Philosophy Now Forum

the government and its human beings....

think about the type of people that live within a government...
for example, what does it say about people that need or desire
a dictatorship? or what does a democracy say about the type
of human beings that live within that form of government?
and what if we connect a people with the wrong form of government?

if people are able to take care of themselves and have little need
for assistance, then a dictatorship makes little sense...
if people/human beings are really just little children, then
a dictatorship makes sense...

we need to connect people to the form of government that best suits them...
which implies that different people may need different forms of government....

so let us take this and dig deeper...
we have a upcoming crisis with AI looming on the horizon...
what does that say about human beings and the government
best suited to deal with AI....

one of the problems with technology and government is
that the government seems to be at least 2 steps behind the technology...
it seems clear that our current group of leaders, both left and right,
have no real idea what technology is and how to use it...and thus
they are going to pass laws, on AI for example, with a very
limited understanding of what AI actually is...
think about it... does Biden or IQ45 or anyone in the Supreme
court actually have any idea about the possibilities or extent of
technology or AI?

The legislature is passing laws about stuff they have very little
understanding about and the courts systems are basing
their judgments about technology and AI, with very little
understanding about technology..
it is truly the blind leading the blind... although parts
of the American society works with and designed technological,
and computer stuff, the vast majority of the society has little
understanding of what technology and AI actually is...

so let us think about this... if we base our current,
modern government on us having a rural society, we will be
using the wrong government with the ''wrong" society...
and if we have an government based on having a rural society
and the society is our society, which is strongly technologically
advance society, we will run into deep problems quickly...
the government must match the society or it, government or the
society will fail....

and the same is true with our understanding of the nature of human
beings...if we believe human beings to fit into the Machiavelli understanding of
of people, that they are born evil or born good and that they have no ability
or possibility to change their "spots"... to be born evil is to remain evil
all your life...and that the vast majority of people are born evil...
that people are full of sin, corruption, hate and lazy, then our system
of government must match that understanding of human beings....
thus given a Machiavelli vision of people/human beings, then
an anarchist society will not work.... nor will a democratic society/state...
if the people are as full of sin and guilt as Machiavelli claims,
then the form of government we must have is a dictatorship or
some heavy handed form of government that controls the people
because they need it....

the type of government we should have should match our understanding of
what human beings are...if we don't people to have rights, such as
civil right, legal rights, abortion rights or the right to be whatever
gender we so desire, then we shouldn't be democracy or some
other type of government that allows people to have choices...

and the radical right knows this.. and thus we hear about IQ45
desire to practice dictatorial powers if he should win the presidency
and as Desatan has also said as much... the type of government that
they want is a dictatorship.. thus matching the type of people that
they and the GOP/MAGA party believes people to be....

democrats believe people/human beings to be a different type
of people... we hold to the possibilities of change in people...
that to be born evil (and frankly, very few are born evil.. most
are made, created by family, state, society, the church to name a few)
change is quite possible...a "Christman Carol" is one such theme
of one who changes from "evil" to ''good''...

I for one, don't believe that we are born evil, or full of sin or born
of guilt... all that stuff is implanted into us by the society, state,
the church, the media, the family.. I believe in the idea that
humans are born with a blank slate, Tabula rasa... and the later
stuff of being "evil" full of "guilt" and ''sin'' arise from the mistreatment
of people from a system of government that assumes the "evil" nature
of human beings right from the start...

the principal religion in America today begins with the idea that
human beings are born in sin and guilt and prisons are
built with that idea in mind...or to say it another way, the only way
to keep the "barbarians" at the gate is by a strong defense minded
government/state... the conservative believes in a strong defense,
military and police..... and that stems from their initial
understanding of human beings... that people are born inherently
evil or bad...and there is no possibility of reform for those people....
thus we have the military being the single largest aspect of our
federal budget... and this stems from the conservative fears
about what human beings are....

this is just one example how are understanding of human beings,
has impacted, influence our government, our state, our society....

but I ask you, is this understanding of human beings actually
the right one? and what of our economics? what does our economic
ideas impacts what our idea of human beings are? that our economic
understanding of people lead us to a couple of conclusions...

that people aren't fit to have economic freedom...that happiness
is found within buying things... we are happier buying things like
cars, houses, tv sets, couches.... that we are fit to be
only one of three things, either producers, workers, or
consumers.... for those three roles are the only choices
we are given in capitalism...and the other forms of
economics give us an understanding of how people
saw other people.... that Mercantilism is a understanding
of human beings... as is the economic state of hunter-gatherer,
and socialism to name two other economic systems...

