One of the favorite activities of the left is to wander around and accuse folks labeled as conservatives of "black and white thinking."
For that matter, in school some 20 years ago, I was taught the same technique.
The technique has actually been around for generations.
The goal is to create the image that the group labeled "conservative" is intolerant, while group laying claim for whatever left leaning label is in vogue at the moment is the standard bearers of reason.
I find the use of this tag line sad because, when you get down to it, the tag line is itself an assault on reason.
The goal of logic is to come up with clean definitions and propositions that we can use in making important life decisions.
Quality science depends totally on coming up with good definitions and clean statements that can be tested against reality.
Our whole modern society is dependent on people cleanly defining terms and making judgments … black and white thinking.
There are many things in our life that resolve to a yes or no. For example, an airplane chartered to fly from New York to Paris either has enough fuel for the trip, or it doesn't. A plane without enough fuel for the voyage only makes it as far as the crash site. People making transatlantic voyages are dependent on engineers, mechanics, weather services agencies, and what not, to make sure the plane has the fuel for a safe voyage.
Before taking off, there is a black and white statement made: Yes, we have the fuel for the plane flight.
Our modern system of commerce is infused with people using black and white reasoning in day to day affairs. Meat inspectors spend their days examining carcasses declaring some good and others bad. A good meat inspector should err on the side of caution and toss out a fair amount of good meat.
The meat inspection process means that we can reasonably assume the food at the store is safe for human consumption.
The mortgage industry depended on black and white thinkers making critical judgments about borrower's inclination and ability to repay. These black and white thinkers were shouted down by community organizers.
A decade into the new enlightened era of nonjudgmental lending, the financial world found itself enmeshed in a catastrophic failure as banks were unable to value their assets.
The act of making propositions based on carefully defined terms is the heart of logic, yet, in school we are taught to dismiss political opponents of the left as black and white thinkers.
A few minutes ago I turned on my digital computer. Logged into a digital network and transferred a packet of digital signals from a massive bank of digital switches blogspot.com. A digital algorithm deciphered the digital signal and displayed on my digital monitor an accusation that I am a horrible black and white thinker.
I suspect that the dimwit who repeated the talking point that people who are not members of the left are black and white thinkers failed to realize that the only reason he is able make insults through cyberspace is the "black and white" logic behind digital technology.
The whole key to digital technology is creating a system of signals that can be reliably resolved to on or off. When the routers in this great digital network become enlightened and stop being judgmental about the signals they send and receive, a black and white thinking technician rips it out the broken router and replaces it with one that works.
I routinely say outlandish statements in this blog. The purpose of this type of blog is random thoughts on issues of the day. There is a central conflict in my writing. Back when I aspired to being an enlightened progressive thinker, enlightened progressive professors taught me all sorts of mean biting tricks that could be used to attack the hated conservatives.
Through the years, I've become much more appreciative of classical thought and writing.
The problems of the world are not the result of traditional logic (which is vilified as black and white thinking). The problems are the result of people doing bad things to each other. A modern enlightened thinker is as likely to do bad things to people as the traditional black-and-white thinker.
No, I take that back. I've come to trust the decisions made by people vilified as black and white thinkers more than drones claiming to have achieved nonjudgmental enlightened state of thought.
The world enjoyed a wonderful spurt of growth driven by the Information Technology revolution. During the computer revolution, there was a new found appreciation for the value of logic. Today, we find our nation and the world regressing to radical methodologies conceived during the great social revolutions of the 20th century.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Black Friday Results
I can't believe it! One of my web sites had a sale on Black Friday. Someone bought a MicheBag. A MicheBag is a really clever purse with an exchangeable outer shell. You buy a purse and several shells to match your clothes. You can then quickly accessorize for different outfits without moving the content between purses.
They have a wide selection of shells to fit just about every outfit ... well, except, of course, they don't have shells that go well with outfits worn by men.
Truth be told. I have not purchased a MicheBag myself because I would only be able use it on Friday nights ... and I already have a this nice pink frilly handbag with sequines. It is so cute. It goes perfect with my pink spiked heels, and is barely big enough to hold my pistol ...
... and, err, I think I may have given more information than people care to hear.
Back to reality. Black Friday is supposed to be the biggest shopping day of the year. So, every year, I check the directory to see if I made a black friday sale. Most years I don't; So I am happy to have broken the trend.
The fun part of the affiliate game is you never know what people will actually buy. The things I sell most often are purses, are purses, Scrapbooking Supplies, and Temple clothing.
Clearly, people are not reading my blog.
Personally, I have this self image where I am the rough rugged outdoorsy type; So, i thought I would be selling a lot of rough, rugged outdoorsy gear, which I don't.
Of course, my definition of a well equipped backpack has a bivvy sack, a down comforter, a thermarest, an old pair of sneakers, a coat, a spoon, a plate that can be used for cooking and the food.
I could never work at a sporting goods store. If they asked me what one needs to go camping, the answer is "not much." We could go broke. The site that most fits my attitude toward life is Walkabout Travel Gear. This store started in Moab. They seem to change their address on occasion.
People pointing in my direction often say: "eeeeek, a geek." So, I thought I would end up selling a lot of electronics. My answer to computer questions is: If you put linux on your old PC, you will have a pretty fast machine. My operating environment is pretty much down to a laptop and web hosting acccount. So, I don't sell much there either.
BTW, the one product I hope to sell this Christmas season is a fun little thing called the iPig. It is a docking station for an iPod.
They have a wide selection of shells to fit just about every outfit ... well, except, of course, they don't have shells that go well with outfits worn by men.
Truth be told. I have not purchased a MicheBag myself because I would only be able use it on Friday nights ... and I already have a this nice pink frilly handbag with sequines. It is so cute. It goes perfect with my pink spiked heels, and is barely big enough to hold my pistol ...
... and, err, I think I may have given more information than people care to hear.
Back to reality. Black Friday is supposed to be the biggest shopping day of the year. So, every year, I check the directory to see if I made a black friday sale. Most years I don't; So I am happy to have broken the trend.
The fun part of the affiliate game is you never know what people will actually buy. The things I sell most often are purses, are purses, Scrapbooking Supplies, and Temple clothing.
Clearly, people are not reading my blog.
Personally, I have this self image where I am the rough rugged outdoorsy type; So, i thought I would be selling a lot of rough, rugged outdoorsy gear, which I don't.
Of course, my definition of a well equipped backpack has a bivvy sack, a down comforter, a thermarest, an old pair of sneakers, a coat, a spoon, a plate that can be used for cooking and the food.
I could never work at a sporting goods store. If they asked me what one needs to go camping, the answer is "not much." We could go broke. The site that most fits my attitude toward life is Walkabout Travel Gear. This store started in Moab. They seem to change their address on occasion.
People pointing in my direction often say: "eeeeek, a geek." So, I thought I would end up selling a lot of electronics. My answer to computer questions is: If you put linux on your old PC, you will have a pretty fast machine. My operating environment is pretty much down to a laptop and web hosting acccount. So, I don't sell much there either.
BTW, the one product I hope to sell this Christmas season is a fun little thing called the iPig. It is a docking station for an iPod.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Appointments
I am really happy with the appointment of Paul Volcker to Obama's economic recovery team. Paul Volcker, more-so-than Greenspan, moved the country from the Keynesian insanity where our leaders believed they could micromanage the economy with taxing and spending, to one concentrating on sound monetary policy.
One of the most important events in monetary history came when Volcker gave up the position as head of the Federal Reserve, showing that that the ideas behind the reserve matter more than the personality.
I always felt that Greenspan was punch drunk on the influence of the position. Many of our currently problems are the result of Greenspan staying in the position for far too long.
I was also surprised at the appointment of Lawrence Summers. The faculty of Harvard struggled against Summers a few years back. Most people who are struggled against quietly fade away.
BTW, I hope that people understand that the snide posts in this blog are about negative methodologies. Change campaigns tend to release ugly political forces.
A politician positioned as a change agent is faced with the problem that they must either continue the process of social upheaval that brought them into power, or sit down and try to do what is best for the country. Stopping the agitation for change means selling out one's political base. Continuing the agitation for change leads to an economy that thrashes and falls into a pattern of action/reaction that leads to self destruction.
The centerpiece of my personal political beliefs is that I dislike self-destruction. I want to live in a country where people are trying to find the best path to broadbased prosperity.
My anger for the last several years is directed at the change campaign as it diverts us from a real discussion about how to structure a society with broadbased prosperity.
One of the most important events in monetary history came when Volcker gave up the position as head of the Federal Reserve, showing that that the ideas behind the reserve matter more than the personality.
I always felt that Greenspan was punch drunk on the influence of the position. Many of our currently problems are the result of Greenspan staying in the position for far too long.
I was also surprised at the appointment of Lawrence Summers. The faculty of Harvard struggled against Summers a few years back. Most people who are struggled against quietly fade away.
BTW, I hope that people understand that the snide posts in this blog are about negative methodologies. Change campaigns tend to release ugly political forces.
A politician positioned as a change agent is faced with the problem that they must either continue the process of social upheaval that brought them into power, or sit down and try to do what is best for the country. Stopping the agitation for change means selling out one's political base. Continuing the agitation for change leads to an economy that thrashes and falls into a pattern of action/reaction that leads to self destruction.
The centerpiece of my personal political beliefs is that I dislike self-destruction. I want to live in a country where people are trying to find the best path to broadbased prosperity.
My anger for the last several years is directed at the change campaign as it diverts us from a real discussion about how to structure a society with broadbased prosperity.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Fundamental Rights
The classical liberal tradition, as I understand the term, gave a great deal of import to logical consistency. Logicians would be concerned with both internal consistency and applicability to the nature. The idea is to have a small number of consistent rules that are known and relatively well understood and followed.
This is pretty much the way science works. Scientists seek small number of physical laws that explain a great deal. In science, a person puts forth a hypothesis then checks to see how the hypothesis stacks up against nature and how well it fits within the current existing framework of scientific ideas.
Scientists tend to be conservative lot. They don't like changing the basic logical framework of science on a whim. For example, I think it would be better to say that objects are repelled from the heavens, but the cabal of scientists at the university is sticking with a gravitational theory that has objects attracted toward the earth.
In my opinion, moralists looking to define civil rights should do so by defining rights that are logically independent and consistent with other fundamental rights.
The surest way to destroy our basic civil liberties is to overload the system with claims of contradictory rights.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where people can start claiming any notion to be a right.
For example, in the segregated South there apparently were people who held the notion that they should be able to drink from water fountains that were only touched by people of their race.
The "right" to drink from racially segregated water fountains is in direct opposition to the right of others to participate in the public sphere of life. A century ago, a whole generation of politicians rose to influence on this belief that people had a right to exist within a sphere of racial purity.
In hindsight, rights to live in separate but equal spheres caused a great deal of division and really looks absurd. The notion of segregation was contradictory to the other rights enumerated by the founders, and needed to go.
The classical liberal ideal is anchored in the Artistotelean tradition. Classical liberals sought a small number of logically independent rights. The system falls apart when people start asserting rights (like segregation) which are contradictory to the other rights.
Kant (like many people before him) realized that there were intrinsic problems at the edges of reason. For example, there will always conflicts in defining the beginning and end of life. Likewise there are problems making assertions about free will. If there is no such thing as free will, then the whole debate about rights is absurd. There are also the standard problems with absolutes, continuity, the infinite and the reflexive paradox.
Do I have the right to oppress others? What about the right to own others as slaves?
