Would Hong Kong's democracy have ended if citizens owned a lot of guns

The Chinese Communist party has apparently effectively ended democracy in Hong Kong by casting out about all political dissidents under the rubric of a national security law. Actual democracy might present a threat to communism so they put it down. In the U.S.A. corporatism tends to act in a similar manner curbing free expression. They just haven't gone so far as China has because people still own guns in the U.S.A., unlike Hong Kong.

www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hong-kong-freedoms-democracy-protests-china-crackdown

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

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

The Democratic party sometimes seems to forget that the American revolution occurred with a lot of shedding of blood, and that organizational goons really do need to keep a certain distance from homes with armed residents, and that is an inconvenience for politicians, CEOs and sundry megalomaniacs seeking total control of a society.

President Biden recently said that no amendment is absolute, in regard especially to the second amendment. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard hated the use of the word 'absolute' that was used prolifically in his day, by certain Hegelians if I remember correctly. The word absolute has little additional meaning in a phrase quite often- it is something of a distraction. A constitutional amendment is ether meaningful and lawful or not. Some lawyers feel they can just disregard the constitution and amendments as inconveniences with work-arounds when they like.

It is surprising in a way to learn that many people aren't really for democracy nor are aware of what it takes to sustain an actual democracy. The Catholic Church may have some imperialist ambitions left over from former times long ago, and some protestant clergy actually are for a theocracy-even some conservatives, and I don't mean the one that returns with the physical appearance of Jesus Christ.

Democracy can be defeated by mass social decadence internally, by concentrated wealth so great that corporatism replaces it with citizens being silent, materialist worker-bees not much different from a communist government-fine for average, uncreative minions. It can be ended by a spoilt citizenry that inherited it and forgot that it does requires defense and an armed citizenry, sobriety and god sense.

A democracy should have classical sensibilities, modest goals and plain laws such as everyone can understand. Equal protection of the citizens, security of the nation itself with strong border control and sustainable ecological economic governance. The Romans had a few laws that everyone understand and that worked alright until the people developed bad policies, too much wealth and foreign estates and the colonies grew up in sophistication. The administration should not monkey with the judicial branch and think about trying to pack an expanded court with Democrats and corporatists. That would be another way to end democracy from the inside.

Work over-exertion kills twice as many Americans as gun homicides in the USA

 Apparently the United States does have about seven gun deaths per 100,000 people annually. That probably is short of comprising an epidemic.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

Most gun deaths are suicides, and it is unfortunate that is something of an epidemic (suicide), and the causality be be in part a result of horrible bi-partisan politics in D.C. If politicians could create a better environment with recovering wilderness and border security the fatalism, desperation and sense of futility might fade away. Some Americans probably cannot even afford a good bowl of chili and others are hop heads doped by drugs.

There are 12.4 automobile accident deaths per 100,000 people annually and that could use some better regulation to scale it back from threatening to become an epidemic. Machinery kills 531 Americans per 100,000 each year. In some ways it would be good to ban infernal machines.

https://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate.html

Fourteen deaths per 100,000 are caused each year by over-exertion. One must carefully weigh the epidemic of work over-exertion deaths versus those tragic deaths caused by sitting on a couch drinking sugary drinks per 100,000.

https://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe

The actual Covid 19 epidemic has maybe 170 deaths per 100,000 people in the U.S.A. so far.

The Wealth of Corporations instead of Nations is a snappy title

 The wealth of corporations has replaced the wealth of nations in the capitalist universe. Adam Smith’s nearly 250-year-old book had no concept of the rise of global corporations replacing national economies. It would be a useful practice to create a global corporate minimum tax on corporations in order to more equitably allocate financial resources locally to citizens instead of clever planetary gamers that own the house.

The Wealth of Nations Corporations  https://www.secondsale.com/i/the-wealth-of-nations/9780679783367?campaignid=12358999606&adgroupid=121557387007&keyword=&device=c&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsLWDBhCmARIsAPSL3_2PBJ4V651xNpdkiW_nYIOiGOnTNHAcZ2o5W3rFBjR7G7GNzNaP5W4aAmDPEALw_wcB

Modern economics does have a resemblance to gambling casinos with the odds tilted toward the house too much. Capital's rate of return is greater than the average increase of labor wages so workers become something like like chattel as wealth is concentrated and self-reinforcing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century

In economics, unlike gambling casinos, the house should be non-profit and inventors and workers including management should receive compensation for their efforts in response to what they put in to it. Presently the house takes too large a percentage of profits and keeps tightening up the flow to everyone besides the owners. That restricts invention and political independence of nations as a planetary class of plutocrats own everything in site and people shop at the company store.

Jobs can be relocated globally in the quest for cheap labor in support of corporate proplits. That is a race to the bottom for every man if not for every woman who may be more contented with having equal wages with men by getting rid of manly jobs to distant poor nations or  done with illegal migrant labor. Black males can always write on corporate social media and earn a living can't they?

Is California better prepared in 2021 to stuff its annual fire disaster and state of emergency?

