Please read this and tell me what you think.
Misleading labels: The media elites in America are always trying to divide us. They divide us by age, sex, religion, and race. They divide us into extroverts and introverts. They divide us into aspies and nuerotypicals. Most of all, they divide us by political party affiliation. They use misleading labels such as “conservative” and “liberal” to make us believe there are two distinct groups of us with a large gulf in between. The reality is that no two people agree on everything and there are often more differences within groups than between them. Independent individuals exist across the political spectrum as one large, sprawling group. How people are classified depends much on the questions asked and on how such things are framed. It is entirely possible to believe the death penalty is sometimes justified, but to still believe it to be bad policy. It is entirely possible to believe the wars in Iraq and Libya were justified, but to still believe them mistakes. It is entirely possible to believe that drug use and extramarital sex are unhealthy without considering them immoral, and possible to consider them immoral without believing they should be made illegal. It is entirely possible to be deeply suspicious of big corporations and yet even more suspicious of big-government attempts to reign them in. The same person taking two different surveys may seem very liberal to one and very conservative to the other. Depending on which points candidates emphasize, the same person could vote either Republican or Democrat. Measuring Values: Sometimes people will support the same policies for very different reasons. One can support anti-capitalist economic protectionism not to protect the jobs of American workers, but to protect national security and self-determination. Some people may oppose affirmative action not because it divides us and perpetuates unequal treatment based on race, but because they are secret segregationists. Whether one supports particular policies often depends how the policies are applied. One might be perfectly happy to let the state decide to legalize or criminalize abortion or drug use, but not believe it is the role of the federal government to tell the states how to rule. One might believe it perfectly permissible for government to fund with taxpayer money things such as health care and education, but not the federal government. One might believe that the congress should pass a law to define marriage to include homosexual unions, but still call foul when unelected judges impose their own will on the people to do the same. Sometimes what policy someone supports depends on what the given alternatives are. The same individual might support a flat tax when the alternative is a complex income tax with multiple brackets, exemptions, credits, deductions, and different rates for different types of income, yet support a sales tax over a flat tax, and a tax on the states over a national sales tax, allowing the citizens of each state to decide how they will be taxed. This is what gets politicians into trouble more than anything else. They will support one policy one year and another policy another year because the given alternatives have changed, not their principles. The media will still cast the change as a flip-flop. Sometimes the problem is one of pragmatism. On one hand, one might support democracy over anarchy because of the political reality that without government there is no protection from criminals or foreign governments, though in an ideal world without such threats they would support anarchy. On the other hand, one might support separation of powers, a bill of rights, and term limits that thwart the will of the voters over pure democracy because of the political reality that most voters are easily manipulated and too willing to impose their will on each other, though in an ideal world without such things they would support a pure democracy. On yet another hand (How many hands do people have again? I’ll use a foot.), one might not support term limits or separation of powers because of the political reality that such things are not politically viable. Over and over I see people that actually agree or have very similar positions argue with each other – and this phenomenon happens outside of politics as well. Sometimes two people who are both moderates on abortion and can see merit in both the pro-choice and pro-life arguments will misinterpret where the other is coming from. One person might react to recent pro-choice extremism by repeating a pro-life argument and another person might assume the first to be pro-life and respond with a pro-choice one, in turn leading the first to assume the second is a pro-choice extremist. They can go back and forth for hours and never realize that they agree. We aren’t as far apart as the media would have us believe. I encourage everyone to be patient and tolerant and really listen to each other. We are more alike than most people know. Classification: What is the difference between liberals and conservatives anyways? I find that what I am told by pundits, politicians, and even scientists does not make sense to me. We are told that liberals support big government while conservatives support small government. Is this true? There are many different ways to measure the size of government. It can be measured in the number of agencies, the number of employees of those agencies, the fiscal costs of running the agencies, the number of individual laws and regulations, the expansion of the ability to enforce the laws (e.g. greater punishments, greater surveillance), the tediousness and intrusiveness of those laws into realms that many consider private (e.g. how many ounces of soda