Final Fantasy Hacktics

China is winning right now.

China spends more money on internal security than external security.  It's army is the biggest in the world, but it's tiny compared to it's police force.  Unless this police force is intended to be a policing army for when china invades it's neighbors.

Really, I hope china invades central asia.  I'd love to see those fucking muslims declare china the great satan.  Oooo, the thought pleases me!

So yeah.  China is degrading it's evironment (win for us!), it executes an unknown number of people (some estimates in the thousands) each year... China's gov't is the worst thing for China's people.  Which is good for us, I guess.

Another thing:  I read an article a few weeks ago where this guy in china said, "Chinese people worship authority; administrators and such, while Americans worhips innovators, underdogs, people who stick it to the authority."  I'm summarizing, but that's pretty close to what he said.

I hate all authority, but then again, I hate everyone.  I'm not prejudiced.

Other thoughts:  Since china doesn't respect anyone's else's copyright/patent laws, why should we respect theirs?


I thought about it some more.  I think that the inherently destructive nature of the Chinese Communist Party will eventually lead to it's downfall.  The only problem with this is that our economic well being is so closely tied to china.  We need an economic divorce, an escape from this destructive, one-sided relationship.  China is our manipulative, slutty girlfriend, and it's time we kick her ass out of our fucking apartment.

You don't win a war of economies or a war of guns.  The official "victor" just loses slower than the official loser of the war.  Nor is this really a problem of us vs. them (or a 3-sided China vs. USA vs. Muslim Terrorists like C&C Generals).  I don't think the Chinese people and the American people should be enemies here.

China spends so much money on internal security because it needs a police state to keep so many underpaid semi-rural workers in line.  Regardless of what the CCP says, China is now a capitalist country.  But it can't bring democracy or the current rulers will lose power (since these semi-rural workers and their families in the countryside make up the 80% of the population).  The corruption is an open secret: everyone knows the entire government is rotten, but to fix this problem from within, you'd have to be a top government official, which more or less guarantees you won't rock the boat without fear of self-exposure if you expose someone else.  If you're a minor official making complaints, they'll just remove you.  If you're a minor official who's too openly corrupt, you'll be executed just to keep the public happy and to save face.  The "middle class", by Western standards, in the cities mostly don't care how corrupt the government is as long as they and their children have a piece of the pie.  The workers lack real leaders to stop this (though they protest, even though it's illegal, all the time and are arrested--hence why there's so many cops): all the unions are controlled by the state (so they function as extra layers of management), while any independent minded person who isn't a government agent and makes any vigorous and public protest about government policy will be arrested for "subversion of state power" and be locked away for 10-15 years.  Yes, going down this road, the CCP will eventually fall, but right now, I don't see what will replace it.

The growth of this model of development is not good for America.  The pollution created does affect America both directly (some smog particles from China's power plants have reached the West Coast via global wind currents) and indirectly (global warming).  US business no longer have to pay decent wages when China is willing to force her people to do the dirty work; US leaders now can emulate police state tactics (tested in China) when US citizens grow upset about the loss of national sovereignty and job security.  Yes, we have a democratic tradition, but we don't follow it to any meaningful degree anymore (see illegal wiretaps, Patriot Act I and II, Military Commissions Act, Gitmo and similar prisons to be built in the USA...all such programs are still continuing, by the way).  We already have highest number of inmates in the world (more than China even though she has 6x the population--this will be the new cheap labor force in the US).  It's actually worse here when you consider that even though our government is just as corrupt (usually with the same corporate interests), far more people in the USA see the government as legitimate (seen from the amount of party partisans who'll justify anything their party does, no matter how undemocratic it is).  This also creates the other problem you mentioned of economic dependency.  The only way for the US to extricate herself is with tariffs (which leads to a trade war, or worse, since China just lost her largest market), finding labor cheaper than China's workforce in a country more easily managed by the US (like Haiti...but that's just substituting morphine for heroin), or by forcing Americans to work on wages and conditions similar to China (which no American should accept).  Nor is the trade war something easy to dismiss, the US literally produces close to nothing now (so we'd still be in debt to someone with lower labor costs than the US: the same problem will then be replicated onto another country until we recreate production), China and the US do have quite a bit of participation in joint ventures (anti-nuclear proliferation, for example, in North Korea), and China holds most of the US debt (a mass sale of dollars would trigger a collapse of the US dollar and hyperinflation).  Plus, major US firms (Wal-Mart, Boeing, Coca-Cola, etc.) do conduct business with China (not that most of them are honest, but if you wish to revive US industry, they could be hit by Chinese counter-tariffs in the trade war).  Thus, A direct blow to China's economy would weaken the US economy and those of all the states relying on Chinese production (most of the Western World), which would only tempt China to hasten the sale of the US dollar (to recover temporary revenue, while they still can).  That could lead to a real war (one in which some Western nations may remain neutral, or even blame the US for starting it, if they believe China can cut them a better deal).

