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I think the US Constitution / Bill of Rights is great. I am in favour of free speech and the right to protect myself, for example. These are in accordance with Natural Law, i.e. rights that do not impose a burden of action on other people. It should work well in a country founded by people opposed to tyranny of the monarchy. Will it work everywhere? I don't think so and would say places where they try to force it, it has been a disaster. What I might consider to be good policy many people in the world would not. I consider myself quite libertarian but that doesn't mean I think all peoples' want the same.
I do not believe that there will be - let's say for sake of argument the next 1000 years - a set of norms of behaviour that would be considered acceptable to 95+% world-wide. This is one reason why there should be borders and strict limits of who should live here.
Ok so Tom I have some questions ... as you know, the USA has been described as a "melting pot" of world cultures and peoples. If all these peoples and cultures can abide and live under the U.S. Constitution within USA, why then cannot that system be worldwide? After all, the system allows for freedom of religion and free speech and cultural differences.
Why should any individual country be "appeased" to be able to live under it's own system? Especially the systems that stifle freedoms?
Again, I am not advocating one-world government. But if the U.S. Constitution was a worldwide standard, and countries could add on to it but NOT subtract from it, wouldn't this be a good thing?
We might even improve on it.
I keep thinking of the Star Trek universe, set in the 24th century, in which war between humans on Earth or anywhere else was supposedly abolished. How could this happen? Perhaps a mankind-agreed to a standard like the U.S. Constitution but improved by trial and error.
I think the US Constitution / Bill of Rights is great. I am in favour of free speech and the right to protect myself, for example. These are in accordance with Natural Law, i.e. rights that do not impose a burden of action on other people. It should work well in a country founded by people opposed to tyranny of the monarchy. Will it work everywhere? I don't think so and would say places where they try to force it, it has been a disaster. What I might consider to be good policy many people in the world would not. I consider myself quite libertarian but that doesn't mean I think all peoples' want the same.
I do not believe that there will be - let's say for sake of argument the next 1000 years - a set of norms of behaviour that would be considered acceptable to 95+% world-wide. This is one reason why there should be borders and strict limits of who should live here.
Thank you, Tom.
It would indeed be the easiest for the borders between the countries to disappear if everyone supports strict and rapid enforcement of the Natural Law, and accepts the simplicity of Libertarianism
Last edited by Dilip Panjwani; Sunday, 22nd June, 2025, 10:10 AM.
In theory it is a melting pot. Over the last decade or so things seem to be changing for the worse ...
Thousands of illegals flying Mexican flags in the US. They love Mexico but they live in the US because they make more money there. The US is an economic zone to them.
On the Right, Sen. Ted Cruz has this incredible admission at about the 32-minute mark, where he basically says he came into office to be the leading defender of Israel in the US Senate.
If a person has an allegiance to any country other than the country they are representing, they should not be eligible for office. There is no room for divided loyalties. I think the same of citizenship. I do not think anyone should be allowed dual citizenships.
You cannot have a melting pot of cultures that hate each other, or which hate the country they are coming to. Which is why people who bring these problems to our countries should not be allowed here.
It is interesting that you are willing for this sort of trial and error to exist when implementing government policies but appeared to me to be almost offended when I suggested exactly this as one of the mechanisms that made capitalism relatively successful. Trying and failing in any arena is the precursor to trying and succeeding. Whether in businesses, governments, or individual achievements.
Ok so Tom I have some questions ... as you know, the USA has been described as a "melting pot" of world cultures and peoples. If all these peoples and cultures can abide and live under the U.S. Constitution within USA, why then cannot that system be worldwide? After all, the system allows for freedom of religion and free speech and cultural differences.
Why should any individual country be "appeased" to be able to live under it's own system? Especially the systems that stifle freedoms?
Again, I am not advocating one-world government. But if the U.S. Constitution was a worldwide standard, and countries could add on to it but NOT subtract from it, wouldn't this be a good thing?
We might even improve on it.
I keep thinking of the Star Trek universe, set in the 24th century, in which war between humans on Earth or anywhere else was supposedly abolished. How could this happen? Perhaps a mankind-agreed to a standard like the U.S. Constitution but improved by trial and error.