and what does an economic system where the government
controls all aspects of the economy say about us?
that once again, the people cannot be trusted to make the right choices..
that only the government can be right and all other choices are wrong....

but capitalism isn't really any better... for the choices we are offer
are choices about which of the 7 different types of cereals we can buy
or the 6 different brands of car makers we choose from or our choice
of media in which just 6 companies own 95% of all the media in the U.S...
that limited means of the ownership of the available products means
we are not actually free to choose because our choices is limited
to a limited number of business firms that offer those choices...
so, as an example, if we can choose 10 different cereals on the shelf,
that sounds like a lot of choices, but if all then of those choices
is owned by the exact same company, I don't see much choice, do you?
that is capitalism in a nutshell today......

so, the type of government we have, must match our understanding of
what kind of human beings we are... and if we don't have an understanding of
of what kind of human beings we are, then how can we work out
which economic or political system we should have?

Kropotkin

it has been said that America is a nation of laws... which is
fine but that does that say or doesn't say about human beings...

the idea of having laws is to remove the individual content of
being or behavior...in other words, the law doesn't adjust
to me, I adjust to the law.. regardless of my own values or
beliefs, I must adhere to the law.. now most people are more than
willing to obey the laws, the vast majority of people do in fact obey the law,
now they might not get the point of the law or be able to divine
why that particular law is there, but they are willing to follow the law...
despite their own feelings toward the law... most laws actually do make
sense and do seem to be there to help us... thus we have laws against
murder and stealing and tries to prevent those who would do us harm...
and personally, I am all for laws that prevent people from doing me or
my family harm... and I must adjust to those laws that prevent me
from committing actions that harm others... there is a mutually
beneficial aspect to the law... which I think is lost on a lot of people....
and for example, laws ordering people to wear mask, is a mutually
beneficial law... it helps me from passing covid to others, but it
also prevents others from passing covid to me...

and yet many people see mask in political terms.. whereas the wearing
of masks is a medical value....and we have seem many people
reject the wearing of masks as a violation of personal freedom....
My body my choice....and yet those exact same people will
reject the woman's right to an abortion... as if my body, my choice
is reserved only to some, but not to everyone...

but the value of a law is in its universality....it must be applied equally
to all.. regardless of our own beliefs, values, abilities, possibilities,
or any accidental trait we might have... that means race, creed, color,
gender or sexual orientation.... a law preventing one from hitting another
isn't about those accidental traits.. it is irrelevant to be gay or white or
Jewish in a law about hitting people....

but laws against specific aspects of one's accidental traits are also
in violation of both the letter of the law and its spirit...
thus a law that bans cross-dressing is based on one's sexual orientation...
and we could just as easily pass laws that demand that women must
wear a burka.. a long loose garment covering the whole body of a woman
from head to feet and also covering the face...if we can prevent some
from dressing a certain way, we can then force others to dress in
a certain way... and why? because some people "might" be offended
by a women's body...but we have laws that are, by their very
nature to be universal.. not specific to ones' values or beliefs...
that a segment of the population wants specific law regarding
specific religions is to deny this universality of laws...
for a law must be greater than any specific aspect of a human being...
we must adjust our beliefs and values to fit the law, not have
our own specific beliefs or values, religious to be exact,
create the laws....we must adjust to the law, not have
the law adjust to us...if we are truly a nation of laws....
then we cannot have any type of religious based laws, for which
religion are we to base our laws on?

would America be a better nation if based on the Jewish law?
or perhaps the Muslim law or Hindu law? that Christianity
is a religion is not the question, but should our laws be based on
a religion? they cannot be for religions lack the universality that
the laws demand...

the idea behind laws is that they apply to everyone equally,
and that no one is exempt, not even the president...regardless
of one's religion or race or the color of one's skin, or our
sexual orientation.....or one's native/individual abilities or
needs or desires..

we conform to the law, it, the law doesn't conform to us...

should we have a conversation about the laws conforming to us?
I believe that we should have that conversation, and we should...
but for now, we are conforming to the laws, not the laws conforming
to us...

