is this board for the left-wing only?

[norton ash]

The Chicago Blackhawks won the cup. For shorten. (hic) Even though nobody saw the goal.

And I dunno, I guess Riddler's congratulating us for our quality of life or something.

[JackRiddler]

No, the inspiring Olympic victory. I hadn't got around to that yet.

[Stephen Morgan]

Stephen, are you on any prescription medications?

Would you consider them?

Because what you're saying here is just plain nuts.

Oh, no, I wouldn't taint my precious bodily fluids with the happy pills. I possess a book, in fact, by a self proclaimed member of the psychiatric inmates liberation movement, I'm convinced of the lack of utility in psychiatric medication.

it's just a hypothetical, no different than speculating "what if" the Native Americans had destroyed all European ships on sight. it certainly would have changed a lot.

I don't think they had the technological ability to destroy clinker built oceanic shipping. Dug out canoes, no real siege engines, stone tipped arrows the only ranged weapons, apart from atl atls.

We shoulda killed off those first babies with opposable thumbs, too.

Makes sense, man! We weren't around back then. Not unless you've perfected time travel without telling us. Perfected. I saw a woman in a tee shirt the other day and the shirt said "parfait", which had me staring at her breasts trying to work out what it was saying. Then I realised, it's French for perfect. And it was on a Polish girl, so I don't know where she got it.

Moral dilema or not, that's a batshit crazy thing to say. It isn't so much the "what if" question that is troubling, but how it's worded. Having the "courage" to finnish the job but "chickened out". That's fucked up.

It takes a great level of courage to overcome ones own reluctance to do something abominable, especially if it would be both diplomatically and politically unpopular. It was a lack of political will which allowed Israel to be formed.

But I'll play along with the fanasy of going back in time... Although it's off topic. Would I kill a baby that grows into a tyranical dictatorial leader? No. But I might take him & put him in a completely different environment. But that begs the question, is evil passed on genetically? Are people born bad?... I ramble now... I have to think on that for a while. And I lack sleep, I'm off for a nap...

I don't believe in biological determinism. Hitler was damaged, he could have been redeemed.

Notwithstanding that the reponsible English authorities hadn't gone back in time, that they didn't know what would happen in the future,

Not the future, the present. They should have known that a massive influx of Jews bent on founding a nation of their own on land already occupied by Arabs, to whom they had promised territorial integrity, was a bad idea. And, like I say, I'm normally a fan of Clement Attlee. He kept his word to free India, so the Palestinians can consider themselves unlucky that he broke the Balfour declaration.

and that their successors have supported Israel at most times since, seeing what it has become and basically finding it good.

That's not much of an excuse.

But that's more thought than the comment deserves. It is, as beeline says, very crazy stuff.

Yet I don't usually mind Morgan because he takes effort to lay out his (imho crazy) views in his own words, gives answers to what others say, and does not engage in the hit-and-run no-content ridicule that is the trademark of trolls. Also, it's not like he's aligning with The Power, even if his stuff sometimes supports ideologies I find barbaric. It's all over the place. Morgan's more like the naked madman tolerated in a town square I once saw in Assiut, and not like a cheerleader at a lynching.

Im equally baffled by your failure to see the sense of my position and come to agree with me. Still, live and let live. And I prefer hermit to madman. More traditional.

I would add only that the position's filled, and we're not accepting applicants.

Right, good. You mean by me, right?

Now stop with the compliments, they'll be going to my head.

A new Avatar recommendation for Mr. Morgan, as he thinks about his Hot Oven Time Machine...

Great Scott, man...

It's a good one, but I've already got some I chose not to use which I'll go to in the unlikely event that I abandon this one. Not sure how much obscenity the board would allow in avatar format, though. This place is for families, right?

I'm a member of the Socialist Worker's Party.

Morgan – that’s worth a bit more detail – I’d be interested in hearing about life at the vanguard of revolutionary struggle – ( or standing around outside Boot’s trying to sell newspapers ) ( Vanessa Redgrave was in the other one wasn’t she ? )

Who she? Outside my frame of cultural reference, dearie. Paul Foot was in it. Before he was dead. Back when it was the International Socialists, for that matter. Mark Steel, too. Or possibly Mark Thomas, not sure which. The Party recently stormed the executive offices at BA, which didn't go down too well with either side of the negotiations then taking place. They also spend a lot of effort fighting the BNP, often literally. And the EDL. TO be honest I think ignoring them would be a strategically superior position.

