Comments by "Al Loomis" (@alloomis1635) on "Intelligence Squared" channel.

  1. i think anger arises from perceived impotence. when you see injustice and think 'i can fix this,' anger is minimal. society is organized so that almost everyone is politically impotent, so lots of room for explosions, but generally useless. i recommend democracy.
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  2. i reserve the title of citizen for members of the type of nation formerly known as 'democracy.' the word has been hi-jacked to confuse the people of various kinds of oligarchy. one must specify 'direct democracy' now. if you wish to educate the cattle as to their status, simply point out that they have no power to direct the state, not any right to know what their masters are doing. in what sense can this situation be democracy?
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  3. i get very tired about hearing 'liberal democracy.' whenever .democracy is modified, it ceases to be democracy. western nations are elective oligarchies. they are not democracies. the people have little influence on state activities, and no, not any, formal control. when polls are taken, popular opinion is commonly against state activity. so, when westerners say, china is an oligarchy, i agree, but i add, that so is the west. i prefer democracy. but there is almost none. if you must tolerate oligarchy, china has been doing more for its people, by far.
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  4. there is no democracy in uk, or usa. why ask for it in china?
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  5. Yf should have stayed in Greece and led them to prosperity. If he could. Instead he decided to be another talking head. Wonder if he regrets....
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  6. capitalism is just a polite word for greed. it can't be fixed, 'greed', that is. but every society ruled by an elite will be rotten sooner, not later. there is a cure, called democracy, so powerful that elites everywhere prevent it from happening. the cattle class doesn't have time for revolution, the elite don't want it, so it seldom appears. but without democracy the rich will eat the world. r.i.p. homo sapiens.
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  7. iq squared? more like the square-root. there is no democracy anywhere, with the very limited exception of helvetian confederation. many usa states would be as democratic as the swiss, but the federal government negates their individual freedom. brits think voting for politicians is democracy, a common mental affliction. their society is an evolved aristocracy, with a real monarch. quite insane, to imagine that is democracy. in fact, there is a wide-spread application of double think in this area, n. korea and britain are sisters of a different mother, fathered by big brother. 'democracy' means rule by the citizens, not politicians. even the swiss don't quite make it. no one else comes close.
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  8. can you fix greed? and who are the fixers? and why should they change a society in which they 'fix?' these people live in fantasy.
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  9. democracy seems like our best hope to survive. but there's not much around, and it simply may require a better type of human being. elite rule of various types has a long and disrespectable history, but it grows naturally from the alpha males of our naked ancestors. how to beat that heritage...
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  10. nonsense. trump hasn't started a war, yet. probably won't. has given a chunk of change to the already rich, but that was primarily the work of congress. he has underlined, bold-printed and red-colored the absurdity of the american constitution. that document allows any american over 35 and native born, to be president. and, once again, 'anyone' is laughably misplaced. but not dangerously so- dubya was dangerous, massively destructive, trump merely comical. which is why the commentariat is frothing, they hate the blatant exposure of the primitive ineffectiveness of their government system. as far as danger goes, compare trump with dubya, trump withdraws from the syrian quagmire, dubya turns the middle east into a seething swamp. and you call trump dangerous?
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