Who am I? The politics version...
I guess people have been recommending me as someone to follow for political commentary. First I want to say thank you for the recommendations. Second thank you to those of you that followed that recommendation. I tend to write whatever I am inspired to write about at any given moment. My most common topic these days is likely philosophy, though I do tend to also stray into politics and many other areas.
The funny thing about politics is I don't affiliate with left, or right. I view myself as an individual, and I am very much a voluntaryist. Ultimately I'd like to see humanity strive to a point where we no longer need this thing called government. I am a realist and I do not believe we could flip a switch and make anything like that happen today. I know just by looking around that the vast majority of the population could not handle it. It would implode upon itself. This I believe is actually true of any "utopian" type ideal. They sound great when bantered about in discussion, or when written down. Then when they are put into practice this pesky thing called human nature kicks in and the fact that we all have different minds and believe different things.
For no government to work I do believe we are at a point where we could build the technological tools to make that feasible. It is totally doable from the technological point of view. It is the people that are the problem. Most of the population has heard the phrase "critical thinking" but in practice they clearly have no actual clue what it is or how it works. I believe having a population that the majority are well versed in critical thinking is extremely important for any utopian type ideas to work. Thus, one of my personal goals is that I put a lot of emphasis on critical thinking in my writings. I do not profess to be an expert at critical thinking, as I see it as something we can continually improve but never truly master. So I am constantly trying to get better at it myself. I make mistakes as well. That brings me to a second thing society as a whole needs to relearn how to do.
People need to be willing to admit their mistakes, take responsibility, and also realize that mistakes are part of reality they are not always a bad thing. They are opportunities to learn. In this day and age we are trying to push more and more of our own responsibilities onto government which is an insane thing to do. There are many people who will never admit when they are wrong, they somehow manage to point out a scapegoat for each and every negative thing they experience in their life. It is never them. This mentality is a sickness and is bad for any productive society. It would need to go. Solving the problem with critical thinking deficit would likely resolve that particular issue fairly quickly.
Right now we live in a world where it is clear that emotions and how a person feels is more important than FACTS and REASON. People base truth on feelings and emotions. It is worse though as people are manipulated by their emotions and feelings.
Now I am going to dive into some politics...
I do not consider myself a Trump supporter. I was not a Hillary fan. I did too much research on her and would have voted for a random WOMAN off of the street before I voted for her. I voted third party anywhere I could and anywhere Libertarian was an option that is what I voted. Now as a professed anarcho-capitalist this may not make much sense. Like I said above you can't flip a switch and have it work. I believe it is a long term goal and I work towards that. Myself and many Anarcho-capitalists/voluntaryists came to this ideology by passing through Libertarianism. It is the closest to our ideology that still maintains a government. Thus, though I want it gone, I do live in reality and I have first hand experienced that voting can very much impact my life and that of my family. This is especially true on the local level.
I long ago decided that if the media was pushing particular candidates then that was likely a status quo candidate and not whom I should vote for. I mean why should we keep doing status quo if we think there are problems. We should be trying new things and learning from both the positive and negative things that occur from our choices. Instead emotions come into play again and feelings and they have most of the population terrified to stray from the status quo.
This brings up another thing that I've spoken about WORDS. Prior to Trump being elected people were terrified and panicing and going nuts over things he SAID. They were WORDS. While across the aisle the Lawyer that is Clinton holds a great deal of responsibility for a lot of actual deaths, corruption, etc. For me ACTIONS are what matter not WORDS.
I made a mistake in 2008 when I for the last time EVER fell for the "Lesser of two evils" line and voted for Obama. I was a Ron Paul supporter, but when Dr. Paul dropped out of the race I voted for Obama. He promised to get rid of the patriot act and a lot of things that actually were important to me. They were WORDS. It turns out those words had no meaning. Most of the things that convinced me to vote for him he did 100% the opposite of what those words said. So the WORDS were a lie, or at the very least ended up being irrelevant. What matters is the ACTIONS.
So when Trump was running and everyone was terrified of his WORDS while Hillary actually has a large record of nasty ACTIONS all I could do was shake my head and slap my forehead.
I find myself defending Trump often. This is not because I am a Trump supporter. It is because I see the clear bias and the media trying very hard to regain its relevance. I see this as perhaps the first time in my life that the media did not essentially elect the president. I would say the magazine covers already prepared for Madam President that had to be scrapped, and the sheer panic and for awhile seemingly confused thrashing of the mainstream media when Trump was elected spoke volumes.
To me I see huge waves of propaganda being aimed at the emotion and feelings driven minds of the masses and continually dumping gasoline onto the fire. They are attempting to build up more fires as well.
I defend Trump due to the huge imbalance in facts, reason, and the clear propaganda onslaught.
I've always been anti-bully and anti-peer pressure. It didn't really matter to me in life who the target of the bullying or the peer pressure was. I didn't like the acts themselves.
What I see from the media appears to be massive peer pressure (aka propaganda) and bullying. It is truly unprecedented in history.
I also see speculation getting a headline, then people repeating it and then suddenly what began as speculation is being treated as truth.
