Posted By alysaria on 24 Dec 2011 02:54 PM
But...if they win.....they win a bunch of corpses, diseases, and useless earth. O.o Aesop's Fables, man. The Dog in the Manger.

I was raised evangelical....in the words of my church, I'm a "backslider." They turned a 13 year old boy's funeral into an altar call, telling all his classmates that they could die tomorrow and go to hell.

It's possible that they cannot come to terms of being in peace with themselves and thus hurt everything around them. This is something that makes me think sometimes. At the same time they have very high opinion of themselves. Similar to those Lords in the past who got the right for the first night with newlyweds. They think they can do whatever they want and nobody dares to stop them. They get off on hurting people. Kind of obsession with death. They feel satisfaction when they commit death of many people.

That is a myth. There is no historical evidence of wedding night king rape ever having been a widespread act...or even a common one of a single king. No laws, no records, not even dirty gossip naming a victim of the practice. It's a cultural trope to identify those "backwards people of olden days" and their barbaric ways that we've progressed far beyond. Mostly it's just used for entertainment purposes to further a plot.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1139/did-medieval-lords-have-right-of-the-first-night-with-the-local-brides

Most of the time people talking about king or lord rape were talking about the kings of "that *other* filthy kingdom of heathenous bastards"...the same way people always have "us" or "them" mentality. 

It's true that in some feudal jurisdictions there was something known as the culagium, the requirement that a peasant get permission from his lord to marry. Often this required the payment of a fee. Some say the fee was a vestige of an earlier custom of buying off the lord so he wouldn't get physical with the bride.

Similarly, ecclesiastical authorities in some regions demanded a fee before a new husband was allowed to sleep with his wife. Some think this means the clergy once upon a time exercised the right of the first night too. But come on, how many first nights can one woman have? What did these guys do, take a number?

>.> The first one was essentially so a lord wouldn't lose taxes to his people marrying into another lord's jurisdiction.

Not sure how accurate the fee statement is, though. I can't find any information on it on any site that doesn't have glitter and gifs......or actual citation. I know that roman catholic canon required the Banns to be read 3 times before a couple could get married. Basically, if a couple wanted to wed, they informed their priest who would announce their intention from the pulpit and question if there was any reason why the two should not wed. An alternative (if you suspected someone might have an objection) was to buy a marriage license and avoid the Banns being read.

The concept of nobility was always flawed. Having an awesome parent with integrity and sufficient loyalty to earn a title does not guarantee that their child will be their equal....or anything near equal. You see that with business heirs and heiresses - sharp, insightful parents who through hard work and shrewd decisions amass a fortune....only to have their life's work go to an entitled silly fool. Money only has value to someone who has to earn it. Throw incest into the mix and you bring out basically what destroyed the monarchy in Europe: mental disorders and hemophilia....and entitlement.

Posted By alysaria on 25 Dec 2011 08:18 PM

Throw incest into the mix and you bring out basically what destroyed the monarchy in Europe: mental disorders and hemophilia....and entitlement.

Todays world:

1) Incest: Check!

2) Mental Disorders: Check!

3) Entitlement: Check!

If I have a group of 1000 people and I only interview the 5 in the group that are convicted rapists, somehow I get a 100% rapists statistic from what should be .5%. No news source is entirely unbiased, because no person is entirely unbiased....but a source that makes no effort at all to be objective isn't a reliable source. It's not wrong to have convictions and ideals....and actions by some people are corrupt and wrong....but blanket statements about an entire group of people doesn't seem like it can do anyone justice.

Posted By alysaria on 27 Dec 2011 01:25 PM
While I won't deny there is some elitism to the government, it's not an impenetrable barrier like a caste system. >.> From Buchanan (skipping over Hayes who was worth around 3 mil) to Chester A Arthur, the US has had several presidents from poor backgrounds. Woodrow Wilson, Coolidge, and Truman were also relatively of modest net worth...and a number of the presidents were self-made men or married into wealth. The wealthiest president was technically JFK (at around a billion), but since he never inherited, it officially goes to George Washington who was worth $525 million annual net income. America's first president's salary was 2% of the total US budget in 1789....significantly more than any other president. Obama is worth about $5 million, most of which is from book sales (he's the grandson of a goat herder). Clinton is worth $38 million primarily from public appearances and books (apparently he received a large advance on his autobiography) - but he made very little prior to leaving the White House. Reagan made his money as an actor. Carter was deeply in debt when he left office, but made a substantial amount back writing books.

