All posts by Jim Daniel

The Coming Seldon Crisis

Politics, , ,

Foundation

 

Early this week when I started writing about the coming Seldon Crisis I did not expect to have such stunning and clear evidence that it has arrived available to me.  As I write this the Joint meeting of the House Judical and Oversight & Reform committees are continueing and in the over fourty years that I have watched congressional committees I have never seen such a show.   Not since the Army McCarthy hearings has things going this off the tracks. (For those of you who would like to know more try this link to the Best documentary on the subject Point of Order). The attacks on Agent Strozk for his admittedly indiscreet texts seem to be falling into two basic categories.

The “We Hate Hillary” Republicans, and the Trumpest  sycophants.  Both seem to hold the position that the tweets of, so far, two individuals about how Trump would never be elected and/or how bad his election would be shows just how politically corrupt, bias and/or un American the FBI is.  The use the tweets to show that the current investigation in to Russian interference in the 2016 is totally driven by the FBI’s total ‘ hatred’ of Donald Trump or Love of Hillary.  That it is now thought quite likely that the announcement of the re-opening of the Hillary eMail investigation only weeks before Election Day had an effect on the election seem to pass them by completely.

The use of rhetorical tools and masive logical fallacies by these two groups of Republicans.  My current favorite action is the the plain statement that Agent Strozk, while under oath, was and is lying.  An then to go on and say in response to a ‘Point of Order’ that since this was the Representative ‘s “question” (even though it was made in the form of a statement and no question was asked) that the accusation was not in violation of House Rules.  We are now returning to the good old days of the ‘Great Red Scare’ of the McCarthy era.  Once more the extrem right wing of the GOP has lost sight of Honor, Justic and Trueth in the name of short term political gain.

They are once more moving into the dangerous realm of Transactional politics.  All we have is I win so you loose or you win and therefor I must  lose.  This kind of politics never ends well.  Even those who are seen as coming out ahead come out with many battle scars. What is worse for the GOP is that they are being plaid for dopes by their supposed friends.  What is worse for the USA is that most of this is just Mastrovka of Russia.  We will truely miss what is really being done by Putin and the Russian Oligarchs.  Just as in the ‘Great Red Scare’ we totally missed the real KGB spy ring(s) and only saw the ones they wanted us to see.

Russia wants us to spend all our time looking at the FBI and/or Hillary Emails and/or who knows what so that we do not look at how they are taking control of Social Media and the flow of information.  They are now seeking to control what we believe is news.  That the only thing you belieave is News is that which you agree with.  This is the first part of the Sheldon Crisis we are now facing.  The rise of “True News”.  News that we hold is true because we want to belieave it is true and we want to believe it is true because all of the news sources we lesion to are controlled by the Oligarchs.

“May you live in interesting times”

Politics

Foundation

 

“May you live in interesting times,

an people in high places know your name.”

Some of you maybe wondering what “Hari Seldon and the Foundation Novels have to do with the quote above.  Bear with me and all will be made clear.

Let us start with what I’m going to be talking about, the great tumult about the nomination of Bret Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court yesterday. I do not know enough about Judge Kavanaugh to hold a firm opinion of his nomination, but give a little time I will.  What I’ve heard about his writings and ‘opinions’ (judicial) does not make me optimistic. But this is not what I’m writing about today.

No, it is about the reaction on the center to the left of his nomination and the dangers and opportunities it presents those who oppose what the Republican Party has become.  This group includes not just Democrats but all those people of conservative political views who are  aghast at what Trump and his sycophants are doing.  Ever since Trumps election in 2016 I’ve been saying we are “Living in interesting Times”.  These time are truely historic an will mark out country forever.

In the Foundation stories we are  introduced to the idea of scientific manipulation of human political and social action.  In the first stories this is done by means of what is called a “Sheldon Crisis” where the actions of the Foundation is narrowed down to only one action, actually two, but the second is always totally unacceptable.  An these “Sheldon Crisis” are always “interesting times”.  They’re rip roaring yarns after all.  In real life things are seldom so clean and simple.  But in truely “interesting times” they can be.

By my reckoning it has been just over 45 years since America and the world has been in interstesting times but now we are there, once more.  Take a look at all the things coming to togeather.  The Mueller investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.  The turnover rate of the Trump Administration along with all of the scandals.  The  horror that ICE is perpetrating on asylum seekers in our name.  An now the sudden retirement of Justice Kennedy from the Supreme Court.

