The Muslim Brotherhood has continued its crackdown on Christians and has now implemented a tax or Jizya for Christian Copts who do not agree to convert to Islam. Based on Koran 9:29, Christians are being told in Dalga that they must pay jizya or tribute to their Muslim overlords as described in the Koran.
The tribute varies from 200 to 500 Egyptian pounds per day. If families cannot pay, they are reportedly attacked and 40 families have now fled the village.
The same demand has been seen among Syrian rebels who reportedly have gave a shopkeeper three options: become Muslim; pay $70,000 as a tax on non-Muslims or be killed with his family. The same practice has been noted in Iraq with Islamic militants.
Jizya seems a wonderful example of how religion can be used for simple extortion, but the culprits claim the imprimatur of God. It is the same logic that allows the killing of Christians and burning of churches in a “moral outrage” over the showing of a disrespectful film or anti-Islamic cartoon.
In my time down here on the animal farm, I’ve been told a thousand times by someone who doesn’t understand either socialism or fascism in addition to a long and noted history of making up terms to suit his arguments. Someone who filters everything through Rand and/or the Austrian School and yet isn’t smart enough to realize that the inevitable outcome of either school of thought is the corporatist tyranny that is fascism.
“Who can forget ‘Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher’? Thats fascism.
One people, one party, one destiny. Thats socialism.”
A great way to illustrate once again that you don’t have a clue that socialism isn’t one monolithic concept. Or that democratic market socialism isn’t the same thing as single party state capitalism (which is, duh, also a form of fascism) or Communism. That you are incapable of thinking beyond your self-imposed filters of Rand and von Mises and blissfully in denial that the inevitable outcome of both Objectivism and the Austrian School is corporatist tyranny; a form of neo-fascism. That policy based on deregulation and laissez-faire economics are extremist and fatal to liberty all the while playing lip service to it. The very kinds of economic policy implemented by famous Objectivists like Alan Greenspan. The very kinds of economic policy pushed by people like the Kochs. The very kind of political rigging that resulted in the repeal of Glass-Steagall. The very same economic policies of deregulation that brought us to the sorry corporatist state rising where our rights and our democracy are steadily being stolen by a monied oligarchy. The same kind of idiocy that thinks taxes are theft. The same kind of idiocy that thinks if just left to their own devices, industry wouldn’t abuse the environment and workers and that banks would run a straight business instead of casino. The kind of idiocy that thinks free markets are not only the only tool in the toolbox but the silver bullet solution to every problem.
So save your indignation for someone who thinks you know what you’re talking about, Bron, instead of someone who thinks you are a Kool-Aid chugging fascist tool too dense to realize his freely chosen religion of worshiping money and ego is the very thing that allows fascists proper to use him but smart enough to know that liberty is under attack while just not quite able to grasp that his beliefs and actions are being used to further their ends, aiding the very culture that is killing individual rights in the name of corporate profits. Just like the sheep supporting Napoleon. Waiting to be shorn or mutton on Mr. Jones table.
I’ve been told a thousand times by a sheep not smart enough to see the wool being pulled over his eyes by the very unregulated and out of control capitalist businessmen he so admires.
So enjoy the Kool-Aid. But careful if you try to put the cup down. Those blinders you’re wearing might mess with your depth perception and make you miss the table.
Oh, yeah. That’s right. You drink straight from the trough.
Or you could wake up.
You could realize that not everything needs to be done on a for profit basis. That a very narrow selection of market segments are simply too important to society’s survival to allow greed and free market whimsy to control. That a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. That the fulcrum in the scales of justice is the balance between the maximum individual liberty possible while maintaining that which is necessary for all of society. That this fulcrum is made of the very same social compact that underlies all forms of government and the true difference is who has their hands on the lever and to what end.
You could realize that control mechanisms are vital to maintaining social balance. Balance which is another word for equilibrium. Equilibrium that is intimately tied to the concept of equity. That equity is an inseparable part of justice.
You could realize that the difference between any form of democracy – regardless of the economic tools that it utilizes – and all other forms of government is that the power rests in the people, the individuals, and that our Founders placed the rudder of the ship of state in Our Collective Hands to steer our government to work for We the People, not just We the Wealthy and We the Legal Fictions.
You could realize that democracy is more important than the choice in economic tools. That there is no one economic system explicitly endorsed by the Constitution and only one that is forbidden by implication (Communism) but there is a strong argument for democratic socialism implicit in the General Welfare Clause.
