Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[pbrower2a]

(08-28-2016, 01:13 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-28-2016, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 04:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'll acknowledge art as a possible way of understanding the world and achieving fulfillment.  I'll note that in the past you have objected that mysticism and religion are distinct enough to deserve to be counted as different things.  I'm glad you have come over to my way of thinking.    

I'll deny that politics isn't a framework for understanding the world (world view) as well as providing goals for how one should improve one's culture and one's role within it (values).  We spend an awful lot of time, you, me and others on this forum, comparing, contrasting and insulting various political world views and values.  Trying to further comprehend and resolve such things won't be helped if you can't step out of your personal world view far enough to see what is going on in front of your face.  Your refusal to see outside your personal framework isn't optimal.

As I have said, I understand other political views better than those who hold them. I stand by that. The fact that I am still partisan, despite this, just shows that I consider those views to be false, at least when held with the narrow rigidity that some people hold them today.

I'c consider the above attitude a possible symptom of values lock.  Conservatives commonly explain to me how all liberals think, and say that because I am a liberal it follows that they know what I am thinking.  Buzz, wrong.  It is common for those holding one set of world views and values to have stereotypes  of opposing world views and values.  It seems to me that conservatives are more blatant about this than progressives, but in part that is because I lean progressive.  Hey, I have values too.  I do the "I understand them and still disagree with them" thing too.  Well, you know that.  That's what you are complaining about, no?  That's an occupational hazard.  It's part of being human.  Just don't think you're immune, that you are doing it less than others.  There are reasons for the "Eric the Obtuse" tag.

(08-28-2016, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 04:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: People have strong political beliefs and values.  Your inability to see and acknowledge this doesn't change it.

I can see fine that these are in the realm of philosophy.

There is a saying.  "Those that can, do.  Those that can't, teach."  Most of the good professional philosophers I have encountered, respected and learned from are in academia.  The good professional politicians aren't.  I see a clear difference in how the two professions understand and manipulate the world.  Most people can.  I shall continue to speak to most people.

(08-28-2016, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 04:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Acknowledged.  I may be aware of how world views and values can both focus and contain an individual's thinking, but don't claim total immunity to the effects.  Scientific values are better than most at reminding practitioners that new data requires new thinking, that no paradigm should be considered sacrosanct, that anything one believes should be subject to reevaluation.  Some variations of mysticism echo a similar principle, which is why the masters pour too much tea in the student's cup.  One must empty out old beliefs to make learn for new learning.  We could both gain by pushing these aspects of our varied traditions.

I agree there.

Hey.  Wow.  It can happen!  

(08-28-2016, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 04:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I acknowledge that you have found a path that brings you a knowledge of how the world works and a guidance on how you should act that gives you a deep satisfaction.  I have walked enough steps of that path to understand its basic nature, and to know it is not for me.  I doubt any man could or should try to walk every path he encounters to the same degree as someone who has committed a lifetime to one path alone.  My own path suggests trying to acknowledge, respect and understand many diverse paths, but I'm not going to be able to out quote the bible with JPT, discuss in detail the many and varied economic cycles with Mikebert, or critique one of your astrological charts.

Some aspects of my path are so simple that anyone can follow, if willing. The obvious does not have to be difficult to see. But the willing isn't there, without curiosity; which seems to have vanished from most people the moment the 2T ended. But when I was 16 and 17, my curiosity drove me to discover the obvious, and my path opened.

I think this too can be viewed as a universal.  People with a wide variety of ways of seeing the world will say the basics are simple, obvious to the willing, to those ready to open their eyes.  The fact that others can't see it and are unwilling to open their eyes is troubling.  You have a world view.  It isn't universally embraced.  Welcome to the human race.  Worry less about others with closed eyes.  You can do more about your own eyes.  Or can you?  Have you the insurmountable handicap of being human?

(08-28-2016, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 04:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: But as you might push meditation and astrology, I'll be trying to push walking at least a kilometer in the other guy's shoes.  It's what I do.

So you claim. But your pronouncements about me and others refute this to a degree. You, like almost all people here (at least if they are older than about 25), and most people today, are locked into their particular views, whatever you call them, and often angrily dismiss opposing views. I don't look for this to change. I look for one political philosophy to defeat the other; that's what happens in 4Ts, every time. For the rest, revolutions and awakenings come and go, followed by long periods of stasis. That's the way of evolution, human and otherwise.

