'The Giver' Slams Leftwing Totalitarianism via Metaphor (and a great movie too)

[Where_r_my_Keys]

businesses aren't people.

When you say your business is selling wedding cakes or dresses, then you have to sell wedding cakes or dresses.

When you say, "Your employment here includes health coverage", then you have to provide health coverage.

A 'Business', is a PERSON or PERSONS freely engaging in the exchange of goods and services, to the mutual profit of both parties.

Business does not exist in the exclusion of a person or persons.

The notion that a business is NOT a person, is a form of the hysteria OKA: Relativism. It's purpose is to rationalize away the principles in nature that sustain viability.

Thus where you find such, you will find either an individual or a culture, in decline.

I can agree that businesses should be treated as people for economic rights, but do you think that hey should have ALL rights of a person? Say for example the right to vote? to serve on a jury?

There is only the right of the individual. Rights do not sum. Which is to say that 2 people would or should have a greater right than one person. Rights are only relevant to the individual that bears the responsibilities that sustain them.

With respect, the question falls pray to the rationalization that a business, by virtue of the sum of individuals is somehow superior to a single individual. This stemming from the irrational notion that GE or Hobby Lobby has a greater influence on government than you do.

Each is comprised of individuals... and for the premise to become valid, the individuals at issue, who do not agree with whatever GE is advancing in terms of policy advocacies, must fail to bear the responsibilities that sustain their rights; which is to say that they continue to participate in and with GE, despite it representing that which they recognize as being injurious to them.

Which of course happens and always results in the injury to the means to exercise their rights for those who fail to bear their right sustaining responsibilities. Such a culture will inevitably fail, as we are presently witnessing.

 

[jasonnfree]

Care to argue how the totalitarian regime was left-wing?

The Left is totalitarian. Most everything they do is to advance a communitarian vision. You are forced to comply. They want universal health care. You can't have universal health care if you allow people to exercise liberty and refuse to join.

Look at what happened with Hobby Lobby - the left went apeshit at the prospect of people exercising religious liberty.

Look at the bakers and photographers FORCED to associate with homosexuals when they have clearly expressed their desire NOT TO ASSOCIATE. Forcing people to associate with those who they wish to steer clear of is totalitarianism. Liberty is allowing people to control their own lives.

Look at how the Left regulates people's rights to free speech:

Within days after the hearing, the two were found guilty of all charges, placed on probation, and ordered on threat of suspension to undergo “Bias Reduction Training.”​

Even the punishment - Bias Reduction Training is Totalitarian - it imposes one school of thought on these two students - the students MUST THINK a certain way or they're suspended.

Liberals should own their totalitarianism rather than playing innocent and coy.

The right wing is totalitarian also. They defend to death almost, the pollution of the air we breath and the water we drink, if that's what it takes for a corporation to make more profit. Many on the right are totally against any government regulation at all over the polluting of our natural resources.

 

[jasonnfree]

the left believes in concentrating more and more,power in the hands of a central government...for the good of society...

Communism, and fascism are simply two sides of the socialist coin...and examples,of left wing governance...

the American Right (conservatives, libertarians, tea party) believes in limiting the power of the central government as much as possible so that individuals can make decisions for their own good, and as a side benefit, all of society prospers...

Wherever the lefts,beliefs about centralizing power gain control, horrors follow...see Germany 1930s, Russia 1917...and any modern American city where democrats have been in total control for decades...

this,recent column explains this quite well...

Who Lost the Cities? | National Review Online

The more progressive the city, the worse a place it is to be poor and/or black. The most pronounced economic inequality in the United States is not in some Republican redoubt in Texas but in San Francisco, an extraordinarily expensive city in which half of all black households make do with less than $25,000 a year. Blacks in San Francisco are arrested on drug felonies at ten times their share of the general population. At 6 percent of the population, they represent 40 percent of those arrested for homicides. Whether you believe that that is the result of a racially biased criminal-justice system or the result of higher crime incidence related to socioeconomic conditions within black communities (or some combination of those factors) what is undeniable is that results for black Americans are far worse in our most progressive, Democrat-dominated cities than they are elsewhere. The progressives have had the run of things for a generation in these cities, and the results are precisely what you see.