I don't see why I should care if our economy collapses along with China's.  For fuck's sake, I'm homeless!  I don't collect unemployment because I don't have an address, I haven't been to a doctor since...  You get the point.

I want anarchy.  Not Dark Knight/Joker/robbing banks/burning money/blowing up people anarchy, not Tyler Durden/neo-facist/primativist/you do not talk about fight club anarchy.  I want regenerative anarchy, a competitive chaos where disparite ideas and beliefs are tested and the surviving strains mingled.  Call it memetic diversity.

What is the difference between how our current economic model is supposed to work and how it actually functions?

How does our current economic model benefit us?

Hear me out; I'm not a communist.

A side note:  I think that communism is a religion.  It has all the symptoms of a religion.

Oh, and I found that chinese guy who said chinese people worship authority.  His name is Wang Xiaofang.  I did a google search to find the article, and there are about 7 million people named Wang Xiaofang.

isn't communism the exact opposite of anarchy? why would anyone think you were a communist?

Communism is a system of economics, not of government or religion.

It's not the opposite of capitalism either, since there's still competition involved. At its base, communism is having every employee have an equal share in the company. Government has to be involved to keep communism going because capitalist companies are by and large far more competitive.

There's more to it than that of course, though.

Quote from: "Samuraiblackbelt"isn't communism the exact opposite of anarchy? why would anyone think you were a communist?

Anyone who questions the current distribution of wealth = commie red progressive basterd.

I came up with a name for my econmic beliefs.  God less Liberal Scumbag-ism.  It all boils down to this: Every Christian, Muslim, and Jew on the planet believes that some day, a man is going to come down to earth and save us all from ourselves.  So you have things like Iran, where, although at least half of the population doesn't approve of the current gov't, they do nothing about it except hope and pray for a strong dictator to come along and sweep the mullahs away (which is exactly what got them into this mess in the first place).

Same deal in China.  Respect authority, respect officials who take care of you like mommy and daddy, but don't respect anyone who threatens your tranquility; artists, scientists, innovators.

If you want something done, you must do it yourself.

Anything which refuses to change, to adapt, to risk failure for a greater prize, will eventually die.

The ways of perfection and purity are the ways of death, because anything which is perfect or pure does not change.

My only goal is survival.  Never be perfect, never be pure, never depend on someone else to do something which you can do yourself.

I'm done preaching.  Someone flame me.

commie bastard.....

"I did a google search to find the article, and there are about 7 million people named Wang Xiaofang."
Probably because each syllable after the first (which would be a really common family name) corresponds to at least a half dozen Chinese characters, each of which could correspond to one Chinese name, which could then be shared by multiple people.  The person you're looking for is probably called 王晓芳, who's a novelist with alter-ego main characters who are officials.

"Not Dark Knight/Joker/robbing banks/burning money/blowing up people anarchy, not Tyler Durden/neo-facist/primativist/you do not talk about fight club anarchy"
I wouldn't even call that anarchy; that's just plain terrorism in the first case and a cult surrounding a leader in the second.

"What is the difference between how our current economic model is supposed to work and how it actually functions?  How does our current economic model benefit us?  Hear me out; I'm not a communist...Anyone who questions the current distribution of wealth = commie red progressive basterd."
Isn't it strange how anyone who questions the existing order is considered a crazy anarchist or Communist?  However, I think most people unconsciously recognize that the official system in place is probably less rational, especially now in the wake of the economic crisis, but no individual person wants to be the first person to denounce such a system consistently and openly in every facet of life for the fear of appearing crazy (and being punished for it with the loss of friends/job/status).  It's like the system that entraps Chinese high officials, except on a larger scale and enforced more by irrationality at the lower levels (since the average person isn't corrupt or even consciously complicit in the corruption; he has far less to lose than the average high official for rejecting the system).

