Socialist Party

Earlier today I formed the Second Life chapter of the Socialist Party. In doing this, I hope to provide an alternative way for individuals to commune, interact, and produce. I also hope to utilize Party membership to launch some in-world political activism. Our goal isn't to overthrow the free market of Second Life or anything like that, as most people seem to enjoy virtual capitalism, we just want there to be options. If anybody is interested in helping out with SPSL, then instant message Lenin Camus.

Also, for members in need, I'm offering some free rent homes.

MwahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH *Gasp* AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Good luck with that.

I could build you a soup kitchen, or perhaps a bunch of signs for your toilet paper lines. All for a nominal fee, of course.

Ply that dead political philosophy, man. Have fun!

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. – Robert Heinlein

The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a slave. – Ayn Rand

couldent have said it better my self

A socialite party ? Where and when please

I have many times thought there should be a Statist Party, a group that explicity proclaims the affinity between the various statist collectivist groups such as socialists, democratic-socialists, social-democrats, communists, democrats, republicans, etc.

A motto for the Statist Party might be "Anything not prohibited is compulsory".

Alternative to what ?

Maybe we should reconsider this... If I try hard enough, I'm sure I could develop an overblown sense of entitlement if it means free storage for property. I am intriged now... What are the requirements for joining? How many prims can I store on my free land that you are providing? You don't expect us to pay taxes or follow any rules, do you? How do you decide who is and is not worthy of land use rights? If you permit me to occupy your land, can my family as well? Do they get the same prim storage rights? It's only fair. Do I have to build things for "The collective" in exchange for my land? Is it actually MY land? I figure using it for a store or advertising would be prohibited, yes? Or is it up to your infinate wisdom to deem the more creative and/or productive the right to build, while others, who only have a NEED, can stay for free, leeching off of the more useful folks, (Or Volk, if you prefer.) Please, give me all the details on how I am allowed to use my land, ad what restrictions you place on said land. My requirements are simple, a single 512 meter plot (The bare minimum already supplied by the state with subsidies) and 117 prims.

If you can provide me with these things, like a good nanny state, along with every other person willing (Or in NEED) to join your group, based solely on your own cash, or what people are willing to chip in, OR, at a lower cost than what LL/The Invisible Hand of the market can provide for a straight capitalist exchange, then I will gladly join the SLSP. I will also sprout RL wings, grow a snout and a curly tail, and start skating on all that ice that suddenly bursts out of the groud after hell freezes over.

I am totally sincere.

Lenin,

Two groups that may also be of interest to you are:

The SDF:
http://www.ulrikasheim.org/sdf/

and

The Neualtenburg Project:
http://www.neualtenburg.org/


Just in case you find them interesting.

Naw. You quoted Robert Heinlein, who often pretended to be a serious political ideologue, and then laughed like hell at the fools who took him seriously. And then you went a step further and quoted Ayn Rand.

Which means that no sensible person of any political persuasion will take you seriously. Your only hope is to argue convincingly that you were engaging in stream-of-conciousness political satire.

Lenin, what flavor of socialism are you favoring? Your name gives a clue, but there are at least 36 possible scoops of ice cream in Marxism-Leninism freezer.

Seth Mumbled:
"Which means that no sensible person of any political persuasion will take you seriously."

Wow, nice package dealing with a hint of argument through intimidation. You also peppered it with the old ad-hominem implication. Love those emotionalist responses. Keep 'em coming.

"Your only hope is to argue convincingly that you were engaging in stream-of-conciousness political satire."

I have no idea what this means.

Hope of what? Convincing you? I don't have to convince you. I'm just taking easy shots at already proven bad ideas. I enjoy it. It feels good to me.

Aside from all of that nonsense, you completely failed to answer any of my second post which, however snarky it was, pointed out many of the failings of nanny state logic. Not that I expect you to do anything but make personal jabs from now on.

I feel a glow of warm fuzziness coming on.

socialism <> nanny state. true socialism (not ever seen practiced IRL) is a web of peers. "nanny state" is much more a characteristic of top down paternalistic constructs. which, btw, cut across all economical systems (e.g. see current day USA)

Wow Pontifus, you seem just a bit reactionary about all this. How have your responses been any less emotional then anyone elses?

I am curious Lenin how you would like this to work, in a world where basic needs are already met by LL, or nonexistant such as food and water. I would be very interested to see an alternative to the capitalist anarchy of SL, I'm not sure Socialism is the cure, but I'm willing to listen.

Criticizing any ideology in its purest context as you are doing is as easy as it is pointless. Yeah, pure socialism doesn't work, big whoop. Neither does pure capitalism, pure democracy, or any other ideology when taken in its platonic form.

That doesn't mean the ideology is dead, useless or anything else you can think of. It's the lessons and ideas we take from the ideology that matters. You want to argue about the finer points of incorporating socialist ideas into a capitalist system, which is what a good chunk of the world is doing currently with varying degrees of success, fine. No points for taking pot shots at extremism, though.

In the mean time, ignore the naysayers. Dialogue/activism or whatever sounds good, any way you look at it.

Btw. Heinlein=good. Ayn Rand=....aw, no barf smiley.

Sorry, I get my collectivism all mixed up. It all looks the same to me. Thanks for the correction.

People are evil and need to be punished?
People are dumb and need to be led?

