Looking Toward The Next High

[pbrower2a]

(07-18-2018, 01:28 PM)TheNomad Wrote:

Quote:Objectivity alone at best makes us thinking machines, sophisticated computers. Subjectivity makes us human, for all the faults that that entails.

Subjectivity is what makes us selfish; evil and criminals, ultimately.  For it is with subjectivity that we attempt to install in our own "kingdoms" in our desire to appease our own natures.  Which is fine.  But objectivity is what allows us to live together on this small planet where compromise must prevail lest we continue to slay one another throughout the ages to get what we want as individuals.

Selfishness and criminality suggest emotional immaturity -- infantile 'morality' in which people insist on getting whatever they want irrespective of social norms and the interests of humanity as a whole. There are theories of moral development, one of them (Lawrence Kohlberg) illustrated below:



With #1, one acts with accordance with what one can or can't get away with. That is the level of a criminal or a terrorist. At Level #1, a deed is criminal not because of social disapproval but instead because one can hide the offense (one can destroy the corpus delicti without leaving evidence, pin the crime on someone else, deceive law enforcement or the courts, alter records to hide the embezzlement or other theft, flee law enforcement indefinitely, bribe the appropriate officials, or one has absolute power). That is the morality of terrorists, swindlers, and gangsters. Thus Ted Bundy, John Gotti, Bernie Madoff, Osama bin Laden, Frank and Jesse James, or Saddam Hussein. Eventually one slips up. finds that law enforcement is getting more sophisticated, or loses immunity as one is overthrown.

With #2 we have the greedy b@stards motivated solely by money or its simulacra (power, fame, sex, luxury) -- the slick salesman hustling people into sucker deals. Think of how Enron operated, or recall characters from The Wolf of Wall Street.

With #3 we have people who act out of concern for their popularity or the approval of others (conventionality). If the overall society has appropriate rules for this and is able to monitor them well, this is appropriate and adequate. But these are also the kiss-ups and apple-polishers. Such people are all for human rights and civil liberties if the Establishment endorses them, but if the Establishment endorses cruelty to pariahs, it does as the Establishment expects. These are the people who only need an All-Powerful Leader to direct them to rob, beat, or murder people to whom they defer in good times. This is stereotypical behavior of teenagers who outgrow such as they mature. Or do they?

With #4 we have rigid obedience to law and order without the ability to judge the morality of the law. Here might be the person who denounces a starving person stealing a loaf of bread with the knowledge that someone convicted of such a theft can be executed, enslaved, beaten, or sentenced to a long prison term. People will do unpopular and self-sacrificing things because such is demanded by law, so this is an improvement over #3. Even if one knows that there is no enforcement of the expiration of parking meters , one feeds the parking meters.

With #5 we have people capable of judging legal standards and regulations for their appropriateness. This is a reasonable minimum for elected officials in a democratic society, for attorneys, teachers, physicians, engineers, pharmacists, scientists, clergy, and business executives... People like Joseph McCarthy, Bull Connor, Joe Arpaio, and Donald Trump fall short of this category.

With #6 we have people in or approaching sainthood -- the heroic people who struggle against injustice at great risk or loss to themselves. -- in the name of Humanity.

Quote:The time for kings and regimes can no longer function.  Individual wills must be put down or at least lessened and controlled by the power we all have AS humans to make competent decisions.  To portray subjectivity as the better of the two is only repeating the destructive pattern I have spoken about here.  And is possibly still the curse of the Prophet.

Say this when we have the most dictatorial or despotic President in American history. Or is America the oddity?

Quote:When engaging in communal affairs (which is the World itself) as portrayed in courts of law and matters involving competing wills of 2 or more humans, the governors of those affairs are expected and commanded to be IMPARTIAL which is OBJECTIVE and WITHOUT PERSONAL OPINION INVOLVED.  

Which explains why law has objective standards of precedent and formality, rules of evidence,  and of course rigid insistence on impartiality. Which explains the literality of legal statutes, as with persons convicted of dealing methamphetamine were acquitted after the statute was shown to outlaw "ethamphetamine" as a misprint. Aside from the power of some public officials to grant pardons and reprieves under certain conditions, even so severe a treatment as the death penalty may apply after all allotted appeals are exhausted. On occasion, innocent people may be wrongly convicted and hanged -- but that is far less likely than the sure, swift, and often wrongful judgment of a lynching.

Quote:You have not ever, probably, truly questioned anything about Lee Oswald and I would guess only sought out material to strengthen your already held opinion of that situation (which is a truly ruthless example of extreme subjectivity).  Meaning, nothing could change your mind anyway.  You never believed otherwise and never will.  A pungent example of Curse Of The Prophet playing out for us all in Real Time.

The consensus is that Lee Harvey Oswald did it. There have been colorful tales suggesting that others may have egged him on or given him guidance. It is hard to understand how someone could be so full of hatred and act with such cunning as Oswald did to take a sniper shot at a popular President from the sixth floor of what was then the Texas School Book Depository. If you want to connect him to the KGB, the CIA, the Illuminati, some anti-Kennedy plutocrat, or the Lizard people, then go ahead and believe what you want. The evidence for such connections does not exist. Big conspiracies tend to fall apart as law enforcement starts asking pointed questions.

Exculpating Lee Harvey Oswald at this point suggests an unreliable conspiracy theory. Connecting him to some conspiracy bigger than himself is without significant foundation. But here is an unstable person with great anger, someone unable to develop loyalties, and prone to violent outbursts. Do we know the whole story? Of course not, and we never will.

Now if you want to know whether there is any great mystery involving an assassination of similar time in which I suspect something more than a lone wolf -- try Dr. Martin Luther King. It is well known that any idiot can get commit murder, but getting away with it for any time suggests unusual skill by someone. I still wonder how James Earl Ray got out of the United States even if he was a dim bulb. How dim a bulb? He went to England, probably the worst place to be if one is wanted by American law enforcement. He would have drawn attention by almost anyone who knew about the crime. Maybe someone slipped him out somehow away from the watchful eyes at any international airport. But this is conjecture on my part, and I admit it.

Quote:Have you ever explored ANY material concerning anyone who personally knew Lee?  Or has your "research" of Mr. Oswald been simply a "clinical" examination of far-removed sources and information such as Whens and Wheres?  And if you believe there is such a thing as Disinformation and whole edifices created for that very purpose, how can you know what you've learned about him is accurate since you, yourself, were not there nor involved with that of which you speak?  Lastly, was there ever a time in your research of this subject where you thought there might be something more going on and Lee Oswald was not "The Angry Lone Nut"?  Even a moment of doubt?

THANKS FOR YOUR TIME

I'd like to refer you to the NOVA program that makes clear that JFK was shot from above, and not from some "grassy knoll". The Associated Press made clear that Oswald left his spot in the Texas School Book Depository in a rush, even leaving behind some pieces of fried chicken. Oswald had bought a rifle similar to the one that fired the shots. Innocent people who witness a horrific crime (imagine that I had been on the fifth floor just below Oswald, watching the motorcade in some free time that I managed to create for myself, and saw people pointing in my general direction... I would stick around to make sure that the Dallas police didn't see me fleeing. 

NOVA does a very good job on anything scientific, and reconstructing the Kennedy assassination involves a scientific reconstruction. I began as something of a skeptic, but I changed my mind. Although the AP wires occasionally make mistakes, there is no more reliable source than it as news. Practically every credible newspaper, magazine, or television news organization uses it as a source. AP gets news at its rawest and gets it so swiftly that the reporter cannot easily add or detract from a story. I consider AP wires (and in 1963, UPI wires as well) definitive when available.