Green Party Platform...no thank you.

[Nicholas Stipanovich]

"...based on grassroots political and economic democracy, nonviolence, social justice, and ecological sustainability."
-Green Party Platform

The only people who don't want this are those which I would like to call

FASCISTS

Short answer, NO with some profanity.

Long answer, NO with some explanation. See, all those sweet sounding terms you cite are code words for some very nasty policies.

1) "Grassroots political and economic democracy" is either code for untrammeled mob rule or a dictatorship of the proletariat. The nasty little secret about democracy is the fact that 51% of the people can vote to violate the rights of the other 49%. When you add the term "economic democracy," shameful violations of people's right to property and opportunity are certainties. This is why all liberal countries have explicitly anti-democratic provisions (often in their legal systems).

2) "Nonviolence" means the total disarmament of the citizenry, the police and the military, as well as invasive speech controls and social engineering to change the "culture of violence." Of course, when the crime rates quickly spiral out of control, the Greens will of course have no qualms about rearming the police to deal with the "counterrevolutionary hoodlums."

3) "Social justice" is perhaps the most pernicious of the bunch, as it seems so innocuous. After all, who could be against justice? The truth is that "social justice" entails the replacement of the rights of the individual with the rights of society. Under a regime dedicated to social justice, the rights of a person are meaningless, save as the adjuncts to specially defined group rights. Needless to say, justice quickly loses impartiality. The ideal of blind justice and equality befire the law becomes a twisted parody of itself, as the justice system concerns itself precisely with the identity of those under its spell. Little is worse than a society in which a person's membership in some specially designated "victim group" matters more than his actions.

4) "Ecological sustainability" means the near-total destruction of the economy. Most of the radical environmentalists who preach this creed believe that the Earth's "sustainable carrying capacity" is at most 2 billion people and even at those levels they would like to see a dramatic decrease in economic activity and energy usage per capita. Those of us who like cheap energy and affordable consumer goods (like that which goes into creating the Internet that we all enjoy so much) will be out of luck in an "ecologically sustainable" utopia.

In short, all it takes is a pulse and some common sense to hate the Greens and their agenda, rather than any fascistic leanings.

EDIT: Fixed typo. By the way, a later poster with the willingness to wade through the Communist swill that the Green Party is putting out discovered a clause relating to unilateral military disarmament. I admit to being surprised that they would say such a thing openly rather than in their "culture of nonviolence" code. They must never expect to get elected (thankfully).

[Jim Raynor]

That's not even the worst of it...

Peace Conversion: Cut US military spending unilaterally by 75% in two years to establish a non-interventionist, non-offensive, strictly defensive military posture and save nearly $250 billion a year.

Great, eliminate any ability for our nation to defend any of its interests overseas.

Unilateral Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Disarmament: These weapons of mass destruction have no place in a non-offensive military. The US should set the example and demand that other nations match our lead before the proliferation of weapons to countries around the world leads to mass destruction.

While we're at that, let's also get rid of America's nuclear deterrent. Nice to know that any third world dictatorship that acquires even a few nukes will be able to hold the country hostage. And do they really expect the rest of the world, most of which is working hard on developing WMD, to play nice and follow along? If anything, they'll use this as an oppurtunity to further build up their militaries.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I like the education system, the rest sounds like pseudo-communism


And about the America first party

Recognize the Judeo-Christian heritage of our shared values

This sounds to me like government endorsment of religion, should this party take power Im moving to canada.

Defend the traditional family unit based on one man and one woman

they want to throw out gay marriage and adoptions(at least that is how I interpret it) Again I will move to germany

Actually what is Canada's current stance on homosexual rights?

[LordShaithis]

There are certain people on this board who would find the idea of a "Kill The Jews And Faggots" party quite agreeable.

[Resident Commie]

I really didn't want to get in to this, but hey if I don't who will.

It's easy to criticize a party for not working when it hasn't even been able to have a decent shot at a congressional or presidential seat. With all the money and propaganda surrounding the R and D parties it's hard to see outside them.

As for Nicholas Stipanovich unsupported arguments and assumptions:

Short answer, NO with some profanity.

Ya, well up yours, you fascist.

