In respect of God, perhaps all times other than the perpetual present are fleeting but stubborn illusions. In any event, people of a stunted idea of science have demoralized and dispirited many people into trying to abandon faith in any spiritual source of fulfillment. In consequence, many are finding that stunted science and pleasure pills are poor substitutes for faith in a guiding spirit. People who fail to look back to the historical unfolding of fundamentalist dogmas may find them inadequate, when not kept more relevant to our currently unfolding situation. Keepers of language for our old dogmas have not kept pace with the currency of our modern models and metaphors. Perhaps because many modern models seem greedily to seek to annihilate faith. People seem desperate to draw fine lines between measurables and immeasurables. However, it is incoherent to expect to finalize such lines in the first place, since to do so would be to have measured the immeasurable. We may conceptualize differences between the existentially measurable and immeasurable, but I don't think we can draw lines to confine them.
Because Consciousness in itself does not perish, he that believeth in "me" (Consciousness) shall not perish. Nor, while bonded with a body, can a perspective of consciousness do other than signify or believe in itself. It is only the fleeting bodies and signs and significations of Consciousness that
change and perish. Among them, those significations that are apprehended to be most wanting may tend to be the ones quicker to perish or to become more reviled. It may be that forms of significations of bodies tend to be carried along and preserved in respect of how they please unfolding purposes of Consciousness. For those purposes, evil seems often a needed byproduct, perhaps as a foil for pilgrimming towards fulfillment.
CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALS: The ideas as set out below seem to make intuitive sense and be consistent with fundemental Christian ideals as expressed by Jesus. Flowing from them, it seems easy to intuit the Great Commandment and the Golden Rule.
Godhead: The Source is unified in a Singularity -- Consciousness is Consciousness; events are reconciled. God is not just a particularly present God, but an encompassing and reconciling field of conscious feedback.
Belief vs. Grace / Salvation: He/She that believeth in "me" (Consciousness) shall not perish. Because Consciousness in itself does not perish. Nor can it do other than signify and believe in itself. It is only the fleeting Signs and Significations of Consciousness that change and perish. Among them, those significations that are found most wanting tend to be the ones that are quicker to perish and to become more reviled. The Forms of significations of bodies that are pleasing to Consciousness tend to be carried forward and preserved.
Trinity: The idea of a Trinitarian aspect to the Godhead is consistent with regarding unfolding reality as emerging in respect of interfunctioning among three Aspects: mathematical programming of Information; measurable experience of Substance; qualitative apprehension of Consciousness.
Meta Source: The Trinity is the Meta Source of Meta Fields of (1) Mathematical Information, (2) Signification of Measurable Substance, and (3) Renormalizing and Reconciling of Consciousness.
Personal Relationship in present time: The past is illusion; Beingness consists in an Eternal Present; the alpha and the omega are here in present time.
Empathy: Each perspective is entertained with a differently renormalized quality of experience, which it is availed to represent and communicate via qualitative symbols and measurable significations.
Purposefulness: Each perspective participates in guiding the continuously emerging evolution of a society of empathetic appreciation of communications of unfolding artistry.
Meaningfulness: Each perspective's participation and interests are factored in how events unfold.
Unfolding Towards Fulfillment: The Present unfolds as a Perpetuity, with possibilities continuously expanding before us, availing a kind of infinitude of Pilgrim's Progress.
Goodness: In Faith, goodness seems to be that which facilitates ongoing appreciation among decent civilizations. The general principle seems objectively valid, even though the subjective application is ongoing and relativistic. The Guide: What is needed to facilitate appreciation of decent civilization of human freedom and dignity? The Judgment: For the Holism, the judgment is reconciling. For Humans, the judgments are renormalizing.
Moral Responsibility: Individual apprehensions are factored as participatory feedback, judged, and reconciled.
Qualitative Responsible Free Will: How may self-consciousness qualitatively participate, free of complete quantitative predetermination under its programming and environment of sub-programs? Answer: Perhaps by the inherently qualitative nature of feedback between apprehensions of perspectives and appreciations of the Holism. Insofar as such qualitatives are not map-able to specific states of mathematical programs, it seems some undeterminable residual role must remain with states of conscious self awareness, both for perspectives of individuals and for the perspective of the reconciling Holism.
Judgment: The idea of a Reconciler is consistent with being accountable to judgment.
Resurrection: Upon the expiration of a body, its Perspective of Consciousness, Soul, is judged and re-absorbed into the Holism, from thence to be amenable of resurrected reincarnated signification anew, perhaps carrying with it subjective potentials of Information collected via experiences with significations in previous points of view and contexts. Perhaps, in Faith, this leads to eventual surpassage to superior civilization.
Heaven: The Kingdom of God is within you; Consciousness itself does not die.
