Politics and Religion

The techniques can be used by anyone ...
johngaltnh 6 Reviews 1122 reads
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and, to a degree, are used across the board. One example is by the he/she/it that decided to post the real names and addresses of hobbyists and providers who happen to be fairly conservative. This is an example of soft Totalitarianism.

While these techniques -- as you can research and discover -- were developed and honed to a razor's edge by the left, they can also be employed by others.

I have described the technique, the method and the development. I will leave it to you to look around you for examples.

As for the media -- yes, they are absolutely all over the map. Unfortunately, it is an extremely SMALL map. They follow the boundaries of permitted debate, and employ dynamic silence otherwise. I used gun control as an example; and GTM (thank you!) demonstrated facts you had never even heard of. You never heard of them because the mass media uses Dynamic Silence.

This is the trick. We get to inform our opinions based upon tilted information.

Just so you know, practically every channel on your TV, every radio station, every newspaper, every movie studio and even every college textbook publisher is owned by just a handful of companies who almost all have cooperative arrangements with each other.

Maybe I am sensitive as I have never owned a television -- but just passing by and seeing a soap opera playing I can see an agenda.

And I'm not alone. The Inter-American Bank did a study and determined that the CONTENT of TV programming causes divorce!  

So, yes, within a very small map of permitted debate, the media is "all over the place." But if you back away far enough to see an entire globe of views that are completely unrepresented -- you quickly realize that media "debate" is largely phony.

We have a more sophisticated version of Pravda is all.

An earlier thread describing someone who was publishing the real names and addresses of providers and hobbyists with right-of-center views brought this to mind.

Totalitarianism requires the suppression of dissent. Soft totalitarianism does this in three basic ways: critical theory, economic control and Dynamic Silence.

Antonion Gramsci, an Italian communist, was very disillusioned with the heavy-handed techniques involved in both the imposition and maintenance of communism at the time. In response, he laid the foundation for something called Critical Theory. You can read up on it at your liesure.

This foundation was picked up by something called The Frankfurt School that applied this new theory to bring about a communist revolution in Germany until Hitler shut them down and they fled to the U.S.. Here, they refined and upgraded their theories; resulting in such influential classics of leftist social thought as The Authoritarian Personality, etc.

Critical theory, overall, seeks to change society by subjecting its traditional structures and content to a never-ending and unremitting critique from all angles. Fair or unfair, sensible or not -- the critique never stops. The idea is to delegitimize the status quo in the eyes of the sheeple, so that essentially any alternative with which they are presented seems preferable.

As a component of soft-Totalitarianism it engages (through mass media and schools) the vast preponderance of people to self-righteously condemn dissenters through psychopathologization. In other words, the very fact that a dissenter would dare to give voice to a certain opinion is automatically interpreted as evidence that the PERSON is either morally or psychologically defective. The actual point is not debated.

For example, if I were to make a case against Affirmative Action, the critical theory approach is to impune my motives or character. I will be called a "racist," and I'll be accused of everything from wanting to lynch African Americans to deliberately desiring the starvation of children.

This is why words and phrases such as "racist," "homophobe," "sexist," and "anti-Semite" have been expanded to such a degree that their definition could cover practically anything. The mere accusation conveyed by the words serves to silence dissent.

It gets to the point that just stating a provable fact in and of itself makes someone subject to sanction and profoundly negative moral judgments, EVEN from people who are inclined to acknowledge the fact being presented. THIS is the power of Critical Theory to shape the dynamics and contents of even what facts are dared to be uttered, and people engage in massive self-censorship.

The self-censorship is very important. Anyone who has studied psychology is aware of the studies involving peer pressure. People are more inclined to express a particular view if they believe others -- or even ONE other person in proximity -- will also support it. So if 50% of the people in a room agree with you, but are afraid to voice support for your view -- you would stand alone. And 9 out of 10 people won't do that.

So creative applications of critical theory form an important aspect of suppressing dissent in the post-Siberia Frankfurt School world.

