When Iraq's legislature passed a bill requesting the end of U.S.
military forces in the country recently the problems of a divided sectarian
state emerged; the Shi’a Sunni divide shapes Iraq's political landscape. So a
quick review of the way things are is in order.
The present Iraqi Prime
Minister; dil Abdul-Mahdi al-Muntafiki, is Shi'a and formerly a leader
of an Iran-based Shi'a organization. The last time there was a Sunni leader
with a regime that lasted for a while was the era of Dictator Saddam Hussein.
Interestingly he was a member of the Baath Party invented in Syria. With the
Sunni being a minority in Iraq it takes a dictator to rule. The Shi'a simply
vote for Shi'a and work a de facto theocratic village form of government.
It is plain that the United States cannot withdraw its military forces
because of the infrequent need to intervene for various reasons. When Saddam
Hussein was in power and had his way during the food for oil U.N. sanctions era
50,000 Iraqis died annually because of privations forced on them by the
Dictator. Non-intervention was o.k. with Democrats and the U.N. because of the
corrupt kickbacks to select Euro politicians yet unacceptable to people of
conscience. Ending the regime of the Dictator was necessary. Imposing democracy
was nearly impossible because of the fundamental sectarian divide. A civil war
in Iraq followed helped along by Iran for sectarian reasons. When the U.S.
withdrew its forces under President Obama Isis grew.
The United States failed to support its Kurdish allies recently and that
in turn weakens their position in Iraq for they too are Sunni. That state
emboldens the Shi'a that rightly demands withdrawal of all U.S. military
because they have Iran at their back. Kickbacks and reciprocity to Iraq leaders
help them view the two states practically as one. Americans talk about war with
Iran because of the nuclear weapons program in that country and site numerous
post-1979 reasons for the war aided by historical amnesia pre-1979.
Before 1979 the United States supported the Shah of Iran whom they had
given dictatorial power to through a 1953 coup against the Shi'a Prime Minister.
When the U.S. chose to install and reinforce a de facto Dictator of Iran called
the Shah for 25 years it lost a lot of friends in Iran. Because the United
States has usually had daft political leadership concerning the history of the
region (and of Russia) since then the situation has gotten worse. What would be
helpful would be American political recognition of the true pre-1979 history of
Iranian-American relations; so long as American leadership has bad faith
attitudes toward real rather than amnesiac history of Iranian-American relations
the process of repairing relations will not start. The Bush administration
plans for post-war reconstruction of Iraq demonstrated the usual U.S. incompetence
at understanding history of the region. Probably that hasn't changed much.
Certainly the Obama administration was rash at giving Iran a treaty that
effectively allowed them 20 years of undisturbed infrastructure building and
research for nuclear weapons and then after 25 years the freedom to develop
nuclear weapons. What was lacking from the Obama method was public explanation
to the world that the U.S. recognized the pre-1979 history of Iranian-American
political relations to clear the air of gross misunderstandings.
So what should the U.S. do now? Squaring away the Kurds with greater
security and autonomous real estate in Syria and Iraq if not Turkey would be a
good idea for it is very probable that the United States will look to them
again as proxy warriors and peace police in the area. Yet President Trump
retreated from the effort, perhaps for reasons unknown, and let the Kurds
return to a state of greater political insecurity if not immediate jeopardy
with Turkey swelling even to consider landing troops in Libya as if they were Mussolini’s
fascist forces seeking to expand the lost empire in North Africa.
Democrats are complaining about President Trump ordering a mission to execute the number one Iranian terrorist who was apparently in Iraq to foment attacks on Americans, without telling the Congress, such as House Intelligence Chairman Rep Adam Schiff about the mission or asked for permission first. Evidently Democrats feel that Rep. Schiff or Senator Schumer should have been given the chance to put their foot down and veto the reckless American adventurism or other Trump ventures that could have been done with collusion from Russians or simply as distractions from the effort to defend U.S. national security through the pivotal impeachment process. There might have been someone from the National Security Council that overheard a call where President Trump was expecting a quid pro quo from some foreign leader if he did or din't act to execute Iran's top terrorist organizer. Without Rep. Schiff's informant staff being informed we will never know. Iran has a three party historical course of political evolution that need be carefully balanced. When the civilian sector and populism had finally taken charge with an elected parliament and prime minister, overcoming monarchy and military the United States staged a coup to restore the absolute monarchy. Iranians of the popular front led by radical Muslims have tended toward antipathy toward the United States since. They have little reason to trust the United States with its proven record of snuffing their elected government when it arises to restore capitalist-friendly autocrats. When the military sector works with either royals or radical clerics, who have substantial popular support, it is very difficult in the trialectical process to bring up cherries for a civilian led jackpot in the political evolution. Each time there is a new alignment the United States tends to apply counter-force like a large log roller spinning in an opposite direction on the log from the new Iranian political rolling champion at that makes it tough for Iranians. While Iran poses threats to the Middle East and searches for ways to annihilate Sunni political power and presents threats to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States it would be useful to keep the large picture in mind of trying to help Iran balance it's one-armed bandit of political fortune on the civilian political winning cherries of jackpot. Iran like most nations hasn't the circumstantial chance to simply seek its own gyroscopic civilian-led upright leadership as it might have in the past with a paucity of global powers jostling its policies about. The natural selection tends to be toward the military-clerical complex. Post-Soviet Russia was also challenged to move from its traditional three-part balance of power between the KGB, military and communist party to a peaceful yet strong civilian led government. In a sense that is what Present Putin with his Presidential super-powers represents; it could have been worse. Certainly the Democrat Party has worked very hard to poison U.S. relations with Russia.
