My Opinion of Karl Marx's Work

I read a couple of Marx's books a long time ago; Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto. The material was also covered briefly in a Sociology course (101). Karl Marx was a brilliant sociologist- of that there is no question. His analysis and description of the problems England had in his day were on the mark. He understood the problems that England experienced during the Industrial revolution when so many 'peasants' were forced off rural land and migrated into London and other cities to work in the factories.

The factories had bad working conditions generally. Nowadays in the U.S.A. there is the federal Office of Safety and Health and several other ways that work conditions are not allowed to be too oppressive and unhealthy. England had nothing like that and people worked very long hours including children and sometimes women. That was what Marx saw and described when he was working at a library in London.

Marx like American revolutionaries had no care for aristocracy. There were still a lot of royal governments in Europe so his wish to revolt was unwelcome in the nations he had been kicked out of. Marx was also Jewish and Jews had an identity crisis in Europe in that era and hoped for a nation of their own to live in since they were victimized by pogroms in Russia and other countries. Marx had a bifurcated political motive for revolt. I think some Jews like Trotsky and some of the Jews that were leaders in the German revolution near the end of the First World War had a desire to revolt as a substitute for having a Jewish state to move to. Some Jews sought to establish a Jewish state in Europe. Perhaps one can compare their troubles to that of the Kurds. President Trump recently dropped them cold and was of no help in establishing a Kurdish state. It is a good time to do that and Turkey and Syria could have been incentivized to give Kurds land and recognition in exchange for 2x the land they give Kurds from annexations of Syrian land that few would be heartbroken about the Assad government losing some land.

As I understood Marx, he was a great analyst yet ironically a fairly uncreative economist. When he associates the capitalists with the aristocracy as their lap dogs, he might have been a modern talking about the relationship of the broadcast media to the 1% that owns the media. Marx felt that capitalists were the next phase in rich powerful minorities oppressing the majority. He was right about that it turned out.

Plainly Marx was not a good designer of a new economic system to replace the aristocracy and capitalism. That is a problem the Democrat party has today; they just aren’t good at reforming capitalism to make it more egalitarian and to pay off public debt and restore the ecosphere to health. A democracy works best with robust free enterprise enabled through all of the people having adequate start-up capital normally.The Communist manifesto was written by Marx for a fee, yet it was more of a work for hire than a free exposition of his own thought. He wrote it for some Communist group- I don’t recall the name, and it became popular. So Marx was a good analyst, historian and sociologist with a misapplication of Hegelian metaphysics and a non-functional economic program.

Democracy has all of the tools it needs to raise taxes to a high enough level that wealth and power wouldn’t be over-concentrated to the diminution of democracy. It could reform capitalism with some regulation to make it serve the people and restore the ecosphere. The trouble is that Democrats aren’t too well informed about ecological economics and actually just want to be like republicans themselves with lots of wealth and adequate decadence and immorality.

In a democracy the people are sovereign rather than a tiny minority as in aristocracy or plutocracy.. The people need to actually use their power to prevent concentration of wealth and power if they want to be sovereign. Certainly royals were not reluctant to rule and benefit themselves more than the people.

Taxation is a part of a government. The people cannot expect government to provide free services. I would look around and see original sin as responsible for social ills, rather than forced redistribution incidentally. Redistribution is something of an obsolete concept anyway since capital in many ways isn’t easy to redistribute. I am more for changing the way capitalism works and to regulate it so it serves everyone equally well as citizens, rather than special interests and those destroying global and national ecospheric health.

Communism had to fail, it hadn't a functional economic system for progress. Marx had theories like value added and alienation of labor obviously, yet those phenomena don't require communism for correction. Marx saw everything that was bad and leaped to the conclusion that it could all be fixed in the communist system. Communism works directly against individual initiative and creativity- it doesn't really evolve well so much as keep everything more like ancient Egypt- unchanging for thousands of years with a few pyramid projects and ruling elites over-seeing everything. Capitalism without intelligent regulation is like a plague of locusts consuming the ecospheric health. No system of economics can replace intelligent leadership with good ideas in a democracy. If capitalism is failing now (concentrating wealth and destroying ecosphere health) it is because government hasn't good leaders and is unaware of how to lead to reform.