The next is economic control -- that is, the threat of economic dislocation. This is the technique used by the mini-despot on that board.

Provided that the views or activities of a person are, at some level, more or less universally condemned -- making those views public can subject his employer to public pressure to terminate the person's employment. There was a case a while back of a guy who distributed anti-illegal-immigration fliers on his own time after work -- and was fired as a result. This happens all the time.

This effectively de-fangs most serious dissent, as it prevents people from presenting their views openly. The left is highly organized, and can get a letter-writing campaign or the like rolling in a matter of hours. A person who cannot act openly and express himself openly is far less powerful than a person who can stand up in public and say "I am Joe Schmoe, and I believe XXX."

There is a very substantial infrastructure of organizations that will "drop a dime" to one's employer after researching to uncover a person's true identity.

So fear of economic dislocation, rather than fear of the gulag, serves to suppress dissent in a soft totalitarian system.

The final brick in the wall is Dynamic Silence. Dynamic Silence works by creatively controlling the flow of information that the vast majority of people see in order to make their evaluations of people and ideas.

If a particular point of view, or people holding that view, are adjudged to be bad for the New World Order or whatever -- they are subjected to Dynamic Silence.

The gist of the technique is that only bad things are reported about the people, and never good things. Whenever the people are presented to the public, the worst possible and most rabid-sounding exponents of their point of view are presented. There is also an attempt to take advantage of our status-consciousness by always presenting people with unapproved views as living in squalor, etc.

So if I am Joe and I believe X, and I save the lives of 1,000 people a day -- that will never be reported. But if I accidentally bump into an old lady carrying groceries, it will be deemed a "vicious premeditated assault" undoubtedly linked to my "unpopular" X views.

You can see this technique employed around the right to keep and bear arms. According to susbtantial research, guns are used to save many factors more lives than they are used to take. Yet, the instances of positive usage are never reported and the instances of negative usage are reported as "gun crimes" as though the gun committed the crime instead of the person.

So this is how dissent is suppressed in soft totalitarianism.

And the person with that website? A totalitarian, of course. Do not be shocked that he/she/it will destroy all concept of free speech in pursuit of totalitarian goals in which only one point of view is acceptable.

thread, but could you give some support, other than an NRA promotion piece,  for this statement:

" According to susbtantial research, guns are used to save many factors more lives than they are used to take."

That would indeed surprise me if it is true. And I hope you are not going to support this statement with speculation that for example, bc we invaded Iraq our guns save thousands of people from being killed by Saddam.

A core assumption  of my fervent opposition to civilian gun ownership is the belief that more people are killed as a result of such ownership than are protected by the person with the gun.

Can you disprove this?



As to your intresting post, I'll have to read it again to come to terms with it.

by John Lott

also

The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You've Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong (Hardcover)

also

http://www.amazon.com/Armed-New-Perspectives-Gun-Control/dp/1573928836/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_k2a_2_txt?pf_rd_p=304485601&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-2&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0226493636&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=028KY4VT6TJ3FAEVY8AM

Please read at least one of these! They contain a tremendous amount of research by respectable scholars. If you keep an open mind on it, we may find each other agreeing.

I'd also like you to consider something.

Look at the largest genocides in history. Who carried them out? Organized governments -- that's who. And what preceeded these genocides? Civilian disarmament.

WOuld the crime rate in Germany have been such a bad thing if Kristalnacht had been impossible due to armed resistance?

In every age, people say "it could never happen her/again, we are so enlightened."

The government some people want to have a monopoly on the use of force also gave us forced sterilizations, project MK Ultra and the Tuskeegee Experiment.

which is not about gun control so I will address your questions later in a separate thread.  


  Note that review of "Armed" tells us
“They offer evidence, for instance, that accidents involving guns are few and that guns defend people against violent crime.”


I’m sure both statements are true but that sounds like the authors are dodging the problem. The statistics I have seen are pretty damnming in terms of guns killing staggeringly more people in our country than are protected.

and note that during the last fifteen years firearm violence has decreased markedly.

