Why The Silence?
Why is it so quiet here? It can’t be because there is nothing going on. After all, there is a Russian hacker under every bed (You do have one, don’t you? I’m sure I have several but they are so quiet I don’t notice them.)
Meanwhile, the establishment refuses to give up a single iota of its power (and they say there is no bipartisanship in Washington!)
I sense there are more people than ever ready and willing to fight back but we somehow lack organization. Trump has turned out better than I dared imagine but he is NOT a leader. Despite his often ill-advised “tweets†on whatever riles him at the moment, he does not try to engage the people in any form of resistance. For sure, he tweets about the evil media and the like but always from a personal point of view rather than their obvious determination to harm the nation and its principles – Trump simply being an easy target for the larger objective.
Are there no potential leaders out there in the wings? Please don’t suggest Ivanka and Chelsea or I will surely find a way to digitally vomit on you.
Better yet, where is Dave? (Hello Dave – are you there? I’m sorry I criticized your stance on anarchism. Please come back.)
Please, somebody say something sane. I feel like I am in solitary confinement. Plus, misogynist or not, I miss Bill O’Reilly on Fox. Tucker Carlson just argues for the sake of arguing with little logic to back up whatever he is trying to say (usually, it is not clear to me and I am not sure it is clear to him either). On a recent episode, he seemed to be arguing with a fellow who was trying to agree with him.
Have we all simply given up?
Don’t even think it.
Troy L Robinson
Troy. Come out of your libertian cave. Trump NOT a leader? Come on man. All this stuff that happened requires a leader. Anyone can protest, obstruct. Dems are good at it. Reps too. Media can lie and make up fairytales. They are good at it. But when they fall and they will fall. They will fall hard.
Trump is a master persuader, and has garnered a very loyal following; but I see little evidence that he is interested in leading a revolution against overweening government. Unfortunately, he is a statist who thinks government is supposed to do things for the benefit of the citizens, besides just protecting them and their individual Liberty to pursue happiness their own way. He is extremely entertaining, and I love the way he gives the media and Leftists heartburn; but he is not changing the real power structure in Sodom by the Potomac. â—„Daveâ–º
Jerry,
There is a difference between a true leader and an able administrator. Trump strikes me as the latter.
Troy
Every day that goes by serves to prove that the countries legislative branch is nothing less than corrupt liars. our judicial and justice systems is a stinking heap of favors for some and injustice for the rest, and the administration is ineffective mired under the weight of it’s own corrupt self serving agencies. Not much to say when it’s business as usual.
It won’t be long before McConnel reaches across the isle and scoops up just enough democrat votes to give us new and improved Obamacare and Trump will be happy to sign it because it’s just too important to do nothing.
The scandals and illegal actions of the last eight years will be soon forgotten to make room for a whole new pack of distractions to amuse the sheeple and assure you that the government is hard at work doing the “peoples business”.
Meanwhile states like California will exercise their newly discovered 10th amendment powers to further bankrupt their states and then tap the feds unending largess.
Yup, Business as usual. Nothing to talk about.
This is all good, Chris. I supported Trump in hopes he would destroy the Republican Party… at least in the eyes of those who keep voting for them. The sooner enough people wake up and stop supporting corrupt politicians in the Incumbrepublocrat duopoly with their sanction at the polls, the sooner the USA collapses into regional enclaves of like-minded individuals, who only want government to leave them alone. That is worth talking about… â—„Daveâ–º
Your wish coming partially true I suppose. He’s managed to highlight that republicans are actually nothing more than the lesser of evils. Mostly by enticing democrats to completely lose it and prove daily that they are absolutely off their nut. Of course lesser of two evils can be equated to being shot to death or killed with mustard gas. When it’s said and done you don’t care one little bit.
The flaw in your analogy is the presumption that premature death is inevitable, because government is somehow necessary. Try this instead: Your choice is being eaten by an alligatoR or a crocoDile… or just staying the hell out of reptile infested waters. Choose carefully. 😉 â—„Daveâ–º
I had no intention of making a statement whether government is or isn’t necessary. Just that government is. Which was the topic of the post. Staying out of reptile infested waters is pretty tough when there aren’t any places free from reptiles. Even if you do manage to find a place sooner or later a particularly hungry gator is going to go off their beaten path to sample a piece of your backside. Once they get a taste You can’t stop them from coming back for more.
I didn’t mean to imply that you were, Chris. My point is that most Americans are too firmly embedded in the ‘us vs. them’ mindset, encouraged by the establishment kabuki theater, which I call the Incumbrepublocrat duopoly. Even those who dare to consider revolution against the tyranny of the Federal leviathan, are not pining for Liberty as sovereign individuals. Alas they are just anxious to replace particularly oppressive politicians, with ‘leaders’ more likely to oppress their ideological opponents.