Those names that you have mentioned are people from the past. I cannot say much in their name (for some of them, I can't say anything, because I don't know what it looked like back when they were alive). But today these people who you would normally call "leader" are not really leaders that you would belive them to be. They are front faces of the same people with the same agendas. They are puppets. They aren't the "elite". The real elite is their controllers. And they are extremly wealthy.

I don't know if you remember, there was a guy couple of years ago who caught laungering money for big crime lords. He was a banker and he was abducted. At the end, it was revealed that he had some half a trillion dollars in his personal account and that made him instantly the wealthiest man on the planet. Technically the wealthiest man on the planet is Bill Gates. But Bill Gates is a paper boy compared to this banker guy who was abducted. What does that mean? It means that looks can be deceiving. And not everything being fed to you has to be true. It is amazing how quickly this story about banker guy who was abducted was vaporized. Normally it would be something like "hey Bill Gates isn't the richest guy, the other guy is". But nothing happened. Care to explain how?

Posted By alysaria on 27 Dec 2011 01:25 PM


>.> What I'm saying is, it doesn't take affluence......sometimes affluence comes after for agreeing to book deals and interviews. All it takes is looking better than the other guy. (Historically speaking, most presidents are elected by popular vote based on how attractive they are....so a better public speaker, a more handsome face, or a more charming smile/wit are going to somehow be more important than the issues).

You are talking about carismatic leader? I agree. Charisma is a big plus for a leader. But charisma is not the only quality that defines leadership. In ancient rome it was belived that a man with curved nose would be a born leader. And it is not charismatic to have a curved nose.

I find your approach to be correct, but incomplete. You see, if you place charismatic leader who speaks nothing for the issues and a non charismatic leader who speaks the issues on the scales, the latter will probably win. However if you have control over what is it there to be placed on the scales in the first place, then the people will follow the charismatic leader simply because there is nothing out there to ballance that guy out. It's like a rigged boxing competition. The wealthiest buys both boxers on the ring and they decide who wins and loses. All the other guys who genuinely belive that the game is fair, are the ultimate losers. Same with politics. Every politician works for the same crooked elite. Basically, a person who does not work for te crooks do not get financial support for campaign that would naturally allow them to rise up to power. And in some cases, if the guy is rich enough to carry his own weight and put a policy that is against the "interests" of the elite, he gets a bullet in his head. An example? Sure. JFK.

Here's another approach for you . Look at how the first world countries bully the third world countries. Especially those who happens to have natural resources such as oil. Look how they get bullied. You think the same things don't happen within the same country where the elites from? You think there is any difference. Any political leader in the third world country is in exactly same position with any politician who works against estabilishment "interests" in the first world country. Even if the work of that politician is in deep interest of the majority of the population, he still gets bullied. There is no difference.

Posted By alysaria on 27 Dec 2011 01:25 PM
If we're talking that elusive secret society - let's pretend you had an idiotic son who had no common sense whatsoever, but he was your only son and therefore you wanted him to carry on in the family corruption.... How could you trust that your foolish offspring wasn't going to blow the entire operation? If we have incest, mental disorders, and entitlement....you've basically got a stupid brat who only cares about his own comfort, has no impulse control, and lacks the intelligence for subtlety. If you don't teach him the ways of the secret society, you have no stake in the future once you die....and if you *do*, you can't guarantee he's not going to get drunk and start threatening the boyfriends of hot chicks with the power his dad has to make them disappear. Paris Hilton can't keep her ladyparts secret....what are the odds of a child of that much power keeping it to him or herself?

Correct. And that proves that history always repeats itself. Certain smart people would always rise to be the elite and their offsprings would always be dumber than the original fathers and eventually lead the system to the downfall. And people will get pissed off for that and take the matters in their own hands. Hence, history repeats itself. But isn't that same thing is what happened to the monarchs of the past?