Doitzel

Be stubborn and don't lose your sense of humor. When the chemo is destroying your body, P.G. Wodehouse books will be your best friend (if you're too sick to read, try to get someone to read it to you -- laughter is infectious). There is beauty and wonder in this world literally everywhere, don't ever forget it. Fight hard and stay defiant, my friend.

Letum? He's the chap from the cat alliance? Is Chris Kaos Regent, too? Next you'll tell me they're holding elections again. I am warning you, thick knight: I'm a thicker knight by far. And I doubt anyone misses Francoism. It was boring and tedious, lacking in both relevant substance and style. In all important matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential. I don't know. OWF participation used to be fun. It wasn't fun because of nonsense like Francoism, it was fun because it was a real-time, interactive episode of Jerry Springer. If it comes to the point where your stance is "I don't want to dedicate time to it" I'd say: 1) you're probably writing the wrong things, because writing can always be fun, and 2) you're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. The good news is that an aged and insular community like CN's can easily be reinvigorated because everybody knows everybody.

I hear you all calling my name, like a Ricola commercial. Who's NPO's Emperor? I haven't stabbed any backs in so long.

Being impoverished and especially unemployed is emotionally and mentally exhausting. A lot of times people just don't have the mental fortitude to do anything but wear their resentment on their sleeves. I disagree that it is arrogant and/or selfish. That's really just a blame-the-victim mentality disguised as self-righteous wisdom, like a David Brooks column. It's not just the direct stressors of a dead-end, low-wage job that create this effect. It's not the rude customers or the horrible boss. It's the constant pressure that comes with insufficient employment or wages. They're not really angry because of the guy that wanted more pickles. The anger is a manifestation of the constant, every-waking-hour worry about making rent, paying bills, managing time. How can there be joy in your life when you are worrying 24/7 about whether you can afford to eat or feed your children tomorrow? As it happens I read something on this subject the other day in the NYTimes that might take your interest: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/no-clocking-out/

Most people are willing to pay more in taxes to preserve education for their children, better healthcare, infrastructure projects (especially one that create jobs), and feed poor kids. A majority of Americans aren't raving greedy !@#$%bags who refuse to put down a penny to promote the collective good that would sooner see people die of preventable diseases than part with a ten dollar bill. See the recent rebuke over Medicare for more details. Those concerned that deficits and debts are too high can get ahead of the curve and send the IRS extra now.

Socialise healthcare. Problem solved. But yes, taxes need to go up. I have absolutely no idea where all this NO MORE TAXES BYAAH came from: taxes raised eight times, I believe, during the Reagan administration. Quite simply the IRS needs a bigger budget and tax avoidance / evasion are way too easy. Tax loopholes for corporations need to be closed (the corporate tax rate is high and fine but unenforced), taxes on wealthy individuals bumped up a bit, and tax credits for your school-age son's haircut eliminated. Of course there are other, new taxes that should be introduced but I can already envision the red-themed commercials about "Planned Economy" if someone dared propose. A VAT combined with lowered taxes on mid- and low-income earners is one idea, or small taxes on foreign exchange transactions (we had one until the '60s). Alas, these are about as likely to happen as socialised medicine. Oh well. I'll see you in Sweden!

Fine, the general culture of being a !@#$% on the internet, then. @Lam: There was a time when discourse wasn't as awful as it is now. Of course there will always be morons mucking about, but it's gotten to the point where it's nearly impossible to find alliance leaders duking it out in the public arena. Even in the cold war between the first and second Great wars there was some serious, extensive and reasoned debate between all parties (well, except GATO). This degraded over time as that kind of thing gave way to what was essentially public harassment (case in point: Vincent Xander). Maybe my glasses are rose-tinted but some of the ODN and Legion old guard; the people that went on to OBR; Archon, Denial, Grub, AirMe, Arctic, Rambo and others from the League; NowaCorp, Kevin the Great, USBR, Ivan, Sir Paul, Dilber, and so on; even the vocal types in FCC who threw their two pence -- there was a lot of very public, but usually civilised debate, and much of it set the framework for the world we live in now. So yes, there were the Grenvals and the Yaridoviches and the Prodigcal Chieftains, and there still are. Now the other side is mostly absent, and whether that's the cause or because of how absolutely retarded the circus of this forum has gotten is anyone's guess. I could write pages and pages about this, but I learned a lot of how to effectively communicate here from watching and participating in those days. Now people avoid this place like the plague.

Well, I did warn you.

I'm still puzzled by what, exactly, "moralism" is in the common usage of the term. Nobody's ever stuck the label to me, but it has been stuck to Vox Populi, so presumably there's some connection. Since it apparently 'began' with us and was picked up by Karma I can only assume it refers to the emotional appeal that there are certain practices which are inherently unjust and unacceptable if we expect the world as we know it to remain self-sustaining. We pressed that point quite adamantly during the resistance and it gained such popularity that the message was usurped by the coalition of pretenders calling itself Karma. In reality the philosophies of Vox Populi were simple utilitarianism. When that appeal was thrown as a disguise over tunnel-visioned politicians in executive positions as a rallying cry for what were, in hindsight, their own selfish ends it became "moralism". That is why you get replies like in this blog that it 'never existed'. If Vox had any fault it was in entrusting the post-war world to a generation that grew up under the Continuum / One Vision thumb. That's my take anyway.

This is not something that's going to change. It's the legacy of LUE, GOONS, 4chan and all the other humour site invasions which attempted to fuse their culture with the existing political structures years ago. They succeeded to an extent and this is the result. Reasoned debate and candid discourse lost out to memes and disinformation; discussion is no longer about advocating your position, but about degrading your enemies. That's why there's very little substance to any of the posting here: most of it is just vain attempts at 'clever' word games, technicalities of language and repetitious logical fallacies. See my forum signature. This fight was lost in 2007.