President Trump's was acquitted by the Senate on a generally strict party split with Utah's Mitt Romney being the crossover on article 1. One wonders if the Congress has scheduled vacation time all around for a job well done at wasting time and money instead of packaging good bi-partisan legislation. Both parties seem to applaud the President's state of the union speech reference to the Barrasso Highway Bill. Actually the U.S. should replace its old infrastructure such as highways with new infrastructure rather than rebuild it. One of the challenges of mature civilizations is that they can't fundamentally change their basic infrastructure forms. Asphalt and concrete highways and steel and concrete bridges are such infrastructure the post-modern U.S.A. cannot move beyond with brilliant, new transport ideas that aren't so trampy, slow and solar heat absorbing. The President's approval rating is 49% though Speaker Pelosi isn't one of those. She said she will not accept the acquittal, and Majority Leader McConnell responded; whatever that means.
It is a good thing to have principles, so many people don’t. Principles serve as self-directed programmatic choices one has made or accepted. It is easy to understand therefore that some would regard principles as pre-judgments and offer reproof. Alice Cooper sang ‘we’ve got no class, got no principles, got no intelligence, can’t even think of a word that rhymes’.
Principles may arrive from others and conveyed as social values that one has accepted for various reasons. Immanuel Kant wrote sapere aude- think for oneself. René Descartes’ earlier had written a philosophical investigations on epistemology were he resolved to investigate first principles of knowing, of self-awareness; perhaps Kant thought to improve on that and to consider perception and objects technically rather than introspectively- objectively rather than subjectively if that differentiation were possible... Kant wrote The Critique of Pure Reason trying to do so. Agencies of socialization may train one, or indoctrinate, their own ethical values in subjects; i.e. television. Television watchers presently encounter one commercial where a famous lesbian appears extolling the virtues of evolution following a funny video story about stone-agers trying to cross a bay without a boat and being eaten. The obvious purpose is to promote homosexuality as an evolutionary, progressive devise. The values of the rich are promoted through the television commercials and content they can afford to put out. The moral and value principles in the commercial showcase evolution as social change, and lesbianism as an example of positive change. The unstated premise of atheism being rational is implicitly inferred from the context. What isn't mentioned about evolution is that not all change is good-for-all. An example of evolutionary harm might be that of Nazi Germany's final solution being harmful to European Jews. If a Chinese bio-lab invents a virus that escapes and kills all human life on Earth except for independent voters in the U.S.A., that would be bad for everyone except possibly the independent voters. Neither can evolution be set against Christian beliefs for there are Christians that believe the book of Genesis describes God evolving the Earth on his own better than ours time.
Principles are abbreviated, encapsulated forms for behavior and for making live moral or other kinds of choices without needing to rethink those on-the-spot. Sometimes that kind of time for careful reflection on principles doesn’t exist. Consider the philosophical ethical thought problem of a fellow forced to choose between switching a runaway train onto a track with one baby tied to the rail or let it go ahead to crash into a bus full of Democrats that is stalled on the track- if he had a moral principle thing about it he could act decisively. If he stopped to think about the moral issues the train might speed right on past while he was thinking about it.
There is a difference between abstract principles and principles actually used and accepted as worthwhile for-oneself. Some authorities; Biblical for example, offer moral instructions or principles that can save a lot of suffering learned through experience, even so it is worth thinking about accepted moral principles to determine for-oneself if they are reasonable, if opportune.
If one reads a book on outboard motor mechanics that describes particular principles of small engine repair and those principles become your own, and one day you need to repair a broken outboard motor on the high seas, and discover that the book obviously had bad advice and actually was written by a poet, it is likely that you would discard that set of principles for repairing an outboard motor and look for something else if you survive rowing to safe harbor. Untested moral principles that are abstract can fail when put to the test. One sees the temptations of Christ that were well met; not every human does so well in applying or understanding moral principles to actual circumstances if they need to.
Thomas Piketty writing in his book Capital in the 21st Century examined the economic history and growth rates over time of several nations and found that the economy of nations stabilize when mature at a fairly modest, low rate in comparison to the rapid growth rate of developing nations taking up the technology and economic tools of more advanced nations. It is thus reasonable that the Asian nations have a faster rate of growth than those of the west. Eventually they too will stabilize at the same level as those of the west I would think, or might if several externalities such as limits to population and resource growth or ecospheric challenges do not arise to change things.
