Autocracy: Rules for Survival

[pbrower2a]

(05-02-2017, 01:00 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(05-02-2017, 11:07 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-02-2017, 10:24 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: I want to buy systems made in the US. I want to buy printed circuit board assemblies made in the US, I want to buy cable harnesses made in the US, I want to buy chassis made in the US, I want to buy ICs, SMT chip components, wires, cables, connectors, fans, heat sinks, etc, etc made in the US. 30 years ago I could buy all of the above in the US. The China price is now increasing, the logistics of a 5000 mile shipment channel suck (think of the inventory tied up in transit and buffers at all times), China et al may cut us off on a moment's notice, and we have opioid addicted former good workers idling and getting increasingly angry. Well, at some point, Great War will force these issues, then we shall have to figure out how to make all of the above items again.

Maybe we could make such stuff in the places of spent mines

Yes and a number of those are quite close to Mt. Weather. Very little additional digging / tunneling required.

In the event of a major war we might be wise to do much of the manufacturing of critical components for national defense underground, away from bombs and missiles.

[pbrower2a]

This is from a year ago in a philosophy forum, and I would guess that many of you would enjoy this site.

Politics has a philosophical basis, whether we like it or not -- or heed it or not. Ideas and values have consequences. and bad ideas and values can get only sordid results.

Quote:We have never embraced political conservatism. However, we also think that the conservative tradition in American politics is intellectually formidable. We find the best representatives of that tradition to be rigorous, insightful, and philosophically astute. They are political commentators for whom ideas matter. In their best work we find proposals and principles that we think are incorrect, but never merely stupid.

The trouble with political conservatism in America is that for the past fifty years, its central ideals have been growing increasingly unpopular with the American citizenry. The sociological, demographic, and economic explanations of this need not detain us. The fact is that the core conservative values of personal responsibility, self-reliance, restrained government, shared community, and the moral authority of tradition have given way to tendencies that conservatives must regard as base and uncivilized: insatiable appetites for luxury, excess, spectacle, and power, all of which are social forces that dissolve tradition and foster divisions. It is no accident that W.F. Buckley Jr. defined conservatives as standing athwart history yelling, Stop!

http://dailynous.com/2016/03/14/philosop...tial-race/

This poster, as many other Americans (I included), could not believe that Donald Trump could be elected President until he was elected. But we weren't so concerned about getting into a wreck that put us in traction in a hospital and put us in bankruptcy and foreclosure, either, when we drove on an icy road and slid upon the ice on a bridge that we thought little of the danger of driving that night.

Donald Trump has shown himself for what he is: an irresponsible and reckless crony capitalist, a big-government right-winger in contempt of rationality and community, someone who practices the most destructive sorts of material and personal indulgence. This happens when conservatism morphs from Edmund Burke to Rush Limbaugh. This did not happen steadily over two centuries; this happened nearly overnight. It is not surprising that the Party of Lincoln became the conservative party because it aligned itself with productive enterprise that won the Civil War. But the Party of Lincoln has become the Party that has abandoned Lincoln and a philosophy that required opportunity, respect for learning, property rights in the real and abstract, economic restraint (for productive investment) in favor of something that indulges the few and bleeds the many.

I am old enough to remember when the Republican Party exemplified old conservative virtues that it has now abandoned.  We have a gaping hole in the political spectrum and in effect a bimodal distribution of political values. We are in deep trouble.

[beechnut79]

(05-03-2017, 07:46 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-02-2017, 01:00 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(05-02-2017, 11:07 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-02-2017, 10:24 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: I want to buy systems made in the US. I want to buy printed circuit board assemblies made in the US, I want to buy cable harnesses made in the US, I want to buy chassis made in the US, I want to buy ICs, SMT chip components, wires, cables, connectors, fans, heat sinks, etc, etc made in the US. 30 years ago I could buy all of the above in the US. The China price is now increasing, the logistics of a 5000 mile shipment channel suck (think of the inventory tied up in transit and buffers at all times), China et al may cut us off on a moment's notice, and we have opioid addicted former good workers idling and getting increasingly angry. Well, at some point, Great War will force these issues, then we shall have to figure out how to make all of the above items again.

Maybe we could make such stuff in the places of spent mines

Yes and a number of those are quite close to Mt. Weather. Very little additional digging / tunneling required.

In the event of a major war we might be wise to do much of the manufacturing of critical components for national defense underground, away from bombs and missiles.

Guess you could call this one military moonshine.