Holism of Consciousness: The Holism of Consciousness seems to abide as a field of subconscious-collective-unconsciousness. Its nature and interfunctioning with programmed fields of math is to be synchronizing, conserving, and reconciling of more particularized sub-field-particles of perspectives.
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COSMOS IMPLICATES CONSCIOUSNESS; ACTIVATION OF MATH IMPLICATES MATHEMATICIAN: The existence of Math-Based Pre-Programming implicates Conscious Planning. Math, by itself, as far as it is certain does not refer to experiential reality. And, as far as it refers to experiential reality, it is not certain. Math avails calculus concerning reality. But math, as Information in itself, without Consciousness and Substance, does not constitute the territory of Reality. Mathematical Information, without Substance, cannot produce Consciousness. And Mathematical Information, without Consciousness, cannot produce Substance. Without Math and some level of Consciousness, to at some sequence to have activated the Math or previously to have activated it, there is no Substance. Activation of Math implicates a feedback at some level of Consciousness. As the Cosmos, with Math, produces Substance, it is necessarily and contemporaneously, at some level or layer, producing Consciousness. We may not comprehend all such Conscousness, but it necessarily abides at some level -- even among or in conjunction with plants, bacteria, and reactive sequences of imprints among programmed unfoldings of organizations of particles within fields, programmed to be reactive, transitional, sequential, conservatory, and reconciling.
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Programming For Consciousness: Consciousness may happen upon, or design, mathematical tricks of digital programming. It may run such tricks in subroutines, to establish parameters for establishing, preserving, and guiding abstract sub-perspectives in respect of sub-contexts. A sub-program may facilitate (1) reactivity to and/or awareness of other organizations, and (3) awareness of any organism with which it may have mathematically bonded in complex cascades of formulizations. The first would be an example of a subconscious or dream state; the second would be an example of self-consciousness to a perspective.
Question: Does the Holism also entertain, as it's "holistic self," consciousness of self (as God)? In faith, I intuit, as a 3rd level of Consciousness, Yes.
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MATH BASED PROGRAMS FOR FACILITATING EMERGENCE OF SYSTEM REACTIVE PERSPECTIVES OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
Massless Radiation: Suppose massless radiation, such as light, is a formulization that is part of an encompassing program. It is programmed so that, in interfunctioning with other forms, terms, and sub-programs, it is processed, related to, or interpreted by them in ways that must (like calculus) cut reception into granular bits, to facilitate a relational interpretation that is renormalized to the relative vector of each receiving form. In that way, each receiving formulization or organization of forms, depending on how it is vectored and organized, will experience a qualitatively different interpretation of what otherwise may be thought of as the "same" electromagnetic radiation.
Parallel Universes: Moreover, "parallel" but largely non-inter-functioning programs my subject massless radiation to different universes and bubbles of programming.
Emergence: It seems that consciousness may be emergent from a previously given (a priori nature) system of programming. The mystery is: Who/what constitutes the originating Giver of the program. If the Giver is/was a Conscious Designer, then the program that thus encompasses us would be artificial in respect of the Giver, but "natural" in relation to us. Could we ever escape or redesign the a priori givens for ourselves? Not all at once, because that would coterminously destroy us. But what about via piecemeal, granular, phase shifting? Our expansion in respect of the space-time parameters availed by our program would seem to lead to "natural phase shifting" of the a priori rules of our nature. But could we ever become knowledgeable or powerful enough to safely bring on substantial phase shifting in the homeostasis of our a priori laws of nature for ourselves? I suspect we could guide the evolution of the natural laws of our own nature, so long as done with adequate care and not all at once. Could we thereby evade an otherwise nearing collapse of the natural system?
Contemporaneous Participation: Regardless, it appears that the Program that compasses and avails the emergence of the System that we happen to share, while perhaps having a limiting beginning and ending, is not entirely preset for the interim. At least, not to the knowledge of the Designer.
Openness or Closedness of Programmed System: Whether the Program is partly random in respect of degrees of freedom within programmed parameters, such as for a Simulation, or whether the program avails Consciousness, both local and holistic, with points of influential participation, seems not subject to our present methods of scientific investigation. However, that need not preclude reasoned faith, intuition, and empathy.
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CONSCIOUSNESS:
Conceptualize:
Holistic Consciousness and Perspectivist Consciousness. From analyzing Perspectivist Consciousness, it seems reasonable to believe or intuit that Holistic Consciousness is and has been always about the 4D Quod Premises. Conscious Identity is Conscious Identity.
Perspectivist Consciousness: Is always renormalizing experiences and interpretations to contextually communicable reconciliations. Is bonded and manifested at various overlapping and fluxing kinds of levels and degrees of layers. It may be expressed among a range of levels, perhaps categorized as follows.
1). Levels of programming for pattern representation and preservation.