Around these parts they stand on the steps of Nottingham Town Hall to sell their papers. One day a week. Never actually done it myself, and I generally don't go to the meetings because I'm anti social. Anti-social Socialist. I approve of society, but it's not for me. I approve of the NHS too, but nothing would get me to a doctors' surgery short of amputation, bones jutting through my skin or the loss of at least two pints of blood. I am a blood donor, however. Also there's only one other member in my constituency, which is the semi-safe Tory seat Newark, in fact I know someone who works at the Conservative club who says all the local Tory MPs are a bunch of ill mannered little shits, except the one for here who has a cancerous wife and used to be an infantryman.

YEs, just one member of the party in my constituency, and I've never met him and don't intend to. The Nottingham branch is the local branch, which is about five pounds by train. I've been thinking of defecting to the Socialist Labour Party, if I'm honest. Scargillites. Given the history between Nottinghamshire miners and Scargill I'm assuming there won't be a large local party here for them. I notice a hefty feminist inclination in the spam they send me, too. Women's day courses and that sort of thing. No doubt if I attended meetings I'd be speedily ejected from the party, with radical left wingers being less tolerant than this place. I'd expect the Scargillites to be slightly more in sympathy with my preferred priorities.

Trouble is I'm too lazy to go and cancel my direct debit.

Such is life in the trenches of the class war.

Answer your questions, sempsy?

[Simulist]

Oh, no, I wouldn't taint my precious bodily fluids with the happy pills.

"It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works." — General Jack D. Ripper, Burpelson Air Force Base

[Peregrine]

But I'll play along with the fanasy of going back in time... Although it's off topic. Would I kill a baby that grows into a tyranical dictatorial leader? No. But I might take him & put him in a completely different environment. But that begs the question, is evil passed on genetically? Are people born bad?... I ramble now... I have to think on that for a while. And I lack sleep, I'm off for a nap...

I don't believe in biological determinism. Hitler was damaged, he could have been redeemed.

I agree with you up to a point, I do believe that had someone like hitler been born & raised under different circumstances, he wouldn't have become the madman he did. And as you said, someone else would have most likely filled that slot, because there is no shortage of people with the potential to become tyranical leaders.

However, I will give you an example of, well, a "bad seed" if you will & it hits quite close to home for me. My father was raised in a good home, two good parents, although not quite as affectionate as they could have been, but none the less, a stable, safe home. His sister, my aunt, grew up in the same home & became a lovely woman.

From a very young age, he was constantly doing things where he showed little regard for others, as long as he was comfortable & got his way. Some of the things he did to his little sister, my aunt, I won't even mention, but they were derived from sefish want. (why my mother procreated with him, I will never know, but I'm glad I'm here...)

I, unfortunately, was subjected to some of the similar treatment his little sister recieved when they were kids, but now he was an adult. Again, I will not go into detail, but the way he acted was unconscionable & was incredibly selfish. I am glad that at least myself & my younger brother did not turn out lacking a concience.

Personally, I think there was some fucked up wiring in his brain, he seemed to lack a conscience from a very young age. He displayed traits of a classic sociopath. My grandmother blamed herself for his bad behaviour.

Yes, I know, off topic again but I'd rather chat about this than piss & moan about "left/right" dichotomy

[beeline]

Sorry beeline. . .

Ahh, it's OK, congrats to Chicago and the Hawks, it was a good series.

The Flyers are a defenseman and a true #1 goalie away from the Cup. I like Leighton, what a great story, but he's probably backup material.

[Peregrine]

heh, I like it, this thread is a mish mash of a few different conversations...

[seemslikeadream]

Great series, Oh Lord!

[Elvis]

Well. I was browsing the medley of topics in this thread, and when I saw this:

If Clement Attlee, generally quit a good Prime Minister, had had the courage to massacre those holocaust survivors as they were sailing into infamy it would have saved a lot of lives in the long run. In stead they chickened out [...] It takes a great level of courage to overcome ones own reluctance to do something abominable

...I was immediately reminded of this:

"I mean the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish race. It's one of those things it is easy to talk about, "The Jewish race is being exterminated," says one party member, "that's quite clear, it's in our program-elimination of the Jews and we're doing it, exterminating them" And then they come to me, eighty million worthy Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. Of course the others are vermin, but this one is an A-1 Jew. Not one of all those who talk this way has watched it, not one of them has gone through it. Most of you must know what it means when one hundred corpses are lying side by side, or five hundred, or one thousand. To have stuck it out and at the same time - apart from exceptions caused by human weakness - to have remained decent fellows, that is what has made us hard."