The right wing seems to celebrate one or two corporations controlling an entire industry, like communications. A monopoly is good word for it and it guarantees higher prices and less dissemination of information other than the info that particular media wants us to hear. The right wing is in favor of privatized prisons where the prisons are guaranteed a certain occupation rate of inmates or the taxpayers pony up the difference. This is a guarantee that more young men will be rounded up and sent to prison. Look at our rate of concentration of prisoners compared to the rest of the world. I myself think that both sides of the political aisle ultimately lead to a more powerful state with less rights for the individual.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

Care to argue how the totalitarian regime was left-wing?

The Left is totalitarian. Most everything they do is to advance a communitarian vision. You are forced to comply. They want universal health care. You can't have universal health care if you allow people to exercise liberty and refuse to join.

Look at what happened with Hobby Lobby - the left went apeshit at the prospect of people exercising religious liberty.

Look at the bakers and photographers FORCED to associate with homosexuals when they have clearly expressed their desire NOT TO ASSOCIATE. Forcing people to associate with those who they wish to steer clear of is totalitarianism. Liberty is allowing people to control their own lives.

Look at how the Left regulates people's rights to free speech:

Within days after the hearing, the two were found guilty of all charges, placed on probation, and ordered on threat of suspension to undergo “Bias Reduction Training.”​

Even the punishment - Bias Reduction Training is Totalitarian - it imposes one school of thought on these two students - the students MUST THINK a certain way or they're suspended.

Liberals should own their totalitarianism rather than playing innocent and coy.

The right wing is totalitarian also. They defend to death almost, the pollution of the air we breath and the water we drink, if that's what it takes for a corporation to make more profit. Many on the right are totally against any government regulation at all over the polluting of our natural resources.

There is no such thing as a Right-wing Polluter, or a 'Totalitarian Right-wing".

There are people who defend themselves from the catastrophic effects of Left-think, destroying the means of the purveyors of such to infect others. But that hardly define totalitarianism.

Youassume that a virus has a right to exist. It does not. You see there is no right to harm the means of others to exercise their God-given rights. And that where one attempts to do so, they reject the responsibilities that sustain their own rights, in effect forfeiting those rights; which would include the right to their life.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

the left believes in concentrating more and more,power in the hands of a central government...for the good of society...

Communism, and fascism are simply two sides of the socialist coin...and examples,of left wing governance...

the American Right (conservatives, libertarians, tea party) believes in limiting the power of the central government as much as possible so that individuals can make decisions for their own good, and as a side benefit, all of society prospers...

Wherever the lefts,beliefs about centralizing power gain control, horrors follow...see Germany 1930s, Russia 1917...and any modern American city where democrats have been in total control for decades...

this,recent column explains this quite well...

Who Lost the Cities? | National Review Online

The more progressive the city, the worse a place it is to be poor and/or black. The most pronounced economic inequality in the United States is not in some Republican redoubt in Texas but in San Francisco, an extraordinarily expensive city in which half of all black households make do with less than $25,000 a year. Blacks in San Francisco are arrested on drug felonies at ten times their share of the general population. At 6 percent of the population, they represent 40 percent of those arrested for homicides. Whether you believe that that is the result of a racially biased criminal-justice system or the result of higher crime incidence related to socioeconomic conditions within black communities (or some combination of those factors) what is undeniable is that results for black Americans are far worse in our most progressive, Democrat-dominated cities than they are elsewhere. The progressives have had the run of things for a generation in these cities, and the results are precisely what you see.

The right wing seems to celebrate one or two corporations controlling an entire industry, like communications. A monopoly is good word for it and it guarantees higher prices and less dissemination of information other than the info that particular media wants us to hear. The right wing is in favor of privatized prisons where the prisons are guaranteed a certain occupation rate of inmates or the taxpayers pony up the difference. This is a guarantee that more young men will be rounded up and sent to prison. Look at our rate of concentration of prisoners compared to the rest of the world. I myself think that both sides of the political aisle ultimately lead to a more powerful state with less rights for the individual.

