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| Joined: | Mon Nov 21st, 2005 |
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Anyone,
Gary North appears to be blaming Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn for crimes of false witness, or propagation of lies, and so as not to conclude as much, I link the source above, and let the reader judge the measure of it.
I will address a general trend.
Capitalists blame socialists for all the bad things done by the criminals.
Socialists blame capitalists for all the bad things done by the criminals.
The criminals give themselves the license to commit crimes, and the general trend is to blame the victims for their weakness.
That is a criminal trend, and I'm not the only one who measures that trend in that way.
From my copy of The Prince I offer the following introductory message published in the introduction:
Machiavelli's outlook was darkly pessimistic; the on element of St Augustine's thought which he wholeheartedly endorsed was the idea of original sin. As he puts it starkly in the same chapter 18 of The Prince, men are bad. This means that to deal with them as if they were good, honourable or trustworthy is to court disaster. In the Discourses (I,3) the point is repeated: 'all men are bad and are ever ready to display their malignity'. This must be the initial premise of those who play to found a republic. The business of politics is to try and salvage something positive from this unpromising conglomerate, and the aim of the state is to check those anarchic drives which are a constant threat to the common good. This is where The Prince fits into the spectrum of his wider thought: while a republic may be his preferred form of social organization, the crucial business of founding or restoring a state can only be performed by one exceptional individual.
I've heard similar confessions from criminals I've heard, personally, explain their reasoning for resorting to crime: If the victim affords me the opportunity to injure them, they deserve what they get, I'm doing them a favor, teaching them a lesson, no pain no gain, and once I'm done with them, they will be better off, having been taught a good lesson by me, as I play The Devils Advocate.
There is more to it. As you can learn from a few sources, reading Eric Fromm helps.
Here:
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Anatomy_of_Human_Destructiveness.html?id=YjR5Ve-zTcYC
Another good source is a rare book I found in an antique store:
http://www.amazon.com/Prescription-rebellion-Robert-Mitchell-Lindner/dp/0837180163
Another source for this angle of view is in The Prisoner's Dilemma:
http://prisonersdilemma.sergehelfrich.eu/
There are reasons for willful plans and willful executions of plans by which the planner, and the executor of the plans intends, and then accomplishes, the goal of injuring innocent victims, for profit, or for whatever reason imaginable.
The trend is to transfer ownership of the the thoughts and actions onto the victim, or onto anything other than the person thinking and acting criminally.
Blame the government.
Blame socialism.
Blame capitalism.
Blame the gun.
Blame the Devil.
Blame (the wrong) God.
Blame the victim.
Blame, and punish, anything but personal accountability for the thoughts and actions of the person doing the blaming; anything but realizing that which the person is responsible.
It is the same old story of a thief shouting "thief" (and pointing away from the actual thief) before, during, and after the commission of a crime, so as to misdirect blame away from the criminal and onto anything other than the criminal, and it works, so therefore such behavior reinforces such behavior, as such behavior pays off, as crime pays, since the victims fall for it often, a fool and his money are soon parted, and one sucker is born every minute.
The opposite is as true. The concept of trust is the opposite of the weakness seen by criminals, as criminals gain access to their victims through the open door of trust. To trust someone, from a criminal perspective, is to welcome, ask for, and solicit injury by a criminal, a weakness, trust is a weakness.
Trust is a necessary element for human prosperity, without which the cost of trading becomes exorbitant, and I can explain, and you can judge for yourself, you can trust the information I offer, or you can distrust it as you see fit.
What could be the process by which one thing is traded for another thing when both people, or any person, involved in the trade, have no power of trust - whatsoever?
You have something.
You want something someone else has, and you have no trust, at all, in the person who has what you want, and the person who wants what you have is just as unable to trust you.
Work that out in your head, and multiply that type of transaction by any exponential increase in numbers of transactions working again, and again, over a period of time, and consider using an illustrative number such as 1 hundred million people lacking trust and trading as many times as they can in 100 years time.