one can order), and the expansion into realms not directly related to governance (e.g. spending money on welfare or corporate subsidies rather than on law enforcement). It is very difficult to find data on these things except for spending, and spending has been increasing under both Republicans and Democrats since the forties. I am sometimes told that conservatives value tradition while liberals are for change for the sake of change. Is this true? There are different ways to measure change. Liberals keep proposing new policies all the time, but from my perspective they seem like only tiny tweaks to the same top-down, one-size-fits-all, all-in, big-government model that they have been using since The New Deal and The Great Society. In contrast, conservatives propose many creative new ways to order public life, such as partial Social Security privatization and school vouchers. It is only a tiny minority of them that propose tearing the whole system down. I am sometimes told that liberals are idealists and conservatives are pragmatic. Is this true? While it makes sense to say that the free market is a practical alternative to failed liberal welfare-state policies that only create dependency and it makes sense to say that training and equipping good citizens in gun use is a practical alternative to failed liberal gun-control policies that the criminals don’t follow anyways, conservatives are idealistic in that they cannot see that neither the free market nor repealing the gun laws are politically viable. When the majority supports an impractical ideal, the practical thing is not to fight it. Some students of political science classify people in two dimensions – one pertaining to the degree of economic freedom they support, and the other pertaining to the degree of personal/social freedom they support. Others use three dimensions – one for economic issues, one for personal/social issues, and one for foreign policy issues. I have even seen models using four and five dimensions. With all of these models, there is the problem of classifying which issue fits in which dimension. Are school vouchers a personal issue or an economic one? Is participation in NAFTA an economic issue or a foreign policy one? Just to make things even more confusing, the way pundits and politicians arrange possible positions on a given issue into a political spectrum often defies logic. It is highly misleading. There is a school of thought popular among Republicans that we must meet every potential threat to our national interest with overwhelming force before they become big problems. There is another school of thought popular among Libertarians that the best way to avoid wars is by not being so quick to escalate. The best policy is probably somewhere in the middle. Where do the Democrats fit on this spectrum? Listening to the politicians, they would have you believe that they are Libertarian-esque when running against Republicans, but as soon as they get into office they get us into wars everywhere even when there is no compelling national interest, instead citing “humanitarian reasons” – but humanitarian reasons exist in every conflict! Spectra can be divided up differently depending on how an issue is conceptualized. Purely pro-choice people obviously go at one end and purely pro-life people obviously go on the other end, but who goes in the middle? Those otherwise pro-life who make an exception for rape and incest, or those otherwise pro-life that make an exception during the first trimester? There exist those that dislike verbal obscenities but have no problem seeing them in print. There exist those that dislike written obscenities but have no problem hearing and using them verbally. Some people prefer an income tax, some prefer a sales tax, and some prefer a property tax. What fair way is there to arrange those people onto a political spectrum? Among those who are called moderates there can be larger differences than between the most radical liberals and the most radical conservatives. Some are called moderates because they are radically liberal on social issues and radically conservative on economic issues. Others are called moderates because they are radically conservative on social issues and radically liberal on economic issues. Some are called moderates because they are right in the middle on nearly every issue. Still others are called moderates because they don’t care much what happens on many issues of little importance to them. For example, there are those that care deeply about the environment but have little preference whether gay marriage is legal or not. Even on a given issue there are at least three different ways to be a moderate. One can hold a position that is an equal distance from the extremes in potential positions one can have, one can hold a position that is identical to that of the average voter (mean, median, or mode?), or one can hold a position that is an equal distance between the official positions of the two parties in Washington at the moment: One extreme school of thought is to grant the federal government complete power to overrule the state governments. The opposite extreme school of thought is to give each state the complete power to rule without interference from other states. To some, the perfect compromise between the two is to grant the federal government only those powers explicitly granted to it in the constitution, leaving everything else to the states, and prohibiting from the states only those powers explicitly prohibited from any government (i.e. the bill of rights). As far as they are concerned, they are moderates, but because this puts them out of step with the majority who clamor for more federal intervention and centralization, it makes them