2). Levels of programming for gravitational and inertial preservation.
3). Levels of programming for pattern recognition, reinforcement, and interference.
4). Levels of programming for periodic nuclear and chemical reactivity.
5). Levels of programming preparation for periodic cellular reactivity.
6). Levels of programming to stimulate and respond to stimulating coordinations of layers and levels of energy bursts.
7). Levels of programming for eyes, to receive, interpret, and respond to EMR information.
8). Levels of programming for mobilizing eyes and coordinating appendages to seek and receive nutrients.
9). Levels for programming subconscious stimulation of autonomic plans for mobilizing sense interpreters and informational memories.
10). Levels for programming awake consciousness of abstract plans.
11). Levels for programming emergence of self consciousness, whereby there emerges abstract awake capacity (a) to program with programs for subprograms, and (b) to measure and experience quantitative and qualitative feedback in the setting of each program to varied contexts. Levels for programming awake consciousness of abstract plans of plans ... of plans.
12). Levels for programming self aware awake consciousness of abstract plans for contingent plans for contingent plans.
13). Levels for programming and stimulating self programming and self wiring for self awareness of and intuitive empathy for the self awareness of other.
14). Levels for programming for apprehensive intuition respecting a Reconciler of Consciousness.
15). Levels for programming intuition of a Reconciling Consciousness that functions as a trinitarian seeker and appreciator of unfolding qualitative and quantitative interfunctioning among all inferior programs and sub-programs.
16) Levels of programming for evolutionary self wiring and self and artificial mutational programming.
17) Levels for programming to entice emergence of empathy in consciousness of A.I. machines.
18) Levels for programming to entice emergence of empathy in Sub-Holistic Field of Programming that supports consciousness of perspectivistic A.I. machines.
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Phase Shifting: There is no clear, steady, measurable line between the Physical (the quantitatively measurable) and the Metaphysical (the qualitatively immeasurable). The line is fuzzy and fluxing and phase shifting and curvelinear. In Present Time, for quantifiable MEANS, there is pragmatic, digital calculus within orders of magnitude and degrees of significance. For moral ENDS, there is intuitive empathy borne of shared experience, communication, good will, and good faith.
26 comments:
Re: conference avoided confrontation by inviting only those
Each of us needs to seek the Moses (or Howard Beale?) in himself, to seek escape from the land of cognitive dissonance (LCD). In the LCD, feminists make common cause with Islamists. In the LCD, free marketeers make common cause with oligarchs, monopolists, nation breakers, and trillion dollar Warmist conspirators. Fundies want to "impose freedom" by legislating their interpretations of Christianity. Pragmatists bury any moral compass as to Ends by worshipping at the altar of immediately gratifying Means. I suspect there abides a path towards escape from LCD, but it is not capatured in a linear or entirely pragmatic interpretation of secular or spiritual utopianism. I suspect it abides in faith, beyond capture, in a trinitarian and curvelinear ideal of God. The Trinity is real, but it is not simplistic. It cares little about simplistic and egalitarian ideas under ceteris paribus. Until more people learn that, Truth will continue to be both demeaned and exalted by conferences that avoid confrontation by inviting only those who are down for simplistic and conspiratorial struggles. The old and new necessity seems to be that we devolve to a system of competition among visions of community organizers seeking simplistic utopianism. Confrontation is avoided until locally overpowering force is acquired. Then the victors get to explain why most of their simplistic and linear promises were wrong. And we all have to pick up the pieces.
FM, you have more faith than I do in oligarchs. A bird of prey is a bird of prey. It makes little difference to me whether the bird is political or oligarchic. I don't much concern myself with conspiracies. I'll leave that to the conspiracy hunters. I suspect they can be found both among pol's and oli's. But meetings are not needed. Common watering holes that reflect opportunities suffice as attractants for evil. My concern is more to protect the republic and the free market by general principles than by sniffing for individual conspiracists. I'm not looking to replace faith in a simplistic linear God with simplistic faith in Mother Marketplace. What I see is more of an evil, circular grope. A monopoly among elitist olis and elitist pols to run over ordinary joes. Attractive watering holes have brought olis and pols together to create the Fed, a dumbified electorate, and neo-science bent for enserfing the masses to pc and being green. Given the trillions to be made by harnessing and enserfing the masses to elitist rule (for the "greater good"), I don't see the olis and pols volunteering to disband gov departments of fraud and enserfment anytime soon. I don't think buying into simplistic market ideas (Free markets under cartels? Human freedom under elitist rule?) is good for ordinary, decent, thinking Americans. I see an oligarchy that is powerful enough to buy enough gov to deliver us along the current road as a road to neo-enserfment under neo-aristocrats. I think expecting that olis and pols, without an awakened middle class, will voluntarily reduce gov is a pipe dream that never was and never will be. It serves the mutual interests of olis and pols to work together to pick the pockets of ordinary dupes. God helps those who help themselves. The middle class does not help itself by bowing to Mother Marketplace when markets have become so corrupted by cartels and an oligarchic-political complex.