Now consider a competitive 1 hundred million people trading as many times as they can in 100 years in a separate place and all 1 hundred million people in the competitive place trust each other while they trade for those 100 years.
What is the likely differences between those separate places where group A lacks the factor of trust and group B is empowered with the power of trust?
In God we Trust.
It is unlikely that the concept just offered can avoid the measure of criminal activity. What explains the fact that one group has no power of trust? How can a group of people exist, how can human beings exist, without trust? What explains the lack of trust? How does trust vanish from that group? Having no answer for those last questions it may be very difficult to quantify the differences between the illustrated group A (no trust) and group B (trust) as 100 million people in each group trade for 100 years time.
Make it personal.
You want something that someone else has, so you offer something you have in trade for the thing you want, and you don't trust the other person. How does that work?
I can't see it happening unless I am right there face to face with the person I don't trust, and I am armed, and I can't imagine how I got armed, but I am armed, perhaps with a pointed stick, and I insist upon seeing the thing I want, and I insist on testing the thing I want, and while I allow the thing I have to be seen, and while I allow the thing I have to be tested, I am ready to strike out and get the thing I own back as soon as I suspect that the person I don't trust is threatening to take my stuff.
I can add, in that situation, the idea that I want to find other people to help me defend my stuff, to hire people who are willing and capable of violence, if violence is necessary, in order to get my stolen stuff back, in case the person I don't trust does take my stuff, but, I don't have trust, so hiring other people to help me get my stuff back is just another trade that is going to be very difficult for me to perform, having no trust in "my fellow man" - or woman.
How can I reproduce without trust? Without trust will a woman ever procreate, how would that work out?
100 years time is enough time for one group, without trust, to fail in the work of reproduction - extinction.
Is trust a weakness?
Ask an honest criminal. Will you be able to trust the answer? Ask the politician you hired to lie to you; if you ask, and the answer is yes, can you trust that the politician you hire to lie to you is lying to you?
When someone, like Gary North, keeps on blaming the socialists for bad things, is Gary North blaming all the socialists, including the voluntary ones, or is Gary North blaming only the criminal socialists? Can I trust that he is aware of any non-criminal, voluntary, socialists? I'm having a hard time with such trust at this point. I've read Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn, and if I had to trust either Gary North or Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, if my life depended on such a personal appraisal, or if my loved one's lives depended upon the right decision to trust the right person, based upon what I have read about those two, I'd flip a coin. I trust both.
I also think that Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn would, if he could have, treated Gary North equitably, and would not, if he could have, published false or misleading words that target the good moral standing of Gary North, the good faith and credit of Gary, and as far as I can tell, if I can trust my own measure of things, the reverse is not true, as Gary North is, as far as I can tell, besmirching, discrediting, defaming, and injuring the good name of Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn, by falsifying the meanings of Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn's words. That is my guess. I prefer to know the truth; not guess.
I think that Gary North is trying to injure anyone who challenges the monopoly power of capitalism, as a dominant dogma, and to do so Gary North will collectively punish the voluntary socialists by blaming the voluntary socialists for the crimes done by the involuntary socialists, as if both are one and the same, which they are definitively not, and to collectively punish everyone, for the crimes of the few, is exactly the same thing done by every criminal, so as to weaken all the innocent people and so as to strengthen the criminals by that close association.
The good people, good by their thoughts, and good by their actions, are dirtied, made less good looking, by the close miss-association with the criminals.
The bad people, bad by their thoughts, and bad by their actions, are less evil looking, by the close miss-association with the good people.
In the name of making capitalism look good, be it voluntary capitalism, or be it involuntary capitalism, all socialists are maliciously attacked and falsely blamed for the crimes committed by the involuntary socialists.
Can I trust that my viewpoint is true? When evidence contradicts my viewpoint I'll have reason to distrust my viewpoint, not until then, since so much evidence, so far, supports my viewpoint.
Why blame all socialists for the crimes a few, twice, once the error is known, and once the false association is repeated, it is no longer an error, it is a willful deception.