Long answer, NO with some explanation. See, all those sweet sounding terms you cite are code words for some very nasty policies.

1) "Grassroots political and economic democracy" is either code for untrammeled mob rule or a dictatorship of the proletariat. The nasty little secret about democracy is the fact that 51% of the people can vote to violate the rights of the other 49%. When you add the term "economic democracy," shameful violations of people's right to property and opportunity are certainties. This is why all liberal countries have explicitly anti-democratic provisions (often in their legal systems).

It's nice of you to point out that grassroots and democracy are merely "code words" it makes it easier for you to discredit a position by not actually addressing the issue. As for your irrelevant claim of a 51% controlling the 49%. Control in that form is nearly impossible if you look at the actual demographics of the US, if we were to have a so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat" this would more likely constitute between 60-80% of the population. Being that 60-80% of the pop. is the middle class. More equality would also spread to Economics where the Green party would end the "Apartheid" which currently separates the rich from the poor and creates a concentration of wealth never before seen in America.

Would this not be more of a true "democracy" as opposed to the top 10% of America controlling everything from business to politics in this current state?

As for the claims of violations of rights and undemocratic laws, these are mealy stereotypical assumptions of those who wish to see the current system of the elite in place.

2) "Nonviolence" means the total disarmament of the citizenry, the police and the military, as well as invasive speech controls and social engineering to change the "culture of violence." Of course, when the crime rates quickly spiral out of control, the Greens will of course have no qualms about rearming the police to deal with the "counterrevolutionary hoodlums."

What kind of twisted idea of nonviolence you have. This kind of leap in logic will surly cause you to fall. And in this case you've just fallen into the grand canyon.

Nonviolence along with solidarity will promote peace and stability along with disarmament of weapons of mass destruction (which the US currently has the largest stockpile of). This would be done by cutting the exorbitant military funding the government doles out. And by enforcing current international laws concerning illegal military activities which the US continues to break.

3) "Social justice" is perhaps the most pernicious of the bunch, as it seems so innocuous. After all, who could be against justice? The truth is that "social justice" entails the replacement of the rights of the individual with the rights of society. Under a regime dedicated to social justice, the rights of a person are meaningless, save as the adjuncts to specially defined group rights. Needless to say, justice quickly loses impartiality. The ideal of blind justice and equality befire the law becomes a twisted parody of itself, as the justice system concerns itself precisely with the identity of those under its spell. Little is worse than a society in which a person's membership in some specially designated "victim group" matters more than his actions.

Again leaps in logic will have you going off the deep end. I don't know where your definition from because Social Justice first off has nothing to do with individual freedoms and has everything to do with helping the needy and oppressed. In short charity!!! As for your wild response of rights and freedoms it only shows your irrational and unfounded way thinking.

4) "Ecological sustainability" means the near-total destruction of the economy. Most of the radical environmentalists who preach this creed believe that the Earth's "sustainable carrying capacity" is at most 2 billion people and even at those levels they would like to see a dramatic decrease in economic activity and energy usage per capita. Those of us who like cheap energy and affordable consumer goods (like that which goes into creating the Internet that we all enjoy so much) will be out of luck in an "ecologically sustainable" utopia.

If you wish to live in a wasteland in 50 years be my guest, but the fact of the matter is that like it or not the Earth is not here to support the whims of man. The world wide problems we face due to an ecological unbalance are widely known, i.e deforestation, global warming, environmental pollution. Therefore we must rectify these problems with more prudence than before.

In short, all it takes is a pulse and some common sense to hate the Greens and their agenda, rather than any fascistic leanings.

In short all it takes is a content consumer and increasingly wealth elite to continue a cycle of domination that robs us of our freedom and humanity.

-----------
All laws are directed against the working people. The people must acheive their liberation by their own efforts. As in former times, a priveleged class never surrenders its tyranny. Neither can it be expected that the capitalists of this age will give up their rulership without being forced to do it. Workmen of the world unite, You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win.