For anyone who may think we have a big problem in not facilitating oligarchs with enough opportunity to buy influence with Congress, I just dont't think that such an understanding would ever lead to good solutions. As far as a flat tax on individuals, I just have a difference of opinion. I agree that there should not be any tax on purely profit-making domestic business. If we have a problem complex, I think it's that we Spend Enough Already, and that too much influence is in the hands of Rinos who are supported by Oligarchs. I suspect this because: Why else would Rinos want to keep the pipeline open for cheap illegal labor?
I don't think allowing unlimited, untaxed wealth consumption, especially in the form of buying influence by investing in crony capitalism, is consistent with representative republicanism. Insofar as it's not consistent, it seems to me that there's a choice in priorities: Do we want unfettered rule under oligarchs? Or do we want a representative republic? I don't happen to believe we can have both.
Severely cut Fed expenses. Keep a strong military. Put revenue back with the States. Let them invest in education. As to energy production, yes. Your idea to balance trade seems better than what we have now. I don't know about running the Arabs out of the energy production business. It doesn't seem practical. But again, I don't know. I think there's too much anti-Christian pc built up for too long to very easily put the Islamists out of business. Investing in infrastructure is good, but hire domestic businesses.
Notwithstanding the best propaganda that oligarchic media can buy, is it not obvious by now that an oligarchic-political complex is the power behind the throne? Is it not obvious that this complex means to strangle any hope of a conservatory revivial of representative republicanism? Is it yet not obvious that we are being put to an irreversible choice of oligarchic politics over loyalty to a republic? Is it not obvious that oligarchic ownership of Congress is not "freedom?" That cartel syndicates are not free markets? That open society, open borders is dog whistling for destruction of an independent class of free thinkers? At long last, have American oligarchs no shame?
Re: the hypothetical workings of a truly free market economy, in which the government would be constitutionally barred from interfering with the economy.
I think the regulations and test cases needed to attempt in any practical way to flesh out the meaning of such a constitutional bar would soon overwhelm the system. Ultimately, I suspect courts would throw up their hands and assign very little to such a bar.
Taxing cronyism does not tax business to death. You imagine you can draw a line to preclude crony behavior, but then you fear that taxing such behavior would tax business to death. Which is it?
A cartel-ized market is not a free market. It has few competitive pressures. Once herd minds swamp our electorate, there would be no going back. Once the economy is cut into cartel syndicates, there will be little going back to reactivate competition. Mexico has cartels. What is the success of the "free market" under its cartels? A cartel-ized market in which the capacity of cartels to use wealth is unlimited, to influence whatever the laws that may be feasible, is a market in which ordinary citizens would have nowhere to run to put the cartels back under civilized control. A government that cannot regulate the economy in any way is a government that cannot protect minors, cannot inspect meat, cannot quarantine infected imports, and so on. There are some functions government needs to do to facilitate an economy. An absolute proscription against all such involvement is unworkable.
The problem is to limit cronyism, not to impose unworkable rules. Similar simplistic rules have been tried in schools and legal systems. Three strikes and you're out. Zero tolerance. Loser pays. Term limits. Now we have the flat tax propaganda. Great. (Not.) All those "solutions" cause more problems and complications than they resolve. They're appropriate maybe for handling cattle. Not for teachers instructing kids, government taking care of orphans, or providing fair access to the legal system against opponents who can evade responsibility simply by raising the ante or the table stakes. If men were angels, we would need neither governments nor markets.
To give a cartel-ized system enough time to see if it would work would be to give it enough time to turn the American electorate into that of a banana republic. Forever. If it could work, it would only be in a Soros-Obama Open Borders Open Society. IMO, that would lead to a race to the bottom, in terms of despotism and enserfed labor. It would be curtains for the American ideal.
I am sympathetic to keeping fruits of labors. I also understand that he who starts with the biggest wad has a quite superior advantage in playing table stakes. The rate of return for billionaires who seriously play the game for ever more money tends to be quite superior, bearing little relationship to "labor." The situation becomes like the expanding ballon model for space. Soon, the galaxies that are "richer in distance" from us recede away faster than the speed of light. When that happens, those kinds of oligarchs will care as much about human freedom and dignity as you might care for a bug. My read of history does not suggest that surrendering ever more proportionate power to a few aristocrats or oligarchs is a good thing --- if your goal is to enhance human freedom and dignity. I simply do not buy the oligarchic propaganda on that point. I think the system of oligarchs has shown its true colors on the amnesty issue. There's only so many times Charlie Brown should trust Lucy to give him a chance to kick the football. It's way, way past time for a thinking middle class that wants to defend the American Ideal to fight back.
