1.) Do I know you?
Have I implied that?
2.) What fallacy?
P1: A does not know for sure, which object is described by a statement S.
P2. A knows that S does not describe X.
Your fallacy is that P1 implies NOT P2.
Yes. If you have expectations of me…
hah - Sure his syntactic structure is fine for his argument, but his lacking an object of “who is at the top” is not sufficient to rule out the Rothschilds. A.K.A. he is running into the fallacy of affirming negatives. In other words he is trying to prove a position through negative propositions. We do not prove things by explaining how or why they are not only by how they are. He lacks sufficient evidence to rule out his intital proposition. This isn’t a logical syntax problem (as you claim of my own observation), but is that of true propositions.
Yes. If you have expectations of me…
This only means I know you to some extent (through your public posts here) not that you know me. Should I write this out as a syllogism? 
his lacking an object of “who is at the top” is not sufficient to rule out the Rothschilds
My reading of Clayton’s reasoning was that he knows the top guy is not a Rothschild despite not knowing who is the top guy, not because of it. A despite B, as opposed to A because of B.
he is running into the fallacy of affirming negatives
Never heard of this one. Is it a standard name?
And I see that as insufficient to make that case. There is reason to believe that they are near the top (i.e. there is evidence of it), but when you take them off of the pedestal then say, “Well I don’t know what goes there” without giving sufficient reasoning for why you took them off in the first place, it leaves the impression that it might not be rational to take them off in the first place.
I think I got it from Malthus’ description of it. (Making a positive case with negative arguments). South Park uses it too, (regarding ancient aliens) “You can’t prove it didn’t happen!”
And I see that as insufficient to make that case.
Ah, I see your point. We are actually making different statements.
You say (I think) that the sources presented by Clayton on this thread are not sufficient to assert the top guy is not a Rothschild. I do not argue with that. I merely think the portion of Clayton’s reasoning published here is not self-contradicting prima facie. I.e., it may be possible for Clayton to be sure the top guy is not a Rothschild, even if he does not know who actually is, and even if he never presented the source of this knowledge on this thread.
a) I don’t believe there is a “top guy”. The term I like to use is “undelegated power” - there are a handful of people in the world who have undelegated power. I have explained why I don’t think there’s a single top guy. Just doesn’t make any sense.
b) The primary reason for disbelieving that “the Rothschilds rule the world” or anything similar is that they are newcomers - they did not rise to prominence until the early 19th century. I know that a lot of people think “so what? the world changes” but the fact is the Establishment really is a lot less changeable than other aspects of the social order. For me, “the Establishment” isn’t just a single King or President who can be overthrown and replaced… it is the network of people (dynasties, actually) with undelegated power. It slowly morphs over time but much more slowly than particular governments or leaders, let alone the general public.
As new rulers rise to the pinnacles of power, they quickly find that there are others in the world just as powerful as themselves - people that cannot be beaten, intimidated or outwitted. This is the Establishment. The only option left is to cooperate with such people. You only need to look over the history of the American industrialists to see this pattern in action. They rapidly rose to immense wealth, began to convert that wealth into political power and then either joined the Establishment (via inter-marriage) or hit a brick wall and eventually fell from prominence.
Returning to the Rothschilds, when they rose to prominence, they did so in a pre-existing context of power, pieces of which still exist today. Long experience and deep knowledge of history (much of which is secret) is invaluable when it comes to ruling. The ruling powers already had a toolbox full of dirty tricks when the Rothschilds were taking their first baby steps - not to mention armies, navies, and the like. Given all of that, it just doesn’t make any sense to say the Rothschilds - or anybody for that matter - just walked in one day and submitted the Establishment, particularly since there is no evidence of that.
Clayton -
I have explained why I don’t think there’s a single top guy. Just doesn’t make any sense.
Sorry, I’ve used sloppy language for the sake of quick argument.
I think I understand your theory of mutually hostile (but still cooperating) pinnacles of the Establishment network.
You are still incredibly vague and are able to mask your vagueness with things like this,
Of course. Thank God there are people like you that can clairvoyantly cipher the secret history of the world. Who are these people, or peoples, that constitute the old Establishment? It’s probably still the Venitian Nobles, right? Judging from the ever expanding power of the Vatican I’d say that’s realistic. And the Knights Templar. Groups so secret that people think they haven’t existed for hundreds of years, but that still pull the strings of power. Strings that only you and Alex Jones can see…
Which of the U.S. Founders were involved in wet work for this Establishment? Or was it just all of them?