The drone missile killing of Iran's top fanatic terrorist was reported first perhaps, by the BBC last night with several other networks following along in the usual feeding frenzy to treat the story from one biased perspective or another. Democrats of course lined up at NBC, CNN, U.S.A. Today and other party organs to spin the sudden trophy quality demise of the head of the
Quds force of snake-head biters from a view pro or antipathetic to the Trump
administration action.
I wasn't going to say anything about the military action, yet listening to the coverage thought it might be useful to make an objective opinion. The administration's action will drive up the price of oil and be of service to various red states' government's revenue streams.
The decision of an Iranian
general to visit Iraq and coordinate a proxy attack on the U.S. Embassy in
Baghdad was breath-takingly dumb of course. He may have felt that Iraq was
already in-the-bag for Iranian hegemonic ambitions.
It is worth remembering that it
was the Eisenhower administration that started the Iranian-American problems
when it sponsored a coup to get rid of the democratic government and install an
Emperor. The Emperor's secret police force tortured or stalked Iranians around
the globe and he was a tool of the United States. The Shah also had goals to
rule the Middle East not unlike those of the silly Shi'a leadership of
Iran.
Though the original sin of the
coup against Prime Minister Mossadegh occurred in 1953 and a lot of water and
hate has passed under the historical bridge since, when U.S. policy makers
think about Iran they should be aware that the United States started the
popular conflict and as a leading dance partner it should also be the one to
end it. Ending the conflict may be difficult because of the idiocy of the
broadcast media that reports what other people do and follows up with a
politically correct narrative to reinforce their position; they usually have
wrong points of view on numerous topics and politicians tend to reinforce the
idiocy.
Before the Shah Iran had
brought in an American economic adviser and the bi-lateral relations were
actually good. Then Iran nationalized the oil fields that were effectively
owned by the British in order to get some of the profit too- that was the way
people renegotiated contracts or agreements in the era, and the Eisenhower
administration worried about the domino theory prevalent in the 1950s regarding
communism pre-emptively intervened with the coup to nip their fear of a
communist takeover in the bud. That policy decision is still costing the United
States today and may cost even more in the future.
With a radicalized Iran
(paradoxically it was western leftists who supported the Iranian revolution to
get rid of the Shaw before Ayatollah Khomeini took power and swiftly purged the
left) it may be challenging to end the conflict in a peaceable way though that
is highly desirable. Iran should lose its nuclear weapons program. The United
States hasn't any need for anything in the ancient nation-kingdom against peace
since Iran is way off the mainstream course of modern trade and commerce; it
hasn't got good Pacific, Atlantic or even Mediterranean waterfront property.
Iran's oil is also a declining commodity with the major automakers moving full
ahead into electric cars and physicists developing better batteries, solar
panels, super conductors and a wealth of micro-circuit technology.
Though it was a good idea to
end the activities of General Soleimani it would be a better thing to find
some way to normalize relations with the anti-communist Iranian Muslim
Republic.
Some Americans are unhappy at the necessity to relitigate the end of the Cold War. The end was res judicata and stare decisis, and then the Democrats stepped in to restructure and renew conflict with Russia as a proxy for Cold War. One must win the peace instead of backsliding into Cold War. President Clinton bungled the restructuring work with Boris Yeltsin; a feminine C.I.S. or sis was made while the Ukraine and Crimea were wrested from the weak sister Russia. Eventually Yeltsin anointed Vladimir Putin and a stronger Russia emerged.
After
the end of the Cold War the most apparent lesson one may learn concerning
bi-lateral U.S.-Russian relations is the limit of U.S. political intelligence
and the failure to adapt. President Reagan experienced shock and resistance in
his administration when he sought to eliminate all U.S. and Soviet nuclear
weapons. Democrats today are about as anti-Russian as were old-line anti-Soviet
political warriors. They have shown an inability to adapt or even to recognize
the serious effort Russia put into reform and transition toward democracy and
free enterprise. After a few more comments I will repost a paper I wrote
concerning the Russian Super-Presidential powers. The next President after
Vladimir Putin will inherit those powers.
The
Russian Super-Presidency emerged something like the way war-time powers of
Lincoln or F.D.R. emerged to address critical domestic and foreign issues.
President Putin seems occasionally amused by the U.S. political failure to
recognize or even support the substantial changes Russia has gone through to
try to build a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men and women
are created equal and are deserving of life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness with an equal say in government through democracy. In order to reform
and construct existing institution in Russia and to keep the peace emergency
powers of the President became codified. Some day perhaps those powers will be
reformed and reduced too.