Hegel was a master at using the foundation laid by Kant in proofs that "freedom is slavery, and slavery freedom."
Hegel and Marx presented a world view where the world spirit was eternally locked in thesis antithesis conflicts. The Dialectics has a history of master/slave reversals.
You can actually express these conflicts in terms of rights.
A group will rise to hegemony. In this hegemony, the people in power express a system of rights to maintain their power. Kings, emperors and feudal lords gave themselves rights over the serfs in their dominion.
Overtime, the disenfranchised would grow in number and influence, and demand a new set of rights to replace old system.
In the material dialectics, the thesis/antithesis conflict would resolve in a massive catharsis (e.g., the revolution). The new hegemony would then try to cement in its power with its new set of rights and the process would repeat as the newly disenfranchised would start forming a new system of rights.
Marx considered the rights enumerated in the Constitution as just an attempt by a horrible group of terrible people called the bourgeoisie to cement in their hegemony. There next revolution would demand a new set of rights that are in conflict with the petty rights held by the petty bourgeoisie.
In the dialectical view, rights are always in conflict and are constantly evolving in an unending spiral of social conflict and violence.
Such people are happy with the Bill of Rights, despite its many short fallings.
The classical liberal wants to defend individual rights, while the modern liberal wants to take the offensive and assert sexy new rights.
The new rights favored by the modern liberal tend to conflict with those established by previous generations.
I believe that the classical liberal approach has a better chance of creating a sustainable base for a free and prosperous society. The modern liberal approach is sexy, but chaos created by having overloading the system of civil rights with contradictions is leads to deep societal divisions, and conflict.
This is pretty much the way science works. Scientists seek small number of physical laws that explain a great deal. In science, a person puts forth a hypothesis then checks to see how the hypothesis stacks up against nature and how well it fits within the current existing framework of scientific ideas.
Scientists tend to be conservative lot. They don't like changing the basic logical framework of science on a whim. For example, I think it would be better to say that objects are repelled from the heavens, but the cabal of scientists at the university is sticking with a gravitational theory that has objects attracted toward the earth.
In my opinion, moralists looking to define civil rights should do so by defining rights that are logically independent and consistent with other fundamental rights.
The surest way to destroy our basic civil liberties is to overload the system with claims of contradictory rights.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where people can start claiming any notion to be a right.
For example, in the segregated South there apparently were people who held the notion that they should be able to drink from water fountains that were only touched by people of their race.
The "right" to drink from racially segregated water fountains is in direct opposition to the right of others to participate in the public sphere of life. A century ago, a whole generation of politicians rose to influence on this belief that people had a right to exist within a sphere of racial purity.
In hindsight, rights to live in separate but equal spheres caused a great deal of division and really looks absurd. The notion of segregation was contradictory to the other rights enumerated by the founders, and needed to go.
The classical liberal ideal is anchored in the Artistotelean tradition. Classical liberals sought a small number of logically independent rights. The system falls apart when people start asserting rights (like segregation) which are contradictory to the other rights.
Dialectic View of Rights
Modern Liberalism, of course, starts with Kant, Hegel and Marx.Kant (like many people before him) realized that there were intrinsic problems at the edges of reason. For example, there will always conflicts in defining the beginning and end of life. Likewise there are problems making assertions about free will. If there is no such thing as free will, then the whole debate about rights is absurd. There are also the standard problems with absolutes, continuity, the infinite and the reflexive paradox.
Do I have the right to oppress others? What about the right to own others as slaves?
Hegel was a master at using the foundation laid by Kant in proofs that "freedom is slavery, and slavery freedom."
Hegel and Marx presented a world view where the world spirit was eternally locked in thesis antithesis conflicts. The Dialectics has a history of master/slave reversals.
You can actually express these conflicts in terms of rights.
A group will rise to hegemony. In this hegemony, the people in power express a system of rights to maintain their power. Kings, emperors and feudal lords gave themselves rights over the serfs in their dominion.
Overtime, the disenfranchised would grow in number and influence, and demand a new set of rights to replace old system.
In the material dialectics, the thesis/antithesis conflict would resolve in a massive catharsis (e.g., the revolution). The new hegemony would then try to cement in its power with its new set of rights and the process would repeat as the newly disenfranchised would start forming a new system of rights.
Marx considered the rights enumerated in the Constitution as just an attempt by a horrible group of terrible people called the bourgeoisie to cement in their hegemony. There next revolution would demand a new set of rights that are in conflict with the petty rights held by the petty bourgeoisie.
In the dialectical view, rights are always in conflict and are constantly evolving in an unending spiral of social conflict and violence.
Classical v. Modern Liberalism
I think there is a profound difference between the way that classical liberals and modern liberals view rights. A classical liberal is looking for a small number of well defined non-contradictory rights that can be used as a foundation for a society that has an overall respect for individuals.Such people are happy with the Bill of Rights, despite its many short fallings.
The classical liberal wants to defend individual rights, while the modern liberal wants to take the offensive and assert sexy new rights.
The new rights favored by the modern liberal tend to conflict with those established by previous generations.
I believe that the classical liberal approach has a better chance of creating a sustainable base for a free and prosperous society. The modern liberal approach is sexy, but chaos created by having overloading the system of civil rights with contradictions is leads to deep societal divisions, and conflict.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
A Civil Rights Issue?
Dennis Prager published a post on Frontpage Magazine that is similar to the one I was about to sit down and write.
Prager surmises that the reason black Americans voted for proposition 8 was efforts by the progressive community to equate the gay marriage with the civil rights movement. This makes more sense than the claim that the black community in fundamentally conservative, but are just too silly to know it.
I would add to his article that observation that slavery denied the slaves the right to marriage. The bossman's ownership trumped sacraments of the church. The children dropped by slaves were products to be sold. Being denied a right makes one more protective of that right.
Since Prager's article on this subject is better than mine, I guess I will say something else.
I suppose I should mention that back in the early 1980s I was a proponent of gay marriage. My reasoning was that gay marriage might stop the spread of AIDS and might reduce the number of kids molested by gays (I kept meeting people with stories of molestation).
There were some extremely angry people in the Gay Lobby who pointed out the selfrighteousness of my viewpoint. They wanted a new radicalized world where sex was free of committment. Everyone was to have thousands of different partners. They were very strongly opposed to marriage.
Many of the people holding this view died.
The really big change came when radicals realized that if gay marriage were made a legal equivalent to hetrosexual marriage then they could use the courts to attack their enemies. You could sue a church adoption service if they refused the request of two men wanting a boy. They could sue small bridal shops that only had wedding gowns in women sizes. They could have in your face honeymoons at that quaint bed and breakfast. If the innkeeper made any form of protest, there would be a protest and lawsuit.
These people just wanted to be bullies. BTW, you know that a movement is not a civil rights movement if it leaves a large number of people forced to live silently in fear.
The last experience that convinced me that the gay marriage issue was an intentional effort by the left to create a wedge issue came when I fould people fundamentally opposed to marriage as an institution actively supporting gay marriage as an institution.
Unlike the civil rights movement which was about a group of people denied real fundamental rights. The gay marriage issue lacks real depth.
In conclusion, I would like to quote Natalie R. Collins, who is a published author who takes extreme pride in her writing and always quick to point out gaffs in her foes:
Natalie, projecting hate and divisiveness on your opponents is an act of hatred and division. This tag line is appearing all over the place ... which is a bit scary. In a bizarre Utah twist, Natalie also makes the statement:
As I recall Mr. Hinckley was supportive of the civil rights movement. Ms. Collins seems to be trying to equate the civil rights movement with the gay marriage ploy ... the very thing Dennis Plager was talking about.
I doubt that any of the leading figures of the civil rights movement such as MLK, LBJ, or Kennedy would say that Proposition 8 was the equivalent of Jim Crow laws or that throwing leaflets in the Mt. Hope Church. But, I can't see inside their heads.
Prager surmises that the reason black Americans voted for proposition 8 was efforts by the progressive community to equate the gay marriage with the civil rights movement. This makes more sense than the claim that the black community in fundamentally conservative, but are just too silly to know it.
Gay and straight activists who liken their demand to redefine marriage to black suffering under Jim Crow merely cheapen historic black suffering.
I would add to his article that observation that slavery denied the slaves the right to marriage. The bossman's ownership trumped sacraments of the church. The children dropped by slaves were products to be sold. Being denied a right makes one more protective of that right.
Since Prager's article on this subject is better than mine, I guess I will say something else.
I suppose I should mention that back in the early 1980s I was a proponent of gay marriage. My reasoning was that gay marriage might stop the spread of AIDS and might reduce the number of kids molested by gays (I kept meeting people with stories of molestation).
There were some extremely angry people in the Gay Lobby who pointed out the selfrighteousness of my viewpoint. They wanted a new radicalized world where sex was free of committment. Everyone was to have thousands of different partners. They were very strongly opposed to marriage.
Many of the people holding this view died.
The really big change came when radicals realized that if gay marriage were made a legal equivalent to hetrosexual marriage then they could use the courts to attack their enemies. You could sue a church adoption service if they refused the request of two men wanting a boy. They could sue small bridal shops that only had wedding gowns in women sizes. They could have in your face honeymoons at that quaint bed and breakfast. If the innkeeper made any form of protest, there would be a protest and lawsuit.
These people just wanted to be bullies. BTW, you know that a movement is not a civil rights movement if it leaves a large number of people forced to live silently in fear.
The last experience that convinced me that the gay marriage issue was an intentional effort by the left to create a wedge issue came when I fould people fundamentally opposed to marriage as an institution actively supporting gay marriage as an institution.
Unlike the civil rights movement which was about a group of people denied real fundamental rights. The gay marriage issue lacks real depth.
In conclusion, I would like to quote Natalie R. Collins, who is a published author who takes extreme pride in her writing and always quick to point out gaffs in her foes:
Wake up, right-wing America. The battles you are fighting in your God’s name are not battles of love, but those of hate and divisiveness.
Natalie, projecting hate and divisiveness on your opponents is an act of hatred and division. This tag line is appearing all over the place ... which is a bit scary. In a bizarre Utah twist, Natalie also makes the statement:
Gordon B. Hinckley is turning over in his grave, as all the spinning he did to bring the Church into the “mainstream” Christian fold is going to turn out for naught.
As I recall Mr. Hinckley was supportive of the civil rights movement. Ms. Collins seems to be trying to equate the civil rights movement with the gay marriage ploy ... the very thing Dennis Plager was talking about.
I doubt that any of the leading figures of the civil rights movement such as MLK, LBJ, or Kennedy would say that Proposition 8 was the equivalent of Jim Crow laws or that throwing leaflets in the Mt. Hope Church. But, I can't see inside their heads.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Lame Duck Mischief
A few posts back I attributed the damage done by the Credit Default Swaps to the Bush Administration. Wikipedia says attributes CDFs to the bipartisan Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 which was past during a lame duck session and signed by President Bill Clinton.
The CMFA essentially turned the entire United States into an Enron style risk management scheme. Undoubtedly, it gave the the departing members of the Clinton Administration extremely cushy jobs in the financial sector.
The TARP appears to be the same type of lame duck mischieviousness ... that is a bipartisan effort to heap the American taxpayers with debt in order to land lucrative campaign contributions for those going into office and jobs with generous salaries for those on the way out.
Reach Upward pointed out an article on the WSJ. The quote sticking in my mind about the NY Financial sector: "This is 212,000 people making nearly $80 billion in wages and salaries last year..." That is an average salary of $378k/year!