extremists. Still, the average citizen does not want to grant as much power to the Washington as both the Democrats and Republicans seem to want to take recently, yet the media will often treat those that lie between the two parties as the true moderates and paint average citizens as extremists. The truth is that the words liberal, conservative, moderate, centrist, radical, statist, fascist, and libertarian have no constant meaning. The labels are misleading at best and divisive at worst. Don’t let words get in the way of understanding. We are all Americans. We all want to be safe, free, and prosperous, but many of us are confused and misguided. They are not the enemy anymore than those we think of as our allies. That is the greatest illusion. Start talking to each other again. More importantly, start listening again. The nation and the world depend on it. These issues in classification and more are fleshed out further in my book, The Nutcase Across The Street. Check it out if you are interested. If you like, you can also check out my old blog TheUnderstandingProject.com, where I describe some of the ways that we often talk past each other and don’t really listen. In the meantime, leave me a comment telling me your experiences with political division – or you can tell me how much of an idiot I am; that would be the normal thing to do on a political post.
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Wouldn’t it be nice if we could find compromises between the extremes that give us the benefits of both and the costs of neither? That’s what Carl Milsted attempts to do at HolisticPolitics.org. A former Libertarian, he now develops policy solutions to maximize not only liberty, but nature, morality, and equality. Like professor Johnathan Haidt of the University Of Virginia, he uses a dimensional paradigm for morality that does not take into account trump cards, but can still be very useful as a means of engaging with people to find solutions that most can agree with. There is a huge amount of material on there, including proposals for a negative income tax, which could replace welfare for those who need it yet without destroying the incentive to work and creating parasites. It is definitely worth a read for anyone sometimes dissatisfied by the Republicans and Democrats (most people).
How many of us live the way we want? How many of us are just conforming in order to fit in? Could it be that many elements of our culture only exist because they already exist, not because a majority prefer them?
Spoilers: The most obvious example where this seems to be the case is in voting. Most people are not informed enough to really know what they’re voting for, but to the degree that people have set opinions, my impression is that the majority of those voting for Democrats only do so to keep Republicans from getting elected and the majority of those voting for Republicans only do so to keep Democrats from getting elected. There exist other viewpoints that better fit the true preferences of the majority, but voting for candidates espousing these viewpoints risks allowing the other party to win. If we all voted the way we really wanted, we would have a better government, but because we all worry how other people will vote and they worry how the rest of us will vote, nothing changes. Communal Living: People all have different tastes in art and functionality when it comes to where they live, but a major component of what goes into buying a home is whether they will be able to sell it in the future. Instead of buying what best fits us we try to please the majority of the market – but the majority of the market only prefers these things because they are trying to please others! Homeowner associations even prevent certain types of remodeling because they will bring down housing prices in the area for everyone. Nobody ever lives in their true dream house and they prevent anyone else from living in their dream house too. Everyone is a busybody that tells others how to live and we are expected to hold the interests of the group over our own. This is communism! A Heavy Cost: How much should be charged for a new product or service? How much should we pay our employees? Rather than test the market and repeatedly raising or lowering prices until we find the right spot, a shortcut business owners use is to see what similar products are already selling for. They rely on others who rely on still others who rely on still others. Because prices are much the same, consumers have no choice but to go along with it. Knowing there is an endless supply of people looking for a job, companies have less incentive to raise wages to draw employees from other companies. There is no true competition. This is collusion without actually colluding! The Ties That Bind Us: Making friends is hard. Strangers take a long time to open up to me, and when the rare stranger does open up quickly, it stands out as so unusual that I think something isn’t right and then I’m the uncomfortable one. Adults generally say hello and introduce themselves. Children skip the rituals and just start playing. Is this the way we would all behave if we weren’t taught the “right” way to do things? We initiate handshakes because we are taught that way and we go along with it when others initiate handshakes so we don’t seem rude. We dress up to make a good impression in job interviews even when the job we are applying for has no dress code. The hiring manager doesn’t care except that it shows our ability to conform and our attention to detail. The hiring manager only dresses up himself to set a good example. Could it be that nobody likes suits or ties? Could it be that most of us would rather work in our pajamas or perhaps even wear