To extend my analogy, they don’t really dare dream of draining the Potomac swamp; they just want to chase out all the crocoDiles, and replace them with alligatoRs. Or vice versa. We have been playing that futile game for a couple centuries now, and such freedom as our forefathers bequeathed us, has steadily withered away in the process. At this point, the tyranny of King George was insignificant, when compared to what we now suffer with barely a whimper. Seriously, what are the chances of ever voting ourselves freedom from tyranny?
You are correct of course, that government just ‘is,’ and that tyrannagators are voracious and relentless. Yet, we outnumber them thousands to one, and are by no means defenseless against them. It is only the sanction of our frightened neighbors, who continue to defend the state as a necessary evil, which keeps the oppressors in power. Without that implied sanction, they wouldn’t stand a chance. â—„Daveâ–º
Can’t argue that. Sadly you or I will never see the fruition of your vision. As you stated we have only been at it a couple hundred years and here we are. In reality the current condition has been since the time of man. That is to say there will always be tribes and chiefs. Whether the chief is chief by the consent of majority or the attrition of opposition. One would think the enlightenment you seek would come of natural course. Sadly the opposite always holds true. Control by those who wish to control breeds only the desire for more control. It’s most easily seen in one on one relationships. The most successful are between people who simply know when to leave the other alone.
…because our compatriots are irredeemably brainwashed, and incapable of independent thought as individuals.
This reminds me of one of the most enlightened long-term relationships I ever experienced. From the inception, she assured me that it was not my job to make her happy. She suggested that I do whatever makes me happy, and she would do what makes her happy. Then, we could share our happy lives living together. It worked out pretty well for a dozen years, before she eventually tired of having such a joyously carefree fellow underfoot. 😉 â—„Daveâ–º
I know exactly what your talking about. If only someone had tired of it before it ended. It would have been an easier separation.
Good question, Troy. And, you have astutely hinted at the answer. Although you have absolutely nothing to apologize for, the fact that I have swallowed the red pill and evolved into a contumacious anarchist, while my best friends online refuse to even consider following me down that rabbit hole, has certainly queered our repartee hereabouts.
Having entirely abandoned any interest in saving America as a viable nation state, the political topics that often get your knickers in a twist, now only amuse me. Yet I sense that my frequently asserting the obvious – that most such issues evaporate in the absence of the state – becomes tiresome and unwelcome. I guess I find it less contentious to just not respond at all, rather than repetitively abuse you all with my uncommon perspective, and frustrate myself with the apparent disinterest in ingesting any red pills.
Ironically, I find my lifelong hobby as a political news junkie, if anything, even more enjoyable when I am not particularly invested in the outcome. I have never had so much fun. I get to laugh out loud daily, at contrived political intrigue and uproarious antics, which I once took seriously, and most of my compatriots still do. I would love to write about it; but since most readers are experiencing heartburn instead of mirth, why should I aggravate their discomfort? 🙂
Perhaps I could change the focus of this blog from politics to science, religion, philosophy, reality, the nature of thought, and/or consciousness itself. What exactly is a mind? Where is it? Are we experiencing base reality, or are we just a software experiment? Any interest in chewing over such subjects, instead of political BS? â—„Daveâ–º
Religion is certainly more interesting than what passes for politics these days.
I continue to be baffled by the persistence, even the resurgence of religion in a world where so much has become known. But then, all I ever learned from a burning bush was to not get closer lest I become a burning idiot. Perhaps I don’t listen effectively?
Troy
As I suggest below, humans are easily programmable. Perhaps it is some sort of cosmic joke that the programmers enjoy perpetrating in our alternate reality. 😉 â—„Daveâ–º
Might be interesting…
I think therefore I am — I am therefore I think — I merely think that I am but am not really — If I cease thinking will I go away? — Better yet, if I cease thinking about Hillary Clinton, will she go away??
I actually haven’t a clue how consciousness happens but I am convinced it has something to do with grey matter, cells, chemicals and minute electrical pulses — ergo, could hardly happen without a living body to support such functions. The idea of a disembodied consciousness drifting about in the heavens (or wherever) is simply too ridiculous to seriously contemplate. But, let us try anyway.
Troy
Are you sure? Arthur C. Clark’s famous laws come to mind, especially the third. Yes, the human mind uses the brain as its CPU; yet most can be easily programed to think, believe, and act pretty much however clever persuaders, advertisers, and/or manipulators choose. Although not biological, a similarly programmable CPU provides increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence for modern robotics. Without invoking a deity, explain what irrefutable evidence might exist that we are not just moist robots, designed and programmed by an advanced alien intelligence.
