philosophy

Politics, the Modern Version

ness23456 Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

As an Independent who skews Liberal, the opportunity to see Conservative values and policies is often an enlightening and rewarding experience.

I’ve worded that sentence in a precise, particular way, to highlight the dumb-ass nature of current American Politics. Talk to any Conservative who will admit to any Liberal Policy being worth a crap? And vice versa? No. If you’re a modern Republican Conservative, anyone who doesn’t think like you is an idiot. Oddly, if you are a Modern Liberal, anyone who doesn’t think like you is an idiot. When did all this happen?

The Traditional Values the Right likes to claim as their own, are Values shared by every Lefty Liberal I know. And how many Liberals want to take guns away from citizens? A better question is to ask how many Liberals actually own guns. A lot.

Let’s look at it this example: Today, a Conservative offers a 10 point plan for governance. A free thinking Liberal will probably admit (NOT out loud) he supports five of the points. In The Old Days of Political Action that was called a “Starting Point”. These days its is called…I don’t know what but since the ideas are “Labeled” as Con or Lib, zealous supporters of both fire up the insult engine and the discussion is over, except for the bleacher activity where each tries to pull the other’s pants down.

This crazy stuff started before Trump, but he gets props for understanding how to capitalize on an electorate of–suddenly–idiots. Since the 80’s there have been many strident, bombastic, conservative voices who made a great living telling the usually apprehensive Conservative population anything NOT Conservative was worthless. Gingrich, Limbaugh (Yes, the one Trump gave the American Medal of Honor to), Beck, and then O’reilly, and Hannity, all painted non-conservatives as Non-Americans. I never heard the same from any loud, famous, and ultimately wealthy voices on the Left, but maybe there was, most certainly in response, at some point.

Then Grover Nordquist, the famous anti-taxer, began his campaign of making Conservatives sign a Pledge (google the Taxpayer Protection Pledge) to Lower or even end, taxes. If a Conservative didn’t sign the pledge, the non-signer was voted out of office in the next primary season. Sound familiar? Right now, in this past primary year, Republicans urged all voters to ONLY vote for Trump-loving candidates.

So. Did the Liberal side sit on their asses? No. Now, any non-Liberal thought is a threat to Democracy, with the capital D, And “both-sideism” has become part of the modern political lexicon.

So here’s what is lost: a good, conservative idea during a Liberal Administration, and a good Liberal idea during a Conservative Administration. Neither will ever be considered. How about a thoughtful, intelligent, Conservative politician running for office in a Liberal Gerrymandered area? Or–again–vice versa?

I may have an idea how this crap started, but I’ve no idea how to end this. Anyone else?

All I can say for sure is America is NOT the land of responsible adults, anymore, and I suspect we all need to look in a mirror of our own, not our news silos.

As a humorous aside, Trump is not even a Conservative. Ask Grover.

Caveat: because of space, everything is over-simplified. Do your own research, especially into the Contract with America, 1994.

Language…Words…Tools?

ness23456 Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The last post got me interested in the origins of words and languages. The usual suspects were consulted: The internet and Wikipedia.

The only true thing I learned is: nobody knows. In fact, according to Wikipedia, the evolution of language is such a difficult subject, its research was banned by The Linguistic Society of Paris in 1866 as a subject “unsuitable for serious study”. Study has not stopped, however, but why would it when the best theories cannot be unproven, and even the dumbest among us can have a go at it.

There is a consensus among us serious thinkers (I am now among them) that language took a long time to develop and will not reveal its secrets…ever. A theory which makes sense (as most do), is the appearance of stone tools. The existence of these tools meant the someone who invented the tools was sharing intelligence with others on how to make those tools. Makes sense. But then the theory fails to be taken seriously when we consider apes have–and use–tools of all kinds yet they can’t conjugate a verb. Or can they? For that matter, can we? And when the original tool maker pointed, grunted, and nodded approval to his apprentices, could they ever have imagined the concept of conjugation might find its way into the process?

