Greek Riots - Greek Polititian almost gets killed by rioters

Well it didn't convince me of anything or tell me anything new, but it was a good tune. I thing they just created a catchy tune to keep the audience amused whilst they were waiting for the speaker? More about hearty entertainment for the expected right-wing leaning crowd than on actually presenting a true message. Freedom 'IS' free would fit in there nicely too.

Was the message of it really supposed to convince people that 'Freedom ain't free'? In my world freedom must be free or it aint freedom. Something in reality we've probably never had. Call it something else rather than try to change the meaning of it by giving it a catchy tune. As long as we convince ourselves that freedom aint free then of course we'll be happy to accept that. Maybe that might work for the mentally challenged?

 

True Words of Wisdom.
50 Years back was the "deja-vu" of today
Back then they used propaganda and fascist beliefs Now they use economy (and fascist beliefs)
I Bet in 50 years there will still be the exact and same problem with Germany but they gonna use something else to blackmail or to push things around.

 

Dude , can you point out the spin ? The guy enumerates some events to support his cause . Go to the library and buy a counter-intelligence manual and a black ops manual . Read them understand them and open you bloody eyes . Right now you sound like a extremist yourself .

Is it so hard to understand that "Freedom ain't free" means that freedom should be defended and not taken for granted ? You are as free as society can permit and if you want you can break the rules of society .

Germany always had problems of this type since the formation of the Natzi Party - this is why they still have some really brutal laws that prevent Natzi organizations from gathering strength . Anyway since the British refused the role they are the true head of the EU and a model for most EU nations . So far they managed to keep everything under-control in their land . Maybe because of the Autobahn .

 

Are you really that thick? Pure spin follows.

Where did I take sides on a molotov cocktail throwing? It is an ASS-UMPTION where I am used as a scapegoat. That's PURE Spin.

As I have stated since day one, violence is BAD, in ALL forms. Get it now?

I'm all for overthrowing a government that lies to its people yes, but WikiLeaks has the right answer. Fight them with the TRUTH, not violence.

 

i·ro·ny  
[ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-]
–noun, plural -nies.
1. the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.

Other possible examples include:
1) Bushranger presenting a video that combines images of Timothy McVeigh, a politicized Obama DHS report warning about "right wing extremists", and imagery of Tea party activists marching in the streets, all to make the allegation that the real terror and violence we need to fear are American conservatives, while liberals are actually committing acts of violence in the streets all around the world.

2) Using the words "I'm all for overthrowing a government that lies to its people" a few scant sentences after fear mongering on "right wing extremists".

3) Using the words "Are you really that thick?" in application to someone who understands the irony in a post you yourself did not.

My favorite was this little gem:

Translation: Facts confuse me and I, like many people, get violent when I'm confused. The responsibility for such violence lies with the person issuing the facts, not with the person committing the violent acts.

Don't feel bad Bushie. Your confused and poorly formed arguments and your struggle with basic reading comprehension are all really quite common with those who share your dogma. Take poor Helvetii for instance.

 

Greece was a recipe for disaster. How can anyone be surprised when inevitable consequences eventually occur?

The Failure of the Greek Economic Model

The debacle of the Greek state should not be seen simply as the result of fraudulent budget statistics or a few years of profligate spending. Instead, it signifies the collapse of a model of economic development that from its very inception in the 19th century has always placed politics above markets.

The central organizing principle of Greek society has always been political clientelism—a system in which political support is provided in exchange for material benefits. In this situation the state's role as the main provider of benefits to various groups and individuals becomes paramount. As Greek left-wing historian Kostas Vergopoulos puts it:

"The fundamental structure of Greece has never been civil society but the state. Ever since the middle of the 19th century nothing could be done in Greece without it necessarily passing through the machinery of the state."

Socialism causes yet another massive failure with Greece

Living in a comfortable and debt financed socialism for many years, Greece reacted with a mix of resignation and outrage on Monday to a painful austerity package from the government. It foresees a massive fiscal adjustment driven primarily by cuts in the country's bloated public sector, which makes up roughly a third of the workforce.

