How I Learned Not to Fear the NWO and to Embrace (?) Crony Capitalism:
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How best should ordered society incentive production of more of that which is good? How active, big, and centralized should governance be? The more artificial the environment, the more the need for government in order to sustain it. Artifice begets need for artifice. Ordered freedom and dignity requires constant reassessment for how best to centralize versus delegate lines of guidance and control.
Workers ought not be paid outside ranges and limits that will keep them working ... at least enough to sustain the artificial environment that society makes. A successful society sustains neither itself nor the fulfillment of its members by underpaying or overpaying its workers. A municipal corporation needs means by which to adjust to circumstances, in order to mete out monetary rewards in such a way as to preserve or enhance its defenses, organization, and wealth. Society will not develop or keep the workers it needs by satiating them with all its rainy day resources. Incentives do not work well on those who are starved into decrepitude or satiated beyond their appetites. Decline is not stopped by whipping people who are doing their best, nor by comforting people who are doing their least.
Rather, smoothing and enhancing the engine of social efficiency and momentum requires that desires must be stoked, slaked, or slackened — as needed. Thus, ask: What meta incentives can best incentive those who spread incentives? Under what merit should those who spread incentives be selected? What is or should be their motivation? Does evolution tend most to reward and motivate those who thirst for individual glory ... or those who thirst to serve meta or collective values?
What should be done with the people and resources of corporations that have succeeded in driving out all competitors, that grow soft in comfort and artifice? Should their progeny be humored to become aristocratic oligarchs? Should ownership of such corporate resources be confiscated, socialized, and spread? How can or should the worthy functions of indecent or non-competitive corporations be restored to decency and efficiency, once neither the model of free enterprise nor the model of socialized governance is shown to prevent cannibalism and decline? Should some kind of NWO model be guided into evolution? Should it be based on international trade by borderless corporations, that invest in owning politicians and governments? Should rewards be filtered mainly to those who please such a NWO? IS CRONY CAPITALISM OFTEN GOOD? Can it establish a long lasting civilization?
Should the resources of indecent and non-competitive corporations be cannibalized, nationalized, or spread, so as to entice all with a greater sense of entitlement, even as subconscious messages are continuously blared in order to stoke people with alternative, greater desires and expectations? How can non-competitive corporations be cannibalized, without consigning their worthy functions to a death spiral? How can production or population be reduced, without consigning remnants to lower standards of living? Should humanity seek to stoke change and evolution towards creative destruction, progressive surpassage, balanced sustenance, or some mix thereof? Should humanity be reduced, in many realms or aspects, to economic units with little expectation of privacy, and in other realms to units of self reliance and private dignity?
Should a brave, new, evolving reality avail the pursuit of individual dignity and autonomous expression only in virtual vice or privacy “holodecks?” Are holodecks to become the new heaven, for availing psychological sensations of sweetness and eternity? Who has a read on what God or History intends (or should intend)? Who can see very far down the unfolding rabbit trail that avails our common fate? What should remain of respect for God or spirituality? Is enlightenment a collective or an individual thing? Apart from learning to empathize to context, is it possible for a reasonably intelligent being to advocate for TRUTH or PRINCIPLES in the spreading of opportunities or materialism that can be morally consistent?
Should we join the NWO, rather than resist it?
*****
Our world is filled with meretricious delinquents who want to be paid or indulged in their youth, for doing little or nothing of redeeming social value. At an early age, delinquents often find rationalizations for attaching themselves to politicians who deal out dole, earmarks, graft, and thuggery. Socially responsible folk tend to be less involved with looking for government handouts or favoritism. Later in life, seeing the socially corrosive effects of parasitism, they tend to become more politically oppositional, seeking to return government to the supervision of those who are socially responsible. This is difficult because forces for misleading, tempting, and corrupting youth are so opportunistic, malicious, and potent.