Kropotkin

what type of government we should have, depends greatly
on what type of people we have or should have....

if the GOP/MAGA ideas about government are true,
then we should have a police state...if people are as greedy
and mean and full of sin and guilt, then we should have
a government based on safety and security... with freedom
not being a priority, for if people are as greedy and violent
as the right says they are, then we shouldn't give
people the possibility to act on that greed or violence...

but if people are as what the liberals/democrats say they are,
then we should give freedom a chance...people are/should
be reaching for the possibilities... to become something that
is possible for them to reach...so, with this idea of what
it means to be human, then we should be about giving people the
freedom and options to become their potential and possibilities...

government isn't there to protect people from there own worst
instincts, but to make it possible for people to reach their
own possibilities and potentials....

we work out the laws to match what we think people are...
if we think they are all about violence and greed, you create
the police state, if you think that people are about
reaching their own potential and possibilities, then
we now think about having UBI.. Universal basic income...
in which people are given enough money to discover who they
are and what is possible for them... if we think that
people are greedy and violent, then we don't even think
about UBI... why give people the means and ability to
cause chaos and trouble makes no sense.. we must force
all people to work and spend their hours and days, working
to keep them out of trouble and creating chaos... which is
exactly what we do today....

to think about our current form of government, politics,
and economics is to form an idea about what it means
to be human....the government doesn't trust or value people,
the economic system is nihilistic and doesn't trust people,
the radical right is trying with all its might to take away
rights and possibilities from people... and what does this
say about how the right thinks about what it means to be human?
the government we advocate for tells us what we think about people...
the liberals/democrats believe that people can be trusted to
make their own choices and pursue their own possibilities..
whereas the right believes that people can't be trusted to make
their own choices and that the government/society/state should
make the choices for people...does the right trust women to
make the right choice in regards to pregnancy? clearly not,
when you force people into actions or inaction, you don't trust them
and the rights of women are now in the hands of the state...
if woman can't have abortions, then the state controls a womans
body... it is as simple as that....that doesn't sound like the state
trusts or is willing to allow women to make their own choices...
by banning abortions, we prevent women from seeking out their
own potential or possibilities...choices that we give to ourselves,
but not to women...and laws must be by its very nature, universal...
and in preventing women from having abortions, we are violating
the universal nature of the law...for the fact is that wealthy women
can still continue to get abortions.. they simple go to their doctor
and get an "procedure" and no one is the wiser... the double
standard of the anti-abortions laws is what makes them wrong...
anti-abortions laws don't prevent abortions, it just makes it very
hard on poor and women of color... it is by its very nature,
by being restrictive against the poor, it violate the rights of
poor women....and that is not being very universal...

a government that trusts its citizens and allow them to make
their own choices is a government that is not a conservative
government, for conservative governments are about safety
and security... and not about choices and possibilities... a
liberal government allows its own citizens to make their choices...

in other words, a society that allows a "cancel" culture is
acceptable because the state wasn't involved... it is private
citizens uniting in actions... as long as the state doesn't pass
any laws for or against the so called "cancel" culture,
that is acceptable.... it is about the choices we make as individuals,
not how the state or society wants us to choose, but how we choose...

Kropotkin

now of the interesting things to note is that
every single ism's or ideology, has as its center,
an understanding of what it means to be human...
all ism's are simple a statement about what being human is...

so Existentialism is a statement about being human that
human beings are negative people.. look at the very words
that come from the existentialist movement, angst, guilt,
sin, responsibility, despair... those are not happy go lucky words,
or a sign of a positive viewpoint of human beings...

in existentialism, we suffer, we despair, we feel angst, we bear
the weight of responsibility in existentialism... there is no fun
or lightness in existentialism... it is all heavy and darkness...
there is no beauty or fun or love or joy in existentialism...
life is a burden to bear... and it doesn't care who you are or
if you can bear that burden/weight... it crushes us all the same...
that is not a particularly happy ism....
and to be honest, one of the problems with existentialism,
it fails to see anything but the darkness of the human heart...

let us now look at communism... what does communism say about human beings?
one of the great fights in communism is the role of the party and its leadership....
instead of going straight to communism, the party, the leadership plays
a leading role of getting the people ready to take over the country...
the power resides in the leadership committee... and later, they will
"give" up their power to the people once, once the people are ready
to take over... as decided by the party, not the people... and this is one
of reasons, I could not become a communist...
the communist party has a little faith in the people as the GOP/MAGA party
or any dictatorship......one of the fundamental questions of political science
is who rules/and why and who pays.... who rules is a basic question of
political science... the one, dictatorship or monarchy, the few, oligarchy,
in which either nobility or wealth or family ties or education or corporate
religious or military control....or we have the rule of the many.. representative
democracy or direct democracy.......

and this question of who rules is basically a question of who we trust..
the one, the few or the many...the communism of the 20 century
was about rule by the few or the one... and that is not communism...
for what is the basic idea behind communism... is the idea that
we cannot, cannot meet our social, political, economic or
philosophically needs by ourselves, that we need others to
meet our bodily and psychological needs...the bottom line
in communism is that it takes a village...