I also know quite a lot about hacking and security of servers, it is a big part of my job. So I know the Russian hacking narrative is total B.S. and they are preying upon the masses that don't know how these things work and that only can view such things from the perspectives of shows like CSI, NCIS, etc where what they show isn't even close to reality, but it does make for a more interesting television show.
That is a lot of my driving forces behind when I write about politics. I thought since I do have new followers that are being recommended to me for my political commentary that you might at least like to know partially where I am coming from and why I may write about things from the angle that I do.
I should add that I am not a fan of socialism, or communism. I'll sometimes get into debates on those things here on Steemit. Yet they are civil and even though I have friends here on steemit that are fans of those things, we still manage to be friends and at least have mutual respect. That is another sign of the magic of this place.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmP9VQdMUVR8m1RpRqRBWQUdwMdBuaNdaBz8E5QmYsyviU/image.png)
I think people are used to being the child and big Government is the parent, well that's the role I see them take anyway. Government tells them what to do and if they step out of line they get in trouble.. To exist without or less government people really do have to take responsibility for there own actions. Time for society to grow up and parent themselves.
Yep. That is why I have a long term goal. I do not see it as feasible now primarily due to what you just described. What I want cannot work without self responsibility.
Great to learn more about you @dwinblood. I am very much a critical thought, logic and reasoning type of person. Seeing the over exaggerated emotional responses from people these days, especially in the arena of politics, has me concerned. A majority of the emotional response comes from younger citizens, but there are many in powerful positions in government right now that take a public stage and respond with their emotions in very inappropriate ways. And the youth look to these leaders as role models.
I honestly don't know if the human race, or even a subset of us, could manage get to the point where reason and logic reign supreme and emotion doesn't play a factor. Where we stand now, after the last 8 months, it sure feels like we've taken many steps backwards.
I've been thinking a lot about the power of words (lies), media and propaganda and where we are headed in the near future. I actually wrote about it in my last blog: The Future Will Be Faked. I'd love for you to check it out, seems like it might be right up your alley.
Thank you, you have summarized many of my political leanings in a very articulate manner. If only we could get the emotion and vested baggage out and have a reasonable conversation, the world would move further along towards freedom.
Well stated.
I like ya'.........
Congrats!! You are great
dwinblood,
I think there are a lot of us that fit into the mold you are describing. We have no party that fits our needs. Most of us are socially liberal but economically conservative (which really means that we defend and believe in freedom in both the economic as well as the social sphere.)
I believe that, if life is lived properly, which means studied, the conclusion is that the experience of existence teaches us things. And that's where the construct we call society breaks down. Because, if you have already learned something about reality, it is painful to be forced by the rest of the crowd that haven't learned this thing yet, to go through the painful process of learning it en masse. We are stuck going through economic and societal collapses that otherwise we ourselves would be able to avoid.
The peaceful way to deal with this is withdrawal, the peaceful severing of interactions with other humans once those interactions cease to be mutually beneficial. In this way the system is encouraged to change towards a more healthy balance, and those that cling to an unhealthy practice or perspective eventually are forced by the iron rules of reality to either submit to the rules of reality or cease to exist.
The problem with society is when it becomes rigid, too rigid to allow individuals to change within it, because this process is also the process of blaming those who are attempting to withdraw for the ills of society.
I don't know what the solution is for this intractable problem outside of serial war. When there is room to expand the Libertarian viewpoint has room to exist and thrives. That used to be the West in the US. But once the West became "settled" then it was like putting a lid on the kettle, and the pressure began to build again.
In many ways, society is like a seedpod on a flower. It fills up to bursting, then explodes, and new societies are born from that explosion. Once (if?) we have the technological sophistication to be able to colonize regions of space, I think we will see another burst of freedom. But it will be somewhat painful to get to that point.
You speak a lot of truths in that reply. I believe space could be what you are picturing too. We simply need to survive long enough for that to actually happen. Often our society and goals seem rather suicidal to me.
"We simply need to survive long enough for that to actually happen."
Agreed. I think that the process of being forced to exist by the efforts of our own hands makes us simultaneously brave and humble. Humans that are deprived of this experience tend to remain emotionally juvenile. And I think emotionally juvenile humans tend to fall for magical thinking, whether that involves religion or politics, as I think both tap into the same part of our juvenile brain that is willing to believe in magic.
In many ways humans may be like yeast in beer. We create bureaucracy and convention and urban legends as a side effect of our problem solving brains just like yeast makes alcohol as a byproduct of their metabolism, but as society gets more packed, this side effects start to become toxic to us just like alcohol starts to become toxic to yeast. And, just like yeast eventually become quiescent as the alcohol level reaches a certain level in beer, our offspring are no longer able to develop the way we could before our society became too packed to allow new generations the space and autonomy to mature.
Far too much of this type of thinking... (referring to this image)
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmYmuSAhqmYBHS8W6S6cPCdMCd3Sns63Cikb6J6ieTZmL2/image.png)
That image, in a nutshell, is what politicians offer. But the button is not connected to anything. It's a placebo, whose calming effect stems solely from us watching it get pushed. But meanwhile the real problem gets either ignored or exacerbated.
