Socio-Political Situation in the US

[Reason Man]

On several of the web-forums that I visit, I have seen people abusing politicians in manner befitting only primitive societies. ‘Grave’ would be a very mild word to describe the divisive emotional atmosphere in US (e.g. resorting to racist abuses / charges etc). With the proclaimed communists having entered the White House, I believe it is well past the time that people with similar political goals, viz. a small, restrained government and maximum freedom to the individual, came to an understanding for the purpose of reducing this government, while maintaining and declaring differences amongst themselves. Those interested may find following write-up to be contributing towards this:

http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/8a55c6df0a_0.08MB

The link to download the file is at the bottom of the page that appears.

[dan2100]

On several of the web-forums that I visit, I have seen people abusing politicians in manner befitting only primitive societies. 'Grave' would be a very mild word to describe the divisive emotional atmosphere in US (e.g. resorting to racist abuses / charges etc). With the proclaimed communists having entered the White House, I believe it is well past the time that people with similar political goals, viz. a small, restrained government and maximum freedom to the individual, came to an understanding for the purpose of reducing this government, while maintaining and declaring differences amongst themselves. Those interested may find following write-up to be contributing towards this:

http://myfreefilehos...55c6df0a_0.08MB

The link to download the file is at the bottom of the page that appears.

Racism and such aside, what's meant by "divisive" here? What, also, is wrong with verbally abusing politicians? I actually think a good amount of disrespect for politicians is healthy. In fact, treating people who live by coercing the rest of society as if they were above reproach seems unjust. Will you next propose no one say anything mildly offensive about rapists and murderers?

And what about those of us whose long-term goal or ideal is to get rid of government all together?

[Reason Man]

I mean: Communism, Religion etc are philosophies that lead to division of society into groups that slide into warfare, dictatorship, collapse at a later date etc .... like Soviet Russia, Dark Ages of Europe, today's middle-east etc. There is a big difference between "freedom of mind" and division of society into irreconcilable antagonist groups. Politics has eroded to such an extent in the US, that it is sliding from one to the other. Mere criticism has not remained of any use, but so also, extreme abusive language, show of muscles etc will not help, rather further deteriorate. Good arguments will help in bringing society towards better -- and that is presented in the given link. That sentence about Communists having entered White-House means I declare today's politicians to have fallen to a very low level -- but fight etc is the last stage, and before going to that level, one can still use better methods. I don't mean to side the politicians, as perhaps you imply.

[algernonsidney]

It seems like "Reason Man" is mainly concerned about the decline of political discussion in this nation. I think he is correct in some respects.

The health care debate was without a doubt an example of many of the things that are wrong with conservatives. For many, their tactic in opposing Obamacare was to raise questions about his birth certificate and his place of birth. I naturally wondered how such ridiculous debates would stop the plan. Nobody knew the answer to that one.

The likes of Garofalo responded to the tea parties by calling the people "racists." They made no attempt whatsoever to challenge their ideas and philosophies.

This article and the response to it perhaps best demonstrates how bad political discourse is in the US today:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100423/cm_csm/296410#mwpphu-container

[Reason Man]

Chris (you can call me as Nitin), I am concerned a lot about the socio-political situation that has drifted towards the dangerous – partial reason can be seen below.

Around 200 million Indians (the lowest social strata called untouchables in India) were liberated by Anglo-American philosophy from inhuman, inescapable slavery imposed on them as “pious religion” (and other 800 million Indians’ condition improved heavily). Phule, their first emancipator, expressed his gratitude by thanking the British-Raj, celebrating British victory over Brahmin forces during 1857 and asking his followers to learn English language / theories. Even today, some of their intellectuals exhort their followers to celebrate the Englishman Macaulay’s birthday and consider English language as Goddess! (They actually show the language embodied as a Hindu Goddess to new-born children. And recently there was a festival about this in Delhi attended by a British guest of honor. As an Ayn Rand fan, all these things are a bit amusing to me also, but I see their lives around me and am able to better appreciate their efforts.) These aspects, including what level of darkness we were fallen to, cannot be fully explained within this limited write-up – and perhaps several present generation Americans will not understand because they got many things on a platter (to squander away?).