unlike capitalism where the idea that only we can know what
is best for us and only we can act upon that...recall the
ideal statement about capitalism... that it is private vices
that somehow creates a public good... and there is no need
to overcome our private vices.. for they are good, recall
the saying during the 80's, "greed is good" (spoiler alert,
it isn't) and the seven sins are what we base our entire
economic policy on... for it is on the seven vices,
that our economic structure is built... notice that powerful
words that bring actual benefits are not words used by
capitalists... love, moderation, justice, pity, charity, compassion,
hope to name a few words that any good capitalists worth his salt
will never mention....

and what about Christianity? what does the Christian religion say
about human beings? that we are, by birth, guilty, and we are
beset by sin and despair... and only by placing our faith in god
can we be "saved"... once again, Christianity doesn't seem to have
a positive, favorable opinion about people...

and therein lie the rub of most ism's and religions...
that they are negative... that most religions have negative opinions
about the nature of human beings.... we are going to hell unless we
are saved... that is not a positive opinion about human beings...
but that is the message of most religions... we must be saved,
and to be saved, means we are dealing with people negatively,
not positively.....If I am a good person, who treats people right,
why do I need saving?

or think about Buddhism... that life is a burden, to be born and
reborn again is to bring about suffering again and again...
the bottom line of Buddhism is the negativity of it...
we suffer, we are born, we age, we get ill or break things,
we grow old and then we die... and at no point in Buddhism
is there anything good or positive about these things...
the best we can hope for is to become enlighten and finally escape
the burden of being reborn and thus bear the burden of suffering
forever and ever....until we are like the Buddha, saved....

where is the ism or religion that is positive and joyful about
what it means to be human? for religions and ism's offer us a negative,
depressing viewpoint of what it means to be human...and that is
certainly, true of capitalism and communism and socialism and
dictatorship and oligarchies....human beings are weak and foolish
and need the strong arm of government to keep us from becoming
animals.... and I disagree with that assessment of what it
means to be human....

and what ism or ideology or religion can we have that reflects that
positive ideal of what it means to be human? what can we believe
in that reflects the vision of human beings being good and decent,
not evil or worthless?

that is the goal today, to build an ism that reflects that people
are honest, decent, honorable, loving and kind people....
what ism speaks about people positively and not negatively?

what ism is about love or joy or peace or happiness or decency?
that is what we need to find... an ism that speaks of human beings
as they are, not as we fear them to be....

Kropotkin

you want to speak radical words today...

speak of human beings being about love, and peace and hope
and honesty and charity.... the fact is that the current
narrative of human beings is overwhelmingly negative
and frankly, depressing...

where is the love and joy and beauty of human beings and of being alive?
I can't find it... can you? listen to the GOP/MAGA party and you would think
the entire country has burned down and people are being murdered in the
streets and violence is everywhere and people are evil, evil beyond
any possible redemption... but is that your understanding of human beings?
there are several around this site that quite clearly have bought into
the propaganda and disinformation and brainwashing that our world
and its people are evil and corrupt and malevolent and wicked...
but is there any joy or beauty or peace or love in this world of hate
and violence? apparently not....

I am a liberal because I think that people don't need to be saved by a god
or by a religion... that we can, by our own beliefs and actions, redeem ourselves,
save ourselves.....

that there is more joy and love and peace in the world than what conservatives
and the MAGA party has led you to believe in....

and the government should reflect that understanding of people..
that we are not just beast in a jungle but human beings with needs
and desires and possibilities about today and tomorrow...

where would I go to find peace and love and the positive values
that I believe in? well, not in a conservative world....
where everyone is born guilty and full of sin...
and in need of being saved....

what world and what ism will be able to present to us, a positive
and valuable understanding of what it means to be human?
that is the question....

Kropotkin

would you know from listening to the world today,
that human beings have created poetry and music,
of all kinds, of painting and statues, that all reflect
the beauty of the world? you certainly wouldn't know
it from listening to the political propaganda today....

yes, we have create the bomb and capital punishment
and hated of all kinds.... but we have the beauty
of words and music and actions of love that are rarely
ever spoken about....

and ask yourself, which side of human beings are we really?
are we the beings that has create amazing beauty in the ARTS or
are we the beings that commit mass murder and enslave people
over their beliefs?

the short answer is yes... we are both, but let us hold to both sides
of the human nature as possibilities...we can be Jack the Ripper
and we can be Goethe... the choice is ours...and amazingly enough,
for most people, we can be both, often within minutes of each other...
for we human beings have the capacity and capabilities to be both
Jack the Ripper and Goethe... but here is the beauty of being human,
we can choose to be about love and peace and charity...
and we can choose to create beauty and love and hope and peace
in the world... just as easily as we can choose to be evil, mass murderers,
a Hitler.... the question becomes this, why choose one path over
the other?

and the answer is, because being kind and nice and peaceful
brings about more kindness and peace and love, whereas being
evil and committing acts of terror, can only lead to terror
and more murders...

acts of love and peace bring about more love and peace, whereas
violence and hate can only bring about more violence and hate....
love brings about a better future.... one that is worth living in,
whereas hate and violence brings about a world that isn't really
worth living in....

