Patriotism

Fixed Cross wrote:

Sisyphus wrote:

I didn't have a job when I was in Vietnam.  My skill was not needed.  I was sent there in 1970 only because I hadn't been there yet.

But I did an excellent job at staying alive so that I could return to the USA after my tour of duty.

I like this warstory.

Thanks. That's a true one. However, I do, on occasion, tell some about the big one that got away. I do have a MA in BS.

Sisyphus wrote:

So I still must insist that one who has served their country has a right to be proud, even if they did not agree with the laws of the politicians of the time.

I strongly disagree with this. I do not think 'islamic caliphate' soliders or nazi soldiers or NATO soldiers have a right to be proud. I know that they do think that - but I certainly will not acknowledge that they have the right to be proud - I can only shrug and acknowledge that it is a will to be proud that has young boys join killing squads.

In some cases, men can be proud, but I would not be able to take pride from following orders. This is however just how I am built. I need to live among free and equal people, or be the one that gives the orders. Ive taken on too much intellectual and ethical responsibility to ever allow another to tell me what to do.

Philosophy's place, as you said so yourself, is to instruct the highest politicians.

Sisyphus,

You're free to be proud to be an American or anything else. I'm not proud to be an American, for example I don't say the pledge of allegiance and I try my best not to vote, and I adamantly fight against all the banal and vain/silly instances in our culture today of "Hoo-Rah 'Merika fuck yeah!" sort of detestable "patriotism". If you want to know what I am proud to be, I am proud to a human being, and I am proud to be a philosopher; I am proud to be human simply because that is the definition of what I am (no one is by definition "an American" or any other nationality, that is just a largely superficial label), and I am proud especially to be a philosopher because that is what I created myself to be.

My pride in being human is just an enjoyment of being what I am. I would also argue that it is the pride of creating what I am, a human being, because every human being must create and has created themselves qua human being. I certainly didn't create myself to be "American" whatever that might mean (tell me what it means to be an American that is beyond what it means to be a human being, and we can really start this topic off right).

Fixed Cross wrote:

Sisyphus wrote:

So I still must insist that one who has served their country has a right to be proud, even if they did not agree with the laws of the politicians of the time.

I strongly disagree with this. I do not think 'islamic caliphate' soliders or nazi soldiers or NATO soldiers have a right to be proud. I know that they do think that - but I certainly will not acknowledge that they have the right to be proud - I can only shrug and acknowledge that it is a will to be proud that has young boys join killing squads.

In some cases, men can be proud, but I would not be able to take pride from following orders. This is however just how I am built. I need to live among free and equal people, or be the one that gives the orders. Ive taken on too much intellectual and ethical responsibility to ever allow another to tell me what to do.

Philosophy's place, as you said so yourself, is to instruct the highest politicians.

Yes, this is a different story. All based in subjectivity.

I won't argue your disagreement. The concepts of "peace" and "freedom" are very important to me. With this in mind I would have to agree with your disagreement.

Well, sure, I am similar to you regarding taking responsibility and not allowing others to rule my life. I have mentioned that I am an Anarchist, haven't I?

The processes of my life were not such that I could become a politician or the leader of my country. I don't even like to lead but rather I prefer to set the example for others to willing follow. I try to point to the guide posts that others should pay attention to.

Those others you spoke of don't come to my territory and I don't go to theirs so there won't be any conflict. And I'm not going to tell them that they aren't going to get all those virgins when they die. That's because I wouldn't be talking with them.

You are young and still full of potential. I am old and retired. I don't want any more wars.

On religion, I agree with Zizek when he says that human being, this "self-consciousness" thing that we are over and above the rest of the natural world, is inherently violent and maddened to itself and requires systems of ideas and laws to constrain itself reasonably well. You need religion to make bad people do good things and you need religion to make good people do bad things, is his point; without these kind of systems of prescriptions and prohibitions human nature, so called, is a kind of beast in its own right precisely because it lacks proper limits on itself, it is an immense excess of itself that absolutely requires delimitations. Granted that religion isn't among the best of these.

I consider religion to be a pre-form of philosophy. Religion is philosophy for non-philosophers. I am also not an anarchist and I cannot agree with stateless humanity where no nations exist, because I agree with Fixed's and Parodites' points about the necessity of culture and difference and various tiers of identity and substantiation that must take place, or in any case that have taken place. Nations are another, 'higher' form of religion. Quite natural, and very difficult to overcome the hard logic of the necessity behind their existences.

Yeah, I also view religion as something born out of philosophy. Religions actually simplify philosophy.

I suppose that if pressed I wold have to admit that both religion and governments are needed because many, probably most, people don't know how to behave without some "higher power" telling them.

True, Albert Camus was imagining and then John Lennon put it to music.

Properly called idealism but it doesn't hurt to imagine how peaceful the world "could" be.

And I don't talk about societal anarchy because I know that won't work. But individual anarchy can within limits. It allows for a bit more freedom than has the average person.

Sisyphus wrote:

Yeah, I also view religion as something born out of philosophy.  Religions actually simplify philosophy.

