John

I doubt the historicity of Jesus.

2008-08-26T05:32:29Z

What Pseudo Historical Figure Best Suits You?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Jesus Christ

You are Jesus Christ! You are the Son of the One and Only God! The holiest of holies, which does make you a big sloppy pussy unfortunately. Although many people will devote their lives to researching yours and artifacts surrounding it, you have a higher chance of people trying to find the blanket thrown over you after death then attempting to find some of your finer carpentry products. Unfortunately, the cranked up tales written by a bunch of junked up zealots in the middle of the desert will give you the status of a Divine prophet and/or saviour, and your craftmanship in life will be altogether overlooked. You will die on the same material you lived by (I.E. your trade).

Jesus Christ

83%

Adolf Hitler

58%

Dante Alighieri

58%

Hugh Hefner

50%

C.G. Jung

50%

Sigmund Freud

42%

Steven Morrissey

33%

Miyamoto Musashi

33%

Elvis Presley

33%

Mother Teresa

25%

Friedrich Nietzsche

25%

Charles Manson

17%

Stephen Hawking

17%

O.J. Simpson

johnny_red @ 2008-07-30T01:53:00

2008-07-30T05:57:15Z

I got a LibraryThing account. Most of my books are listed there.

I just sent this message to a friend on Myspace.

2008-06-20T03:51:04Z

Since we last communicated, I got a motorcycle, wrecked it, swore off riding motorcycles, I got a second job and left it 3 months later, my grandfather died, my family took a trip to North Carolina for his funeral, I got a car, I started hanging out with a friend who I never thought I'd have anything to do with again, she moved to Ohio a month later, and I've started attending the local Unitarian Universalist church (which is where my meditation group meets. So I've had a lot of ups and downs.

More things that have happened lately:
I've started to explore different wines. I like making spaghetti, using some in the sauce, and having a glass with dinner.
The A.C. at our apartment had been giving us a lot of trouble, but the unit was replaced. I spent a night at my parents place, and broke my cell phone while moving a couch the next day.
My friend Aaron is going on a 4 month road trip. He is also leaving the job he has had as long as I've known him (5 years?).
I've also had some personal things on my mind.

Fat Cats And Bigga Fish/The Political Means

2008-04-15T17:23:23Z

Nowhere has the coercive and parasitic nature of the State been more clearly limned than by the great late nineteenth-century German sociologist, Franz Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer pointed out that there are two and only two mutually exclusive means for man to obtain wealth. One, the method of production and voluntary exchange, the method of the free market, Oppenheimer termed the "economic means"; the other, the method of robbery by the use of violence, he called the "political means." The political means is clearly parasitic, for it requires previous production for the exploiters to confiscate, and it subtracts from instead of adding to the total production in society. Oppenheimer then proceeded to define the State as the "organization of the political means" -- the systematization of the predatory process over a given territorial area.

[Franz Oppenheimer, The State (New York: Vanguard Press, 1926), pp. 24-27 and passim.]

Murray Rothbard, The Libertarian Manifesto

Manorialism, commonly, is recognized to have been founded by robbery and usurpation; a ruling class established itself by force, and then compelled the peasantry to work for the profit of their lords. But no system of exploitation,including capitalism, has ever been created by the action of a free market. Capitalism was founded on an act of robbery as massive as feudalism. It has been sustained to the present by continual state intervention to protect its system of privilege, without which its survival is unimaginable.

The current structure of capital ownership and organization of production in our so-called "market" economy, reflects coercive state intervention prior to and extraneous to the market. From the outset of the industrial revolution, what is nostalgically called "laissez-faire" was in fact a system of continuing state intervention to subsidize accumulation, guarantee privilege, and maintain work discipline.

Kevin Carson , The Iron Fist Behind The Invisible Hand -Corporate Capitalism As A State Guaranteed System Of Privilege

Mr. Coke said to Mr. Mayor, "You know we got a process like Ice T's hair.
We put up the fund for your election campaign
And, oh um, waiter can you bring the champagne.
Our real estate firms said opportunities arousing
To make some condos out of low-income housing
Immediately we need some media heat
To say that gangs run the street and then we bring in the police
Harrasing everybody till they look inebriated
When we buy the land mother****** will appreciate it
Dont worry about the Urban League or Jesse Jackson
My man that owns Marlboros
Donated a fat sum"

Fat Cats, Bigga Fish - The Coup

cross posted to:

libertarianism
left_libertaria

Beware of circle pits and concrete floors.