The
fundamental errors the U.S.A. has made about Russia involve a failure to
accurate understand Russian and European history the past thousand years. Half
of the Ukraine with the border on the Dnepr River and the Crimea belonging to Russia
were fundamental historical requisites for the Russian state separated from the
Soviet Union. Ambitions for land fueled by Western Europe made that a bone of
contention worthy of reigniting the Cold War. The policy has driven the
Russians to stronger relations with foreign nations somewhat antipathetic to
U.S. international interests. The short-sighted and greedy policy has wrought
significant damage to U.S. economic and environmental interests of the Arctic
region too.
For
the New Year it would be good if the U.S. political establishment developed
more competence in Russian-American relations and recognition of historical and
political geographic interests. Russia as an economic and military ally brings
synergy toward positive resolution of numerous world conflicts. Adverse
relations with Russia fuel the fires of a constellation of conflicts.
Russia and Super-Presidency; Evolving Constitution and
Economics
August 16,
2018
The
Super-presidency arose after the constitutional crisis between President
Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet in 1993. Yeltsin dismissed the Soviet who
refused to leave. The matter was settled by armed conflict. The sole surviving
institution author; the President made resolutions that formed the basis of a
new constitution and set the parameters for the existence of the new
legislative body, the Duma.
The
President had extraordinary powers. Acting in the role of Caesar and James
Madison simultaneously, President Yeltsin had to create a new state government
within an existing advanced society, rather than for a frontier society as the
author of the U.S. Constitution was able to accomplish with almost unanimous
support from his peers.
Yeltsin
had to get support from certain parties with real power such as rural governors
and oligarchs and that led to some corruption. Yeltsin began a work of reform
in process and trusted in Vladimir Putin to continue the legacy of building a
new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created equal and the chief guardian of the state somewhat more so than
others.
https://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/keynew.htm
Polity IV Country Report 2009-2010
On the
Federal Organs of Power during the Transitional Period
Polozhenie
‘O federal’nykh organakh vlasti na perekhodnyi period’ (Resolution “On the
Federal Organs of Power during the Transitional Period”),” in Iz istorii
sozdania konstitutsii Rossiiskoi Federatsii, vol. 4/3, 461-466.
My general
view of the Russian government challenges since 1998...
Russia since
the 1998 financial crisis and default has only slowly yet somewhat steadily
moved toward reform such that a market economy prevails. It was not so many
years ago that Vladimir Putin ended the oligarch domination of the economy and
domination of former Soviet assets that they had taken much of. That order of
oligarch power was regarded as an unfair distribution of wealth, yet was left
somewhat as it was. The economy moved toward liberalization sometimes with
substantial state investment and stimulation.
The process
was advanced by the rise in world oil prices in the 2000s that continued until
the crash following fracking of old oil fields to renew supply. A surfeit of
world oil production made oil dependent states lose much revenue. Alaska in the
United States faced a government budget crisis and Russia too lost nearly half
of its GDP.
If bad
actors are targeted, the principle of mass punishment should not target the
innocent too. The U.S. should encourage Russia to continue developing a market
economy along sound ecological economic principles rather than provide mass
punishment for making Crimea a ninth federal district.
Even so
Russia continued a slower advance toward a market economy though the state held
some major banks and oil companies. It began an income tax of a modest scale
though it had difficulty collecting that. Russia faced many internal and
external challenges before the regime of foreign sanctions began to appear for
international contention to permanently wrest away the Ukraine and Crimea from
Russia.
The second
largest party in Russia is still the communist party. The United Russia party-
by far the largest, is basically a coalition of four formerly separate parties
that joined to beat the communists. The economic and social dynamics of
economic reform is occurring concurrent with reform of government, and
eventually constitutional structures, and stimulation of business and new
infrastructure development. All of that is challenging and expensive. While the
United States and Europe tend to place themselves into a belligerent and
adversarial as possible position comprising something of a threat to Russian
security.
My concern
is that the sanctions and hostile external relationship with Russia will retard
the growth of Russia as a market economy and in the long run solidify less than
free enterprise elements in Russia.
Apparently
Russians have a trust in state run media and state ownership of business
because of historical reasons that lie in the fact that authoritarian or
Tsarist government were the fact of Russia for 1000 years. Only since the end
of the Cold War has Russia had a pluralist government, although a multi-party
Duma/congress existed briefly, shortly before the Bolshevik takeover to end
that and the tsar.
Ronald
Reagan had a policy of constructive engagement with South Africa and that led
to the DeClerk government and end of apartheid. Reagan also ended the Cold War
along with President Gorbachev in part because of hi affable character
engendering trust. The United States should think deeply about its reckless sanctions
on Russia, since they may harm U.S. interests more than Russian, in the long
run.