"I don't see why I should care if our economy collapses along with China's. For fuck's sake, I'm homeless! I don't collect unemployment because I don't have an address, I haven't been to a doctor since... You get the point...If you want something done, you must do it yourself."
With nothing to be emotionally and financially tied to, you have far less to lose from the system's collapse.  However, that can only go so far, you can't exactly do everything yourself; just as an example, could you grow and gather your own food by yourself (I assume you live in a city)?  Plus, if society reverted to that, how would you construct anything public (like a road or school)?  I don't see how this invalidates my point that if the US economy goes down; everything we've come to take for granted, like relatively cheap food, freedom of movement/communication/information, and the freedom from armed searches, patrols, and arbitrary detentions/forced labor could suddenly end.  I'm not saying individualism is some scourge, but that you can't just ignore the usefulness of society or mass organization (in at least stopping the completion of the police state checkmate) or the dependence of everyone to society on some level

"Anything which refuses to change, to adapt, to risk failure for a greater prize, will eventually die.  The ways of perfection and purity are the ways of death, because anything which is perfect or pure does not change.  My only goal is survival. Never be perfect, never be pure, never depend on someone else to do something which you can do yourself."
I agree with the first two statements.  However, the third runs into problems.  If your only goal is survival, you can be opportunistically led into a blind alley: i.e, I offer you something to aid your survival; you must now perform something corrupt for me.  Of course, you can reject all deals with other people in principle, but even that can be subtly worked around: i.e. society can encourage "individualism" to fracture the people who don't benefit from society (divide and conquer), or structure itself so "survival" is most easily and rationally accomplished by being complicit to society's corruption (which is how the system normally functions in times of non-crisis to blind people from the corruption).  Thus, I'd say that self-analysis and conscious awareness of the problem is a necessary part of "survival".

I took some notes on that article by good ole' Wang, and I found them last night.
Wang Xiaofang
-Chinese people worship power
--"They don't respect innovators, scientists, or artists, but officials," he said.  "The whole system needs reforming".
--"Chinese must stop thinking of (communist party officials) as 'father-mother' officials, and instead consider them instruments of the citizens."
-Irony
--"We need another iron man like Mao," said Chao, 58, a Communist Party official.

I lived in Kent, which is suburb/small town/semi-rural, and now I live in the only real town in this part of Oklahoma.  There are even large parts of Cleveland that are wooded, and with everyone moving out of state - like me, but hopefully not for good in my case - a lot of cities are turning back into farmland.

I could survive off the land.  Just hunt deer and fish.  Eat nuts and berries.  You can eat cat-tails, you know?  Those reeds with the cigar looking pollen on the end?  The pollen is like flour.

About purity and perfection, I mean idealogically.  If an idea works, there's no reason not to steal it from someone else.  I just hate how so many religions glorify chastity and purity when people losing thier virginity is essential to humanity's survival.

I saw this documentary where a guy gave a bunch of children of prostitutes in india camera and just let them go.  I think some of those kids are smarter than I ever will be.  I'm wondering if these children, products of indiscriminate mingling of random men and women, might be better suited to survival than children who are the product of generations of monogomous marrige.

I lived near the amish when I was in ohio.  Actually, among them is more like it.  Surrounded.  Amish Ghetto.  Anyways, almost every Amish family has a retard or two they hide away.

The only sort of society which would allow married women to have sex with whoever they want and divorce at will would be a female-dominated one, where property (and names and traditions) are passed from mother to children.

In some middle eastern societies, a boy becomes a man when he marries a woman, and a girl becomes a woman when she has a child, when she becomes a mother.  What does this tell you about the nature of power, and property?  Is there a seed of feminism hiding in the muslim world which could subvert or counter-act Islam's paternal inclinations?

And I was thinking about survival as a species.  Not my own personal survival.

My thoughts about my own personal survival are summed up as such:
Do whatever is needed to survive, thrive, and accomplish your goals, provided it harms no one, unless someone harms you first, in which case do to them what they did to you, but no more than is needed to make them leave you alone.

Every time I try to type something, the cursur jumps around.  What the heck is going on?

QuoteIf an idea works, there's no reason not to steal it from someone else. I just hate how so many religions glorify chastity and purity when people losing thier virginity is essential to humanity's survival.

Exactly.  If something works and disagrees with your current "theory", than either your theory is wrong or this "success" is just the first manifestation of a coming failure, which you must prove (and be confirmed by reality) within whatever system of thought you are using.  If you resort to name-calling or physical violence in defense of your orthodoxy, you just proved the error of your theory, even if what you are opposing also turned out to be a dead end.

