Eternal Hostility in the Age of Soft Despotism

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." -  Thomas Jefferson

I have taken the same oath.  And the most dangerous form of tyranny over the minds of Americans is ignorance.  Simple, blissful ignorance.  And I am convinced it is ignorance that permitted the reelection of the least qualified and destructive president this country has ever seen.  A president, who in his own words vowed to "fundamentally change" the U.S. as president.  How can one assent to fundamentally changing one's country without withholding some very ignorant beliefs about one's country?

Political, historical, and economic ignorance abounds in these "United" States.  Proof?  Only one third of voting Americans can name all three branches of government, one third cannot name any.  Source.  This is nothing short of frightening, particularly for those of us who value freedom.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." - Thomas Jefferson

This is why I am a professional educator.  This is what I devote my life to:  the education of young and old Americans.  It is but another means to protect the liberty and freedom I inherited from my ancestors.  To quote one of our president's favorite tropes, "make no mistake", we are less free than our ancestors.  Veterans like myself are appalled to learn that we submitted ourselves as sacrifices for our country only to find that our sons and daughters can be groped at airports, we must navigate through 16,000 pages of tax law, and be beholden to the wishes of coalitions and special interest groups.  I guess that's why we fought, and why some of us fought and died.  Source

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild [sic], and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson

And under the most unwitting authoritarian in U.S. history, government stands to gain a lot more ground.  In not only my life, dear reader, but your life as well.  Source   This needs to end, and it can only end with a sound education.

"...wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government..."  - Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson made history for his ardent belief in democracy.  He believed the will of the majority must and ought to be done.  He also believed that as long as the majority is well-informed, then we can be sure that liberty will remain sacrosanct in constitutional democracy.  But what if the majority is ignorant?  Representative government, like living organisms are susceptible to sickness.  And the sickness of a republic, caused by ignorance, is life under Soft Despotism.  With the reelection of Barack Obama, we are unarguably in an Age of Soft Despotism.  To break from the Jefferson motif, it now becomes pertinent to mention Alexis de Toqueville, who wrote two extensive books on what he observed in the U.S. only 10 and 15 years after the death of Jefferson in 1826.  A brilliant political philosopher, he was delighted to see American self-government in action and is credited with promoting the idea of "American Exceptionalism."  But he also foresaw a dangerous flaw, an always pending demise of liberty at the hands of docile majority.  Keep in mind this was all written in the mid-19th century:

But it would seem that if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them.

...I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives...Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances — what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself.

...It is in vain to summon a people, which has been rendered so dependent on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity.

So President Obama has been joyfully reelected to be our national Daddy, our shepherd, to save us from ourselves and the wolves despite being in bed with the wolves.  We are undoubtedly experiencing what we were warned of, if only we were learned enough to heed it:

"...Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, Soft Despotism etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles [and national Daddies] who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance." 

- Thomas Jefferson

Under-determination of theory by evidence...

This is a great article that illustrates the philosophical principle of "under-determination of theory by evidence". It is a principle that states that evidence alone cannot decisively establish the validity of a theory. Which is why in science, scientists seek to falsify theories.

Here we can see the two competing theories of the origins of the symbol are both plausible and both have evidence to support it. The under-determination of theory by evidence contends that either one of the two theories may be true or neither theory may be true.

"No one knows for sure" as well as "anything is possible" are two maxims that aptly describe the principle.

The best one can do in this and any situation is to carefully weigh the evidence and throw one's support behind the theory that is most plausible given the evidence; all while being wary the principle of under-determination and acknowledging that the theory you support may very well be complete bunk (despite the evidence).

in reference to: Sankofa Mark at Old New York Burial Ground Is Questioned - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Transforming that which you love...

A man wiser than I, Mr. Dennis Prager, stated something to the effect that should you find yourself in a position wherein you wish to transform or change your spouse, then it is likely that you shouldn't have married them.

We ordinarily fall in love with people for who and how they are not what we imagine they could become. Why is this different with countries?

The claim is that the sincerity of one's professed love for another is in question if you simultaneously profess your desire for that person to change (or transform).

I think that is as a valid a statement as any. The question then becomes if it is a suitable analogy for one's love for one's country? Often enough it is stated that one's love for their country resembles one's love for their mother (Bill Maher posited that that is how conservatives view their country). In fact similes and metaphors abound on how a country is like one's mother.

So now we must ask, is it right to want to change and transform one's mother?

I suppose this is entirely dependent upon one's relationship with one's mother. If the relationship is tumultuous, then one's desire that their mother change would be sound. If one's mother is dysfunctional, it would even be honorable to want one's mother to be functional.

Taking the above analogy to be sound, and stipulating that progressives in power want their country to change we can conclude that progressives view their relationship with their country to be tumultuous and/or that their country is dysfunctional. If not, then why push for change and transformation?