ROFLMNAO! That is HYSTERICAL. (In every sense of the word)

 

[Inevitable]

I read the book in eighth grade, and I couldn't put it down. I can't wait to see the movie. I never really picked up on right wing of left wing ideals. It seems to me both directions have an elementof totalitarianism in them. Which is why I am more along the lines of libertarian. But I see parts of both directions in the plot

 

[hipeter924]

Care to argue how the totalitarian regime was left-wing?

The Left is totalitarian. Most everything they do is to advance a communitarian vision. You are forced to comply. They want universal health care. You can't have universal health care if you allow people to exercise liberty and refuse to join.

Look at what happened with Hobby Lobby - the left went apeshit at the prospect of people exercising religious liberty.

Look at the bakers and photographers FORCED to associate with homosexuals when they have clearly expressed their desire NOT TO ASSOCIATE. Forcing people to associate with those who they wish to steer clear of is totalitarianism. Liberty is allowing people to control their own lives.

Look at how the Left regulates people's rights to free speech:

Within days after the hearing, the two were found guilty of all charges, placed on probation, and ordered on threat of suspension to undergo “Bias Reduction Training.”​

Even the punishment - Bias Reduction Training is Totalitarian - it imposes one school of thought on these two students - the students MUST THINK a certain way or they're suspended.

Liberals should own their totalitarianism rather than playing innocent and coy.

Totalitarianism doesn't follow 'left' or 'right' wing labels, it results from fanaticism and devotion to ideological purity like in Maoist China, Pinochet's Chile, Stalin's USSR, Pol Pot's Cambodia, or in Nazi Germany.

A right wing totalitarian state is no better than a left wing one, they are both totalitarian and prohibitive. Fortunately the GOP or the Dems have never had a total monopoly on power due to the checks and balances of the US political system. The GOP restricts freedom over your own body and your sex life, whereas the Dems restrict economic freedom. Both suck, and I wouldn't vote for either.

 

[Moonglow]

Wow! Reading this thread has led me to believe that the leftist of Sparta dominated the right in Athens...

 

[Rikurzhen]

Care to argue how the totalitarian regime was left-wing?

The Left is totalitarian. Most everything they do is to advance a communitarian vision. You are forced to comply. They want universal health care. You can't have universal health care if you allow people to exercise liberty and refuse to join.

Look at what happened with Hobby Lobby - the left went apeshit at the prospect of people exercising religious liberty.

Look at the bakers and photographers FORCED to associate with homosexuals when they have clearly expressed their desire NOT TO ASSOCIATE. Forcing people to associate with those who they wish to steer clear of is totalitarianism. Liberty is allowing people to control their own lives.

Look at how the Left regulates people's rights to free speech:

Within days after the hearing, the two were found guilty of all charges, placed on probation, and ordered on threat of suspension to undergo “Bias Reduction Training.”​

Even the punishment - Bias Reduction Training is Totalitarian - it imposes one school of thought on these two students - the students MUST THINK a certain way or they're suspended.

Liberals should own their totalitarianism rather than playing innocent and coy.

Totalitarianism doesn't follow 'left' or 'right' wing labels, it results from fanaticism and devotion to ideological purity like in Maoist China, Pinochet's Chile, Stalin's USSR, Pol Pot's Cambodia, or in Nazi Germany.

A right wing totalitarian state is no better than a left wing one, they are both totalitarian and prohibitive. Fortunately the GOP or the Dems have never had a total monopoly on power due to the checks and balances of the US political system. The GOP restricts freedom over your own body and your sex life, whereas the Dems restrict economic freedom. Both suck, and I wouldn't vote for either.

You don't need to conjure up a false equivalence in order to grant yourself license to criticize liberals.

Conservative restrictions on your sex life and body are boogeymen. There is a legitimate debate about abortion - which value takes precedence a woman's sovereignty over her own body or the life of a child. There are plenty of liberals who either acknowledge these competing values and/or actually come down on the side of the life of the child, so being pro-life is not a position restricted solely to conservatives. Sex lives are not restricted - there is nothing stopping you from consuming porn, from having sex with whomever you please and even before this homosexual marriage nonsense there was nothing stopping homosexuals from getting married.

Conservatives favor smaller government and it's logically incoherent to posit a smaller government having totalitarian control. Look at the root of totalitarian - total. Small implies partial. Large government is a better vehicle to use to implement totalitarian control than is small government.