nothing at all? The Measure Of Things: The metric system is inherently simpler to use than the imperial one, but Americans are already used to using the imperial system and there is no point in any individual using metric if nobody else is. The inferior system is frozen in only because we are not coordinated enough to switch over all at once. There is no point in even learning metric under those circumstances. How did metric ever catch on in other countries, then? Generally, it was imposed by dictatorship. The cure is worse than the disease. The Meaning Of Life: Changing the language is equally difficult. Which pronoun should be used when the sex of the one it refers to is unknown? Instead of the awkward “his/her/its” or the grammatically incorrect (because it is plural) “theirs,” most people use “he.” This is confusing, but it would be far more confusing to unilaterally begin using new pronouns never heard of, such as ver and vis. Instead of using the awkward term “American Indian,” most people simply use “Indian.” This is confusing because Asian Indians are also called “Indian,” but it would be far more confusing to unilaterally begin using the virtually unknown demographic term Amerindian. Sometimes language does evolve, as when homosexual unions started to be referred to as marriages. This confused a lot of people at the time, but worked anyways because those holding to the old definitions were ridiculed, bullied, threatened, boycotted, and even persecuted by the government – so there are ways to change things. Hope And Change: Sometimes culture can change without bullies or dictators. It used to be difficult for those with tattoos to get a job. Parents told children never to get tattoos because they would ruin their future. Because so many people went and got tattoos anyways, companies now have little choice but to hire tattooed employees, and public perception has changed. It no longer matters. This gives me hope that the culture can change in other ways as well. This is a poem I wrote in 2017. I imagine all of my poetry set to music but I am rarely able to come up with my own tunes. This poem I imagine set to the tune of Candle In The Wind by Elton John. John was fresh out of school He worked on the railroad too When he met a girl And Daisy was her name He said, come along with me We’ll live the American dream If we stick together Nothing will hold us down There was a rocky start John was sent off to war But the allies won And he made it back okay He studied to become an engineer Learned every bolt, valve, and gear To make enough income To buy the perfect home He said, together we’ll beat the odds Just you wait and see Happily ever after Just you and me And we won’t let this world Get the best of us ever again We’re gonna make it We’re always gonna win Daisy and John started a family Soon their children numbered three They kept them well-disciplined And in perfect health They were living the dream They made the perfect team Their commitment let Them ride out any storm Had no need of charity Were models of self-sufficiency John said, all it takes Is hard work and careful thought They always carried an extra one or two In case the first one blew There was no problem They weren’t ready for He said, Together we’ll beat the odds Just you wait and see Happily ever after Just you and me And we won’t let this world Get the best of us ever again We’re gonna make it We’re always gonna win By fine-tuning every task They made every tool last John said, there’s no need To buy it just ‘cause it’s new Maintenance is key To longevity Whether our bodies, The car, or the home They took all their vitamins Stayed far away from sin Sickness was banned From their utopia They planned for every contingency Had systems to correct for failing memory, Failing vision, Or limited mobility He said, together we’ll beat the odds Just you wait and see Happily ever after Just you and me And we won’t let this world Get the best of us ever again We’re gonna make it We’re always gonna win They always knew they’d last Now seven decades passed While those in town All ended up divorced Daisy asked, if we made it this long Why can’t we go on? An eighty-year anniversary Sounds pretty good to me Though some things had also gone wrong John asked, where have all the railways gone? And the peace I fought for Sure didn’t last very long They discontinued our favorite brands So we had to change the plans They just don’t make things The way they used to do Still, together we’ll beat the odds Just you wait and see Happily forever after Just you and me And we won’t let this world Get the best of us ever again We’re gonna make it We’re always gonna win What! We had systems to back up loss of vision, mobility, and memory But now I’m losing all three I’m lucky to have You around, Daisy She said, I just can’t do it John I feel that something's wrong And where are we right now? And shouldn’t the kids be home from school? What are we supposed to do? Just me and you? He answered, we’ll get through it together Just like we always do And then came that dawn When Daisy was gone Now there’s nothing to do And no one to do it for What happened to our happily ever after? What happened to our dream? Our perfect home Has come apart at the seams How could I forget That everything must end? Perpetual motion is impossible; Entropy always wins Many people have asked how it is that a loving God can send anyone to Hell. The response is usually that evil-doers send themselves to Hell by their own actions, whether bad deeds or lack of faith, depending on who you ask. Still, many people are uncomfortable with the idea. How can a temporary life of sin earn an eternity of torment? Why would a truly loving God even create such a place?