I am appalled by the triviality of discussions people have on the many web-forums that I visit – the endless arguments over trivia that – not that these arguments lead to no-where, but have finally delivered the white-house into the hands of Democrat-commies and GOP-war-mongerers, both sides winking at each other, alternately sharing power and the perks!

Like Ayn Rand, many others have lamented that US is going to the dogs. For some of us who care, it is the end of civilization as we see it – there is no replacement, no substitute to continue. And civilizations have always ended, this will not be the first one, but it will be very tragic to see it happen during our life-times. Today it has almost and literally gone to dogs, and the process is already on after huge “achievement” of destruction. While the messiah and his communist aides have simply declared their intention to redistribute top Americans’ wealth, the other side has also declared theirs at the tea-farties (no spelling mistake, though MS Word shows it) – the commander-in-chief should not waver in creating the next debt-mountain, attack the Ayatollahs – somebody on this forum mentioned their allies’ names too, Halliburton et al. But I do not see any of this making any difference to most Americans – most probably for the same reason that while they all feel like philosophers arguing vigorously, all their luxurious needs are satisfied by the dollar printing factory, so far absorbed by the world! (The end of the world’s capacity to absorb it seems to be near – and then all hell will break loose.)

Few days back I wanted to respond to Barbara Branden’s Objectivism and Rage, it has many positive points – but instead I was driven out of my house during those days, followed by a sorrowful break with my children for some time.

Recently I read Michael Kelly’s article “A Question of Sanction” about David Kelly’s attempt to form a bridge with the Libertarians, and the consequent division, etc. This too has many positive points.

I got acquainted with western ideas because of reading Ayn Rand’s novels (and then I further learnt about America’s founding philosophy, “inalienable rights of an individual” etc). But I found that there are some odd controversies related to these topics. E.g. Ayn Rand learnt a lot of economics from the Austrian school, Ludwig Von Mises foremost amongst them, and while these are Libertarians, she was quite opposed to Libertarians. Web-info about Ron Paul shows Ayn Rand to be an influence – but I believe most libertarians find her name to be an anathema, though he is their top leader. There was a big split amongst Libertarians on the issue whether 9/11 was an effect of American meddling in middle-east or other way round? There is also another article on this forum: Objectivism, Libertarianism and War by Mike Renzulli which tells why “one faction” of the Libertarians split over 9/11!

As said above: while these people argue intensely over these matters, the thing that matters a lot, viz. White-House has already been hijacked by rogues. That mattered a lot to me and I thought perhaps I could contribute. And this post deals with this aspect – why should these knowledgeable be engaged in trivia while rogues hijack the most important thing?

I believe that my write-up is good – but then, I am nobody amongst rich Americans who on these forums talk about “champagne as my most preferred water” and “I just did not have that 1 more million to buy that Lautner House” – I should not expect anybody to read my posts. But I will make a last attempt if there is some positive response – on another forum I got a hint that many people do not bother to open links because: 1. fear of virus; 2. lethargy – they want it on a platter. So he demanded that I directly post the material on the forum instead of the link, which I complied with. Same thing can be repeated here if somebody is interested.

[Reason Man]

On another forum, I got an enthusiastic reply to my writing, and during discussion I explained to him the basis as follows (it should be read as addressed to him as part of our inter-action):

America was too big a happening in man-kind’s history – the climax of rational man’s aspirations for civilization, as I have called it elsewhere. It could not have got built over-night, nor could it have got destroyed so easily – it has withstood huge erosion / onslaught, and even today standing as the greatest country with several positive attributes – but today severely eroded and in danger also. To talk about it (i.e. to describe the phenomenon of America), to reform it for the better etc, cannot be done so very easily, the way we see discussions on internet forums. There are a few sincere attempts (one of them being yours), but some of them go awry because they do not start with the very basic fundamentals (you have gone upto Greece / Rome etc); else they simply get drowned in the din of the trivia that goes on all around.