 

[hipeter924]

The Left is totalitarian. Most everything they do is to advance a communitarian vision. You are forced to comply. They want universal health care. You can't have universal health care if you allow people to exercise liberty and refuse to join.

Look at what happened with Hobby Lobby - the left went apeshit at the prospect of people exercising religious liberty.

Look at the bakers and photographers FORCED to associate with homosexuals when they have clearly expressed their desire NOT TO ASSOCIATE. Forcing people to associate with those who they wish to steer clear of is totalitarianism. Liberty is allowing people to control their own lives.

Look at how the Left regulates people's rights to free speech:

Within days after the hearing, the two were found guilty of all charges, placed on probation, and ordered on threat of suspension to undergo “Bias Reduction Training.”​

Even the punishment - Bias Reduction Training is Totalitarian - it imposes one school of thought on these two students - the students MUST THINK a certain way or they're suspended.

Liberals should own their totalitarianism rather than playing innocent and coy.

Totalitarianism doesn't follow 'left' or 'right' wing labels, it results from fanaticism and devotion to ideological purity like in Maoist China, Pinochet's Chile, Stalin's USSR, Pol Pot's Cambodia, or in Nazi Germany.

A right wing totalitarian state is no better than a left wing one, they are both totalitarian and prohibitive. Fortunately the GOP or the Dems have never had a total monopoly on power due to the checks and balances of the US political system. The GOP restricts freedom over your own body and your sex life, whereas the Dems restrict economic freedom. Both suck, and I wouldn't vote for either.

You don't need to conjure up a false equivalence in order to grant yourself license to criticize liberals.

Conservative restrictions on your sex life and body are boogeymen. There is a legitimate debate about abortion - which value takes precedence a woman's sovereignty over her own body or the life of a child. There are plenty of liberals who either acknowledge these competing values and/or actually come down on the side of the life of the child, so being pro-life is not a position restricted solely to conservatives. Sex lives are not restricted - there is nothing stopping you from consuming porn, from having sex with whomever you please and even before this homosexual marriage nonsense there was nothing stopping homosexuals from getting married.

Conservatives favor smaller government and it's logically incoherent to posit a smaller government having totalitarian control. Look at the root of totalitarian - total. Small implies partial. Large government is a better vehicle to use to implement totalitarian control than is small government.

It isn't 'false equivalence' because I generally don't see a difference between 'Democrats' who send me stuff asking for cash to meet Obama and stop him being impeached, and Republicans who send me stuff asking that I take time out of my day to donate cash to shut down 'x' or impeach 'y'. Both suck, just in different ways.

Conservative restrictions on your sex life are not 'boogeymen' when they are actually laws in place, that have been put there by Republican Senators and Congressmen.

I wouldn't mind if we lived in a world without abortion, but it would require those same Republican Congressmen and Senators to pass a bill that provides free education, healthcare and so on to babies at risk of abortion and their families. They won't do that, which proves to me that the whole abortion debate is a political tool by the GOP to just manipulative conservative voters into not voting Democrat - rather than any altruistic or compassionate gesture towards the welfare of children.

'Conservatives' don't favor small government anymore than 'Liberals' do, when America went into Chile and across South America under the banner of 'free market capitalism' it turned democracies into brutal dictatorships; and at home 'free market capitalism' meant redistributing wealth from the American middle class to corporations in the form of corporate subsidies, propping up monopolies, and allowing corporations to avoid paying tax at all.

I don't see this 'small government' in any conservative run state, the police are just as prone to brutality and corruption as anywhere else, the roads still have potholes, and you still get sent to jail for smoking pot, and lets not forget the ban on prostitution.

 

[Rikurzhen]

I wouldn't mind if we lived in a world without abortion, but it would require those same Republican Congressmen and Senators to pass a bill that provides free education, healthcare and so on to babies at risk of abortion and their families. They won't do that, which proves to me that the whole abortion debate is a political tool by the GOP to just manipulative conservative voters into not voting Democrat - rather than any altruistic or compassionate gesture towards the welfare of children.

Free education, free healthcare, free "and so on" isn't free, someone is paying and what they're paying for is not a public good, they're goods which only benefit the individual. When you get a broken arm attended to by a physician, you benefit, I don't. This makes your connection of free stuff and abortion elimination problematic.