-- Heinrich Himmler, speech to Schutzstaffel (SS) officers at Poznan (4th October, 1943)

[page 966 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer]


There's your backbone, Morgan.

[Simulist]

Stephen Morgan's remarks about this are disgusting. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that they are also horrifying.

That he hasn't backed away from them doesn't deserve tolerance; it deserves ridicule.

[Stephen Morgan]

Oh, no, I wouldn't taint my precious bodily fluids with the happy pills.

"It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works." — General Jack D. Ripper, Burpelson Air Force Base

My thoughts almost exactly, other than the Communist part. Alcoa, it was.

I agree with you up to a point, I do believe that had someone like hitler been born & raised under different circumstances, he wouldn't have become the madman he did. And as you said, someone else would have most likely filled that slot, because there is no shortage of people with the potential to become tyranical leaders.

However, I will give you an example of, well, a "bad seed" if you will & it hits quite close to home for me. My father was raised in a good home, two good parents, although not quite as affectionate as they could have been, but none the less, a stable, safe home. His sister, my aunt, grew up in the same home & became a lovely woman.

From a very young age, he was constantly doing things where he showed little regard for others, as long as he was comfortable & got his way. Some of the things he did to his little sister, my aunt, I won't even mention, but they were derived from sefish want. (why my mother procreated with him, I will never know, but I'm glad I'm here...)

I, unfortunately, was subjected to some of the similar treatment his little sister recieved when they were kids, but now he was an adult. Again, I will not go into detail, but the way he acted was unconscionable & was incredibly selfish. I am glad that at least myself & my younger brother did not turn out lacking a concience.

Personally, I think there was some fucked up wiring in his brain, he seemed to lack a conscience from a very young age. He displayed traits of a classic sociopath. My grandmother blamed herself for his bad behaviour.

Yes, I know, off topic again but I'd rather chat about this than piss & moan about "left/right" dichotomy

The same environment can effect different people in different ways, that doesn't mean one of them is inherently miswired. I believe the wiring of the brain can be rewritten by conscious effort, as can genetic coding.

Stephen Morgan's remarks about this are disgusting. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that they are also horrifying.

That he hasn't backed away from them doesn't deserve tolerance; it deserves ridicule.

I disagree.

"I mean the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish race. It's one of those things it is easy to talk about, "The Jewish race is being exterminated," says one party member, "that's quite clear, it's in our program-elimination of the Jews and we're doing it, exterminating them" And then they come to me, eighty million worthy Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. Of course the others are vermin, but this one is an A-1 Jew. Not one of all those who talk this way has watched it, not one of them has gone through it. Most of you must know what it means when one hundred corpses are lying side by side, or five hundred, or one thousand. To have stuck it out and at the same time - apart from exceptions caused by human weakness - to have remained decent fellows, that is what has made us hard."

It's not backbone if you're having fun, or if you're following orders.

Incidentally, does anyone think the SS "remained decent fellows"?

[Simulist]

Oh, no, I wouldn't taint my precious bodily fluids with the happy pills.

"It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works." — General Jack D. Ripper, Burpelson Air Force Base

My thoughts almost exactly, other than the Communist part. Alcoa, it was.

"Don't you know sarcasm when you hear it?"

[semper occultus]

Morgan :

a fascinating vignette of your career as a not very active activist - & in many ways highly representative of the failure of the far-left in Britain – we just can’t be arsed basically

FYI Redgrave is more a luvvie than a dearie & was ( is ? ) in a weird sect of Trots called the Worker’s Revolutionary Party …… you’d get on – she’s got into trouble with her outspoken views on Israel aswell.

The leader of the WRP Gerry Healy was accused of sexually molesting the female “comrades” – which leads me to counsel against involvement with any gang of militant feminist “wimmin” lest untoward desires for your pure & unadulterated bodily fluids leave you exposed to a situation that a young lad might be unable to deal with.

[JackRiddler]

Has the silly question been answered yet?

[Stephen Morgan]

Has the silly question been answered yet?

Which one?