happy within the confines of the law.

I don't think we disagree on this. I never said you had the right to be happy. You have the right to pursue happiness. There are no guarantees.

As for laws, you are talking about human laws. I am talking about natural laws; those that should be maintained outside of government fought to the death to maintain. See: Thomas Equinas

Edit: And I'm aware I sort of contradicted myself with the "I believe these are the only true birth rights we have" and ending with "We don't have Freedom". I was stating what I believe we SHOULD have as birth rights (and do) - I just felt like ending with the realism that we don't have Freedom. We only have Freedom because the rest of the world is so fucking oppressed compared to us(North America). That doesn't mean we're Free. It just means we're less oppressed.

I thought we agreed more than we disagreed. I would also make the difference between Freedom and Liberty. Total freedom is anarchy. IMO, Liberty is Freedom limited to protect others' rights to pursue happiness.

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
Oliver Wendell Holmes

[Dylflon]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

And you voted for....Obama, right?

Sorry, I forgot which American politician you rely on.

That is joke, comrade.

Despite the jokingness, I kinda believe now that it doesn't matter which politician is in power when the system is broken. I'd still rather it be Obama than a Republican candidate, but I think we've witnessed now that hope for change doesn't really lead to results when the political machine fights change every step of the way.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Dylflon

Despite the jokingness, I kinda believe now that it doesn't matter which politician is in power when the system is broken. I'd still rather it be Obama than a Republican candidate, but I think we've witnessed now that hope for change doesn't really lead to results when the political machine fights change every step of the way.

Agreed.

Btw, thank you for replying to this thread and moving the focus back to why people are protesting opposed to why people don't like how this partictular protest is being handled. I was about to lose my mind reading the first couple pages of people basically quoting the mainstream media trying to downplay the effectiveness and misreprsent the character of the people who are at occupy wallstreet.

The fact that we're even having this discussion proves that it is effective.

As for offering solutions to the problems, that's what representatives are there for. Not everyone is going to have answers for how to fix what's broken in the system as it is today. The point is to bring attention to the fact that the system IS broken. Eventually with enough public support (in theory) there should be a politician who comes out and represents these people who feel like the system is broken, and who tries to get voted in to actually fix it.

Right now, all we can do is hope that the system can still be fixed by non violent means. But if it can't be, people need to be ready to do what they have to do. That's how the country was built to begin with.

[Bond]

Originally Posted by TheGame

Btw, thank you for replying to this thread and moving the focus back to why people are protesting opposed to why people don't like how this partictular protest is being handled. I was about to lose my mind reading the first couple pages of people basically quoting the mainstream media trying to downplay the effectiveness and misreprsent the character of the people who are at occupy wallstreet.

Where in this thread has anyone quoted the mainstream media?

As for offering solutions to the problems, that's what representatives are there for. Not everyone is going to have answers for how to fix what's broken in the system as it is today. The point is to bring attention to the fact that the system IS broken. Eventually with enough public support (in theory) there should be a politician who comes out and represents these people who feel like the system is broken, and who tries to get voted in to actually fix it.

What is the "system?" No one can fix the "system" if it's an abstract idea.

I would like to engage in a serious discussion on serious issues. I brought up increasing inequality on page one and cited real data, but no one continued the discussion. Let's talk about specific problems facing our country and then discuss solutions to them.

[Typhoid]

Let's talk about specific problems facing our country and then discuss solutions to them.

But it's so much easier just to make signs and wave your fingers in the air.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Bond

Let's talk about specific problems facing our country and then discuss solutions to them.

I'm not sure my contribution will meet your guidelines, but I think the issue at hand is as much a philosophical problem as a policy problem. We lay our futures at the feet of others expecting all our problems to be swept away in a cleansing wave of altruism. In reality, we have provided those that would rig the system for their own interests with the means to do so.

The greatest myth we need to overcome is the myth that our collective future is somehow controllable by a select few elected officials. The greatest and most productive social and economic systems known to man simply come into existence without some grand plan. See: Spontaneous Orders



Now even though this is a free-market principle, and I am not a 100% free marketer, but I think can see what happens when we layer thousands of pages of tax law and regulations (or unequal deregulation*) on top of the marketplace: Rampant corruption (government and industry) and a severely uneven playing field.

Currently taxes and regulations are constructed in a way that prevents new personal wealth (progressive taxes, estate taxes, etc.), upward mobility, and consolidates power.

But the great lie is that we can somehow wave a magic wand of regulations and new taxes to fix our problems. These ideas are how we GOT HERE. If bashing your skull with a hammer is giving you a headache, you can fix it by hitting yourself HARDER.

At first I thought our main problem was arrogance, but looking harder I think our main problem is a feeling of impotence and lack of self-esteem; that we can't possibly control our own lives and culture. We are too stupid and weak. That we need to select others to control these processes for us. Meanwhile, these select few only beat us down more, and we seem to respond "thank you sir... may I have another?"

What we complain about in society are the spontaneous orders that have grown BECAUSE to our rejection of personal responsibility and collective self-loathing. There is no grand conspiracy; no shadow government or unknowable force or evil political party oppressing us. We have gotten exactly what we asked for.

How to fix it? Until we start asking for responsibility, instead of giving it away, I don't imagine anything will change (we'll still have good economies and bad economies, but the imbalance will remain).