Since the dawn of humanity procreation has always worked this way - man and woman have sex and sometimes a baby is conceived. Conservatives are not interfering with this basic human activity. Everyone knows what can happen. Only in the case of rape is a woman faced with having a baby when she played no part in deciding to have that baby. Every other instance involves a woman playing an active part in the conception. Abortion gives woman a "do-over" and having a "do-over" is not a human right and removing the "do-over" option is not totalitarianism, it's simply a continuation of how humans have lived for millennia.

To the claim that the abortion issue is a political tactic used by Republicans, sure, I think that this is a defensible argument. The conclusion that you reach though isn't. It's not the job of the public to provide for the care of children. That's not a legitimate function of government, for it involves using government to personally benefit one party at the direct expense of another party with no public benefit being derived.

and at home 'free market capitalism' meant redistributing wealth from the American middle class to corporations in the form of corporate subsidies, propping up monopolies, and allowing corporations to avoid paying tax at all.

There's plenty wrong with the details of your argument but I'll let that slide. The glaring flaw of your argument your claim that wealth was REDISTRIBUTED from the middle class to corporations. You realize what redistribution entails, don't you, it requires that money be taken from one group and given to another group. This never happened. What did happen was corporations were allowed to keep more of the money that they earned, those subsidies usually took the form of allowable deductions for business inputs. Outright grants, like those given to Solyandra were usually seen from Democrats who believe in Industrial Planning (the government picking winners and losers).

 

[hipeter924]

Free education, free healthcare, free "and so on" isn't free, someone is paying and what they're paying for is not a public good, they're goods which only benefit the individual. When you get a broken arm attended to by a physician, you benefit, I don't. This makes your connection of free stuff and abortion elimination problematic.

Hardly, the entire fundamental premise of the abortion debate is the 'life like ours', if you can't guarantee 100% that a child that was to be aborted grows up to live a happy life with good employment opportunities, the entire argument against abortion falls apart - as bringing a child into the world to live in poverty and hardship is a negative experience for the child and the family - an orphanage especially doesn't provide a 'life like ours', nor does a life on the street or struggling through half way homes. I get sick of this crap about the GOP attacks on abortion rights being about the welfare of children, when it has never been about the welfare of children, just about political manipulation for votes.

There's plenty wrong with the details of your argument but I'll let that slide. The glaring flaw of your argument your claim that wealth was REDISTRIBUTED from the middle class to corporations. You realize what redistribution entails, don't you, it requires that money be taken from one group and given to another group. This never happened. What did happen was corporations were allowed to keep more of the money that they earned, those subsidies usually took the form of allowable deductions for business inputs. Outright grants, like those given to Solyandra were usually seen from Democrats who believe in Industrial Planning (the government picking winners and losers).

Which is exactly what happened with the Wall Street Bailout, when US politicians passed legislation that overnight redistributed what citizens (and businesses not party to the bailout) had contributed in their taxes to a select few corporations - without the direct consent of the American people.

It is exactly what happens when a Corporation is subsidized in tax dollars in a manner that is the anti-thesis of a free market, and exactly what happens when labor laws are rewritten to undermine workers rights and create an artificial economy built on corporate welfare to Walmart to employ Americans for poverty wages.

I don't know what world you live on, but the reality is that whenever you have subsidies for whatever reason, exclusive economic arrangements for a group in society, welfare subsidies, or tax one group more than others - you are not building a 'free market' but a mixed-economy with a corporatist bias.

 

[Rikurzhen]

Hardly, the entire fundamental premise of the abortion debate is the 'life like ours', if you can't guarantee 100% that a child that was to be aborted grows up to live a happy life with good employment opportunities, the entire argument against abortion falls apart - as bringing a child into the world to live in poverty and hardship is a negative experience for the child and the family - an orphanage especially doesn't provide a 'life like ours', nor does a life on the street or struggling through half way homes. I get sick of this crap about the GOP attacks on abortion rights being about the welfare of children, when it has never been about the welfare of children, just about political manipulation for votes.

Do you advocate the mass slaughter of the 6 billion people in the world who don't meet your condition of living a "life like ours?"

