the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation. "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."
Certainly there have been many attempts by books, movies, televisions shows, and so forth to showcase the evils in collectivist thought since it became very apparent that collectivism inevitably leads society towards destitution (unless you’re a party official), fascism, class warfare and class genocide, a caste system, censorship, and a drastically lower quality of living than in democracy-loving or capitalist-leaning states.
However, I have to give the award for the best portrayal of the evils of collectivism (while not caricaturing collectivism—in fact, there were some questions, at times, whether collectivism was a more “perfect” or “advanced” state of society), to Star Trek: The Next Generation, and its collectivist species, the Borg.
Some standard Borg quotes and arguments:
1. Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile.
Obama has already won this election. Why do you resist? In fact, he should become president in November instead of waiting until January.
2. Freedom is irrelevant. Self-determination is irrelevant.
You must comply.
The banks will never be free again. Capitalism is over. People can’t govern themselves. CEOs and corporations can’t regulate themselves. The free market and the invisible hand are meaningless. We didn’t want to nationalize the banks, but your failures made us. You must comply with our nationalization.
3. Why do you resist?
We only wish to raise quality of life for all species.
Why do you resist $4 gas, higher gas taxes, and higher oil prices? We don’t want to drill offshore, because we don’t want you using oil anymore. We will raise the quality of life for all species, whether you like it or not.
So — yeah. If this is the direction in which we’re going, there’s going to be resistance from those who do not believe the lies and equivocation of the Obama Borg Hive Mind. Resistance from those of us who know that markets work better than nationalization, from those of us who want to drive and heat our homes and transport our goods cheaply, from those of us who believe that adults don’t need to have their morals imposed on them, and that having those morals so imposed greatly diminishes the robustness of our society.
Reject the Obama Borg Hive Mind.
bigliberty
Well said.
“Obama has already won this election. Why do you resist? In fact, he should become president in November instead of waiting until January.”
I saw a lefty begging last night for us to just call the election NOW. Just call it, over and done, and install him immediately. Call the election before the election lol.
I have footage from a Weatherman infiltrator, one of Ayers’ friends from the day, and he describes the plans for the great and free society of the hive mind, the socialist all-for-one-and-one-for-all spread the wealth and destroy the capitalists in the name of love and peace – funny thing is all that high-minded, best-intentioned, communal love-in shit, once enacted, always leads to gulags and crematoriums. It has to; there is something in the human spirit that longs for liberty and will resist the hive mind. At any rate, I hope you watch the footage; the creepy thing about it is they learned enough from Alinski to know that the most effective way wasn’t always open revolution; that to achieve the hive society you have to infiltrate and lead the institutions, and they’ve been achieving that for 40 years. They’ve got the children via the public schools already, they’ve got the colleges and the newspapers – about the only things they don’t have are the internet and the radio, and the radio is definitely first on the agenda to be destroyed.
Ok I’m getting depressing. The video is here
By the way, I LOVE the decor – the starving piggy bank, and the Obama/Marx. Good stuff.
Thanks, Annie. The blog was way too stark — I miss BigLiberty, which to me was just PERFECT. Had a great header, I loved the theme…but I had to turn a new leaf with TCL, so I picked something without a custom header. I dunno, I might change the theme again at some point, but right now I’m getting used to including photos with new posts. That seems to help.
Yes, that’s the thing with the hive mind communal love paradigm — science fiction writers (first), and *history* (second), showed that it doesn’t work. That’s right, even if you really really really reallllly want it to work. It doesn’t. It ends in gulags and crematoriums, like you said.
And actually, I don’t think it had anything to do with the fact that people want freedom – I think it’s more basic than that. We CAN’T operate successfully in a collective, because we DO NOT share a collective mind. We are individuals, who have our own minds, and who cannot “intuit” the thoughts of others in any kind of reasonable manner. Therefore we cannot force moral controls on others (which is the end goal of socialism), because we cannot enter their thoughts. Socialism requires absolute and total control to work. While human beings are still programmed, biologically, as individuals, this will be impossible.
Listen, I’m a complexity science researcher. The Butterfly Effect is more poignant to me than the Gospels are to some. Socialism CANNOT WORK without absolute and total control, which for human beings is impossible.
So that’s just my thoughts on that. I might post on it at some point, from the perspective of a complexity science researcher.
This is a little off topic, but has anyone else noticed how in lockstep the fat blogosphere has been to write only about drivel (fashion, etc.) the past couple of weeks and ignore the biggest issue (the election) and one that will affect them for the rest of their lives? Notice how they fell over themselves with feigned upset about metabo being forced on Japanese, but are carefully ignoring the fact that it is coming to them through the Obama employer-driven healthcare system, and already is being increasingly forced on people on government-provided healthplans? I fear for a lot of the younger fat bloggers, who don’t realize that they’ve been carefully manipulated by social marketing bloggers who aren’t really who they purport to be.
Encouraging people to check out the facts for themselves is a threat to those without them.
I cannot believe every fat, older, disabled or minority person really wants to have government force them into surveillance of their diets and lifestyles, and into risky and needless treatments.
Actually you both raise excellent points. TCL, the Butterfly Effect is so misunderstood, I think, but you’re darned right it’s amazing stuff. And you may be quite right that it’s as simple as you say – that it’s impossible, and that’s that, for those very reasons. Yet it’s always seemed a little more complex why real liberty always ends up leading back to socialism – it happened to Rome and it’s happening here – when poverty lifts and people have time to pontificate and scheme instead of just slaving away for their daily needs, guilt sets in and people capitalize on that guilt to get a bigger slice of pie. Never thinking it would be better to bake more pies – easier to get a little of what someone else has baked. I’m just pointing out the converse of your point that socialism can’t work (and it can’t) – free markets and personal rights seem to in the long run lead back to socialism; and it isn’t because they don’t work…it’s more like because they work too well and human nature is what it is.
Sandy, I haven’t even looked to have noticed the phenomenon, but it figures I guess. I don’t think I realized going in how hardcore much of the socialist beliefs there were…which is particularly naive of someone like me to not realize. I worry, too, and of course when it comes down to it no one wants the government conducting constant force over them, but as what’s-his-name said, the people never give up their liberties except under a great delusion. We see the delusion very clearly, and it’s clearly a great one.