Greetings from Argentina!

[Predicar en desiertos]

Hello everyone!

I'm Alex, and I'm a musician. I specialize in playing the tuba, tenor tuba, horn, and other variants, though my stable job is as a tuba player at a big local theater. And that's probably how I first became discontented with the system. I mean, I had always taken the corruption for granted, but the last straw must have come with my first theater job, when I was fifteen or so. Everyone I worked with felt they were entitled to their salary, which was paid for by the government. I honestly feel that it's immoral to levy taxes, and for it to go to 'culture', in any of its aspects. So, people who never came to the theater were charged to keep it up? That's outrageous! Imagine how pissed I was upon learning that the entrance fee was minimal, the theater was usually rather full, and that, with some simple math skills, I figured out it could probably run well on its own, without state funding.

Years later, nothing has changed in the system, and I'm a bit of a pessimist, and my account name literally translates as "preaching in deserts", which is an essay by Alberti, one of the writers of the original argentine constitution, and quite a liberal man for his time. And being a libertarian in Latin America is, in a way, to preach in deserts, because that's what this continent tends to be, an intellectual desert that blames everyone but themselves for its problems. And so, instead of blaming myself, I'll blame everyone else and call them sheep

 

I've been listening to Stefan for about two years now, I came across his book on UPB originally, in a long personal research trying to understand why I felt so deeply that government was immoral. I guess he puts into words many things I couldn't really develop by myself, and it helped greatly.

 

Finally, I'm quite fascinated by languages, literature, painting, mathematics, biology, and psychology, though I'm not too knowledgeable.

 

Either way, I may or may not be able to post much, but I hope I can bring a little grain of sand to this community!

[luxfelix]

Welcome!   

 

Do you have a Soundcloud or other online portfolio of your performances?

[twinklingwinter]

Welcome! I live in Argentina too! Do you live in Buenos Aires?

[Mister Mister]

what a cool story!  It always makes me happy to hear about these ideas spreading to other parts of the world.  Can you say more about Argentinian culture and politics?  My understanding is that Argentina was one of the more prosperous countries in the Americas, but fell victim to decades of socialist experiments.

[Predicar en desiertos]

Yes, I'm from Buenos Aires. I don't have a soundcloud of my own performances, though I can probably dig and find a few recordings of the orchestras I play in.

 

Much of our early culture was brought from Europe, so that's why we would probably seem to be better off. Many of our central buildings (Theaters, universities, government buildings) were brought from France. We expelled or killed most slaves when independence came, right before slavery was abolished, and spent decades obliterating the native populace, something no other country did, so on neighboring countries you'd have mixed cultures of slaves, natives, and people of European descent, while here -even until today- there's the idea that Argentina is the Europe of Latin America. Which means nothing, if you consider what Europe's direction seems to be.

 

The thing about our culture is that there's a great mixture. The country's mostly populated by descendants from Spain, Italy, and other European countries (I myself am half Ashkenazim, half southern Italian), from people who came especially after either of the world wars. There's even a huge German community in the western provinces.

 

I would say that Argentina was not necessarily ruined by socialist experiments, but rather was never truly prosperous. In the early 20th century -say, until the 40s or so-, it was a big crony capitalism with monopolies everywhere, to the point where a few families held most of the farming land, and the workers lived in near-poverty conditions, with the state and religion being the main means of oppression. This was seen as an opportunity by Peron, a follower of national socialism, who attempted to introduce a rather fascist regime, with heavy public spending and whatnot. There was a strange back and forth between democracy and military governments after that. Between both, little to no money was left in the public funds, though the poor were significantly better off, they were -and still remain- quite brainwashed. So many different interests have taken the flag of 'Peron' that it means nothing. Then again, it never did, it was a 'third position' between fascism and communism. An attempt at populism. Proverbial bread and circus, that tried to hold the left and the right together. The socialists appeared much later, after the 2000s, I'd say, trying to follow the (impeccable) model set by the Great Leader Jo- Uh... Hugo Chavez. Except -thankfully- with no military support of the government. Rather, they crippled the army, and the AFIP (our version of the IRS) became the main oppression tool. As you can expect, it didn't quite work. We're not as badly off as most of Latin America, but that doesn't mean we're particularly well off when it comes to personal freedoms.

 

To be honest, I don't quite understand it myself. But what I can tell you is that it was never truly prosperous, though it does have the conditions to be so, but the state in Argentina has always been quite the Goliath, it's changed hands between fascists and socialists, but it's like changing between a right or a left boot on your neck. And then there were the "radicales" (Not radical at all, though they were a tad radical... around 1910 or so). Their governments were much like having both boots at the same time, trying to kick at each other, and somehow making things worse.

 

Right now, we have an allegedly right wing president, who's still doing a monstrous amount of public spending, though I've been buried with work lately, so I'm not very well informed of the local political situation. I'm trying to keep up with Europe and the US, though mainly Europe because I'm trying to get into an orchestral academy in Germany -It's great for my resume, and my savings may soon allow it, if the statists don't swallow it whole-.