DEAR JOHN
I fundamentally disagree with your assertion that “we are all given a choice between two evils.”
This might seem to be the case when we go to the voting booth, but it isn't true. we can abstain or vote for a third party. We do not have to be beholden to one of the two main parties.
about 6 or 7 years ago toward the end of GWs second term, I finally realized the choice between the left and right is a false choice, and ever since that epiphany I have worked very hard to go back and study the intellectual history of the world from the Greeks to modern day in order to develop a new world view for myself that is not based on the false dichotomies we have all grown up with in the US, i.e. between the political left and right, between science and religion, between the haves and the have-nots, between being patriotic and being a traitor.
I prefer to think of the world as being fundamentally integrated rather than fundamentally divided. Yin/yang is a much better way for me to think of the world compared to the way the West looks at life as if it is a fight to the death between good and evil, or between science and religion or between Dems and Republicans. I could go on and on with the false dichotomies set up in the Western World that create crazy ideas in our heads, such as the idea you suggested that we are forced to choose between what we believe are the lesser of two evils. There is always a choice outside of the two presented to us by our political masters!
If you suddenly decide (like I did) that everything in the world is made up of part good and part evil, then you free yourself from the false dichotomy between good and evil or between what you determine is the lesser evil and the greater evil. Either way it is a false dichotomy.
The way I see it, we are all part evil and part good. There is no choice between good or evil because everything in the universe includes both in roughly equal measures. Good intentions are evil if they produce results that cause harm instead of benefit. Evil men may make great contributions to society by creating a business or an invention that saves lives. On and on.
We are taught false dichotomies in school that stay with us and make us gullible for the false dichotomy we are given as adults between Dems and Republicans. (False dichotomies such as good vs evil or science vs religion, or mind vs matter, or man vs the environment are warm ups for the false choice we are brain washed to believe is our only choice between Democrat and Republican Parties.
In your world view that is organized around dichotomies there is only the political left and right, and so since i don't fit in the political left box you have to put me in the box called “the right.” I am not in this box.
In the false dichotomy world we are told there is only a choice between science and religion. I reject this dichotomy. Even though I’ve told you a million times I don’t “believe” in any organized religion as the Truth, you still put me in the "religion" category. I believe in a world where both religion and science provide us with hints to truths about the world, but neither offers THE Truth. And there is not a domain that science rules and a domain that religion rules. No. Science can offer spiritual truths and religion can offer insights about how the world works, normally a domain we think of as exclusive to science.
but i totally disagree with you that Science offers THE Truth.
in fact, the biggest breakthrough ideas in physics in the last 50 years "prove" that so called "fundamental particles" are not particles but metaphysical concepts. Particle physics has literally bumped up against metaphysical dead ends!!! Amazing but true.
It is a myth that we can solve any problem given enough time and resources. in fact the more we know in science the more certain we are that nature is smarter at hiding secrets than we are at discovering them. Check out Godel's Incompleteness theorem, which proves all math systems are self contradictory. and consider the limits of empirical evidence in proving scientific truths (see Hume and Karl Popper). One of the most important themes in modern philosohy is to argue the idea that there is no such things as "just the facts." We humans bring tremendous "baggage" to our understanding of the world that prevents "objective" analysis. The best we can do is live with uncertainty and provisional "truths" that we assume are true until proven otherwise -- which is inenvitable.
In any case, i think we agree more on religion than we disagree.
i also believe we agree on regulation of the so called robber barons more than you care to admit. I believe in the law and in government's prosecution of crimes against individual property rights carried out by white collar criminals. What i don't believe in is that government can prevent white collar crime with regulations and big government agencies. Agencies are subject to what Nobel prize winner James buchanan dubbed "regulatory capture." that is when regulators serve industry rather than protecting the public from industry as it is designed to do.
regulatory capture is a fundamental law of political economy, so we need another way to fix white collar crime. the other way is already here. prosecute white collar criminals for crimes that are already on the books. Jon corzine should be in jail. Would greater regulation put Jon corzine in jail, or would his political connections always get him off?? if the Dems were in control, wouldn't you assume there would be more and more Jon corzines with political connections in big finance who contributed millions or helped "bundle" campaign contributions and therefore circumvented the "law"?
if we de-politicized regulation and the attorney general's office, then maybe bad guys like Jon Corzine would go to jail for obviously defrauding clients of their money and failing to live up to fiduciary responsibility. so i agree we should put white collar criminals behind jail -- i agree we shoudl prosecute robber barons. but we shouldn't do so in a political way informed by arbitrary regulatory regimes such as anti-Trust regulations and the such which often are used as tools by entrenched business interests to protect themselves from unwanted competition.