***********
How do particles of consciousness couple and decouple --- with local matter and local inertial fields, often to take advantage of the most callow of body and mind --- to influence evolving cultures and codes of mores? How abides consciousness as conscious of itself, as a changeless essence, which images and/or experiences continuous change? Of what unchanging essence are the following artifactual: time, extension, form, substance, sequence, and change? I doubt such riddle is "solved," merely by postulating some syncretic neologism (such as space-time, wave-particle, or meta consciousness) --- although I do appreciate that such postulations may advance more images upon images and conceptualizations upon conceptualizations --- with no final, reconciling solution in sight or mind. (Example: Is our universe "really" some 13 billion years old? But, if time is an illusion, and space-time is the superior construct for modeling reality, then should not our universe be measured not in time but in space-time? But how can a mortal make a measurement in any such a term?)
Our condition for being immersed in an irresolvable riddle may be termed one of existential angst: What are we, what are we becoming, what should we be becoming, what should we fear becoming, how can we communicate, and how can we best define our terms (even the most fundamental of our terms, such as: existence, being, consciousness, morality, substance, space, and time)? Well, evolutionary pressures impose practical constraints upon our use of terms. Thus, for matters of proximate urgency, we find ways to communicate and make ourselves reasonably well understood. However, when we seek to fine tune our communications, to extend our ideas to the more precise, macro, global, or universal, we tend to find that every non-trivial term we thought was reasonably clear seems unavoidably to blur into ambiguities, inconsistencies, paradoxes, and riddles.
Example --- paradox of being in a state of self awareness: To be aware of oneself as apart from one's environment, one must sense relative change between one's self and one's environment. Thus, one's identity seems constant, even as one's identity seems continuously to be changing. Thus, nothing changes, except that everything changes. Thus, only the present always manifests into existence, yet the variously possible forms of the eternal present continuously change. That which is of changeless essence seems constantly and continuously to be changing ... in every aspect that we can measure or sense. Such is the existential river in which we swim, even though we seem unable ever to discover or determine any complete, coherent, and consistent understanding of that river .... even though that river is common to everything of which we experience and everything about which we may communicate. We wish to be clear .... and, in immediate, pressing, and practical pursuits, we often seem to be clear. Yet, when pushed to wider applications, beyond definitional trivialities, we find no one and no explanation that avails any understanding that is complete, coherent, and consistent. Rather, every reasonably practiced philosopher seems able, eventually, to demonstrate flaws in every attempt at a complete, coherent, and consistent philosophy of nature, morality (or nature-morality?).
Thus we often dispute, to try "rigorously" to measure and differentiate among qualities of existence, states of being, quantities of substance, clarity of information, limits of potentiality, and spirituality of consciousness ... seeking to divide that which is of superior, prior, real, or causal essence (phenomena?) from that which abides merely in appearance, illusion, derivation, artifact, association, or properties (epiphenomena?). Pushed far enough in any debate, even our most fundamental terms become tricksters.
Example: If the only things that "exist" are considered to abide only in their present forms, then it seems that things must wink in and out of existence ... as time passes. In that case, existence seems dependent upon time, rather than superior to time. For some purposes, “existence” is a word we are often taught to deploy under an inference that only that which manifests in present time actually “really exists.”
For other purposes of discussing “reality,” we are taught that time in itself is only a stubborn illusion, and that the “real reality” abides only in respect of a construct of relativity, which we may refer to as “space-time.” When we say: Only that which presently manifests really exists, but the present itself does not really exist except relative to space-time, which itself is relative to context ... then is it any wonder our communications about objective existence and "reality" become so confused? Is reality (or "existence itself"?) an independent, fundamental essence? Or is existence a mere relativistic aspect or property? Must any superior, particular, or holistic substance, quality, or consciousness abide, independently, in itself? One may begin to ask: Does it make good sense to imagine that objective reality can be rigorously divided from that which is only subjective? One may begin to ask: Does the chattering of “Objectivists” make any more "rigorous" sense than the chirping of crickets (or the smiling and winking in and out of Cheshire cats)? One may begin to ask: Can either "existence" or "reality" be rigorously or clearly divided or divorced from reason or consciousness? That is: To what extent does the quantity and/or quality of Existence of every Real thing or activity depend — for its being noun, verb, gerund, property, aspect, essence, connector, or placeholder — upon its contextually measured relation to at least one particular perspective of consciousness? Personally, I don’t think Rand convincingly showed that everything flows from “A is A,” where “A” is restricted either to a material thing or a mathematical function. Rather, I suspect that neither empiricism nor logic can avail a coherent explanation of either morality or consciousness ... free of regard for some notion of meta consciousness or spirituality.