Wikipedia: Economy of Greece

In 2009, Greece had the EU's second lowest Index of Economic Freedom (after Poland), ranking 81st in the world.​

And what good do these morons think rioting will do them? They have simply run out of other people's money.

 

Or have they. It seems you can tap into a nearly unlimited supply of OPM, so long as your success or failure is attached to the success or failure of a shared currency like the Euro. Sure Germany hates it, but what choice do they have? They are married to the socialists. Our new lawmakers in California are taking notes.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...-fund-to-stem-sovereign-crisis-contagion.html

 

How about we change the word "Greece" with the word "Ireland" and in a few weeks with the words "Portugal" and "Spain"

To get facts straight.
The Economic Model Greece following after Dictatorship is Denmark's Economic Model.

As you say and i quote "The central organizing principle of Greek society has always been political clientelism—a system in which political support is provided in exchange for material benefits. In this situation the state's role as the main provider of benefits to various groups and individuals becomes paramount." check the Siemes Scandal which shows for how many years this kind of model betweem Germany and Greece exists which is at least 20 years in Greece.
Germany didnt do nothing about it.
Germany also sell Militairy equipment to Greece(bribing), building up the Athens International Airport(bribing) and many more stuff.

These "morons" that you call, are the grandson's of the one's who fought Nazi's(which btw wrecked Greek Economy) and are protesting and rioting like all free people should do. They are protesting at the fact that the government took their pensions, their parents pensions, their tuition's , their schools, their homes, their food, their rights....
Some fail to understand freedom.

More on this issue later.

 

Heck, the U.S. is headed down the same path of profligate spending. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." The U.S. is just a few years behind Greece -- and the current demographic pattern in regards to aging makes catastrophic failure almost inevitable. You just can't make a nation richer by stealing from each other.

 

So what do you propose should be done when the majority of people continue to vote for governments which continue to increase tax and spend on social welfare within the mandate given by the constitution? What I see you guys doing is only complaining while giving no useful suggestion.

 

People are going to have to learn that theft isn't a scalable solution. Once they learn, protections against this sort of organized crime can be enshrined in Constitutions.

America's founding fathers tried to do this using the tactic of enumerated powers, but over time the constant battering of political attacks and judicial activism wore down the U.S. Constitution. Jefferson foresaw this too. He wrote "The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone."

 

How do you plan to go about with that? By proposing that every guy keeps a AR-15 for protection against "oppressive government"?

Spreading awareness to bring people to your side and having laws changed through the democratic process seems like a desirable option, its a pity that what conservatives are actually trying to do is lying to get a small minority of people armed for a rebellion against a majorities government - a revolution causing lawlessness as they call it.

What do you propose to do if you are unable to get people on your side and they continue to tax you to fund social welfare schemes? I'm really curious.

 

Actually, that was the proposal put forth by the original framers of the constitution. It is an important and necessary aspect of a free people, but not at all what Will was talking about.

Whatever political philosophy you push your opponents will assail it with bullshit like:

Also, the push would not be to have laws changed. We have good laws. The push should be to prevent rapid expansion of the powers of government via new laws.

I also appreciate the irony in your post, which mentions once again conservatives and revolution. Perhaps you haven't been reading this thread, where like thinkers as yourself such as Harry256 talk about how the Greeks are performing their civil duty in rioting for government handouts, and Bushranger says any government that lies to its people should be overthrown. If conservatives are the revolutionaries, and your side advocates violence, what does that make them?

Poverty. You can rob your own government and the rich within your society until they are poor, but at some point, the money is truly gone and real austerity measures have to be put in place. Look at Greece. Look at Ireland.

In my opinion, the people within a society whose livelihood is dependent on the expansion of government will not be persuaded by any argument to shrink government, unless they leave government employment and get a job in the private sector. They take such proposals the same way I would take someone proposing to take away my promised vacation home. It is very personal.

When you consider that a) their minds will not be changed by any argument, and b) these people vote, then you can look at the 30% of people in Greece who work for the government and realize that a collapse was the only possible answer.