Shouldn't Some Auto Insurance Be Pay-Per-Mile?

Shouldn't some auto insurance be pay-per-mile or for when the vehicle is used rather than monthly? If there are people that would buy an electric car or jeep if they could afford it some people might not want to pay for insurance every month on a vehicle used just a few times a month or year? Some people would not be willing to shell out $100 a month for auto insurance when they just might only use the vehicle a day or two for transport of supplies, and ride a bike to work, or boat, the rest of the time.

Retired people might be a prime group to benefit from pay per mile auto insurance that might be more like a credit card's structure- even some with no annual fees. I wonder if pay per mile auto insurance presently exists?

About the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction

Analytic truths are self-consistent without reliance on something besides the internal logic for truth. Synthetic propositions involve something outside the statement. They are somewhat more like algebra with variables that can make a statement true or false depending on what they are. So the logic of math may be implicitly true (if it isn't false), yet mathematical statements may be analytically false. True math statements require verification, or something beyond themselves- for axioms or whatever, at some point need to be accepted as true for the rest of the math to follow. That premise is why Quine thought the synthetic-analytic distinction wasn't valid, so far as I get from reading the article on the analytic-synthetic distinction. A synthetic proposition that everyone knows is true such as "the Earth has been around a long time" is like a math axiom in just being accepted as true with some verification from experience. The epistemological criterion of the analytic-synthetic distinction is unavoidably challenging like Descartes' paradigm from the Meditations on a Method- verification of anything including experience originates inwardly and is an association of ideas and percepts with thought. Self-standing truth is God- everything else requires verification through association. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analytic-synthetic/

Matthew 27:22-25 and Moral Responsibility

 Matthew 27:22-25 seems like an assumption (a claim) of legal and moral responsibility for the execution of Jesus. Though they were a necessary enabling act for the worldly execution, since Pilate was agreeable to letting Jesus go, the Jews had no right to take responsibility for it was pre-destined by God. God knew people are doomed to work evil because of original sin. The history of the Jews in the books of the prophets is a great exercise in futility as well as faith. The consequences of the execution could have been said to be the destruction of Jerusalem with a million deaths that followed in an apocalypse, yet also the Lord's victory over death and actualization of the other prophecies. The Lord was the greatest prophet of the Bible as well as the Son of God. God can sort out the issues of free will and responsibility better than mankind. The end of the old covenant and transition to the new was costly. Redemption of those of faith in the Lord from the criterion of original sin through his atoning sacrifice is the greatest, or most meaningful event in history concerning human destiny.


Matthew 27-

22-Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”

They all said to him, “Let Him be crucified!”

23-Then the governor said, “Why, what evil has He done?”

But they cried out all the more, saying, “Let Him be crucified!”

24-When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.”

25-And all the people answered and said, “His blood be on us and on our children.”

A Method for Learning Philosophy

Reading western philosophy is a life-long project (that one can complete generally by about age 40 with a lot of reading. Start with Plato's books where he narrates the dialogues and conversations of Socrates. Then proceed up along an historical timeline all the way to the 21st century. There are numerous books summarizing Western philosophy such as those by Will and Ariel Durant, Betrand Russell and Frederick  Copleston.. Read primary books by famous western philosophers and learn for yourself what ideas they developed, and how those ideas built upon one another's ideas constructively;each philosopher had a place in history. Some such as Socrates, Kant, Hegel and Hume, Berkeley, J.S. Mill and Jeremy Betham are essential reading. One may read people like Schopenhauer and Nitzsche for more depth, and eventually move into the Vienna circle era and with those associated with it developing formal logic. Sartre was a novel expositor of French rationalism continuing in the tradition of Rene' Descartes. Aristotle , Liebnitz and Frege developed logic. 

Linguistic philosophy is based on logic and the structure of words and meaning, and that is great stuff and useful in numerous areas today with such obvious applications as in computational logic. The twentieth century was something of a renaissance for philosophy with epistemogical inquires using formal logic, inward and outward meanings of words and objects shedding light. Classical ideas about nominalism and pluralism, knower and known and so forth were informed with ideas from modern physics and logic. 