The trouble with that view is that the overwhelming majority of the wealth ever produced in human history has been produced from, say, 1800-present. Think of it like this. The old kings of Europe had a powerful fleet of wooden ships for eons. But then the steel dreadnought was invented all of the sudden, and Rothschild and other financiers managed to jump on this new technology first. All the accumulated power of the kings is then almost meaningless. Substitute land-wealth for wooden ships, and trade/banking/industrial wealth for dreadnoughts.
And on a related note, I’m not sure that the brute force (armies et al) versus money comparison really makes sense, as the former is nothing without the latter. Any idiot can raise an army and conquer the world if he has unlimited funds. Now, if we’re thinking about only one State, then it would be plausible to suggest that whoever controls the State is going to remain dominant over any newly rich merchants therein, since there’s really no way for the merchants to translate their wealth into force to fight and defeat the current rulers, considering that a merchant can’t exactly build an army all of the sudden under the nose of his government. However, if the merchants are international, and can pit States against one another, and in that way punish any State that doesn’t play ball…well that’s a different story. I’d say that sounds pretty similar to what actually happened.
Just to be clear: there’s no question that States are the most powerful institutions, no corporation comes remotely close. The issue is who controls those institutions? Is it the persons who formally constitute the State (kings, ministers, congressman, etc) or is it people who are not formally members of the government? I say the latter, and in particular international financiers.
So, you think you know as much as the Queen of England does about British involvement in the World Wars? Or as Barack Obama does about US involvement in the same wars? The constant string of ad hominems from you is tiresome. “All the files have been made public”. Sure they have.
The Vatican is immensely powerful, I don’t understand how people keep making out like the Vatican is past its prime and all this crap. Yeah, sure, attendance is way down in the US… but so what? The Catholic faith has always been larger outside the US than inside, so I don’t understand how people keep extrapolating from low US attendance and the mostly US-centric child-molestation scandals to “the Vatican is spent.”
Strawman.
The founding Fathers had massive Freemason connections.
Clayton -
I’d like to find my quote saying that. Lest you place words in my mouth…which is a strawman, no?
Yeah, that is why they hold their gold at the NY Fed. They want to donate it to the U.S. Establishment when/if SHTF.
I never claimed that. You do. You claim to have some kind of insight into world matters without any evidence.
How is that a strawman? Because I gave an actual institution that used to be part of the world Establishment?
So, all Masons are part of the conspiracy, huh? Sounds like a glittering generalization. Yet another fallacy coming from Madame Blavatsky (didn’t she have a “secret history of the world” too?).
You want to have much to say, but don’t want to be bothered with “verification” or “evidence.” A good little infowarrior; a shyster.
Certainly the Vatican is one of the most powerful NGOs in the world, but it’s not a State anymore (with the unimportant exception of Citta Vaticana). The only way the Vatican could be a significant power in the world today is if it controlled or had significant influence in powerful States, for which I see no evidence, at least outside Italy.
Or Brazil.
-
Catholic population is also falling rapidly in Europe - the former stronghold of Catholicism, where the Vatican itself resides. Atheism is gaining strongly there.
-
The only countries in which Catholicism is not declining are the poor, Third World ones (mostly in Africa and Latin America).
-
In the countries where Catholicism is not declining, it is becoming increasingly infiltrated by Marxist ‘liberation theology’, especially amongst the Jesuits. Now I’ve asked you in another thread and I did not receive a reply to this question: is that phenomenon part of the plot or is it an outside influence?
-
The past half-century has had Catholicism continuously watering itself down and ecumenising in order to follow modern trends. It no longer sets societal trends, but merely follows them.
-
Child-molestation scandals should not be considered ‘mostly US-centric’:
Their popularity in the media shows how little the establishment favours Catholicism.
That in itself doesn’t indicate a decline in the power of the Vatican as an organization. Whatever the Catholic flock believes, the Vatican maintains the same power as before provided it maintains the same role vis a vis the faithful.