Interestingly during this period two pubic policy changes have been taking place:

an increase in the number of states allowing cconcealed carry by law obiding citizens

the "instant background check" system for verifying that a purchaser of a handgun does not have a criminal violation background or severe mental health issue.

Note also:

"On average in 1987-92 about 83,000 crime victims per year used a firearm to defend themselves or their property.  Three-fourths of the victims who used a firearm for defense did so during a violent crime; a fourth, during a theft, household burglary, or motor vehicle theft."

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/hvfsdaft.htm


     The numbers are all over the place. Kleck, the guy cited by John, says guns are used in self defense up to 2.5 million times a year. If true that would probably sell me on the issue.

      The FBI statistic found by Gregory says 83,000 crime victims per year used a firearm to defend themselves or their property. Way less than Kleck.

    The National Crime Victim Survey, to so called gold standard, says the real number is 65,000 per year. Sinking further...
Even so, 65000 s year makes a strong NRA case.        

      But wait - the attached article says Kleck is way, way off and all the survey numbers are substantially inflated. He points out that the numbers are generated by telephone surveys and then extrapolated. He makes a fairly persuasive case of over inflation my macho homeowners ("yeah I pulled out my Glock and taught that SOB a thing or two") using police reports and emergency room statistics.
 
      The police report he reviewd show relatively few crime victims reported to the police that they used a gun in self defense- so to get anywhere near the survey numbers you have to assume that they fired at offenders but did not tell the police. H'mm....

       He also says only about 100,000 people are treated in emergency rooms each year for non-fatal firearm-related injuries;  almost all of these are victims of assault, suicide   attempts and unintentional gun shootings rather than criminals shot by defenders. I guess we can say the homeowners usually missed and the burglar ran away but again ..h'mm.

      So guys I can only conclude from what I’ve looked at today that we do not have any reliable evidence as the number of times guns are used in self defense, the first number we need to really evaluate whether gun prohibition is good policy or not.

is the fundamental principle that you have a right to life.

If some wacko kicks down your door and starts trying to kill you with a baseball bat (or an illegal gun imported from China that bypasses all regulatory channels), even if you manage to dial 911 the cops might not get there in time.

The question is: do I have the right to deprive you of an effective means of self defense just because it is possible that my next door neighbor might shoot himself in the foot?

Now, maybe you would die with a sense of satisfaction in knowing that your life wasn't wasted because my neighbor's toe was safe -- but I doubt it!  I'd rather have YOU alive, and the bat-wielding thug dead or injured.

Freedom entails risk -- the two are inseparable. Freedom to hobby, means risk of STDs. Freedom to go skiing means risk of dying in a skiing accident. Freedom to have electricity means risk of electrocution. Freedom to own a means of self defense means a risk of accidentally employing it against yourself.

IMO, we don't need to be living in a nationwide mental institution where nobody can be trusted with anything dangerous.

Also -- here's something to keep in mind when looking at those statistics. There are more than 85,000,000 gun owners in the U.S. Even if 100,000 accidental injuries occur -- how does that compare, percentage wise, to other dangerous things like cars? And to compare apples to apples, compare the number of legal guns to the number of legal cars and look at the difference!  Your average gun owner has a handful of guns -- not just one. Figure there are at least 300 million legal guns in this country. 100,000 injuries is very small compared to cars.  

And -- driving is a privilege whereas gun ownership is a right.

Also -- don't just rely on what you can pull off the Internet. John Lott's books are exhaustively documented and IMO a definitive source.


in your home for self defense. We are stuck with a quacky Supreme Court decision reading the 2d Amendment as protecting an individual right   to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a   militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful   purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

     But I say this is bad policy based on the numbers used by the District of Columbia in enacting gun control legislation.

       What I have always assumed is that the number of private gun owners who use their guns in self defense in the home is greatly outweighed by:

1. the number of persons intentionally killed by guns; plus
2. the number of persons accidently killed.

And I’m guessing the ratio is huge –maybe 20 to 1, although the numbers we found today call that assumption into question.