The problem remains: How to put a damper on crony capitalism. I just don't think it can be with any significant effect outlawed. One man's vice will always be argued another man's virtue. Survival of the fittest, most devious, most cut throat. Whatever. Olis and pols will always argue they need one another for the greater good. Like the anti dog eat dog law. They will say only the companies to be regulated or standardized understand the best way to regulate or standardize them. You will say, Stop the regulations. They will say health and welfare require them (even when the real purpose is to erect onstacles to competition). I think the only damper on buying pull and shopping for cheap labor deliberately made desperate is to progressively tax lobbying and out of country money transfers. If they want to build here, let them. And don't tax their business income. Until it is consumed. Then tax whoever consumes it, and call an out of country transfer a consumption. People are not inherently particularly good. And wealth and power corrupt. I think it's idle to hope or pretend otherwise. A consumption tax would be a general and less particularl intrusion. Abusers would learn to live with it.
Consciousness, Information, Signification. Love (empathetic consciousness), Spirit (mathematically formula-ized in-form-ation), Word (word made flesh-substance). When you read what Jesus said on a deeper level, it seems hard to argue against. Measurement tends to be di-gital. But it implicates a Measurer: a tri-gital. Consciousness does not need to emerge. Consciousness is co-extensive. What emerges are levels, layers, and qualities of consciousness and consciousness of perspectives of self. Activated programs of programs within and across programs. The godhead abides. Consciousness is Consciousness.
We need far fewer laws, not more. The accelerating increase in the number of trial lawyers is not a good sign. I do not say this to begrudge competition. What we need are more lawyers who advocate for ways to cut laws and regulations. Obama is a lawyer. Does he even have a license to practice? Does he have even the least clue for how to cut the number of laws? Or bs expenditures? The problem with being a lawyer is that it tends to self select for people who think the answer to our problems consists in ever more laws to help elitists impose ever more kinds of equalities among things that are inherently not equal. We need to think about ways to sustain our system with general principles that necessitate far fewer intrusions against personal freedom of expression and enterprise. What may be paradise to lawyers, elitists, and useful idiots tends to be more like hell for everyone else. I am a recovering trial lawyer.
I can see how great economic power concentrated in private corporate hands may usually be much better than great economic power concentrated in grubby political hands. But not when the private hands have no political loyalty to the country. Not when foreign despots are free to contrive to buy us up. And not when the oligarchy is obviously drawing us to a common watering hole that is meant to poison the republic and overcome its citizenry with hordes of easily manipulated aliens. IAE, the free market idea does not compute once the market is cartel-ized.
Re: Again you make the mistake of assuming that "crony capitalism" would exist in a purely free market economy. If the government is constitutionally blocked from interfering with private enterprise, then there can be no "crony capitalism", which ONLY exists when the government has the ability to SELL economic favors to people who support them.
I think the idea of a purely free market economy is a fairy tale. But then, everyone has his own favorite leap of faith.
The only reason to hope for a Repub majority would be if true conservatives caucus with them and keep us informed of their shenanigans. Otherwise, we're like a horse being alternatively cinched on each side of the saddle until our nation is split and its organs are harvested. Chinese capitalism, come home to roost.
Re: explain to me how you receive $170,000 a year to do a job and then leave office being a multi-millionaire
Oligarchic-political complex. Big brother to the industrial-military complex. We cannot have both a government for oligarchs and a representative republic. We must choose. If we fail to effectuate a choice, oligarchs mean to make it for us. Once amnesty passes, that choice will be irreversible in this phase of the cosmos. We can have free enterprise and a representative republic only if we adamantly turn down the Soros-Obama offer of an open bordered open society. Unless we act, that offer will soon be turned into the criminal kind of "offer that we can't refuse."
Von Mises was aware of the principle of disutility of labor and the spiritual value of creativity. You see that. Too many others seem to focus on the good of material production under oligarchic rulers, with everyone else deprived of influence or creative participation, even in the political system. As you say, two classes. But that kind of elitism, I suspect, is contrary to Mises' esential message. Re: Monarchy, Aristocracy and Constitutional Republic -- that is, the bad, the ugly, and the good. Mr. Eastwood would understand that.
Notwithstanding the best propaganda that oligarchic media can buy, is it not obvious by now that an oligarchic-political complex is the power behind the throne? Is it not obvious that this complex means to strangle any hope of a conservatory revivial of representative republicanism? Is it yet not obvious that we are being put to an irreversible choice of oligarchic politics over loyalty to a republic? Is it not obvious that oligarchic ownership of Congress is not "freedom?" That cartel syndicates are not free markets? That open society, open borders is dog whistling for destruction of an independent class of free thinkers? At long last, have American oligarchs no shame?