They weren't producing wealth. The financial sector of late did little more than fill balloons with hot air to watch them blow up in other people's faces.
I wish the economic conversation was about removing programs like CFMA and nake short selling, rather than this game of serving up ladles of government slop in the form of TARP. Regardless, lame duck sessions should not be the time for introducing major new initiatives.
The CMFA essentially turned the entire United States into an Enron style risk management scheme. Undoubtedly, it gave the the departing members of the Clinton Administration extremely cushy jobs in the financial sector.
The TARP appears to be the same type of lame duck mischieviousness ... that is a bipartisan effort to heap the American taxpayers with debt in order to land lucrative campaign contributions for those going into office and jobs with generous salaries for those on the way out.
Reach Upward pointed out an article on the WSJ. The quote sticking in my mind about the NY Financial sector: "This is 212,000 people making nearly $80 billion in wages and salaries last year..." That is an average salary of $378k/year!
They weren't producing wealth. The financial sector of late did little more than fill balloons with hot air to watch them blow up in other people's faces.
I wish the economic conversation was about removing programs like CFMA and nake short selling, rather than this game of serving up ladles of government slop in the form of TARP. Regardless, lame duck sessions should not be the time for introducing major new initiatives.
Family Values = Hate
I am extremely depressed. Watching the news, I find myself inundated with angry looking people waving signs trying to equate the defense of traditional family values with hatred.
Websites I visited today were selling stickers trying to equate family values with hatred as well. I've read several self-righteous blog posts claiming that the people voting against proposition 8 in California are open minded, while the people who voted for it are motivated by hate, and are using their hatred to divide the country.
Arrgggghhhhh!
It seems to me that the act of accusing one's opponents of hatred for simply holding different views is itself an act of hatred. Of course, I can't see into the minds of the angry people waving protest signs and tell if they are motivated by hate or if there is a more solid foundation of reason behind their political tactics.
I watched images of Drew Barrymore and other starlets say passionate things in favor of declaring same sex marriage to be the logical and moral equivalent of heterosexual marriage. If a man and women are allowed to form a union, have children and raise family; then a man and a man or a woman and a woman should be able to couple together, produce children and, um, raise a family.
It is only fair.
Drew Barrymore is clearly one of the prime intellectual forces of the left, and I am inches away from accepting the righteousness of the cause.
Unfortunately, having had too many bad experiences with progressive thought, I've developed a nagging sympathy for the rightwing reactionary side of things.
A central argument of progressives is that the people against their cause are motivated by hate. I don't have the magical ability to see other people's motivations. It seems more likely to me that the people wishing to retain the traditional definition of marriage are not motivated by hate, but simply have an authentic desire to defend a long rational tradition that stretches through antiquity.
One might even say that the tradition reaches through the fossil record to the dawn of cellular life when strands of DNA gained an evolutionary edge over other strands of DNA through the process of sexual reproduction.
My observation is that humans, like most other plants and animals on this planet perpetuate through sexual reproduction. This form of reproduction involves a male and female. We aren't just talking about the nature of man, we are talking about the nature of terrestrial life!
Different species have different takes on reproduction. In many cases the offspring are dependent on their instincts and are left to fend for themselves from the moment of birth. Others care for their child. A paradox is that predators often care for their offspring longer than herbivores.
Humans have a relatively long time to maturation and require a great deal of care and nurturing. As with other species, the two humans best positioned to this nurturing are the parents of the children.
The institution of marriage is not about the happiness of the couple being wed. The institution of marriage evolved around the benefits that ensue when couples are deliberative in the reproductive process and make a commitment to raising their offspring.
Marriage isn't about the happiness of the married couple. Marriage involves moral issues such as abstinence until a couple is in a financial position to raise children. The institution of marriage is not about the couple but about the family.
Just like the harvest festivals around the world celebrate the natural process of bringing in the harvest, marriage celebrates the natural process of a man and woman forming a bond to raise the child that they produce.
Equating family values to hate makes as much sense as saying that the harvest festival is about hating Spring. My eating turkey on Thanksgiving says nothing about my feelings toward Spring.
The institution of marriage is based on a long rational tradition grounded in solid reasoning based on the nature of man.
The position for proposition 8 makes more sense to me than the one against it. While trying to understand the opposition, I realized something about the poor state of rationality in our society.
The vote shows that Hollywood stands in opposition to the majority of Californians who voted against the proposition 8. Even Republican celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger support declaring same sex marriage the logical and moral equivalent to heterosexual marriage.
The striking gap between celebrity point of view and the point of view of the people made me stop and take notice.
Celebrities live in a world where image is king.
As such, celebrities reflect a new think which is driven entirely by manufactured images, metaphors and movie themes. In such a world one's reasoning is a matter of placing images through popular themes.
A common storybook theme is that people find happiness in marriage. Hence, this rational tradition of marriage as a foundation for raising kids gets processed into an image of people being denied happiness.
One of the most prominent movie themes involves a hero standing up for the disenfranchised. Being the hero who stands up for the disenfranchised people denied happy is the greatest role to which an actor can aspire.
Standing up for declaring gay marriage the logical and moral equivalent to heterosexual marriage is a dream role. Conversely, taking the other side is a career killer.
Perhaps the anger over proposition 8 is really not about the issue itself but about a clash between rationality and new think.
It has been almost three generations since the John Dewey and cohorts ripped logic from the curriculum. The appreciation of rationality is now a minority position.
People weaned on new think of images and themes appear to be unable to see the wonderful western rational tradition and recognize the solid rational foundation of institutions such as marriage, the free enterprise system and (dare I say) even the value of the scientific method.
Unable to see the rational tradition, the protestors simply seem to be projecting divisiveness and hatred onto their opponents.
I have not seen conservatives presenting arguments the rational foundations of marriage. Instead they seem to wanting to play the role of O'Reilly style culture warrior.
The LDS Church in particular seems to have a problem. The Christian tradition had marriage ending in death. (The end of marriage is one of the big advantages of death). Joseph Smith created an image of a Celestial Kingdom where one's terrestrial family is not only preserved, but is key to one's position in the afterlife.
If you aren't married; you aren't making it into heaven.
Some polygamist sects seem to be holding to the image that having multiple wives is the key to entrance into heaven.
The first step is to emphasize the rational foundations of marriage. The institution of marriage is a demand that couples put off having children until they have the resources to care for the children. It is hard life that demands sacrifice such as abstinence before marriage and a very strong commitment. Marriage is about a commitment to raise children.
The second key to defending marriage is to accept that marriage is not for everyone, and that there should be a place in society for people who've chosen not to get married.
We live in an overpopulated world. The rapid rate of reproduction is to our detriment.
The unmarried are often the most productive in society.
Traditional Christian society made these people priests, nuns and often soldiers. Essentially, the system made the unmarried the leaders of the culture as the priests and nuns were the scholars and educators.
People don't like the image of these roles. Churches and social institutions wishing to defend marriage would actually do well to create a place for the unmarried in their fold.
In my opinion the worst example of religious thinking comes from the polygamist sects in Southern Utah that simply tosses out a large number of its young men as old men compete for young wives.
A rational religious tradition needs to find ways to assure that it nurtures its youth while assigning a valuable role for all of the members of the society. This is both the right thing to do. The way things are rigged, if religious groups fail to find positive roles for singles, it is a crucial matter for the preservation of the rational tradition of marriage.
Websites I visited today were selling stickers trying to equate family values with hatred as well. I've read several self-righteous blog posts claiming that the people voting against proposition 8 in California are open minded, while the people who voted for it are motivated by hate, and are using their hatred to divide the country.
Arrgggghhhhh!
It seems to me that the act of accusing one's opponents of hatred for simply holding different views is itself an act of hatred. Of course, I can't see into the minds of the angry people waving protest signs and tell if they are motivated by hate or if there is a more solid foundation of reason behind their political tactics.
I watched images of Drew Barrymore and other starlets say passionate things in favor of declaring same sex marriage to be the logical and moral equivalent of heterosexual marriage. If a man and women are allowed to form a union, have children and raise family; then a man and a man or a woman and a woman should be able to couple together, produce children and, um, raise a family.
It is only fair.
Drew Barrymore is clearly one of the prime intellectual forces of the left, and I am inches away from accepting the righteousness of the cause.
Unfortunately, having had too many bad experiences with progressive thought, I've developed a nagging sympathy for the rightwing reactionary side of things.
A central argument of progressives is that the people against their cause are motivated by hate. I don't have the magical ability to see other people's motivations. It seems more likely to me that the people wishing to retain the traditional definition of marriage are not motivated by hate, but simply have an authentic desire to defend a long rational tradition that stretches through antiquity.
One might even say that the tradition reaches through the fossil record to the dawn of cellular life when strands of DNA gained an evolutionary edge over other strands of DNA through the process of sexual reproduction.
My observation is that humans, like most other plants and animals on this planet perpetuate through sexual reproduction. This form of reproduction involves a male and female. We aren't just talking about the nature of man, we are talking about the nature of terrestrial life!
Different species have different takes on reproduction. In many cases the offspring are dependent on their instincts and are left to fend for themselves from the moment of birth. Others care for their child. A paradox is that predators often care for their offspring longer than herbivores.
Humans have a relatively long time to maturation and require a great deal of care and nurturing. As with other species, the two humans best positioned to this nurturing are the parents of the children.
The institution of marriage is not about the happiness of the couple being wed. The institution of marriage evolved around the benefits that ensue when couples are deliberative in the reproductive process and make a commitment to raising their offspring.
Marriage isn't about the happiness of the married couple. Marriage involves moral issues such as abstinence until a couple is in a financial position to raise children. The institution of marriage is not about the couple but about the family.
Just like the harvest festivals around the world celebrate the natural process of bringing in the harvest, marriage celebrates the natural process of a man and woman forming a bond to raise the child that they produce.
Equating family values to hate makes as much sense as saying that the harvest festival is about hating Spring. My eating turkey on Thanksgiving says nothing about my feelings toward Spring.
The institution of marriage is based on a long rational tradition grounded in solid reasoning based on the nature of man.
The position for proposition 8 makes more sense to me than the one against it. While trying to understand the opposition, I realized something about the poor state of rationality in our society.
Imaging v Reasoning
Apparently, the vast majority of the Hollywood celebrities are fore treating same sex marriage the logical and moral equivalent of heterosexual marriage. The Hollywood group seems to be the origin of the belief that anyone who opposes the dictates of the left is motivated by hate. Actors, after all, spend their day contemplating the motives of their characters.The vote shows that Hollywood stands in opposition to the majority of Californians who voted against the proposition 8. Even Republican celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger support declaring same sex marriage the logical and moral equivalent to heterosexual marriage.
The striking gap between celebrity point of view and the point of view of the people made me stop and take notice.
Celebrities live in a world where image is king.
As such, celebrities reflect a new think which is driven entirely by manufactured images, metaphors and movie themes. In such a world one's reasoning is a matter of placing images through popular themes.
A common storybook theme is that people find happiness in marriage. Hence, this rational tradition of marriage as a foundation for raising kids gets processed into an image of people being denied happiness.
One of the most prominent movie themes involves a hero standing up for the disenfranchised. Being the hero who stands up for the disenfranchised people denied happy is the greatest role to which an actor can aspire.
Standing up for declaring gay marriage the logical and moral equivalent to heterosexual marriage is a dream role. Conversely, taking the other side is a career killer.
Perhaps the anger over proposition 8 is really not about the issue itself but about a clash between rationality and new think.
