Tuesday, December 8, 2015

FASCISM

FASCISM

Most people would consider Hitler to be a fascist. I guess you could call him a "nationalist" even though he was bent on conquest, since he wanted to put the areas he conquered under his fascist control.

If it's important to you, you can call them Bambi's, if you want to. You can use whatever private language you want. What I am concerned with are tightly bundled organizations ("fasces") bent on acquiring central power over masses of people. In case you had not noticed, nations and borders, as concepts, are becoming obsolete among rulers with fascist tendencies. They are being replaced by multi-nationals, treaties, etc. And they are run through elitist controlled institutions of media, propaganda, banking, education, "charitable" foundations, international corporations, world organizations, etc.

In the one world idea, there would be no nations, but there would likely be some kind of central command. The people who use the techniques of fascists to acquire, keep, and promote that central command can be intelligibly referred to as fascists.

Now, if for some reason, unknown to me, it is personally important to you to call them something else, that is fine. It matters naught to me what name you use to refer to a rose. For myself, I'm simply not interested in those kinds of petty conversations. But gee, thanks.

Edit:

If Trump shows it to be his purpose to free America as a nation from undue international controls, the next important question is whether his administration will acquiesce to states freeing themselves from undue federal controls. If he does not, if he fails to shut down unnecessary and unauthorized components of the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, then it would not be unreasonable to call him a national fascist. But if Trump does free America from international controls and also reinvigorates states' rights, then I see no point in painting him with the fascist label (which the Left is trained to go nuts about).

Otoh, Obama has sought in effect to erase America's borders and to bury America under onerous world agreements concerning carbon and trade. I don't see the point in declining to paint him with the prejudicial label, "fascist," just because his model for elitist despotism is closer to Stalin's than Hitler's.

Both Hitler and Stalin were after world conquest, so the "national" versus "international" distinction is one that makes little difference -- except perhaps to academics who want to defend strict categories. As if existence could be described in a silly academic pursuit of a set of exhaustive and mutually exclusive Venn diagrams.

As for me, I would rather keep my eye on the ball. The ball pertains to collectivistic tyranny (fascism) versus individual liberty (federal representative republicanism).

Monday, December 7, 2015

Spiritual Gnosis

Identity.  Avatar.  Soul.  Accumulation of Information.  Karma.  Same Information, from many Perspectives, including Holistic.  Changeless Changer.  God appreciating, learning, reconciling, preserving information, paying it forward.  Both psychically and substantively.  At immeasurable and unprovable but intuitive level, Spirit learning, reconciling.  Preservation of Information, regrets.  Immeasurable Causer.  Still quiet voice.  Spirit based conscience.  God Identity Consciousness Alone.  Appreciation Music Purposefulness.  Choosing through possible scenes.  Intuitive Conscience Soul.  Beyond science, yet confined with math.  Godhead because trinitarian can both remember (store possibilities) and forget and appreciate anew.  Shades of music.

 At some point, the best explanation for wraping things together probably has to be beyond empirical verification. The best for such an explanation may consist in its utility for principled and consistent moral argumentation. Provided it is sensible, yet not falsified. Even so, I suspect that adopting such an explanation may inspire sub-ideas that ARE empirically testable, useful, and not inconsistent with the wrap.
I have been watching occasional documentaries concerning physicists who speculate about whether time, insofar as it is measurable, may be granular. (Even though the way it is granulated is renormalized to each and every perspective.) So that brings in perspective. Conscious appreciation and "spiritual choice." Ideas about how it may be that the potentiality of information as it accumulates is never lost. How, in that respect, the past continues to exist!
I think your model pulls together the ideas of granular time and a chronologically dependent series of perpetually existing "scenes" (or potentially available choices).
Still, it's a mind numbing idea. As any idea that approaches the Godhead must be. The measurable cosmos is mind boggling enough. Add to that an astonishing number of parallel cosmos of chronological scenes and the mind risks becoming unhinged. Or the mind rebels.
The mind balks at notions that fundamentally transform ways of thinking about one's conscious identity and the identities of one's significant others. One wants to believe that one's close friends are more than apparitions or bots. That's what gave me itches beneath my skin. However, on reflection, I no longer think that is the problem it at first seemed to be. I'm still reflecting on it, so I'm not sure I can yet explicate why.
A way to resolve some of the "itches" may be to think about a trinitarian aspect to the Godhead. Not so much the poetic or biblical idea of a tirnity, but a conceptualization grounded in concern for how to make as consistent, coherent, and complete sense out of our beingness as possible. How may it be that an aspect of the godhead can sponsor into existence all that can ever exist, while retaining capacity to flux to another aspect that can forget, re-learn, and be appreciatively and meaningfully surprised anew? How may each perspective of conscious identity be a perspective of the same thing? A "changeless-changer?"
Maybe resolution has something to do with how Information is preserved, processed, appreciated, and presented. "I" am more than the particles that comprise my body. I am also a product of the contextual field that defines me, as well as that defines my acquaintances. Whatever the Holism that happens to define, reconcile, and present me will also happen to present my acquaintances. And we are all derivative of that reconciling Holism. Thus, not "bots."
Just musing. May change my mind about this later.