Democrats are justly upset about how political the Court has become and are well within their rights to object to who Trump has nominated.  Not because of anything Judge Kavanaugh has done, yet, but because of the purely partisan actions of the Senate in 2016.  All but the most partisan Democrat should be upset, not partisan reasons, but because this is the final move in making the Supreme Court once more partisan.  Those of us who have studied the political history of both the USA and of it’s courts know that the Supreme Court has been politicized from time to time in it’s history.  We who are alive today were lucky to have lived in a time when the court was kept non-partisan by the good offices of both political parties.

This is not the case now.  Since the advent of hyper conservative ‘Think Tanks’ and the acceptance of the idea of the courts being the last bastion of ‘conservativisum’ we have been headed down this road.  We have now arrived at an historical crux.  What we do now will change this country forever and it is imperative that we all do all what we can every time we can.  So I lay the second part of the curse upon you, my dear readers:

“An may people in high Places know your Name!”

Next up:  “Opertunities and Pitfalls”

Fake News & Doublethink

Philosophy, Politics,

For some time now I’ve been thinking about what the Trumpests (a new word I’m attempting to coin meaning those people who blindly suport anything Donald Trump says/does) mean when the shout “Fake News”.  For the longest time I thought this meant news they saw as coming from the Main Stream (aks ‘Liberal’) media. Later I thought it might be news that the Trumpest disliked. Now I think I was mistaken.

What is really meant by “Fake News” is any news that disagrees, no mater how minor the discrepancy, with what Trump or the Trumpest is saying.  This can be truly a challenge to keep up with.  Just think about it, one day North Korea is the ultimate bad guy and the next it is a shining example of good government.   One day the Prime Minister of Canada is Trump’s best Bud and the next he is the lying cheat.  Even businesses aren’t exempt, just looked what happened to Harly Davidsonnthis last week.

What we are faced with now is finding out how to live with this phenomenon.   Psychologists have a complex name for this, it is called Cognitive Dissonance, I prefer to call it Doublethink. For those of you not familiar with the origins of the term, it come from the Novel 1984.  In essence it means holding two, or more, contradictory thought (ideas) in you mind at the same time and then using the correct one on call.

What is easier to do is just to overwrite your memory of the old idea with the new idea.  Unfortunately human memory isn’t read/write but write once read always. (Sorry computer geek here.  What I mean is that like most RAM in a computer once you overwrite something in memory it is gone for ever.  Human memory is more like PROM and once the idea is written it is there until the day you die.).  What doublethink lets you do is keep multiple contradictory ideas in your head without havin to choose between them.  The way you know is when the Person in Charge tells you that an idea I’s Fake News or when something they say now conflicts with something said earlier.

See, simple.  All you have to do is accept the idea that Truth and Falsehood are totally constant and mutable at the sametime.

Why I trust Trump & Kim

Philosophy, Politics, ,

For sometime now my liberal friends have been wondering why I say I trust both Donald Trump Kim Jong-un.  It has to do with my being so longical and something I Father tought me.  Pops used to say “you can always trust a  dishonest man, he will cheat you every chance he gets.  It is the honest man you have to watch out for, he’ll cheat you only when he has to.”

It took me quite some time to figure out just what he was saying.  I first had to understand my Father was being just a bit cheeky about honest men.  Most people try to be honest but they more often than not fail and end up doing the dishonest thing.  They are often quite guilt about it, I knowI am.  An like most people I try and make amends for my dihonesty as I am sure other people are too.

What Poppa was say, quite simply is the dishonest person is predictable, dependable, you know when give the chance he will do the dishonest thing.  He won’t feel guilty and he won’t try to make amends.  Indeed the dishonest person will see you as a sucker, a rube, who deserves what he gets.  Both Trump and Kim are dishonest.  They promise anything you want because they have no intention of keeping their promise unless they are made to. As another old saying goes “All tellers are honest while the boss is watching.”

So I do trust Trump and Kim.  I trust them to act dishonestly ever chance the get.  Every time they see a chance for personal gain they will take it.  I do not trust them to keep their word, indeed I trust them to break their word at the first opportunity.  I only trust their actions, never what they say.

My Two Cents, Once Agian

Politics, ,

 It has been two days since the primary in New Your and a lot has happened.  An avowed democratic socialist defeated the number 4 man in the House of Representatives do to a great campaign by her and a slovenly campaign by him.  Yesterday Justice Kennedy announced his retirement and by so doing has given President Trump his second SCOTUS nomination.  What do these two thing have in common?  The show that “The Times they are a Changing”.

