Re: Heidi: donations was: Party lines

[Guest guest]

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I really don't have the time to get into this argument, but it's simply

inaccurate to characterize the NAZIs as socialists. They took over the

previously-existing socialist party, but they were in no way socialists.

>They were _nationalists_, and _socialists_.

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[Guest guest]

In a message dated 12/12/03 8:16:48 PM Eastern Standard Time,

liberty@... writes:

> Why have we consistenly through the ages sought better and

> better technology to improve our lives if there was never

> any want to begin with?

Not everyone has. I think agriculture in many ways made life miserable, and

technology is better than *that*. But hunter-gatherers who live in abundance

sometimes have no desire to change their lives. In particular because they

have vastly more leisure time than the rest of us. When one of the San was

asked why, if they knew about agriculture and traded and communicated with

neighboring tribes who used agriculture, didn't they develop it themselves, he

responded, " Why should we when there are all these mongongo nuts everywhere? "

Chris

[Guest guest]

----- Original Message -----

From: " Idol " <Idol@...>

> I really don't have the time to get into this argument, but it's

simply

> inaccurate to characterize the NAZIs as socialists. They took over

the

> previously-existing socialist party, but they were in no way

socialists.

When the government controls the economy and the means of production,

you have socialism, regardless of whether nominal private ownership is

retained. I think Hitler himself put it best:

" Of what importance is all that, if I range men firmly within a

discipline they cannot escape? Let them own land or factories as much as

they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party,

is supreme over them regardless of whether they are owners or workers.

All that is unessential; our socialism goes far deeper. It establishes a

relationship of the individual to the State, the national community. Why

need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human

beings. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

In pointing this out, I am not trying to imply any sort of guilt by

association for democratic socialists, only to set the record straight,

and to demonstrate how absurd any comparison between libertarianism and

Nazism is.

[Guest guest]

>Not everyone has. I think agriculture in many ways made life miserable, and

>technology is better than *that*. But hunter-gatherers who live in abundance

>sometimes have no desire to change their lives. In particular because they

>have vastly more leisure time than the rest of us.

There seems to be some evidence that the Aborigines of Australia did,

at one time in history, grow yams. Then they stopped. Because of the

weather? Or did they just decide it was too much work?

I personally still believe in the " beer theory " -- agriculture allows the

growing of grains, which allows fermentation and alchohol. Alchohol

is desirable. The first thing the Bounty mutineers did, when they

got their own island and their own women to work for them, was

to make a still and get drunk, (which eventually led to them killing

each other off, mind you -- but beer is less potent than distilled

alchohol).

-- Heidi