[MD] The Art of Philosophy

[118]

Hi dmb,
Thank you for your response.  It would appear that you like to label
contributors to this forum as either black or white.  Just to be clear, I
do not trust a federal government of either party.  I arrived in the US
when Nixon was in power.  At that time it was the students who were
anti-government.  I have not changed my view since then.  I am not sure of
your age, but you probably did not grow up in the sixties.  It was all
youth driven anti-government back then.

As I understand "ideologies", they are Static Quality presentations of what
should be.  That is, they are ideas of a better way.  The current ideology
of "fundamentally changing American (BHO)" is one such idea.  It is based
on the way things should be in this country.  If I were to analyze the two
political parties, I would have to say that the Democrats are the
ideologues.  The experiments currently be carried out with us are based
around ideas of redistribution that have been attempted many times in the
past and have failed to improve the standard of living in the countries
which have tried these things.

Global warming is a good example of an ideology.  The politicians use
Scientism and the priests therein to force behavior on us.  That is not
pragmatic.  There is nothing pragmatic about the science of global warming.
 It is way too complicated to be placed in a single SQ model.  The weather
is DQ and should never be subjugated.  It is this dangerous thought that we
know what is happening and should therefore force everybody to behave
differently, that is the sign of a fundamentalist religion.  This is what
happens in Muslim countries.  Now we are being told we cannot buy regular
light bulbs because we do not want to make the gods angry at us.

I do not see what is pragmatic about the government taking a larger role in
healthcare.  I find that to be pure ideology.  In a recent debate, BHO kept
talking about how the government was creating jobs.  This also seems like
an ideology, since the pragmatic point of view would be for people to
create jobs, not some centralized authority.  BHO also spoke of all the
teachers which have and will be hired by the government.  So far as I can
tell, it is schools that hire teachers.  Pragmatism is measured by the
results.  So far I do not see any results that point to pragmatism.  It
seems like we are told to Believe that it will get better.  This too is
ruling through ideology.

It would appear that what the Republicans are proposing is far more
pragmatic.  It seeks to let people free from the demands of the government
so that they can use their money to stimulate the economy.  I would find
individual responsibility to be far more pragmatic than forced
collectivism.  This is of course, my opinion.

As I am sure you know, the purpose of the constitution was to protect we
the people from the government.  This was written as the result of a
despotic monarchy back in the 1700s.  Since the government has the power to
change the constitution, my fear is that it will only give such government
more authority.  This is why I believe a constitution which changes
depending on the whims of the government is somewhat counter to the
original purpose of such constitution.  The bill of rights was written to
further protect the citizen from the government.  It had nothing to do with
the rights to healthcare or anything like that.  If the government were to
amend the constitution it should be such that it limits its authority over
us.  If not, then we are no longer working in the spirit of such
constitution and we should call it something else.  Maybe it could be
called the Authoritative Rules of the US.

I suppose, in a nutshell, it would appear that our current government
claims that it knows what is best for each and every one of us.  I do not
find this to be very pragmatic, for how is it that they know this?

I realize that you may have issue with what I am presenting.  In response,
perhaps you could explain how what our current government is doing is not
ideological but is instead pragmatic.  I certainly do not see it that way.
 How are Obama's actions over the last 4 years pragmatic?  Is solar energy
pragmatic or an ideology?  It seems the latter to me.  Why is a more
centralized healthcare (Obamacare) with all the government departments that
are called for, and its administration by non-elected officials, pragmatic?
 It seems like an ideology from the late Soviet Union.

Please explain your views on pragmatism as it relates to the government's
decisions in the last four years.  Don't give me a knee jerk response.  It
is unworthy of a philosopher.

Cheers,
Mark



On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 11:39 AM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> Mark said to dmb:
> I don't think that knee you see jerking is ours. ...
>
> dmb says:
> Sure it is. You and MRB both responded by simply asserting the same old
> anti-government slogans that conservative ideologues have been repeating
> since I was born. MRB said, "centralized government systems only work for
> defense and justice-administration" and you advocated "the smallest
> government possible to administer these things".
>
> By contrast, pragmatists like James "wanted us to give up 'ideologies'.”
>
> Pragmatism, he said, is “the attitude of looking away from first things,
> principles, ‘categories,’ supposed necessities; and of looking towards last
> things, fruits, consequences, facts.”
>
> Similarly, Obama's Pragmatic attitude leads him to claim "that the
> Constitution, rather than being a dead document based on settled
> principles, is “designed to force us into a conversation” and offers “a way
> by which we argue about our future.”  ..."Obama challenged both parties to
> leave behind their ideological boilerplate".
>
> What would count as standard ideological boilerplate? What you guys said
> in response to these complaints is almost perfect example of their what
> they're complaining. You both responded like parrots with the most
> hackneyed and cliched slogans of the GOP. It shows absolutely no engagement
> with the ideas in the article and no comprehension of its central point.
>
> This is what trolls do. They don't add to any conversation or debate or
> dialogue. They just shit on it and walk away.
>
>
>
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org/md/archives.html
>