      We do have some of these numbers. The statistics used by the District of Columbia in enacting gun control legislation tell us
-there are 25,000 gun deaths in our country each year;
-3000 of these deaths are accidental;
-25% of the accidental gun control deaths are children;
-"[f]or every intruder stopped by a homeowner with a firearm,
there are 4 gun-related accidents within the home."

      So these numbers while not complete, and while I cannot square them with 2.5 number given by Kleck -  tell me the number of private gun owners who use their guns in self defense in the home is greatly outweighed by the number of people killed by guns.

District of Columbia.


The Second Amendment, thank goodness, does not apply to the states or local governments, so handguns can still be prohibited by these jurisdictions.





Also in your lexicon of words, you forgot to say liberal, which have been made to me anything against conservative ideals.  I do not believe in prayer in schools, well you are a liberal...no I am an agnostic but I believe in gun ownership, so what am I?  As Markodd said, its a circular argument from who view it is.  Your obviously and is conservative and we had "soft totalitarinism" from the right

-- Modified on 7/10/2009 10:17:09 AM

I favor abortion (during the first two trimesters), and prostitution (obviously), but oppose gun control and taxing me any worse than I am already taxed.

Intelligent people who can think for themselves SELDOM fall cut and dried into a pre-arranged category.

Despite my choice of handle, I favor neither finance capitalism nor socialism. Instead, my economics are Third Positionist as best described in terms of Distributism or Agrarianism.

You may find it interesting to note that the Pope came out with a condemnation of capitalism today.

The error would be to assume that he therefore favored socialism. Catholic social teaching actually gave rise to Distributism.

Now -- I know you don't believe in a deity. But it might be worthwhile to read what the Pope had to say (instead of what someone else says he said).

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html

I bet you'll be shocked about how much you, he and I have in common.

As best as I can tell, you are not talking about the government and with good reason since prior restraint is prohibited except in rare situations.

    And you can't be talking about the media which is all over the board.

    Are you talking about liberal or conservative advocacy groups? These are the ones I see engaging in the tactics you mention but they are never successful outside of small peer groups because
there is no shortage of blabbermouths like me that will always take the other side.

It might be helpful if you could sharpen your point. And I did not see the exposure thread you mentioned - is that on this Board?

and, to a degree, are used across the board. One example is by the he/she/it that decided to post the real names and addresses of hobbyists and providers who happen to be fairly conservative. This is an example of soft Totalitarianism.

While these techniques -- as you can research and discover -- were developed and honed to a razor's edge by the left, they can also be employed by others.

I have described the technique, the method and the development. I will leave it to you to look around you for examples.

As for the media -- yes, they are absolutely all over the map. Unfortunately, it is an extremely SMALL map. They follow the boundaries of permitted debate, and employ dynamic silence otherwise. I used gun control as an example; and GTM (thank you!) demonstrated facts you had never even heard of. You never heard of them because the mass media uses Dynamic Silence.

This is the trick. We get to inform our opinions based upon tilted information.

Just so you know, practically every channel on your TV, every radio station, every newspaper, every movie studio and even every college textbook publisher is owned by just a handful of companies who almost all have cooperative arrangements with each other.

Maybe I am sensitive as I have never owned a television -- but just passing by and seeing a soap opera playing I can see an agenda.

And I'm not alone. The Inter-American Bank did a study and determined that the CONTENT of TV programming causes divorce!  

So, yes, within a very small map of permitted debate, the media is "all over the place." But if you back away far enough to see an entire globe of views that are completely unrepresented -- you quickly realize that media "debate" is largely phony.

We have a more sophisticated version of Pravda is all.

tjrevisted1578 reads

Ive been telling these guys their news and everything is owned by the same people for months,
YOU ARE VERY INFORMED!! I think this is why they said I believe in conspiracy theories.. PEOPLE, the truth is so crazy, it sounds like one, i know,but the truth is the truth, and its easy to find out..Its also time to start finding it out..The news is Owned by the same people trying to get america to surrender it sovergniety to the UN, so indirectly and through other names, THE UN OWNS YOUR NEWS!! Think about that..Cause its true..The CFR OWNS 96% OF ALL MEDIA IN THE US..The CFR is the American branch of the UN, the UN, put the CFR in our country..Now thats a real conflict of interest dont ya'll think?