A theory which is neat and tidy is the Alien Theory. Let me elucidate and explicate. Well-dressed and educated aliens were driving by eons ago and saw an empty-looking, green and blue ball.They stopped to take a leak and were surprised to find early humans hiding behind the bushes, watching. At that very moment, the aliens responded with something similar to our modern “WTF?”, and followed that up with an “LOL” when the the humans threw stone tools at the titanium spaceship. After washing their hands completely, the Aliens proceeded to set up tents for classroom instruction of the Native Earthians, who were forced to attend, unless they were sick. Masks were not invented, yet. Subjects were English 101 and Precalculas math. Pop quizzes were scored and failing humans were put on the spaceship for specimens to be examined on the ride home. The “smart humans” were set loose into the world to propagate their learning and population. And thus math and language were given to our world by somebody who couldn’t hold it in, any longer.

There’s no speculation on how the Aliens were treated when they got home, but Earth proceeded on its course to development, especially after the humans realized the apes “weren’t getting it” and all attention was then focused on the least hairy members of the clan/tribe/society. Shaving was invented around then, as well, using a really sharp stone. Smart, right?

Does any of this sound like a “subject unsuitable for study”?

Final thought? Language and words (and math, science, et. al.) are wonders we all should take part in, and enjoy. We will never get all the answers to all the questions, especially in our lifetimes, but enjoy the journey. Be more inquisitive about where “decimate” comes, from (deck a mate?)and less about who will win “Survivor”. Please.

Still…

ness23456 Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

It’s becoming depressing, meeting lots of people who know more than I do about anything and everything. Being exposed to education should show us (at least it did me) there is more out there in this world. In Fact, the more we learn, the more OBVIOUS it should be there is more to learn. Note I am using the lowercase “education”, not the upper case Education, meant to refer to “institutions of higher learning”.

A warning: the word “intellectual” is about to be used. Again, it will be the small “i” intellectual, not the currently denigrated capital “I” Intellectual uneducated people are so fond of making fun of, these days.

All of us have an intellect. (Look it up if you don’t believe me.) It’s a God-given trait, like red hair or a big nose. But how many of us think about our “intellect” and how to use it? We wash and brush our red hair to keep it clean and shiny. We blow (and pick) our nose to keep the airway clear of snot and debris. But what do we do about our intellect? Do we take it for walks? To the gym? Feed it the correct food?

After a very tumultuous 1960’s I was sure the world was going to be a better place because so much of the population was exposed to, and becoming involved in, the issues of the day. Learning about those issues, through education, would save us. Hitchhiking around the country in the early 70’s I found people who were excited, enraged, ecstatic, angry, threatening, and yet all were talking, arguing, listening, and asking questions. I thought the nation’s intellect was expanding and an educated populace would save the world. Really. And, no, I was not a regular drug user. Huh. Not that I remember.

But we lost our way, Disco. Damn disco. And cocaine. And ABBA. And heavy metal rock, shares some blame, too. Sadly, lots of things combined to tragically lower the national intellect and we elected an actor as our president. Reagan did an okay job, but somewhere during that decade we lost the need to know more, to learn more, to understand. It was noticeable when George H.W.Bush did the right thing in his first term (raising taxes), and the people voted him out of office. Bet a lot of politicians learned a lesson from that: do NOT do the right thing if you want to get elected.

But back to the point: there is a clear lack of intellectual curiosity in America these days. At both the personal and national level. Personally, when we meet someone wearing a Trump hat or Biden pin we assume we know all about the person wearing either. So we don’t bother to ask questions or take the time to find out how wrong or how right we might be. Even worse, if they are not wearing either, we don’t care to find out why. I meet people and want to know who they are, what they do, where did they start life. And people are happy to tell me, but they never ask back. There is no intellectual curiosity about others. None. We see ourselves, and that’s all we need to know about the world.

I’ll stop wasting your time and summarize: be curious and ask questions. Of everyone. At least some of the answers you get might be right. And you will probably NOT be the best judge about the truth until you educate yourself, but you’ll have more data to feed your intellect. Its hungry.