How may existential ambiguity and angst relate to the evolution of cultures, economies, nations, and governance? What forms for societies and economies are most fit to evolve and flourish along the discernible part of the path that is unfolding before our world? Whatever the environment that may have sustained an era for the rise of industrial competition among free enterprising business concerns, unsullied by monopolies and governmental favoritism, that environment is defunct. Competition for buying political favors is irretrievably part of the new reality. The problem now is: How do we cope? Where do we go from here? Must pressures of increasing population and centralization of technology entail centralization of control over variously delegated lines of power? Must complex social organization entail detailed centralization and rationing? Must such pressures entail mind inculcation and control? Ought all individuals to consent to be programmed to think in ways needed to sustain the social organization? Must we lobotomize the human mind in order to save it? Should we accept or change this new reality? How, and towards what direction?
Morally, one may want that adult human beings should be able to be authentic and truthful with themselves in their own thinking. That is, that neither political nor economic pressures should be allowed to overtake a person's freedom of thought, speech, and communication. Practically, one needs to appreciate that complex technological societies necessitate hierarchical lines of communication, decision making, and control. So, how should a decent civilization promote various persons and classes to superintend positions along such hierarchies? Must society be filtered into classes of alphas, betas, and epsilons? Should such filtering be planned or random? To compete in the brave new reality, must the social form assert limits on the allowable power and range for each individual mind? Must citizens be made to identify with, and believe in, ideas that are self fulfilling to their assigned roles within a society? Who can/should be allowed to transcend? Must that transcending be denied to most? Who merits transcending to “real truth,” and how? Reasonably, how ought freedom to be taught or apportioned: Should freedom of mind be denied to all, reserved only to a few, denied to most, or availed to all? How, in a complex society? Has Big Capitalism closed the gate against free enterprise? Must Crony Corporatism continue to increase, as the next phase for Big Gov? Must Big Gov lead to Big Syndicate and Big Bro? In truth, what ought decent political philosophy (Objectivism?) to promote, in order to roll back Crony Corporatism, stifle Big Bro, restore individual freedom, promote decent civilization, avail worthwhile industrial and technological change at necessary levels of centralization, or defend against America's becoming absorbed into the kind of depotism that abounds in cultures it trades with? Why?
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The first immigrants to America came less to gain wealth than to gain freedom of mind and opportunity. Exigencies eventually led them to freedom of enterprise, which produced wealth as byproduct. Is the process likely reversible? Does pursuit of wealth eventually likely lead to freedom of enterprise, then to freedom to choose one's model for moral or spiritual purposefulness? Will Communist and Islamic nations, as they gain in wealth, likely come to respect freedom of enterprise and religion, or will their rulers more likely fashion ways to preserve despotism? Is it worth the risk for Western Civ to willingly trade with and enrich such regimes? Regardless, must all regimes eventually be reduced to be ruled under a global aristocracy of extra-national, international corporatists, who will come to own, operate, reward, and punish all nations, cults, religions, and sects? Will happiness then abide in a Brave New Dream that advertises only illusions of freedom and dignity? Thus, must the economics of governance shift from the Invisible Hand to a hierarchy of Corporate Internationalists? Is this the age of the China Model? Given the fallibility of individuals and given that power corrupts, how happy is such a shift likely to make Americans? Behind masks, is worldwide rule under a New World Order most for the good, the evil, or simply the unavoidable? Should Western Civ balk at, or embrace, trade that reduces us to a lowest common NWO? So long as the acts of Rinos and Dinos default to embrace the NWO, and so long as the middle class remains indifferent, ineffectual, or shrinking, the NWO needs no active conspiracy. All that is necessary is that the middle class do nothing.