Last edited by Tom O'Donnell; Sunday, 22nd June, 2025, 12:20 PM.
"Tom is a well known racist, and like most of them he won't admit it, possibly even to himself." - Ed Seedhouse, October 4, 2020.
On the Right, Sen. Ted Cruz has this incredible admission at about the 32-minute mark, where he basically says he came into office to be the leading defender of Israel in the US Senate.
If a person has an allegiance to any country other than the country they are representing, they should not be eligible for office. There is no room for divided loyalties. I think the same of citizenship. I do not think anyone should be allowed dual citizenships.
Ted Cruz's and Ilhan Omar's priorities are obviously shared by a large number of American citizens who voted them to power. However, we would not have to worry about these 'divided loyalties' if USA was truly Libertarian, enforcing the Natural Law...
If American citizens with divided loyalties use their own money and time to help citizens of other countries, it is just a 'charity' scenario.
Last edited by Dilip Panjwani; Tuesday, 24th June, 2025, 05:09 PM.
The View of Democratic Marxism - The Policy - Evolution of Society to a "Collection of Villages".
How to?:
Step 1 - a. Each province/state of a country should devolve all its powers possible to a structure of city-states within it.
b. The provincial/state government level should become the Secretariat of the Association of City States of the Province X. This is necessary to work with the federal country province/state system in the transition period.
Step # 2 - The Federal Government devolves its powers to the country's now "Collection of Villages". It becomes the Secretariat of the Federal Association of City States of Country Y. This is necessary to work with a world nation system in the transition period.
Step # 3 - When all nations on the planet have done this, then the nations can dissolve themselves to evolve the planet's society into "A Collection of Villages", each village run by direct democracy voting (Now possible due to communication technology).
Issue: Which province/state is willing to go first?
Ontario Answer: Under the Province of Ontario Government by the elected Democratic Marxist Party of Ontario (Exists and has a Fb Page).
The View of Democratic Marxism - The Policy - Evolution of Society to a "Collection of Villages".
Step # 3 - When all nations on the planet have done this, then the nations can dissolve themselves to evolve the planet's society into "A Collection of Villages", each village run by direct democracy voting
Bob Armstrong (Democratic Marxist).
Would work only if the voting is not allowed to violate the Natural Law or Libertarianism....otherwise the have-nots, defined as earning less than the 49th percentile, will vote to steal from those earning more than the 49th percentile, and only corruption and chaos will be generated as a result of theft becoming the norm....
Would work only if the voting is not allowed to violate the Natural Law or Libertarianism....otherwise the have-nots, defined as earning less than the 49th percentile, will vote to steal from those earning more than the 49th percentile, and only corruption and chaos will be generated as a result of theft becoming the norm....
Well then, why don't you just take the vote away from the under-49ers. Those useless bastards don't deserve to have the vote, is that what you're saying, Dilip? It sounds like your **Natural Law** doesn't think much of those who, for whatever reason, inhabit the bottom rungs of society even though many (most?) of these people are working as hard as they can just to survive using the limited abilities life and nature gave them. If the under-49ers are such a concern for libertarians then why don't they have a policy that calls for euthanizing them? Oh wait, then some of the 49-and-overs would have to get their hands dirty doing society's drudge work. Maybe in the libertarian world the under-49ers should be a permanent untouchable caste who would be assigned food and living quarters in exchange for work and whose breeding would be tightly controlled. Sounds to me, Dilip, like your version of libertarianism is a bust.
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
Well then, why don't you just take the vote away from the under-49ers. Those useless bastards don't deserve to have the vote, is that what you're saying, Dilip? It sounds like your **Natural Law** doesn't think much of those who, for whatever reason, inhabit the bottom rungs of society even though many (most?) of these people are working as hard as they can just to survive using the limited abilities life and nature gave them. If the under-49ers are such a concern for libertarians then why don't they have a policy that calls for euthanizing them? Oh wait, then some of the 49-and-overs would have to get their hands dirty doing society's drudge work. Maybe in the libertarian world the under-49ers should be a permanent untouchable caste who would be assigned food and living quarters in exchange for work and whose breeding would be tightly controlled. Sounds to me, Dilip, like your version of libertarianism is a bust.