"I-ness" does not seem to have been well explicated. At least, I have not noticed lengthy attempts to explicate it. How can an incarnate, immeasurable "soul" be measured to sense, effect, or cause any event? And what if all measurable events are derivative of some "thing" that is beyond measure (some no-measurable-thing), but that "speaks" in appearances (and "bubbles") that themselves are measurable (and therefore "substantive")?
As concepts, soul/spirit/conscious identity, etc, seem to be placeholders for referring questions that defy math-measure or cause-effect analysis or logic. Yet, "cause" as a concept seems to break down in most leaps between the finite and the infinite and the measurable and the immeasurable. We want to imagine "some beingness" reconciles and causes (some Mathematician "maths") -- but we have no-thing to suggest or confirm it, beyond the ineffable, the suggestive, the intuitive, the "spiritually insightful."
Yet, that, and perhaps an idea of karma (or spiritual judgment, or unending and unfolding rconciliation of never-lost information) seems to be the implicated foundation for moralizations -- whether or not we wish so to articulate. Maybe, if information is never lost, like Jacob Marley's chains, we intuit moral investments in our choices.
IOW, that-which-we-measure-not somehow accompanies, guides, or affects apprehensions and choices. Some vague guess about other scenes or possibilities not presently chosen. Maybe on some higher plane, some reconciling aspect of us, or some aspect that defines us, "senses" that it has been here before. We can't directly "make stuff" with it, but somehow or other we make choices and seem to rationalize back to "it."
IAE, "it" remains an itch, and I don't see how any philosophy can entirely banish it and yet make claims about "moral purposefulness."

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Wrestling With God -- In Particulars


People can assemble in good faith and good will ro seek receptivity to spiritual guidamce and to assimilate values in that respect.

Those values, so as not to be trampled, need to find respect and representation in gov. Without faith, family and fidelity, gov soon turns to fascist despotism. To try to wall godliness away from political goodliness is to feast eyes solely on heaven while abandoning whatever we may have been commissioned to do on earth. Jesus taught: "Thy will be done, on earfh as it is in heaven."

Though we all fall short, churches could do much good by inspiring people voluntarily to come together in good faith and good will, to be receptive to "wrestling with God" to assimilate good values that can be preserved in their society and its institutions.

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Look in good faith to the Reconciler. When people gather in good faith and good will for that purpose, they tend to be led to it. A good place to start seeking is the New Testament. For political purposes, I think a good test is this: What kind of cultural system of values and system of laws is needed to establish and sustain a representative republic that will accord decent respect for human freedom and dignity? The answers vary with contexts and are perhaps more qualitative than quantitative. The paths to that system will vary among cultures. They are best found by looking with others to the Reconciler.