The old leadership of the Democrat Party is just about shot it’s bolt and is now going to be replaced, just like the GOP’s leadership is being shown the door, too.  In the not to distant future we may well end up with a four party system divided into two caucus’, let us call one Red and the other Blue.  Both the Reds and Blues will consist of similar factions.  One will be the social conservative/liberal and the other the economic conservative/liberal. This split will cause the GOP a much great problem in the House, as we have seen this last Congress, than it will the Democrats when the get into power.

What does this a mean for the average Joe/Jane out there?  It means that getting out to vote is more important than ever.  It means motivating people who’s views of a mater you agree with to get out and speak up.  Machine politics depends on voter apathy.  It wants you to belieave the LIE that “They are all the Same” and “There is nothing I can do”.  This is going to sound strange but both the election of Trump and the Primary in NY shows that anything is possible.  If a total  douche bag like Trump can get elected and if a total unknown like Ocasio-Cortez win the primary against the essence of machine politics then anything can and will happen.

If you are tired of Gerrymandering to keep the elections ‘safe’.  If you object (cry) about the Children being separated from their parents because some idiot thinks “Zero Tolerance” is the way to enforce the law.  If you don’t want to see the return of the “back room abortions” just because of one vote on SCOTUS.  If you thinks Unions are a good thing. Then you need to:

Get out and Orginize.  Get out and speak up every time you see injustice.  An Most importantly you need to get out and VOTE.

The Gaslighting GOP

Politics
By the Golden Door

lt has been two day’s since my last posting on the Crises of the Children on the border and the Gaslighting of America by the Trump-GOP.  I’m particularly talking about all of the miss labeling of what is being done by the Trump Administration in the name of the American People.

Just today I read about Speaker Paul Ryan saying that it those Democrats who our upset are more interested in ‘open borders’ than the immigrants.  I am talking about FLOTUS flying down to see ‘first hand’ how the children are being treated and given a Tour of a ‘Potemkin’ facility while  wearing a jacket with “I don’t really care, Do U” on the back. Or Fox News, Brightbard, or InfoWars telling everyone that the detention facilities are like ‘Summer Camp’ in the face of the Administration’s own hand out pictures.

Gaslighting is many things, but one of them is making such bald faced lies that no reasonable person will believe they are being made.  That you must have misunderstood ‘cause no one could say that.  Fortunately the American People are not having anything of it, except for the diehard Trump supporters/sycophant who are willing to accept anything as long as it advances their goals.

This is America the land that was built by Immigrants, many of whom were fleeing oppression and tyrany just as the people that AG Sessions and President Trump want to treat as common criminals.

I know not what others may do or say, but as for me, give me open hearted immigrant over the cold hearted ‘True’ American any day.

“No me, Dem’s do it!”

Honor, Politics, Rants

One of my mothers favorite story’s to tell about myself and my Coz Sherry is when we were both still toddlers.  We had both been put down in a crib for a nap together.  My Momma and Sherry’s then when into the kitchen for coffee.  A little while later they hear a crash from the room we’d been put down in.  On entering the room they see the crib collapsed on the floor with Sherry standing holding on to the bars of the crib.  As soon as Sherry saw our mothers in the door she said “No Me! Gim do it!”  I was still laying down looking totally shocked from the rude awakening.

I tell this story because this is just what the GOP and the current Administration are saying about the current Cruel and Immoral policy of separating children from their parents.  The GOP say’s it all the fault of the ‘liberals’, and/or Democrats and/or Clintons who created the law they are only inforceing.  The problem facing the Administration & the GOP is the same as the one faced by my Cuz, the evidence puts to lie, totally, what they are saying.

Make no mistake, this policy is totally the responsibility of the current administration and all those Republicans who support it.  It is cruel.  It is immoral.  It is wrong and it is totally Un-American.  Be sure, America is watching, America knows who did this and who to hold responsible.

November is coming and this election is going to be about just what America stands for.  This tragic event has put the one overriding issue in clear focus.  What kind of America are we?  Are we the America of the Statue of Liberty or the America of Trump!  It is time to stand up and be counted.

 

VOTE

A.G. Jeff Sessions & Appeal to Athority

Philosophy, Politics, , , ,

With all the talk going on about the taking of children away from their parents when presenting themselves at the border and AG Jeff Sessions citing the Bible as justification for this, I think it is a good time to just point out the fallacious logic.  To be more specific this is an appeal to Authority.  Specifically the sub-set of Appeal to God.