It has been almost three generations since the John Dewey and cohorts ripped logic from the curriculum. The appreciation of rationality is now a minority position.
People weaned on new think of images and themes appear to be unable to see the wonderful western rational tradition and recognize the solid rational foundation of institutions such as marriage, the free enterprise system and (dare I say) even the value of the scientific method.
Unable to see the rational tradition, the protestors simply seem to be projecting divisiveness and hatred onto their opponents.
Reactionary Thinking
Unfortunately, I can't really say the right is doing well in their argument for the defense of marriage. I fear that many of the people on the right are driven by the same visual mentality.I have not seen conservatives presenting arguments the rational foundations of marriage. Instead they seem to wanting to play the role of O'Reilly style culture warrior.
The LDS Church in particular seems to have a problem. The Christian tradition had marriage ending in death. (The end of marriage is one of the big advantages of death). Joseph Smith created an image of a Celestial Kingdom where one's terrestrial family is not only preserved, but is key to one's position in the afterlife.
If you aren't married; you aren't making it into heaven.
Some polygamist sects seem to be holding to the image that having multiple wives is the key to entrance into heaven.
The Best Way to Defend Marriage
I prefer coming up with answers to complaining about problems; So, I thought that I would type out what I consider key to defending marriage.The first step is to emphasize the rational foundations of marriage. The institution of marriage is a demand that couples put off having children until they have the resources to care for the children. It is hard life that demands sacrifice such as abstinence before marriage and a very strong commitment. Marriage is about a commitment to raise children.
The second key to defending marriage is to accept that marriage is not for everyone, and that there should be a place in society for people who've chosen not to get married.
We live in an overpopulated world. The rapid rate of reproduction is to our detriment.
The unmarried are often the most productive in society.
Traditional Christian society made these people priests, nuns and often soldiers. Essentially, the system made the unmarried the leaders of the culture as the priests and nuns were the scholars and educators.
People don't like the image of these roles. Churches and social institutions wishing to defend marriage would actually do well to create a place for the unmarried in their fold.
In my opinion the worst example of religious thinking comes from the polygamist sects in Southern Utah that simply tosses out a large number of its young men as old men compete for young wives.
A rational religious tradition needs to find ways to assure that it nurtures its youth while assigning a valuable role for all of the members of the society. This is both the right thing to do. The way things are rigged, if religious groups fail to find positive roles for singles, it is a crucial matter for the preservation of the rational tradition of marriage.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The Role of Ideology in Market Reform
I contend that the market is a creation of the mind. We know this because the human mind is the only thing that directly interfaces with the market.
There are a large number of objects that indirectly affect the market. Likewise, there are many things are indirectly affected by the market. The driving force behind the market, however, is the human mind.
The indirect forces are quite strong. Physical needs force people to engage in the market. Conversely, the market motivates people to take actions in the physical world. It is also notable that people tend to keep physical tokens including metal coins, pieces of paper or even splotches of electrons on computer discs to keep track of their position in the market.
The value of these tokens is not inherent in the token, but assigned to the tokens through a collective bargaining process that originates in our minds.
Considering that the market is a product of the mind; then the ideas we have about the market are paramount. It is through the market that our minds shape the reality around us.
People use the term "ideology" to refer to a collection of ideas.
Pundits love to give names to ideologies. However, there is an infinite number of ideas, meaning that there is an infinite number of possible ideologies.
There is a subtle point to be made here. If the market is a product of a collection of ideas, then, pretty much by definition, there is an ideology that rules the market at any given moment.
The ideas that rule the market change on a frequent basis. For example, in 2007, people thought mortgaged backed securities re-insured by the Government Sponsored Enterprise FreddieMac were a sound investment. That changed in the mortgage mess of 2008.
At any given time, you will find the market being ruled by a different mix of ideas (ideology). The mix of ideas that exist at any time transcends all of the named ideologies. The collection of ideas that rule the market at any given moment is transcendent and changing. This collection of ideas is an ideology, none the less.
So, if my contention that the market is a collective product of our minds, then the market at any moment entails a collection of ideas. A collection of ideas is called an "ideology."
This means that, no matter how we mince the debate about reform, the debate will involve discussions of ideologies.
As I write, there is a great deal of concern about market reform. To have successful market reform, we must be able to talk about different ideologies.
There are a large number of objects that indirectly affect the market. Likewise, there are many things are indirectly affected by the market. The driving force behind the market, however, is the human mind.
The indirect forces are quite strong. Physical needs force people to engage in the market. Conversely, the market motivates people to take actions in the physical world. It is also notable that people tend to keep physical tokens including metal coins, pieces of paper or even splotches of electrons on computer discs to keep track of their position in the market.
The value of these tokens is not inherent in the token, but assigned to the tokens through a collective bargaining process that originates in our minds.
Considering that the market is a product of the mind; then the ideas we have about the market are paramount. It is through the market that our minds shape the reality around us.
People use the term "ideology" to refer to a collection of ideas.
Pundits love to give names to ideologies. However, there is an infinite number of ideas, meaning that there is an infinite number of possible ideologies.
There is a subtle point to be made here. If the market is a product of a collection of ideas, then, pretty much by definition, there is an ideology that rules the market at any given moment.
The ideas that rule the market change on a frequent basis. For example, in 2007, people thought mortgaged backed securities re-insured by the Government Sponsored Enterprise FreddieMac were a sound investment. That changed in the mortgage mess of 2008.
At any given time, you will find the market being ruled by a different mix of ideas (ideology). The mix of ideas that exist at any time transcends all of the named ideologies. The collection of ideas that rule the market at any given moment is transcendent and changing. This collection of ideas is an ideology, none the less.
So, if my contention that the market is a collective product of our minds, then the market at any moment entails a collection of ideas. A collection of ideas is called an "ideology."
This means that, no matter how we mince the debate about reform, the debate will involve discussions of ideologies.
As I write, there is a great deal of concern about market reform. To have successful market reform, we must be able to talk about different ideologies.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Brittle Thinking and System Faults Lead to Collapse
In 2008 the American financial system imploded. This implosion is causing worldwide turmoil.
I believe it worthwhile to look in detail at this implosion to figure out how to prevent similar crises in the future. During the crisis, several financial instruments came to the fore. Notably,
I could have made the list longer. For example, wage labor and pensions belong in the list, but I will talk about those later. Keeping the list short makes the post succinct.
A hedge fund uses complex formulas to hedge risks. Such funds might short $30 for every $100 invested.
The goal of insurance is to pool a large number of related risks; so that people can address risks on a pay as you go basis. The goal of an insurer is to have a pool of risk large enough that the pool can handle predictable fluctuations of costs. The insurer changes a premium that gives the insurer a handsome little profit in excess of the anticipated risk.
Credit Default Swaps are a new financial innovation. These are part of a new system devised to let banks sell risks associated with loans.
A key component of the above tools is size. Hedge funds, insurance and credit default swaps all seek security in size. The reports I've read about credit default swaps indicate that they went from nothing to being larger than the Gross Domestic Product of the planet earth in less than a decade.
Perhaps the most dangerous part of our financial system is that consumers, businesses and even banks have become addict to debt financing.
We are seeing the lending and borrowing of massive amounts of money at fixed interests. Banks borrow from the Federal Reserve at prime then lend at prime plus a premium. Their goal is to loan out as much as possible. They can protect themselves with FreddieMac and credit default swaps.
Looking beyond the moral hazard arguments, what we have at the moment is a financial system flush with financial instruments set on finding guaranteed fixed rates of return on an extremely large amount of money for a preferred class of investors.
I've heard some people refer to this process of manipulating the system to give a class of investors a large fixed income as rent seeking.
When one look at this mess from a macro level, one realizes that, from the very start, the idea is untenable. The world economy does not grow at a fixed rate. Prices continually fluctuate. The economy does not grow at fixed rates, but tends to skip around.
I suspect that the proponents of the financial regime believed that they were creating a self regulating financial system. What they did in actuality is to create a brittle market with systemic flaws and deep inequities.
The hue and cry at the moment (especially from the financial sector itself) is that the system requires stricter government regulation.
However, before imposing any new regulations, I believe we should engage in a much deeper conversation about what the market is and what we want to achieve with the market.
In watching the financial meltdown, I've come to believe that the primary fault in our financial system is that the system is being driven by a desire of the financial system to give a class of investors a high guaranteed rate of income (rent seeking).
This fault exists regardless of the aggressiveness of government regulators.
Designing regulations and corporate bailouts to preserve the current financial regime might simply have the effect of institutionalizing the systemic faults in the system.
I believe that the better path is to rethink the market from scratch and to find ways to wean ourselves away from debt financing. Rather than seeking new regulations for hedge funds and credit default swaps. I believe that the wise path may be to eliminate these tools altogether.
After all, both hedge funds and credit default swaps exist solely to give one class of investors advantage over the market at large.
I believe it worthwhile to look in detail at this implosion to figure out how to prevent similar crises in the future. During the crisis, several financial instruments came to the fore. Notably,
- Hedge Funds (short sells and options),
- Credit Default Swaps,
- Insurance (and reinsurance),
- Fixed Wages
- and Debt Financing.
I could have made the list longer. For example, wage labor and pensions belong in the list, but I will talk about those later. Keeping the list short makes the post succinct.
A hedge fund uses complex formulas to hedge risks. Such funds might short $30 for every $100 invested.
The goal of insurance is to pool a large number of related risks; so that people can address risks on a pay as you go basis. The goal of an insurer is to have a pool of risk large enough that the pool can handle predictable fluctuations of costs. The insurer changes a premium that gives the insurer a handsome little profit in excess of the anticipated risk.
Credit Default Swaps are a new financial innovation. These are part of a new system devised to let banks sell risks associated with loans.
A key component of the above tools is size. Hedge funds, insurance and credit default swaps all seek security in size. The reports I've read about credit default swaps indicate that they went from nothing to being larger than the Gross Domestic Product of the planet earth in less than a decade.
Perhaps the most dangerous part of our financial system is that consumers, businesses and even banks have become addict to debt financing.
We are seeing the lending and borrowing of massive amounts of money at fixed interests. Banks borrow from the Federal Reserve at prime then lend at prime plus a premium. Their goal is to loan out as much as possible. They can protect themselves with FreddieMac and credit default swaps.
Looking beyond the moral hazard arguments, what we have at the moment is a financial system flush with financial instruments set on finding guaranteed fixed rates of return on an extremely large amount of money for a preferred class of investors.
I've heard some people refer to this process of manipulating the system to give a class of investors a large fixed income as rent seeking.
When one look at this mess from a macro level, one realizes that, from the very start, the idea is untenable. The world economy does not grow at a fixed rate. Prices continually fluctuate. The economy does not grow at fixed rates, but tends to skip around.
I suspect that the proponents of the financial regime believed that they were creating a self regulating financial system. What they did in actuality is to create a brittle market with systemic flaws and deep inequities.
The hue and cry at the moment (especially from the financial sector itself) is that the system requires stricter government regulation.
However, before imposing any new regulations, I believe we should engage in a much deeper conversation about what the market is and what we want to achieve with the market.
In watching the financial meltdown, I've come to believe that the primary fault in our financial system is that the system is being driven by a desire of the financial system to give a class of investors a high guaranteed rate of income (rent seeking).
This fault exists regardless of the aggressiveness of government regulators.
Designing regulations and corporate bailouts to preserve the current financial regime might simply have the effect of institutionalizing the systemic faults in the system.