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How best should ordered society incentive production of more of that which is good? How active, big, and centralized should governance be? The more artificial the environment, the more the need for government in order to sustain it. Artifice begets need for artifice. Ordered freedom and dignity requires constant reassessment for how best to centralize versus delegate lines of guidance and control.
Workers ought not be paid outside ranges and limits that will keep them working ... at least enough to sustain the artificial environment that society makes. A successful society sustains neither itself nor the fulfillment of its members by underpaying or overpaying its workers. A municipal corporation needs means by which to adjust to circumstances, in order to mete out monetary rewards in such a way as to preserve or enhance its defenses, organization, and wealth. Society will not develop or keep the workers it needs by satiating them with all its rainy day resources. Incentives do not work well on those who are starved into decrepitude or satiated beyond their appetites. Decline is not stopped by whipping people who are doing their best, nor by comforting people who are doing their least.
Rather, smoothing and enhancing the engine of social efficiency and momentum requires that desires must be stoked, slaked, or slackened — as needed. Thus, ask: What meta incentives can best incentive those who spread incentives? Under what merit should those who spread incentives be selected? What is or should be their motivation? Does evolution tend most to reward and motivate those who thirst for individual glory ... or those who thirst to serve meta or collective values?
What should be done with the people and resources of corporations that have succeeded in driving out all competitors, that grow soft in comfort and artifice? Should their progeny be humored to become aristocratic oligarchs? Should ownership of such corporate resources be confiscated, socialized, and spread? How can or should the worthy functions of indecent or non-competitive corporations be restored to decency and efficiency, once neither the model of free enterprise nor the model of socialized governance is shown to prevent cannibalism and decline? Should some kind of NWO model be guided into evolution? Should it be based on international trade by borderless corporations, that invest in owning politicians and governments? Should rewards be filtered mainly to those who please such a NWO? IS CRONY CAPITALISM OFTEN GOOD? Can it establish a long lasting civilization?
Should the resources of indecent and non-competitive corporations be cannibalized, nationalized, or spread, so as to entice all with a greater sense of entitlement, even as subconscious messages are continuously blared in order to stoke people with alternative, greater desires and expectations? How can non-competitive corporations be cannibalized, without consigning their worthy functions to a death spiral? How can production or population be reduced, without consigning remnants to lower standards of living? Should humanity seek to stoke change and evolution towards creative destruction, progressive surpassage, balanced sustenance, or some mix thereof? Should humanity be reduced, in many realms or aspects, to economic units with little expectation of privacy, and in other realms to units of self reliance and private dignity?
Should a brave, new, evolving reality avail the pursuit of individual dignity and autonomous expression only in virtual vice or privacy “holodecks?” Are holodecks to become the new heaven, for availing psychological sensations of sweetness and eternity? Who has a read on what God or History intends (or should intend)? Who can see very far down the unfolding rabbit trail that avails our common fate? What should remain of respect for God or spirituality? Is enlightenment a collective or an individual thing? Apart from learning to empathize to context, is it possible for a reasonably intelligent being to advocate for TRUTH or PRINCIPLES in the spreading of opportunities or materialism that can be morally consistent?
Should we join the NWO, rather than resist it?
*****
Our world is filled with meretricious delinquents who want to be paid or indulged in their youth, for doing little or nothing of redeeming social value. At an early age, delinquents often find rationalizations for attaching themselves to politicians who deal out dole, earmarks, graft, and thuggery. Socially responsible folk tend to be less involved with looking for government handouts or favoritism. Later in life, seeing the socially corrosive effects of parasitism, they tend to become more politically oppositional, seeking to return government to the supervision of those who are socially responsible. This is difficult because forces for misleading, tempting, and corrupting youth are so opportunistic, malicious, and potent.
***********
How do particles of consciousness couple and decouple --- with local matter and local inertial fields, often to take advantage of the most callow of body and mind --- to influence evolving cultures and codes of mores? How abides consciousness as conscious of itself, as a changeless essence, which images and/or experiences continuous change? Of what unchanging essence are the following artifactual: time, extension, form, substance, sequence, and change? I doubt such riddle is "solved," merely by postulating some syncretic neologism (such as space-time, wave-particle, or meta consciousness) --- although I do appreciate that such postulations may advance more images upon images and conceptualizations upon conceptualizations --- with no final, reconciling solution in sight or mind. (Example: Is our universe "really" some 13 billion years old? But, if time is an illusion, and space-time is the superior construct for modeling reality, then should not our universe be measured not in time but in space-time? But how can a mortal make a measurement in any such a term?)
