Polyticks
- That field of knowledge which allows the haves to
manipulate and embezzle the have nots. From the Greek poly
meaning many and ticks meaning small blood sucking
insects.
It is not a man's duty, as a matter of
course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most
enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to
engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it,
and if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically
his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and
contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue
them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him
first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.
While most of my web chapters can be tucked comfortably in one and
only one web ring, Polyticks doesn't fit. The free thought people
were generous. My primary thesis is that ancient rigid religious mind
patterns must yield to modern scientific and democratic perspectives.
Still, I am not ready to bash religion or the religious. In my
opinion - covered in Three Models, One Vision - the best
spokesman and example for guiding the world away from the rigid
autocratic fundamentalist mind set was a preacher man.
When I went to school, I had a cousin who advised going to a major
university. He claimed that a small school might give the false
promise of companionship. In a small place, one might come to know a
larger fraction of the people. However, the big school would have
more small communities. If one looks about a big university campus,
there will be more people sharing your own interests. If a small
school might seem more like home to a first time visitor, a big
school yields a truer opportunity to find a real home.
The Web is truly a large university. If one searches, one finds
groups of people who think alike. They are familiar. They do not
challenge one. One does not feel challenged. This may be a
problem.
So perhaps I'm proud Polyticks doesn't belong. The web isn't
becoming a place where people from all over the idea come to share
ideas. It is becoming a place where many groups of people who think
alike clump together. Like finds like. What is new or startling or
different is walled out. We are building a plethora of intellectual
ghettos.
Makes me itch to break down a few walls. Makes me want to avoid
labels. Can't be conservative, liberal, fundamentalist, libertarian,
existential, quatrafied, or supercalifagilisticexpialadocious. Gotta
cause a little vertigo.
Praise the free thinkers, and listen to the preacher man.
Occupy Everywhere?
The Occupy Wall Street movement, in these early days, is famous for having not
leader and no fixed agenda. My own thought is that such an agenda is necessary
if it is to be fulfilled.
While the people supporting the Occupy movement are in general progressives, and
the temptation will be to support other progressive issues, representative democracy
is really only capable of forcing one issue at a time. That issue needs to be the
restoration of balance between the one percent, and the ninety nine.
I am an atheist, a secular humanist, yet find the vast majority of
sincere believers to be good neighbors and decent people. Freedom of
religion means they have a right to their beliefs, a right I do not
in the least begrudge. However, even if believers are in a majority,
they may not use the government to force their beliefs on others.
More importantly, failing legal means, there is no secular right
under the US Constitution to use harassment, force, or terror to
spread the word of God.
Sticks,
Stones, Bombs and Bullets When this note was written, the Berlin
Wall was newly down, ethnic cleansing was in progress in Bosnia, the
federal building was newly down in Oklahoma City, and a lone gunman
had just raided two abortion clinics in Boston. With royalty,
slavery, Fascism and Communism suppressed by Western Civilization,
the most blatant and active remnants of the old agricultural era
autocratic authoritarian ethics seemed to be religious. This article
stated the problem, but proposed no answers.
Three Models, One Vision
sketches initial answers to the problem stated in Sticks, Stones,
Bombs and Bullets, above. Just after Three Models, One Vision
was posted to the web, two U.S. embassies in Africa were bombed.
The US responded with cruise missiles fired into conservative Islamic
religious states. The
Fourth Turning theory of cyclical history predicts a crisis soon
to start. Has it begun? Will the focus be between secular democratic
and authoritarian theocratic worldviews?
In This Wicked World: This one is
for the Rationalists and Free Thinkers. It explores the difference
between dogmatic, philosophical and religious thinking, and the
different sorts of questions that can be solved by each mode of
thought. It also explores The
Fourth Turning's cycle theory. This was originally written for
the Fourth Turning's "Cycles of Morality" thread.
Black Champions: Since writing
the above articles, I have joined a quite lively set of political
debates held on The Fourth
Turning web site. I have with mixed success advocated the
perspective of Three Models, One Vision,
above. Since the time of Waco, Ruby Ridge and Oklahoma City, the
domestic violence between the militias and feds has faded. The bulk
of America rejected the aggressors on both sides, effectively
breaking a potential spiral of violence, at least for the moment.
(Would all please cross your fingers before breathing a sigh of
relief.) I am coming too see small foreign ethnic, racial and
religious explosions such as the Balkans, Somalia and Iraq being a
foretaste of things to come. With the Cold War over, foreign aid is
no longer stabilizing tyrannies allied with the major cold war
factions. Threat of response by one faction is no longer deterring
intervention by the other. Economic and ecological difficulties are
not uncommon in the Third World, resulting in aggression against
assorted minority groups. However, the more convinced I become that
this is the shape of the coming crisis, the louder the voices grow
crying "this is not our concern."