California's wild fires create vast left-wing clouds of smoke that drift to the right and north making heavy smog and bad breathing conditions for many. One wonders if that state is better prepared to extinguish forest fires this year than it usually is. Each year becomes a little warmer and drier than the last it seems reinforcing conditions for forest fires. At some point the state of California might find it useful to invent new, better ways of swiftly getting wildfires under control so residents of other states that are downwind won't get the usual smoke and mirrors.

While California has its usual attractions like Hollywood attractions and the recall of the governor, it should invest some substantial thought into fire control in the Northern part of the state.

 

 While California has its usual attractions like Hollywood attractions and the recall of the governor, it should invest some substantial thought into fire control in the Northern part of the state. Maybe they could invest in several more big gulp aircraft to have more fluids to dump on flames faster. Perhaps the aircraft could be electric or even drones specially designed to reload fire retardant or water, seek and extinguish with a high cyclical rate.

Build at least one trans-con hyper loop Pres Joe- win one for the Gipper

 On a happy Easter morning when the nation can feel blessed in the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the national infrastructure bill is calling to President Joe Biden for an upgrade to afford the construction of even one trans-continental hyper-tube. The resurrection of U.S. infrastructure requires new thinking and technology instead of just investing in already existing technology.

Sure one would like all truck stops in America to have electric recharging stations. Maybe there should be discounts on biscuits and gravy for any driver with an electric vehicle; yet getting just one hype-tube built that tosses passengers and cargo across the nation at 1000 k.p.h. would indicate the nation is not entirely mired in past infrastructure and actually looks ahead.

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/11/hyper-tube-train-model-hits-1-000kmh/

It would be great if super-freighters moving across the oceans could directly unload containers to railroads from the docks and if rail cars could be independently switched to destination routes- maybe their is some streamlined electric way to upgrade to better, faster, cleaner intermodal systems technology, infrastructure and flowcharting, yet practical hyper-tubes require federal intervention for rights of way and execution; so good luck Joe on actually getting some infrastructure resurrection started for getting anything done in the U.S.A. is rather difficult these days with all of the litigation and natural human tendency to criticize more than create.

If the Universe is a simulation that includes a para-normal construction of God paradigmatically

If the Universe is a simulation that includes a para-normal construction of God paradigmatically. Recently some have felt they can confirm that the Universe is a simulation. I posted a link to an article at scientific Americans that uses a 'scientific' method to do so.

Philosophers might have trouble combining cosmology, epistemology and hermeneutics into analytical structures to regard all of the data that is relevant in so far as the Universe potentially as a simulation. Scientific American recently posted an article detailing a way to 'prove' the Universe or Multiverse is a simulation. Using the speed of light as a limiting paradigm that could only exist in a simulation rather than in natural physics (an artifact of a simulation ala creationism) is an interesting and meaningful philosophical question. If the Universe is a level four Multiverse as Tegmark writes about in The Mathematical Universe it could also be a simulation or alternately yet not exclusively exist in the mind of God.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confirmed-we-live-in-a-simulation/

I don't know of many contemporary philosophers who can examine and compare the wealth of cosmology material, Multiverse theory, simulations and the capacity God to determine a priori the existence and order of all possible Universes within His mind. Plotinus might have addressed such questions as well as Augustine or Plato-Socrates.

Proof that the Universe is a simulation would work as well as a proof that the Universe was created in the mind of God, or exists as a 'subroutine' in one of his logically ordered thoughts.

Democrat Divisiveness will hobble the Biden infrastructure plan

Democrats are so inept at Domestic politics, other than those of force that they excel at, as to assure national divisiveness on simple issues of interest to all like infrastructure upgrade and renewal. To some the party seems like a domestic terror agency and to others it is one that has a right to attack white males for being klansmen as if they all generally are or were. Democrats attack on cultural issues that assure distractions from objective economic policy that requires solid progressive taxation to afford and that cannot be accomplished when their support from across the aisle fades away to non-existence. Grace matters; God's grace is the sole reason that anyone is carried to salvation and eternity in heaven. God's grace can also be helpful one would think in getting the economy to transition toward ecological economic policies that work.

Futurists and philosophers seeking the well-being of the nation and world tend to need to have a nation to work with rather than a global entity.  They cannot do well if culture agitators turn the citizens toward fighting against themselves. The most likely course of affairs for the U.S.A. to take politically these days is just to follow the money and conform everything politically to things that support the most concentrated wealth, so stirring up racial and other divisions to redistribute a smaller pie more equitably without reconfiguring economics inclusive of the rich that nothing much gets done. The Biden administration has a good chance of disappearing in four years without getting much done besides the cultural goals they have for-themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA8Fh6DzCTo

It is possible to continue current and historical classical economics without much government intervention besides regulations that direct economic activity toward environmental ends. Sure those can be reversed if they were done by executive order yet if the economics become quite well established they may continue even if another dinosaur anti-ecosphere Republican takes the White House in 2024. The one thing Republicans could do to get more popular support would be to take the lead on environmental economic progress- it is a small concession to make and would place the party economically toward the front of the pack as they were during the industrial revolution rather than at the back as foot-dragging resistors to progress.