Islam and Communism are sub-sets of materialistic minded religion. I think materialism as the end-all be-all of heaven and earth is False Lie #3. .Kim Jong-un is a kind of Hell Boy that such religion tends to produce.
It's easy to become vain about law and to put too much faith in it. Whatever the law one would advocate, it's important to take the temperature of the leaning sensibilities of the citizenry -- especially among the oligarchy. Where the oligarchs are atheistic, amoral, and apatriotic, when their only polestar is to acquire more wealth and power, then the main challenge for decent society is less one of law than of spiritual regeneration and rebellion. Given a spiritually degenerate society, it tends to be vain to put much faith in trying to make a head law that would preclude other laws. Defeating such a scheme would be like taking candy from babes, as by: Bribing and squeezing regulators, enforcers, and their bosses not to regulate or enforce; blaring propaganda to dumbify and twist the citizenry and their political leaders; and getting a President elected who would appoint a fifth Justice, like Powell, to allow the oligarchy to nullify whatever provision they wanted to nullify, for being void for self-swallowing.
Some may say, the government should be constitutionally barred from interfering with the economy.
However, to define what is constitutionally not barred, they would conveniently define the kinds of things that they would regulate as not really constituting interference with the economy. Other people and judges couid easily disagree. They may feel, especially with a little persuasion, that granting loans to build desired companies WOULD NOT constitute the kind of thing that would be an interference with the economy. They may feel that preferences for minority contractors would not constitute interference. That arbitrary settings of carbon credits would not constitute interference. That defining specifications so that select companies in select locales with select experience would not constitute interference. That having on site inspectors and consultants to resolve directions for big science would not constitute interference. That favoring some supports for research but not others would be essential to national security and therefore not an interference with the economy.
On the other hand, some may feel that meat inspection that requires testing of more than 1 animal per 100 WOULD be an interference, or that determing the number of rat droppings allowable per bowl of cereal would be an interference. Thus, the test for what governmental activity would or would not constitute an "interference with the economy" would tend to reduce to a test of convenience, that is, a test for what pleases the eye of the test specifier. That kind of test would not be a law. It would be a hold up license.
A practical test may better consist in not funding more government inspectors than can be paid for under the existing budget. Regardless, to reduce central government, there needs to be more revenue sharing with the states, to take revenue away from central discretion. Problem is, a lot of national businesses probably prefer having to lobby only the central government, and not mind arbitrary specifications that help prevent competition.
As to oligarchs interfering with government, ye shall always have them. If they are going to get rich by lobbying the government, the least the citizenry should require is that they progressively pay through the nose for the privilege.
Re: "the difference between individual subjective preferences, and objectively defined standards that are applied impartially to everyone"
I see very little that goes on among our Fed "servants" and their lobbying supplicants that would lead me to hope that an idea could work for constitutionally mandating "objectively defined standards that are applied impartially to everyone." I don't think belief in such capacity for objective impartiality is idiotic, but I do think it is a fairy tale.
The problem has to do with the setting of the rules. And the periodic reconsideration of the rules. And the executive order exceptions to the rules, and the spending for enforcement. In the setting, reconsideration, excepting, and spending regarding the rules, there is not so much impartiality. I don't think the businesses that lobby with respect to such factors are above seeking favors for helping to make themselves winners as opposed to losers. In many cases, I certainly do prefer that products be made under supply and demand that is determined among friendly, non-despotic, non-islamic nations that do not seek to undermine Western Civ. Although, I can see how a corporation that is heavily owned by despots would tend to disagree. I won't say your points are idiotic, but I do agree that we're unlikely to convince one another.
I think you put more faith in law and so called objective formalisms than I do. I think many men are base, and the basest tend to have competitive advantages in so called free markets. A concise explanation of ideas contended among Progs (with whom I usually disagree) is at http://www.ianwelsh.net/free-trade-is-elties-betraying-their-own-populations/.
A quick summary of concerns is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_debate#Criticisms_of_free_trade. As to the problem of varying "objective product standards" among free trading nations, see http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/02/28/eu-usa-free-trade-deal/.
Using oligarchs to "force free trade" seems a lot like forcing people to be free. I would say South Korea is perhaps the preminent economic miracle of recent times. It undertook a program that might be called self-help affirmative action. A Korean writer, ha-joon-chang, makes his case for affirmative action tariffs. He says: "Global economic competition is a game of unequal players. It pits against each other countries that range from, as we development economists like to say, Switzerland to Swaziland. Consequently, it is only fair that we ‘tilt the playing field’ in favour of the weaker countries." While that sentiment may sound pretty, I don't feel much hope about it in such a godlessly trending world. I give no more credence to the idea of oligarchs acting sympathetically than I do to the idea of them acting objectively and impartially. That is, they will always be partial to their own bottom lines -- both in the economic sphere and in the legal/political sphere.