QuoteI saw this documentary where a guy gave a bunch of children of prostitutes in india camera and just let them go. I think some of those kids are smarter than I ever will be. I'm wondering if these children, products of indiscriminate mingling of random men and women, might be better suited to survival than children who are the product of generations of monogomous marrige.

I don't exactly see why such children would be any better or any worse off in terms of who their parents were.  They might be worse off because of poverty and stigmatization, but I don't buy the "family values" argument either.

QuoteI could survive off the land. Just hunt deer and fish. Eat nuts and berries. You can eat cat-tails, you know? Those reeds with the cigar looking pollen on the end? The pollen is like flour.

I'm fairly envious; that sounds much better than what I currently have.  However, I don't think 300 million people in the USA could live like that (not enough wild land now or even 400 years ago for the lifestyle we live today), even if they knew how.  We'll still need, at the very least, some source of systematic agriculture and distribution.

So where exactly is this thread going now?

Quote from: "Kaijyuu"Communism is a system of economics, not of government or religion.

It's not the opposite of capitalism either, since there's still competition involved. At its base, communism is having every employee have an equal share in the company. Government has to be involved to keep communism going because capitalist companies are by and large far more competitive.

There's more to it than that of course, though.

nevermind, socialism is the opposite of anarchy.

QuoteI saw this documentary where a guy gave a bunch of children of prostitutes in india camera and just let them go. I think some of those kids are smarter than I ever will be. I'm wondering if these children, products of indiscriminate mingling of random men and women, might be better suited to survival than children who are the product of generations of monogomous marrige.

I don't exactly see why such children would be any better or any worse off in terms of who their parents were.  They might be worse off because of poverty and stigmatization, but I don't buy the "family values" argument either.

Obviously they're not better off in terms of stable or healthy home/family situation, or in preparedness for education, but that makes their intelligence all the more amazing.

QuoteI could survive off the land. Just hunt deer and fish. Eat nuts and berries. You can eat cat-tails, you know? Those reeds with the cigar looking pollen on the end? The pollen is like flour.

I'm fairly envious; that sounds much better than what I currently have.  However, I don't think 300 million people in the USA could live like that (not enough wild land now or even 400 years ago for the lifestyle we live today), even if they knew how.  We'll still need, at the very least, some source of systematic agriculture and distribution.

You're right.  We can't sustain 7 billion hunter-gatherers.

Think of it as a combonation ecosystem/free market.  There is a niche for factory farms, because people demand affordable food, but these factory foods need to be marketed as what they are: substandard, nutrient-poor, and unhealthy.  There's also a niche for small family-type farms...  I think one of the problems with the USA is our supposedly free markets are stacked so big businesses have an unfair advantage.  Would people eat corn-fed beef if they knew that grass-fed beef has a fraction of the saturated fat?  If they knew that the hormones and antibiotics animals are fed are affecting fetus development in pregnant women?  Oh no, the republicans are all for protecting the unborn, but once they're born they better get thier asses to the nearest sweatshop and start making some clothes for the rich folks.  Same with business.  They care for business, just not for small business, or local business, or American business.

Am I mispelling business?  Buisness?  I need to buy a dictionary.

QuoteSo where exactly is this thread going now?

I want to do to religion and politics and philosophy what we are doing to ff tactics.  Analyze it, find the underlying principles, the original intent of the makers, break it down, and rebuild it so it works for life instead of against it.
A religion that  facilitates genetic and memetic diversity.
Freedom of thought, freedom to experiment, to grow, to change, to adapt, and to survive.
A religious/political/social system which does not depend on saviors or charsimatic hero-leaders for survival, but instead prepares humans to take charge of thier own fates.
Something which accepts all input and treats it equally, regardless of it's source.  Ancient art and modern video games would go through the same analysis.

Another thing I thought about a few days ago.  Do disasters serve some kind of testing function?  Like how when Marines get a new piece of gear, they immediately begin field testing it in the same brutal conditions one will encounter on a battlefield.  But there's a problem... testing yourself is one thing, but testing another without their consent smacks of facism or that sort of bs where a parent beats a child "for it's own good."

QuoteThink of it as a combonation ecosystem/free market. There is a niche for factory farms, because people demand affordable food, but these factory foods need to be marketed as what they are: substandard, nutrient-poor, and unhealthy.