I believe that the better path is to rethink the market from scratch and to find ways to wean ourselves away from debt financing. Rather than seeking new regulations for hedge funds and credit default swaps. I believe that the wise path may be to eliminate these tools altogether.
After all, both hedge funds and credit default swaps exist solely to give one class of investors advantage over the market at large.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Here's to a Change from Change
I have to chock up the last five years of presidential election campaigning as one of the darkest episodes in American history.
Ironically, the person who I thought was the best candidate won the election. I simply don't like how he won. As I care more about ideas than power, I worry about the ideas that will surface in his administration.
The primary problem I see at this point in history is that nature of the campaign that just gave a super majority to the Democratic Party. The Party used a very dangerous style of change campaign. The form of the effort is that you capture the press, and then assemble groups that simply agitate for change. In no time you have a shrill noise surrounding all political and economic issues.
As the divisions in society grow deeper and the ability to engage in discourse diminishes, the group the best organized group is able to step into the power vacuum.
I've heard several laud the change campaign as a non-ideological revolution.
The notion is that all of the problems of the past were the result of ideologies, or of religions. Therefore, if you have no ideas or beliefs, then paradise will ensue.
The change campaign has never been about ideology. It is a form for rising to power.
The change campaign is the very heart of radicalization. You can radicalize anything. You can radicalize socialism, you can radicalize religions. You can even radicalize pragmatism.
I find it absurd. We just gave a party a super majority for change without a discussion of the form of the change.
The biggest hope for the country is that Obama has enough sense to realize the negative nature of this effort.
I am an optimist. The American people are sick and tired of a corrupt bloated government. The result of this is that during both the Clinton and Bush administration, the nation moved in the opposite direction of the stated ideology of the president.
Personally, I have a very strong dislike for presidential politics. This is a part of the reason why I do such a bad job blogging about it.
I believe strongly that the direction that the people are taking has a bigger influence than the ideology of the president. The Clinton years saw a sharp turn toward the free market, and we had tremendous prosperity.
The Bush years saw a giant leap leftward. American businesses and investors stopped seeking innovation and were primarily engaged in finding ways to avert risk through hedge funds, reinsurance, credit swaps and complex formulas that used shorting so that they would win in both bear and bull markets.
People, driven by an irrational hatred of Bush were primed to fall for anything other than the person they were conditioned to hate.
Noam Chomsky knows that it is far easy to manufacture discontent than it is to manufacture consent.
Anyway, now that the change campaign has resulted in the designed power shift, we find ourselves in a situation where we need to dig ourselves out of a big financial pit.
Attempts to save the day with debt financed bailouts and stimulus packages have not achieved desired results.
In all likelihood, just leaving the market alone and letting it correct itself would do the job.
We are in a day when people are receptive to ideas. So, starting tomorrow, I will start blogging about what I consider to be the best set of ideas for turning things around.
For our nation to get back on track we need to realize what knocked us off track.
The point of this post is simply to reiterate my belief that the change campaign is part of the problem. The change campaign was the source of much of the current division in our country. It is the source of the lack of confidence in the investment community. Investors fear committing resources while a political party with a super majority has a mandate for unspecified change. Consumers don't buy cars or eat out fearing the change. Companies lay off workers in anticipation of the unspecified change as well.
The biggest problem is that that the change campaign has consolidated even more power in a Federal government that appears to be bankrupt and out of ideas.
So, starting tomorrow, I will stop doing what I dislike (blogging about politics) and start doing what I like ... blogging about ideas.
Ironically, the person who I thought was the best candidate won the election. I simply don't like how he won. As I care more about ideas than power, I worry about the ideas that will surface in his administration.
The primary problem I see at this point in history is that nature of the campaign that just gave a super majority to the Democratic Party. The Party used a very dangerous style of change campaign. The form of the effort is that you capture the press, and then assemble groups that simply agitate for change. In no time you have a shrill noise surrounding all political and economic issues.
As the divisions in society grow deeper and the ability to engage in discourse diminishes, the group the best organized group is able to step into the power vacuum.
I've heard several laud the change campaign as a non-ideological revolution.
The notion is that all of the problems of the past were the result of ideologies, or of religions. Therefore, if you have no ideas or beliefs, then paradise will ensue.
The change campaign has never been about ideology. It is a form for rising to power.
The change campaign is the very heart of radicalization. You can radicalize anything. You can radicalize socialism, you can radicalize religions. You can even radicalize pragmatism.
I find it absurd. We just gave a party a super majority for change without a discussion of the form of the change.
The biggest hope for the country is that Obama has enough sense to realize the negative nature of this effort.
I am an optimist. The American people are sick and tired of a corrupt bloated government. The result of this is that during both the Clinton and Bush administration, the nation moved in the opposite direction of the stated ideology of the president.
Personally, I have a very strong dislike for presidential politics. This is a part of the reason why I do such a bad job blogging about it.
I believe strongly that the direction that the people are taking has a bigger influence than the ideology of the president. The Clinton years saw a sharp turn toward the free market, and we had tremendous prosperity.
The Bush years saw a giant leap leftward. American businesses and investors stopped seeking innovation and were primarily engaged in finding ways to avert risk through hedge funds, reinsurance, credit swaps and complex formulas that used shorting so that they would win in both bear and bull markets.
People, driven by an irrational hatred of Bush were primed to fall for anything other than the person they were conditioned to hate.
Noam Chomsky knows that it is far easy to manufacture discontent than it is to manufacture consent.
Anyway, now that the change campaign has resulted in the designed power shift, we find ourselves in a situation where we need to dig ourselves out of a big financial pit.
Attempts to save the day with debt financed bailouts and stimulus packages have not achieved desired results.
In all likelihood, just leaving the market alone and letting it correct itself would do the job.
We are in a day when people are receptive to ideas. So, starting tomorrow, I will start blogging about what I consider to be the best set of ideas for turning things around.
For our nation to get back on track we need to realize what knocked us off track.
The point of this post is simply to reiterate my belief that the change campaign is part of the problem. The change campaign was the source of much of the current division in our country. It is the source of the lack of confidence in the investment community. Investors fear committing resources while a political party with a super majority has a mandate for unspecified change. Consumers don't buy cars or eat out fearing the change. Companies lay off workers in anticipation of the unspecified change as well.
The biggest problem is that that the change campaign has consolidated even more power in a Federal government that appears to be bankrupt and out of ideas.
So, starting tomorrow, I will stop doing what I dislike (blogging about politics) and start doing what I like ... blogging about ideas.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Good First Press Conferenece
IMHO, President Obama did a superb job on his first press release. I am so happy to hear Obama give a speech that did not include the word "failure."
I really hope that Bush and Obama can pull off a civil transition of government.
I really hope that Bush and Obama can pull off a civil transition of government.
The Corollary
The contention of the last two long posts was that the change-style elections are the most divisive elections. I believe that the dismal showing of the third party candidates helps support that claim. When ideas or policy directions are the focus, then contrarians are happy to toss their vote away making a statement of principle.
The 2000 election was much more of a nail biter than 2008, yet third party candidates got 4% of the vote. The 2008 campaigns lacked substantive debate on policy. The result showed a much more divided nation.
If you would concede, for the moment, that a social-change campaign is an intrinsically divisive form of politics; then one discovers an interesting corollary: The social preservative campaign must also be intrinsically divisive.
The statement "This sentence is true" is as much a paradox as "This sentence is false."
The real society shattering divisions happen when social engineers are able to contrive a resonating discord between a social change and social preservation campgaign.
Buckley and his crowd were foolish when they accepted the label "conservative" for their set of principles as it allows the left to frame the cause of classical liberalism as regressive.
This problem really comes to the fore when you have leaders like Bush and Cheney who are not adept at presenting their case to the people. We had eight years where people were able to project all sorts of images onto the Bush/Cheney presidency.
One interesting commonality between Bush and Obama is that the primary strength of the candidates is their ability to organize the inner aperatus of their respective parties. Both candidates simply grabbed the costume of "agent of social change" or "agent of social preservation," then ran a campaign based on tactics, not issues.
The result of this style of campaign is that people end up projecting images onto the candidates.
The method creates a deeply divided society.
rmwarnick pointed out that I do a horrible job discussing this aspect of politics. He said of the long posts:
What I was trying to do is to repeat the type of nonsense that happens in many poli-sci and sociology classes. The aim is to show that they way our professors are teaching us to think about politics and political tactics is the source of the shrill political divide in our nation. Marx did not define communiism. He devised a change-style method for rising to power. Hitler used the Marxist method of agitating for change.
Snipy insults work sometimes. RM's snipy insult didn't really hit a mark because the gist of this series of posts was a belief that both Bush and Obama ran campaigns that weren't reality-based.
The 2000 election was much more of a nail biter than 2008, yet third party candidates got 4% of the vote. The 2008 campaigns lacked substantive debate on policy. The result showed a much more divided nation.
If you would concede, for the moment, that a social-change campaign is an intrinsically divisive form of politics; then one discovers an interesting corollary: The social preservative campaign must also be intrinsically divisive.
The statement "This sentence is true" is as much a paradox as "This sentence is false."
The real society shattering divisions happen when social engineers are able to contrive a resonating discord between a social change and social preservation campgaign.
Buckley and his crowd were foolish when they accepted the label "conservative" for their set of principles as it allows the left to frame the cause of classical liberalism as regressive.
This problem really comes to the fore when you have leaders like Bush and Cheney who are not adept at presenting their case to the people. We had eight years where people were able to project all sorts of images onto the Bush/Cheney presidency.
One interesting commonality between Bush and Obama is that the primary strength of the candidates is their ability to organize the inner aperatus of their respective parties. Both candidates simply grabbed the costume of "agent of social change" or "agent of social preservation," then ran a campaign based on tactics, not issues.
The result of this style of campaign is that people end up projecting images onto the candidates.
The method creates a deeply divided society.
rmwarnick pointed out that I do a horrible job discussing this aspect of politics. He said of the long posts:
Is there some kind of blogosphere prize for the least reality-based commentary? I think you are a contender!
What I was trying to do is to repeat the type of nonsense that happens in many poli-sci and sociology classes. The aim is to show that they way our professors are teaching us to think about politics and political tactics is the source of the shrill political divide in our nation. Marx did not define communiism. He devised a change-style method for rising to power. Hitler used the Marxist method of agitating for change.
Snipy insults work sometimes. RM's snipy insult didn't really hit a mark because the gist of this series of posts was a belief that both Bush and Obama ran campaigns that weren't reality-based.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Unity on a Foundation of Division
Early in the campaign season, Michelle Obama made comments about how she thought America was becoming a mean and base society. Unfortunately conservative pundits tried to use the statement to make a case that the Obama's, somehow, didn't love America.
Truth is, I agreed with Michelle Obama. Reading hundreds of blogs and forums, I had encountered numerous examples of the deteriorating state of civil discourse.
The question in my mind, then and now, is if the Obamas realized the source of the tension, or if they are simply playing the game of projecting all of their dislikes onto their partisan opponents. (The process of projecting negative labels onto one's opponents is fundamental to leftist thought).
Like a good voter should do, I invested a substantial amount of time trying to decipher and understand the substance behind the Obama campaign. I read his books, watched debates and listened to speeches. By the time of the election I saw nothing but a repeat of the Marxist campaign model where the candidate pounds the message of failure in the direction of their opponent while demanding a nebulous change.
Obama, of course, is not the one who invented the change campaign. The left had been manufacturing events and sentiment for running a change campaign in 2008 since Bush took office in 2000. Quite frankly, I believe that the Clintons had a lot more to do with engineering the 2008 change campaign than Obama. He was able to step into the role of agent of change designed for Hillary.