2008-03-24T20:05:09Z

All right Hal, here's that journal entry you wanted. I went to see Municipal Waste and Iron Lung last week with my friend Hal. I showed at Hal and Michelle's, had a brief conversation with Michelle, and we headed off. Shortly after we got there Iron Lung went on. I hadn't seen them before, but I'm not sure if I'd heard them before. They were really good. There are things about their sound that people who different tastes in heavy music could latch on to. Municipal Waste set up and started to play. They had a big banner behind them, they had a good sense of the fun in their music, and were just plain awesome. It was great to see an 80's crossover style band (Suicidal Tendencies, DRI, MOD, etc,) live. This sort of stuff is some of the first non-mainstream music I heard when I was in middle school. I got in the pit during the first Municipal Waste song, and

It was a great show, but that put a damper on things. If that was going to happen, it could at least have been at end of the show. Oh well. For every person saying I should go to the emergency room to get stitched up, there was another who thought I could bandage it up and be fine. I ran into my friend Aaron, who took some pictures he should email me soon. I took this with my cell phone. I got a really cool "Thrashin' Of The Christ" shirt, and Hal and I headed home. We almost went to the emergency room, but Michelle called and talked some sense into me. That stuff is expensive. She also called the next morning to make sure I was okay, which was very nice of her. I patched myself up and had no major problems until about 5:00 at work the next day. After having been at work for a few hours, all of a sudden the wound started bleeding again. I left work , then went and got butterfly bandages, which I hadn't found the night before. I haven't had a problem since. Recently, I also got new glasses (not in the picture) and went out for an excellent lunch with my family on my mom's birthday. There also a few things which deserve their own post if I'm going to write about them.

johnny_red @ 2008-01-08T01:20:00

2008-01-08T06:25:03Z

"I've never noticed anybody who's a libertarian and an atheist saying that the way we should get rid of religion is to become the pope and then dissolve the Catholic Church." -Stefan Molyneux

johnny_red @ 2007-11-17T01:03:00

2007-11-17T06:12:27Z

Human beings can fly. AWESOME!

found here.

johnny_red @ 2007-05-01T19:31:00

2007-05-01T23:31:58Z

johnny_red @ 2007-02-13T11:25:00

2007-02-13T16:24:28Z

Create your own visitor map!

Several political quizes

2007-01-29T06:07:38Z

1) http://www.bcaplan.com/cgi-bin/purity.cgi
Result: 146
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/result.htm

2) http://www.quiz2d.com/
Result:
http://www.quiz2d.com/quiz/rtest.php?quad=RadicalLibertarian

3) http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
Result:
Libertarian (in the top corner)
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz-score/quiz.php

4) http://www.adventuresinlegalland.com/quiz.html
Result:
http://www.adventuresinlegalland.com/quiz/no.html

5) http://www.politicalcompass.org/
Result:
Economic Left/Right: 3.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.21
http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=3.25&soc=-4.21

6) http://franz.org/quiz.htm
Result: 29

7) http://www.moral-politics.com/
Result: Your scored -3 on the Moral Order axis and -2.5 on the Moral Rules axis.

8) http://www.politicalbrew.com/politest.cgi
Result:
On Non-Fiscal Issues, you rank as a Moderate Liberal (34).
On Fiscal Issues, you rank as a Moderate Conservative (78).

9) http://typology.people-press.org/typology/
Result:
Disaffected

Based on your answers to the questionnaire, you most closely resemble survey respondents within the Disaffected typology group. This does not mean that you necessarily fit every group characteristic or agree with the group on all issues.

Disaffecteds represent 9 percent of the American public, and 10 percent of registered voters.

Basic Description
Disaffecteds are deeply cynical about government and unsatisfied with both their own economic situation and the overall state of the nation. Under heavy financial pressure personally, this group is deeply concerned about immigration and environmental policies, particularly to the extent that they affect jobs. Alienated from politics, Disaffecteds have little interest in keeping up with news about politics and government, and few participated in the last election.