What if we simply exist to perform a role in some advanced software simulation, akin to our own experiments with virtual reality and video games? Elon Musk seems to be a tad smarter than me, so I generally pay attention to what he thinks. He has thought about it a lot, and has concluded that there is only a one in billions chance that we are NOT a software simulation! 🙂 â—„Daveâ–º
When you give it even modest thought you can only conclude that humans and actually all living things are nothing more than pretty complex machines. Complex to us anyway. The similarities to what we call machines far outweigh any differences. We take in fuel or potential energy and convert it to other forms of energy whether kinetic (motion) or heat or another form of potential energy. We have the life cycle of a machine. There’s a delicate break in period then we run at peak performance for a while and eventually wear out. Given what we know about the way a human brain works (which is probably very little by comparison) it utilizes stored or potential energy through patterns of storage and transfer and the result is consciousness. Activating and flipping switches so to speak. Not unlike a microprocessor. Given this evidence I find your hypothesis Dave as valid as any other regarding the nature of consciousness. I would also hypothesize that the only purpose of the machine known as a body is to serve that consciousness providing only sensory capacity, fuel acquisition and conversion. Beyond that it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
Now to the point of consciousness after death. Well maybe it’s like this. Science tells us that energy is constant. Meaning it never goes away. It just converts to different types of energy. With that in a way consciousness is immortal. It can only be arranged in different ways or take different forms but that energy is always. Immortal consciousness may simply be in the way we have rearranged the patterns and switches that form the consciousness of those with a still functioning vessel. That someone can say “your just like your father. I remember him well”. We spend our “lives” imprinting information on others. It’s how we have advanced. (for better or worse) Some have arranged patterns of great multitudes and some to few but those patterns are there none the less. That quite possibly being the reason for what I think is a base instinct that people want to be “remembered”. Not many “leave the world” saying I hope they all forget about me. And if you happened to be so miserable a human that even you want the world to forget about you? Your already in hell.
Now there’s some tough talk from an old Catholic boy.
I’ve been pretty happy with Trump so far. Progress is slow on the swamp draining, but I think he’s still gaining, if mostly by attrition.
I’ve been happy with his foreign and business policies, as well as the changes within the cabinet departments.
As for leadership, I think the real test is the budget. It’s one of the few times he can negotiate with the legislative branch from a position of strength.
Sorry I’m late to the discussion. I just bought a new house with some acreage out in the redwoods. All electric with a stream on the property, so I’m just a few solar panels short of being off the grid.
Congratulations on the new house, Steel. I hope you do not give up the internet for a romanticised “off grid” status. I have spent a good many years of my long life living on 12V. In fact, I am somewhat an expert on the subject, which unfortunately has a lot of needless hype attached to it. If you ever have any technical questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I will be happy to answer them, or direct you to an authoritative source. Good luck with your new adventure. â—„Daveâ–º
Definitely not leaving the internet behind. The goal was to find a place at the edge of civilization, not cut off from it.
I don’t know enough to have questions yet. I think I’ll need to have someone come look at it and tell me where it would be worth adding panels and what incentives and options there are. I do at least have a cousin in the business. I’ve got a family of four home all day, so I’m seeing solar as a direct offset of daytime electricity cost. The fact that the city can have a failure and I’ll still have food, water, sewer, and power is a reassurance, not a goal.
Good and realistic goals, Steel. Remember that it is always more effective to decrease consumption (insulation, led lighting, etc.), than increase power production. Be realistic with calculations of seasonal average solar insolation at your locale, at the orientation and incident angles available to you, and the efficiency of the panels you intend to install. I would definitely recommend using your cousin, rather than some unscrupulous magic salesman, to help with these calculations and assess your potential for cost effective solar. It can take a good number of years to amortize such an investment, before actually starting to save any money. 😉 â—„Daveâ–º
You have mentioned a stream Steel. If it’s a year round flow I would suggest you tailor your electric needs more toward hydro than solar. Much more dependable, and cheaper to build. That is of course until the government slaps a wetlands label on it and tells you it’s illegal.
The stream is tiny, but appears clear and and constant, probably more like a spring than runoff. I don’t think it’s going to be much use as power, but should be otherwise useful.
You would know best but it doesn’t take much action to equal the meager output of solar panels. Particularly when your talking 24/7 365 output as opposed to only when the sun shines. Good luck with your off the grid endeavor though. I’ve had mine for many years and wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Just back from 2+ weeks in Europe (Viking River Cruise) and trying to catch up on all the activity here — despite my internal body clock being confused as can be.
On thing is clear — I am evidently very lucky in that my personal relationship with J9 (unmarried and totally respectful of each other’s independence and still working like a charm) makes me one very lucky fellow.
I am also making strides toward a more anarchist point of view, even though I still have some very severe reservations. I am actually beginning to understand that NO system of government can ever possibly work, although I still suspect that anarchism will inevitably lead to some form of “strong person” government. Too many of us simply demand to be lead rather than thinking and acting for ourselves, thus creating a vacuum that some form of government will always rush in to fill. Sadly, I am ever more prone to suspect that the answer to the “good government” question is that there is not an answer.
