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Politics : Politics for Honest Conservatives -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (2528)	5/18/2019 6:11:29 PM
From: sense	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 3350

"Tough call on Cuba"... I think that could be true only if your metrics are skewed in a bias... which I'd claim as error in the same degree you are willing to "provide a pass" to anyone on the basis of ideology. In politics, the tendency to support the home team has that pernicious effect... not uniquely. Politics really is mostly a team sport... which is true of many things other than politics too... as we simplify many things in life by handing off responsibility to others rather than assume the responsibilities personally. We have religious leaders to answer the questions... and tell us the answers... as an efficiency. With specialization and aggregation, comes allocation of power, and with the power comes abuse... because the Pope is not God. Human error and human weakness... are ubiquitous. The FBI is seen addressing these issues... interestingly... without any obvious hint of bias. In the case of college basketball. Plenty enough mistakes made to go around ? People seem, if anything, more easily attracted to bait... or lures... than are fish. Genuine integrity isn't ever a commodity that we're overly long on ? Everyone has a weakness... and a price ? Some few will actually end up in positions where they have those challenges presented in actionable form... where most never will ? Perhaps, if the FBI director was a Virginia fan... and the FBI was "investigating" North Carolina... only ? If you focus on the supporting the team... when the team couldn't care less about you... or its mistakes ? Function... at some point... has to be tied to accountability... or none of the metrics matter ? Why would you support any team... in politics, versus sports... that lied to you about what they stand for ? When the Presidential candidate... is found to be deflating the ball ? Or, has a home team advantage because an insider has a finger on the scales at the scoreboard... or implements variation in the pace of the clock ? As a practical matter... its a practical matter. The moment you engage to apply ideology in the service of... anything... on the basis of the ends justifying the means... you've lost the battle. But, not just your own personal battle... as you will have failed in meeting your own obligations in the larger battle for right, and justice, and etc., for everyone. No one gets a pass... as otherwise the only thing that matters is corruption... and the submission to it... in order to side with the winners... no matter what. That's why you'll see me addressing that here as a NON-practical division... with enormous practical consequences... in a division between those focused on decisions based in MATERIALSIM... and those focused on decisions based in FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS. I follow that to the logical conclusion: No difference between communists and kings, other than who gets to be king. There is a single point of divergence in that thread woven throughout all of known history... and that occurs in the context of the times... not exclusively American in origin or idea... but as a division between prior history and the shared materialism of communists and kings... (which intrinsically, still today, incorporates the idea that persons are property) and the idea that individual rights are not derivative from or dependent upon other humans granting them. Communism disputes only who should be king... while not ever addressing the legitimacy of the idea that someone should be... that any should have that power over others. Mine isn't a claim that there is any ideal in expression... of any ideal... ? But, it does matter that your choices are tied to a fundamental belief... that exists and colors everything else derived from it. Take a case in point. Trump Jr. and Biden Jr. are both... chips off the old block. Both are privileged beyond the common experience, like the Kennedy's back in the day. And, both lack real world experience, that has led them into making some (to a grizzled veteran) fairly obvious mistakes. Some were induced by others deliberately... others were errors in choice pure and simple. But, beyond that in introduction, the nature of the differences is quite dramatic. If you "give them a pass" based on ideology... you'd see one trend... if you "give them a pass" based on "inexperience"... you'd tend to see another. See them as persons struggling with inexperience in challenging roles... you might see one thing. See them in context of "accountability" in relation to what the law requires... and what we expect of our public servants ? The two are not comparable... in the nature of their excesses and errors. Should that not mean that there is also divergence in... the consequences they experience... given difference between error in naivete subjecting you to opponents efforts to hurt you... or choosing error in smoking crack ? What might ideology and practicality determine in specific outcomes... differently ?