In political terms, a few considerations I think appropriate would include:

Don't tax people to let rulers recruit and groom those who seek to undermine families.
Don't let gov force sanctuary to be provided by others, to give sanctuary to people who are trained to murder and undermine your society, where you would not be willing to give sanctuary to any of such people in your own home.
Don't let gov live beyond its means to put unsustainable burdens on your progeny.
Don't raise children to feel entitled to extort money from other people to siphon for their own pleasure that which they should be earning for themselves.
Don't let your church be persuaded to give up its moral message in exchange for tax credits from the prevailing despots.
Don't let gov or church abuse children.
AFFORD people you come in contact with opportunities to show their moral worth and good will.
UNITE with other members of your church to distribute charitable works, and do not conflate gov with charity.
UNITE with other members of your church to campaign against moral abuses by gov.
WWJD: Judge. In your voting and acting, look beyond selfish wannas and narrow contexts. Pull your focus back to include a broader society. Don't rush to "turn the other cheek" to tolerate that which would destroy the kind of society Jesus would seek to build. If you don't have knowledge or facts commensurate with the task called for, first, do no harm. Don't vote while stupid.

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Ministers of all colors need to challenge themselves: Are they part of the solution, or part of the problem? People go to church for fellowship, to seek inspiration, and to get through a rough patch. Churches rely on membership, both for their revenue and for their sense of purposefulness. They prefer to inspire without being divisive.

But politics is inherently divisive, regardless of how morally important it is. A minister's duty is not just to whomever happen to comprise his congregation. His duty extends also to God and to the pursuit of better civilization. That requires willingness to "wrestle with God." That was the point of renaming Jacob. It was only because Jacob struggled with God that he received a new name, Israel. http://www.gotquestions.org/Jacob-wrestling-with-God.html

However, modern Christian churches blanch away from struggle, preferring not to rock the boat. Raise up congregations of happy faces on sticks. Approve, bless, and tolerate everyting, including evil -- excepting only to decline to tolerate that which is intolerant of evil. So, modern churches tolerate the acme of evil -- Islam -- which is the glorification of hate, disfigurement, stoning, burning, eye gouging, beheading, and abject surrender of all reason. Moreover, they tolerate that which is inimical to faith, family, and fidelity. That is, they bless what destroys a representative republic that seeks to avail human freedom and dignity. That is, freedom of their own accord to "come to Jesus."

There is more to seeking moral guidance from God than a simplistic talisman of loving and tolerating everyone. Spirit based empathy is about more than "loving everything." It also encompasses seeking to overcome evil -- not to celebrate and feed it. Empathy ought not be a code word for blessing depravity and sub-humanness to perpetuate depravity and sub-humanness.

For heaven's sake, how do you "tolerate" your neighbors of good faith and good will if you sponsor the importation of brutes to go among them to rape, plunder, and kill them? Why should love and toleration go to trained rapists, plunderers, and killers, but not to long standing neighbors? And what of the future -- should it factor into any instant gratification you may seek from being radically "tolerant" in the present? What does your receptivity to God's guidance tell you about the kind of decency and civilization God wishes to lead us towards? Should we be tolerant of that, as opposed to sacrificing it so we can feel good about "tolerating" brutes in the present?

Ministers often make excellent presentations leading up to the question, Does the church believe anything is wrong (or bad or sinful)? Or does it just tolerate and love everything and everyone, and is that even possible? They often get right up to the ring to "wrestle with God," and then they crumple.

They fail to engage the important factors that relate to the contest. Their pat suggestion seems to be, yes, give refuge to the Syrian Musliims. With no concern expressed about the nation. Nor for an alternative that would provide refuge in place.

Same with concerns about gays. Little appreciation that Gays already are free to do most of what they want, and face little public prejudice for doing it. As if social tolerance, to be moral, should somehow require the next step, being political funding and sponsorship.

Jacob wrestled with an angel of God. But most churches nowadays do not wrestle. Nor do they seek or give practical moral guidance. Instead, they tend to claim God loves and tolerates everyone and everything -- as if such a logical contradiction could make any kind of moral sense! They do not help a nation keep its moral balance to preserve itself politically. They make us easy fodder for corrupt vultures, crony plunderers, and mad-dog gangster rapists posing as men of "God" (Allah). And with a well presenting minister, all the sheeple assent.