DocWatts

Unfortunately the National Security State has become incredibly entrenched in the American Governmental System, and it's hard to see a realistic path to reigning it in without a substantial overhaul of our Democratic Institutions. It's hard to overstate how much Corporate Lobbying has corrupted our political system over here, with what amounts to what's essentially legalized bribery by Corporate Interests having an enormous influence on our national policies (both domestic and foreign). Add to this the further difficulty that the Military Industrial Complex is a defacto jobs program for much of the country. Anyone here with more than two brain cells to rub together can see how criminally wasteful it is to spend $750 billion on a bloated Military budget when around half of our citizens are on the edge of poverty, but sad fact is dismantling the current system is beyond any one President (even if they were inclined to do so). We also don't have anything like a viable Peace Party over here. We have what amounts to a Corporatist Nationalist/Authoritarian Party (the Republicans), and a slightly Left of Center Party (the Democrats). Third Parties with platforms advocating for the dismantling of the American Military Empire do exist, but they have virtually no chance of winning National Elections. As to Joe Biden, he's clearly a Centrist Candidate (and advertised himself as such). For reasons I can't fathom some Lefties over here were expecting him to be a Patron Saint of Enlightened Progressive Politics, and have become aggravated that he's not delivering on things he never promised to do while campaigning.

The Catch 22 is that while we need Conscious Politicians in order to successfully deal with the innumerable challenges we're facing as a Society, it's also true that running for Political Office is often the path of most rather than least Resistance for gifted people who want to contribute to Society. There's only so much that a highly conscious person is going to be able to achieve working within the confines of a system that's far less developed than that individual. Rather than a Conscious Individual elevating the political system that they're participating in, it just as likely that a principled individual will be dragged down and accept some level of corruption as the cost of doing business, or end up losing heart and leaving politics. Someone like Bill Gates is doing far more to reduce suffering world running an anti-poverty NGO than he could ever hope to accomplish if he ran for President. Mikhail Gorbachev is quite instructive in this regard as well, as we can look to the difficulties he faced when trying to enact Principled change on a Political Culture that was substantially less developed than he was, resulting in a return to Authoritarianism after has departure.

Apparently some on the Left are disappointed that Biden hasn't solved America's numerous structural and systemic problems during his first six weeks in Office. Let's hope that more productive critiques of Biden are the ones that make it to the forefront, since equating Biden supporters and Maga Cultists isn't a good look for the Left...

Completely Agree. But it's also worth pointing out that in the US this is almost entirely due to Distributive Problem, rather than being due to a lack of Resources or a due to a lack of Economic Infrastructure. Saying that the US has serious Developmental Imbalances might be another good way of putting it.

It would be more accurate to say that the US is a First World nation in wealth and resources, and a developing country in terms of the lived experience for a large plurality (arguably even a majority) of its Citizens.

All this from giving kids the option to have a Vegan/Vegetarian meal in school (not from forcing Vegetarian meals on anyone). Is there something I'm missing here?

The Conversation. theconversation.com/us High quality, complex news analysis. Relatively non partisan. Not run for profit, so it avoids corporate conflicts of interest.

Thanks for clearing that up, as that seems like an important distinction to keep in mind. Never disliked Jesse Ventura, but his affinity for some forms of Conspiracism always made me a bit hesitant about the guy. Seems like he's on the more benign end of that spectrum from the sound of it.

The guy is giving away almost all of his immense fortune to the poorest people on the planet. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's operating in Good Faith when he makes statements like this.

I think Jesse Ventura, along with Arnold Schwarzenegger, are good indicators of what a Healthy and Functional Conservative political party might look like in America. In the case of Jesse Ventura, credit where credit is due for being able to run for governor as a Third Party Candidate and actually win, considering the obstacles that third parties face. The Reform Party, for its brief existence, could have been a relatively Healthy Alternative for Conservative Voters to turn to, rather than the open kleptocracy that the Republican Party has devolved to; being actually concerned with fiscal responsibility (rather than using it as a smokescreen for kleptocratic policy), and actually concerned with government overreach (ie Civil Liberties violations). That said, I do know that Jesse Ventura was a noted Conspiracy Theorist throughout much of his political career. In his case, I haven't heard him say anything obviously stupid about Pandemic Denial or Election Fraud over the last year, so it's possible he might have eased off on some of that stuff. And while Jesse Ventura doesn't consider himself a Conservative per se, there's enough overlap where I could see him being able to appeal to at least some Conservatives and Libertarians. Hearing him go off on billionaires, it's encouraging to see how his political views have evolved over time; when he was active in Politics in the nineties his political philosophy was probably closer to Centrist (rather than Conservative leaning) Libertarianism. Evolving political views is something we should normalize. As an aside, I've believed for years that CEO/Executive pay should be capped at some Multiple of what thier lowest paid employee earns (say 40 times as much for the sake of argument, the actual number can debated). What we really need is some sort of shared economic incentives between the poorest and richest people in our society, because otherwise we're setting ourselves up for a fragmented society vulnerable to societal collapse.