Sure, but I wasn’t arguing that it necessarily means that “in itself”. Clayton maintains that the Jesuits are the vanguard of the Vatican’s plotting. So the question is, have they been infiltrated? And if so, does this not call into question the power of the Vatican?
But I think that’s less important to the Power Elite analysis - most of that wealth is the result of the engine of capitalism: the masses producing goods to be consumed by the masses (I can’t remember who I got this quote from… Sowell? Friedman?)
The financiers never operated armies… at most, they financed them. And I disagree that the power of a certain group of the Establishment becomes meaningless once they fall behind the military cutting-edge. What you’re forgetting is that ruling is about ruling people and even if you can military defeate the native ruler, it’s often a good idea to keep him around in order to streamline the process of ruling. I think Machiavelli discusses this problem in regards to a territory newly acquired… you (the Prince) can either rule it in person, or you can rule it from afar. If you rule it in person (wiping out the existing ruling hierarchy), your holdings are more secure. If you rule it from afar, it is at much greater risk of being lost to revolution… but then it’s also less difficult and costly.
That’s missing the point.. First of all, all the money in the world won’t buy Warren Buffet or Bill Gates an aircraft carrier fleet or a nuke. They would never be permitted to have one. Hence, if they aim to take over a government, they are limited to the means of politics and subtlety; their target is not. In other words, they are handicapped from the outset. Second, their target government is itself much more well-versed in the means of politics and subtlety to which they are limited; they are twice-handicapped. Third, while a government may genuinely be in a position where it cannot raise its own defense adequately, it almost always has recourse to assistance from other governments, even if this entails ceding some power. Better the devil you know.
I think that’s attributing hyper-competence to the industrial/banking/merchant class. It’s “incredible”. There’s no reason to believe why they should suddenly be so much more competent at the dirty tricks of ruling than the long-established ruling families themselves. I think it’s a mistake to think of the wars as a takeover of the ruling class by the merchant class; rather, I see it as a treacherous cannibalism of one segment of the Establishment by another segment, perhaps with the aid and financing of wealthy interests such as the Rothschilds.
Well, I take a more diminutive view of the financiers. The mafia have a word for them: bookies. That’s all they are. The ruling Elites are something different and more complex… they’re a brand, a genetic club. There is turnover in the ranks of the club (the “13 illuminati bloodlines” stuff is disinfo nonsense) but it is a lot slower than you might initially imagine. Queen Elizabeth II, for example, can reliably trace her bloodline back to William the Conqueror who died in 1087. Can you reliably trace your bloodline back 100 years, let alone 1,000 years, let alone any royalty or nobility, let alone a bloodline consisting almost exclusively of ruling monarchs?
You might scoff, “What superstitious nonsense… as if real power turns on some dusty pedigree”. But it does. Because the single most important question that confronts every person of power (nobility, royalty, whatever) is succession. Passing on the family business. To pass it on, you have to take a spouse and produce an heir. Now - let’s say you’re the King of Ruritania - would you rather marry the daughter of some random commoner who managed to make something of himself in business or would you rather marry the daughter of someone whose pedigree stretching back to time immemorial is a bunch of kick-asses? Also, certain marriages can enable annexation of new territories (which, being perpetual tax-revenue generators, are far more valuable than a big pile of gold). This is why the Establishment is a club.
Clayton -
Actually, it is not difficult to buy nukes. And Gates’ money could buy him a few dozen of them at their price.
I like how right here you say that when the rulers squabble amongst themselves, you call it “treacherous.” And also how you admit here that the Rothschilds are at the top echelons of power if they are aiding in the “cannibalism (you are what you eat) of one segment…by another segment.” I think you are losing the plot.
It can also work the other way…Ireland, the U.S., or Princess Diana could all be counterexamples.
followed by,
Plot. Lost.
@Aristophanes: Let me explain the distinction. Oh wait, no, I have better things to do with my time.
Clayton -
Probably not reading anything that has to do with history or geopolitics. haha
Or respond to your inaccuracies that other point out concerning either the Vatican’s waning influence, the facile nature of aqcuiring nukes if one wants them, or the contradiction pointed out in my last post.
I especially liked this part,
but at the same time,
we can’t forget that! Everything anyone else says, even though it is identical to your own sentiments on the issue, is disinfo. ahahahhaaha
Clayton =