I shan’t go into the long, and somewhat involved, analysis of why Appeal to Authority can sometime be correct.  Nor how it can be done.  That is for  another post.  What I’m going to do here is just point out, as the Anchent Greek Philosophers did that when you cite God(s) as your athority there is no practical way to ask God(s) if that is really what they said or did.  They pointed out that even when you have a direct line to God(s), like the Orical of Delphi, what the Orical tells you is subject to wildly different interpretations.

As anyone who has been following the debat knows, when citing Biblical Scripture it is totally likely to end up with Dueling Bible Verses.  One of my favorite quotes, I don’t remember who but it isn’t original with me, “The Bible is a wonderful book, full of Sterling virtues.  Clarity is not one of them!”

In closeting I will leave you with the first thing I learned about Bible study. “The Devil cites Scripture.”

The Conservative’s “No Comprimise” Delima

Philosophy, Politics

 

The No Comprimise Delema

In my post “Why Conservatives think they are loosing” I talked mostly about how the Right want’s to either keep things the same, or take things back to an idealized past.  In this post I’m going to address the other reason the Right feels they are loosing, the ‘No Comprimise’ delima.

To start off, let me be very clear that I do acknowledge that there are some things that you can not comprimise on, but these are few and far between.  To take a such a position you have to accept that you are now in a binary logic universe. (To those who know me, you can get all the giggles done now.  I do like to use bifurcation when solving problems so it often appears that I am taking a.binary view of things.  Those that really know me well know I just use bifuracation as a reasoning tool to analyze the problem.). The issue here is why does the Right take this position on comprimise.  Those things that are truely binary, they are easy to identify because only two states can exists, you are either alive or dead.  The proble arises when you have to deal with some one who is in a permanent vegetative state.

For some the “No Comprimise” position is taken for philosophical reasons and/or religious reasons.  You often hear the statement “You can’t comprimise with the Devil” or it’s derivation “You can’t comprimise with Evil”.  Others do it because they see everything as a win loose situation, like a tennis game where the game goes on till someone wins and someone looses.  That is why I’m going to be talking about Zero-Sum games.  Fortunately not all human activity is a zero sum game, most are non zero sum.  For those of you who are interested here is a link to read more about Game Theory.

The first, and most obvious, problem with “No Comprimise” is that it force you into the position of having to get everything you ask for, otherwise you have lost.  As an example say you want to build a building at a specific corner in your town.  You want it to be so many stories high and have x number of elevators.  Now lets say the zoning laws of your town say that all building of a give height must have x+1 elevators,  or worse still that the corner you want to build on is owned by someone who will not sell, but the lot across the street is available. In both cases, the “no compromise” position says you have lost if you accept either restrictions.  This is a silly case, of course, but it does demonstarte the issue.

In politics you will often have issues that have many sub-issues.  The Gun (2nd amendment) debate in this country is a classic example of this problem.  The most simplistic view of the problem decides everything into anyone can have any weapon (arms) they want and take it any where they want or no civilian can have way weapon (arms) at anytime anywhere.  The answer to the problem lies somewhere in between these two polls.  The real issue is that there are persons on both sides of the issue who feel that they can not compromise.  The problem for the Right is that, even though they have won as much as can be done in the courts (2nd is now a personal right and all law effecting it must pass the Strict Scuriny Test. But some how they feel they have not yet won the fight.  Why?  Because not only do the want their position to be accepted in law, they want everyone else to acknowledge the rightness of their position. An here Lise one of the great traps with zero-sum, asking for something that can not be granted, that the other side has to not only acknowledge your win they must also admit they are wrong.

In sports this is often called grand standing and it can have very dillatorious effects (such as ‘clearing the bench’) and is so  frowned upon by the referees.

Inclosing, the problem with “No Comprimise” is that it almost always leads to feeling that you’ve lost, even when you get everything you could reasonablely ask for.

 

I’ve had it with Spam

General

Just so all of my readers will know it anything happens I have had to add a new plug-in to WordPress to deal with spam comments.  Before now spam comments were just a  nuisance easily dealt with before I posted any thing new.  But since my last posting here I got over 110 blantently spam posting in the comments sections.  Some over a page long and most trying to sell something to people reading my Blog.

I am posting here to let everyone know that I have added this new anti-spam plug-in and please let me know if you are having any problems with the site.  It came with a 4 1/2 star rating so I have good hopes for it.