The problem is that this moral argument cannot be applied.
The world, up til this point has been rule by force.
T.H.E.Y. have just put different faces on it.
Make the people feel that they are free, and that they have rights.
The soft approach seems to work better than the hard approach, but when the soft control grid is crashing around T.H.E.M., T.H.E.Y. bring out the hard control.
That anyone accepts Federal Reserve Notes is beyond me.
The FED should have been called out for what it was, (thanks The New York Crimes, the toilet paper of record, for keeping silent) and then it should have been dismantled brick by brick by the people.
Federal Reserve Notes are enslavement.
But... they are legal. Legal does not equal moral.
Slavery was outlawed... Not really, now everyone is a slave.
There is no justification, there is only an extreme power differential.
I am only encouraged by noting the current and ongoing transition of technological advancements that seem to all be increasing decentralization, as that is the actual increase of power of individuals, and decreases the power of institutions. Institutions of every kind and stripe are the usual and standard means of oppression, and absent factors of which I remain nescient, the eventual power differential will apparently end up completely favoring freedom.
Mayhap we will meet in that happy future day, and share with each other our good company.
That's actually going to be pretty interesting, as I am confident China has no interest in allowing actual decentralization in any form it can avoid. Just what kind of DLT would they be interested in then becomes the question, and given the reduced vigor of a proprietary blockchain, how useful will the proprietary mechanism they employ really be? The answers will be revealing, both about the technology, and how it impacts, and it impacted by, society.
while I disagree with your main point( constitutional justification for assasination/torture/etc), I wanted to thank you for adding this information to the debate
I'm not saying you are flat out wrong tho, as a practical matter, we already see the danger of abusive government
to support the tyrannical power of government because the current administration will use it against people you disagree with is foolish in the extreme, because administrations change - and can change very radically overnight - and such power can suddenly be brought to bear on you and people you agree with instead.
there are two sub-points here:
1 - the government can bring tyrannical force agisnt you; which it already does, see the Jane Doe raids in Wisconsin, or the Mueller raid on Stone
2- using against people who disagree with you - my objection here is that certain ideologies and organizations do not simply disagree with you...they want to kill you or enslave you
the basic problem is that the people never use their own authority to keep their security forces in check. I think that is the eternal problem
I am glad you were able to add context to my post. I'll address your last point a bit. The people do sometimes effect their authority personally. Maybe the first example in the US was the Gallatin Whiskey Rebellion (which is yet ongoing. People still make their own booze, and revenuers still seek to put them in jail for it when they don't pay the requisite taxes), and not very long ago the Bundy and Hammond families proved willing to.
Regarding folks bent on effecting your harm, such as killing or enslaving you, should they act to do those things, they commit crimes which are lawful to sanction under any legal theory which supports a form of government. Tyranny isn't enforcement of just laws, and neither is enforcement of just laws tyrannical.
If folks espouse ideas that would, if acted on, result in harm, that isn't the harm itself, and no sanction is appropriate. Debate is.
We may not be able to come to agreement on these matters. It's both easy and difficult for me to stand on principle, and it is similarly difficult to dismiss the practical reality that such parties but rarely limit their espousing to words alone, and that duly constituted governments therefore do what they can get away with to stop them.
I believe that were we to undertake rigorous and extensive debate on the principles here discussed, we'd largely be in agreement. I think you are more willing to undertake actions that are effective, even if they might not be perfectly justifiable dogmatically. This is not an uncommon position, particularly from folks that have been in the military, and were shot at by folks that disagreed with them, and I can grasp that deeply impacts one's dogmatism.
I think we're pretty much in agreement over the problem, but have differing views of the solution.
I am firmly of the view that each man and woman need to take responsibility for their own governance and self-defense; I think that the tool of government (state, rulership, etc) can help humans share this burden with each other, but that we as individuals need to make ourselves better, to monitor and control the use of this tool.
Well, other than the bit about government potentially being helpful, I completely agree. And I wouldn't kick you out of bed just because you're a filthy statist.
Srsly, I don't think folks took Washington at his word regarding how dangerous government was, and we've found our terrible servant and fearful master today. @dwinblood's latest newsagg literally has me psychologically reeling from cognitive dissonance. I'd recommend it, but I wouldn't want you to suffer the same trauma as I have from it.
The world has changed more politically in the last ten years than it has in the entire rest of my life, IMHO. Sadly, not for the better, either.
I appreciate you reaching out and giving setting me straight a shot.
The world has changed more politically in the last ten years than it has in the entire rest of my life, IMHO. Sadly, not for the better, either.
