[quote=@mdk]
Insofar as growth is a necessary precursor to 'lack of growth,' sure. 
[/quote]

I mean more in the sense that the capitalist class makes short term decisions more so than long term, and as a result they are very quick to construct bubbles. The housing market collapsed because the regulatory structures had been gutted by the Clinton and Reagan administrations and the banks got in the habit of "Illegally" packing high risk loans with low risk and then selling those packages as entirely low risk. When these trojan high risk loans went, so did the housing bubble, and then the economy. Obama didn't regulate the system nearly enough, so deregulating even further now just guarantees we are all going to get our asses roasted again. And Trump better hope he is out of office by then, because knowing how antsy people are on the bottom of the pyramid, another 2008 and everyone in Washington might get their asses roasted in a more literal sense.

[quote]
Just saying, "You didn't build that." Yeah, I get it, we should be careful about how we assign credit for all these wonderful things, but at the same time, the argument that capitalism has NOTHING to do with all these wonderful things is wholly unsupportable. Especially in light of all those command-economies in industrialized nations that failed miserably. Hypothetically, sure, we coulda got here without it in a thought experiment -- but we're here, and capitalism got us here.[/quote]

I disagree with this tbh. This requires Communism to have wholly failed at everything, which is to confuse it with the wholly unsuccessful and very brittle nature of Fascism. The Communist countries did a rather good job of industrializing what had been very very backwards nations. If capitalism specifically, as opposed to global industrialism generally, was to be credited with the upgrades of the last two hundred years, it would require all other economic forces to lack growth whatsoever, and that just isn't true. Capitalism won because the West outmaneuvered the East politically, and as a result Capitalism ended up with the bigger resource market. 

Actually, I'll go further than that. Communist Russia was the most impressive form Russia ever took in terms of political power. They managed to go toe to toe against the United States for several generations. That's something they couldn't wish to do in WW1, when they made it a point to be pathetic in every way, and it's something they only seem able to do now because they aren't really challenging American interests enough to heat things up. 

[quote]All fears are valid, I suppose. Mine is that we're increasingly saying "fuck democracy, we'll just do it with administrative or judicial power." If anything is killing democracy, in my estimation, that's it.[/quote]

That can get ugly, but that's the way the system was designed to work, and isn't new. If anything this fits into my narrative of "The founders and capitalism was a step in the right direction, but it cannot be our final step." 

[quote]
My argument is simply "this is working." Communism never has, and with the RoboLabor Singularity right around the corner, I think it's pretty silly to switch from a winning horse to a losing horse in the middle of the race. 
[/quote]

I'm not arguing we should create a Leninist state. What I'm arguing is that the translation from industrialized to automated requires change, or else there will be some sort of implosion. Capitalism requires human labor to be a market commodity, and if that goes away, what do we have? Rich people throwing us bones from the machines that they own, as the liberals seem to think? That's dystopian. Democratization of the means of production on some level will be necessary to keep the majority of people in the game. Which is to say that at some point, the non-Marxist variation of communism will have to seep in, or we are fucked.  

[quote]I'm rambling. The Tea Party would never pass for terrorism. Unless you consider pouches of Earl Gray as citizens...... wait are you British? [/quote]

There was terror in the terrorizing of port officials and the guy who owned the ship, who were threatened with violence. And in general, there was a lot of terrorism in pre-Revolution in terms of people burning down the houses of government officials, and threatening others to resign. Not to mention good ol' tarring and feathering. This is before we get into the war itself, which involved so bloody shit off the battlefield, especially in the south. 

[quote]If it weren't for all that, honestly our shenanigans never really rose to a level which should've warranted a war. Except maybe that Declaration... I guess that would probably merit a royal bitchslap. [/quote]

The definition of terrorism isn't "Purposeless violence". The cause itself was valid, but that doesn't elevate the initial means. 

[quote]    Can I get a helicopter ride?

I still don't fully understand this meme.[/quote]

Isn't that the /pol/ thing about dropping leftists from helicopters? I dunno, I'm always behind on this shit.

[quote]I need to learn more about the different sects? Sects, right? Whatever. I think we're overstating the role of the government. Innovation isn't.... well, isn't USUALLY a product of the state. I don't know enough about like Roman aqueducts and that sort of thing.[/quote]

The strict distinction between government and the rich is kinda sorta a modern thing (though I think the division is sort of artificial tbh, and that right libertarianism is flawed because it has too much faith in the distinction.) Roman innovations, as many throughout history in general, were funded by rich people as part of their political agendas. They wouldn't have existed without the state, but they weren't necessarily funded by taxes (at least not until the later empire when the rich people fucked off).  

anyway, fuckit, this is all i feel like getting into tonight.