I like President Obama as a person and I sincerely wish him well as a president.
In my opinion, the question of whether or not he will be a good or mediocre president resides in this question of whether or not he sees the source of the deteriorating state of civil discourse, or if he will spend his presidency wearing political blinders and simply project all ills of the world onto the hated opposition party.
The source of the discontentment is, of course, the change campaign.
The change campaign starts with a concerted effort to manufacture discontent and disaffection. This really isn't hard to do. A demon trained in the technique could probably get a host of angels discontent with the fluffiness of the marshmallow clouds in heaven and eventually raise enough angst and tension to run a change campaign.
It is possible to manufacture discontent by pulling tricks like questioning the motives of your political opponents, framing issues in negative light, running whisper campaigns about conspiracy or coupled with "Colbert Report" style ridicule. When a partisan group controls the universities and press, they can manufacture a ground swell of discontent without ever even addressing issues.
Once the discontent has established critical mass, one need simply pound the drum of failure for a solid three years with claims that the economy will crash and the world will crumble. Since the market is a product of the mind, a well structured change campaign can even reach the point where people lose their confidence and the market declines.
This Marxist style change campaign is effective. It is what put Lenin, Hitler, and Mao in power. Historically, it has also been one of the most destructive methods of political ascent.
Now, I think we are fortunate that Obama stepped into the position of agent of change because there is a glimmer of hope that he has seen and recognizes the fundamental good in American society. There is even hope that he's caught on to the fact that many of the players on the far left like Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright are fundamentally rogues.
President George Bush clearly had faults. These faults were more of the blundering buffoon type of faults. Such faults rarely do deep intrinsic damage to a country's psyche.
The change campaign, by its very nature, creates extraordinarily deep resonating divisions that are hard to heal. Historically, this Marxist style of change campaign has led to steep declines where it was employed.
If Obama continues to follow the dialectic, he will spend his administration ringing the partisan bell. Change requires the marginalization then the eventual elimination of the hated opponents of change … the conservatives, Jews, or whatever ethic or social group the change agent framed as the villain of history.
Authentic efforts to reach across the aisle to heal the scars created by the change campaign will earn Obama the ire of his political base … the far left. Nobody in the history of civilization does a better job of hating than a radical zealot.
In several speeches, Barack has asked us to look beyond the "Red and Blue State" divide that dominated the Bush administration.
This looks like a positive step.
If you step back and consider the post election calls for unity in context of the source of the disunity, one finds that such efforts lack authenticity and are part of a self destructive pattern. The calls for unity are a bit like the platitudes of the sobering drunk who flutters with positive messages of sobriety in build up to the next binge.
A few political strategists like Karl Rove and Dick Morris aside, the red state/blue state divide was never core to Conservative beliefs. Moral principles are the core to conservative beliefs. To most conservatives, the divide was an aberration of history.
The red/blue division was much more central to the Left. The Dialectic is philosophy about division. You pull underhanded tricks to magnify division when you are out of power, and then make calls for unity when in power.
Calls for unity placed on foundation of disunity are apt to fail.
The very nature of this change campaign places Obama in an extremely difficult position. To really go forward, we have to break from the action/reactionary politics inherent in the process set forth by the Democratic Party.
Obama was not the originator of this campaign strategy. He might be able to avert the consequences of the strategy's design. The best start is to recognize that Material Dialectics held by the left (and reactionaries on the right) is the source of the problem.
==================
*NOTE Other than a few immigrants residing in servant quarters, illegal immigrants can't afford to live in Boulder, San Francisco or even in oppressively zoned Salt Lake city limits. Intellectuals can make pretense to altruism on immigration because they have effectively shielded themselves from the issue with high costs of living and tight zoning restrictions.
Truth is, I agreed with Michelle Obama. Reading hundreds of blogs and forums, I had encountered numerous examples of the deteriorating state of civil discourse.
The question in my mind, then and now, is if the Obamas realized the source of the tension, or if they are simply playing the game of projecting all of their dislikes onto their partisan opponents. (The process of projecting negative labels onto one's opponents is fundamental to leftist thought).
Like a good voter should do, I invested a substantial amount of time trying to decipher and understand the substance behind the Obama campaign. I read his books, watched debates and listened to speeches. By the time of the election I saw nothing but a repeat of the Marxist campaign model where the candidate pounds the message of failure in the direction of their opponent while demanding a nebulous change.
Obama, of course, is not the one who invented the change campaign. The left had been manufacturing events and sentiment for running a change campaign in 2008 since Bush took office in 2000. Quite frankly, I believe that the Clintons had a lot more to do with engineering the 2008 change campaign than Obama. He was able to step into the role of agent of change designed for Hillary.
I like President Obama as a person and I sincerely wish him well as a president.
In my opinion, the question of whether or not he will be a good or mediocre president resides in this question of whether or not he sees the source of the deteriorating state of civil discourse, or if he will spend his presidency wearing political blinders and simply project all ills of the world onto the hated opposition party.
The source of the discontentment is, of course, the change campaign.
The change campaign starts with a concerted effort to manufacture discontent and disaffection. This really isn't hard to do. A demon trained in the technique could probably get a host of angels discontent with the fluffiness of the marshmallow clouds in heaven and eventually raise enough angst and tension to run a change campaign.
It is possible to manufacture discontent by pulling tricks like questioning the motives of your political opponents, framing issues in negative light, running whisper campaigns about conspiracy or coupled with "Colbert Report" style ridicule. When a partisan group controls the universities and press, they can manufacture a ground swell of discontent without ever even addressing issues.
Once the discontent has established critical mass, one need simply pound the drum of failure for a solid three years with claims that the economy will crash and the world will crumble. Since the market is a product of the mind, a well structured change campaign can even reach the point where people lose their confidence and the market declines.
This Marxist style change campaign is effective. It is what put Lenin, Hitler, and Mao in power. Historically, it has also been one of the most destructive methods of political ascent.
Now, I think we are fortunate that Obama stepped into the position of agent of change because there is a glimmer of hope that he has seen and recognizes the fundamental good in American society. There is even hope that he's caught on to the fact that many of the players on the far left like Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright are fundamentally rogues.
President George Bush clearly had faults. These faults were more of the blundering buffoon type of faults. Such faults rarely do deep intrinsic damage to a country's psyche.
The change campaign, by its very nature, creates extraordinarily deep resonating divisions that are hard to heal. Historically, this Marxist style of change campaign has led to steep declines where it was employed.
If Obama continues to follow the dialectic, he will spend his administration ringing the partisan bell. Change requires the marginalization then the eventual elimination of the hated opponents of change … the conservatives, Jews, or whatever ethic or social group the change agent framed as the villain of history.
Authentic efforts to reach across the aisle to heal the scars created by the change campaign will earn Obama the ire of his political base … the far left. Nobody in the history of civilization does a better job of hating than a radical zealot.
In several speeches, Barack has asked us to look beyond the "Red and Blue State" divide that dominated the Bush administration.
This looks like a positive step.
If you step back and consider the post election calls for unity in context of the source of the disunity, one finds that such efforts lack authenticity and are part of a self destructive pattern. The calls for unity are a bit like the platitudes of the sobering drunk who flutters with positive messages of sobriety in build up to the next binge.
A few political strategists like Karl Rove and Dick Morris aside, the red state/blue state divide was never core to Conservative beliefs. Moral principles are the core to conservative beliefs. To most conservatives, the divide was an aberration of history.
The red/blue division was much more central to the Left. The Dialectic is philosophy about division. You pull underhanded tricks to magnify division when you are out of power, and then make calls for unity when in power.
Calls for unity placed on foundation of disunity are apt to fail.
The very nature of this change campaign places Obama in an extremely difficult position. To really go forward, we have to break from the action/reactionary politics inherent in the process set forth by the Democratic Party.
Obama was not the originator of this campaign strategy. He might be able to avert the consequences of the strategy's design. The best start is to recognize that Material Dialectics held by the left (and reactionaries on the right) is the source of the problem.
==================
*NOTE Other than a few immigrants residing in servant quarters, illegal immigrants can't afford to live in Boulder, San Francisco or even in oppressively zoned Salt Lake city limits. Intellectuals can make pretense to altruism on immigration because they have effectively shielded themselves from the issue with high costs of living and tight zoning restrictions.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Church Fork
I labeled a set of Fall pictures that I took of Church Fork and the Pipeline trail in Mill Creek Canyon about a week ago. The Forest Service is doing some sort of erosion control project in the area where they ripped off the top layers of soil and draped it with cloth. Apparently they were having problems of slides caused by picnickers playing on the hillside and disturbing the soil. The problem with living in an area with steep mountains is that the sides of such mountains are easily disturbed.
~
~Obama's Message of Failure
Libertarian leaning independents like me tend to see the election as a choice between two evils. Which is worse, the Democrats who tax and spend or Republicans who borrow and spend?
In this election, I must admit, I am absolutely and thoroughly proud of the fact that George Bush had the political courage to stand against public sentiment and support the troop surge. I am also proud of the American Troops, who in the onslaught of adversity stood with the Iraqi people against the radicals who slaughtered innocent civilians in their quest for power.
I am voting for John McCain for his role in supporting the Surge and for a long history of working to do what is best for the nation.
The theme of this post is the question about which party is more negative.
As a matter of partisanship, newspaper reporters and college professors routinely use examples from Republican campaigns in discussions about negative campaigns. This creates that illusion that Republicans depend solely on negative campaigns.
What I see is something different. Republicans tend to be overt in their actions while Democrats favor subtlety. When a Republican goes negative, it is generally clear that they've gone negative. They want the world to see the negative thing they see.
Democrats, on the other hand, like to build negativity into the core of their message, while pretending that they are the beacon of hope and light.
A prime example of this technique is Barack Obama's message of "failure."
Look at how many times Barack use the word "failure" in his campaign.
Calling other people a failure is one of the lowest, underhanded, insulting and negative acts that a politician can undertake.
I've been astounded by the shallowness of Barack's campaign. It is nothing more than following the recipe laid out in the Manifesto and Mao's Little Red Book. What you do is label your opponent a failure. Frame issues to support the label, then talk about some sort of unspecified change that will happen on removing the failure.
There are always bad things in the economy and political structure that need fixing. Despite Obama's hate-filled drumming of the world failure, I see a great deal of good around me. As for the failure, the economic troubles seem to be things that built up over decades.
Who failed?
Let's see: A government-backed mortgage reinsurance scheme established by FDR crumbled under the collective weight of the bad loans created by the Community Reinvestment Act passed in the Carter years and strengthened in the Clinton years.
Add to this the slew of social legislation passed in the first 100 days of the Pelosi Congress.
We then had two solid years where the partisan press screamed recession, death and gloom. This finally pushed the economy into a position where oil speculator (both in and outside the US) were able to push oil prices to absurd levels. This was followed by an orchestrated short attack on the American stock market.
The only connection that the above events have with this election is that many of the players in the drama loathe George W. Bush.
For once, I might actually vote Republican. McCain is the best candidate. He ran a positive campaign. His views on immigration match my views. He probably would be ahead in the polls if the partisan press had not framed the election in such a way as to have people voting on McCain's weakest issue … the attack on the economy.
My only hesitancy in supporting McCain is that he has a long history of working with Congress in a bipartisan fashion. He is the guy who makes things happen. With a Democratic Congress and Senate, that means he would make an expansion of the state happen.