[David Horn]

(05-03-2017, 01:00 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(05-02-2017, 10:24 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: I want to buy systems made in the US. I want to buy printed circuit board assemblies made in the US, I want to buy cable harnesses made in the US, I want to buy chassis made in the US, I want to buy ICs, SMT chip components, wires, cables, connectors, fans, heat sinks, etc, etc made in the US. 30 years ago I could buy all of the above in the US. The China price is now increasing, the logistics of a 5000 mile shipment channel suck (think of the inventory tied up in transit and buffers at all times), China et al may cut us off on a moment's notice, and we have opioid addicted former good workers idling and getting increasingly angry. Well, at some point, Great War will force these issues, then we shall have to figure out how to make all of the above items again.

You should look at the Border Adjustment Tax.  Everyone with a VAT uses VAT rebate for exports against us due to a questionable WTO ruling; time we leveled the playing field.

In what way is the playing field tilted?  Everything sold in VAT countries gets taxed, including imports.

[Eric the Green]

[pbrower2a]

Here is the warning:
 

Quote: Fascism says nothing’s true. Your daily life is not important. The facts that you think you understand are not important. All that matters is the myth ― the myth of one nation as together the myth-ful connection with the leader.

   When we think of “Post-truth,” we think its something new. We think its something at campuses. We think its something irrelevant. Actually, what post-truth does is it paves the way for regime change. If we don’t have access to facts, we can’t trust each other. Without trust, there’s no law. Without law, there’s no democracy.

   So if you want to rip the heart out of democracy directly, if you want to go right at it and kill it, what you do is you go after facts. And that is what modern authoritarians do.

   Step one: You lie to yourself, all the time. Step two: You say it’s your opponents and the journalists who lie. Step three: Everyone looks around and says, “What is truth?” There is no truth.

   And then, resistance is impossible, and the game is over.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dail...mg00000009

The armed forces are by necessity authoritarian bodies -- but just remember what the honor codes of the Service Academies say. The wording differs from academy to academy, but in essence:

Do not lie, cheat, or steal; do not allow others to get away with lying, cheating, or stealing.

It isn't blind obedience or reckless displays of bravery. One needs to know that the orders are genuine, lawful, and coherent as well as from legitimate sources and even wise and possible. "Lead your troops off a cliff" is not a valid order.

That is a good standard for any responsible profession from accountancy to teaching to medicine to engineering to research.

It's easy to understand why the military puts so much importance upon integrity. Combat, an inevitable part of any military career or a consequence of decisions that one makes as an officer, depends upon the reliability of superior orders  for the achievement of military success. Yes, there is the fog of war; yes, there are events that happen because the Enemy is where he is unexpected.  Difficult and dangerous as combat is, soldiers need to know that the chain of command has the best knowledge and intentions.

If one does not know, one must not pretend to know. One must never relay data that one knows is false.  One must not pretend to have had successes that have not happened or disguise a failure. One might take from military stores as necessary for a limited objective, but one had better not do so for corrupt gain and one must record what one took. Someone else may need ammunition and rations.

If one is an engineer, then one must not substitute substandard materials and pocket the difference. The bridge that one builds might collapse some day if the materials are substandard. If one does scientific (especially medical!) research, one has obvious standards to meet. An accountant must make audits in accordance with generally-accepted accounting principles.  

Objective truth is precious. It may not be convenient, but it is all that we have for making competent decisions. Those who live in accordance with the consequences of knowing the truth can experience unpleasantness in life, but those who don't live in accordance with it set themselves and others up for catastrophe.

Needless to say, I do not trust Donald Trump. 'Post-truth' and 'alternative facts' are lies at worst, and delusions at best.

[pbrower2a]

(05-17-2017, 09:43 PM)Rorence Wrote: Teach us more in this field. After reading on here, we can learn more in this topic.

I'm not exactly a professor of philosophy (I did take a college philosophy course after I graduated from college, but have read much philosophy -- I'd probably have a much happier life had I been a philosophy major and psychology minor, or vice-versa), but I can tell you that philosophy is the most practical of the liberal arts. It gives us the means of discerning truth from falsehood and helps us discern less-obvious knowledge from more basic knowledge.

Some people are simply good at using logic and care to use it. For some, their discourse is an elaboration of solid logic. For others their murky prose has no logical foundation. Although logic may not be adequate for solving every problem that ever existed, the lack of logic ensures a non-solution. Among the most obvious realities is that one cannot reconcile contradictions.

The curriculum vitae of Donald Trump suggests a learned man, but it would seem that he has either forgotten or he habitually fails to use some enviable schooling. I've known people with eighth-grade education (they got their formal education back in the 1910s and 1920s, so don't expect me to introduce you to them) who showed more ability to think things out than Donald Trump does.  Thinking takes effort; I think that Donald Trump is intellectually lazy. That's a pity. I have discovered that thinking can make life far easier and cause me to avoid much grief.  That -- and some basic realities of nature. That there is no such thing as a free lunch is an economic restatement of the First Law of Thermodynamics.