You could realize that the genius of the Founders was setting up a dynamic system that (when working as designed) recognizes and protects the rights of the individual as balanced against the function of working for the many and rests the seat of power in the people.
You could realize that you are falling for the same line of bullshit the German people did when they were promised one thing by charismatic leaders and served something quite different.
Promises of socialism, a meal of fascism.
Promises of freedom from oppression, a meal of corporate servitude driving a police state.
The only difference is a new hand filling manger and trough from a different bucket
You’re going to be very surprised when the policies you endorse close the cell door on a police state where corporations and the wealthy are animals more equal than others.
See ya around the barnyard with the other sheep.
Signed,
Benjamin the Donkey
P.S. Ayn Rand was to literature what Charlie Comiski was to first base.
and you have been told a least a thousand times that the differences between fascism and socialism are minor. The only difference is one system has the state own the means of production and the other controls the means of production. Each ostensibly for the greater good.
Who can forget “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher”? Thats fascism.
One people, one party, one destiny. Thats socialism.
Individuals, many choices, individual destiny. Thats capitalism.
See the difference?
If you want to be a socialist, fine, get a bunch of you together and go live in a state(s) and operate it/them under socialist principles. But dont make those of us who dont want to be socialist pay the bills.
Hell, take california and new york for a trial run and lets see what happens in 10 years. And then lets take 2 other states, say Texas and Wyoming and operate them on free market principles and see which one creates the greater good for all the people.
I would like to buy a home in California so I figure, if it was pure socialism, property values would be in the toilet in about 10 years after all the companies and workers left for Texas and Wyoming.
“Xue said that his criticism of the government was the product of pure vanity and self-love: “It gratified my vanity greatly. I got used to my influence online and the power of my personal opinions . . . and I forgot who I am.””
Maybe having an ego isnt such a bad thing, except to totalitarians.
Except . . . that’s not a counter. That’s an opinion.
Fascism is syncretic, Bron. That means it has features of both left and right however in expression it is always far right. The salient features of fascism are oligarchical control of the economy (and this is important) to nationalistic, militaristic, anti-democratic ends and an authoritarian/totalitarian state (usually a police state). You’ve only been told that hundreds of times. Be as ignorant as you chose though in trying to rewrite history.
I’ll read that later.
“In our home page we demolished the myth that authoritarianism is necessarily “right wing”, with the examples of Robert Mugabe, Pol Pot and Stalin. Similarly Hitler, on an economic scale, was not an extreme right-winger. His economic policies were broadly Keynesian, and to the left of some of today’s Labour parties. If you could get Hitler and Stalin to sit down together and avoid economics, the two diehard authoritarians would find plenty of common ground.”
Really.
The Myth of the ‘Free Market’ and How to Make the Economy Work for Us by Robert Reich
Gene H:
It is called free market economics and I scored 9.12.
Bok bok bok . . .
Awwwww. Did somebody say somethin’ bad about your spiritual mommy? She was a sociopath. Her ideas are sociopathic. They are based on false premises that allow a rationalization for greed and selfishness.
If you want clean air and water and a healthy prosperous people, endorsing a system of belief that will, by default and design, end with at a minimum economic tyranny if not outright tyranny seems a funny way to go about things, Bron.
You still afraid to tell us that you scored right wing on economics?
Or do I have to make chicken noises again?
Mike Spindell:
“She also was a lousy novelist who attracted people who need to justify their own lack of apathy.”
I thought she was a dam good novelist and I have plenty of empathy for people. In fact most places where I have worked, people call me a big teddy bear.
You guys are just living in your small worlds placing people in boxes of your own design. You guys are almost as bad as right wing evangelical Christians.
I want clean air, water and healthy prosperous people. My way works, yours doesnt. Well it does work where you have small populations and large oil money fueling government and the economy.
Bron wrote: “You guys are just living in your small worlds placing people in boxes of your own design. You guys are almost as bad as right wing evangelical Christians.”
Bron, what you say here is EXACTLY how I see it too. Good job.
bok bok bok bok SQWUAK bok bok bok
I scored better than everyone but Mike S. on the authoritarian portion.
-5.74.
I am not saying what I got on the economics but you can guess.
MIke wrote:
Who knew I was such a radical leftist? I even question my own authority.
~+~
Sounds like a feedback loop 🙂