Millennial Heroes?: The Fourth Turning
proposes that every fourth generation is willing and motivated to
work to change the world. The current generation just starting to
enter the workplace and college ought to be such a generation, the
heirs to the GI "greatest generation." In Generations, they were
called a 'civic generation.' In the later The Fourth Turning, they
were called a 'hero generation.' A reprise of the above posts, what
tasks have we for heroes?
The Universe plays god with
dice?
Proving Murphy's Law.
Most of these pages are political and philosophical. This one
attempts to be scientific. It uses quantum mechanics to generate a
theory of psi, psi to generate a theory of quantum mechanics, and
ought to give you a new perspective on the universe such-as-it-is.
How do single particle interference, electron orbitals, Many Worlds
theory, and retrocausal PK relate to cheerleaders? Dogmatic science
types might not like it as it deal with psi. Psi fans might not like
it as it totally eliminates the role of mind over matter. For folks
with an open mind only.
Evil : An Extreme Form of
Good?
Human Nature: In role playing
games, how does one create believable political bad guys that will
fight the players? A gaming article which addresses the nature of
Good and Evil, and how conflicts start in the real world. If the
above two articles focus on the very large scale issues, this one
gets down into how decent and God fearing humans come to start
slaughtering one another.
Unconventional
The gap between the written Constitution and what the government
is actually doing is getting out of hand. Rule of law, anyone?
Isn't it time to hold a Constitutional
Convention, and get the written law and current practices back in
sync?
The Big Lie
Award
I didn't intend to do partisan one-sided articles. I would have
preferred to give a balanced picture, with pointers to outside sites
advocating opposite extreme points of view. However, in digging into
the issues of gun control and the Civil War secession crisis, I
developed an extreme distaste for Gun
Control Incorporated and the Sons
of Confederate Veterans. I am thus creating the Big Lie Award,
given for revisionist history, for blatant disregard for Truth, and
for lack of respect for the Constitution. I'm not sure who gets first
prize. The SCV show less respect for history and are actively
harassing those who propose slavery was an important factor in
causing the war. GCI is the greater threat to the Bill of Rights and
Rule of Law. Would you care to vote, or to nominate other U.S.
centered politically focused web pages for the Big
Lie Award?
Recognizing the Battle
Flag is my response to a number of southern web sites that claim
the Civil War was about state's rights, not slavery. These pages
touch upon several interlocked themes, economic, legal, political,
and moral. It features quotes dating from early and prewar time frame
from both southern and northern perspectives. While there are any
number of reasons why people of the time came to fight, and no one
theme is sufficient to cover everyone's motives, the theme of slavery
dominates all other aspects.
The Right to Keep and
Bear Arms: Is it proper to address the meaning of the Second
Amendment without leaping whole hog into the gun control debate? This
is my spin on the "standard" interpretation of the Second Amendment.
The conclusion is roughly that of the liberal academic community,
rather than the liberal press. The difference is the academics
research the time of the founding fathers, while the press is caught
up in now. The founding fathers lived in a world where everyone had a
duty to contribute to the common defense. Some now live or wish to
live in a world where the government is responsible for security,
where the People are no longer expected or allowed to contribute.
Unfortunately, no one remembered to rewrite the Constitution...
Snapshots
On Current Campaign Finance : The
current system just legalizes special interest bribery. This one
isn't profound. I just got mad one night, and typed it in.
On Internet Regulation : Same night.
The right to send advertisements isn't free speech. Those profiting
from the network ought to provide some kickback into the ISPs and
trunk operators who have to pay for infrastructure. Anyway, the
attached was a brief fire-off-to-your-senator thing.
Fiction?
Powell's
Questions is a piece of Star Trek fiction. In one of my role
playing games, we had to decide whether it was proper for the
Federation of Planets to use force to pacify a planet in crisis. I
had just read Colin Powell's American Journey book, and
consolidated his experience from Vietnam to the Gulf War into a short
essay on fighting foreign wars.
Dominion
is also Star Trek fiction. The guy running the Federation Council
game immediately saw that the checklist style criteria for fighting a
foreign war is not at all applicable when your country is fighting
for its life against a near equal opponent. The next debate was on
what to do about the Dominion's attack on the Federation. Joy's
response complements Powell's Questions.
Kirk's
Heresy is more clearly science fiction. It is an essay on the
Prime Directive, one of Gene Roddenberry's idealistic dreams. The
essay has nothing to do with current day real world politics, or does
it? (The United Nations of current day Earth respects the
noninterference principle to the extent of ignoring the planet wide
declaration of human rights.)
Mythic
Warrior Not Another ambassador to the Federation Council proposed
that the prime role of Starfleet was to defend the Federation. Thus,
other organizations should perform diplomatic and humanitarian
functions. Defense was too important. Ambassador Joy Seven
disagreed.