Here are some possibilities: Hell doesn’t exist: One of the most common answers given is that Hell is only a myth created by the professional clergy to scare people. This is possible, but unlikely. Not having been there yet, I can’t say with certainty that it exists, but since Jesus himself has been recorded mentioning such a place, it seems probable that something like it does. Death is just that: Others have suggested that what is interpreted to mean a place of eternal torment is actually just the grave. Those who die are simply dead, and have no conscious existence apart from God’s salvation. In other words, all things naturally run down from entropy and what God does is offer a way out, but no one is forced to accept his offer. It beats the alternative: Another explanation is that Hell is simply the absence of God and therefore of anything good. Many people have difficulty accepting the truths that they have done anything wrong, that another entity (God) rules over them, and that they will have to forgive others and share Heaven with those they consider inferior. These people would be absolutely miserable if forced into Heaven. For those who hate God and everything good, Hell is actually a more hospitable place for them. It is not designed to be torturous, but without God’s intervention the people living there will likely make it that way for each other given enough time. Hell is temporary: Some people have hypothesized that Hell might be only a temporary situation, and that many of those initially sent there will still have a chance to get free when they finally accept God’s way of doing things. There are hints in scripture to support this. Critics of this idea have claimed that this suggests that Heaven might be temporary too, and that those who screw up might be cast out. Since this second idea is contradicted by the Bible, they reject the first idea as well. Purgatory: The old idea of purgatory is similar. Perhaps those who die pass through a realm where their sins are first purged before passing on to their permanent home. Critics of this theory point out that purgatory is redundant and unnecessary since our time on Earth serves much the same function. Hell (and Heaven) may also refer to a state of existence rather than a place, so that it is Hell-on-Earth (and Heaven-on-Earth) that is temporary. Time travel: I had a weird idea once. What if Heaven is simply the ability to pass up and down our personal timelines and make different choices over and over until life comes out perfectly? Our actions of course allow us to alter history by reaching others with God’s message of love, which allows them to escape Hell the second time through, which allows them to travel back and further refine history. Eventually, the whole world is perfect and we have Heaven-on-Earth. This idea is compatible with some of my other ideas about time. What do you think? This is a poem I wrote in 2017. I imagine all of my poetry set to music but I am rarely able to come up with my own tunes. This poem I imagine set to the tune of Thunderstruck by AC/DC. The ending is patterned after the ending of Dirty Deeds by the same group. It was hot - steam risin' up from the ground And you look, but there's no one around And the sun, it floats high in the sky As the flies, leeches, and ticks suck you dry You hack through thorns, stumble over vines, blinded by sweat But you know you haven't seen civilization yet Your throat's so dry now, you'd kill for a drop of dew You find a dirty stream to drink from - and a croc takes a hold of you You've been...nature dunked! Yeah, yeah, yeah, nature sunk! Yeah, yeah, yeah, nature dumped! Nature sucks You're out walking, and you hear a strange sound Then the ground opens up, and you're falling down Surrounded by darkness, leg hurts too much to stand No way out, nothing to plan Can't climb with your leg, can't dig through stones Call out for rescue but you are all alone Hungry and thirsty, the days drag on You know, that soon you'll be gone You've been...nature