Kropotkin

conservatives are fixated on having freedom...
and yet their own beliefs and ism's invalidate that
freedom... to be fixed in being born with guilt and sin,
where is the freedom in that? where the only "cure" for
guilt and sin is to be absolved by god.... not much freedom
there.... and the conservative beliefs that human beings,
are by nature, evil and acting from evil impulses, invalidate
their belief in freedom... for if all one can do is be evil,
where is the choice in that? where is the freedom in that?

no, for the most part, conservatives believe in a fixed, set universe,
where human beings are fixed and set in being evil and guilty of sin,
and needing to be saved/redeemed.....

there is very little freedom in a conservative universe....
the entire choice for the conservative comes down to this,
does man either accept gods will or not? that is the entire
point of freedom for a conservative....

Kropotkin

if you have no choice, then you have no freedom..
if capitalism your only choice, then you don't have freedom..
if communism is your only choice, then you don't have freedom,
if democracy is your only choice, then you don't have freedom....

we are free, we are defined by our choices.. and only in our
choices can we be who we are, and become who we are...

the very definition of being human lies in what choices we have..
no choice, no being human.. if we can only be violent or
be only guilty or be in sin, then we are not free..
to be driven only by instinct and programming, we
are not free...

Kropotkin

few, if any, ask, what is the tomorrow I want to see?
what are we working for, living for, dying for?
what about tomorrow?

Many tell me the benefits of living today, but who can tell me what
we should be working for...

what is the goal or point of existence?

now should the government be telling me what is the goal or point of existence?
Not at all, but the government should be helping me make that goal
or purpose possible....modern day government is about making capitalism work...
which is to say, modern day government has no interest in the one, the
individual...look at the focus of government and the laws it creates...
the number one focus of government is to protect property...for many
conservatives, that is the main reason for the existence of government...
to protect property... and what of those who have no property?
does the government protect them as well as they do with property?

clearly the answer is no....clearly there is a two track judicial system
in America...one for the poor and one the very wealthy.. a person with
resources can drag out a legal preceding for months if not years...
by virtue of their wealth... see how IQ45 has dragged out his legal
proceedings for months, whereas a poor person would already be in jail....
a justice system so compromised is no justice system at all...
justice delayed is justice denied...

in Alabama, the state has been ordered by the US Supreme court to
create a second county for voting in future elections.. as the state has
reduced voting rights in Alabama drastically... and the US Supreme court
to rectify this, has made it clear that the state must make changes to its
voting laws... the state of Alabama has refused....and has said, they will not
do such a thing.... now this act of anarchism, is directly tied to the
disregard to the law that is epidemic within the right wing of America today...
if IQ45 isn't punishable by law when he clearly broke the law, why should
I be punished? the failure to punish IQ45 has embolden others to break the law...
this problem will get much worse before it gets better.... if we
are a nation of laws, then we must act when the law is broken..
and if we don't act, then we are no longer a nation of laws.....
the GOP/MAGA party refusal to punish IQ45 for his various crimes,
in the impeachment trials or in civil trials or in criminal trials.. sends
a clear message... its ok to commit crimes because if you are powerful enough
or wealthy enough, you can get away with it...

would the state of Alabama have taken their stance if they thought they
would get punished for their refusal? NO, the breakdown of justice is
the breakdown of society... where some are above the law, IQ45 for example,
and this being true, means we don't have a legal system anymore because
we are no longer ''system of laws'' if the laws can be circumvented or
just ignored...

there is another thread around here talking about the "future of the west"
I can tell you that if people, states, corporations are allowed to flout
the law whenever its convenient, we have already lost the battle
for the future... what possible future can we have if we are no longer
a ''nation of laws"....

we must give some serious thought as to what happens if the law are just
openly ignored, as they seem to be with IQ45? We are no longer
a functional nation... and that disfunction, is going to spread wide
and far in today's state/society... this is not just the ending, but
this is the beginning of our modern day dystopia and final collapse....

Kropotkin