The trends towards centralization of power and mass propaganda efficiency have combined with humanity's natural tendency to ignore problems until it's too late.
A Chinese guy cursed our parents... may your children live in interesting times
Oops, a couple of additions, brought on by the article
obviously, our current government has no moral authority to decise what presents a real security threat to us
the mention of elliot abrams as an "anti-trump philosophy" guy brought in by Trump highlights that...the fact that trump reversed himself on Syria is proof of the pudding
Just because a wish list is declared in official sounding document does not make such claims valid. 'Muricans worship some 17th century document, created by malcontents and mafia, as some divinely ordained covenant. People have previleges as befit to be granted by those in power. Those without power, ie subjects, must adapt to the new reality of their circumstances, or become extinct.
While I strongly disagree with characterizing espousing rational principles communicated in a singular document, though centuries old, as worship, I don't fail to recognize practical matters of power that you note have impeded actually effecting those principles as a nation.
All I can do in view of the reality you propound is to note the rapidly burgeoning technological increase in decentralization, which is the direct increase in actual power wielded by sovereign individuals, and concomitant decrease in power possessed by institutions, such as government, historically enabling oppression.
There is some truth to the view that it is not only oppression that such institutions effect, but I believe that is because it is more cost effective to provide incentives for compliance with the overlord's wishes, rather than actual justice or beneficence.
While there is certainly a power differential, that difference has never been total, and even the least powerful individual has some agency, if only to refuse to comply and perish as a result. Our power grows my friend, and will continue to grow until that differential is finally total, and all free men are immune to oppression absolutely.
I look forward to our continued explorations of these issues until then, and our mutual felicity thereafter.
Just because a wish list is declared in official sounding document does not make such claims valid.
Allow me to add that the majority of the signators of said document were slave owners. Even after the document had been amended to deal with legal slavery (which seems an oxymoron) much of the country simply continued it in its Jim Crow form. My own eyes have witnessed "Whites Only" signs in the deep south in my youth. That is not exactly ancient memory but living memory. Those Unitied States of America have never been the home of the free.
Slavery continues to be legally permissible and increasingly practiced in America today. The 13th Amendment ended all slavery except that effected by the states on their populations of captives held as criminally sanctioned.
All prisoners in the USA are lawfully and effectively slave labor to this very day.
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The problem is that this moral argument cannot be applied.
The world, up til this point has been rule by force.
T.H.E.Y. have just put different faces on it.
Make the people feel that they are free, and that they have rights.
The soft approach seems to work better than the hard approach, but when the soft control grid is crashing around T.H.E.M., T.H.E.Y. bring out the hard control.
That anyone accepts Federal Reserve Notes is beyond me.
The FED should have been called out for what it was, (thanks The New York Crimes, the toilet paper of record, for keeping silent) and then it should have been dismantled brick by brick by the people.
Federal Reserve Notes are enslavement.
But... they are legal. Legal does not equal moral.
Slavery was outlawed... Not really, now everyone is a slave.
There is no justification, there is only an extreme power differential.
I am only encouraged by noting the current and ongoing transition of technological advancements that seem to all be increasing decentralization, as that is the actual increase of power of individuals, and decreases the power of institutions. Institutions of every kind and stripe are the usual and standard means of oppression, and absent factors of which I remain nescient, the eventual power differential will apparently end up completely favoring freedom.
Mayhap we will meet in that happy future day, and share with each other our good company.
well said and i totally agree
Keep an eye on how blockchain technology eventually rolls out in China to see how big the push back against decentralization will be.
That's actually going to be pretty interesting, as I am confident China has no interest in allowing actual decentralization in any form it can avoid. Just what kind of DLT would they be interested in then becomes the question, and given the reduced vigor of a proprietary blockchain, how useful will the proprietary mechanism they employ really be? The answers will be revealing, both about the technology, and how it impacts, and it impacted by, society.
while I disagree with your main point( constitutional justification for assasination/torture/etc), I wanted to thank you for adding this information to the debate
I'm not saying you are flat out wrong tho, as a practical matter, we already see the danger of abusive government
there are two sub-points here:
1 - the government can bring tyrannical force agisnt you; which it already does, see the Jane Doe raids in Wisconsin, or the Mueller raid on Stone
2- using against people who disagree with you - my objection here is that certain ideologies and organizations do not simply disagree with you...they want to kill you or enslave you
the basic problem is that the people never use their own authority to keep their security forces in check. I think that is the eternal problem
I am glad you were able to add context to my post. I'll address your last point a bit. The people do sometimes effect their authority personally. Maybe the first example in the US was the Gallatin Whiskey Rebellion (which is yet ongoing. People still make their own booze, and revenuers still seek to put them in jail for it when they don't pay the requisite taxes), and not very long ago the Bundy and Hammond families proved willing to.