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (2528)	5/18/2019 6:48:26 PM
From: sense	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3350

Look at Russia.. sure as hell a lot less for the people than the US and the US is really not for the common folk in the constitution.. It was all about a takeover from Britain by rich white land and slave owners in the colonies.... Cutting out the middleman.. At least in the US/Canada most have a shot even if scales may be tipped.. In the Communist countries.. wealth is even more aggregated to a smaller than 1%.. Just noting there are two questions in there... First is the variable in the differences in the ideas inherently held, seen as difference between the Russian's and American's strongly held beliefs... which are often strongly held without either having much real awareness of a difference existing between one and the others view point. Second is the variable in the degree to which the ideas, whichever set you consider, are implemented in a more or less practical, more functional versus dysfunctional implementation. Reality often rewards "more right" versus "less right" without a lot of precision... and given overlaps in different things... more right about this, more wrong about that... it gets muddled. The primary benefit of "more capitalist" versus "more socialist" conceptions in implementation... is that capitalism, in spite of its errors, even in the sense of equal and opposite, benefits from demanding a far more grounded attachment to practicality in implementation. But, don't mistake my argument here as "pro-capitalist"... in the sense of any absolute ? Capitalisms errors, though, are ill addressed by "something even worse"... so I'll tend to be a critic of capitalism... because its errors are real, and its errors are not different than the same issue in the argument in the problem of difference between... Facsism and Socialism or Communism. Capitalism is not in fundamental disagreement with Communism any more than Fascism is... still varying from them only in the element of "who should be king" ? It turns out... who is king... matters. Kings are not equal. Some are more skilled managers than others. But... that's not me arguing in favor of a particular flavor of monarchy ?

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (2528)	5/18/2019 6:52:37 PM
From: sense	Respond to of 3350

I hate our warts.. but it is still less bad by a wide margin.. Agree... without thinking that excuses us at all in not studying difference... explaining it... while focusing on finding cures for warts... or other similar viral infections.

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (2528)	5/18/2019 7:22:30 PM
From: sense	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3350

Cuba did promote a lot of advancement for women and other underclass opportunities.. lots of folks that would never be doctors in the US due birth.. are in Cuba. It is true of every system... that there has to be some fundamental attachment to "doing some good" ? Otherwise, there'd be no point. So, the fact of it is also no path to the proper relative valuation of the ideas, the implementation (just not the right people in charge) or the quality in the effort made ? Those variations are all real. The right often mocks the left for the "not the right people" argument... and quite correctly... as the right people can't fix what's fundamentally broken in the adoption of bad ideas with better implementation. But, that being right... still doesn't make other things equal. Lingering and installing safety measures before attempting jumping off a cliff... is still a much better idea than leaping more quickly in fear the opportunity will be lost ? Chavez was an idiot in the ideas he held... but still much less of an idiot in the practical of implementing them than Maduro in his failures in larger corruption, driving greater failure in the practicalities in his worse implementation of failed ideas. Chavez would still have failed... just as you can't see Cuba as a "success story" compared with Hong Kong or Taiwan ? It might be a fun argument... whether Cuba would have done better than it has if it were under Chavez rule instead of that of the Castro brothers ? But, if you're stuck choosing between the two... you're still stuck making a choice between lesser outcomes than are easily possible with other choices ? Critical to note, two things: First... that most participants in every system... at least before they become disillusioned... aren't there for the wrong reasons... but because they truly do "mean well"... and are truly confused about what that actually requires that might be different than what they believe at the outset. Disillusionment as error is realized... opens the doors to other errors, as much as it does to "correction". Second... there are people who sign up for the opposite reasons, cynical liars and power seekers, sociopaths and pychopaths... and they often end up in charge... That doesn't mean the majority of the population are more than rationally cynical in addressing what they see... people learn the powers that be are evil... without being converted to the cause. And, critically, too often without adopting resistance as necessary rather than as futile: see, Cambodia. Problem is all that extra work does not reward you as it should.. maybe in capitalist society is is too much at times.. but notwithstanding.. a good doctor is not a good groundskeeper.. in the sense of pay equity.. Find it fascinating... how easily distracted people are... when induced into error in addressing issues of equity (the material, again)... when their lives (not just the material) hang in the balance far more than their paychecks. With good luck, that error induces only incremental losses of individual freedom or social function (freedom of the press under siege today... globally) and personal or local sovereignty... And with less good luck: Cambodia... Stalin... Mao... Hitler... In any case, that making the difference between you and a Uighur or Julian Assange into a matter of happenstance... choice a part... luck a part... perhaps the rest only timing, with clocks ticking ? Certain I'm not the only one thinking 2019 must feel a lot like 1938... that China's South China Sea adventures are indistinguishable from Japanese imperialism or German conception of Lebensraum...