4 ms·

Um, DOGMA usually does not hold up, period. Your straw-man argument there is nothing more than: "you think MY dogma is stupid? Let me tell you how stupid the op

Um, DOGMA usually does not hold up, period. Your straw-man argument there is nothing more than: "you think MY dogma is stupid? Let me tell you how stupid the opposing dogma is!" and expecting people to think that because other dogma is bad that your dogma is good. Now, if I was actually arguing or believed some anti-market dogma, it wouldn't be a straw-man here. But I fully agree that markets are valuable, are easy to over-regulate, and that there are many aspects of market freedom that are positive. I'm just not dogmatic about it. Dogma is what leads people to insist that things are a certain way because their dogmatic model says so rather than base their beliefs on evidence, etc. But anyway, communist and socialist dogma may be wrong because they are dogmatic, but here's one thing I know for certain: your description of their dogma is completely wrong. Dogmatic communists and socialists don't believe what you just wrote in describing them.

edblarney 10y ago
You are misusing the term 'straw man'. Also, dogma is: "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true." There is not that much 'free market' dogma (i.e. free markets are perfect, and always good) in mainstream American society. There is a lot of socialist dogma in mainstream society. Communist dogma would indicate that capitalism is inherently wrong (as an absolute truth) and this is promoted quite a lot. Socialist dogma would indicate that mostly free markets are incompatible with the wellbeing of society. Socialist dogma pervades European elitist thinking and popular sentiment, so much so, that any contradiction of their 'dogmatic beliefs' is considered 'far right wing'. Watch 5 Hollywood films: the 'evil bad guy' while be an old white banker or business man 3 out of 5 times. American pop culture goes out of their way to vilify business (unless it's startups). There are obvious hints of dogma in this.
- quadrangle 10y ago
  I'm not misusing straw man. You argued against things I wasn't saying. That's a straw man. You tried to defend that free market dogma by attacked arguments about communism and socialism that nobody but your straw man was mentioning. You are now continuing to make more straw men. None of the rest of your comment is actually addressing anything I was saying, just arguing with some image you have of people who you think believe certain things. Note that I happen to think your perspective is really skewed here — the vast majority of power in our society is vested in capitalist interests, the media and government and lots more are very much capitalist or capitalist-apologist, and truly dogmatic free-market ideologies (it doesn't matter whether there's a great-man behind some dogma, just the idea that the authority is some idealistic free-market theory, that's authority enough to be called "dogma" — it's super rampant, enough that it's easy to run into believers constantly.

edblarney 10y ago

You are misusing the term 'straw man'. Also, dogma is: "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true." There is not that much 'free market' dogma (i.e. free markets are perfect, and always good) in mainstream American society. There is a lot of socialist dogma in mainstream society. Communist dogma would indicate that capitalism is inherently wrong (as an absolute truth) and this is promoted quite a lot. Socialist dogma would indicate that mostly free markets are incompatible with the wellbeing of society. Socialist dogma pervades European elitist thinking and popular sentiment, so much so, that any contradiction of their 'dogmatic beliefs' is considered 'far right wing'. Watch 5 Hollywood films: the 'evil bad guy' while be an old white banker or business man 3 out of 5 times. American pop culture goes out of their way to vilify business (unless it's startups). There are obvious hints of dogma in this.

quadrangle 10y ago
I'm not misusing straw man. You argued against things I wasn't saying. That's a straw man. You tried to defend that free market dogma by attacked arguments about communism and socialism that nobody but your straw man was mentioning. You are now continuing to make more straw men. None of the rest of your comment is actually addressing anything I was saying, just arguing with some image you have of people who you think believe certain things. Note that I happen to think your perspective is really skewed here — the vast majority of power in our society is vested in capitalist interests, the media and government and lots more are very much capitalist or capitalist-apologist, and truly dogmatic free-market ideologies (it doesn't matter whether there's a great-man behind some dogma, just the idea that the authority is some idealistic free-market theory, that's authority enough to be called "dogma" — it's super rampant, enough that it's easy to run into believers constantly.