William James and John Dewey continued practical applications of philosophy. America had people like R.W. Emerson and C.S. Pierce yet Saul Kripke, P.F. Strawson and W.V.O. Quine wrote informatively about the mind/language/external reality interface with logical analysis. Eventually while reading philosophy one should read a few of the works by great historians such as Arnold Toynbee (A Study of History) and then read in a third thread the major works of Eastern philosophers (Nakamura's 'Ways of Thinking of Eastern People' is good) such as Confucius, Lao Tzu, Sakyamuni Buddha, and histories of the founders of the major and minor religions such as Mani and Manichaeanism, Zoroaster and Muhammad. 

One would do well to keep a King James version of the Bible around and read that forever, here and there as the spirit moves one. There are innumerable stops on the way of reading history and philosophy together, such as the history and life of St. Augustine, neo-Platonism such as Plotinus (with the Enneads), Stoics like Marcus Aurelius and Empedocles and so forth. There are even pre-Socratic philosophers with great ideas; for example, Parmenides and Heraclitus. It is necessary to learn a scientific history of cosmology and quantum mechanics as well. Philosophy does exist in a real Universe with quite a bit to consider. 

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNmENSiview

If Turkey Attacks Kurds Many Americans Won't Like It

President Trump's Kurd policy regarding Turky reminds one of major General Rosecrans misunderestimating the situation of the line at the Battle of Chickamauga. Rosecrans thought there was a gap in the line so he misdirected troops to go fill it creating a gap through which General Longstreet broke through with eight brigades. Throwing the Kurds to the mercies of the Turkish military armed with U.S. weapons will make some move toward support for impeachment of the President.

President Trump could have used the opportune time to negotiate creation of a Kurdish state instead of letting Turks move ahead to slaughter Kurds. President Trump in pursuit of just money may have no heart in that monetary mercenary brain. Kurds have fought well as allies more than twenty years and it was wrong to abandon them cold.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/turkey-invades-syria-turkish-president-erdogan-announces-military-operation-today-2019-10-09/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chickamauga

Pres Trump Should have created a Kurdish state in part of Syria

President Trump should have created a Kurdish state in part of Northern Syria to settle Kurdish allies with security. While the President may believe he is exercising statecraft in acting in harmony with Turkey to offset Turkey's turn toward Russia, it was wrong to leave the Kurds in what looks like a kill zone. Turkey has lots of weapons the U.S. sold them to eradicate Kurds in their way.

The Kurdish problem originated at the end of the First World War when the allies reneged on a promise to create a Kurdish state in the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. President Trump is putting Kurds unnecessarily in harm's way in giving the inheritors of the Ottoman Empire a solid chance to occupy part of Syria 

What good Turkey can do in policing Northern Syria is questionable since Syria hasn't attacked Turkey nor intended to. While the United States may save some money in removing military forces from the region, there weren't many as it were and the axiom of penny wise, pound foolish appears to be the right description for a policy that fails to security Kurdish security.

Mosul is the natural capital of a Kurdish state and Northern Syria and the S.E. corner of Turkey should be part of the Kurdish state. It would be useful to solve the problem of Kurds needing to fight for their own land by having the allies correct their century-old error. Turkey would be compensated by being granted twice the amount of land in Syria that they conceded to form part of the new Kurdish state, as would Iraq.

President Trump is all business all the time yet in the present situation he should exercise statecraft that actually works. Northern Syria is a good field training area for elements of the U.S. military that can learn useful intelligence regarding operations in the area. Ignorance and ostrichism isn't generally the best policy. Some may ask if the Trump policy supports the need for impeachment.

It is of course good to discover ways to avoid conflict along with the expense of spending munitions and life and that vector could probably be advanced by settling Kurds into a Kurdish state. It is true that Syria would lose a little ground yet that may be the least bad option available.

https://www.vox.com/2019/10/7/20902699/trump-syria-turkey-erdogan-invasion-kurds

Map from the C.I.A. Fact Book

China May Be Better Without N.B.A and Hong Kong

China may be better off without the N.B.A. or Hong Kong. The N.B.A. promotes a lot of goons to multi-millionaire status instead of scientists and inventors, and that creates wrong social values.  Compare the service-value to humanity of a scientist inventing an internal food deodorant that when consumed would change the smell of bowl movements to that of roses versus that of putting a ball in a hoop like Fido. The latter has less social value than a dog retrieving a tennis ball, for the dog may be a watchdog sentry too.