Defining Values
Despite personal financial strain – and belief that success is mostly beyond a person’s control – Disaffecteds are the only moderate supporters of government welfare and assistance to the poor. Strongly oppose immigration as well as regulatory and environmental policies on the grounds that government is ineffective and such measures cost jobs.

Who They Are
Less educated (70% have attended no college, compared with 49% nationwide) and predominantly male (57%). While a majority (60%) leans Republican, three-in-ten are strict independents, triple the national rate. Disaffecteds live in all parts of the country, though somewhat more are from rural and suburban areas than urban.

Lifestyle Notes
Somewhat higher percentage report having a gun in the home than the national average, and 42% report someone in their house has been unemployed in the past year.

2004 Election
Bush 42%, Kerry 21%. Nearly a quarter (23%) said they didn’t vote in the last election.

Party ID
68% Independent/No Preference, 30% Republican, 2% Democrat (60% Rep/LeanRep)

Media Use
Disaffecteds have little interest in current events and pay little attention to the news. No single medium or network stands out as a main source.

Note: All descriptions and percentages are based on the national sample of adults surveyed by telephone in December.

In the overall typology there is a ninth group called “Bystanders” who are defined as adults who are not registered, who do not follow news about government and public affairs, and who say they rarely or never vote.

10) http://politics.beasts.org/
Result:
Axis Position
1 left/right -1.4088 (-0.0848)
2 pragmatism +4.7919 (+0.2884)
http://politics.beasts.org/scripts/results?surveyid=38065544

11) http://www.ontheissues.org/quizeng/XPolitics/start.asp
Result:
You scored the following on the PoliticsMatch questions:

Personal Score 81%
Economic Score 79%

Where You Fit In

Where your Personal score meets your Economic score on the grid below is your political philosophy. Based on the above score, you are a Liberal-Leaning Libertarian .
http://www.ontheissues.org/quizeng/XPolitics/results.asp

12) http://www.selectsmart.com/FREE/select.php?client=zeron
Result:
#1 Left-libertarian

#2 Libertarian

#3 Paleo-libertarian

#4 Radical

#5 Paleoconservative

#6 Conservative

#7 Centrist

#8 Liberal

#9 Third Way

#10 Neoconservative

13) http://www.okcupid.com/politics
Result:

You are a
Social Liberal
(71% permissive)

and an...
Economic Moderate
(43% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Democrat

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

14) http://www.blogthings.com/areyouasocialistorcapitalistquiz/
Result:

You Are 60% Capitalist, 40% Socialist

While you are definitely sympathetic to a free economy, you also worry about the less fortunate.
Wealth and business is fine, as long as those who are in need get helped out too.
You tend to see both the government and corporations as potentially corrupt.

Are You a Socialist or Capitalist?

15) http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=6916
Result:

You scored as Anarchism. <'Imunimaginative's Deviantart Page'>

Anarchism

100%

Socialist

58%

Green

33%

Communism

17%

Fascism

17%

Democrat

17%

Nazi

Republican

What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In?
created with QuizFar

16) http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=114849&first=yes
Result:

You scored as Libertarian. You're a libertarian. That kind of means you're a right wing Anarchist. Go buy a gun, some gin, and wait for the hippies to show up.

Libertarian

97%

Anarchism

90%

Democrat-

50%

Fascist

37%

Republican

33%

Socialism

30%

Political Ideology Quiz
created with QuizFarm.com

not what I expected

2006-12-05T08:02:35Z

johnny_red @ 2006-11-17T00:24:00

2006-11-17T06:24:51Z

Create your own! Originally Written By ga_woo, Hosted and ReWritten by darkman424

johnny_red @ 2006-10-19T03:30:00

2006-10-19T09:21:30Z

"These large corporations have the internal characteristics of a planned economy. Information flow is systematically distorted up the chain of command, by each rung in the hierarchy telling the next one up what it wants to hear. And each rung of management, based on nonsensical data (not to mention absolutely no direct knowledge of the production process) sends irrational and ass-brained decisions back down the chain of command. The only thing that keeps large, hierarchical organizations going is the fact that the productive laborers on the bottom actually know something about their own jobs, and have enough sense to ignore policy and lie about it so that production can stagger along despite the interference of the bosses.