Is it better to die than to live in poverty, whether poverty as measured in America or poverty as measured in Africa? Or if you prefer, does life have value even if one lives in a state of poverty? Heck, why not a third alternative, who should decide if a life has value, the child once it is alive or the abortion advocate who decides on behalf of the child?

 

[hipeter924]

Do you advocate the mass slaughter of the 6 billion people in the world who don't meet your condition of living a "life like ours?"

No. I don't advocate putting those already living with a job or an education in unnecessary hardship, or bringing new people into the world to face hardship. It isn't the role of government to decide what a woman can't do with her body, if she wants an abortion it should be her choice in consultation with the doctor. Instead of giving birth to 6 billion children on the streets to unloving parents and into abject poverty, the world could be filled with 6 billion children with loving families and a livelyhood. But a world without child poverty would mean the end of a cheap labor force.

 

[SmedlyButler]

Saw it today and it was GREAT; going to see it again ASAP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJNNugNe0Wo

children's (or young adult?) novel. I heard it won some kind of kiddie lit award when it was published 20 years ago.They say it is one of those wierd dystopian based coming of age stories like the Hungergames or Divergent. Go for that YA fantasy genre do you? Don't care for it much myself.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Wow! Reading this thread has led me to believe that the leftist of Sparta dominated the right in Athens...

Sparta has inspired leftwing progressives for decades now, and you finally notice?

oh, no, it's just you being a smart ass punk again.

And pull your pants up, boy

 

[JimBowie1958]

Do you advocate the mass slaughter of the 6 billion people in the world who don't meet your condition of living a "life like ours?"

No. I don't advocate putting those already living with a job or an education in unnecessary hardship, or bringing new people into the world to face hardship. It isn't the role of government to decide what a woman can't do with her body, if she wants an abortion it should be her choice in consultation with the doctor. Instead of giving birth to 6 billion children on the streets to unloving parents and into abject poverty, the world could be filled with 6 billion children with loving families and a livelyhood. But a world without child poverty would mean the end of a cheap labor force.

yeah, and theman has no freedom of choice as his wages get garnished for a pregnancy the woman decided to keep all by her lonesome and thereby force the man into forced labor to support HER decision.

Democrats continue to love slavery as they have for centuries.

 

[jasonnfree]

The Left is totalitarian. Most everything they do is to advance a communitarian vision. You are forced to comply. They want universal health care. You can't have universal health care if you allow people to exercise liberty and refuse to join.

Look at what happened with Hobby Lobby - the left went apeshit at the prospect of people exercising religious liberty.

Look at the bakers and photographers FORCED to associate with homosexuals when they have clearly expressed their desire NOT TO ASSOCIATE. Forcing people to associate with those who they wish to steer clear of is totalitarianism. Liberty is allowing people to control their own lives.

Look at how the Left regulates people's rights to free speech:

Within days after the hearing, the two were found guilty of all charges, placed on probation, and ordered on threat of suspension to undergo “Bias Reduction Training.”​

Even the punishment - Bias Reduction Training is Totalitarian - it imposes one school of thought on these two students - the students MUST THINK a certain way or they're suspended.

Liberals should own their totalitarianism rather than playing innocent and coy.

The right wing is totalitarian also. They defend to death almost, the pollution of the air we breath and the water we drink, if that's what it takes for a corporation to make more profit. Many on the right are totally against any government regulation at all over the polluting of our natural resources.

There is no such thing as a Right-wing Polluter, or a 'Totalitarian Right-wing".

There are people who defend themselves from the catastrophic effects of Left-think, destroying the means of the purveyors of such to infect others. But that hardly define totalitarianism.

Youassume that a virus has a right to exist. It does not. You see there is no right to harm the means of others to exercise their God-given rights. And that where one attempts to do so, they reject the responsibilities that sustain their own rights, in effect forfeiting those rights; which would include the right to their life.

I tried to figure out what it was you were attempting to say but I finally gave up. You certainly didn't address my statement about pollution of resources, this I get.

 

[Unkotare]

It isn't the role of government to decide what a woman can't do with her body

Sure it is. You want it to be.

 

[hazlnut]

"Metaphor" is a big word for an inbred piece of white trash like Bowie.

Wanna try "allegory" next.