Unfortunately many of our public institutions have become this way as well. They have all devolved to the equivalent of a scientistic rain dance (no offense intended to native americans by this analogy.) We see them doing something, whether that something is politicians legislating, or central banks adjusting, or doctors prescribing, or attorneys suing, and think that all is well with the world. But meanwhile, the real source of problems fester and expand because their sources, their causes, are never addressed.
Reagan got past them, but never fully went after the Left; he also was influenced too much by the Deep State. The neocons at this time were anti-Soviet, and their statist tendencies were the least of their priorities.
FWIW, on a clean Left/Right scale, ancaps and voluntaryists are very much on the Right side of the spectrum (statism vs liberty); two things have kept us from seeing this:
Even Reagan did not receive the media bashing and such of Trump. Yes, he was a surprise but they hadn't put forth the crazed bashing of him on the level they did for Trump. Now admittedly I was pretty young during the Reagan era and not really into politics at the time, but I don't remember it having the crazed impact on society that all of this anti-Trump crap is.
I also believe the Neo-Cons actually infiltrated and corrupted both parties. When I was a delegate it was clear they were the controlling force in the GOP in 2012. I've also seen their flavor in the DNC. In fact I'd clearly call Hillary a Neo-Con. She acts almost identical.
I'd say that neocons hid their statist agenda behind nationalist and patriotic rhetoric; Clinton has never hidden her leftist viewpoints (Alinksy ), and has displayed contempt for American ideals several times
what she has in common w/ the neocons is the connection to the Deep State. hers operates on a profit margin like any other leading socialist (ie Beach House Bernie)
Your the reason I've now found this place dwinblood and I have to say that I agree with everything you've stated in this post. The time for red team versus blue team is over and I see more and more people waking up each day to the BS reality we've been coerced with propaganda to live in. I also didn't vote for Trump, made the mistake of voting for Obama and would never have voted for warmonger Clinton. I'm down in south Georgia so I figured my vote mattered not anyway. I did however do my best to make sure Clinton did not get in and thought that Trump was the lesser of two evils due to possible war with Russia looming on the horizon with Clinton and the neocons. And yes, the dems including the Rachel Maddow/Stephen Colbert/Bill Mahr/David Brock gang have morphed into the new warmongering neocons. It seems like the whole systemic political belief structure of the United States is being shaken tectonically right now and people are waiting for a hero to save them, hence one of the reasons I wanted to put together that post on Ben Swann who I think has served his country well and deserves not to take a fall for all of us. Instead we should all strive to be the heros we are looking for and help get the word out about the crimes in our own government so that we can fix this horrifically corrupt system and actually improve our own positions in life while making the world a better place. Thats my simple philosophy. I appreciate you sharing my post last night and please feel free to share more material you find to your liking in the future. I have compiled a lot of important material at Clarity of Signal over the past year and it needs more daylight. Your help is appreciated.
Well now that you are here I'd rather YOU share your pieces. People are fine with you reposting things you wrote in the past here. It is not an uncommon practice. At least then your works are preserved in the blockchain.
Instead of me sharing your pieces I'd rather interact with you and be inspired by you. I've actually written a lot of Ben Swann posts. Since he went dark I've just tried to look at least once a month for any new news, and usually what I'd already written here was better than anything I'd found. Your article was the first case where I didn't feel that to be the case. This is why I wrote an article and made sure to include enough of myself in my post and tried to point people at your work.
It makes me VERY happy you are here. I try hard to convince various people I find on the internet to come here. It is kind of ironic that I succeeded with you and I didn't even reach out to you to try to convince you.
I don't actually think any of the various people I have tried to convince to come here have listened to me.
so basically you are libertarian. I don't want to label, but makes the most sense "politically".
BUT OBAMA?!?! so opposite to Dr. Paul
In 2008 he had not been President. Out of the choices at hand he was talking about killing the Patriot Act and how bad and unconstitutional it was. He spoke a lot of truth on the campaign trail. Yet it just ended up being WORDS.
Like I said I acknowledge it as a mistake and I promised to NEVER do the lesser of two evils again. I have honored that promise.
I was a delegate for Ron Paul in 2012 and went all the way up through state and stopped just short of going to nationals. I was one of those delegates that declared openly for him early in the delegate process. The things they did to try to block and hinder us were very mind opening.
After some of the things they did there I no longer believe fighting from within those parties is viable.
I am currently an independent.
I would ultimately like to see Anarcho-Capitalism for the future of humanity. Though I do see Libertarianism as being a feasible step that could be done now that could take us towards that goal.
So my acts are mostly as a Libertarian as that is what is required from reality now. My ultimate goals would be to not need a government at all.
I have to look into the term Anarcho.. it's a term I haven't really learned and I majored in Politicsl science from the leftist propaganda universities here in Canadastan
Can we ever reach a "contribution based" society? I'm voting yes but we will have growing pains to reach it.
I think we can get there and it might happen organically if we just get out of our own way. It'd start by focusing on what we can do for ourselves and what actions we ourselves should be doing rather than trying to force what we think other people should be doing upon them.
Agreed! We need to go from the bottom up rather than a top down centralized control. I do like how Pres Trump is giving more power back to the states. That is a good start.