When a senior manager decides to adopt a "reform" or to "improve" the process in some way, he typically bases his decision on the glowing recommendations of senior managers in other organizations who have adopted similar policies. Of course, those senior managers have no real knowledge themselves of the actual results of the policy, because their own information is based on filtered data from below. Not only does the senior management of an organization live in an imaginary world as a result of the distorted information from below; its imaginary world is further cut off from reality by the professional culture it shares with senior management everywhere else. “…in a rigid hierarchy, nobody questions orders that seem to come from above, and those at the very top are so isolated from the actual work situation that they never see what is going on below.”12

The root of the problem, in all such cases, is that individual human beings can only make optimally efficient decisions when they internalize all the costs and benefits of their own decisions. In a large hierarchy, the consequences of the irrational and misinformed decisions of the parasites at the top are borne by the people at the bottom who are actually doing the work. And the people doing the work, who both know what's going on and suffer the ill effects of decisions by those who don't know what's going on, have no direct control over the decision-making."

-Kevin Carson, Studies In Mutualist Political Economy (In print: page 322, online: http://www.mutualist.org/id88.html )

The book: http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html

Journal Of Libertarian Studies' Symposium Issue on Studies in Mutualist Political Economy: http://www.mises.org/jlsDisplay.asp?action=sort&volume=20&number=1&submit=View

This is one of the most significant things Carson's book has to say. This has been my experience in the work world. The exception being when I wasn't working for some large corporation. The two small businesses I worked for gave me the almost daily opportunity to express my concerns to my boss. In one case, I was half his work force! Therefore my observations had much more weight than in my current job working for another corporate monolith.

There is, however, one major element he doesn't emphasize. Management, at each level, has to take responsibility for the laziness and ineptitude of subordinates. I have refused to be promoted in my current job because I experienced this as a manager trainee and assistant manager. Despite this, I have been functionally having to act as management. The managers don't make the other employees do their jobs. If I try to manage them without official authority, they ignore me. If I run to to the boss, I am a snitch. If I do the work they neglect (which is what most often happens), I don't take as many tables. I am also doing work I am not being paid for. I also build up resentment towards people I have to work with, which is not healthy. If I throw up my hands join them in neglecting my work, I debase myself by sinking to their level. Beyond that I foster a workplace which is not welcoming to customers, who I depend on for tips.

In light of all this let's consider this sentence:

"The root of the problem, in all such cases, is that individual human beings can only make optimally efficient decisions when they internalize all the costs and benefits of their own decisions."

This goes just as much for those at the bottom as those at the top. Josiah Warren's theory and successful practice of equitable exchange (which is the main predecessor of the American individualist tradition which Carson is a part of) came from bad experience in New Harmony. New Harmony was a Utopian commune established by Robert Owen. According the idea of equitable exchange, all exchanges should be in equivalent amounts of labor, hence his use of labor notes as a medium of exchange instead on standard money. If one person works more than another, that person is being exploited. The strength of his theory is that this applies just as much to a capitalist who derives income from charging consumers more than it cost to bring something to market (which he considered usury) as it does to a "fellow worker" who lives off the work of someone who picks up his slack because of need to complete a project both are working on. One of the things that drew me to Marxism was the Bible verse which says "He who does not work should not eat". I rejected it for the exact same reason. Communism applies this verse only to capitalists (the "parasites at the top"), and not to one's "comrades". Capitalism applies it to workers and not capitalists. Mutualism, on the other hand, applies it to everyone. In the words of Proudhon "To each according to his works, first; and if, on occasion, I am impelled to aid you, I will do it with a good grace; but I will not be constrained" (The Philosophy of Misery). I doubt Carson would object to anything I've said here, since it's all implied in his philosophy, but it would be nice if he said so explicitly. I'll send him an email to inform him of this post.

johnny_red @ 2006-09-05T01:23:00

2006-09-05T05:22:49Z

Hi, I'm John, and this is my new journal.