In America, 4% of our population works for the government, though government jobs(Federal, State, and community) make up almost 8% of all jobs. When you throw in private contractors, that number jumps to almost 18%, though I suspect employees of government contractors generally still vote as though they work in the private sector. 8% is still a big number, but one that is not to big to be reigned in if the majority of voters can get their act together.

Unfortunately, when you throw in the number of people who do not work for the government, but now live off of government handouts, the number may be big enough to have reached critical mass. California has already passed that point. As the last election bore out, we are beyond caring about fiscal consequences. We now continue to buy the Hagen Daas even as our weight pushes 300lbs. Sure we will gain more weight, but we are already fat, and besides, it tastes just sooooo damn good.

[Edit]I also forgot to mention. Republicans, for a long time, have gotten away with advertising themselves as "diet", when they were anything but. One of the many reasons the Tea Party exists.

 

Its a killer being misquoted, eh ? I wish the best to the Greeks, and hope they get rid of the
malevolents who are trying to enslave them.

 

Jefferson wrote "Our tenet ever was . . . that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action." The U.S. may have a Constitution, but it doesn't appear to be in use.

There really is an important moral difference between leftists who use violence to steal from other people and freedom lovers who resort to violence to get other people to stop stealing from them.

I'm on a roll with Jefferson, so I'll go back to him, "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

I'll go past Jefferson for this one, back to Frédéric Bastiat, one of the last great Frenchmen, "It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder. "But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime." — Frederic Bastiat

 

That one is going into my collection of quotes. The trial of Charlie Rangle will probably sit in my consciousness until I die. You can watch Wesley Snipes who is going(gone?) to jail this week for tax evasion, and put him along side Charlie, and realize that some citizens are more equal than others, especially if they work for the government. It is illegal to pay for someone's vote with your own money, but buying their votes with taxpayer dollars is entirely legitimate.

 

You both have posted, what is desirable, what happened, what will happen, how things should be but failed to answer simple questions:

What do you plan to do about it and how? Do you intend to sit on your hands while majorities government taxes you and keeps spending?

 

You gave me an idea. Start up a group ( anti-Acorn ? ) that stumps for and brings in votes for those who are not paid off
by bankstèrs.

Plus, I will add a quote from Martin Wolf :


"Bank debt simply cannot be public debt. If bank debt is to be such debt, bankers should be viewed as civil servants and banks as government departments."

 

Look at Venezuela and you'll have your answer. Government claimed ownership of the "resources", as Bushranger calls them, and all the upper and middle class moved out of the country with their money, leaving a formerly first world nation to devolve into a third world dictatorship that will eventually collapse under financial or military pressure from without or within. What you do about it is what you do about anything else in your life. You try and change that which can be changed and that you have the power to change, and from the things you cant, you try and make opportunities and/or mitigate losses. You know you are a full fledged liberal when you honestly believe raising taxes is going to generate more revenue when, in reality, it just causes capital to disappear in search of shelter.

Something like this is already in play, but from a more negative angle. Tea Party values and threats were fresh in the minds of he Republican minority in the Senate, who might have otherwise passed the recently presented pork laden Omnibus spending bill. Rumor has it that Tea Party organizations threatened active campaigning/primary defeat for any Republican that voted in favor of it, even if that meant we'd lose the general election because we had to put a candidate like Christine O'Donnell in. I was thinking of putting together a website called something like "Heads on Stakes", that would focus on the fiscal misconduct of our elected officials, ranking them on a scale from worst to best, helping to raise cash to crush heavily entrenched criminal incumbents like Rangle with outside money. I don't care if you have to replace them with Adolph Hitlers younger brother, or Osama Bin Laden's cousin twice removed. I'm exaggerating, of course, and I'm sure we can do better than the relative of some sadist. O'Donnell wasn't all that bad from a fiscal standpoint. The point is, elections need to be consequential for bad behavior, or our elections will have no meaning at all. They will never hold each other accountable.

Love the quote! Thanks.

 

So just for the record you plan to abandon your country and your people an run away like Spencer, leaving your country to rot? Do I get it right?