*Many blame the current economic crisis on a lack of regulation over the mortgage and financial industry, but the truth is this industry was a remains one of the most highly regulated in the country. What no one asks is WHAT sectors were over-regulated, what sectors were deregulated, and what sectors WEREN'T REGULATED AT ALL. Example: Many hedge funds were allowed to run without any government oversight at all during the 90's and much of the 00's (maybe still today). They brought in record profits, and record investment. This is an uneven playing field and an unnatural imbalance consolidating massive amounts of investment $. IMO, unnatural economic systems are deadly whether through selective regulation, or selective deregulation.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Bond

What is the "system?" No one can fix the "system" if it's an abstract idea.

I would like to engage in a serious discussion on serious issues. I brought up increasing inequality on page one and cited real data, but no one continued the discussion. Let's talk about specific problems facing our country and then discuss solutions to them.

Have you not read the 22 declarations (well 23 now) of occupy wall street?

http://www.thetruthdenied.com/news/2...new-york-city/

“As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, formerly… divided by the color of our skin, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or lack thereof, political party and cultural background, we acknowledge the reality: that there is only one race, the human race, and our survival requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their brethren; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

1.They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
2.They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give CEO’s exorbitant bonuses.
3.They have perpetuated gender inequality and discrimination in the workplace.
4.They have poisoned the food supply, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
5.They have continuously sought to end the rights of workers to negotiate their pay and make complaints about the safety of their workplace.
6.They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
7.They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
8.They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
9.They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
10.They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
11.They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
12.They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
13.They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
14.They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
15.They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
16.They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
17.They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty book keeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
18.They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
19.They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
20.They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
21.They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.
22.They have participated in a directly racist action by accepting the contract from the State of Georgia to murder Troy Davis.
23.They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
To the people of the world: We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power. Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy: We offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!”

Agree or disagree all you would like, but these are people who are looking for representation.

Obama, congress, and the mainstream media are all a product of this broken system. So don't expect them to do anything except try to bury this.

To answer your first question, the media's strategy to get around discussing the actual issues that drive the protest is to focus on how people are going about the protest wrong and/or characterize the participants as a confused angry mob. That's basically what I got from the first couple pages of this thread. What I quoted has been out there since the end of September, and you still will catch the media acting like people are protesting with no purpose.

Before you can start working on a solution for a problem, you have to first recognize that there is a problem. And when it comes to politics, you need to show your representatives that there's a lot of support out there for trying to fix the problem. So now we have a whole list of issues that people can take a stance on for the 2012 elections. Obama, product of the current broken system, will have no opinion on this. Don't expect a republican to either. You're only allowed to be against it, or not have an opinion if you want the big doners.

#13 and #14 on the list are the biggest issues to me. I think once those issues are resolved, it would take a lot of pressure off for resolving the other ones.

[Bond]

Well, I'd be happy to engage with you on certain or each of the 23 points listed in the Occupy executive summary.

The first thing that stands out to me in this declaration is that it blames everything (all 23 points) on corporations. That doesn't seem rather rational to me. Our economic, political, and social structures are complex, interwoven, and most of all, complicated. To blame the entirety of our woes on corporations is disingenuous at best. But I will digress, and try to not judge this manifesto by its opening, but rather by its substance.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Bond

To blame the entirety of our woes on corporations is disingenuous at best.

This is why I think #13 and #14 are the biggest issues. I'd also place #8 up there, and #18 to an extent. They make for an incentive structure that's built to cater to the corperations.

-EDIT-

With the above said, can you give an example of something that's not a corperation's fault? I mean, you could blame the government, but their financial incentives to get into office come from large corperations. You could blame the media for not covering things fully/honestly, but they also have financial incentive to feed the corperations. You could blame your average citizens for not stepping up, but they're mis informed by both their government and media and it usually bends their opinion into something that supports large corperations more than themselves.

This is why Occupy Wall Street is nessicary, because trying to get change in a broken system without making a scene doesn't seem to be possible nowadays.

I mean, listen to yourself on the first page: "Well... it's certainly an interesting movement, but without point or purpose, I don't see it going far. There have been comparisons to the tea party, but I doubt it will have a similar political impact."

The 23 declearations have been out there 2 months... and not once was your media or government honest enough to tell you that THIS is the purpose of the movement?? (I'm not going to say none of the big 3 ever mentioned it, but I guarantee the ratio is probably 1:100 or more for times the declarations were mentionned vs the times it was mentioned that this movement has no meaningful purpose) And this movement is much bigger than the Tea Party one, MUCH bigger. Yet it's so under played that it makes one wonder if corperations are really in favor of the tea party movement on some level.

[Professor S]

Update: Philadelphia occupiers were evicted from Dilworth Plaza this morning after three warnings to leave. No incidents of violence, but there were many arrests when protesters refuse to vacate the streets and move to other common areas. Apparently clean-up took several hours using bulldozers and fire hoses. Again, protesters have the right to protest, but not to do this...

[TheGame]

http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_ne...r-defense-bill

The legislation also would deny suspected terrorists, even U.S. citizens seized within the nation's borders, the right to trial and subject them to indefinite detention.

Why would something like this pass so easilly in the senate? And why now?

[Seth]

Explains why Obama is opposed to the bill.
I can't believe people can imitate the message that we are somehow in a moral position to get rid of tyrancy in middle eastern countries.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28055


Also, hopefully Ron Paul will win so that either a) he absolves the Federal Reserve, private printing of debt-attached currency in America, or b) he will be put on a 'hit' and his martyrdom will inspire the millions needed to incite change.
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1459/...Candidate.html

It wasn't until 1933 that 'feder reserve' became printed on currency.