Our condition for being immersed in an irresolvable riddle may be termed one of existential angst: What are we, what are we becoming, what should we be becoming, what should we fear becoming, how can we communicate, and how can we best define our terms (even the most fundamental of our terms, such as: existence, being, consciousness, morality, substance, space, and time)? Well, evolutionary pressures impose practical constraints upon our use of terms. Thus, for matters of proximate urgency, we find ways to communicate and make ourselves reasonably well understood. However, when we seek to fine tune our communications, to extend our ideas to the more precise, macro, global, or universal, we tend to find that every non-trivial term we thought was reasonably clear seems unavoidably to blur into ambiguities, inconsistencies, paradoxes, and riddles.
Example --- paradox of being in a state of self awareness: To be aware of oneself as apart from one's environment, one must sense relative change between one's self and one's environment. Thus, one's identity seems constant, even as one's identity seems continuously to be changing. Thus, nothing changes, except that everything changes. Thus, only the present always manifests into existence, yet the variously possible forms of the eternal present continuously change. That which is of changeless essence seems constantly and continuously to be changing ... in every aspect that we can measure or sense. Such is the existential river in which we swim, even though we seem unable ever to discover or determine any complete, coherent, and consistent understanding of that river .... even though that river is common to everything of which we experience and everything about which we may communicate. We wish to be clear .... and, in immediate, pressing, and practical pursuits, we often seem to be clear. Yet, when pushed to wider applications, beyond definitional trivialities, we find no one and no explanation that avails any understanding that is complete, coherent, and consistent. Rather, every reasonably practiced philosopher seems able, eventually, to demonstrate flaws in every attempt at a complete, coherent, and consistent philosophy of nature, morality (or nature-morality?).
Thus we often dispute, to try "rigorously" to measure and differentiate among qualities of existence, states of being, quantities of substance, clarity of information, limits of potentiality, and spirituality of consciousness ... seeking to divide that which is of superior, prior, real, or causal essence (phenomena?) from that which abides merely in appearance, illusion, derivation, artifact, association, or properties (epiphenomena?). Pushed far enough in any debate, even our most fundamental terms become tricksters.
Example: If the only things that "exist" are considered to abide only in their present forms, then it seems that things must wink in and out of existence ... as time passes. In that case, existence seems dependent upon time, rather than superior to time. For some purposes, “existence” is a word we are often taught to deploy under an inference that only that which manifests in present time actually “really exists.”
For other purposes of discussing “reality,” we are taught that time in itself is only a stubborn illusion, and that the “real reality” abides only in respect of a construct of relativity, which we may refer to as “space-time.” When we say: Only that which presently manifests really exists, but the present itself does not really exist except relative to space-time, which itself is relative to context ... then is it any wonder our communications about objective existence and "reality" become so confused? Is reality (or "existence itself"?) an independent, fundamental essence? Or is existence a mere relativistic aspect or property? Must any superior, particular, or holistic substance, quality, or consciousness abide, independently, in itself? One may begin to ask: Does it make good sense to imagine that objective reality can be rigorously divided from that which is only subjective? One may begin to ask: Does the chattering of “Objectivists” make any more "rigorous" sense than the chirping of crickets (or the smiling and winking in and out of Cheshire cats)? One may begin to ask: Can either "existence" or "reality" be rigorously or clearly divided or divorced from reason or consciousness? That is: To what extent does the quantity and/or quality of Existence of every Real thing or activity depend — for its being noun, verb, gerund, property, aspect, essence, connector, or placeholder — upon its contextually measured relation to at least one particular perspective of consciousness? Personally, I don’t think Rand convincingly showed that everything flows from “A is A,” where “A” is restricted either to a material thing or a mathematical function. Rather, I suspect that neither empiricism nor logic can avail a coherent explanation of either morality or consciousness ... free of regard for some notion of meta consciousness or spirituality.