Of course, it is Congress that holds the purse strings. A bigger more intrusive government will happen regardless of the president.
I hope that American voters reject Obama's message of failure because we are not a failed nation.
In this election, I must admit, I am absolutely and thoroughly proud of the fact that George Bush had the political courage to stand against public sentiment and support the troop surge. I am also proud of the American Troops, who in the onslaught of adversity stood with the Iraqi people against the radicals who slaughtered innocent civilians in their quest for power.
I am voting for John McCain for his role in supporting the Surge and for a long history of working to do what is best for the nation.
The theme of this post is the question about which party is more negative.
As a matter of partisanship, newspaper reporters and college professors routinely use examples from Republican campaigns in discussions about negative campaigns. This creates that illusion that Republicans depend solely on negative campaigns.
What I see is something different. Republicans tend to be overt in their actions while Democrats favor subtlety. When a Republican goes negative, it is generally clear that they've gone negative. They want the world to see the negative thing they see.
Democrats, on the other hand, like to build negativity into the core of their message, while pretending that they are the beacon of hope and light.
A prime example of this technique is Barack Obama's message of "failure."
Look at how many times Barack use the word "failure" in his campaign.
Calling other people a failure is one of the lowest, underhanded, insulting and negative acts that a politician can undertake.
I've been astounded by the shallowness of Barack's campaign. It is nothing more than following the recipe laid out in the Manifesto and Mao's Little Red Book. What you do is label your opponent a failure. Frame issues to support the label, then talk about some sort of unspecified change that will happen on removing the failure.
There are always bad things in the economy and political structure that need fixing. Despite Obama's hate-filled drumming of the world failure, I see a great deal of good around me. As for the failure, the economic troubles seem to be things that built up over decades.
Who failed?
Let's see: A government-backed mortgage reinsurance scheme established by FDR crumbled under the collective weight of the bad loans created by the Community Reinvestment Act passed in the Carter years and strengthened in the Clinton years.
Add to this the slew of social legislation passed in the first 100 days of the Pelosi Congress.
We then had two solid years where the partisan press screamed recession, death and gloom. This finally pushed the economy into a position where oil speculator (both in and outside the US) were able to push oil prices to absurd levels. This was followed by an orchestrated short attack on the American stock market.
The only connection that the above events have with this election is that many of the players in the drama loathe George W. Bush.
For once, I might actually vote Republican. McCain is the best candidate. He ran a positive campaign. His views on immigration match my views. He probably would be ahead in the polls if the partisan press had not framed the election in such a way as to have people voting on McCain's weakest issue … the attack on the economy.
My only hesitancy in supporting McCain is that he has a long history of working with Congress in a bipartisan fashion. He is the guy who makes things happen. With a Democratic Congress and Senate, that means he would make an expansion of the state happen.
Of course, it is Congress that holds the purse strings. A bigger more intrusive government will happen regardless of the president.
I hope that American voters reject Obama's message of failure because we are not a failed nation.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Bankrupting Coal
Conservatives are incapable of understanding even the simplest political concept.
Yes, Obama intends to bankrupt the coal industry. But that does not make the coal industry go away nor does it lead to the loss of any jobs.
When a critical infrastructure goes bankrupt, one simply nationalizes it.
As everyone in the environmental field knows, it is not the burning of coal that causes global warming. It is the private ownership of coal that causes global warming.
If the energy sector were nationalized; then we would stop seeing all of these dire reports in the media about global warming; thus, making the problem go away.
This concept has been proven with light rail. Robert O'Toole of the Cato Institute has pointed that the resources consumed for light rail is generally higher than driving the same distance in a poorly tuned SUV. If there was any legitimacy to thermodynamic equations, then light rail is a wash and high speed light rail a big negative.
Politically, the equations are different. Global warming is, first and foremost, a political phenomena. It is the result of our collective consciousness that is rebelling at the private ownership of resources.
We stop global warming by changing our consciousness.
It is all about change.
The free market failed.
So, we need change. And should vote for change.
Lightrail reduces global warming by replacing private consumption of energy (the source of global warming) with public consumption of energy.
See, how change works. It is only carbon compounds that came from the private consumption of energy that produces global warming.
Driving a car to work is all fuddyduddy old time thinking.
Riding a train is cool.
Don't you see? If riding a train is cool, then it doesn't matter how much energy the train consumed. The train is publicly owned.
Bankrupting the coal industry, then nationalizing it changes our thinking about the industry. Nationalized coal is clean coal?
Once coal is out of the hands of all those privately held companies then it magically becomes clean coal.
Bankrupting the coal industry does not mean lost jobs it means change.
Vote for change.
This message was made possible by Airheads for Obama.
Yes, Obama intends to bankrupt the coal industry. But that does not make the coal industry go away nor does it lead to the loss of any jobs.
When a critical infrastructure goes bankrupt, one simply nationalizes it.
As everyone in the environmental field knows, it is not the burning of coal that causes global warming. It is the private ownership of coal that causes global warming.
If the energy sector were nationalized; then we would stop seeing all of these dire reports in the media about global warming; thus, making the problem go away.
This concept has been proven with light rail. Robert O'Toole of the Cato Institute has pointed that the resources consumed for light rail is generally higher than driving the same distance in a poorly tuned SUV. If there was any legitimacy to thermodynamic equations, then light rail is a wash and high speed light rail a big negative.
Politically, the equations are different. Global warming is, first and foremost, a political phenomena. It is the result of our collective consciousness that is rebelling at the private ownership of resources.
We stop global warming by changing our consciousness.
It is all about change.
The free market failed.
So, we need change. And should vote for change.
Lightrail reduces global warming by replacing private consumption of energy (the source of global warming) with public consumption of energy.
See, how change works. It is only carbon compounds that came from the private consumption of energy that produces global warming.
Driving a car to work is all fuddyduddy old time thinking.
Riding a train is cool.
Don't you see? If riding a train is cool, then it doesn't matter how much energy the train consumed. The train is publicly owned.
Bankrupting the coal industry, then nationalizing it changes our thinking about the industry. Nationalized coal is clean coal?
Once coal is out of the hands of all those privately held companies then it magically becomes clean coal.
Bankrupting the coal industry does not mean lost jobs it means change.
Vote for change.
This message was made possible by Airheads for Obama.
The M Word
A century ago the term "Machiavellian" was simply a negative label. On campuses today, one finds both liberal and conservative professors lauding the Florentine philosopher for original insights on the nature of politics.
Today, the term "Marxism" is currently in the state where conservatives can't use the term without being accused of labeling.
Categorizing the term as a label is detrimental to discourse. Marx, like him or not, stands among the most influential philosophers of the last two centuries. He has influenced both the left and right (radical and reactionaries) and has had a profound impact on political, education, social and business theories.
When I was a student, the belief among my professors was that Marxism was still the wave of the future. Marx was just misunderstood. We would be in a social utopia, but somehow Stalin, Mao, Hussein, Hitler, Castro and other practitioners of the philosophy applied it incorrectly.
Being a diligent student, I wasted time reading Marx.
While reading Marx, I had an epiphany. Most of us think that Marx defined Communism. I found precious little information on the day to day functioning of the social utopia. What Marx actually did was extremely underhanded. Unable to define how a social utopia would work. Marx wrote detailed treatise on how a free society could collapse.
Marx did not give us a recipe for building a better society. He gave us a recipe for destroying a free society.
The technique is called "Material Dialectics." Although the philosophy uses the term "dialectics" it is not really a form of discourse. Material dialectics sees talk as prattle. The real discourse happens at a meta level through social movement, economic trends, political movements and revolutions.
Marx would feel comfortable with technorati as it doesn't matter what one says, but where they fit in the nexus of link.
Talk is nothing more than prattle that people make as they vie for political power. I made free market style prattle because I am white and live in the mountain states.
The basic idea behind the dialectics is that the World Spirit evolves through a scientifically predictable series of thesis-antithesis conflicts. Each thesis-antithesis conflict results in a catharsis.
Marx claims that people at different levels of the evolution are unable to see what the next level brings. Such is Marx's excuse for not writing about the inner workings of the Communist utopia. He could not write about the inner workings of the social utopia because he was part of the corrupt industrial revolution. His role in history was to create a formula for overthrowing the current social order to bring about change.
The basic idea is that each society creates the seeds of its own destruction; So, Marx engaged in a detailed examination of the workings of capital to find flaws in the system that would make it become top heavy and crash.
The great irony of the modern age is that Marx did not define communism.. Marx defined capitalism.
The best way to destroy a system is to weasel your way into a position where you can define the system. You then work to define the system such that it has systemic faults.
This process is not all that difficult: An intellectual defines a central conflict for a society, and chooses what they hope to be the winning side. A group of radicals form to argue their side of the thesis antithesis conflict. Invariably, a group of reactionaries forms arguing the other side of the conflict. If you play the hand correctly, the people trying to pull off the social change end up defining both sides of an argument.
Capitalism, as we know it, was defined by the enemies of the free market. Reactionaries unwittingly accept the definition. This would be a fun irony except for the unfortunate fact that the definers of capitalism have manipulated things in such a way that there are artificial constructs in the program that keep causing systematic faults.
For example, the left has been quick to define the market with things like short selling and federal reinsurance for mortgages. Short selling increases volatility. Federal reinsurance transforms all the local real estate market into a global market with systemic faults.
When the system crashes, everyone believes the contrived failure to be the fault of the free market.
One of the Marxist mantras is to use the tools of capitalism to destroy capitalism.
A great example of using the tools created by the capitalist to bring capitalism down was George Soros's breaking of the bank of England by shorting the currency in 1992.
2008 will also stand out as a prime example of Marxist style manipulation. In an attempt to put their man in the white house, oil speculators, OPEC and others pushed the price of oil to a level that was several times the marginal cost of production. This speculation came in conjunction with the largest short selling attack in the history of the stock market.
Polls seem to indicate that the attack was successful. The blatant manipulation has many writing off the free market altogether.
We need a manipulator to protect us from the manipulators.
Marxism is a blind faith that if you destroy the current system, something better will rise in its wake. One agitates for change without much in the way of deep thought about what that change will be.
Quite frankly, I think it is in this Marxist tradition that we find the root of the current negative discourse that is shaking this world. It is an ideology where intellectuals are trained to take a relentless attack on the system. It encourages people to actively disseminate misleading information and engage activities that undermine their communities. The naïve notion is that the agitation will lead to some unspecified higher evolutionary level.
Tearing things down is a thousand times easier than building things up.
I ended rejecting Marxism because I found nothing constructive in it. The process centralizes power and destroys the local communities.
I have been in a pickle, because I realize that the reactionaries to Marxism are as bad as the Marxists themselves.
Much of the American Conservative movement is a reaction to Marxism. Reactionary movements always carry the imprint of the thing the movement is reacting against.
The 2008 election has been a nightmare for me. I voted for Barack Obama in the primary because I loved his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. At the time of the primary, his campaign was claiming that he wanted to elevate the state of discourse in our nation.
Like it or not, the left controls the University, newspapers and most of the intellectual institutions that define our society. As such, change in the Democratic Party has a more profound effect on our culture than anything the Republicans are capable of achieving.
For example, the Civil Rights Movement happened when the Democratic Party, under the leadership of LBJ, switched from open racism to an open acceptance of diversity. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, the party used racial tension to pass intrusive laws to enforce segregation. The Civil Rights Movement flipped and started using intrusive laws to force desegregation.
This was a positive change that Republicans were incapable of pulling off.
