If I can't buy food with money (most money wins) then that would be the nature of a "catastrophe," which is one of the things that takes down an aristocracy. (I normally use the term "Nouveau Aristocracy" so as not to get the Definition Police on my ass.)nmoore63 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:55 amP.S. the west side of the mountains will be the wrong side in a famine. Look me up; I’ll give you some food.Martin Hash wrote: ↑Thu Nov 01, 2018 7:07 pmAristocrats don't have to worry about food, or anything you can buy.
p.s. You look me up when the famine comes; I'll give you some food.
Trump's Economic Plan
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Re: Trump's Economic Plan
Shamedia, Shamdemic, Shamucation, Shamlection, Shamconomy & Shamate Change
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Re: Trump's Economic Plan
Nope.Speaker to Animals wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:14 amNo.nmoore63 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:54 amHa.Speaker to Animals wrote: ↑Thu Nov 01, 2018 6:54 pm
A farmer can be kicked in the throat too. What is a farmer going to do against an army when the farmer is not himself a warrior?
We spent a solid 1500 years where the farmers were the property of the aristocracy. They didn't have fuck all to say about anything.
Aristocrats come in many flavors. It’s your silly narrow definition.
If you control the afterlife or the rain or the granaries or the swords or the copper find or ... then you can be aristocrats.
The basis of an aristocracy is that of the warrior. Aristocrats take power and defend it. If you controlled the rain, the warriors can just take control of you.
The arisrocracy of Massachusetts Bay was not the warrior.
The aristocracy of Song China was not the warrior.
The aristocracy of Venice was not the warrior.
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Re: Trump's Economic Plan
Pffttnmoore63 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:23 amNope.Speaker to Animals wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:14 amNo.
The basis of an aristocracy is that of the warrior. Aristocrats take power and defend it. If you controlled the rain, the warriors can just take control of you.
The arisrocracy of Massachusetts Bay was not the warrior.
The aristocracy of Song China was not the warrior.
The aristocracy of Venice was not the warrior.
I said aristocracy was based on it. I also wrote in a long post how aristocracies devolve over time, just like democracies devolve over time. You are not arguing against anything I actually wrote. Just typing to read your own words, I guess. Have fun!
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Re: Trump's Economic Plan
Since everybody wants to claim the word "aristocracy" to mean something other than its historical connotation, and to clear things up, I am calling this a "natural aristocracy".
A natural aristocracy has the military means to secure their power, maintain it, and defend it from interlopers. If you cannot command troops, then you are not a natural aristocrat. Aristocrats are the leaders of the warrior caste.
Eventually that obviously degrades just as everything else in the cycles of civilizations. The point here is how aristocracy forms, not how it dies by some internal cancer and corruption.
Being rich does not make you a natural aristocrat. Your power as a rich man will always depend upon the beneficence of the army. You wield power with their consent and if they ever tell you to get fucked, you are getting fucked. Because what exactly are you going to do about it?
A natural aristocracy has the military means to secure their power, maintain it, and defend it from interlopers. If you cannot command troops, then you are not a natural aristocrat. Aristocrats are the leaders of the warrior caste.
Eventually that obviously degrades just as everything else in the cycles of civilizations. The point here is how aristocracy forms, not how it dies by some internal cancer and corruption.
Being rich does not make you a natural aristocrat. Your power as a rich man will always depend upon the beneficence of the army. You wield power with their consent and if they ever tell you to get fucked, you are getting fucked. Because what exactly are you going to do about it?
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Re: Trump's Economic Plan
If you do not want a natural aristocracy to emerge in America, then the most important thing you ought to do is ensure that there can never exist a warrior class or subculture of families who do all the fighting. That is where the natural aristocracy will emerge from, especially when everybody else (1) cannot fight and (2) have voted to disarm and weaken themselves. Think about it.
If you want to see the phenomenon that gives rise to it, consider every time generals are called to testify before some congressional committee and the congressmen dress down the generals. Does that strike any of you as odd? The congressman have a lower public approval rating than candy corn and the generals have the highest approval ratings just shy of fire department hero. Again, think about it.
This isn't about what you want or what you think should be. I am telling you to look at it for what it is. Government and military are the same thing, really. We created this useful fiction whereby they are separate, but that's nonsense. The government exists and plays these silly games for as long as the military allows it. Which is to say, for as long as the generals and their subordinates consciously believe in the founding myth of the national government. And that belief is already dying for all of us..
The way this was supposed to be, American men -- all of us -- were the militia. That is, we were all in the Army to some capacity. Hamilton got the bright idea of a permanent standing army, and the seeds for the end of the American republic were sown within a few decades of the revolution. By the Civil War, not even a century later, entire cities fucking rioted because Lincoln wanted to draft people into the US Army. It was already a lost cause.
If you want to see the phenomenon that gives rise to it, consider every time generals are called to testify before some congressional committee and the congressmen dress down the generals. Does that strike any of you as odd? The congressman have a lower public approval rating than candy corn and the generals have the highest approval ratings just shy of fire department hero. Again, think about it.
This isn't about what you want or what you think should be. I am telling you to look at it for what it is. Government and military are the same thing, really. We created this useful fiction whereby they are separate, but that's nonsense. The government exists and plays these silly games for as long as the military allows it. Which is to say, for as long as the generals and their subordinates consciously believe in the founding myth of the national government. And that belief is already dying for all of us..