Sustaining high rates of growth for several generations is improbable because of the compound nature of the increase. Doubling a population or rate of growth every few years instead of over several generations would quickly deplete planetary natural resources.
One might regard the west coast of the United States as being in decline compared to the east coast because Democrats have taken over largely, yet that isn’t the sort of answer some would be looking for. Decline is an ambiguous term since there are so many possible value systems to choose from. If one wonders about civil liberties the west still has more than nations like China, yet for decadence socially the west might have more of that than the orient.
If one is looking for zero population growth and a sustainable ecological economic based economic reform with free enterprise working within a directed political economy with a goal of restoring the vitality of the world ecosphere in my opinion East and West are equally in decline.
I.M.O.
corporate raiders are predator capitalist in a free market mal-adapted to
global ecosphere challenges concerning its decay. Free enterprise should have
better ecospheric regulatory criteria to prefer a directed evolution of free
enterprise with ecological economic guidelines conducive to sustaining human
life on Earth and recovery of as much of the lost wild flora and fauna as is
compatible with state of the art land use design policies. Corporate
developments should be required to go through hoops of
no-net-loss-of-ecospheric vitality, neutral to reversal affect on global
warming etc. Intelligence is required in all economic development to create
structures that reward efficiency and eliminate negative externalities that
degrade the ecosphere. Plain predatory capitalism has a partner in ecospheric
predatory capitalism that burns the planks of the wooden ship in effect in
order to power the boilers and make the passengers more comfortable. That sort
of capitalism with its corporate raiders is grossly irresponsible. Adam Smith
probably would have recognized that the paradigm of free enterprise and
capitalism should be tailored to fit the empirical challenges of a society instead
of relying upon government to solve the problems and challenges to society that
cannot be ignored except and human peril. I should point out, for those that haven’t thought about it, that capital is nothing more than wealth accumulated in about any form. Free enterprise is one way to build capital, yet even socialists and communist can be capitalists; that acquisition of capital is sought after by communist managers that may be ecospheric predators (in Africa and elsewhere for example) can also practice the usual predatory capitalism people are more familiar with. Free enterprise isn’t the sole method for building capital; it is just the most efficient and generally satisfactory way for the people if properly regulated to prevent the over-concentration of wealth that inhibits egalitarian free enterprise. When communists redistribute capital they are not in the least reluctant to practice predatory capitalism.
With the complete fiasco of the Iowa Primary election results it is surprising that Russian election interference, or perhaps that of Ukraine, wasn't blamed for putting a rotten app in the barrel to sour the pie. Someday when the winner is known the Democrat Party may turn toward tasking a special Schiff inquisition to find a phone call between the President and a foreign head of state to encourage 2020 election interference in Iowa, New Hampshire and other states. https://www.wsj.com/articles/iowa-caucus-results-delayed-by-apparent-app-issue-11580801699
Democrats in Congress are trying
to scuttle the high frontier plan to develop a lunar base camp for exploration
of the solar system and beyond. Instead they propose to send one mission to
claim Mars in 2033 at tremendous public cost. While it would be good to claim
Mars, look what happened to Lunar development after the United States arrived
first more than a half century ago- nothing.
The
United States has a lot of frontier experience; it was initially a frontier
nation and the lessons learned from Perry and Byrd, Armstrong, Lewis and Clark
etc are still relevant. In fact one may look at expeditions to frontiers or
climbing Mt. Everest to discover that a base camp at an advanced location is
common. Frontier forts for the U.S. Army supported eventual civilian
settlements; the Moon is the base camp for the solar system and its use will be
shared with other nations eventually.
The
Democrat Party with its socialist trend and habit of running up vast public
debt should realize that with the way things are going presently the United
States may well not be able to afford an easily chopped expensive mission to
Mars. Incompetent health care plans that leave out the poor and globalization
plus too high of a military pay scale are driving public debt higher. Democrats
refused to continue to win the Cold War after the Clinton administration as it
should have with partnership with Russia in numerous areas of mutual interest,
business and military concerns. All that was required was to share the Ukraine
with Russia along the Dnieper River border and recognize the Crimea as Russia.
Peace with Russia with friendly relations with Russia was and is a primary U.S.
concern for the rationally minded. Good relations with Russia mean a cheaper
defense cost and better, cheaper defense against China. Democrats though are
spaced out posturers that believe trashing U.S. financial infrastructure will
help advance socialism and/or communism.
