Philosophy Now Forum

Hobbes' Choice wrote:How would Bernie Sanders appeal to you as Pres?

I haven't been following the presidential race very closely. There's really a sense of hopelessness to me in voting for a president. What are your thoughts about Sanders?

EDIT: I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 and have been accused of complicity in helping Bush get into office as a result. So I haven't been very optimistic about voting since.

it's not your or anyone else's business how others decide to conduct their life.

There are a lot of things mankind has done that are not natural: tatoos, piercings, rings on the neck to make it long, the removal of the clitoris and the foreskin, silicone or saline bags to make ones tits bigger, plastic surgery altogether, abortions, contraception, GMO's, non organic fertilizers, open heart surgery, hearing aids, prosthetics, etc, etc, etc. Do you really want me to continue?

O.K.

child abuse, sexual predators, let us not interfere, it is none of our business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUGdEVigA8I

Gary Childress wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:How would Bernie Sanders appeal to you as Pres?

He seems to be the least worst so far.

but I am in a heavily republican area so how i vote literally makes no difference

but i will vote as a matter of principle

I feel quite sorry for politically aware Americans when the 4 yearly travelling circus that is American politics rolls around. The cartoonists and satirists in my country have a field day lampooning the vaudevillean parade of jackasses who offer themselves for such a high public office. But you bring it on yourselves, guys. You live in a democracy and in a democracy you get the government you deserve. You deserve Donald Trump.

Gary Childress wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:How would Bernie Sanders appeal to you as Pres?

I haven't been following the presidential race very closely. There's really a sense of hopelessness to me in voting for a president. What are your thoughts about Sanders?

EDIT: I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 and have been accused of complicity in helping Bush get into office as a result. So I haven't been very optimistic about voting since.

Sanders least worse. I live in the UK, but he's the best I've seen so far.
My biggest reaction concerning the so-called "race" , is the fact the Trump is any where near consideration. Those Americans are crazy, toc, toc!

Vor wrote:

it's not your or anyone else's business how others decide to conduct their life.

There are a lot of things mankind has done that are not natural: tatoos, piercings, rings on the neck to make it long, the removal of the clitoris and the foreskin, silicone or saline bags to make ones tits bigger, plastic surgery altogether, abortions, contraception, GMO's, non organic fertilizers, open heart surgery, hearing aids, prosthetics, etc, etc, etc. Do you really want me to continue?

O.K.

child abuse, sexual predators, let us not interfere, it is none of our business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUGdEVigA8I

It is the duty of every citizen to protect children against any form of predation.

Obvious Leo wrote:I feel quite sorry for politically aware Americans when the 4 yearly travelling circus that is American politics rolls around. The cartoonists and satirists in my country have a field day lampooning the vaudevillean parade of jackasses who offer themselves for such a high public office. But you bring it on yourselves, guys. You live in a democracy and in a democracy you get the government you deserve. You deserve Donald Trump.

Could you generalize any more?

SpheresOfBalance wrote:Could you generalize any more?

Do you think I need to??

Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming that my own country is all that much better. Bread and circuses has been elevated to a high art form in the information age and there seems to be no escape from it. Nevertheless we always seem to find a way to solve our problems eventually so it doesn't do to get too angst-ridden if the world at large doesn't perform to our unrealistic expectations of it. It's only a game after all, and it'll soon be over.

Obvious Leo wrote:

SpheresOfBalance wrote:Could you generalize any more?

Do you think I need to??

Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming that my own country is all that much better. Bread and circuses has been elevated to a high art form in the information age and there seems to be no escape from it. Nevertheless we always seem to find a way to solve our problems eventually so it doesn't do to get too angst-ridden if the world at large doesn't perform to our unrealistic expectations of it. It's only a game after all, and it'll soon be over.

It was this line that sent me reeling: "You live in a democracy and in a democracy you get the government you deserve. You deserve Donald Trump."

As I'm certainly, at least one, that could do without trump as president. Where can I move where the monkeys aren't trying to rule the world.

Have you ever noticed how often Trump makes this face? I wonder what he's reenacting?

SpheresOfBalance wrote:Where can I move where the monkeys aren't trying to rule the world.

Sorry, mate, I can't help you with that one, but if you should happen to find out then drop us a line.

Obvious Leo wrote:You live in a democracy and in a democracy you get the government you deserve. You deserve Donald Trump.

The problem with this statement is since the U.S. is still the most powerful and influential country which more or less has the last word, whoever gets to be president is what the world gets as well.

Dubious wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:You live in a democracy and in a democracy you get the government you deserve. You deserve Donald Trump.

The problem with this statement is since the U.S. is still the most powerful and influential country which more or less has the last word, whoever gets to be president is what the world gets as well.