You described US capitalism very well, Cheers to you!!!

I will honestly say that, even though the techniques I described were provably developed by the far left, they HAVE been employed by capitalists as well.

What I don't get is why you still haven't figured out that capitalism and communism are two sides of the same materialist coin?

I mean -- put two and two together. WHY do you think a big New York banker -- the consummate "capitalist" funded the Communist Revolution in Russia? WHY do you think some of the biggest capitalists around -- Buffet, Soros, Gates, et. al. -- push socialist ideas? And don't tell me it's because they are "nice."

Capitalism and socialism are like two peas in a pod. One can't even survive without the other.

Capitalism displaces workers in order to gain "efficiency;" and socialism supports those workers so they don't become a mass of militants. Socialism depends on capitalism to generate the funds it needs etc etc.

It's time to break the cycle of economic stupidity.

The true soft totalitarians are really neither left nor right. They just use such philosophies in order to dupe the gullible. The true soft totalitarians really only worship one thing: their own power and control. As long as they achieve that, they couldn't care less if it is done via left wing or right wing means.

They USUALLY use left-wing means because it is easy to appeal to our most base instincts: the desire for a free lunch.

That's why leftism is so powerful -- not because it is right and uplifting, but because it appeals to the worst within us. Desire for the unearned, envy, the free lunch.

I think that humans don't desire a free lunch. What people want is lunch and most don't care how they get it. Evolution doesn't  work well with free lunches. All factors being equal the more adaptable are the most successful.

Actually, MOST people, if you give them a choice about how hard they will work for an equivalent lunch, will choose to work as little as they can.

Evolution, you are right, doesn't work well with free lunches. However, humans have found ways to circumvent evolution. An example was "decapitation" where authoritarians took over, and killed the brightest in a given population.

All factors are far from equal, so the most adaptive, brightest, most dedicated or whatever will not always be the most successful -- no matter what economic system is in place.

Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class and is motivated by profits which are never returned to the working class.
Communism works to add value to a society through the application of planned economies.

I KNOW you are a very bright man, so I can't imagine why you seem stuck on communism.

Let's take a mile-high view. All "isms" are human creations. As such, they will reflect a necessarily limited amount of knowledge. As a result, ALL "isms" will fall short of dealing effectively with reality.

"isms" are simply human tools. They can be created for various purposes -- such as to help us direct our behavior, or even to lead people to enslave themselves.

Even more importantly, the result of the application of any "ism" correlates more to the character of the persons effectuating the application than the content of the "ism" itself.

Monotheism is a great example. One branch -- Christianity -- runs the gamut from explicitly embracing communism all the way through embracing Nazism (Christian Identity) and then a (minority) branch embraces so-called "conservatism." You will meet one Christian who will happily "put you to the question" while another will give you the shirt off his back. All of this from ONE "ism."

Capitalism and Communism are no different. I am sure you are aware of the tens upon tens of millions of people who died under communist planned economies. Ukrainians died by the millions from starvation -- deliberate or not -- in the planned economy. I am sure you are also aware of capitalists who influenced the U.S. to deliberately destabilize Guatemala in order to protect their very private interests at the cost of untold lives and misery.

Capitalism and Communism are just tools. Either can be used to create massive human misery.

The solution doesn't lie in "ism" advocacy, but in improving the moral qualities of those running the "ism."

Moral qualities huh?  Well lets see. Morality is another tool with lots of pitfalls.  I tell you what , I will hang tough with communism and atheism till the current crop of religious capitalists fall from power.
Civilized societies don't operate on theoretical philosophies so there are always going to be tensions between camps and theories
will adapt to accommodate  human circumstances.

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