-The Anarchist Manifesto, 1883

[Resident Commie]

Corporate Socialism
By Ralph Nader
Thursday, July 18, 2002; Page A29


The relentless expansion of corporate control over our political economy has proven nearly immune to daily reporting by the mainstream media. Corporate crime, fraud and abuse have become like the weather; everyone is talking about the storm but no one seems able to do anything about it. This is largely because expected accountability mechanisms -- including boards of directors, outside accounting and law firms, bankers and brokers, state and federal regulatory agencies and legislatures -- are inert or complicit.

When, year after year, the established corporate watchdogs receive their profits or compensation directly or indirectly from the companies they are supposed to be watching, independent judgment fails, corruption increases and conflicts of interest grow among major CEOs and their cliques. Over time, these institutions, unwilling to reform themselves, strive to transfer the costs of their misdeeds and recklessness onto the larger citizenry. In so doing, big business is in the process of destroying the very capitalism that has provided it with a formidable ideological cover.

Consider the following assumptions of a capitalistic system:

1) Owners are supposed to control what they own. For a century, big business has split ownership (shareholders) from control, which is in the hands of the officers of the corporation and its rubber-stamp board of directors. Investors have been disenfranchised and told to sell their shares if they don't like the way management is running their business. Nowadays, with crooked accounting, inflated profits and self-dealing, it has proven difficult for even large investors to know the truth about their officious managers.

2) Under capitalism, businesses are supposed to sink or swim, which is still very true for small business. But larger industries and companies often have become "too big to fail" and demand that Uncle Sam serve as their all-purpose protector, providing a variety of public guarantees and emergency bailouts. Yes, some wildly looted companies that are expendable, such as Enron, cannot avail themselves of governmental salvation and do go bankrupt or are bought. By and large, however, in industry after industry where two or three companies dominate or presage a domino effect, Washington becomes their backstop.

3) Capitalism is supposed to exhibit a consensual freedom of contract -- a distinct advance over a feudal society. Yet the great majority of contracts for credit, insurance, software, housing, health, employment, products, repairs and other services are standard-form, printed contracts, presented on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. Going across the proverbial street to a competitor gets you the same contract. Every decade, these "contracts of adhesion," as the lawyers call them, become more intrusive and more insistent on taking away the buyers' constitutional rights to access to courts in favor of binding arbitration or stipulate outright surrender of basic rights and remedies. The courts are of little help in invalidating these impositions by what are essentially private corporate legislatures regulating millions of Americans.

4) Capitalism requires a framework of law and order: The rules of the economic game are to be conceived and enforced on the merits against mayhem, fraud, deception and predatory practices. Easily the most powerful influence over most government departments and agencies are the industries that receive the privileges and immunities, regulatory passes, exemptions, deductions and varied escapes from responsibility that regularly fill the business pages. Only those caught in positions of extreme dereliction ever have reason to expect more than a slap on the wrist for violating legal mandates.

5) Capitalist enterprises are expected to compete on an even playing field. Corporate lobbyists, starting with their abundant cash for political campaigns, have developed a "corporate state" where government lavishes subsidies, inflated contracts, guarantees and research and development and natural resources giveaways on big business -- while denying comparable benefits to individuals and family businesses. We have a government of big business, by big business and for big business, even if more of these businesses are nominally moving their state charters to Bermuda-like tax escapes.

"Corporate socialism" -- the privatization of profit and the socialization of risks and misconduct -- is displacing capitalist canons. This condition prevents an adaptable capitalism, served by equal justice under law, from delivering higher standards of living and enlarging its absorptive capacity for broader community and environmental values. Civic and political movements must call for a decent separation of corporation and state.

In 1938, in the midst of the Great Depression, Congress created the Temporary National Economic Committee to hold hearings around the country, recommend ways to deal with the concentration of economic power and promote a more just economy. World War II stopped this corporate reform momentum. We should not have to wait for a further deterioration from today's gross inequalities of wealth and income to launch a similar commission on the rampant corporatization of our country. At stake is whether civic values of our democratic society will prevail over invasive commercial values.

[FireNexus]

Again leaps in logic will have you going off the deep end. I don't know where your definition from because Social Justice first off has nothing to do with individual freedoms and has everything to do with helping the needy and oppressed. In short charity!!! As for your wild response of rights and freedoms it only shows your irrational and unfounded way thinking.