To talk about America one has to go the very bottom (i.e. talk in terms of fundamentals) – how did this phenomenon, so very different from the rest of the world, come into existence in the first place? What did / does it depend on? Then one will come to the conclusion about “inalienable rights of an individual”, freedom of speech and so on, i.e. a democracy / republic (there is confusion about the terminology starting with founding fathers of the US who used both the words to describe it. But we can get it clarified in due course.) Then one will realize that only 3 civilizations so far reached a meaningful democracy – Greece, Rome and today’s Western. These 3 have a distinguishing feature as compared to the rest of the world, viz. that reason / logic was discovered, and meaningfully advanced, only in Greece upto today’s western. Aristotle has made the most important difference! (You will see this theme all over Ayn Rand, but in particular read comparison between Plato and Aristotle in “For the New Intellectual”, every achievement of civilization has Aristotle at its base, “never have so many owed so much to one man”, etc. Post Kant, westerners not only lost Aristotle, but substantially even the Aristotelian sense of life, and what you are calling as capitalism today is merely the remnants of that sense of life. Amongst other things, Ayn Rand re-discovered him for all of us. This theme is brought out in detail by me – and today’s erosion can only be explained / stemmed by getting Aristotle, i.e. reason, back into main-stream life. This is also the reason to talk about crisis of intelligence. Those who evade this under the excuse of allegiance to O’ism are indirectly betraying their conviction – Ayn Rand would not want it that way, she correctly expressed her indebtedness to Aristotle at appropriate places.)

Only after having seen all the above one can talk about why did America start eroding to the extent that today its almost on the brink – then one will find that all 3 civilizations reached upto this point, viz. democracy, and then collapsed. Why? Because democracy is fertile ground for moral degeneration, this group you call as hedonists (etc) comes to the fore and determines the govt --- and so on. Only after studying this aspect to the necessary extent one can think of how to overcome it.

Without doing all this its very foolish to engage in why GOP attacked Iraq, why Dems increased welfare etc. Their behavior is standard described by Plato step by step, so old it is – and Romans, America’s Founding Fathers etc everybody has studied them also (Washington was a fan of Cato), but so far solution has not been arrived at. If you take up day to day issues, they will go into so many directions of discussions (with every Tom and Dick interfering and steering discussion to his ideas) – till you finally give up, thinking this is all senseless realm. If you have a great philosophy – e.g. Objectivism – that also does not work, because, as you pointed out, the hedonists laugh at your “great philosophy” + they overwhelm you with their numbers, you are nothing in front of them.

It is under all these conditions that I am trying to propose a solution to this problem – but I am myself under victimization / persecution here, ours being a fanatic society, my family back-ground being very bad etc. Also: I am not “one of you people”, this factor too has an effect no matter peoples’ proclamation to the opposite, and they tend to neglect me.

But note the few effects of not starting from such fundamentals, I have pointed in the link given to you – today, there is a huge fight to save capitalism by its alleged defenders (GOP making big noise about it) versus Dems’ quest for its total annihilation to save the people from its ill-effects like today’s recession! Capitalism in US has died decades back, and we are seeing recessions, corruption etc due to American socialism, and knowledgeable people are defending capitalism instead of attacking socialism with this tool! The other example: The American is the greatest emancipator on earth – but today the white man is fighting to save himself from the emancipated people’s allegations of being a racist oppressor, the noise reverberating all over the earth.

All such things will get erased because of my approach of starting from fundamentals. Having shown so much, I had like to hear something more from your side. See if you can take some time off.