The problem isn't even marketing.  If you market anything as trash, no one would buy it unless they had no choice.  Thus, the only people who would consume such stuff would be the poor, who literally do so because they can't afford better meals.  Half the problem is money and from it, the degree of access.

QuoteThere's also a niche for small family-type farms... I think one of the problems with the USA is our supposedly free markets are stacked so big businesses have an unfair advantage. Would people eat corn-fed beef if they knew that grass-fed beef has a fraction of the saturated fat? If they knew that the hormones and antibiotics animals are fed are affecting fetus development in pregnant women?

The other half of the problem lies in US government subsidies that favor the production of corn, wheat, and soybeans over everything else, even though the farmer is doing so at a loss and has to accept subsidies to survive.  From the perspective of feeding people, most of these excess crops are biologically wasted to feed animals (basic ecology: 100 units of solar energy = 10 units of energy from edible plant matter = 1 unit of energy from the meat of herbivores).  The low commodity prices from such high supply, of course, benefit the big growers (who are vertically integrated) with food processors (more profits on value-added stuff, much of it is junk food), as well as the seed companies vertically integrated with pesticide makers.  Of course, these people can also posture how this will help the "poor consumer" have "choices", even though the poor really don't have a good choice.
Moreover, this system is incompatible with small family farms.  You can't really have both without one eventually going bankrupt.  By the economies of scale and by their legal/political power, these companies can override the legal complaints of small farmers or citizens (the situation today).  However, these corporations are literally dependent on government subsidies for their base producers to be profitable.  Remove them, and most of their operations would be scaled back.  Small family farms can only survive this competition by carving out a niche not currently exploited/not efficiently exploited by the big firms, by consolidating themselves, or by marketing themselves a luxury alternative to the big firms in quality (which hardly helps those outside the upper-middle class).  However, this cannot match the volume currently produced, nor are all regions suited for agriculture or even ranching (some areas in the US West, for example, are way too dry and depend on groundwater irrigation).  So you'd still need a national system (private or publicly owned) with some areas producing agricultural goods in excess for others to eat.  Plus, the logic of consolidation requires eventually the same tactics that the big firms are now adopting (so sooner or later, even if the current giants were dismantled, more would rise to fill their shoes).

QuoteOh no, the republicans are all for protecting the unborn, but once they're born they better get thier asses to the nearest sweatshop and start making some clothes for the rich folks. Same with business. They care for business, just not for small business, or local business, or American business.

Pretty much, they (both parties here) care for whatever business can net them the most money.  Now, obviously, that won't be small business or businesses who restrict themselves to America.  As for the pro-life/choice position, you just pointed out the limits of just thinking about abortion.  Logical consistency requires you to not just care for the unborn, but also the child who's born, to ensure he comes into a world worth living in.  Similarly, if a female is to have choice in the ability to terminate pregnancy, then why does she (or any other person) not also have the right to control other, equally important, aspects of life?

QuoteI want to do to religion and politics and philosophy what we are doing to ff tactics. Analyze it, find the underlying principles, the original intent of the makers, break it down, and rebuild it so it works for life instead of against it.
A religion that facilitates genetic and memetic diversity.
Freedom of thought, freedom to experiment, to grow, to change, to adapt, and to survive.
A religious/political/social system which does not depend on saviors or charsimatic hero-leaders for survival, but instead prepares humans to take charge of thier own fates.
Something which accepts all input and treats it equally, regardless of it's source. Ancient art and modern video games would go through the same analysis.

Name a philosophical system, and let's analyze from here.  I'd prefer to pick the one we currently live in, but it seems we've already done that over the last 10 posts.

I got two of them, one alive and the other very dead.

Post-Modernism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_modernism
http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses ... /pomo.html

The Code of Hammurabi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_hammurabi
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM

OK, let's talk about Post-Modernism first.

When did the idea take root in the West?  Why (I know many post-moderns would look in horror to me trying to ask this question) and in what historical context?  I'd like to hear your thoughts before I try to answer this one.

I'm still analyzing it, and a bunch of other stuff.

Just off the top of my head...
It seems like Post-Modernism is a product of the baby boomer generation (and their attempted rejection of their parent's values), but that several flavors of it have evolved with each new generation.  The flavors overlap in places, and share many of the same parents.