Regarding folks bent on effecting your harm, such as killing or enslaving you, should they act to do those things, they commit crimes which are lawful to sanction under any legal theory which supports a form of government. Tyranny isn't enforcement of just laws, and neither is enforcement of just laws tyrannical.
If folks espouse ideas that would, if acted on, result in harm, that isn't the harm itself, and no sanction is appropriate. Debate is.
We may not be able to come to agreement on these matters. It's both easy and difficult for me to stand on principle, and it is similarly difficult to dismiss the practical reality that such parties but rarely limit their espousing to words alone, and that duly constituted governments therefore do what they can get away with to stop them.
I believe that were we to undertake rigorous and extensive debate on the principles here discussed, we'd largely be in agreement. I think you are more willing to undertake actions that are effective, even if they might not be perfectly justifiable dogmatically. This is not an uncommon position, particularly from folks that have been in the military, and were shot at by folks that disagreed with them, and I can grasp that deeply impacts one's dogmatism.
Thanks!
I think we're pretty much in agreement over the problem, but have differing views of the solution.
I am firmly of the view that each man and woman need to take responsibility for their own governance and self-defense; I think that the tool of government (state, rulership, etc) can help humans share this burden with each other, but that we as individuals need to make ourselves better, to monitor and control the use of this tool.
Well, other than the bit about government potentially being helpful, I completely agree. And I wouldn't kick you out of bed just because you're a filthy statist.
Srsly, I don't think folks took Washington at his word regarding how dangerous government was, and we've found our terrible servant and fearful master today. @dwinblood's latest newsagg literally has me psychologically reeling from cognitive dissonance. I'd recommend it, but I wouldn't want you to suffer the same trauma as I have from it.
The world has changed more politically in the last ten years than it has in the entire rest of my life, IMHO. Sadly, not for the better, either.
I appreciate you reaching out and giving setting me straight a shot.
Thanks!
The trends towards centralization of power and mass propaganda efficiency have combined with humanity's natural tendency to ignore problems until it's too late.
A Chinese guy cursed our parents...
may your children live in interesting times
Oops, a couple of additions, brought on by the article
obviously, our current government has no moral authority to decise what presents a real security threat to us
the mention of elliot abrams as an "anti-trump philosophy" guy brought in by Trump highlights that...the fact that trump reversed himself on Syria is proof of the pudding
Just because a wish list is declared in official sounding document does not make such claims valid. 'Muricans worship some 17th century document, created by malcontents and mafia, as some divinely ordained covenant. People have previleges as befit to be granted by those in power. Those without power, ie subjects, must adapt to the new reality of their circumstances, or become extinct.
good point
While I strongly disagree with characterizing espousing rational principles communicated in a singular document, though centuries old, as worship, I don't fail to recognize practical matters of power that you note have impeded actually effecting those principles as a nation.
All I can do in view of the reality you propound is to note the rapidly burgeoning technological increase in decentralization, which is the direct increase in actual power wielded by sovereign individuals, and concomitant decrease in power possessed by institutions, such as government, historically enabling oppression.
There is some truth to the view that it is not only oppression that such institutions effect, but I believe that is because it is more cost effective to provide incentives for compliance with the overlord's wishes, rather than actual justice or beneficence.
While there is certainly a power differential, that difference has never been total, and even the least powerful individual has some agency, if only to refuse to comply and perish as a result. Our power grows my friend, and will continue to grow until that differential is finally total, and all free men are immune to oppression absolutely.
I look forward to our continued explorations of these issues until then, and our mutual felicity thereafter.
Allow me to add that the majority of the signators of said document were slave owners. Even after the document had been amended to deal with legal slavery (which seems an oxymoron) much of the country simply continued it in its Jim Crow form. My own eyes have witnessed "Whites Only" signs in the deep south in my youth. That is not exactly ancient memory but living memory. Those Unitied States of America have never been the home of the free.
Slavery continues to be legally permissible and increasingly practiced in America today. The 13th Amendment ended all slavery except that effected by the states on their populations of captives held as criminally sanctioned.
All prisoners in the USA are lawfully and effectively slave labor to this very day.
Good point! 👍
Great podcast. Thanks for sharing it.
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I agree!