There is a lot of media reporting of hate crimes against various religions. Maybe the devil is particularly motivated or interested in attacking Christians, Jews, Muslims and theists in general- its difficult to know. What can be known are various statistical surveys of hate crime homicides and who the victims are. Homeless people are by far the number one group homicide victims and the number is rising. In a recent year 155 homeless people were killed by hateful of the homeless, non-homeless tressed individuals usually under the age of 25. All other victims of homicide hate crime added together was just 75. In a nation of 320 million souls, and considering the fact that there are far fewer homeless people than blacks, Jews, white males, queers, Buddhists, Muslims and so forth (actually fewer than one million homeless Americans), the number is alarmingly high. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Crime_victimology Ordinarily people have many disparaging things to say about the homeless. Even in the California homelessness debacle the comparative violence against Jews situation is trivial (although no violence is trivial). There are just about 7 million Jews in the United States and because some have a different appearance in dress, and because some are prosperous and live and worship near slums or dangerous minority populated areas they become easy targets of hate for the simple minded. Of course the liberal media does nothing to discourage the degradation of conservative religious beliefs as pro-atheist promoters of anti-faith atheism, homosexuality, abortion, legal dope and etc. Responsible prosperous Jewish synagogues tend to be frontier clusters in a political era where non-traditional and alien mass migration illegally and cultural values thrown together in a melting pot with clashes inevitable and a foreign non-melting Hispanic culture increasing in size without a substantial Jewish prosyletized cadre of acolytes. So some rudeness toward the prosperous strange Jews-especially from the urban black proletariat with a higher crime rate, lower education level, more gang violence etc occurs- it is not too significant in comparison to the crimes against the homeless. Maybe Jews are one group that does not persecute the homeless yet most of the others find some way to excrete perpetrators of violence even if just a few. Homosexuals in a given year experience perhaps 1700 violent hate crimes (not murders) and that statistically isn't high since there are 11 million declared homosexuals in the U.S.A. and probably more. It would be worth research to discover if the 1700 queer victims of hate crimes of violence were declared homosexuals or simply behavioral ones. The group with the highest number of hate crimes is black Americans. The reasons for that are well known and an evolving condition of U.S. history as the melting pot of solid black is far more influential upon the other colors in the mess. Toleration of race should be simpler to stabilize in the long run than cultural differences such as Islam and Hispanic culture as race can be non-ideological an non-cultural.
With the study of epistemology and logic one should develop a capacity of awareness concerning certainty and uncertainty that keeps one from attributing certainty beyond a given level of probability, generally. Some forms of opinion are not falsifiable because of the limits of human knowledge, so one may be certain to the limits of knowledge concerning propositions regarding God, cosmology, quantum cosmology, what dimensions really are (and how many can actually exist without actually having any substance, etc. without being wrong even if they were incorrect. One expects opinion to have a certain value function and if it serves that purpose it has fulfilled its role.
The Dallas Cowboys are expected to make a coaching change because of their inability to go very far in the playoffs the past decade. There is one practical college football coach who deserves a shot leading the Cowboys; Coach Mike Leach of Washington State and Texas Tech. A winner every place he has gone, and familiar with the Tech pass game that was worked successfully at Washington State too, Mike Leach probably could bring the Texas Tech style passing game- something with offense- to the under-achieving Dallas Cowboys. Jacksonville is another possible landing spot for coach Leach; Jaguar 6th round draft choice quarterback Gardner Minchew's college coach was Mike Leach. Taking a problem team with long-term playoff malaise from its underachieving torpor, and taking a team without the advantages of the big-time teams to win amidst the more advantaged teams is well within Mike Leach's historical record capability. The Dallas Cowboys are not a poor disadvantaged team of course. It would be interesting to see the results if Coach Leach ran rich a while.
Happy New Year- The Question; What is Self? Self as a word has an old German version like selb, yet I would think self is uncomplicated etymologically and is something like cell- the cel(f) or sel(f) is just the mine(d) associated with the cell (like a brain, prison space or whatever. Self is a word describing (self) awareness location. The word pre-exists by centuries any kind of neurological science or even very accurate philosophical analysis concerning what it is made of. The Latin word for self is 'sui'. Given a couple of millennia that's reasonably close.
Bruno Snell wrote a good book called The Greek Origins of European Thought. He related some of the etymology of language one can discern in ancient Greek. He said that verbs describing actions and events commonly experienced evolved into nouns as an ossification. For example, the action of skidding something might become an eponym for a thing called a skid. I would guess that self evolved the same way as mine or mind and was evolved from practical use by non-philosophers. On the Question; Why did Jesus reprove one who called him 'Good Master'? One might actually look at Mark 10:17-18 where the scripture is found. 17"And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" 18"And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." The guy asking the question was speaking to Jesus as a genre of teachers- a "good master". Elsewhere Jesus said to call no one teacher for one has one in heaven, and to call no man father, for God is the father. So Jesus has said in three different circumstances something of an instruction or correction on related topics. He pointed to God instead of mankind in all three instances. What may have been a matter of timing directing the public to God, including himself, before the public actually knew he was God. The average soul of that day, and especially the Jews, had no idea about the triune nature of God. Like the wine commercial, Jesus would release no wine before its appropriate time; and there was a schedule leading to the cross to follow. Mark 8: "27 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? 28 And they answered, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets."
