From: devcarter@iinet.net.au   
      
   It's Secular liberation or the asecular depression-war cycle, yet   
   again.   
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   The problem with theist politicians under the god delusion is that   
   their policies are tailored to the monotheist distortion of reality-   
   not the pragmatic Darwinian reality of what shits must eat.   
      
   Monotheism is rooted in the moribund black or white reasoning that   
   allows no shades of grey. So, if Jesus gave the green light to private   
   property rights then a whole lot of privileges tend to get packaged by   
   theist politicians that are deleterious to tenants and the   
   homeless-they soon become the unprivileged poor. The function of   
   asecular ideologies is to decouple responsibility for national and   
   international poverty- the starving may 'want' to  eat, but they get   
   no international 'right' to do so, as the privileged rich may simply   
   choose not to feed them.   
      
   One man's privileges is another's obligations- namely to desist from   
   impinging upon them. Theist societies quickly become stratified into   
   two classes- those with privileges and those without. The current   
   expense account rorts by British parliamentarians is illustrative of   
   the asecular hierarchy of privilege flowing from the propertied   
   classes to their minders- the elected stooges and quislings who   
   represent them under the pretext of representing the people.   
      
   A couple of evangelicals who knocked on my door were selling   
   'asecular' biblical ideology in the same manner that they have for the   
   past 20 years. The rouse is to always send two - one is a beautiful   
   young lady, the other her ugly chaperone. For more news about Jesus, I   
   am invited to attend a gathering at the church. My response is that   
   Jesus was not good enough for me, for the world needs a secular more   
   equitable ideology than what Jesus' offered.   
      
   If monotheism peddles the obligation "thou shall not steal", equity   
   would also entail a secondary obligation on others to mitigate theft -   
   "thou shall not appropriate more than one's due".  In a true democracy   
   - that which is 'due' is simply decided by making income relative to   
   an average of all income earners. An aged retiree without assets might   
   receive a pension of x percent of average weekly earnings (AWE) or   
   none at all and be forced to save or rely on family help. Looking at   
   the other end of the scale - what income is 'due' to the capitalist   
   mogul?  A !00 times AWE? A million times AWE?  A billion times AWE?   
   Asecular monotheism places no obligation on the propertied classes to   
   mitigate their greed. Their income is decided by whatever they are   
   capable of extorting using the plutocratic political system run by   
   their stooges and quislings holding political office.  Asecular   
   plutocracy is their weapon to be used against the underclass at home   
   as well as abroad by those that oppose their every growing   
   neo-imperial hand obsessed with securing access to oil and other   
   strategic resources.   
      
   The landed privileged classes are able to save and build investment   
   capital while the unprivileged classes carry the extra burden of   
   interest on their borrowings to make ends meet. The capitalist system   
   is not based on a free market system or democratic 'equality' in an   
   abstract Darwinian sense, but upon the perpetuation of historical   
   privilege through inheritance and its institutionalization by a   
   constitutional plutocratic managed democracy. Given the overwhelming   
   power of privilege enshrined by asecular monotheism such systems are   
   incapable of becoming true democracies.  The theist politicians in   
   party A and party B compete with each other for acceptability by   
   drafting policies that either find favor with the capitalist moguls   
   and capitalist press barons or at least do not incur their wrath and   
   opposition. States like California in the USA are classic   
   institutional plutocracies where the states finances cannot be brought   
   in balance by any simple democratic process to raise taxes to meet   
   budgeted outlays.   
      
   The end result is that the privileged rich get richer and fewer in   
   number while the unprivileged poor get poorer and greater in number.   
      
   Depressions and recessions occur when the unprivileged poor max out   
   their credit limit and overreach as they cannot meet their commitment   
   to repay both principal and interest when it falls due. Mass   
   foreclosures trigger the chain reaction we have witnessed in the USA   
   where the aspiring poor are jolted back to the Darwinian reality of   
   tenancy and or homelessness. The privileged scale back their   
   investments in stock with poor profit projections and more jobs are   
   lost as the downturn deepens into a full recession or depression.   
      
   An imbalance in supply and demand will cause a recession, depressions   
   are more fundamental they are caused by the fundamental imbalances in   
   privilege within the asecular plutocratic political systems we   
   mistakenly call constitutional democracies. In recessions an economy   
   slows down giving supply and demand time to readjust. In depressions   
   the economy stalls completely as the privileged classes have all they   
   need and have no incentive to invest, and the unprivileged classes   
   have insufficient discretionary savings to spend after paying for   
   their basic living costs and debts installments.   
      
   Stimulus packages by governments are quickly absorbed by inflations in   
   rents and wholesale and retail price rises. Depressions end only when   
   the privileged classes are forced by circumstances - such as global   
   warfare, to finance the employment of vast numbers of the unemployed   
   by drafting them into the armed services and hiring them for   
   employment in the supporting rearmament industries. Depressions occur   
   when it is the capitalists who go on 'strike' - withdrawing their   
   asecular privileged 'capital' from the productive economy.   
      
   Since the nuclear age renders global warfare way too perilous, the   
   rational secular solution is a 5 percent per annum wealth tax on all   
   assets to finance the restructuring necessary to ensure the long term   
   survival of each nation state and avoid the pitfall of world war via   
   the depression- war cycle. A tax on privilege has interesting   
   benefits. It would control chronic inflation.   
      
   The existing tax system savages the unprivileged class via the   
   taxation of their meager earnings and the taxation on consumption via   
   the VAT style GST. Scraping these stupid burdens would lift productive   
   capacity of small business by 25%. Only by lifting productive capacity   
   and productivity does a nation grow more prosperous, not by stimulus   
   packages that inevitably will make the privileged rich far richer by   
   nationalizing the debt burden of the nation state purely to avoid   
   eradicating it via taxation upon the privileged classes- those with   
   the capacity to pay.   
      
   Depressions have an indefinite time-frame as the economy is stalled by   
   the strike of capital. Borrowing or printing money is insufficient as   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)