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Historian 14/05/17(Sat)18:22 No. 14299
14299

File 140034373227.jpg - (12.14KB , 215x184 , 4679d64605fdb45908b1bcf85978d7c1_m.jpg )

If you're island government was insolvent and dependent on another country for regular multi-million dollar bailours, and you were a politician interested in fixing everything...what would you do? Country has no exceptional resources - just farm land but subject to the other countries law as an 'external territory'. I'm thinking it could declare independence and become a tax haven. I don't know if that works anymore given money laundering laws or whatever. Other options?


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Historian 14/05/18(Sun)09:31 No. 14301

I actually have an island. Technically it falls within the borders of Canada, buuut as property of a long-dead Queen of france, though that's now an anachronism... I purchased it directly from that office of the queen, not from Canada, and there was an option to establish sovereignity from the rest of Canada attached to it. There wouldn't be much of a point to it other than to piss away a lot of money and act like a big dick for nothing, and honestly, coming from USA, Canada is already Utopia, so I don't feel a real need to legally secede from Canada to make my own Utopia. I appreciate what little tax I pay pays for.

It's possible, anyway, but when your house is on fire, and you've acted like a big shot dickhead about not having to pay taxes cause you're a sovereign nation, the fire dept will pull up and watch the flames and cheer you on from across the road.

The pragmatist works with his neighbors, so that when he needs them, they'll return that favor.


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Historian 14/05/18(Sun)19:07 No. 14302

>>14301
Lovely theory, but it doesn't work out so well for people under leadership such as Stalin, Mao, or the latest scion of the Kim family. Sometimes your neighbor isn't interested in helping you, only in shooting you right between the eyes.


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Historian 14/05/19(Mon)01:26 No. 14303

>>14302
Actually, it's only because of the friendship of neighbors that people survive under authoritarian regimes. They protect each other from the opportunist bootlickers, only thinking of themselves, who believe that by turning in people that they'll get ahead.

The people who isolate themselves present the easiest target of all for the bootlickers, for there is nobody to defend (or hide) them.


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Historian 14/05/19(Mon)12:50 No. 14306

>>14302
>Lovely theory

You mean hypothesis. But ok...

When zombie Stalin & Mao rise from the dead and take over Canada, and my neighbors just up and decide to go from nice people living decent lives to shoot me between my eyes one day because I DIDN'T secede from their country and DIDN'T post armed guards and razor wire around my property, and buy a fleet of F22s to (pre-emtively "defend" it...

You're a paranoid delusional quack.


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Historian 14/05/20(Tue)09:55 No. 14307

>>14306
>paranoid delusional quack
Yeah, we have a lot of those down here. They've even taken control of one of our political parties.


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Historian 14/05/25(Sun)09:52 No. 14313

>>14307
>one

keep going...


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Historian 15/07/16(Thu)07:41 No. 14681

You could turn it into London: the landmass; ie just one massive place to trade stocks and securities, attracting business interests with low taxes and stuff like that. Realistically you would never turn it into a major power, but you might eventually wind up with a sizeable city-state with almost total economic independence.


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Historian 15/07/17(Fri)20:55 No. 14683

>>14682

Revolution is a dangerous road, my friend. Surely a better (i.e. safer) path would be to use economic pressure in the form of strikes to secure more autonomy. With even limited self-determination one could set up a tax-structure that would encourage foreign investment, and that is perfectly legal; after all, as the national (or territorial) government, YOU would decide what the law is, and therefore what is and is not legal. You would have to comply with international banking regulations, of course, but if the Greeks can do it ANYBODY can.

In our Post-Industrial age, the only other method to jump-start a national economy would be tourism. Is this hypothetical nation a tropical paradise by any chance? Or maybe it was home to an ancient, vanished culture that left magnificent ruins? You might consider hiring a good PR firm...maybe you could con well-to-do westerners who are tired of their noisy big cities and boring suburbs into visiting your country for peaceful, leisurely 'return to nature' tours where they would wander around in the woods and watch sheep and cattle all day long.


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Historian 15/07/19(Sun)00:18 No. 14687

>>14685

While I do find extreme wealth to be obscene, I see no real way of combating it without cutting everyone else's throat at the same time. The Left seems to operate on the assumption that all wealthy people are simply vampires leeching off the blood of the proletarian classes, when the reality is that the rich become rich for a very good reason...they understand business, and they have the minds and skills that enable them to succeed at it. Unfair as this may be, the fact is that they ARE the engine that produces wealth, and not only for themselves. They are the reason people have jobs to go to and money to spend.

If one wishes to study ultimate Leftist victory, there is only one real place to go...the Soviet Union during the Lenin years and the early rule of his thug Protege, Soso Djugashvili, better known to history as Jozef Vissarionovich Stalin. The Leftists won, the 'capitalist' wealthy were punished; and due to Leftist mismanagement, corruption, and sheer wickedness, tens of millions of average citizens starved to death...after Papa Jo had coldly killed off the Kulaks, i.e. the only people in the country who were professional farmers and actually understood how to grow food.

Less extreme versions of total Leftist victory can currently be seen in such widely separated locales as Venezuela and Zimbabwe...where nobody may be starving to death at this very moment, but famine is certainly waiting in the wings, and for the exact same reasons as the Great Soviet Famine of 32-33.

