ron paul=awesome/kickass?

[Nitro Express]

The only time I've ever seen socialism work is in small communities where everyone thinks the same. I mean in Norway the taxes are very high but everyone seems to like what the government provides. But then Norway has oil to help pay for it all. It seemed to work ok. The most capitalistic place I ever lived was British Hong Kong. All the government did was run the police and fire department. You really had to hustle and the competition was fierce. There were no public schools and if you couldn't afford school you didn't go. Then boats full of people would come into the harbor from the socialist (communist) countries wanting to come in. The result of the capitalism was you could buy anything, there were huge choices of food, clothing, entertainment, and you could make a good living for yourself if you wanted to work for it. There are no free lunches in life and it's not fair and I've seen the extreme of both systems and frankly in my experience, I will choose capitalism. To be frank. I find socialist countries extremely boring.

[FORD]

Actually Mormon Doctrine at least when I was a kid taught dark skin was a curse. The Africans were black because they were descendants of Cain. The native Americans were dark skinned because they were descendants of Laman who in the Book of Mormon was the bad guy. What's funny is suddenly the Mormon prophet had a revelation to allow people of color the priesthood after the BYU sports teams were getting protested on the road due to the church's prejudice against dark skinned people. Then if you go to Temple Square in Salt Lake City they always have some black missionaries there. They seem to like to have cute females. They also seem to like to have dark skinned missionaries in areas where they have a high Mormon population. It's all to create the illusion it's an international church now so the dolts think it's carrying forth the gosphel so they continue to give their money to the mormon god. Lately the new Mormon fad is to adopt a black kid from Haiti. So in the future lots of white geeky Mormon families are going to have at least one black kid. I notice they are phasing out Brigham Young and reinventing Joseph Smith now. Most of the old prejudice teachings were actually taught by Brigham Young. It's interesting how the unchanging gosphel of God constantly changes with the times to survive.

The descendants of Cain argument never made a lot of sense. Because if you presume that Cain and his descendants were made black after Cain killed his brother, then those same descendants would have been wiped out in the Noah's Ark flood, as Noah and his family were descendants of Seth, Adam & Eve's third son.

Not that the "Mark of Cain" thing originated in the Mormon church, of course. Probably still some fundagelical churches down south preaching that same racial lie.

The "too lazy to fight Satan" argument must have been before your time in the church, but apparently that was the original explanation that Joe Smith came up with....

[Pink Spider]

The good thing about the potatoes was you could mash them, ferment them, make a still out of a pressure cooker. You knew you had good proof when you could pour some of the still juice on the seat of a chair and light it on fire. If there is a way to get drunk, a Russian will find it.

Knowing Russians, a lot of the fun for them would be the setting something on fire part.

I think there's some kind of natural selection for ADHD going on in that country. If they're bored, something stupid or dangerous is going to happen. I've had several accounts of this. Doesn't even need alcohol. If they're trying to do something stupid and there's alcohol involved, keep a distance of 300 feet, at least.

[Nitro Express]

For the most part I like Russians. They pride themselves on being survivors and very tough. They appreciate the little things in life probably more than anyone else. I think the people who like to set things on fire are the Chinese. To celebrate anything they start lighting up the fireworks and if you are on a crowded street during Chinese new year you are fair game. You might have a fire cracker go off in your face. It's all in good fun. We have forgotten how to have fun in this country. The media, the government, and school systems have turned everyone into sludge. I get so tired of hearing why I can't do something.

[ELVIS]

It's to protect you from you...

[Nitro Express]

The thing about the Mormon church is the top leaders know it's a fraud. They will spend a fortune buying up old records that paint the church in a less than favorable light and hide them. One guy who worked for the church called Mark Hoffman wised up to this and started selling forgeries to the church for huge sums of money. Since the internet you can find the evidence against the church easy. It's easy to prove Joseph Smith didn't have clue about some Egyptian records he suppossedly translated into new scripture. The whole thing can easily be proven a fraud but even with that evidence, you are shattering someone's system they are engrained in.

Now they re remaking Joseph Smith. Instead of being the fat pudgy guy with the huge ugly nose as many paintings show him to be, the modern church is making him to look like a handsome hunk. Also the church has gone completely corporate and Salt Lake takes all the money from the local wards so they don't have the fun activities they used to have because the have no money now. The big Christmas dinners are pretty pathetic now. Someone is sucking the money out of the church and not giving much back and without those activities to bind the members, many will bolt. They don't seem to care because they have billions of dollars to reinvest now and frankly don't need the members as much as the early church did.

Great point on the descendants of Cain. They would have been killed in the flood. But then the church is acting like they don't remember that old doctrine. Like I said, having a black Haitian kid, a harp in the living room, and a Steinway in your McMansion are the new Mormon status symbols.

