tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post6881171130216340061..comments2023-12-31T13:47:05.758+00:00Comments on Fat Man on a Keyboard: Thoughts on totalitarianismThe Plumphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09244528534476387323noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-50524730227882156692008-09-29T09:02:00.000+01:002008-09-29T09:02:00.000+01:00"All of which makes Harry's advocacy of public tra..."All of which makes Harry's advocacy of public transport seem just a tad insignificant..."<BR/><BR/>I think there might be a teensy-weensy bit of difference between "advocacy" and using the power of the State to ban all possible alternatives.<BR/><BR/>The former is admissable argument; the latter is - yes - totalitarianism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-31465623974650581392008-09-25T01:43:00.000+01:002008-09-25T01:43:00.000+01:00I am suprised nobody here (seeing as you are all c...I am suprised nobody here (seeing as you are all clever clever peeps) has mentioned Arendt and her take on totalitarianism and what it means to prevent totalitarianism (even though I have some disagreements with her).<BR/><BR/>"...the urgent but extremely problematic enforcement by all nations of the right to have rights, the right of all human beings "to act together concerning things that are of equal concern to each."<BR/><BR/>As for the scum eugieneedsakicking -- you tory scum.Fuck off mentalist cunt. Your throat -- my knife -- tory filth.<BR/><BR/>PC language police fuckwit, bad analogy using shitbag you.<BR/><BR/>REMINDER<BR/><BR/>Stock up on canned goods.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-55079427096188625452008-09-24T12:27:00.000+01:002008-09-24T12:27:00.000+01:00Kb player : I also see my proposals as solid vote ...Kb player : I also see my proposals as solid vote losers. But the context in which I made them was in answer to Normblog's questionaire where he asked "If you could effect one major change in the governing of your country, what would it be?" If I "could" effect the policy I would, but I also know even if I was suddenly turned into Labour's replacement Prime Minister I would be in no position to do this. My answer in fact fits in with your "I would love to see Harry's transport policies take effect,.." But I then also know that the way you complete the sentence is correct. There is, however, a need to put forward a case for public v private transport. I had another go at this here - http://threescoreyearsandten.blogspot.com/2008/07/car-crazy.htmlHarry Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01833380054575757928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-11481671794676193092008-09-24T07:57:00.000+01:002008-09-24T07:57:00.000+01:00in a way which many people would indeed colloquial...<I>in a way which many people would indeed colloquially refer to as "totalitarian"</I><BR/><BR/>And that is what the post is about - it isn't totalitarian. It trivialises totalitarianism, especially as the term is being used with deadly seriousness and not flippantly.<BR/><BR/>Also I am a car owner. And some bloody fascist has just fined me fifty quid for having one wheel just outside a marked parking bay outside my house because I hadn't parked it quite straight! <BR/><BR/>I am with Will, traffic wardens not car owners mind, oh and Thatcher.The Plumphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09244528534476387323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-81007504292619101042008-09-24T03:40:00.000+01:002008-09-24T03:40:00.000+01:00Paulie: one of those biases we have against having...Paulie: <BR/><BR/><I>one of those biases we have against having things taken away.</I><BR/><BR/>Surely you accept that this is more than merely a "bias"? That there's a major difference between not having something - or voluntarily giving it up - and having it taken from you? <BR/><BR/>I don't have a car, and don't drive (<I>contra</I> the <A HREF="http://flyingrodent.blogspot.com/2008/06/like-nasty-case-of-athletes-foot-there.html" REL="nofollow">oft-repeated line</A> about bloggertarians, I don't have a Lexus, and indeed almost certainly have less money than you do) and regard it as a fairly trivial manifestation of individual liberty, but being relaxed about not having one is very different from being relaxed about the state appropriating for itself the right to take mine if it doesn't approve of it.<BR/><BR/>Similarly, I don't own a home, and am relaxed about that, too (particularly at the moment). But if I did, I'd be outraged if the government decided that I was to be forced to cut my carbon footprint by knocking half of it down. And so would you.<BR/><BR/>I don't think "affront" is a fair label to apply to this, because you use it to suggest that this is mere pique and little else. But it's much more than that. It's not about having it versus not having it; it's the right to make decisions about your own life, in so far as that is practically possible, without someone else removing that autonomy from you.<BR/><BR/>Waiting at home for six hours for a plumber who never arrives is an "affront". Being locked up for six hours under terrorism legislation for taking a photo of a police station is rather more than that. <BR/><BR/>The practical effect may be the same in both cases - your day is ruined - but the two cases are otherwise not remotely comparable, because living in a state which locks people up for no reason, or routinely appropriates people's property for the sake of "communal goods", would compromise human dignity in a way which many people would indeed colloquially refer to as "totalitarian". <BR/><BR/>The Rodent's characterisation of libertarianism as "hands off my Lexus, hippy", referenced above, is funny, but I wonder if he'd find it quite so amusing if I walked up to him in the pub and drained his pint in the name of the greater good. I suspect not. <BR/><BR/>As a footnote, let's all enjoy the incomparable Will attacking Thatcher as a <I>"vile murderous bitch"</I> in the same rhetorical breath as opining that <I>"car owners should be shot on the spot"</I>. Satire lives.