Doing the great victory dance after killing off all those rich people might feel good, empowering, and cathartic...but that will prove scant comfort a year later when everybody is starving to death. Surely there is a better, more restrained, less extreme way.


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Historian 15/07/22(Wed)20:12 No. 14694

>>14688
Well, duh, Obama is a socialist, Obama is an extreme left winger, therefore Stalin and Lenin are extreme left wingers too.

It all makes sense if you do read nothing but right wing nutter sources.


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Historian 15/07/23(Thu)03:14 No. 14695

>>14687
>the reality is that the rich become rich for a very good reason...they understand business, and they have the minds and skills that enable them to succeed at it.
Not quite true, the reality is most rich people are psychopaths or at the least display a significant variety of their traits. Their diminished empathy and bold behaviour allow them to step on and over other people with out remorse and allow them to cut their way through the masses to a more privileged position. At the end of the day they're willing to inflict harm (however direct or indirect it may be) for personal gain, something that doesn't sit well with the wider population.


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Historian 15/07/23(Thu)07:22 No. 14696

>>14695

I don't think that pursuing ones self-interest equals psychopathology. Your stated position regarding boldness and lack of empathy surely applies more directly to the low-level violent criminals who blight our society and kill so indiscriminately. It almost sounds like you are proposing the loopy Christian philosophy of 'turn the other cheek', a concept which just doesn't work in the real world.

EVERY person pursues their own self-interest, and doing so successfully generally does mean that other people suffer harm; it's just like playing a hand of high-stakes poker...somebody wins the pot, which means that somebody has to loose. Wicked as 'the Donald' and Bill Gates may be, at least they aren't casually murdering folks so they can 'jack dey ride.


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Historian 15/07/23(Thu)13:17 No. 14697

>>14696
There are two main types of psychopaths in modern society:

Successful psychopaths - corporate high climbers who tend to have had a relatively privileged background with little risk of legal penalties;

Unsuccessful psychopaths - involved in regular crime who tend to have had less privileged backgrounds and much higher risk of legal penalties.

Your poker analogy works but you must realise that there are people with literal aces hidden up their sleeves and others encouraging you to bet beyond your means for fear of broken legs when they've already got a Royal-flush in hand sitting on the same table as you.


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Historian 15/07/25(Sat)14:42 No. 14698
14698

File 143782813825.jpg - (36.56KB , 512x390 , 68bc9720c3b19bb8aa98a088e400be.jpg )

FEUDALISM


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Historian 15/07/25(Sat)22:05 No. 14699
14699

File 143785471984.jpg - (37.20KB , 460x287 , Adolf-Hitler.jpg )

FASCISM

(and the next contestant, please...)


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Historian 15/08/31(Mon)04:51 No. 14739
14739

File 144098951640.jpg - (35.24KB , 470x340 , Beach-Body.jpg )

HEDONISM

drugs, prostitution, gambling, gladiatorial games, exotic tourism


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Historian 15/08/31(Mon)07:43 No. 14740

>>14687
Really? Farmers are the rich? Your analogy is way off. The rich rarely made it there because of intelligence. Mostly cronyism and inherited wealth (like Trump). Your examples are purely about the farmers being fucked over and resulting in starvation. Like in Zimbabwe, where white farmers had their land taken away and given to blacks who knew nothing about farming. Taking from the rich to spread the wealth is the only way to even things out. Or have you not seen the vastly widening divide between rich and poor? The system of cronyism has kept things moving in the direction it's always been.


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Historian 15/09/02(Wed)01:41 No. 14741

We're talking about crony capitalism and forgetting all the glorious contributions of the Clintons, or the Bushes, or the Gores, or the Kennedy dynasty, or the Rockefeller money empire, and the list goes on...


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Historian 15/09/03(Thu)22:32 No. 14742

>>14740
>Or have you not seen the vastly widening divide between rich and poor?
He's seen it, he's just delusional enough to think he's going to be on the rich side and not the poor side.


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Historian 15/09/26(Sat)06:03 No. 14760

>He's seen it, he's just delusional enough to think he's going to be on the rich side and not the poor side.

And the self-fulfilling victim stance continues on.


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Historian 15/09/28(Mon)22:14 No. 14761

>>14760
He could also be fixated about "knowing your place" - a practice where even the downtrodden defend the people stepping all over them, because somehow they are, by virtue of the womb they were conceived in, only suitable for stepping on. They aren't allowed to "rise above their station" not just by the wealthy, but also by their fellow station members.


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Historian 15/09/28(Mon)23:38 No. 14762

>>14761

The perfect example is the conservative poor in the United States. A huge demographic of lower class white people are kept "happily" in poverty and general serfdom through the manipulation of their culture by the very people that oppress and exploit them. This is achieved through religious fundamentalism, blind/ignorant nationalism, overt racism, and a redirection of blame to other oppressed groups who are mainly equally as poor minority groups.


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Historian 15/09/29(Tue)07:14 No. 14763

Not that the liberal middle and upper class are immune to their own versions of social programming. But at least they are comforted by a smug condescending blanket of self-righteousness and a false sense of intellectual superiority.


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Historian 15/09/29(Tue)08:16 No. 14764

>>14763

Can't say I disagree with you. The hypocrisy can run deep and thick in both cases.


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Historian 15/11/11(Wed)03:45 No. 14799

The Island that I can think of is Puerto Rico. And good luck secceding from Múrica



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