Democrats
don't really care about space development and human ventures that draw in the
best of free enterprise people with engineers like the Tesla guy innovating
Mars missions from a Moon base, or just sending chimps to Mars from a moon base
to break ground for future Democrat Mars astrobureaucrats.
It is possible that an advanced working lunar base could act to synergize beneficial technologies for the Earth's near-term survival of a number of approaching potential disasters from global warming to asteroid defense. The far side could provide good locations for the study of the Universe as well. Alternatively, Mars is a very sketchy locale for near-term benefit to the Earth in a survival paradigm. Mars is better for gradual colonization with steady methodical advances from all parties venturing from the moon base.
When the Iowa caucuses begin in several hours the Democrats of the state face the onerous chore of choosing one of the motley crew of candidates to be their nominee for President. The line-up of Democrat candidates is appropriately representative of a decadent nation and so is slightly out-of-phase with the present national condition if not the course of public affairs. If Democrats actually wanted to elect a President the former first lady Michelle Obama is possible the sole candidate capable of defeating President Trump. Former Sect. of State John Kerry is another prospect if the Democrats want to pretend to have a mature attitude toward governing. With such an untrustworthy and motley crew of candidates that are the party's equivalent of the McCain vs Obama 2008 contest some sort of environmental economic write-in candidate with military experience should be located to supplant the eventual losing choice the party is forced to choose from. Democrats in the House proved during their kangaroo court of impeachment that if the President of the United States asks a foreign President phrase A it is equivalent to phrase B. That is, President Trump asked the Ukraine President to investigate Hunter Biden's odd payments and possible corruption as a board member of a Ukraine corporation in which he had no experience and received handsome payments. Democrats continue to interpret that as President Trump asked the Ukraine President to interfere in the U.S. Presidential election of 2020. If a high school or college history teacher asked students on a test question what President Trump asked President Zelensky for concerning a criminal investigation in a phone call, it isn't likely that the answer 'he asked Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election" would be accepted. With many such answers the student would flunk the test. No matter, that sort of exchange works fine for Democrats, strict, plain technical and logical language isn't required of Democrat politicians any more. If Rep Schiff wanted to explain that what President Trump asked President Zelensky in the phone call was for a cow to jump over the moon, that would be acceptable and fine for House Democrats. So why can't they find a normal candidate to run for President and exchange him or her for all of the ones presently running in Iowa? Election update; a Democrat Party vote counting App by the Shadow company failed at producing vote counts on time, as of late Wens afternoon just 62% of the vote was reported. https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-04/clinton-campaign-vets-behind-2020-iowa-caucus-app-snafu
The fact is beyond irony; it
rolls over into amusement. I should look to Erasmus’ treatise ‘In Praise of
Folly’ for guidance perhaps, yet there is enough inspiration with the novel
corona-virus and the warm water found beneath a large Antarctic glacier
recently.
Of course there are too many environmental insults to
mention individually. The atmosphere is warming, the oceans are rising, species
are undergoing human-caused mass extinctions and the oceanic cradle of life is
becoming acidic and wreaking damage to shellfish.
Numerous unnecessary conflicts such as that of Ukraine
are a consequence of political leaders chasing after money instead of peace and
prosperity for a world made to work together cooperatively. Democrats have supported war there instead of peace with Russia yet have also said they will put forward a green infrastructure plan costing 760 billion dollars U.S., probably because the impeachment of President Trump failed. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/28/infrastructure-house-budget-climate-108396
Humanity with an introverted macro-worldview cannot
usually see the woods for the individual trees that seem such objects made for
profit. As humanity burns the planks of its ecosphere for more financial velocity
it also invents technology that accelerates dangers of democide with biological
weapons and once again increases nuclear weapons proliferation.
Thankfully the human race may create a sustainable and
independent Moon colony soon and after that, a Martian colony so a tiny
fraction of the human race could theoretically survive the planets’
destruction. I am confident that human political leadership will discover some
way to nip though survivors in the bud and assure the extinction of the entire
human race- at the very moment when it is most burgeoning in numbers with
global overpopulation.
It is somewhat funny that humanity can invent so many
tools and technology and have no capacity to use it reasonably with ecospheric
zoning criteria that keep the world’s ecosphere safely healthy and intact. The
simplest way is to restore large wilderness areas amidst metropolitan
population centers with new technology prevent harm to humans from wildlife. I shouldn’t mention all of the optimistic and
excellent prospects that exist for the human future if they can solve the
world-view problems they have endemically.