Whenever I think to myself 'surely this is a new low', Republicans always manage to come back and surprise me with just how dishonest and corrupt they can be while still being able to con enough dummies into Voting for them to stay in Office. Not sure if this is just an illusion on my part, but I seem to recall a time where my disagreements with Right Wingers were over what from my perspective was thier misguided political philosophy. Rather than taking for granted the fact that people who support the modern day Republican Party are openly giving a licence for con artists and grifters to loot the country. Whatever my disagreements with someone like John McCain, he at least wasn't in it only for his narrow self interest; that he seemed to be operating from a position of good faith. Feels much harder to make thay claim about any prominent person in the Republican Party these days.

Imaging posting this on a public forum, after learning that your city's residents are without water and electricity due to a Winter Storm damaging infrastructure across the state. From the Mayor of Colorado City, Texas, who was shamed into resigning shortly after posting this on Facebook.

The reason why we shouldn't be dancing on the grave of someone like Rush Limbaugh (or Osama Bin Laden for that matter) isn't because we owe terrible people any respect, it's because taking pleasure in someone else's death makes you a worse person. How is acting out in this manner any different than a right winger who froths at the mouth at the prospect of someone getting sent to the electric chair? That said I think it's fully acceptable to acknowledge the harms that people like Rush have caused and conclude that the world is a better place without him in it, but that's not the same thing as taking joy in someone else's suffering.

It's incredible how most of the Republican Party can't even be bothered anymore to at least put up a pretense of caring about anyone or anything but their narrow self interest. If you want an great analogue of the modern Republican Party, look no further than the carnivorous short sighted Greed of the Skeksis from Dark Crystal.

Marcus Aurelius was Healthy Blue. Rush Limbaugh is what happens when Cartman from South Park grows up and is given a radio show. Guy was little more than a Bigot with a Megaphone, contributing nothing of value and actively making life worse for people. Not one to engage in schadenfreude, but the world is a better place without him in it. And I'll happily defend that claim to anyone who takes issue with it.

Republican Politicians lecturing the ignorant plebs on the merits of defunding the government while thier state's infrastructure and emergency services are crippled by a snowstorm.

More context for what's going on in Texas right now:

Interesting how residents expecting Utilities that they've paid for to be functional is somehow twisted into asking for a Handout. The amount of Mental Gymnastics to get to that one is beyond my comprehension. Amazing how this guy wasn't even putting up a pretense of at least pretending to care that the people who put him into Office are freezing in thier Homes. Vote for Stupid Politicians, win Stupid Prizes.

This is a public post from the Mayor of Colorado City, Texas, in response to residents of his town being without electricity and water after a Winter Storm that shut down parts of the state. (The Mayor resigned a short time after posting this).

Plenty of contemporary Moral Philosophers who take a more Relativist view of ethics, you just won't find many of them before the emergence of the postmodern Value Meme and the advent of Social Construct Theory and Deconstructionism.

I've been transitioning to a plant based diet over the course of the past few years for ethical reasons, but I also get the sense that is a structural issue endemic to Industrial Societies, and something that won't be solved until several generations pass and countries like the US are roughly at SD-Stage Green. Either that or because Climate Change literally forces our hand, with how unsustainable meat heavy diets are. Of course there's a possibility that synthetic lab grown meat could perhaps be part of a move away from factory farming, but it's not something I'm holding my breath about. My intuitive sense is that as long as large portions of society are having trouble meeting their basic needs, worrying about animal suffering is sadly going to be something of a luxury for privileged people to worry about. Hell, in the US we haven't even fully transitioned away from what can arguably be considered Human Slave Labor, when you consider the state of the US Prison system and how inmates are paid pennies for manual labor.

Kind of a moot point since they fought a war to protect the interests of Slave Owners.

All very good points. I think some of difficulty also comes from the fact that it can be difficult to separate Good Faith discussions on difficult issues like racism from Bad Faith Actors willing to use such discussions to legitimize their own internalized implicit racism. Ben Shapiro and Ken Wilber might both discuss some of the excesses that you mention, but one is doing it legitimize racist attitudes, and the other is doing it to help people ascend developmentally in order to transcend racism. This is an exaggerated and obvious comparison to demonstrate the point (at least to those who are literate in basic developmental psychology), but in most cases most of the time that distinction won't always be so easy to draw. I read an interesting book recently which goes in to detail about how culture at different levels of development use different emotional regimes to enforce norms and behaviors. Whereas roughly SD-Stage Red societies primarily use the emotional regime of Fear to motivate behavior, as you move up the spiral that eventually changes to Guilt (SD-Stage Blue), Shame (SD-Stage Orange). Once you reach roughly SD-Stage Green, there's not really a great English word for it, but the emotional regime is that of trying to avoid provoking the envy of others (such as avoiding ostentatious displays of wealth, and so on).

In today's world racism is more often than not Implicit, rather than Explicit. An example of explicit racism would consist of shouting racial slurs of someone on a bus. Someone who's Implicitly Racist would be far more likely to eagerly look for reasons as to why a black teenager shot and killed by the police deserved to die. If you confronted this person, they would deny that this behavior is racist; and this is because they are simply unaware (or in denial) of how things like Implicit Bias operate. The reason for this shift from Explicit to Implicit is because cultural norms have gradually shifted so that expressing openly racist attitudes is no longer tolerated by most of society. That doesn't mean racism has gone away though, it just means that the racism exists today is more subtle than racism of the past. And even people with quite Explicitly Racist worldviews, such as Richard Spencer, have gone out of their way to rebrand themselves as 'race realists' in an attempt to make racist rhetoric more palatable for mainstream acceptance.