Philosophy Now Forum

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:34 pm That doesn’t mean that Trump can give an order to use tanks to clear out a group of nonviolent civilians from a public area.

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:38 pm There is no law that expressly authorizes the use of the US military to clear a public park of nonviolent American citizens.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 2:04 pm

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:34 pm That doesn’t mean that Trump can give an order to use tanks to clear out a group of nonviolent civilians from a public area.

I wager that you are fundamentally ignorant of real American history. You are highlighting some event, it really doesn’t matter which, where you have come to understand that D. Trump crossed some line of legality and, for this reason, you conclude that he will use his power dictatorially.

Yet because you are (seemingly) ignorant of recent history you are unaware that throughout the 50s and 60s and 70s there were extra-governmental Federal police and para-military wars conducted against political organizations. Notably the American Indian Movement on the reservations but of course the Black Panther Party (and other, overtly guerrilla and revolutionary underground movements).

The point being that you would be seen as a fool if you fail to understand that behind great power-concentrations there is, in essence, a military power. You would do well to become familiar with the Straussian (Leo Strauss) view of Machiavelli and a more realistic (i.e. less dopey child) view of how power actually functions in the “real world”.

Again, to see clearly in our present means — in my view — taking off and setting aside those pre-manufactured lenses through which the true colors of the world are altered and modified. I.e. not seen clearly.

Much more than 50% of a genuine and productive political/philosophical conversation must be dedicated to seeing through false and contrived rhetoric and narratives. A strictly partisan viewpoint is always one that will be “skewed” because partisanship by nature is an expression of defined interests.

I would say that at some point one will have to choose a partisan, and thus a Machiavellian, position and to become an operative and an activist within a raw power-dynamic, but here don’t we have the luxury of philosophical distance?

You must understand that the present power-structure, whatever it really is, must act with all available resources to defeat any power-concentration that challenges it. That most certainly implies defeating any “democratic” movement be it radical leftist or radical rightist.

If this is so it sets in a different light the present social and political struggles of our day. It is not merely looking at the narrative scenery projected on the wall that reveals what is really happening — that is, story-narrative — but seeing through that imagery and (to follow through on the metaphor) seeing back behind us to the projectors.

Bickering can be transcended by mature conversation and revelation about real dynamics.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 2:00 pm

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:56 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:40 pm

Yeah, pretty much what I expected: no refresher (citation) and a poke with a dull stick.

You don’t deserve a refresher.

Walker wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 3:10 pm

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:38 pm There is no law that expressly authorizes the use of the US military to clear a public park of nonviolent American citizens.

That’s an easy work around for the Left. Just change the definition of citizen.

In a year or two after all the appeals, if the Supreme Court rules that you can’t do that, then too bad too sad too slow. The Left can simply find a workaround to make all the illegals citizens, en masse, and millions have already invaded. You simply can’t export illegals in those numbers, although Eisenhower managed to kick out quite a few illegals in short order. Some say a million, but who knows, he didn't have the efficiency of technology in those days to keep track.

Trump, known for his organizational skills, could probably use the military to kick out millions.

Oh wait, times have changed. Workarounds.

These days just being on American soil makes anyone a citizen … in effect.

Millions of the invaders here now, and coming on strong, are military-aged men which makes it easier to bum-rush en masse anyone trying to stop them, especially the overburdened border "guards," a minomer if there ever was one.

Their first act on US soil is breaking the law by illegally entering. Subsequent illegal acts won’t be so difficult to perform in a open society. They are fit and well fed, and dressed like civilians, and by God they need stuff.

We can’t expect all the millions to continue living on the street, idle, and they can’t work until they have government-issued approval, some kind of an identification, and when they get that ID they can also register to vote.

Yes of course, they came in illegally but so what, they are here now and we must deal with reality in a humane way, digging in their roots, birthing anchor babies so the rest of their big extended families can enter paradise.

So, we need to make them citizens and give them all the protections, all the benefits, and all the rights of citizenship, especially the right to vote for The Democrat Party That Hates America ... but none of the responsibilities.

They don’t even need to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States, like those suckers who waited in line, or learn anything about the country. It’s not as if they now need to follow the old outdated, legal process of being vetted as worthy and undiseased immigrants.

They simply need to learn one word of English. Amnisty, repeat it until you can say it right. They don’t even need to know what that word means.

Whatever of this is not in effect now, that’s where it’s headed, thanks to The Democrat Party That Hates America.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:40 pm

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:31 pmIf you don’t recall this, you must be a Maganite.

Yeah, pretty much what I expected: no refresher (citation) and a poke with a dull stick.

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 3:39 pm You’ve said all that and yet you’ve said nothing to counter the claim that Trump acted dictatorially.

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 3:44 pm Illegals had nothing to do with this instance of dictatorial behavior.