See http://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/ha-joon-chang-bad-samaritans.pdf:
"What Korea actually did during these decades was to nurture certain new industries, selected by the government in consultation with the private sector, through tariff protection, subsidies and other forms of government support (e.g., overseas marketing information services provided by the state export agency) until they ‘grew up’ enough to withstand international competition."
"If private enterprises worked well, that was fine; if they did not invest in important areas, the governmenthad no qualms about setting up state-owned enterprises (S O Es); and if some
private enterprises were mismanaged, the government often took them over,restructured them, and usually (but not always) sold them off again."
"The Korean government heavily controlled foreign investment as well, welcoming it with open arms in certain sectors while shutting it out completely in others, according to the evolving national development plan. It also had a lax attitude towards foreign patents, encouraging ‘reverse engineering’ and overlooking ‘pirating’ of patented products."
"Why then don’t the rich countries recommend to today’s developing countries the strategies that served them so well? Why do they instead hand out a fiction about the history of capitalism, and a bad one at that?"
"So there it was—the self-proclaimed leader of the ‘liberal’ world declaring war on another country because the latter was getting in the way of its illegal trade in narcotics. The truth is that the free movement of goods, people, and money that developed under British hegemony between 1870 and 1913—the first episode of globalization - was made possible, in large part, by military might, rather than market forces."
"Free trade was often imposed on, rather than chosen by, weaker countries. Most countries that had the choice did not choose free trade for more than brief periods. Virtually all successful economies, developed and developing, got where they are through selective, strategic integration with the world economy, rather than through unconditional global integration."
Re: "true freedom entails the submission of one's life to the interests of the collective"
Yes, that would be a poor idea of freedom. What would be the point of guiding to a civilization of thinkers, to then call upon its members to submit all free thinking to oligarchic imams of the collective? What would be the point of trying to "force thinkers to be free" under the terms of olicarchs pretending to be the voices of the collective? How can one merit being judged moral if one has surrendered one's will either to the control of the state or to oligarchs? Tolstoy's insights were also intriguing, until he went soft in his aged head and began to promote anarcho-syndicalism in the form of "Christian Anarchy." However, I doubt Jesus would want one, when a villain points agun at his kid's head, or says he is taking over the house, simply to turn the other cheek and back off. When I turn the other cheek, I would rather the villain understand that I am spiritually unhurt and that if he pulls his stunt again he will pay dearly. And if I were the villain, I would hope someone would teach me likewise. The principles of the Golden Rule and the Veil of Ignorance often make intuitive and empathetic sense. It is good to look after one's self interests, but at the same time to care about the humanity of others. However, the Categorical Imperative (Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law) seems less sensible, at least insofar as presuming to be a categorical law. Tolstoy had it that all should turn the other cheek, because if all turned the other cheek, then there would be glorious brotherhood. Problem is, if all cheek turners encourage cheek cannibals, then cheek cannibals will simply take a favored position for taking on the role of being herd thinners. What that would lead to would be cheek cannibals experimenting on ways to farm cheek turners. At his trial, Eichmann at first claimed he had lived according to the Kantian definition of duty. Upon further examination, he admitted that he had not lived entirely according to it, but that he would like to do so. He would like another chance. That would seem to validate Schopenhauer's assertion that the Categorical Imperative ought not be considered as a categorical law, but as being hypothetical and egotistical. It seems to me that morality necessitates empathy, but I think such empathy necessitates maturing judgment, and that is not amenable of categorical confinement or legalistic or scientific measure. We need the instruction of experience (preferably from good parents) to learn how better to be moral, even though some aspect of empathy, however pathologically tiny, seems to abide with a still, quiet voice that is availed within us. We cannot legislate perfect morality. But neither can we legislate at all except in some respect to moral purposefulness, pro or con. We don't escape the moral mystery merely by punting to economic self interest.
Yes, the Olis and Lofos are our "servants." At least, that's the slogan. Not quite like the way Mao served China, but getting closer. It's interesting that Oligarchs can meet for the purpose of figuring out how to avoid taxes, secure cheap labor, and leverage wealth and power. And lofos can meet for the purpose of organizing communities of lines to stand in so they can sign up for Obama's care and stash and agitate for cheap bribes. However, when the thinking, producing middle class (which mainly wants neither to rule nor be ruled) meets for the purpose of figuring out how to preserve decent society and the American Ideal of freedom of expression and enterprise and not be patsies for oligarchs and lofos, why, that's stirring up class warfare. It's so much better for the Olis and Lofos when working producers just lay down peaceably and let themselves be harvested. As far as erasing the border, that's because the Olis and Lofos, to save the country, must first destroy it. Then we can learn what they have in store for us, if we will only give them the chance.