I also believe we agree on foreign policy more than we disagree. I admit i was conned into supporting the Iraq War. I've given up the neo-con belief system that military might can re-shape the world for good. "War" entails big government no matter whether it entails a foreign war like Iraq or an domestic war like War on Drugs or War on Poverty or the War on income inequality. Wars entail force and coersion one way or the other -- and the only truly effective "force" in the world is Government. In order to be intellectually consistent i decry big government no matter whether it relates to the military industrial complex or the Welfare industrial complex.
i decree the War on Drugs, just as i decry the War on Guns. You would like to pick and choose which wars are good and which are bad. I consider War a last resort and temporary. Dems use the word quagmire to describe Vietnam, but shouldn't we say the same about the War on Drugs? or the War on inequality? War results in collateral damage. War should be focused and limited and when it is over the government should de-militarize and de-commission and go back to the size it was before the war.
Politicians on each side of the aisle scaremonger the population in order to build support for the cause. the GOP tends to scare monger in order to generate support for industrial military complex and Dems scaremonger about social issues claiming government solutions for domestic "wars."
i understand you want to end the so called War on Drugs and I agree. I also agree we should reduce our military footprint around the globe.
but, I reject the false dichotomies which I believe have been designed (wittingly or unwittingly it doesn't matter) by the elite power structure specifically to promote the illusion of “choice” and “freedom” in our lives when the choice is no choice at all.
Political elites on both sides of the aisle are playing the same joke on all of us that is just like the joke: “heads I win, tails you lose.” That is the way the power elites have set the game up. Why would power elites not rig the game in their favor? Isn’t that human nature? Are not all of us humans merely human after all?
Both sides in our deeply fractured political world take turns in the White House. both sides accumulate vast power and money. Both side demonize the other in order to develop and indoctrinate believers to remain loyal to the cause.
At some point, however, what happens is that the gravy train runs aground on physical constraints. The central bank can only print so much money. The government can accumulate only so much debt for future generations of human serfs to pay back.
The false choice we’ve been given thanks to Democracy turns out to be a tool for elites to design new and more efficient rent seeking “mousetraps” that eventually get so good they risk systemic collapse for the entire enterprise. When this happens, partisan conflict finally becomes real and not just a game to provide an illusion of choice for voters.
During the golden times there is enough gravy to make both sides fabulously powerful and wealthy and so during this period both sides realize they are really playing for the same team. Bipartisan compromise is the norm.
There comes a time, however, when a parasite realizes his host is about to die. Our modern Government is a parasite. The host feeds and grows on entrepreneurial innovation and risk taking. Unfortunately, over time, a parasite tends to gets larger and larger which weakens the host. Unfortunately, all the major societies on the planet are facing this end point simultaneously. US, EZ and China. this is where we are today. in the US the Dems and GOP have both equally accommodated debt financing in order to pay off their special interest groups – who in turn keep the political power train well oiled and functioning such that the politicians can collect rents and accumulate power and wealth. the Dems have their special interest groups and the GOP has theirs. In the EZ it is the same: debt up to societies eyeballs accumulated to pay for social welfare systems. China is the same.
When society starts to wobble under the burden of funding big government’s ineluctable growth, then things get really bad. The two parties who were previously in a marriage of convenience decide that only one side can survive in a new era when society can’t support the power and rent seeking activities of both parties anymore.
We are told society’s future rests in our free choice to choose between one or the other. This is when history has shown free people choose fascism over liberty. No matter whether we choose the GOP or Dems, the result is going to be disaster and fascism. China went straigh to a one party authoritarian state without first going through the transitional two party democracy stage. One party can keep things together for a time but eventually one party rule self destructs on its own self defeating dynamics as rent seeking ineluctably grows and grows -- in a system with no checks and balances -- and ultimately the system reaches a breaking point.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is why one party systems cannot sustain. concentrated power is self corrupting.
Our choice is not between GOP and Dems, both of whom are big government. We have a real choice. The choice is to reject the power elites paradigm and to start a new one based on some other set of principles. Otherwise, we are doomed to electing power elites who ensure that we behave like “enlightened humans” and meantime we pretend we are free ...
This is John's email to me that prompted above response:
We disagree on religion
We disagree on what constitutes facts
We disagree on economics
We disagree on what social liberties, civil rights, and even human rights should be
We disagree in what constitutes the general media in this country
We disagree on regulation of robber barons
We disagree on foreign policy
We disagree on healthcare
I believe I am right and you believe you are right. This is pointless at best, friendship damaging at worst. Our world views are fundamentally different. Our country is now polarized into a broken two party system. I am a right leaning democrat in my mind. In your mind I am non-analytical, naive, socialist. That's exactly how I will stay. We are all given a choice between two evils. The evil I choose in my mind is the better of the two.
Sincerely,
John
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