<BR/><BR/>(Yes, yes, I know, <I>loathsome bloggertarian scum - bullet to the head - fuck every scumsucking one of them. <BR/><BR/>And that</I>.)Mr Eugenideshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00555302880124512593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-51151966444668996832008-09-24T01:23:00.000+01:002008-09-24T01:23:00.000+01:00"A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on..."A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure". <BR/><BR/>A vile murderous bitch.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08015473239835274353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-23837733245560028662008-09-24T01:05:00.000+01:002008-09-24T01:05:00.000+01:00Fuck all that clever clever shite -- car owners sh...Fuck all that clever clever shite -- car owners should be shot on the spot if they don't give their addiction up.<BR/><BR/>Poisonous fuckwits.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08015473239835274353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-9815527340310048682008-09-23T21:34:00.000+01:002008-09-23T21:34:00.000+01:00"A lot of people would find not having a car a gre..."A lot of people would find not having a car a greater blow against their freedom than removing the classic liberal freedoms like speech and association...... Car owners have a deep sense of right to have cities and roads shaped for their convenience..."<BR/><BR/>I think that this is more one of those biases we have against having things taken away. Cars are partly positional as well. I got rid of mine as an experiment for a while, and I didn't mind it at all. It's not the losing it that they seem to object to - its having it taken away - the affront, and all of that.Paul E.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15234456385928668896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-27230273617439094712008-09-23T20:36:00.000+01:002008-09-23T20:36:00.000+01:00I would love to see Harry's transport policies tak...I would love to see Harry's transport policies take effect, but I can't see it winning votes. A lot of people would find not having a car a greater blow against their freedom than removing the classic liberal freedoms like speech and association. <BR/><BR/>I once heard Jackie Collins on the radio speaking on how she found London was becoming more and more like a police state. Why? Because of the congestion charge. Car owners have a deep sense of right to have cities and roads shaped for their convenience, and to be allowed full access to their movable home from home. <BR/><BR/>If you suggest that it might not be to the public good that every individual should own a polluting, street cluttering, dangerous machine, they react with the same indignation as a Southern slave owner on being told that they might lose their useful piece of property, which they bought and paid for.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-39713621201314419882008-09-23T19:49:00.000+01:002008-09-23T19:49:00.000+01:00His line was that totalitarianism is not exclusive...<I>His line was that totalitarianism is not exclusively modern, it is a phenomenon that has arisen throughout history at times of revolutionary upheaval, including in Calvin's Geneva and Mediaeval Millenarianist movements.</I><BR/><BR/>He did? Cool. I argued the same in my honours dissertation, "Protestantism and the spirit of Scottish capitalism". Unavailable in any bookshops, good or bad.Shuggyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00298179140317536572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-20232932984225856702008-09-23T13:45:00.000+01:002008-09-23T13:45:00.000+01:00Peter : I first fully discussed the concept of tot...Peter : I first fully discussed the concept of totalitarianism in 1961 in a tutorial held by my Political Theory Tutor at Ruskin - Jay Blumler. It was around an essay he had set me which involved my reading Rousseau's "Social Contract" for the first time. The reading list included essays in "Totalitarianism" (proceedings of an academic conference) edited and introduced by Carl Friedrich (Harvard University Press, 1954) which included Friedrich's own contribution called "The Unique Character of Totalitarian Society".<BR/><BR/>On the thread on Freedom John's blog we have finally moved onto the empirical and evalutive nature of my case. Hopefully you have helped those arguing with me to move away from their attempts to close down my stance by a resort merely to crude definitions.<BR/><BR/>I knew that an expert on Anarchism would have to have rather a good take on the other side of the coin.Harry Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01833380054575757928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-17793126179368260182008-09-23T12:56:00.000+01:002008-09-23T12:56:00.000+01:00Good post. If Harry Barnes had suggested a ban on ...Good post. If Harry Barnes had suggested a ban on all private forms of transport - cars, motorbikes, bikes, yer feet - that might have smacked a little too much of the firm hand of government.<BR/><BR/>The question - usually - is not where you fit a system like public transport into ideology, but how, as an empowered authority, you see the question of mobility in practical terms. Can you make the ideology work?<BR/><BR/>These practical terms are, in any case, likely to be forced on us individually some time fairly soon.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-63821715174664561862008-09-23T09:56:00.000+01:002008-09-23T09:56:00.000+01:00My thoughts on totalitarianism are in a short book...My thoughts on totalitarianism are in a short book (ISBN 978-1-60047-232-9) published last month. The title is "Hell on Earth:Brutality and Violence Under the Stalinist Regime." Excerpts are at:<BR/><BR/>http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/excerpts.html<BR/><BR/>Share this with those who might be interested. Thanks, Ludwik KowalskiAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com