A need to synergize free enterprise
with ecospheric restoration need be made with economic and political economy
reform and that sort of thing though simple paradigmatically is probably beyond
the world-view paucity found in at least most U.S. politicians.
I received my second e-mail with a constituent survey from Alaska Representative Don Young recently. For the second time taking the blind-to-the-result-when-taking the-survey poll I scored first place with the majority of Alaskans that after looking at the lengthy roster of issues the Congressman asked most concerned the constituency, took the last option; 'other' (aka none of the above). The poll results highlight what most Americans suspect about the Congress- that it is out of touch with social reality. I looked at the numerous options including increasing military spending and making America energy independent (we already are the world's largest producer of oil). Many Americans actually would like to be independent of fossil fuels for energy. I found nothing mentioning global atmospheric heating or ecosphere decay. Ocean acidification is another element of the whole destroy the ecosphere coordination of industrialized and post-industrialized nations. One might wonder if U.S. dentists sending impressions to Chinese dental labs have risk of receiving novel coronoviruses contaminated dental constructions in return- perhaps in saliva or germs upon dentures, crowns etc. What does President Trump know about that, and when did he know it? The Congressman provided no opportunity to mark those as concerns they would like President Trump to address. In fact there is no space for a suggestion for better questions on the Congressman's next poll. An amusing Congress. At least Democrats are working to bump out U.S. workers and keep down wages with illegal aliens when they aren't cutting taxes on the rich. Right; restoring a progressive tax rate that reduces the concentration of wealth and pays down the national public debt might have been useful question concern options for the Congressman to ask. With Rep. Young one has a Hobson's choice of supporting his policies of destroying the forests, oceans, waterways and increasing atmospheric heating or voting for godless atheist policies of Democrats. It is better to abstain in some cases from voting for either party and its lackeys.
Reading a recent book on Quantum Mechanics- ‘What is Real’
precipitated an idea concerning the wave-particle duality that I Have thought
about recently. The Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics suggests
that Q.M. describes simply sampled elements of particle-waves without saying
anything about a ‘real world’ quantum realm or ocean underlying the physical
world of the Universe that I will refer to forthwith as the entangled world.
The entangled world comprising the physical, observable
Universe is that in which quantum particles have become entangled with other
particles and formed steady state clumps. The clumps are called energy and
matter. The Universe and the perceived empty spaces or voids sentient human
beings experience observably, objectively is also one of which they are part.
One wonders what field or force enables the entire steady state of material, energy
clumpiness.
Einstein and Bohm disputed the simplistic view of the Copenhagen
interpretation. Einstein believed there should be some underlying force or
field that allows quantum particles to exist and enter into material
entanglement. What that quantum substructure could be like is interesting to
consider. It could account for gravity, dark energy and dark matter. https://www.space.com/quantum-entanglement-photo.html
The wave function postulates the probability of a particle
at every possible location in the Universe. Its probability will of course be
greatest at the point where it is observed. If the field is Parmenidean monism
in character, particles that arise from it to become part of the entangled
Universe are likely not of a unique character; they are simple elements of
force structure of entanglement at a given location that is charged by the
entire field. There are no individual particles in the unentangled field; the
force entangled becomes particles or waves, as the case may be, when they
become entangled. Scientific experimenters are themselves part of the entangled
field.
Gravity seems to lend support to the inference that
entangled clumps are attracted to other entangled clumps; that phenomenon is
observed in the Universe and called gravity. Quantum entangled clumps in the
Unentangled field draw in other entangled clumps in a way that could be
described with Einstein general relativity illustration of warping space like
weights on a rubber sheet. The mechanics of how entangled clumps draw together
within the meta-Unentangled field is a question I need leave to the experts. The unentangled field characteristics might be
able to account for dark energy and matter too I suppose, depending upon the
geometry and dimensionality of the unentangled quantum field, or better, unentangled
monistic field. Whenever researchers consider new particle-waves or force carriers of the entangled Universe they need determine and observe the presence of quantum wave particles in the entangled state. That realm may not be able to explain why entangled clumps afloat in unentangled monism draw together, for the unentangled monism may not be directly measurable or quantifiable from the contingent, entangled Universe or Universes.