Ecoside is a terrible thing to work. Destroying species and life on Earth in a health form and quantity happens by degrees. In the Tongass coastal forest of S.E. Alaska evil-doers have got the President's ear to support logging in the only national forest the nation has. In fact the Tongass is the shoreline greenery beyond which is about the only substantial glacier field in North America. Building roads for loggers requires overthrowing the roadless rule prevailing their now. While it is reasonable to build roads in the small cities of the region it is silly to attack the coastal rain forest and allow a legion of loggers, hunters and fossil fuel vehicles access toward contributing meaningfully to planetary ecoside. probably there should be some national and international laws against acts of ecoside. Those would be acts that contribute substantially to the degradation of the ecosphere, and allowing a spaghetti field of logging roads and further assault on the final lower latitude (comparatively) glacial field of large scale is plain dumb. The President is a New Yorker who just studies economic flow and velocity charts for materials, however ecoside scale activities need be exceptions to the rule of ignorable externalities to profit. The Congress should get done with the impeachment fiasco and work to defend the roadless rule right away before proceeding to make anti-ecoside legislation and define what qualifies as an act contributing to ecoside and mass extinction of the Holocene era. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2019/12/31/jane-fonda-friday-fire-drill-tongass-alaska-logging-trump-column/2774414001/?fbclid=IwAR2Dnc0F_Kgdy16x9B0ctgMg_AjIxXaQW1JVWRbsg6wgFbnMQ5pN88wvDsQ
The cosmology of most of the 20th century had just three basic shapes possible for the Universe; open, closed and static. The stationary theory appealed to Einstein before his general theory of relativity blew it up. Einstein liked the stationary Universe paradigm and an anti-Bohr view of quantum mechanics.
For the latter half of the 20th century, especially after the Hoyle hypothesis of a stationary Universe with new material being injected into it through some unknown cause faded, an open Universe was the prevailing paradigm for cosmology. The Universe was thought to be open and expanding forever. Now a new and solid interpretation of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation has breathed new life into the Universe as a closed structure where a straight line go far enough into space returns to its point of origin in a vast loop. That is what people thought of a closed Universe in the 1950s and 1960s and how it is in the new research.
In order to eliminate quantum uncertainty and the all-possible-worldlines before observation paradigm of the Copenhagen interpretation, a Multiverse with all possible positions for every possible particle could exist enabling the entire Multiverse to be static in a sense not usually provided. There could be an infinite number of Universes in each possible stage of its being in an infinite number of variations of infinite universes too. It may be simpler to conjecture that the mind of God is infinite in all possible ways and that might include His paradigm for the quantity of Universes. Each Universe may be an apparent actualization of thought from God in relativistic form with particle-waves. A static Multiverse or one particular closed Universe that returns to a big crunch could transform in some way to a terminal condition of etherialized particles-mass-energy merging with space-time for-itself like a black hole naked singularity evaporating into extra-dimensions as virtual particles.
To get through slow internet speed I went for a quick, easy win and it worked. Black could have stayed in the game if on the next to last move he had made an escape square for the K-he didn't see that (in 3 minute blitz time pressure).
The news that a C.I.A. analyst who worked for Susan Rice during the Obama administration is supposed to be the whistleblower isn't too surprising. The 33 year old Harvard-Yale guy seems right to work, what Scott Ritter, former nuclear compliance inspector calls "an act of treason" in trying to subvert the President of the United States to benefit the great left-wing blue balloon collusion to take down the Republican capitalist President with the help of Comey F.B.I. leadership of the late Obama era. Of course the spook whistleblower could be another Richard Jewel. https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Eric_Ciaramella A President of the United States should not be subject to four years of distraction by partisan malcontents seeking to bump him out of employment in the White House. The incessant and well coordinated attacks seem to have no end. Presently House Majority Speaker has taken the unprecedented steps of leading an impeachment movement and withholding the articles from the Senate (who would quickly dismiss the articles) until the Senate can be as jury rigged as was the House of Representatives. https://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/eric-ciaramella-brennan-protege-coup-plotter-than-whistleblower-124251/ It is said that Spook Ciaramella coordinated with Lt. Col. Vindeman about the call the President made to the Ukraine President. There is a military-industrial complex that demands conflict leading to the brink of war in Ukraine in order to continue spending on an arms buildup. They hate Russia because they are ignorant morons on Russian history and clueless about the fact that having Russia and Ukraine share Dnepr River frontage for a common border with Ryussia keeping Crimea would allow peace and prosperity to resume the course of flourishing and enable Russia and the U.S.A. to work together to solve the world ecological problems that are emiprical threats to all of mankind. Because so many Americans are complete idiots it is a simple matter to rebuild the Cold War and reinforce the corrupt Democrat Party agenda to subvert the end of the Cold War that President Reagan brought about with President Gorbachev using the lever of the Ukraine. Harvard publications have hated President Trump since the 2016 election so its not surprising that one of their alumni sought to take him down where the baloney collusion with Russia to elect Trump Mueller Probe failed. Democrats and Harvard are worse than supporters of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee would have been in President Lincoln later if they could have impeached him after 1861 for some alleged ties at the Harper's Ferry incident.