[ELVIS]

That's some interesting bullshit...

Makes me want to look into it...

[FORD]

That's some interesting bullshit...

Makes me want to look into it...

Questions about Mormonism are answered here by one of Elohim's most famous spokesmen. (No not Mittens!)

[Nitro Express]

That's some interesting bullshit...

Makes me want to look into it...

You want some interesting reading look up Mark Hoffman and the Salamander letters. I was only a block away when one of those bombs went off.

[Nickdfresh]

Under the USSR everything was technically government property, including the people. Everyone was in a bread line like that under Soviet rule. If you can say that is the true face of libertarianism, I can say that 1,000 people standing in line for food is the true face of socialism. Our lines are shorter.

...

I was talking about the period of about 1991 to the early 2000's...

And Germany is a "capitalist state," referred to as a mixed economy...

[Pink Spider]

I was talking about the period of about 1991 to the early 2000's...

So was I. Just not in that paragraph.

And Germany is a "capitalist state," referred to as a mixed economy...

I didn't exactly say that...

[Seshmeister]

Under the USSR everything was technically government property, including the people. Everyone was in a bread line like that under Soviet rule. If you can say that is the true face of libertarianism, I can say that 1,000 people standing in line for food is the true face of socialism. Our lines are shorter.

It also takes a while to adjust to a new economic system. A lot of those problems were caused by the Russian government still being corrupt, failing to adjust itself to a market system, paying off Soviet debts, making new debts and the first Chechen War. I would not call what they had "libertarianism". I doubt such a concept existed there.

Even under not so nice Putin, the tax rate actually went down and the GDP has went up over the past 10 years or so... Of course when you get into big business, it's mostly crony state capitalism. Unlike here, at least they're honest about it.

A more relevant example would be Germany. East Germany being absorbed into a capitalist (OK, capitalist friendly) system had less trouble adapting than Russia because at least part of the government and people knew what markets even looked like. Giving a quick look to Wikipedia - the per capita income for East Germany in 1984 in 2008 dollars was $21,000 in compared to the current per capita income of Germany being $44,729. A very big difference.

Did you just use the per capita of East Germany in 1984 and compare it to Germany as a whole 25 years later? Nuts.

East Germany is still not doing well at all, incomes are a third less than the rest of Germany despite massive investment by the West.

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/4177

[Seshmeister]

The facts are pretty straightforward.

The finance sector lobbied governments for years saying they wanted deregulated.

When I say lobbied I mean a mixture of legal bribery and pressure using arguments built on academic expert arguments who they also legally bribed.

This started way back and governments of both sides went along with it. Then when the whole thing goes to fuck the finance sector are saying it's not their fault it's the government/the system which made them do it. Everyone apart from the finance sector picks up the bill.

The fucking bizarre response to all of this is to want MORE DEREGULATION???

Fucking mental. Absolutely fucking mental.

[Seshmeister]

Also going back to Paul, I know it can't be entirely blamed on him but you worry about someone who has brought up a son who is a fucking mental crazy wackjob.

[Nitro Express]

The facts are pretty straightforward.

The finance sector lobbied governments for years saying they wanted deregulated.

When I say lobbied I mean a mixture of legal bribery and pressure using arguments built on academic expert arguments who they also legally bribed.

This started way back and governments of both sides went along with it. Then when the whole thing goes to fuck the finance sector are saying it's not their fault it's the government/the system which made them do it. Everyone apart from the finance sector picks up the bill.

The fucking bizarre response to all of this is to want MORE DEREGULATION???

Fucking mental. Absolutely fucking mental.

The situation we have now in the US is the big corporations who have bought enough influence in the government have no regulation on them but they are using the government agencies to regulate their competition and put them out of business. So it's corrupt selective regulation. Regulation is only as good as the government that is doing it. I knew something was in the fix when a CEO would literally ruin a company, get fired with a huge severance package and then end up getting a job at another company. Of course many times government money would cover the losses. Then it continued to get worse and worse with derivative speculation becoming legal and a hundred times leverage. Since the big boys are tied to an eternal money machine they want lots of debt. The scheme now is to make everything so expensive people have to buy on credit and then they get the whole country into debt as well. As long as they can get prolonged payments it works but I think people are wising up to the central banking scam. When people refuse to pay the debt or better yet refuse to use the money period, the system collapses.

The problem with reforming the system is it's just another group that wants to control it. So what needs to be done is the creation of money needs to be an open public utility. Banking in general needs to be that way. The financial system is just too damn secretive and they purposefully make it so complicated and esoteric the average person doesn't understand it anyways.