Remember chocobo breeding in FF7?  How you would breed two chocobos together who are brother and sister and you would end up with the world's strangest family tree?  Post Modernism's family tree looks like that.

Let's not forget about Ramza+Boco

I found something interesting in the most unlikely of places.
"It's not who I am on the inside, but what I do, that defines me."
Batman.  I just quoted Batman, from the movie "Batman Begins.  I think I have a solution to the eternal victimhood problem.
"It's what you do that defines you.  Not what was done to you, or to your ancestors.  Not the contents of your wallet, the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the people you know."
"What you do defines you.  Nothing else matters."
Combonation Batman (whenever I read that, I always hear the batman voice in my head) and Tyler Durden.  Su-weet!

I was looking into the Batman reboot after thinking of this, and I came across some more interesting stuff... Keysi Fighting Method, Parkour.

From the Wikipedia article on Path dependence:
"In a related vein, scholars such as Kathleen Thelen caution that the historical determinism in path-dependent frameworks ignore the constant renegotiation of institutional configurations. She suggests that institutions undergo moments of institutional evolution wherein key actors renegotiate the configuration and purpose of institutions."
^How does the name and implied role of our leadership positions (President, for instance) effect the people we choose for these roles?  How would a title of Facilitator or Regulator influence the person who is elected to that position?

I was thinking about the idea of Batman, and I think it's a failure because, no matter how extreme a crime fighters behavior, it's only half of the solution to the problem of crime.  Not only must you stop criminals, but you must also prevent new ones from being created and stepping into the old ones shoes, and you also must alter society so that it deters and inhibits criminality in many subtle ways.

The trick is finding ways to deter and inhibit crime that are not oppressive -> that are compatible with a democracy or a republic like ours.  Basically, ignore everything in the Patriot Act, and pretend Dick Cheney doesn't exist.  There has to be a less ham-handed method than waterboarding or fear of the Secret Police or whatever your gov't calls them.

Now that I think about it, aren't the secret police usually the biggest criminals of all?  They have no oversight, they have the opportunity, and they have the protection of the gov't.

It seems that the more open a society is, the sooner crime is flushed out into the open.

More from the wikipedia article:
"One is the "critical juncture" framework, most notably utilized by Ruth and David Collier in political science. In the critical juncture framework, antecedent conditions define and delimit agency during a critical juncture in which actors make contingent choices that set a specific trajectory of institutional development and consolidation that is difficult to reverse. This is akin to the concepts of vendor lock-in or positive feedback derived from path dependence in economics."
^Let's say that tommorow Obama declares that America will begin an "Economic Divorce" from China, where we remove China's influence over our economic well being, and ours from theirs.

What path would this lock us into, in regards to China?  What would the short term consequences be?  How could we protect our currency if China drops it's dollar reserves?  Burn a bunch of dollar bills?  Stop printing money?

If we do manage to get out this relationship without killing our economy, what then?

How does my "Do unto other as they do unto you" philosophy work under these circumstances?  Should we stop prosecution of any American firm that violates Chinese copyrights, since China obviously is doing the same to us?  Since China is manipulating their currency, should we manipulate ours?  Since SOMEBODY is funding Maoist guerillas in rural India, should we finance (covertly, of course) a Tibetan resistance once the Dalai Lama dies?  Should we finance Uighir Mujahadeen?  Or Hmong partisans in the south?  Should we impose some kind of "Asshole Tax" on China whenever they piss us off?

If they had any sense, the Chinese would relish being the underdog.  You don't have to worry about your politicians going on crusades into the middle east, for one...  There are some advantages to ceding top dog status to China, and taking underdog status for ourself.  An underdog can always find something soft to bite.  We could finally give up the idea that we are the world's policeman (or dog catcher, if you want to continue the dog metaphor).  Maybe we should welcome China, treat them as equals, ask them to help enlighten us poor, stupid, fat, hairy, ape-like Americans, and then rob them blind.

QuoteNow that I think about it, aren't the secret police usually the biggest criminals of all? They have no oversight, they have the opportunity, and they have the protection of the gov't.

I'm not interested in getting too involved in this discussion and/or debate, but this line of yours reads to me like a non sequitur.  One should keep in mind that being capable of being a criminal does not automatically make someone a criminal.  I'm sure you've also heard at least one saying before warning about assumptions and jumping to conclusions.  Ignoring if their existence is a good idea or a bad idea, I cannot justify calling them criminals just for the hell of it.