[OT] Bush vs. Gore - Was: [Sussex] Linux is capitalism, Microsoft is communism?

[Stephen Williams]

On Tue, 2004-10-26 at 12:36, John D. wrote:
> On Monday 25 Oct 2004 23:26, Geoffrey John Teale wrote:
> > > I can't imagine that the US Supreme Court would have tolerated any kind
> > > of electoral fraud.
> <mega snip>
> >> Each to their own... ...one last thing.  I don't think Kerry is whiter
> > than white, I know he has sold his soul to corporate America a millions
> > times over, just as Bush has, but as the only alternative on the plate
> > he has the undeniable lure of four years of things not getting any
> > worse, and from where I'm sitting that's a lot better than the
> > alternative.
> </mega snip>
> 
> Currently standing at Geoff 1, Steve W 0 :-P
> 

If I'd known you were keeping score I'd have tried a bit harder!

> Ha, my view is rather different (as you might expect!). If you had watched the 
> last weeks edition of "The Power of Nightmares" you may have seen another 
> reason as to why I, for one, could never follow the reasoning behind the 
> conservative/republican ethos.
> 

Being brainwashed here John?

> The narrow view of "self interest" is one that I find abhorrent. Yes I agree, 
> theres an element of self interest in all of us i.e. the "human nature" 
> element, but I prefer my self interest diluted with a good splash of 
> altruism.
> 

The problem is that the conservative/republican/capitalist ideology is
the only one that takes any account of human self interest. Given that
self interest is what ultimately motivates all of us, any ideology that
does not take it into account is not a sound basis for government. This
is why communism failed and is why socialism will fail. Both of these
purported to elevate society above the individual, i.e. they put
societies' interest first. All that happened was that those in a
position to do so put their interests first, and became very wealthy.
Because society was raised above the individual, any one who questioned
this was deemed to be acting against the interest of that society.
Consequently they were subject to abuse and their human rights, as
individuals, were placed below those of society and not respected.

Socialism will fail for the same reason. There are fundamental
contradictions at the heart of "New" Labour that result from the
modernisers moving to the right to be seen as electable, whereas the
grass roots are still as left-wing as ever. However, even the
modernisers still place society above the individual. Why do you think
David Blunkett feels happy introducing so many illiberal policies? It's
because he puts the rights of society above those of the individual.

> And no, not because I suffer from "rose tinted spectacles", but I don't 
> believe that people are inherently evil, but society makes people (well some 
> anyway) like that.
> 
> 
> As for Marks' original question, surely it doesn't matter which way round it 
> is when comparing software and political ideology. It's fair to say, that in 
> the real world, one of (if not the) most successful communist states is Cuba. 
> Though I seem to recall that on more than one occasion, Senor Castro has 
> admitted that communism needs capitalism.
> 
> Plus even though I read Marks' entire post, (and yes it made sense, even if I 
> didn't necessarily agree with it) I don't always see analogies of this type 
> as particularly good examples. Afterall, isn't it just a "snipe" at the likes 
> of Steve Ballmer and invertion of his well documented comments that all linux 
> users are "software commies" ?
> 
> So, for the moment I'll continue too look for an acceptable (to me) form of 
> liberalism (they may be a bit "wishy washy" but at least they tend to make 
> decisions by consensus and not diktat).
> 
> regards
> 
> John D.
> 
> p.s. Power to the People, The only good tory is a dead 'n and at the next 
> local election, vote for Green - i.e. if it's impractical to demolish 
> villages to make way for motorways, then paint 'em GREEN. 
> 
> Up the Tooting Popular Front and the PRB&H (Peoples Republic of Brighton & 
> Hove)  ;-P

The PRB&H already exists - run by the nomenklatura of the Brighton and
Hove Labour Party.