profile - the circus

Member since Sunday, 9 March 2014
Last visited on Thursday, 28 March 2024

the circus has posted 26 entries , 485 comments, has a karma score of 145.79 and has moderated other users +100 Interesting .

the circus has this to say
Oh man, so much stuff lost!

the circus said @ 12:41am GMT on 18th Dec - moderate/reply
If I leverage some putz into laboring for me because I am in a stronger position and he is in a weaker position, am I not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

profetscott said @ 6:50pm GMT on 16th Dec [Score:4 Underrated] - moderate/reply
I have heard this thing,"Into the hands of those that won't work" for pretty much all my life. The phrase is so well known that most people take it for granted, that is a "truth". Then I think of people that I have known, come into contact with. Even people that I'm just being told about that someone knows. I have met a few that "Won't work". Pretty much confined to the ranks of drug addicts, and people with mental-emotional difficulties. Now I have met people that are on some type of assistance that do other things when possible, cut and sell ferns and other plants with a value, sell aluminun cans or other scrap, day work. Then there are those that sell drugs, or deal in stolen merchandise. I don't see any big population out there that won't work. Might not be work that is good for society as a whole. May not be work that is a way to make a regular income, but from my own observations over a pretty long period of time, I have yet to find this large population that won't work.

That's also why the left, right, liberty, tyranny type political spectrum chart I see every once in a while is BS. People in groups organize in a range from equality at one end to hierarchy at the other. In more political terms, that means ranging from democracy to aristocracy (oligarchy). So the real range is from equality/democracy/cooperation to hierarchy/aristocracy/oligarchy. The freedom to ignore others is had by ranking above people on the hierarchy end of the spectrum. And then the "opposite" (tyranny, being able to tell people what to do) is also had by ranking above people at the hierarchy end of the spectrum. So both ends of their spectrum are the joys of ranking above people in a hierarchy, having to cooperate with equal others is hell, and ranking below others in a hierarch is literally unthinkable, even if that's exactly the case.

http://www.sensibleerection.com/comment.php/88857/2182354
ithaqua10 said @ 12:57am GMT on 20th Oct [Score:5 Underrated] - moderate/reply
To be honest I don\'t think this was about health insurance or religion. I think it was to hold the proverbial gun to the head, and once again force cuts to Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Social Security is paid for from our Paychecks, it is not paid for out of other taxes and would be self sufficient, if they would stop trying to raid it, and then cut it so they don\'t have to pay back what they borrow. It is a large pile of money basically sitting in a savings account collecting interest to cover future payments. If this group were Christian, and actually followed the principles of Christ and the bible, they would be expanding these programs not cutting them. This is about a small group with huge amounts of money that would rather keep people uneducated, and underpaid, distracted with reality show bullshit, so that they can continue to stockpile wealth.

The 1% are addicts just as much as your local crackhead/Methmouth. Instead of drugs they are addicted to accumulating wealth and will rob whoever and whatever they can to get it, just like the junkie who steals your TV.

joju82 said @ 7:23am GMT on 27th Jun [Score:1 Interesting] - moderate/reply

Mark 7 (Which most Christians use to debunk the hypocrisy of modern amenities in the way of foods) has this most interesting turn of phrase:

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, �Why don�t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?�

He replied, �Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

�?�These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.�
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.�

Marriage vs. Tradition

Isn't that an apt quote from the source itself? I thought so too.
KingPellinore said @ 1:12pm GMT on 27th Jun - moderate/reply
Hell, I'd just be happy if more Christians followed Matthew6:5-8

"5 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."

In other words, Jesus says shut the hell up and stop praying in public for attention. Jesus hates it when people are all, like, "Oh, look at MEEEEEE, I'm such an AWESOME CHRISTIAN! Myeh myeh myeh!"

######################################################

Pardon me if the numbers aren't quite right here, but when the Constitutional US began there were about 100 people total in all 3 branches of federal goverment, and about 4 million people. Break that down to 1 federal representative for every 40,000 people. Nowadays it's 545 members for a population of 312 million. That's 1 federal representative for every 575,000 people, roughly. Some dictatorships have a better ratio of representation than this.

The money situation (how much the federal government spends, and how much the federal government has influence over) has increased even more exponentially (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_United_States) . The problem is, the greater (worse?) these ratios get, the more dilute the effect of voting in a representational government gets.

In 1790, the adjusted GDP (and adjusted for inflation) was 3.6 billion. That works out to each federal representative influencing 1/100 of that GDP, or 36 million. In 2006, the adjusted GDP was 11.3 trillion. With only 545 federal representatives that means each influences 1/545 or 20.77 billion dollars of the GDP. So while a contemporary representative represents more than 14 times as many people as original representatives, a contemporary representative influences 577 times as much money. In fact, every contemporary federal representative influences more than five times the amount of money the entire government had influence over in the 1790's.

And, this is on track to keep getting worse, and that getting worse is moving in the opposite direction of what it should be. With increasing wealth, time, and technology, people should be able to have more direct influence over the government, not less. Each representative should be representing fewer people and less money as time goes by, not more. We keep bringing up symptoms, but this is the single biggest cause of oligarchy, in my opinion.






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