Reflections VII - Much needed cynicism

Any radical ideology will in time purge itself based on the notion of doctrinal purity.

Almost as predictable as death and taxes is the certainty of self serving action for human beings.

We have come to a time where the leadership is destroying democracy while at the same time claiming to save it. You can indeed vote yourself into slavery.

No field perhaps has a proportion of snake oil salesmen than that of education which has littering it one failed policy after another, with each one having the distinction at the time of being vaunted as a pedagogical panacea.

Reflections VI - More from the Abyss

If highly motivated one can even rationalize away the very evidence before our eyes.

One needs to ponder as to why so many powerful deities lack the foresight to avoid contradicting themselves in their revealed texts.

Bad ideas need not have to work that only have to create the appearance of working which is why they are often taken up by the masses.

 Prosperous societies with an inordinate amount of spare time on hand will use that time to find new innovate ways of destroying themselves.

 The myth propounded is that the majority of humanity resents totalitarianism. The reality is that they embrace it as it makes decision making so much easier.

 The greatest impediment to any would be politician is a conscious

Reflection V - Human Foibles

One only realizes how timid humanity is when you choose to take a singular stand against a universally acknowledged but popular bad idea.

Toleration in and of itself is not a virtue. In fact it can often be a vice. The distinction is highly context dependent. The worship of toleration in and of itself is an error both philosophically and ultimately morally.

 History cannot be reduced to a series of equations for it is the story of humanity, whose actions are often unpredictable and illogical.

 There is a natural tendency for humans to minimize their work and thought load which is why complex concepts are likely to be oversimplified to the point of being unintelligible.

 To a fool, everything they don’t want to believe in is a lie for a fool is one hundred percent committed to their own truth.

 It astounds me as to how many people feel that they know how G-d works when in reality they are just hedging their bets on different guesses.

 

Reflections IV - Disturbing Observations

 I am not sure if there is any other creature on this planet who can rationalize evil into good.

 At any time one should be aware of a single daunting caveat – that it is entirely possible that you could be wrong.

 Wake me up when those in the scientific elite stop acting like priests and more like objective investigators of natural phenomena.

 There is no more ill defined political term than democracy. People seem to make of it what they want.

 

Reflections III - Bad Ideas

Bad ideas can only be enforced in the long term by tyranny. Therefore at the center of every tyranny is an idealism that is inherently rancid.

 An Ivy League education at its heart offers its recipient the ability to put forward a stupid idea with an air of superiority.

There is no greater marketing device than the notion of fear. It goes straight to our emotional brain while bypassing all critical thought.

 I have yet to encounter a greater leap of faith than the argument put forth by many that something can come from nothing.

 If the internet has taught me anything it is that bad ideas grow exponentially while those in the good are constrained to the linear.

Reflections II - American History

 Bill Clinton was the last genuine liberal Democratic Party President of the United. He balanced fiscal conservatism, with a pragmatic social liberalism that was described as the Third Way. In doing so held back the radicalism of the progressives delaying it by a full decade until the Obama Presidency. This was his greatest achievement that supersedes the multiple flaws in his personal character.

If Al Gore would have talked to the people instead of down to them he would have been the 43^rd President in the United States. Unfortunately for him it wasn’t in his DNA and no matter how much he tried the more so it became apparent. Gore felt that the country needed a philosopher king forgetting that the nation was built on a disdain of any type of monarchy.

Clinton lived a charmed life in that he was destined to lead the nation during a time of relative political solitude. This afforded him the luxury of underestimating both the demise of the Soviet Union and its Russian offspring as well as the rise of Islamism.

Every US Administration since Richard Nixon (with the possible exception of Donald Trump) has worked tirelessly with short-sighted traded policies to transform China into an economic superpower.

The tragedy of the United States is that the very elements of tolerance and respect for freedom of thought and action will eventually be used to destroy it.

I have never understood why Americans from both sides require inspiration from so obvious a tainted figure as a politician. The absurdity of elevating these debauched souls to spiritual or emotional heights of standing can only lead to eventual disappointment as it frequently does.

Both George Washington and John Adams demonstrated great characters traits by their personal actions. Washington saw to it that the Presidency didn’t evolve into a monarchy while Adams, in his defence of the soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, made the pertinent case that the accused deserves the best defence possible regardless of public opinion. In doing so they alternatively laid the bedrock for the executive and the judiciary.

Reflections I - Politics

Some thoughts...

When key institutions become compromised so that nepotism and favoritism dominates over competency then the onset for civilization decline  and possible collapse follow shortly. No system no matter how strong its original foundations are can survive continuous governance by those who are inept and malevolent.

The communist seeks to restructure society on the backbone of ignorance. However this is a particular kind of stupidity - One that brings together an untried idealism with an inability to questions starting assumptions. Self Reflection is eschewed as a toxicity.

The strategy of any political campaign is to capture the vote by emphasizing the insignificant.  Complexity of policy is anathema to any campaign which is why it is rarely addressed by the candidates.

 There are only half truths and lies in political rhetoric. The challenge of a voter is to separate the one from the other.

 The primary function of the state is to grow itself. This is often at odds with the need to enact meaningful policy that will address an issue. An extended bureaucracy serves the former while creating an illusion of necessary progress.

 Within time every government moves towards fascism for all are controlled by elites who survive off either private or public corporations.