Bipartisan Senate group proposes ‘no fly, no buy’ gun measure

[Eric the Green]

I admire Alan Watts, who said that all societies require an out-group, or an enemy, or else you don't know who you are. You identify yourself in contrast to the others. But, you must not destroy your enemies, otherwise you destroy yourself too. A society without an enemy might become complacent, not knowing its role or identity. We must respect our political opponents, as brower said.

I define myself in alliance with and in opposition to several other worldviews around today. They are somewhat represented by people who post here. Some may be allies in some sense and opposite in another, or in fact all of them may be.

The Enlightenment has been recognized as an 18th century movement out of which the USA was born. It was correctly seen in the recent second turning, however, as inadequate and superficial. It has been modified and added to, first by an expansion as brower mentioned as "social democracy that extends liberalism to the ideal of equal opportunity to its fullest." Second, by the greenpeace and spiritual revolution of the sixties, The Enlightenment was seen as a disenchantment of the world, robbing it of its deeper dimensions of meaning and reducing it to a shallow rationalism. The New Age alterrnative sees some revival of esoteric traditions from the Renaissance and ancient philosophy and from the Oriental religions, plus aspiration of human potential and new methods of self-transformation. Whereas The Enlightenment eventually reduced the view of humans to automatons miraculously endowed with reason who need to subdue a stupid universe, the New Age sees humans as conscious spiritual beings first, connected to a superconscious cosmic consciousness revealed to many people through revival of the ancient traditions and experience expended through psychedelics. This greenpeace view also includes a new respect for Nature as alive and not stupid, and the necessary foundation of life of which we are a part rather than something to be subdued by technology to serve rational beings miraculously emergent from the stupid mechanical universe. These are the greens.

There are some like me who may have some awareness of the New Age, to some degree. Most who post here today are not in this camp, but remain in the Enlightenment camp, with the social democratic addition which favors welfare and social programs and a government that helps the people. These are considered blues today, or Democrats. Mikebert is representative of this type, and brower and David Horn also but with perhaps a green tinge. Bob is a blue with a red tinge, perhaps. Bill the Piper holds to the Enlightenment view quite literally, and sees the salvation of humanity in the evolution of technology that the Enlightenment has spawned in its mastery by reason of the stupid universe. The blues in general usually accept the Enlightenment view, but some may embrace greenpeace priorities as well. So whereas greens may see themselves as allies with blues on the political level, and opponents of blues on a higher spiritual or philosophical level, they respect the blues as allies.

But blues and grees today are opponents of the reds. There are two types of red. First is the Libertarian view, either within the Republican Party or in the Libertarian Party. These are Enlightenment types, but without the social democracy that was added to it. Self-reliance and the free market are its ideals. Galen is an extreme example of this type.

Then there are the paleo reds, like Classic Xer, and in earlier times here represented for example by JDFP and JPT. They do not entirely accept the Enlightenment view, because they are conservative Christians. But they adopt the classical liberal or libertarian view, and use it to support their paleo view. Their worldview is a throwback to pre-Enlightement views of the creator God and humans as His creation, and Jesus as our Savior. They do not quite accept the view of the Enlightenment physicalists that we are beings of reason who emerged by chance through mechanical forces from a stupid universe. They have a spiritual view in common with the New Age, but limited within the Christian dogma of humans as mere creations of a God as described in the Bible.

The blues may have united as Americans with reds in the past, and seen the Communists as the enemy. They were a group who took the addition to the liberal view as providing social welfare to a totalitarian extreme, imposing it on the people by force. But since they see Communism as defeated and having crumbled of its own weight, now the opposition to them is the Republicans. The Republicans however do not see the Communists as having been defeated, but now see them as the Democrats, who are the blues and are not real Americans. Ironically though, they have now taken on the same color once assigned to the Communists.

So we have these contending worldviews, and so how are they to be viewed? Can we of one worldview know who we are, or even exist, without the others?

I look upon those of other worldviews as in need of awakening, rather than people to be defeated, normally. Others may see me and those of my worldview as superstitious, and thus in need of education and redemption from such things as belief in astrology or from human potential techniques that are too self-centered according to them. New Agers on the other hand may not always be political enough even for me, if they see human salvation in these techniques and spiritual wisdom instead of politics.

I have come to the view, however, that the Republican Party, the reds, has today lost its moral compass and is in need of defeat. The blues and greens would then become the opposing parties, while the reds would fade away as irrelevant and a relic of the past. I have hope, though, that the reds too are just in need of awakening, rather than defeat through war or political battle alone. I see them according to my New Age view, however they may see themselves. I myself may not be able to awaken them; it is for them to awaken, some of them at least, and it is up to the blues and greens to provide all the people with the views that will bring us forward and awaken and enlighten the people. All people in the USA are Americans, and have potential for enlightenment and awakening alike, and can unite again at least enough so that we may work together, once the Republican Party as it exists today has been relegated to the past where it belongs. That's how I see things now.