Thank you Peter. I love your post. I too find Dilip's lecturing about the haves and have nots to be disturbingly offensive.
The 51% majority are wonderful individuals.... so long as they do not want to steal from the 49% minority by using their majority vote....
To paraphrase John Kenneth Galbraith: Under capitalism and communism, man exploits man. Under libertarianism, it's just the opposite.
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
To paraphrase John Kenneth Galbraith: Under capitalism and communism, man exploits man. Under libertarianism, it's just the opposite.
Under Capitalism and Marxism, politicians govern corruptly to enable man to harm man. Under Libertarianism, politicians only enforce the Natural Law to prevent man from harming man...
Hold on there Dilip. I see what you're doing, trying to pit the 51% vs the 49%.
Not buying it, most of the 51% and the 49% are wonderful people, it is the top 1% or fraction of a percent, that is grabbing a greater share of the wealth for themselves.
In the process, most of the 99% are getting short changed, not receiving their fair share.
Even some of the 1% are wonderful people, are charitable and empathetic, but a fraction of that 1% actually believe they deserve more.
So Dilip, stop moving the goal posts. Forget this silly notion of haves and have nots, 49% vs 51%, the real divide is between the ridiculously wealthy 1% short changing the 99%.
As I can see, Libertarianism only makes the gap larger.
Hold on there Dilip. I see what you're doing, trying to pit the 51% vs the 49%.
Not buying it, most of the 51% and the 49% are wonderful people, it is the top 1% or fraction of a percent, that is grabbing a greater share of the wealth for themselves.
In the process, most of the 99% are getting short changed, not receiving their fair share.
Even some of the 1% are wonderful people, are charitable and empathetic, but a fraction of that 1% actually believe they deserve more.
So Dilip, stop moving the goal posts. Forget this silly notion of haves and have nots, 49% vs 51%, the real divide is between the ridiculously wealthy 1% short changing the 99%.
As I can see, Libertarianism only makes the gap larger.
Let us understand the nature of this top 1%: Most of their wealth is actually working day in and day out to sustain the economy from which the 99% legitimately benefit. The actual money which the top 1% spend on themselves is not very much, and even if this latter amount is snatched away from them and distributed to the rest, it will be pennies that the 99% will get...
The other aspect is that the ultra-rich can 'buy' the politicians with their wealth and make them take unfair steps / create unfair laws, that enable the ultra-rich to keep on exploitingly increasing their wealth. In Libertarianism, the politicians would not have the power to indulge in such corruption.
The other aspect of Libertarianism is its ability to generate competition which will divide the top 1% wealth amongst a much larger percentage, and create a bigger need for 'workers', which will enrich even those not at the top...
The bottom line is that everyone who does smart and hard work should benefit according to what they have chosen to do, and the market forces are the best determinant of that. The decency and love and brotherhood/sisterhood within the inner 'circles' can look after the disabled and the unfortunate (not the stupid or the lazy)... we all have personally experienced the pride and satisfaction we experience when we provide such help within our circles...
Last edited by Dilip Panjwani; Thursday, 26th June, 2025, 03:16 AM.
You cannot have a melting pot of cultures that hate each other, or which hate the country they are coming to. Which is why people who bring these problems to our countries should not be allowed here.
Extreme left and extreme right in USA hate each other, are you saying we cannot have this? But it has been happening for many generations and it has been ok because we've had basically centrist governments who rule over all 50 states. And so far no state has seceded.
Therefore we can indeed have cultures that hate each other in the same manner in the same USA melting pot. The problem is that some individuals try to fan the flames of hatred, i.e. increase divisiveness. Trump would be a pirme example of this.
It is interesting that you are willing for this sort of trial and error to exist when implementing government policies but appeared to me to be almost offended when I suggested exactly this as one of the mechanisms that made capitalism relatively successful. Trying and failing in any arena is the precursor to trying and succeeding. Whether in businesses, governments, or individual achievements.
No, I dont think I said capitalism cannot have its trial and error process, what I'm saying is that capitalism will never care about the improvement of society, it cares only about the individual, and the individual improvement does not lead to societal improvement. For societal improvement, we need government.
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