One person tells everyone what to do
A couple people tell everyone what to do
Everyone tells everyone what to do
God tells everyone what to do

All sounds the same to me.
I'd just assume not be told what to do. I'm a grownup, thanks.

Then:
1. Go live alone in a cabin in the rockies.
OR
2. Conquer the world.

Only way you're ever going to go without taking orders from someone.

You seem to like to take arguments to their extreme. Ideology in practice is
not black and white "you need to have everything on the bullet point list."

SL is an anarchy..... with room for both left and right wing anarchy. Theres room for all of us.


Incedentally, I find Ayn Rand the most reprehensible, self centred, egotistical, and inhuman "philosopher" whose works I've had the misfortune to encounter.


Ayn Rands philosophy boils down to, as long as im ok, fuck the rest of you ......
.... very enlightened, not.

Oh, and while we're playing the quote game...

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules...I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals."

--Albert Einstein
Monthly Review New York (May 1949)

Not the best source when it comes to political science, but then again neither is Heinlein.

Socialism is a dead philosophy? That would surprise Canada and almost all of Scandanavia and Europe. Interestingly enough, most are places with higher literacy and standards of living than the good ole USA.

edited for spelling. damn laptops

True dat. None of the protagonists in her novels even remotely resemble normal human beings in terms of their motivations. It's like she has to crowbar the human psyche itself into some twisted form just to create situations in which her views make practical sense. Reminds me of all that nonsense about the "New Soviet Man"...

"Wow Pontifus, you seem just a bit reactionary about all this. How have your responses been any less emotional then anyone elses?"

By arguing against the idea and not the person. I wasn't particularly polite about it, but I wasn't saying "Anybody who is a socialist is inherently bad by the company they keep, or whom they have respect for." as Seth did. The implication that a particular quote I chose as salient should entirely discredit me purely based on the fact that the person making the quote may have ideas repellant to the reader is an assumption of guillt by association. If that is the case, I'll show a few quotes from known socialists to even the score:

"Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs." John Davis,
editor of Earth First! Journal

"Our main agenda is to have ALL guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn't matter if you have to distort facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed."
Sarah Brady

Death solves all problems - no man, no problem.
Joseph Stalin

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.
Joseph Stalin

"I want you to know that everything I did, I did for my country."
Pol Pot

"I did not join the resistance movement to kill people, to kill the nation. Look at me now. Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear."
Pol Pot

"I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure, Jesus Christ."
Fidel Castro

"I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened."
Fidel Castro

I'd use some of the Dreaded Hitler quotes, but why, other than to beat the horse?

Um, my point was that quotes are a pretty ridiculous way of presenting an argument. I could dig up as many as you can, and nobody would gain anything.

The point is that demonizing any ideology purely from a theoretical or ad hominem standpoint is plain ridiculous. Your first post just pulled me out of the woodwork so I could say just that. Socialism isn't bad, even though some who declared themselves so are clearly jackasses. I mean, is it right to call Christ and his teachings inhumane and murderous simply because Ferdinand and Isabella decided to slaughter anyone who didn't declare themselves Christian?

Socialism in its totality surely doesn't "work," either. But does that make it a bad ideology? In that case democracy should be avoided like the plague.

The idea and applications we may draw from ideology should really be the subject of objective academic debate, not emotional ideological ones.

Edit: Oh, that first quote by the Earth First guy is hilarious. In a way, it could be true though. Who are we to judge our own worth?

Pontificus, youre sorely misled if you think Hitler was a socialist .... yes I know it was called the National Socialist Party, but they were Fascists, not socialists.

I urge you, look at Sweden as a model of a decent socialist state, and maybe your opinions will change.


Anyway, isnt this forum for debating the implementation of govt types within SL, and not for denigrating the political beliefs people hold in RL. It might be more worthwhile if people interested in Lenins idea talk here, or in world with him about implementing his political experiment within SL than engaging in a fruitless debate about RL politics, if you want that, try the political lobbies in yahoo.


And Lenin, kudos for trying something interesting and different from the typical SL capitalism, while not wishing to participate, id definately be interested in looking in on party owned lands at some point, and seeing how it pans out.

Avatars of the grid unite, you have nothing to lose but your lag.

I retract everything I have said in this thread. I shouldn't have spoken up. I haven't the will, speed, or ability to win an argument of one versus ten. You have proven your point. The group has more power than the individual. Besides, I might as well be arguing athiesm with a group of Baptists.

But PLEASE, continue to abuse Heinlein, Rand, and for that matter, Jefferson, Spooner, Paine, Franklin, Hayek, Von Mises, Friedman, and Rothbard, because it is certainly easier to attack the person than attack thier views or the views of people they choose to associate themselves with.

Nevertheless, here we are arguing through a service that many of us pay cash money for, for you to debate the evils of capitalism. Congrats.

But like I said, you guys win. I give up. I have a job, and have to go earn money, to pay for Second Life, so I can argue about how evil it is to deal in money.

All sarcasm aside though, I'll drop it. This thread was for socialists, far be it from me to hijack the thread with a dissenting voice. Have fun guys.

"Who are we to judge our own worth?"

90% of the problem right there.

Speak for yourself. I must judge my own worth every day. If I don't I'll never better myself. And neither will you.

Now I work to support the masses. Bye bye.