The environmental movement occurred when the Democratic Party switched sides from open hostility to conservation to radical demands environmental protection. As an eco-jabbering meadow muffin, I approve of the change. The pathetic attempts by the Republicans to stop environment destruction from big government projects like the TVA and related projects all pretty much were for not.
My primary concern is the dismal state of education theory.
The John Dewey and Bill Ayers crowds were the ones who yanked the study of logic out of the public school curriculum. As Barrack Obama was calling for improved discourse during the primary, I voted for him on the blind hope that the change he promised might involve reforming the public schools in ways that helped develop an appreciation for reason, logic and quality discourse.
Of course, I was doing what everyone else does. I was projecting my hopes on the candidate.
Since the primary, I have only seen empty rhetoric and an vacuum of ideas.
I have been sick to my stomach. Obama's campaign seems to be following the plan laid out by Marx and perfected by Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
The party agitates for an unspecified change. We all project our own thoughts on to the meaning of change. Then spend our days trying to pull off underhanded tricks to manifest the change.
I do not think that Obama is a Marxist. I think that Marx has been the most influential philosophy of the modern era. The result of this influence is that, although very few people take the time to read Marx, our election campaigns keep falling into the patterns that Marxist movement defined.
The problem is not exclusive to Democrats who like to run campaigns with "change" as the mantra. Conservatives is still too much of a reactionary movement. For example, we saw this in the debate regarding immigration. A functioning immigration system would offer sufficient citizen slots and temporary work permits to meet a reasonable demand. To make the system work, the county must enforce its laws. For a visa system to work, you have to deport people who violate the contract of the visa.
The debate that needed to take place was destroyed by a small racist element in the Conservative movement. Many of the most racist comments came from Union types who temporarily became conservatives to make race based arguments against immigration reform.
In conclusion, I believe that the Hegelian and Marxist movements are the source of much of the discord that affects our political process today. It is a system that encourages political groups to use underhanded tricks to rise to power. It is a system where power mongers agitate for an unspecified change. Such change is unlikely to lead to improvement. Whereas detailed analysis is a system that leads to improvement.
To actually affect a positive change in discourse, we need to be able to use the M word, otherwise we will be forever trapped in these elections where people feel they are caught between the choice of bad and worse.
Today, the term "Marxism" is currently in the state where conservatives can't use the term without being accused of labeling.
Categorizing the term as a label is detrimental to discourse. Marx, like him or not, stands among the most influential philosophers of the last two centuries. He has influenced both the left and right (radical and reactionaries) and has had a profound impact on political, education, social and business theories.
When I was a student, the belief among my professors was that Marxism was still the wave of the future. Marx was just misunderstood. We would be in a social utopia, but somehow Stalin, Mao, Hussein, Hitler, Castro and other practitioners of the philosophy applied it incorrectly.
Being a diligent student, I wasted time reading Marx.
While reading Marx, I had an epiphany. Most of us think that Marx defined Communism. I found precious little information on the day to day functioning of the social utopia. What Marx actually did was extremely underhanded. Unable to define how a social utopia would work. Marx wrote detailed treatise on how a free society could collapse.
Marx did not give us a recipe for building a better society. He gave us a recipe for destroying a free society.
The technique is called "Material Dialectics." Although the philosophy uses the term "dialectics" it is not really a form of discourse. Material dialectics sees talk as prattle. The real discourse happens at a meta level through social movement, economic trends, political movements and revolutions.
Marx would feel comfortable with technorati as it doesn't matter what one says, but where they fit in the nexus of link.
Talk is nothing more than prattle that people make as they vie for political power. I made free market style prattle because I am white and live in the mountain states.
The basic idea behind the dialectics is that the World Spirit evolves through a scientifically predictable series of thesis-antithesis conflicts. Each thesis-antithesis conflict results in a catharsis.
Marx claims that people at different levels of the evolution are unable to see what the next level brings. Such is Marx's excuse for not writing about the inner workings of the Communist utopia. He could not write about the inner workings of the social utopia because he was part of the corrupt industrial revolution. His role in history was to create a formula for overthrowing the current social order to bring about change.
The basic idea is that each society creates the seeds of its own destruction; So, Marx engaged in a detailed examination of the workings of capital to find flaws in the system that would make it become top heavy and crash.
The great irony of the modern age is that Marx did not define communism.. Marx defined capitalism.
The best way to destroy a system is to weasel your way into a position where you can define the system. You then work to define the system such that it has systemic faults.
This process is not all that difficult: An intellectual defines a central conflict for a society, and chooses what they hope to be the winning side. A group of radicals form to argue their side of the thesis antithesis conflict. Invariably, a group of reactionaries forms arguing the other side of the conflict. If you play the hand correctly, the people trying to pull off the social change end up defining both sides of an argument.
Capitalism, as we know it, was defined by the enemies of the free market. Reactionaries unwittingly accept the definition. This would be a fun irony except for the unfortunate fact that the definers of capitalism have manipulated things in such a way that there are artificial constructs in the program that keep causing systematic faults.
For example, the left has been quick to define the market with things like short selling and federal reinsurance for mortgages. Short selling increases volatility. Federal reinsurance transforms all the local real estate market into a global market with systemic faults.
When the system crashes, everyone believes the contrived failure to be the fault of the free market.
One of the Marxist mantras is to use the tools of capitalism to destroy capitalism.
A great example of using the tools created by the capitalist to bring capitalism down was George Soros's breaking of the bank of England by shorting the currency in 1992.
2008 will also stand out as a prime example of Marxist style manipulation. In an attempt to put their man in the white house, oil speculators, OPEC and others pushed the price of oil to a level that was several times the marginal cost of production. This speculation came in conjunction with the largest short selling attack in the history of the stock market.
Polls seem to indicate that the attack was successful. The blatant manipulation has many writing off the free market altogether.
We need a manipulator to protect us from the manipulators.
Marxism is a blind faith that if you destroy the current system, something better will rise in its wake. One agitates for change without much in the way of deep thought about what that change will be.
Quite frankly, I think it is in this Marxist tradition that we find the root of the current negative discourse that is shaking this world. It is an ideology where intellectuals are trained to take a relentless attack on the system. It encourages people to actively disseminate misleading information and engage activities that undermine their communities. The naïve notion is that the agitation will lead to some unspecified higher evolutionary level.
Tearing things down is a thousand times easier than building things up.
I ended rejecting Marxism because I found nothing constructive in it. The process centralizes power and destroys the local communities.
I have been in a pickle, because I realize that the reactionaries to Marxism are as bad as the Marxists themselves.
Much of the American Conservative movement is a reaction to Marxism. Reactionary movements always carry the imprint of the thing the movement is reacting against.
The 2008 election has been a nightmare for me. I voted for Barack Obama in the primary because I loved his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. At the time of the primary, his campaign was claiming that he wanted to elevate the state of discourse in our nation.
Like it or not, the left controls the University, newspapers and most of the intellectual institutions that define our society. As such, change in the Democratic Party has a more profound effect on our culture than anything the Republicans are capable of achieving.
For example, the Civil Rights Movement happened when the Democratic Party, under the leadership of LBJ, switched from open racism to an open acceptance of diversity. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, the party used racial tension to pass intrusive laws to enforce segregation. The Civil Rights Movement flipped and started using intrusive laws to force desegregation.
This was a positive change that Republicans were incapable of pulling off.
The environmental movement occurred when the Democratic Party switched sides from open hostility to conservation to radical demands environmental protection. As an eco-jabbering meadow muffin, I approve of the change. The pathetic attempts by the Republicans to stop environment destruction from big government projects like the TVA and related projects all pretty much were for not.
My primary concern is the dismal state of education theory.
The John Dewey and Bill Ayers crowds were the ones who yanked the study of logic out of the public school curriculum. As Barrack Obama was calling for improved discourse during the primary, I voted for him on the blind hope that the change he promised might involve reforming the public schools in ways that helped develop an appreciation for reason, logic and quality discourse.
Of course, I was doing what everyone else does. I was projecting my hopes on the candidate.
Since the primary, I have only seen empty rhetoric and an vacuum of ideas.
I have been sick to my stomach. Obama's campaign seems to be following the plan laid out by Marx and perfected by Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
The party agitates for an unspecified change. We all project our own thoughts on to the meaning of change. Then spend our days trying to pull off underhanded tricks to manifest the change.
I do not think that Obama is a Marxist. I think that Marx has been the most influential philosophy of the modern era. The result of this influence is that, although very few people take the time to read Marx, our election campaigns keep falling into the patterns that Marxist movement defined.
The problem is not exclusive to Democrats who like to run campaigns with "change" as the mantra. Conservatives is still too much of a reactionary movement. For example, we saw this in the debate regarding immigration. A functioning immigration system would offer sufficient citizen slots and temporary work permits to meet a reasonable demand. To make the system work, the county must enforce its laws. For a visa system to work, you have to deport people who violate the contract of the visa.
The debate that needed to take place was destroyed by a small racist element in the Conservative movement. Many of the most racist comments came from Union types who temporarily became conservatives to make race based arguments against immigration reform.
In conclusion, I believe that the Hegelian and Marxist movements are the source of much of the discord that affects our political process today. It is a system that encourages political groups to use underhanded tricks to rise to power. It is a system where power mongers agitate for an unspecified change. Such change is unlikely to lead to improvement. Whereas detailed analysis is a system that leads to improvement.
To actually affect a positive change in discourse, we need to be able to use the M word, otherwise we will be forever trapped in these elections where people feel they are caught between the choice of bad and worse.
Drive to a State?
This has me upset. The Barrack Campaign is instructing people to drive to battle ground states. Then, what exactly are people supposed to do when they drive across state lines? Vote a second time? I guess it would actually be the third or fourth time for many voters.
It seems like a big waste of hydrocarbons to me. I find it funny that politicians are always first to deride businesses and individuals for wasting hydrocarbons, but have zero compunction against such things when it is for their benefit.
It seems like a big waste of hydrocarbons to me. I find it funny that politicians are always first to deride businesses and individuals for wasting hydrocarbons, but have zero compunction against such things when it is for their benefit.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Alien Technology in Play
According to the calendar, John McCain is spending the last day of the campaign in Roswell, NM.
Who knows?
With some of that alien technology ... he just might be able to pull this thing off.
Who knows?
With some of that alien technology ... he just might be able to pull this thing off.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Academics for Bill Ayers
The academic community supports Bill Ayers.
I think conservatives have overblown the connection between Ayres and Obama. Ayres style radicals permeate America's campusses. Pretty much anyone who goes through a major US University will encounter scores of Ward Churchills and Bill Ayers. In many departments, they out number the professors who actually got their job through scholarly work.
I simply wish to point out that the number of radicalized professors number in the thousands.
The scary thing is that these folk have captured the teacher schools are are effectively the ones who write the public school curriculum.
I don't like this group that dominates the education departments of most universities because that the curriculum they are creating is politically fused. I believe the curriculum should be designed to give students the best possible education.
I think conservatives have overblown the connection between Ayres and Obama. Ayres style radicals permeate America's campusses. Pretty much anyone who goes through a major US University will encounter scores of Ward Churchills and Bill Ayers. In many departments, they out number the professors who actually got their job through scholarly work.
I simply wish to point out that the number of radicalized professors number in the thousands.
The scary thing is that these folk have captured the teacher schools are are effectively the ones who write the public school curriculum.
I don't like this group that dominates the education departments of most universities because that the curriculum they are creating is politically fused. I believe the curriculum should be designed to give students the best possible education.