[Reason Man]

On another forum, I got an enthusiastic reply to my writing, and during discussion I explained to him the basis as follows (it should be read as addressed to him as part of our inter-action):

America was too big a happening in man-kind’s history – the climax of rational man’s aspirations for civilization, as I have called it elsewhere. It could not have got built over-night, nor could it have got destroyed so easily – it has withstood huge erosion / onslaught, and even today standing as the greatest country with several positive attributes – but today severely eroded and in danger also. To talk about it (i.e. to describe the phenomenon of America), to reform it for the better etc, cannot be done so very easily, the way we see discussions on internet forums. There are a few sincere attempts (one of them being yours), but some of them go awry because they do not start with the very basic fundamentals (you have gone upto Greece / Rome etc); else they simply get drowned in the din of the trivia that goes on all around.

To talk about America one has to go the very bottom (i.e. talk in terms of fundamentals) – how did this phenomenon, so very different from the rest of the world, come into existence in the first place? What did / does it depend on? Then one will come to the conclusion about “inalienable rights of an individual”, freedom of speech and so on, i.e. a democracy / republic (there is confusion about the terminology starting with founding fathers of the US who used both the words to describe it. But we can get it clarified in due course.) Then one will realize that only 3 civilizations so far reached a meaningful democracy – Greece, Rome and today’s Western. These 3 have a distinguishing feature as compared to the rest of the world, viz. that reason / logic was discovered, and meaningfully advanced, only in Greece upto today’s western. Aristotle has made the most important difference! (You will see this theme all over Ayn Rand, but in particular read comparison between Plato and Aristotle in “For the New Intellectual”, every achievement of civilization has Aristotle at its base, “never have so many owed so much to one man”, etc. Post Kant, westerners not only lost Aristotle, but substantially even the Aristotelian sense of life, and what you are calling as capitalism today is merely the remnants of that sense of life. Amongst other things, Ayn Rand re-discovered him for all of us. This theme is brought out in detail by me – and today’s erosion can only be explained / stemmed by getting Aristotle, i.e. reason, back into main-stream life. This is also the reason to talk about crisis of intelligence. Those who evade this under the excuse of allegiance to O’ism are indirectly betraying their conviction – Ayn Rand would not want it that way, she correctly expressed her indebtedness to Aristotle at appropriate places.)

Only after having seen all the above one can talk about why did America start eroding to the extent that today its almost on the brink – then one will find that all 3 civilizations reached upto this point, viz. democracy, and then collapsed. Why? Because democracy is fertile ground for moral degeneration, this group you call as hedonists (etc) comes to the fore and determines the govt --- and so on. Only after studying this aspect to the necessary extent one can think of how to overcome it.

Without doing all this its very foolish to engage in why GOP attacked Iraq, why Dems increased welfare etc. Their behavior is standard described by Plato step by step, so old it is – and Romans, America’s Founding Fathers etc everybody has studied them also (Washington was a fan of Cato), but so far solution has not been arrived at. If you take up day to day issues, they will go into so many directions of discussions (with every Tom and Dick interfering and steering discussion to his ideas) – till you finally give up, thinking this is all senseless realm. If you have a great philosophy – e.g. Objectivism – that also does not work, because, as you pointed out, the hedonists laugh at your “great philosophy” + they overwhelm you with their numbers, you are nothing in front of them.

It is under all these conditions that I am trying to propose a solution to this problem – but I am myself under victimization / persecution here, ours being a fanatic society, my family back-ground being very bad etc. Also: I am not “one of you people”, this factor too has an effect no matter peoples’ proclamation to the opposite, and they tend to neglect me.

But note the few effects of not starting from such fundamentals, I have pointed in the link given to you – today, there is a huge fight to save capitalism by its alleged defenders (GOP making big noise about it) versus Dems’ quest for its total annihilation to save the people from its ill-effects like today’s recession! Capitalism in US has died decades back, and we are seeing recessions, corruption etc due to American socialism, and knowledgeable people are defending capitalism instead of attacking socialism with this tool! The other example: The American is the greatest emancipator on earth – but today the white man is fighting to save himself from the emancipated people’s allegations of being a racist oppressor, the noise reverberating all over the earth.

All such things will get erased because of my approach of starting from fundamentals. Having shown so much, I had like to hear something more from your side. See if you can take some time off.