Before there were nations there were empires. Nations are an improvement on that. The word 'nation' is a term for a political polity. Actually it could be of any size or composition, or called something else, like 'corporation, fubar, commune or word-factory. I like Karl Popper, yet the paradigm of national socialism (NAZI) is not the paradigm of every nation. That is it is not the sole form of content a nation could take. A nation may be regarded as a polity where people share the same values freely (if it is a Democracy). If there were just one global nation then everyone probably would be forced to share one value system. There are innumerable other problems with one global nation I won't digress into here. A nation or a home, an organization or government, a business and any coherent cell need have practical working boundaries in order to exist. One may of course choose anarchist, chaos or anomic values or those of any moral system inconsistent with stable national cellular health. There is wild freedom after all. Some arguments are fit for a particular time, while others-Platonic political paradigms or those of Aristotle, might be regarded as more Universal. Popper's paradigm applied today would be closer to an anti-Semitic, Nazi hatred of Israel, although that position would contradict Popper's sentiments. Popper was something of a reactionary writer describing the aftermath of the Second World War. He incorrectly assumed that nationalism and populism were the real causes of the war – in addition to race and nationality. In my opinion the causes were original sin and aristocracies of the former Weimar Republic era that wanted a way to get back their lost royal prerogatives. Hitler and the national Socialists were the baby-mama surrogates for them. Popper was viewing a particular phase of human history; its demographics and evolution and incorrectly saw nations and nationalism as the cause of conflicts. It was far more complex than that. The content or political composition of many nations was inefficient, repressive or unable to play well with other nations in the early 20th century. Today mass communications and travel have changed that. In the present nations are the best political cells where the experiments of democracy can occur. They are something like what the several states were in the U.S.A. at its foundation, where differences were allowed and central government was not completely dominant and repressive of local self-determination. Nations can defend the citizens from hostile takeover by one adverse global central power; repressive minority power is the usual suspect in the denial of independence, free enterprise and self determination. The threat today is the axis of corporatism and communism that would make proles of everyone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes
Could philosophy reasonably be said to search the unknown and consider the structure of the known, with detachment from the structure to the end of revising or adding to structure if useful? The known is structured, as one might prefer, as in math, and firm processes make up the structure. Alternatively, ossification of philosophical method could be dangerous to philosophical health. The known is inducted from or explained from the unknown, yet the known may also become a composite to which elements of the unknown are added. I won't write anything here about induction of the unknown onto anything besides the known composite. The idea of the relation I had between the unknown and structures might be better said to be that of Hilbert space to various modal universes within Hilbert Space (like Venn diagram bubbles) with x to the nth elements that could be added or synthesized at the intersections. The relation between the unknown and structures of various kinds should be fairly abstract initially, with concrete structures and forms differing so much from others as they can. Structures (there is a philosophical branch called structuralism) of various material and social or immaterial field-objects can be very different in actualization whereas the unknown is at some meta-place purely abstract and without form. Errors and false leads can assuredly happen. Ossification of method might exemplify some of those ineffective methods. Applying a method inappropriately or exclusively because it is the preferred, ossified method (such as using deductive logic for a problem requiring inductive logic, has happened before. Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations sought after a way to make philosophy a rigorous science yet phenomenology didn't actually accomplish that, I seem to recall. Descartes’ Meditations and the cogito passage seems a try at not selecting a pre-existing method to ‘compute’ in with thought. The epistemological work is to know the self from first principles, or the BIOS of self-awareness as it were. He tried to think before BIOS as a sentient CPU of mind. One might consider the challenges about reality from within and without presented at the 1927 Solvay Conference whereat Einstein had a different point of view than Bohr and Heisenberg on the quantum world and nature of reality. The dispute continues unto the present. A good book about it was published in 2018 (here is a nature article about the book) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03793-2 Philosophy perhaps hasn’t a more rigorous scientific methodical approach to solving the unknown that would be better than those used by scientists. Because philosophy covers potentially very diverse fields and recombines them in thought to form novel concepts, where alternatively scientists tend to pursue particular threads of investigation proximally to induct or deduce solutions to particular problems, the methods may not always be similar. Philosophical approaches discover or find things even more than solving particular problems (perhaps).
If the Einstein-Bohm opinion about the quantum world not being the same as the Copenhagen interpretation were correct, the implication is that one solution is the infinite Multiverse could be a hypothetical description consistent with the implications, and that would bring philosophical interest concerning epistemology, theology and so forth of a Multiverse. While science can consider testing and verification of quantum experiments to prove or trace the accuracy of the Allegory of the Cave from the spot on the floor of the Cave, philosophers may pursue any other approach that is possible as well as consider the epistemological and/or theological ramifications of being prisoners chained to the floor of a cave, and if their perception of the cave determines that the cave exists, and who if anyone made it so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes
Being an internet troll is a Soviet sort of minder activity. When I started posting on the internet in 1999 there was a Universe of wild trolls that have mostly been culled through technical programming structured progress.Writers need to be free to express their opinions without minders attacking them personally and publicly. Ill-educated louts simply attacked writers ad nauseum to snuff opinions they didn't like, and free people hate that. Flunkies are always seeking ways to brown-nose an establishment and that can go too far. Ingratiating themselves to an establishment by attacking writers with different political ideas antipathetic to some of the advantaged is a usual behavior. A balance need be made between free speech and those that simply prevent others from expressing speech freely with direct personal attacks- negative conditioning, using free speech. Some of the worst trolls are international and still work on international sites-the battle to defend against trolls is much easier than it was yet it still exists.