stumped! Yeah, yeah, yeah, nature flunked! Yeah, yeah, yeah, nature punked! Nature sucks Up in the mountains - high, high in the air Your feet are frozen - yeah, your feet are bare Can't start a fire - there's no wood or fuel Icicles in your beard now - that's from your drool Lookin' for shelter just over the next ridge And you're seein' spots now, the air's so thin Then you see smoke in the distance, and you jump for joy Too loud! The avalanche whisks you away like a toy You've been...nature struck! Yeah, yeah, yeah, nature bucked! Yeah, yeah, yeah, nature bumped! Nature sucks Smallpox Lightning strikes Volcanic eruption! Vacuum exposure Supernovas Gravitational spaghettification! You've been...nature trumped! Yeah, yeah, yeah, nature fucked! Yeah, yeah, yeah, nature drunk! Oooh, yeah, you're out of luck! Oooh, yeah, a sitting duck! Yeah, yeah, yeah, nature sucks! Oooh, oooh, yeah, nature struck! Oooh, oooh, yeah, nature bucked! Yeah, yeah, yeah, nature dumped! The ancients seemed to think that Heaven was above the sky in all directions and Hell was below. We now know enough to realize this is silly – but where is Heaven?
We now know the sky is full of planets. Could Heaven be on another planet? Some physical models suggest there could be parallel universes just centimeters away from us but in a dimension we can’t move in. Could Heaven be in another M-brane? Some physical models suggest there could be forms of matter all around us with its own set of forces, but sharing no forces with us and able to interact only through gravity. Cosmological measurements seem to corroborate this idea. Could Heaven be made of dark matter? Others have suggested that Heaven is not a place at all, but a state of being. Wherever Jesus is, there too is the Kingdom of God. Since Jesus lives in us, Heaven is everywhere we go. Perhaps the best way to characterize it is to say that Heaven is the future, as the world is gradually renewed by love until we finally have Heaven-on-Earth. Not having been to Heaven yet myself, I can’t be absolutely certain that it exists. Those who claim to have been there could easily have been suffering hallucinations arising from oxygen deprivation. Still, I have on rare occasions had a taste of God where I knew I was part of something much bigger. I know God exists. Perhaps that is what also happened to these others while they were experiencing severe trauma bringing them close to death – and maybe being connected to God that way is all that Heaven is. What do you think? This is a poem I wrote in 2017. I imagine all of my poetry set to music but I am rarely able to come up with my own tunes. This poem I imagine set to the tune of Skyfall by Adele. You never stick around You went and crushed my heart on the ground Ran off and left me down So down You want to get away Always running every night and day Pushing all those you know away You never stay This May We're going away To join our fates And play together This May On the roadway It will be okay If we stay together Don't you agree Both of us yearning to be free We'll keep each other company You and me Now I've planned everything I'm coming for you in the spring Together we'll spread our wings And sing This May We're going away To join our fates And play together This May On the roadway It will be okay If we stay together The dream is ours Sleeping out under the stars Exploring both near and far In my car On the road Searching for that pot of gold Seeing things both new and old We roll This May We're going away To join our fates And play together This May On the roadway It will be okay If we stay together We will hold on Right the wrongs Sing this song And be stronger together We will stand long Come dusk and dawn So come on Because we belong together This May We're going away To join our fates And play together This May On the roadway It will be okay If we stay together |
AuthorMy name is Dan. I am an author, artist, explorer, and contemplator of subjects large and small. Archives
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