For sure, my time in Europe gave me a lot of further insight into the failure of both religious and royal hierarchies. But, that said, those failed systems did produce some interesting and impressive architecture.
Maybe I have will have more intelligent thoughts to contribute once my body clock is back in sync.
Good to be home, even though the trip was nice.
Troy
Ah… that explains your absence. Glad you had a good trip and it is good to have you back.
Yes, I have always been jealous of your luck to have Saint J9 continuing to put up with you, no matter what. 😉
Coming to the realization that there is NO such thing as ‘good government’ is progress for sure, Troy. All government is force and violence by nature, and I grant no entity the moral authority to coerce me, no matter what others might willingly accept. Even if your reservation regarding inevitable ‘strong man’ government were confirmed, I would still advocate anarchy.
Remember, Voltaire thought the best system of government would be a benevolent dictatorship, tempered by an occasional assassination. Even a malevolent one would be preferable to the mob tyranny of democracy, where everyone has been brainwashed to think the majority has the right to force the minority to conform to their model of the world.
No tyranny could long survive without at least the passive sanction of the oppressed. The oligarchs have convinced thoughtless Americans that ‘we the people’ are ourselves the government, so we must support the ‘rule of (their) law,’ no matter how oppressive. For those who buy that without question, I recommend the red pill. 🙂
I never had the desire to go to Europe but then I saw the Viking Cruise commercials on Masterpiece Theater. It looked like a great way to see it. Then thinking about all the old architecture. Oldest stuff around here is a mere few hundred years old, and that’s here on the east coast. Would be great to check out structures built a thousand years ago.
This was our 2nd cruise with Viking and we are already signed up for another next year (St. Petersburg to Moscow), Clearly we are satisfied with the whole Viking experience. They look expensive at first glance until you realize that they don’t “nickel and dime” you to death during the cruise. Virtually everything you need for a great experience is included and, best of all, I have yet to see a child on a Viking cruise. You have to have experienced one of those apparently “cheap” Caribbean things to truly appreciate what I am saying.
Troy
Anarchy, like most utopian ideals, is dystopian outside of a perfect world. It’s a near unachievable goal to strive towards, rather than something that would be beneficial if immediately implemented in full.
I think the first steps to getting there are making it much easier to remove legislation than to create it, and making sure that the scope of legislative authority is as local as it can be to still do the job.
This would depend on how loosely one defines ‘utopian’ and ‘dystopian.’ To my mind, both of these terms refer to the results of attempts to reorganize the power structures of a society. Those employing these terms, generally conflate ‘society’ with the ‘state’ and/or its ‘government,’ all of which are presumed to have the moral authority to coerce everyone to respect its authority to rule over them. Proper anarchy is, of course, the utter absence of such structural concepts, much less rulers.
My vision of anarchy does not include coercing, or even asking, others to conform to any societal rules. There would be no need for legislative authority at any level. All that I ask is that busybodies leave me be, to live my life as I choose to live it, as a free trader making value for value exchanges with peaceable neighbors.
I accept that peaceful anarchy is nearly unachievable in the ghetto infested metropolitan rabbit warrens, inhabited by Leftist Progressives and their reliable constituents. Yet, I have lived in several cultures, in various parts of the world and even our flyover country, where one can live a relatively peaceful life without much, if any, contact with so-called ‘authorities.’ It sounds like you are in the process of moving to such a place. Learn to enjoy it. 😉 â—„Daveâ–º
We don’t seem to disagree, though I’m agreeing with Troy that in the world as it stands, a sudden removal of all authority would just result in a short and ugly period of unrest leading to a new authority.
An enlightened world has no need of rules. We don’t have any real hope of getting to such enlightenment with the current gene pool and shared history. You can’t just start this kind of thing in a small group, because it will just be infiltrated. I’m proposing a reduction of authority to the minimum levels that can reach equilibrium with the current populace.
The problem, as I see it, is a severe shortage of enlightened people — a situation that gets worse by the year thanks to government programs that attempt to reduce us to herd status, the easier to exploit. Also, there are far too many of us, again a situation made worse by government programs that encourage the least able among us to breed most actively.
One definite downside to European travel is having to witness western European culture dying before your very eyes. Soon, one will be able to visit Europe without encountering a real European. Seems they have mostly departed to the US, Canada and Australia. Except, of course, for the losers who pretty much stay put and suck the government teat.
Still, it is very interesting to see what once was.
Please note that I do not equate the condition “well educated” with “enlightened” – they are two very different concepts. For example, the “enlightened” have far more insight into the true nature of things than the merely “educated”. To my feeble mind, it is essentially the difference between knowledge and understanding. The current populace brims to overflowing with knowledge but is crippled by the lack of understanding.
Troy