Opportunity costs created by trolls to others can be high. I am working on editing down a 575,000 word ebook presently. After cuts it will be perhaps 175,000 words. Trolls present opportunity cost to writers who just wanted to write briefly, a small comment, and let it go at that, Trolls waste time-for-others. I have never been a Lisa Murkowski fan. In my opinion she exemplifies what is wrong in DC with the nation's political class. Since her father appointed her to the job she has failed on numerous fronts. Collectively people regard the Senate just a little higher than the House and neither much worth anything. The 23 trillion of public debt, the illegal immigration (that Lisa Murkowski helped enable with opposition to the border wall) problem, the destruction of the world ecosphere, lack of creativity in economic reform, there are dozens of reasons why she is a bad politician to me yet with uneducated people in support of bad ideas the concatenation in DC is the blind leading the blind. She might at least have not exacerbated the impeachment conundrum and further divided the nation injecting psp paralytic poisoning into the political ecosystem so more time is wasted and less gets done. I believe that tens of millions of illegal aliens are part of the homeless causality problem and that Lisa Murkowski is clueless about how to address those issues politically. Social anomie; chaos and social adversity too high reinforces crime and crimes on persons- not all souls that are missing simply had Alzheimers or were klutzes in the woods on or off trails without a sense of direction, up or down. It is important to establish social order and sober, drug-free pervasive security. There are too many comfortable people in the political world just letting the establishment economic vectors run on with a sense of urgency to solve problems somewhat less than Marie Antoinette's 'let them eat cake' paradigm.
California may have as many as 150,000 homeless people in the state; it is difficult to get an accurate count, and its politicians don't seem to know how to help with that. A lack of transportation is usually one of the largest problems homeless people face. Getting to a job at point A from point B in a timely way for an interview can be challenging. So get the poor local bus and light rail passes. Governor Newsome seems to want to get apartment vouchers for the poor paid for at federal expense. That would be a socialist approach and add billions and billions to the U.S. public debt. It is the sort of idea well to do politicians that don't spend a lot of free time thinking about social issues and finding creative solutions would have. The comfortable sometimes have a hard time understanding how the uncomfortable live. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/26/trump-sends-christmas-tweet-attacking-california-governor-over-homeless-crisis/ Apartments in California are very expensive as are homes. Subsidizing apartments in slums wouldn't be too effective in getting people to good jobs or educational facilities. It would hide them out of the way perhaps training them to graduate unto jails. Apartments in good locations are quite costly. Maybe a homeless guy moving into a good apartment could walk to work right away. I am skeptical about the likelihood of that fortuitous circumstance occurring. Homeless people given transportation passes could travel county wide to look for work and desert spaces to sleep in. They could commute to homeless facilities. The costs are known and easier to afford than housing. If safe quality regional camping facilities designed for the homeless and well supervised were also made it is possible that the homeless could find work and participate in the job market as commuters. Keeping the homeless out of jail and providing bus and light rail passes that might keep some clunkers from putting more exhaust along the freeways could reduce the homeless problem in California a little at a time. Because California is California Governor Newsome would soon want all of the illegal aliens without housing or living in overcrowded interiors to be given free federal cash for housing too. Usually the United States has a million or so people that are homeless for various reasons (not all bad) that like to travel about in search of a way to better themselves. It is not always easy to front-load all of the cash needed to get a good job, laundry, phone, transportation, housing and food all at the same time from the position of being broke on the street. I road a bicycle 35,000 miles around the U.S.A. looking for homes to paint. It was probably more difficult than it should be because of all of the illegal aliens saturating the construction industry. Some homeless people would not be able to ride a loaded bike 75 to 100 miles a day across the south or from Mexico to Canada to search for work. yet neither do they have sedentary lifestyles- they may have a hard time with the immobility of Obamacare that basically was designed for sedentary middle class people, rather than the poor stricken with pneumonia that need to find a job or a few homes to paint even so. The United States is a free country blessed not to be to much like old Europe, though challenged by illegal immigration and chaos for the lowest economic class. People journey to live in California because of the mild year around climate and lack of fire ants under a leftist, nominally sympathetic upper class of spoilt politicians. That trend is likely to continue until the lowest class has positive reinforcement structures in place that return the downtrodden to a productive and humane earning and living environment. For example, hiring those unemployed for the greatest time first via positive employer tax incentives would be one simple legal measure to make.
