To get to the point in thought where 'regulation' of capitalism by governments could even be considered, one has assumed that neither people nor governments have a need or interest in exploring whether or not it is an appropriate economic system. Like, duh, capitalism, ya know?

It's reactionary because it is so directly a response to the thing itself. It assumes that the thing just *is* and *always will be*. That makes no sense at all. I know I use reactionary in all sorts of ways it's not really meant. Sorry.

Like capitalism itself, that totally weak foundation for a theory makes it null and void, right there on it's face.

Imagine if being surrounded by the color brown caused depression. And there is a town where all the buildings and walls are brown. There were plenty of other colors out there, but people were so depressed by the brown that they couldn't even wrap their minds about using a different color. There were other colors of paint, but no one thought to use them on the walls. Maybe on a bookshelf or something. People debated and argued all the time about ways to make the brown better, they'd use a gloss or a matte finish, and once in a while they'd even manage to paint a wall blue, or yellow. But no one took care of it, and the paint would start to peel off, and eventually they'd even start scraping off the paint and then brown underneath would show up again. And they'd get more depressed again, and the cycle would just continue.

eta now I'm picturing a montage of clips from cable news shows with comments like "which brown is the best brown?" "does brown cause cancer?" "Sepia is polling higher than Raw Umber" "The Russett contingency is pressuring Raw Umber to go more Burnt Sienna". Scrolling along the bottom: Russett supporters arrested at a sit-in in City Hall


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/meganmonkey/sad_puppy.jpg

Random thoughts for a Tuesday.

I can see that Mike has rubbed off on you a litte ;)

Brown doesn't rub off from one person to another.

I threw your randomness brown analogy over to the OET turd bowl.

That was good MM.

Obama is trying to reach across the isle and form a dark-tan coalition. Kucinich was holding out for milk chocolate, but now says dark-tan is the only solution...

You are absolutely correct, any kind of support for regulation or reformation is simply apologetics - running-dog-lackyism.

If all the slaves can be made into "House" slaves, then slavery will be good!
If whippings were only performed for really bad offenses and only with cat-o-four-tails then it would be acceptable!
If the children of slaves were only sold to plantations within a fifty-mile radius of the parents' owner then it would not be so bad.
There are ways we can "fix" slavery - because we cannot just abandon the system of slavery! The alternatives are just untenable!

You've all rubbed off on me a little. And you are all teaching me a lot. :)

Here is the offending post. Well at least they are reading here.

All that I can say.

Random thoughts are great!! I got lost in the color brown, one of the most common questions in my painting classes when I limit kids to primaries plus black and white:

"How do I make brown???" red, yellow, and black....hhhmmm, no white? (beige is not brown...)

In my opinion, the most dangerous notion is not the notion of "reform" but rather its the assumption behind most calls for reform that you described: that capitalism is all there is.

That problem (the belief that capitalism is all there is) seems to be paired with a belief that human nature is inescapably corrupt and self (and other) destructive. I'm not sure if you can find anyone who believes that capitalism is inescapable (or the best of bad options) who does not also believe that human beings are inescapably "bad."

To me its quite easy to define and oppose capitalism, and it is also quite easy to imagine a wide array of functional alternatives. But few other seem to agree. Though at the end of the day, I seem of have defended my definition of and opposition to capitalism at OET to the point where no one was disputing it further...

They can't defend Capitalism. That is why they had to start banning people.

You are still there and are getting no opposition because you are no threat and because you sided against us.