Too true for comfort.  To a great degree, in advocating our various world views and values, we're all tilting at windmills.  Again, your are stating a near universal, a broad truth that applies to you as well.  You too have been known to angrily dismiss opposing views.  They are not to be taken seriously.  They are to be swept aside by the tides of history.  Do you not recall Classic's recent post to that effect, predicting that Americans will triumph over liberals?

As I've said to Mikebert recently, we are becoming a confrontational hostile culture.  As a whole we are becoming better at screaming than listening.  I'd rather solve problems through the ballot box than on the battlefield.  I'd rather solve problems through courtesy and respect than through politics.  That's hard to do in today's culture, and part of it is the late 3T early 4T season.  Part of the problem is the culture of hostility and prevalence of closed minds itself.

At this time you and I seem near the point where we are obstinately  screaming at each other, trying to see who can deliver the same message in the most decisive way.  I'm thinking we are near a point of diminishing return.

Values lock -- one cannot legitimately understand why others hold the views that they have, and probably can't legitimately express the views of others.

So how can someone be wrong?

1. Intellectual inadequacy, a/k/a stupidity or ignorance.
2. Insanity and delusion.
3. Gross inadequacy of moral standards, as with sociopaths and sadists.
4. Selling out to the highest bidder.
5. Myopic class interest.
6. Brainwashing.
7. Fear -- fear the tyrant who can do anything to one or the God that can have one burn in Hell for the slightest deviation.
8. Revenge-seeking against old enemies.

1. Stupidity is one of the most commonly attributed faults to those who disagree with one, but it may be one of the least important. Stupid people still get their ideas from someone else. Ignorance about politics is something of which one is easily disabused, unless one is sheltered from the reality. Besides, the frequency of persons of cognitive impairment in the imbecile and idiot range is rather rare outside of institutions. More people are called stupid for their political beliefs than really are stupid.

Ignorance? Some people find it comforting.

The polar differences in how black people and white people see American life must reflect a difference in their world.

OK, so I am a little more enlightened about the reality of white (or should I say non-black?) privilege. You might want to keep the vehicle registration somewhere other than the glove (if you are white) or gun (if you are a young black male). That;s the difference that cops see in such places as Ferguson, Missouri.

2. Paranoid, schizophrenic, and other delusions are possible. But those on the Left (9/11 was an inside job) are as commonplace as those on the Right (Zionist Occupation Government).

3. Probably commonplace in contemporary America, at least among official elites and among gangsters. As capitalism has gone from a model of largely competitive enterprise to oligarchic capitalism and as economic inequality has intensified, predatory models of business have become the norm. Subprime lending and rip-off retailing that used to exist only in the ghettos and barrios have spread to rural areas and Suburbia. Such activities hold potential for great profits for businesses with captive clienteles. Operation of one of these (or ownership from afar) can be far more lucrative than the old-fashioned cash-and-carry retailer. I could name names, but I would more insult the customers than harm the businesses. We need remember that a culture that fosters economic inequality makes such the norm.  In case people thought that being overworked and underpaid created some security, then think again -- such is the way with day laborers.

4. Intellectual prostitutes are nothing new. Some people whored their intellect by extolling the lavish beneficence of slave owners upon the slaves. In more recent times they defended the cancerweed industry from medical attacks on 'coffin nails'. People with high intelligence can be just as callow as idiots; they know what they are doing. What is in it for them? Getting to live the good life for doing something evil but easy. Getti9ng paid like Hemingway while having not-so-extraordinary talent just by pushing horrible stuff? If one has brains but no conscience....

5. How luscious life must have been for French aristocrats around 1785... or Russian aristocrats around 1910.... or Cuban aristocrats around 1955. I think we all know how that line will go.

6. Some political groups (including the Republican party in my county!) have taken on cult-like characteristics.

7. Today we 'only' fear the Boss, someone who can cast us off with little notice. We can go from precarious membership in the middle class to poverty in a few months. Maybe the objective of one side of the political spectrum is to create as much mass poverty as possible so that people will do anything to avoid being fired. Just think of what it would be like if continued employment depended upon 'volunteering' for political activity that the Boss likes, doing unpaid domestic work for ownership or management, or making purchases for excess prices with Shylock-style terms of repayment of the loan.  Then of course there is 'voluntary' unpaid overtime, failure at which to perform gives cause for firing.

8. Revenge is sweet. So, supposedly, are highly-toxic lead compounds.