How may existential ambiguity and angst relate to the evolution of cultures, economies, nations, and governance? What forms for societies and economies are most fit to evolve and flourish along the discernible part of the path that is unfolding before our world? Whatever the environment that may have sustained an era for the rise of industrial competition among free enterprising business concerns, unsullied by monopolies and governmental favoritism, that environment is defunct. Competition for buying political favors is irretrievably part of the new reality. The problem now is: How do we cope? Where do we go from here? Must pressures of increasing population and centralization of technology entail centralization of control over variously delegated lines of power? Must complex social organization entail detailed centralization and rationing? Must such pressures entail mind inculcation and control? Ought all individuals to consent to be programmed to think in ways needed to sustain the social organization? Must we lobotomize the human mind in order to save it? Should we accept or change this new reality? How, and towards what direction?
Morally, one may want that adult human beings should be able to be authentic and truthful with themselves in their own thinking. That is, that neither political nor economic pressures should be allowed to overtake a person's freedom of thought, speech, and communication. Practically, one needs to appreciate that complex technological societies necessitate hierarchical lines of communication, decision making, and control. So, how should a decent civilization promote various persons and classes to superintend positions along such hierarchies? Must society be filtered into classes of alphas, betas, and epsilons? Should such filtering be planned or random? To compete in the brave new reality, must the social form assert limits on the allowable power and range for each individual mind? Must citizens be made to identify with, and believe in, ideas that are self fulfilling to their assigned roles within a society? Who can/should be allowed to transcend? Must that transcending be denied to most? Who merits transcending to “real truth,” and how? Reasonably, how ought freedom to be taught or apportioned: Should freedom of mind be denied to all, reserved only to a few, denied to most, or availed to all? How, in a complex society? Has Big Capitalism closed the gate against free enterprise? Must Crony Corporatism continue to increase, as the next phase for Big Gov? Must Big Gov lead to Big Syndicate and Big Bro? In truth, what ought decent political philosophy (Objectivism?) to promote, in order to roll back Crony Corporatism, stifle Big Bro, restore individual freedom, promote decent civilization, avail worthwhile industrial and technological change at necessary levels of centralization, or defend against America's becoming absorbed into the kind of depotism that abounds in cultures it trades with? Why?
5 comments:
I've seen charts that suggest that crony capitalism tends to be greater in other parts of the world. I don't believe it. Yes, the obvious variety of crony capitalism is greater elsewhere. But the more sinister, tapeworm variety is far more hidden, more developed, and far, far more dangerous in the West. After all, we're the ones who invented the Fed, and that is the beast around which all the crony devils dance --- worldwide. The Fed is Medusa, but with tapeworms at its head instead of snakes. I see no Perseus, Pegasus, or cure in sight. Dems and Repubs are both fed intravenously by this monster. Middle class voters who think their votes can prevail against it are its stoned dummies, diverted at whim; their awareness may as well be perpetually chained to caves by Kubaki theater (such as birth certificates, truther conspiracies, etc.). Meanwhile, the real conspiracy of a gathering of evil goes unremarked: the Rinos and Dinos serve the same master, while ordinary people cheer (and Bronx cheer) for their home teams, neither of which gives a damn for them. Was W bad news? You betcha. Is O bad news? Ditto. Can you benefit from this? Sure. Just correctly wag for the nearest home team and take the throw away candy. Can you influence the system, to help ring in decent civilization for availing human freedom and dignity? Probably not. But certainly not, so long as the real monster remains cloaked or our heads remained chained to watching its Kubaki theater (mass reeducation camp). The stakes? Blue pill vs. Red pill; Danish candy (yum!) vs. Western quest; zombie following vs. authentic pursuit of truth.
Immigration policy is closely tied to freedom and economics. It gets down to what America is supposed to be about. When it comes to immigration policy, what kind of practiced monster starts fights, then stays behind the curtain, flitting between fighters to pretend to feel their pain? What kind of punch drunk following have these monsters created, to lead an electorate to fall for this indulgence of perverted arousal? Behind scenes, how much freer do Obama and his NWO cohort feel to pass from smirks to guffaws?