The Green Party of America is a pathetically weak, socialist doper partisan party regarded as something like the dregs of Democrats. That positioning to the left in support of all of the evil and divisive socialist-homosexual-abortionist-anti-Christian agenda dooms it to failure a priori so far as becoming a relevant political force in the United States during the next decade goes. The sole hope of the Green Party to get a large share of voters is that the Democrat Party continues to become viewed as a lunatic, obsessive do-nothing haters. What can the Green Party do to become a real factor in U.S. politics and not remain on the bottom with 1% of the Presidential vote? Removing the divisive, socialist hate agenda to become a party of pure devotion to ecological economics with dozens of clear, articulate opinions about how to transition the nation to a sustainable ecologically synergistic economy is the sole avenue for improvement. Stating over and over the principles of ecological economics; educating the voters, should be the one focused task of the American Green Party. Transition to sustainable ecological economics with liberty and justice for all is probably the main reason for a Green Party to exist; it need be the leader in facing the greatest challenge to U.S. and global economics of the age. It can't do that with all of the hoary clap trap of socialism and divisive social issues that alienate at least half of the electorate. https://www.amazon.com/Ecological-Economics-Second-Principles-Applications/dp/1597266817/ref=dp_ob_title_bk There is a Universe of shrill and polemical opinion of divisive social issues that voters can listen to, watch or read on the media every day of the year. What is absent is articulate opinion explaining how to use free enterprise and clever, innovative regulation to seamlessly transition toe entire U.S. economy to a new foundation of ecological economics. Joining the mesmerizing and tiresome Indian cobra piper show without meaningful ecological economics will not serve the public well. Advance would be far simpler from the basis of a center-conservative social position with the large exception of solid ecological economics as a progressive, oars in the water way to naturally select free enterprise business and zoning that promotes quality over quantity while leaving the deranged social issues that aren't economic and tired ideas in advocacy of bureaucratic socialism to those spending their lives with recreational drug over-use.
President Trump has officially signed the Space Force into law. Finally an organized military presence will be established to defend against threats to world existence from space and the Universe of things that could go wrong. https://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2019/12/23/space-force-official-change-coming-patrick-air-force-base/2732133001/ A military space force that has a few true space ships and space soldiers able to travel to combat asteroids, aliens solar flares, world conquering Dicatures seeking to intimidate Earth dwellers with particle beams, lasers, accelerated rocks, boulders etc, redirected meteors and whatever else including hidden extra-terrestrial bio-weapons labs might be met with warriors kicking in the doors instead of school teachers, scientists, politicians or billionaires able to purchase tickets. Some fear a space force; perhaps Democrats as well as Communist Chinese politicians that would seek a world domination unconcerned with independent space force personnel not willing to go quietly into the evil empire as would Democrats. Policing the high frontier is necessary as human space ventures and projects independent of Earth ramp up.
When the editor of the magazine Christianity Today wrote
that President Trump should be impeached he made a blatantly political entry
into the pig pen of indolent ignorant swine that is the American political
swamp. President Trump is the sole candidate whom is friendly toward Christian
interests in comparison to the godless, abortionist, homosexual, communist
Democrat Party flunkies that are anti-American globalists promoting national amoeba
blob-hood for all citizens with ample dope for all. Sectarian Christian editors
should try to stay out of the swamp and not make themselves servants of evil
even if unintentionally.
President Trump is squaring away several issues that need
be done if the United States is to continue as a sovereign nation. He is working
on securing the national borders against the incursion of illegal aliens; he
has appointed better conservative judges than President G.W. Bush, rectification
of trade and defense of intellectual properties against Chinese predation and
so forth. Democrats are entirely spaced out in an alternative financial
Universe where socialism will pay for tens of trillions of dollars of new
public debt.
Christian evangelicals are theologically ill-informed and
wreak great havoc upon American conservatives and the environment because of
their wrong belief that Armageddon is ahead and they will be raptured out into
thin air before the worst. That wrong opinion of pre-tribulation is shared by
the Muslim world. The correct opinion is that the tribulation occurred in the
first century a.d. and this is the time of building up the kingdom of God.
Christian writers should read the works of Dr. Kenneth Gentry if they are so
woefully ill-informed about the book of the Revelation.
Democrats are in effect the party of the anti-Christ.
Wrong theology in support of homosexual marriage and political globalism that
reinforces concentrated wealth while degrading nationalism lead to innumerable
dystopian scenarios wherein silly man-bun wearing Christian editors can descry
with a lispy croak the evil of the anti-Christ approaching and the doom of
everyone to plead for increased contributions and rapture. That is an incorrect
political approach to addressing the real world challenges to the U.S.A.
Democrats are far more interested in dividing the nation
to get a replacement agenda accomplished with demographic party qualified
members replacing the 20th century establishment class than fixing the
environment. Democrats exploit the world environmental crisis in order to
benefit their socialist-homo-economic empowerment-corporatist-socialist agenda.
If they were serious about transitioning quickly to ecological economics they
would leave out the socialist homo atheist agenda and work rationally.
With the very real concerns about global warming and planetary ecospheric decay with a mass extinction in progress there is no Green Party in the U.S.A. that is not entirely corrupted with the poison pill of atheism, homosexuality and abortion. There is no plain fix-the-environment, no-guile leadership factor in existence at all. Therefore many moral Americans choose to just let free enterprise and capitalism respond to the needs of the market and environment together instead of taking the known socialist-atheist-homosexual course of front-loaded doom with the pretense of being environmentally responsible.
Democrats seek after wealth and are a new age immoral
party coated with Teflon of the Beyond Good and Evil ethos of the 19th century
philosopher Nietzsche. Donald Trump is the right Republican leader to address
them; he understands what they are and can get in the mud with them and win a
fight. Christian leaders that inexpertly hope for some sort of ascension of the
honorable V.P. Mike Pence would divide the Republican Party at a critical time
and find a way to reinforce the Democrat homo-atheist-socialist agenda. That
isn't a Christian work at all.