Charity is not forced...

[Nicholas Stipanovich]

I really didn't want to get in to this, but hey if I don't who will.

It's easy to criticize a party for not working when it hasn't even been able to have a decent shot at a congressional or presidential seat. With all the money and propaganda surrounding the R and D parties it's hard to see outside them.

Perhaps, just perhaps, most people of sound mind simply reject the Green Party's claptrap outright. Perhaps it is possible that 95% of the population of the United States are not brainwashed zombies. Of course, instead of taking a hard look at your deranged beilefs, you prefer to blame the failure of your ideas on crazy conspiracy theories involving faceless "money and propaganda".

As for Nicholas Stipanovich unsupported arguments and assumptions:

Short answer, NO with some profanity.

Ya, well up yours, you fascist.

I am not a fascist. Fascists are both nationalists and socialists of the European variety. I am neither.

Long answer, NO with some explanation. See, all those sweet sounding terms you cite are code words for some very nasty policies.

1) "Grassroots political and economic democracy" is either code for untrammeled mob rule or a dictatorship of the proletariat. The nasty little secret about democracy is the fact that 51% of the people can vote to violate the rights of the other 49%. When you add the term "economic democracy," shameful violations of people's right to property and opportunity are certainties. This is why all liberal countries have explicitly anti-democratic provisions (often in their legal systems).

It's nice of you to point out that grassroots and democracy are merely "code words" it makes it easier for you to discredit a position by not actually addressing the issue. As for your irrelevant claim of a 51% controlling the 49%. Control in that form is nearly impossible if you look at the actual demographics of the US, if we were to have a so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat" this would more likely constitute between 60-80% of the population. Being that 60-80% of the pop. is the middle class. More equality would also spread to Economics where the Green party would end the "Apartheid" which currently separates the rich from the poor and creates a concentration of wealth never before seen in America.

My point was that under a true "grassroots democracy" there are no provisions that protect an unpopular minority from the whims of the majority. Explicitly anti-democratic procedures are in place in any liberal country to protect the civil rights of these minorities.

The reason democracy is not an untrammeled good is because some virtues are not inherently democratic. The best example of this is truth. The truth of someone's position has little to do with how many people agree with him and much to do with whether his position matches the facts. For similar reasons, justice is in many ways inherently undemocratic.

As hard as it may be to wrap your bigoted mind around the idea, rich people are as entitled to full civil and political rights as poor people. That is what equality under the law means. Therefore, you do not have the right to kill them or take their property, just as you do not have the right to do so to a beggar. I would think that you would be appreciative of the protections minorites are afforded in free countries, being a member of an unpopular minority in political viewpoints yourself.

Would this not be more of a true "democracy" as opposed to the top 10% of America controlling everything from business to politics in this current state?

As for the claims of violations of rights and undemocratic laws, these are mealy stereotypical assumptions of those who wish to see the current system of the elite in place.

As I said before, I do not want a "true democracy"! True democracy is highly unstable and potentially among the worst forms of government for the protection of individual rights. What I want is a government that will guarantee me my rights to life, liberty and property. The government of the United States of America does this in the main through an elaborate system of checks and balances that provides for both majority rule and minority protection. Even as such, the rights of many people have been violated throughout the history of my country through perfectly democratic means.

2) "Nonviolence" means the total disarmament of the citizenry, the police and the military, as well as invasive speech controls and social engineering to change the "culture of violence." Of course, when the crime rates quickly spiral out of control, the Greens will of course have no qualms about rearming the police to deal with the "counterrevolutionary hoodlums."

What kind of twisted idea of nonviolence you have. This kind of leap in logic will surly cause you to fall. And in this case you've just fallen into the grand canyon.

Nonviolence along with solidarity will promote peace and stability along with disarmament of weapons of mass destruction (which the US currently has the largest stockpile of). This would be done by cutting the exorbitant military funding the government doles out. And by enforcing current international laws concerning illegal military activities which the US continues to break.