This situation becomes all the more complex if we enter a sibling who's view is that their mother isn't at all dysfunctional and is fine just they way they are (no need for a makeover, costly therapy sessions, or expensive surgery). This gives us a conflict that I think validly projects today's turbulent and polarized political climate.

Relevant Differences

It is crucial to the aspect of critical thinking to be able to ascertain relevant differences.

The classic "apples and oranges" metaphor is often utilized to express the differences between two ideas or actions etc. It isn't enough that two things are different however, it is important that people be able to judge how the comparisons are relevantly different.

If the topic is what one should consume for their daily intake of vitamin C, then the relevant difference is the vitamin C content of oranges as compared to apples, for instance. Or if the topic is what makes the best ingredients for baking, apples have the edge because the texture of apples is what is relevant to the discussion.

But critical thinking isn't limited to relevant differences, but relevant similarities as well. Comparing apples and oranges we find many similarities; they're both fruit, they grow from trees, they're grown by farmers. Thus if the topic warrants it, these relevant similarities should not be ignored.

Critical thinking skills become paramount when the issues of hypocrisy or double standards arise. If a smoker professes his or her convictions that smoking is harmful, yet continues smoking--does the smoker's smoking have any relevance to the validity of his or her convictions?

Logic says that the behavior of the smoker hasn't any bearing on the validity of whether or not smoking is harmful. Smoking would be harmful or not regardless of whether the smoker smokes. Likewise, the sincerity of the smoker's convictions should not be question because the smoker smokes. They may truly and sincerely believe that smoking is harmful but are unable to adhere to the safer standard of abstaining from smoking.

Of course not everything is as cut and dry as smoking and its harmfulness, but that is why developing and using one's critical thinking abilities are critical in a world full of confusion.

The Ramifications of Ostracism

The WSJ editorial page offers pithy commentary on Limbaugh's ostracism from the NFL.

Leveling Limbaugh

The following is most cogent:

What happened here, and is happening elsewhere in American life, is that Mr. Limbaugh's outspoken political conservatism is being deemed sufficient reason to ostracize him from polite society. By contrast, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who fires off his own brand of high-velocity, left-wing political commentary but lacks Mr. Limbaugh's sense of humor, appears weekly as co-host of NBC's "Football Night in America." We haven't heard anyone on the right say Mr. Olbermann's nightly ad-hominem rants should disqualify him from hanging around the NFL.

Bigot Discrimination and Free Societies

Apparently James Carville, the angular Democrat strategist believes this comment from New York Giants' Mathias Kiwanuka is "eloquent."

"All I know is from the last comment I heard, he said in [President] Obama's America, white kids are getting beat up on the bus while black kids are chanting 'right on,'" Kiwanuka said, per the New York Daily News. "I mean, I don't want anything to do with a team that he has any part of. He can do whatever he wants, it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play.

"I am not going to draw a conclusion from a person off of one comment, but when it is time after time after time and there's a consistent pattern of disrespect and just a complete misunderstanding of an entire culture that I am a part of, I can't respect him as a man," Kiwanuka added.

And it is a solid opinion. I think it is pertinent to point out that Kiwanuka's position does not ask that Rush be obstructed from buying the team based on his opinion of the man. He doesn't like him. He doesn't have to like him, and since he doesn't like him, he does not have to play for him. In this market transaction, Kiwanuka is the seller (selling his labor) and Rush would be the buyer. And like you see in many placards on small businesses across the country, he "reserves the right to refuse service to anyone." And for any reason.

But not all reasons are equal, neither are all market transactions. In the labor market, because one is having to sell their time and skill it is prudent to be discretionary as to whom you sell your time and skill to. In a goods or property market, the amount of discretion the seller uses ought to be placed under more scrutiny. In fact it is unlawful for a seller of a good, say a automobile, to refuse to sell the auto based on race, gender, or sexual orientation. It is unlawful discrimination.

However even if the discrimination of a seller to a buyer is lawful, it may not be moral. Suppose that the automobile seller refuses to sell an auto to a buyer because of who the buyer supports in a political election. I do not believe such discrimination is unlawful, but it is immoral discrimination. Immoral based on the value systems of a free society wherein ALL political ideologies are welcome (even the offensive ones) and are able to take part in basic market transactions for goods and property.

Once a society permits (on moral grounds, as opposed to legal grounds) the discrimination of factions by other factions in basic market transactions of goods and property, then the society becomes less free--plain and simple.

I believe Mr. Kiwanuka knows this on some level, which is why he stopped short of verbally stating that Rush be refused the privilege of buying the Rams despite his lack of respect for him.

Government Pays $4 Million for a Bike Rack

Government Pays $4 Million for a Bike Rack

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