The Crisis of Democracy: On the Governability of Democracies is a key report written in 1975 by Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji Watanuki for the Trilateral Commission. In the same year, it was republished as a book by the New York University Press.

The report observed the political state of the United States, Europe and Japan, and says that in the United States the problems of governance "stem from an excess of democracy" and thus calls for actions "to restore the prestige and authority of central government institutions." The report serves as an important point of reference for studies focusing on the contemporary condition of democracies.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 4:37 pm

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 3:39 pm You’ve said all that and yet you’ve said nothing to counter the claim that Trump acted dictatorially.

This BTW is what you are referring to. There was another instance of using military helicopters to monitor a crowd or to *intimidate*.

You want to attach the term 'dictatorial' because it serves your rhetorical purposes. You desire to see the advent of Trump as the advent of a fascist dictatorship. The real conversation would revolve around whether that assertion is or is not true and accurate.

I will go so far as to say that very definitely the mood is shifting in the country. By that I mean that people, average people, are beginning to get fed up with the lawlessness, the criminality, the lack of control at the border (really a wide range of issues some of which are purely social) and that in that mood they become reactive.

If you asked me personally to tell you what I would have done during the George Floyd riots it is most certainly to have used the National Guard to have quelled the destructive riots. Honestly I'd have shot dozens maybe hundreds. Their lives are not worth the property they burnt.

But that is only because of my own emotional-civic reaction. In truth (were I in control) I would likely have used aggressive, but non-moral means. There is a long-standing tradition of allowing civil unrest, rioting and destruction in our country. I do not agree with it but it has been *grandfathered in*.

Similarly, my mood would have impelled me to have ordered the police or the National Guard to shoot those who began to breach the Capital. So at the very least I am consistent. There seems to me proper use of police and military force and improper use.

Personally, I think the breaching of the Capitol was part of a larger Op. And it worked brilliantly. But I also interpret the Oklahoma bombing as a para-military Op. I did the research. Behind American domestic power is para-military and military force.

What this portends is that the Federal police, and the military power, will be used and are being used in our present social and political conflict. It is simply a given.

You are asking me to adjudicate this issue, or to take a side (?) but doing so is not what I am about here necessarily.

What I am about I explain in what I write. I am interested more in seeing into and through surfaces to be able to see the inner, determining core.

What you are about you cannot explain because, I gather, you are a confused, ignorant person who does not have any real interest in political, social, cultural and contemporaneous matters. I suspect this about you but I leave it to you to correct me if I am wrong.

My view in general? You-plural are *in the dark*. You do not have much capability to understand really what is going on. I do not think you actually care. So you, like your opponents, take wild guesses. Or like a pack you absorb the opinions and interpretations of your hopped-up peers. It is as if your personality is what you are arguing about not the real issues.

Take it for what it's worth, that is my impression in any case.

The country is moving in the direction of more open civil conflict. If you wish to see and understand that, the reasons, such could be done. But it would require a revolution, in your methods.

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 5:17 pm
I was responding to the challenge to provide one example of Trump behaving like a dictator, not commentary about George Floyd.

Dictator: an autocratic ruler or leader, the holder of absolute power, a despot, tyrant, oppressor, king, fuehrer, monocrat, or dominator. ~ MW dictionary & thesaurus

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 6:10 pm

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 5:17 pm
I was responding to the challenge to provide one example of Trump behaving like a dictator, not commentary about George Floyd.

Dictator: an autocratic ruler or leader, the holder of absolute power, a despot, tyrant, oppressor, king, fuehrer, monocrat, or dominator. ~ MW dictionary & thesaurus

OK, but you chose a bad example. It was a mis-use, perhaps, during events and conditions that warranted police response. If I am not mistaken the use of the National Guard is legal usage, but frowned upon unless the emergency is acute. So you could say “excessive force” was used.

The use (by the Guard I assume) of a military helicopter was perhaps overbearing but not illegal.

Again, you seek to paint Trump in as bad a light as you can. It is a group-effort, a social pastime, a sort of shared group hysteria, something that has captured you.

Therefore I focus on the real issue: you!

Your reactions are psycho-political in many ways.

Now, how do you interpret the Obama administration’s use of intelligence operatives (para-military essentially) to spy on Trump and his campaign? That is real illegality. Yet was anyone investigated or prosecuted?

What of the fabrication (again by Intelligence operatives) of the Russia Collusion Op? That had real consequences.

I would call it “serious abuse of power” and far more serious than calling out the Guard, but I would not call it dictatorial or tyrannical.

If you really want to talk about power abuse, or manipulation and the methods of political control it would be interesting. But it would have to be done fairly.

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 7:16 pm It wasn’t a matter of legality—just an example of dictatorial behavior.

It wasn’t about the Obama administration.

It was simply about, as requested, an example of acting like a dictator.

Let’s get back to the real issue, which is whether I have provided an example of dictatorial action.

No remote psychoanalysis is necessary.