I suppose that if pressed I wold have to admit that both religion and governments are needed because many, probably most, people don't know how to behave without some "higher power" telling them.

True, Albert Camus was imagining and then John Lennon put it to music.

Properly called idealism but it doesn't hurt to imagine how peaceful the world "could" be.

And I don't talk about societal anarchy because I know that won't work.  But individual anarchy can within limits.  It allows for a bit more freedom than has the average person.

I knew we could be friends

Capable wrote:

I knew we could be friends

Caused a chuckle. Thanks.

Wasn't any doubt in my mind. I just didn't know how hard we would have to work at it before it because reality. It happened rather quickly in my opinion.

Shit happens.

Capable wrote:

Shit happens.

And bears do it in the woods. Watch where you walk.

Ive heard this argument so many times, "If you don't vote then you have no right to complain", yeah that argument is bullshit, and I will show you why.

First of all, if you want to be technical about it, the only ones who have no right to complain would be those who voted for the person in office. If you vote for the other guy who doesn't win, then obviously you have a right to complain. And if you choose not to vote because the candidates suck, and then it turns out in practice they do actually suck at governing, of course you still have a right to complain.

But in reality, everyone has a "right to complain" even if you voted for whoever wins. Because it's obvious that the person you voted for, and if they end up winning, can still do a lot of stupid shit you don't support. Plus, you need to consider that whether or not YOU vote isn't going to make any difference at all. Consider two possible worlds, one in which you vote, and the other in which you do not vote. Each world is exactly the same except for this one difference; is the outcome of any election going to be difference between those two worlds? Nope. Not at all.

Literally it makes zero difference to the outcomes of the elections, whether or not YOU vote. So if you think you're voting because "my vote counts!" then you're deluding yourself. But if you think you're voting because you want to participate in the system and at least be part of that statistical pool from which candidates are determined in sum and by general overall total vote, in which no single vote changes anything but the sum total of votes does change things, then yes you should vote. I just personally don't give a shit about that argument. If I do not vote it is a deliberate "vote of no confidence" in all of the options I am given.

I find enough to disagree with on both the GOP and DFL sides that I simply have no motivation to give any of them my endorsement. And now at least when you hear someone say "well if you don't vote, you have no right to complain!" you know how to disprove that idiotic argument of theirs.

And I can give you another good reason to not vote if indeed you don't like any of the choices: if the total participation of voters gets low enough, that is tantamount to an official vote of no confidence, because it undermines the main purpose of voting which is to lend the weight or image of legitimacy to whoever wins. The winner can always point to "well I won majority of votes, I have the legitimacy and sanction of the governed" regardless of what that person actually does... yet if you imagine the total percentage of people who vote gets smaller and smaller, at a certain point this supposed legitimacy and consent of the governed is no longer the case.

Okay, I concede. Everyone has the right to complain.

I previously stated that I was going to vote for Jill. I have changed my mind. My best friend voted for Clinton. I must vote for Trump so that I can nullify his vote.

Sisyphus wrote:

Okay, I concede.  Everyone has the right to complain.

I previously stated that I was going to vote for Jill.  I have changed my mind.  My best friend voted for Clinton.  I must vote for Trump so that I can nullify his vote.

Haha yeah. But we have a bullshit electoral college system, so it's impossible to do unless you live in the same state, and even then each state is winner take all (or at least most of them are). I think the electoral college system was set up because it allowed manipulations and more easily stacking the deck-- you can really focus your hacks (er I mean, propaganda attacks... er I mean, political ads) in targeted places and by doing that sway the votes of an entire state.

The original politicians were just as elitist as politicians are today. Probably a good deal more so. So peopls themselves don't even get to vote, they just get to vote for however they want the "person" of their state to vote.

If you really want to know whose vote doesn't count in our system, it's anyone who voted in what turns out to be the minority in that state (namely all electoral votes for your state go against who you voted for).

Capable wrote:

Haha yeah. But we have a bullshit electoral college system, so it's impossible to do unless you live in the same state, and even then each state is winner take all (or at least most of them are). I think the electoral college system was set up because it allowed manipulations and more easily stacking the deck-- you can really focus your hacks (er I mean, propaganda attacks... er I mean, political ads) in targeted places and by doing that sway the votes of an entire state.

I never did like the primaries or the electoral college. Majority (or most votes) wins. That sounds pretty simple to me. But then, maybe too simple. Have to make things complicated.

Capable wrote:

The original politicians were just as elitist as politicians are today. Probably a good deal more so. So peopls themselves don't even get to vote, they just get to vote for however they want the "person" of their state to vote.

If you really want to know whose vote doesn't count in our system, it's anyone who voted in what turns out to be the minority in that state (namely all electoral votes for your state go against who you voted for).

Well, at least we know that one of the two people who the establishment has selected is going to be our next president.

I don't like the "Party" system either. Oh well.

Trump may be part of the Russian establishment. That's pretty cool if you think about it.

Yes the electoral college deliberately makes it complicated. Why? Complicated is easier to manipulate.