Ah, there we have the statement that gives the lie to your pratlling of "nonviolence"! We need "solidarity" along with nonviolence to promote peace and stability. And where will this solidarity come from? Will the Iraqi lion lay down with the Kuwaiti lamb simply because the United States throws aside her defenses? Will the Chinese and the Taiwanese let bygones be bygones because the U.S.A. decides that nuclear deterrence is no longer a good idea? No! In many places, it is the United States military that keeps the peace and promotes stability.

In a world such as ours, your prescription is one for national suicide. Somehow, I don't think that prospect would bother you, as Communists (or hard leftists; I don't care how you label yourself) like you have railed against the U.S. as the "bastion of reaction" for at least 50 years.

3) "Social justice" is perhaps the most pernicious of the bunch, as it seems so innocuous. After all, who could be against justice? The truth is that "social justice" entails the replacement of the rights of the individual with the rights of society. Under a regime dedicated to social justice, the rights of a person are meaningless, save as the adjuncts to specially defined group rights. Needless to say, justice quickly loses impartiality. The ideal of blind justice and equality befire the law becomes a twisted parody of itself, as the justice system concerns itself precisely with the identity of those under its spell. Little is worse than a society in which a person's membership in some specially designated "victim group" matters more than his actions.

Again leaps in logic will have you going off the deep end. I don't know where your definition from because Social Justice first off has nothing to do with individual freedoms and has everything to do with helping the needy and oppressed. In short charity!!! As for your wild response of rights and freedoms it only shows your irrational and unfounded way thinking.

Social justice is not simply about charity. If it were, then you would petition corporations and private individuals to step up their charitable outlays to the needy. Rather, social justice is about destroying the foundation of equality before the law in the name of the "needy and oppressed". What social justice schemes do is identify those who have been "disadvantaged" by membership in a designated "victim" group. Then, they take resources away from those in a designated "oppressor" group and give them to the victims. Thia is theft, and thus a violation of the individual rights of those you have decided to steal from.

4) "Ecological sustainability" means the near-total destruction of the economy. Most of the radical environmentalists who preach this creed believe that the Earth's "sustainable carrying capacity" is at most 2 billion people and even at those levels they would like to see a dramatic decrease in economic activity and energy usage per capita. Those of us who like cheap energy and affordable consumer goods (like that which goes into creating the Internet that we all enjoy so much) will be out of luck in an "ecologically sustainable" utopia.

If you wish to live in a wasteland in 50 years be my guest, but the fact of the matter is that like it or not the Earth is not here to support the whims of man. The world wide problems we face due to an ecological unbalance are widely known, i.e deforestation, global warming, environmental pollution. Therefore we must rectify these problems with more prudence than before.

I disagree. If the Earth has any cosmic purpose whatsoever, it is precisely to serve the whims of man. If we wish to pave the entire surface, that is both our choice and our right. If we wish to kill every non-human organism on the planet, that is also our choice and our right. However, this will not happen, as people value some of what we would call "the wild". The question is then one of balance and proportion. How many acres of forest would we like to retain for recreation, environmental regulation and other such human uses? How warm would we like the atmosphere? What weather patterns are acceptable to us? And how much do we care about this in relation to the other traditional economic factors that go into our standard of living? The answers to these questions are important ones, but we should not be lulled into making the wrong choices simply because of anti-capitalist fears regarding "ecological sustainability".

In short, all it takes is a pulse and some common sense to hate the Greens and their agenda, rather than any fascistic leanings.

In short all it takes is a content consumer and increasingly wealth elite to continue a cycle of domination that robs us of our freedom and humanity.

I accept your concession that one need not be a fascist in order to oppose the Green Party agenda. In your own words, one need only be a "content consumer". Since that was my original main point, I claim victory here, provisional upon the condition that you do not try to make the outrageous claim that all content consumers are fascists. If you wish to continue debating on the other points, I will deign to do so.

-----------
All laws are directed against the working people. The people must acheive their liberation by their own efforts. As in former times, a priveleged class never surrenders its tyranny. Neither can it be expected that the capitalists of this age will give up their rulership without being forced to do it. Workmen of the world unite, You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win.

-The Anarchist Manifesto, 1883

By the way, that's a cute quote. It nicely illustrates what I meant about social justice and the law.