The way this was supposed to be, American men -- all of us -- were the militia. That is, we were all in the Army to some capacity. Hamilton got the bright idea of a permanent standing army, and the seeds for the end of the American republic were sown within a few decades of the revolution. By the Civil War, not even a century later, entire cities fucking rioted because Lincoln wanted to draft people into the US Army. It was already a lost cause.
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Re: Trump's Economic Plan
Walk me through how your made up words apply to the Massachusetts Bay Colony aristocracy
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Re: Trump's Economic Plan
What aristocracy? There was none when it was colonized. The crown later sent some to rule over the colony in the 18th century, but that was just as governors.
Do you not read a word of what people write when you respond to them? Late-stage aristocracies were falling apart and democracy was taking over. We are in the mirror image of that right now. It would be like asking me how democracy made people freer in 21st century America (it does the opposite, but in the 18th century it did make people freer).
There is a cycle where we tend to oscillate between these two modalities. It's Sparta versus Athens, Roman Republic versus Principate, American democracy versus Fascist Europe. There are lots of dysfunctional examples. So what? There are dysfunctional examples of every system. That doesn't disprove the existence of the system. LOL
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Re: Trump's Economic Plan
There has always been two competing western civilizations. Aristocracies of some kind versus democracies.
Right now, democracies get all the good press when they shouldn't, and few people really understand what an aristocracy actually means because they only get indoctrinated by examples of the failures.
I find it very interesting that the many failures of democracy are never covered (and they are far more legion) while only failures in aristocracy get covered.
It's like the meta version of the NPC meme. Bad king man is bad. Vote harder.
They both have their advantages and disadvantages. Right now, we have no advantages to our government. They have all been dessicated by universal franchise, the growing welfare state, and what Fife calls the "federal city", but what I just think of as Augustine's "City of Man" that comes back to life from time to time throughout history.
This ends too. There will be another cycle of aristocracy. That will become fucking unbearable after a time. Then a new form of democracy will emerge, and so on.
No need to clutch your precious democracy pearls.
Right now, democracies get all the good press when they shouldn't, and few people really understand what an aristocracy actually means because they only get indoctrinated by examples of the failures.
I find it very interesting that the many failures of democracy are never covered (and they are far more legion) while only failures in aristocracy get covered.
It's like the meta version of the NPC meme. Bad king man is bad. Vote harder.
They both have their advantages and disadvantages. Right now, we have no advantages to our government. They have all been dessicated by universal franchise, the growing welfare state, and what Fife calls the "federal city", but what I just think of as Augustine's "City of Man" that comes back to life from time to time throughout history.
This ends too. There will be another cycle of aristocracy. That will become fucking unbearable after a time. Then a new form of democracy will emerge, and so on.
No need to clutch your precious democracy pearls.
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Re: Trump's Economic Plan
HAHAHA.
You are not talking to a democracy zealot.
This is what I objected to.
Lorenzo de Medici is not a warrior. He is an aristocrats.
The farmer
The Merchant
The Warrior
The Priest
They all have roles to play. And each person and society ranks their importance different. You are certainly welcome to believe the warriors make the best aristocracy but The idea that aristocracies must be warrior class is delusion.
You are not talking to a democracy zealot.
This is simply not true.aristocracy must be a warrior class
This is what I objected to.
Lorenzo de Medici is not a warrior. He is an aristocrats.
The farmer
The Merchant
The Warrior
The Priest
They all have roles to play. And each person and society ranks their importance different. You are certainly welcome to believe the warriors make the best aristocracy but The idea that aristocracies must be warrior class is delusion.
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Re: Trump's Economic Plan
This is like arguing with ooky over the existence of biological sexes when she says they can't exist because there are some people born with both parts. I cannot recall the name of this fallacy offhand, but you are essentially trying to refute a general principle by appealing to the aberrant exceptions.
I never claimed every single example of an aristocracy was going to be warriors, but they sure as shit started that way and only devolved to a late-stage aristocracy with not much longer last. Hence the best examples of exceptions (which you failed to even think about) were at the very end of those aristocracies.
Your examples are shit as well. Venice was an oligarchy of merchants, not an aristocracy. It was more like a democracy with very limited franchise.
The Massachussett's Bay Colony was founded by Puritans, not aristocrats. A Puritan's status was tied to his education, not his birth. You are confusing them with the southern colonies which were colonized by cavaliers. But even there it was degenerating fast. The southern aristocracy married in with wealthy London merchant families to create an economic power rather than military power. Hence why they lost control of the republic.
Instead of playing the fallacious game of find an exception to somehow disprove a general principle, do try to read what I actually wrote and understand what I am saying. Right now I am just wasting my time repeating the same things because you don't read.
I never claimed every single example of an aristocracy was going to be warriors, but they sure as shit started that way and only devolved to a late-stage aristocracy with not much longer last. Hence the best examples of exceptions (which you failed to even think about) were at the very end of those aristocracies.
Your examples are shit as well. Venice was an oligarchy of merchants, not an aristocracy. It was more like a democracy with very limited franchise.
The Massachussett's Bay Colony was founded by Puritans, not aristocrats. A Puritan's status was tied to his education, not his birth. You are confusing them with the southern colonies which were colonized by cavaliers. But even there it was degenerating fast. The southern aristocracy married in with wealthy London merchant families to create an economic power rather than military power. Hence why they lost control of the republic.
Instead of playing the fallacious game of find an exception to somehow disprove a general principle, do try to read what I actually wrote and understand what I am saying. Right now I am just wasting my time repeating the same things because you don't read.