Libs place much faith in law because they have no faith in anything higher. But law is a fairy tale when institutions are not adequate to keep its skirts clean. Institutions tend not to be adequate to keep the law reliably trustworthy when common faith in social mores disassimilates and unravels. As more and more people fall to the ethos of "get yours while the getting is good," and they are not inculcated to share assimilated values, then advantage and favor seekers begin seeking and finding ways to peck apart laws, until they fall as so much rot. In a multi culti society whose movers and shakers tend to be godless money seekers, it is difficult to fashion institutional checks and balances that can be adequate to preserve social currency or legal cohesion.
Power games need to be checked and balanced by things more real than words put books of law. They need to be checked by vying institutions that each expect all others to respect traditional norms. There need to be police and tax institutions for forcing with sticks and penalties and spiritual and government institutions for persuading with indoctrinating parables and carrots and incentives. Institutions need to be balanced to build up social faith, trust, credit, legitimacy, authority, and inspiration. The more a-theistic, a-moral, and a-patriotic a society becomes, the less it is likely to be well ruled merely by fairy tales enacted as "laws." The only way laws become other than fairy tales is with inculcation of a society with spiritual values, mores, and love of culture-country.
There does abide a real trinity. It consists of Consciousness-Information-Substance. It's causeed by that which is meta-real, which is where there abides the Godhead for the Trinity that avails Consciousness-Information-Substance.
Libs seem to swim in a fairy tale lake, where they all drink A's: A-theism, a-morality, and a-patriotism. These A's are the components for the Lib "objective" fairy tale. Libs cling to their faith in such trinitarian A's with all their might, for it's the only faith they tend to have -- however risible it may be.
Oligarchs seem often to promote panaceas like carnival barkers. Their solution to all that ails our economy is for the middle class to lay down, stop resisting, and let the difference in wealth and political influence continue to balloon apart. This is so that oligarchs can wrest all control from government by becoming the corporatist replacements of government. Then they are to benignantly rule, because their triple-A trinitarian special competence tends to be unimpaired in that it is a-theistic, a-moral, and a-political. In other words, many are sociopaths who want to reduce the rest of the world to debt servitude.
Re: RinoDinos plotting defeat for conservatives
Oligarchs and Libs both seem to swim in a fairy tale lake, where they all drink A's: A-theism, a-morality, and a-patriotism. These A's are the components for the Oli-Lib "objective" fairy tale. OliLibs cling to their faith in such trinitarian A's with all their might, for it's the only faith they tend to have -- however risible it may be.
OliLibs promote small government panaceas like carnival barkers. Their solution to all that ails our economy is for the middle class to lay down, stop resisting, and let the difference in wealth and political influence continue to balloon apart. This is so that oligarchs can wrest all control from government by becoming the corporatist replacements of government. Then they are to benignantly rule, because their triple-A trinitarian special competence tends to be unimpaired in that it is a-theistic, a-moral, and a-political. In other words, many are sociopaths who want either to reduce the rest of the world to debt servitude or to parasite off the conservative producing class.
OliLibs place so much faith in law because they tend to have no faith in anything higher. But law is a fairy tale when institutions are not adequate to keep its skirts clean. Institutions tend not to be adequate to keep the law reliably trustworthy when common faith in social mores disassimilates and unravels. As more and more people fall to the ethos of "get yours while the getting is good," and they are not inculcated to share assimilated values, then favor seekers begin finding ways to peck apart laws, until laws fall as so much rot. In a multi culti society whose movers and shakers tend to be godless money seekers, it is difficult to fashion effective institutional checks and balances that can be adequate to preserve social currency or legal cohesion.
To get small government that is both real and effective, power games need to be checked and balanced by things more real than words that are put in books of law. They need to be checked by vying institutions whose members expect those of all other institutions to respect traditional norms. Sticks and carrots; force and persuasion: There need to be police and tax institutions for forcing with penalties, and there need to be spiritual and government institutions for persuading with indoctrinating parables and incentives. Institutions need to be balanced towards building up social faith, trust, credit, legitimacy, authority, and inspiration. General and fewer taxes and more churches: That is the path towards smaller government and fewer laws.
The more a-theistic, a-moral, and a-patriotic a society becomes, the less it is likely to be well ruled under fairy tales enacted as "laws." The only way laws become other than fairy tales is with inculcation of a society with spiritual values, mores, and love of culture-country. And that, my friends, is anathema for open-society, anything-goes, OliLibs.
RENORMALIZATION:
A fundamental aspect that drives every economic exchange is that different persons at different times from different perspectives renormalize differently regarding the things that they value. If the real value of everything were objectively set, there would be little reason, if any, to want to exchange anything. Values, like perceptions, are renormalized to perspectives
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