I think this is still probably true but it is less true than it once was, in my opinion. The US has squandered much of its wealth and power over recent decades in foreign military misadventures as well as a resolute determination to adhere to ideologically driven and fundamentalist economic and social policies domestically. These anachronistic values have served to diminish the US in the eyes of many other nations of the world and in a sense it has squandered the moral capital it richly earned in WWII. I make no bones about it and I state my position with the utmost of respect. It was the US who saved the world from plunging into the moral darkness which was being enforced on humanity by both Nazism and Japanese imperialism. I believe that it was during the Cold War afterwards that the US lost its moral compass and gradually degenerated into just another imperialist aggressor in its own right. I don't equate the motives of the US with those of these earlier chilling doctrines but to many of the poorer nations of the world the outcomes have not been substantially different than if they had been. The real question is what the fuck to do about it, because in my view the US still has much to offer the world as a global superpower. I remain cautiously optimistic, despite the trend of current events which seems to suggest otherwise.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Dubious wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:You live in a democracy and in a democracy you get the government you deserve. You deserve Donald Trump.

The problem with this statement is since the U.S. is still the most powerful and influential country which more or less has the last word, whoever gets to be president is what the world gets as well.

I think this is still probably true but it is less true than it once was, in my opinion. The US has squandered much of its wealth and power over recent decades in foreign military misadventures as well as a resolute determination to adhere to ideologically driven and fundamentalist economic and social policies domestically. These anachronistic values have served to diminish the US in the eyes of many other nations of the world and in a sense it has squandered the moral capital it richly earned in WWII. I make no bones about it and I state my position with the utmost of respect. It was the US who saved the world from plunging into the moral darkness which was being enforced on humanity by both Nazism and Japanese imperialism. I believe that it was during the Cold War afterwards that the US lost its moral compass and gradually degenerated into just another imperialist aggressor in its own right. I don't equate the motives of the US with those of these earlier chilling doctrines but to many of the poorer nations of the world the outcomes have not been substantially different than if they had been. The real question is what the fuck to do about it, because in my view the US still has much to offer the world as a global superpower. I remain cautiously optimistic, despite the trend of current events which seems to suggest otherwise.

Yes, once Australia, or was it others, used to consider Australia the young America. But if you think that all Americans are happy with what our nation appears to be, in the eyes of many of our, once allies, and others that at least used to respect us, you can count me out.

"But when you talk about destruction; Don't you know that you can count me out!"

I don't really believe that humans are the smartest species on the planet, at least when one considers what we've done with these minds that are supposed to be the most powerful.

SpheresOfBalance wrote:I don't really believe that humans are the smartest species on the planet, at least when one considers what we've done with these minds that are supposed to be the most powerful.

"The survival value of human intelligence has never been satisfactorily demonstrated".....Michael Crichton

Leo wrote:I make no bones about it and I state my position with the utmost of respect. It was the US who saved the world from plunging into the moral darkness which was being enforced on humanity by both Nazism and Japanese imperialism. I believe that it was during the Cold War afterwards that the US lost its moral compass and gradually degenerated into just another imperialist aggressor in its own right. I don't equate the motives of the US with those of these earlier chilling doctrines but to many of the poorer nations of the world the outcomes have not been substantially different than if they had been. The real question is what the fuck to do about it, because in my view the US still has much to offer the world as a global superpower. I remain cautiously optimistic, despite the trend of current events which seems to suggest otherwise.

If Europe had a History Channel this would surely be a primary tenet. But it is canned thought really, little more. It is an historical view that has been determined by bias and by convenient and easy predicates.

A sheer Maciavellian power-analysis may indicate that the American Civil War, with the violation and destruction of an underlying constitutional agreement, allowed a plutocratic clique to assume power and which - quite rapidly - transformed the US Federal entity into an imperialistic interest. As soon as it gained sufficient power it entered the world with force.

This notion of 'saving the world' is the root of an absurd way of thinking. US Federal power is predicated on the idea that the Federal power 'freed the slaves of the southern US' but this is a false narrative. And the very notion that a nation with impossibly huge economic interests could be interested in 'saving' anything in the sense implied, is flatly absurd. If one desires to believe idealistic and propagandistic views (and these have a function) one can certainly go ahead with that. But if one wishes to approach 'truth' and 'understanding' one must look at things with a more caustic eye.

Richard Weaver, an American philosopher and one classified as conservative, wrote about an essential and present corruption evident in American culture as the US ventured into the second European war. To think and to 'believe' that the US represented some lofty principles is a false-notion. Overall, the decision by an astoundingly powerful economic ruling class to enter and to win the war was a policy decision based in straight power principles.

And it should also be pointed out that the villification of European radical and defensive conservatism, as it may be called, though it is also labeled 'fascism' which naturally rules out any considered analysis of what it is and what it represented, has been and still is intimately bound-up with public relations and propaganda campaigns of a large scale which have established, literally, the lines of thinking and the parameters of 'thinkable thought'.

What is the relevance of such insinuations? I think it has to do with a simple fact but one that rapidly becomes complex: Who is qualified to interpret the world? And on what basis do they construct their interpretation? And then ultimatley what is 'Truth' in a mental and intellectual environment where people have been trained to *see* through established lenses of perception?

I wish to attach as it were these political speculations to those of the organisation of political ideas generally, to the polarity that exists between the so-caled Left and Right, and to the function of the 'popular mind' as one little capable of seeing the world. To 'see the world' - to really see and understand it - is that not infinitely harder?