On Aug 28, 12:08 am, Justintruth <[email protected]> wrote:
> Well then why do you rely on them for the military or for maintaining
> streets or administering justice?
Because those are purposes that in my current opinion are proper roles
for government. Invading other countries by the way, I do not
consider "self defense" just for the record.
> Why do you always substitute questions for answers?
Always? I think that is a vast overstatement and untrue
> Your argument has the obvious structure of the false dilemma either
> charities or government... ignoring the rather obvious possibility of
> charities and government.
I answered this to Lee above, I must have left the wrong impression
earlier, which I suppose is my fault.
> The real question is how an unexamined life can lead to political
> conservatism and how, once that avoidance is established, can an
> interest be rekindled or the willfulness that is at the center of the
> will to power can be tempered by its own actual desires. The answer,
> of course, is art. I hope, and in fact believe, that the young or
> maybe even yet to be born will rekindle artistic expression and once
> again show the world how to live. They are never rich when they start
> out. As they say, harder for a rich man to .....
I am all for art. I am sure I am missing your point though.
> But to answer most directly - because I have my vote and I can do what
> I want with it. I can foster my own interests by ensuring that there
> is a safety net. In government, properly structured as a democracy, a
> man has a single vote independent of his wealth. This provides a check
> to economic power. If however, the government controls the economy
> completely the check provided by wealth on the government is not
> provided and you have the opposite problem.
>
> The real problem is how to check the desire for domination carried out
> either through unfettered greed and its eventual control of all
> aspects of everyone’s lives or through the direct implementation of
> concentrated power in governmental hands achieving the same thing.
I agree with that
> Focault has important insights into how we can, acting together as
> "the masses" impair the attainment of totalitarianism achieved either
> through economic domination or political domination. It all comes down
> to privacy. What is necessary is to strip away the ability of those in
> power to remain private. To have laws for example - eventually – that
> establish that those in power are not allowed to meet or even talk
> except through a technical means that allows everyone to see. Before
> that however we need to establish international voting rights, with
> direct election of our representatives and wholly new and orders of
> magnitude greater constraints on power.
Sounds like a reasonable plan
> There is a limit to what either charity of government can do in
> someone’s life to promote their benefit.
True, where you got the impression that I "either or'd" those two I
am not sure, but my attempt was to find a reasonable balance, a
"fairness" if you like, between all the competing forces and desires.
> You might reflect your question back on yourself and ask why you are
> not doing more instead of writing in this news group if you are so
> concerned.
We each have our own way, and our own path, and you do not know what I
do when I am not here, and that seems like a veiled attempt to accuse
me instead of the ideas I am discussing.
> If the answer is that you believe insights into foundation are needed
> right now and you are sincere in attempting to form them then that is
> great. If however, you are one of these hacks whose only purpose is to
> drive a wedge between people and their own political interests, to
> separate them from their vote in a sense, in order to marshal those
> votes in favor of those whose considerable economic power chafes at
> the idea of any limit being imposed on their power and for whom
> freedom itself, freedom ultimately from their own desires vice freedom
> in order to genuinely pursue their desires, is the only value, and a
> value that so conceived is as empty of content as a mirror reflecting
> on itself. If you’re one of those deeply despairing kind, for whom the
> only pleasure when they eat a steak in a very expensive restaurant is
> that they can eat it there and others cannot, and the fact that the
> cow was slaughtered for them vice they for the cow, if you are one of
> those angry despairing kind (you can hear it both Marxism and those
> that have elevated Rand to stature) then you simply must be defeated
> politically.
I am discussing the nature of humans, fairness, equal treatment,
respect for the individual, and how this can all be balanced in a way
so as not to impinge on individual expression. How we can all get
along yet not violate each other in some important way. When anyone
speaks of a group, I only see individuals. If you see it
differently, it is either that you are not listening close enough or I
am not presenting it correctly.
> There is plenty of room for a more reasoned approach. The real
> question is how to check all forms of human organization that are
> pyramidical. Governmental, business, religious, and non-govermental
> organizations to include all forms both legal and non-legal. What is
> needed is a comprehensive look at power and how it exercises itself in
> pyramids.
I am completely open to that approach and that idea.
>Your idea that it is the single man against the government
> is severely flawed. It is the single man against any form of
> domination including the government. The false dilemma underneath your
> post has been successfully used to drive a wedge between people and
> their interests.
I don't know why you see it that way, perhaps if you use my words to
show that?
> Lately, it has been too little government, not too much. Globalization
> of markets has succeeded but globalization of the labor market and
> political democracy has not. I look forward to the time when all basic
> needs are covered, no one is allowed to starve, everyone has a place
> to sleep and when they are sick they are cared for. Then the artists
> can compete to keep us entertained. Scarcity is the real problem but
> we must not skew the economy by disenfranchising legitimate
> governmental use as a component of a necessary check on the political
> power of the rich.
You put your faith in government to "fix" everything, I would rather
not put all my eggs in that basket . I realize the government is
required, I am merely questioning its "roles". I am trying to find a
balance of power. Too much power, whoever has it, is not a good thing.
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