How many Rino Republicans and NWO, free-trade, Nafta-loving Libertarians are into this charade? How're Libertarians going to preserve liberty, while declining to prioritize protection of the American family, out of which arise the defenders of liberty? How're Americans going to preserve liberty, while declining to protect the independence and cultural integrity of the nation (America) upon which the liberty of the world depends? How're we going to preserve America, while allowing resources and factories to be sold out to anti-liberty nations? How're we going to replace central government with private contract law, when private contract law, in essence, is to be made some kind of "contract" law that buys up governments to run them under a mafia of international crony corporatists?
Is this free tradesters' idea for how to stymie crony capitalism: Replace government with cronies? If free trade is the answer, why does America not twist arms of other nations to return in kind? If middle class Americans are not being fleeced by soulless barkers, why's free trade only a one way answer, good for America but not necessary to any other economy? Why's Donald Trump the only non-NWO, nationalist Republican in the race? If all other Repubs are not NWO Rinos, why do they all seem hyped for ridiculing Trump? I see pre-placed and befouled architecture rotting institutions of liberty, everywhere. What's the cultural math of our immigration policy and our trade policy? Can any NWO Rino still add in the real world --- not just in Randian, free-trade, fairy-counting fantasy worlds where "all other factors are presumed to remain equal?"
It seems we all psych our own ghosts.
From A.T. --- I don't think economists are trending to say that Dems are good. Rather, they seem often to be saying that Repubs have been nearly as bad. Conversely, whatever good the Repubs have lately done, the Dems have done almost as good. They seem to be saying the prevailing political winds are (deliberately?) not giving us much of a choice. Yet, they also seem to be against a third political party. As if ordinary Americans could somehow reform the Republican party from within, notwithstanding that the monied interests behind its major benefactors are so aligned in interests with the benefactors of the Dems. The ONLY way out of this is a spiritual awakening. But the author seems also against that. It's as if many believe that the law cannot legislate against immorality, and, simultaneously, that there is no morality outside the law. It's as if book-learned economists have convinced themselves that economics is some kind of pure science, independent of people. In short, we have become vaingloriously stiff necked in our science, and we will learn only in the language of hard knocks, after years once more into the wilderness.
To divert deep currents we are in, we need leadership: (1) committed to small government and individual liberty; (2) funded to be competitive with two-faced, crony opposition; and (3 charismatic enough to attract those shallow masses that are awed by articulate, barritone locution. Competitive funding will not develop, because there's no competing with cronies. That leaves us (1) and (2). That requires a Reagan. Even a Reagan would be severely tested by modern media. Thus, Conservatives are excited to attend a ball, but no one is asking (except for un-serious pranksters). Absent a miracle, currents won't be diverted. Given choice between lukewarm versions of socialists, the masses will go with media, barritone voice reading teleprompter, and will not hazard changing horses in middle of crisis (which Dems will create). The monied part of the GOP, with greater access to media, will tell us it's so important to vote out Obama that we dare not try to interest a wary electorate in a real conservative. This dance is getting old; time we started our own.
Per Reagan, non-trivial facts, in themselves, “are stupid things.” What gives facts meaning are the purposes of their advocates. Before trusting an advocate’s ideas, explore his heart. Consider who he surrounds himself with. Look to the context of his acts. Test the fundamentals of his orientation. Does he seem even to entertain a philosophy of general morality, apart from promises of material favors for his friends? Does his loyalty extend beyond his particular wolf pack (or even beyond his glands)? Apart from smug pretense, does his character extend to intangible values beyond Marxist or glandular tastes? Does he think some grand, dialectic synthesis should make unforeseeable interests of people irrelevant to scientific economics? Does he reify his higher values as some kind of Alpha Wolf (like Allah or Big Brother)? Or does he prefer a general teacher of dignified empathy (like Jesus?), who does not substitute Caeser for conscience? As one tests those considerations, one gets better sense of what drives people to "hard facts” and ideas about good governance.
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