 A Communist society may prefer such egalitarianism that intellectual work is devalued and repressed or exploited by meat-heads with money and power, yet the people are the real losers when ignorance prevails. Hong Kong is an entrepot for excellence in enterprise and intervention that would bring far ore social advance and prosperity for China as a free mini-state than as a vassal dominated by ham-fisted communist party rulers.

Good sense is rare in politics. China is probably no exception.

Chinese leadership shouldn't be upset about free speech nor work to repress it. In the United States censorship is accomplished in a similar way as the Chinese method used to retaliate against the N.B.A. for something a Houston Rockets manager said in support of Hong Kong protesters; they hit the wallet or buy up and close down offensive venues of expression-even with degraded search engine listings.

Democrats are looking to a former special education teacher for leadership to help explain issues to them. If only the leadership understood the issues that might work.

Married Priests, Priesthood of Believers etc.

Pope Francis has opened up a dialogue for ending the celibate priesthood, that is, priests in that denomination would be allowed to marry as they were permitted until a millennium ago. In my opinion married priests would radically reduce Catholic priest's pederasty. Single priests in a time when life was shorter were able to be more militant and work missions like a soldier to a certain extent in taking the gospel around the world. In an era when television and the internet is saturated with sex and mostly naked female photos (like Linda Carter's wet t-short picture on sports news pages as an ad the past two months), and a large percent of people remain unmarried without a bad opinion about out of wedlock sex, celibate living is more challenging. It may have outlived most of its usefulness for the priesthood. *-quote;"It was not until ecumenical meetings of the Catholic Church at the First and Second Lateran councils in 1123 and 1139 that priests were explicitly forbidden from marrying"-endquote On female leadership I would say that the leadership should lead to a priesthood of believers church format where most people share leadership roles in small groups yet get together for a sing-a-long. Maybe men could have the main 7 minuted sermon for themselves and so technically leadership remains male. That would be like an opera where women don't usually sing bass nor men soprano. Other than that women would share the rotation of speaking roles in the service, although there should be beginner, intermediate and elder ranks based on attendance history as an adult. Quality theologians could prepare standard liturgical content for people to use in groups of 8 or twelve people. When all people are confessing Christians hypocrisy is reduced. When going to church means more than sitting on a chair and watching one knows that one might actually be missed if one did not attend to participate each week, When all Christians finally act like priests (humble ones) all Christians will be missionaries too. A real priesthood of believers church structure could be more supportive of Christians. It could have Christians job banks and savings for emergencies banks that are nationally networked (with a cap on how much could be saved and use requiring some peer group approval). A semi-monastic network of guest quarters for Christian travelers could be constructed across the nation for all Christians to use that have good attendance records at the Priesthood of Believers affiliated churches across the nation.

President Trump Needs to Secure Kurdish Security Directly

Giving the green light for a Turkish invasion of Syria endangers U.S. Kurdish allies. The Kurds are one of the few reliable long-term partners in the region so the President of the U.S.A. needs to watch out for their security as well as repair the relationship with N.A.T.O. member Turkey that has decided to buy Russian military equipment that is a danger to N.A.T.O. security.

While a Turkish presence in Syria might be easy to allow and will provide a measure of regional security they may be hard to get rid of as the former colonial power (of the Ottoman Empire). It would be helpful if President Trump would explain to the public what is plans are for Kurdish security and for the problem of Syria that the Obama administration started toward civil war and regional insecurity.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-07/trump-s-motives-on-allowing-turkey-invade-syria-can-t-be-trusted

It would of course be great if President Trump could in some way get the Kurds and Turks to work together to secure mutual geographic interests. Actually that shouldn't be too challenging if the Turks are not indignant and meat-headed about it. Maybe a redesign of borders and citizenship issue could be creatively solved at some kind of camp David think tank for Kurds and Turks so they can work together for long-term regional security including Syria.